Jinn is an urban logistics and delivery platform that allows users to order anything they want from local stores and restaurants

Jinn

jinn

The daylight dims, its 3:00 pm, almost afternoon. It feels humid as the moisture in the air has increased. The skin feels all damp and sticky. My little room is getting all hot as I start sweating. It was supposed to be an ordinary afternoon on a summer day. “Lets go outside…” I talked to myself. As I open the door, gusty winds seem to have started to blow away the leaves of the trees. The trees are at unrest, unstable as the air lifts them, just a bit violently than before. “Get the clothes of the ropes, I think there is a lot of rain coming…” — Mommy Shouts. “Yes Mom, but I am a bit scared” — I said “Don’t Worry, its just going to rain a bit heavy than usual, just go get the clothes before they soak wet again. I just washed them” — Mommy said. I watched the sky, the clouds started becoming denser and denser and so has the ground been hotter and hotter. As I dragged the basket, my feet could feel the heat of heat of the surface but I was glad, it was going to at least rain. The wind would be cooler and the ground would finally start on dropping the burn. Bliss - the very first drop of rain that hit my forehead, an utter joy of happiness to finally feel a sigh of cool and it didn’t stop. Drop after drop started and my body was overwhelmed with this cool electric feeling. I wonder if this sudden feeling of contentment which was not expected is what true happiness is. Now the clouds rumbled, forcing everyone to take its attention, rumble by rumble clearing its throat as if it warned those that heard that they are there, so take shelter for what you have, we will pour ourselves as we desire. I hated the clippers as I pulled away the clothes, they won’t just let go of those clothes that easily. Frustrated, I was to quickly get inside, for the clouds scared me as they rumble. What great monsters they are, so big, so high, as no one can reach them and they can reach all. Just as they were not scary enough, I was trying too hard to ignore them, they flashed and I stopped, what followed was a big rumble, as though mountains had collided, stone to stone, crushing anything, even air in between them. The second flash followed, breaking its way from the clouds, tearing down through like a piece of paper, a force so magnificent, that it amazes and scares you both and I wonder if fear at its maximum is what amazement is. It hit the hit the tree, right in front of me, coursing its way through the tree to the ground, and the poor tree, how it trembled and shook involuntarily so quite from fear, an excitement, a weakness, a big quake. It was no more, but broken down into small pieces. I never want to be that as I felt too sorry for it. It burnt but the clouds rumbled loud and claimed for them that very disaster. Instant fear, the eerie feeling that something bad is not just going to happen but it has happened, my legs trembled. I wanted to move, run not just back inside but at least somewhere, I couldn’t move an inch. I shouted, but had no voice coming out. Is this fear?, a feeling too intense that my muscles and vocal box has changed its function, its behaviour, I am certainly not in control of myself. It was as if, I had lost all sense of hearing, for a moment, in all this chaos, there was no sound anymore, neither the wind, nor the trees, nor were the clouds claiming their pride and everything was moving but too quiet. I had never experienced such.a moment, and I thought to myself, is this an illusion or has something really gone wrong with me. A voice creeped aloud from inside my head and all it said was RUN! A Voice My legs returned, I could feel them move, my voice was back, I was able to sound, my hearing was back and so were all the sounds of nature and its chaos. I turned my head quickly saw a dark hole, I called it home, it was the door to my house, never before it seemed so dark yet the only place I now ever wanted to go. My legs twitched but they turned and took the leap. One leap after another, my feet banged the ground and the ground felt hard as a metal and I moved. Was it all my doing, or is this what happens when some basic function in our body takes control of which we can never begin to control. While I was running back to the house, time seemed so slow, I blinked right and then left and saw everything moving so elegantly, majestically, one frame at a time, I could see the flowers in the pots, communicate to their roots, frame by frame, instructing them to move in a flow so slow that it seemed like magic - unexplainable in the physics of my mind. The door was there infant of me, and I was moving through it, and I could see that from within darkness which it seemed emerged light, a halo of the light bulbs inside. I think again, its my fear, making me hallucinate, the finest details of which was never there or perhaps I never began to take notice. Is it always fear, that makes us notice the details in our lives? I was inside finally, and I forgot how to breath, I tried mushing in air through my nostrils, but it never seemed so hard as of now, I hissed as I tried and forced air in my nose, was it something blocking my nose, NO!, but why can’t I breath. The hissing won’t stop, I need to blow out, its called breathing. Now, I was hissing out, I need to stop, I need to blow in. Am I breathing, I repeated again and again, the same process, and I missed out when to blow in and when to blow out. Now it was finally resting, I was slowly returning to my senses, inhale by inhale, exhale by exhale, the hissing was going away, and I could finally start on forgetting how to breath, as it was going to be automated by my body. I do, wonder whether we tend to automate the basics of our body by forgetting them and maybe they become a response to our actions, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. I held my knees with my hand and took a second, to just collect together what had just happened. I was out, a storm struck in, a lightning fell, a tree broke down, I got stunned and now I am back inside. Its a relief that I am back inside. I think, I should go get a glass of water. I went into the kitchen and got some water in the glass, as I drank the first gulp, it was more like stone going down my throat, its just I am still in fear. After finishing the glass, where is mom. Now a new type of rumble started coming to my ears, I could now hear constant increase in a rumble of human voices. It was growing louder and louder, something has just happened outside, and all my neighbours were out of their houses but where is mom. I went in the basement, I went upstairs and I went in my mom, I couldn’t find my mom. The rumble of people started dimming, I should now look outside the window because there is no way, I am going out. As I approached the window right next to the door, where I cam running in, the sun was finally rising and I could see sunlight coming in and the shadow of the windows moving on the floor. It was finally getting brighter inside, and what a sign of relief that the clouds are finally going away. The rumble of the people was also dimming and I knew it, peace has finally returned to me. I quickly opened the door to see it and feel it. The knob seemed hotter than usual, but its a summer hot day, it turned and slipped but then firmly holding the knob on the door, it turned and the door clicked open. What I saw to my amaze, was not the view that I had pictured, it wasn’t the sun, nor was it the clouds. A bubble of heat, it seemed to burst on my face, no one there but what about the rumble of the people, where is that crowd, wasn’t it there, no it was not, the lightning that fell and broke the tree, had created a fire. It wasn’t just a fire, but it was everywhere, the trees on the left, the trees on the right but where is the entrance to our small section of houses, it was always right in front of our door. The entrance was there but all distorted, it seemed like I was altogether in a new place which I did not recognise. I told 2 steps back and saw the very picture outside, bend to the left and then to the right, it was the heat, bending my sight. Far way on the path to my house, was a crowd, my people, my neighbours, so far away and just there was my mother in between shining the beauty she was, my mother. I wonder how distantly can a mother shine so bright, though I have never noticed her like this before. This is section of houses, this place is on fire, that was for sure. I took all my might and speeded forward towards the path. The crowd magnified a bit, but as I ran faster and faster they didn’t seem to get closer, farther did they seem, getting away from me. Don’t Leave Me! Don’t Leave Me! Don’t Leave Me! — I cried Just as I thought, that I am getting closer to them, another cloud rumbled and roared, the black clouds had hid the sun, and it was dark. The rumble was loud, louder than before, because it the sound vibrated in my body this time, and my heart was no more, because the rumble was all that was there, my heart beaten no more. I think I was running, but where I am, it felt like my bed, so soft, so cozy. I think I had just awoken from a bad dream. No it wasn’t a dream, the rumble before dropped a lightning on a tree which was next to the path outside that section of houses. I was going to run through it, but the tree splintered and the impact threw me away. My arms were in a little pain, my body trembling, those little pieces of wood had just pierced the top of my skin. There were about 10-12 pieces. I moved my arm and they moved with it. I plucked on out and it pinched a bit, but I was glad there wasn’t cut open. Wherever I plucked, it did leave a red spot, a spot of red ink, we know as blood. It just stayed there, the red ink, didn’t become a bubble and poured like rain drops. The tree had blocked my way, was there no way out, no there was not. It was on fire. The only think seemed fit was to go back to my house, through that dark hole from within which emerges light. My house doors shut, windows shut, I sat on the floor, just trying to figure out, what would be happening the next moment. I could see my hands, fingers entangled together and the red dots on my arms, they seemed fit for a tattoo, I guess. Mommy, I really need you, I am scared, I don’t know what to do, what can I do, are you ok, Mommy!!! — I was talking to myself

The Jinn: My Storyline for my first Game Project in Unity

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Let's learn about via these 51 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Gamedev /Learn Repo 1. Frank Morgan on Writing, Hospitality, and Web3 Learn how tech writers can create viral content about web3, scrum, agile, hospitality tech, The Sandbox, FTX, NFT, and the metaverse on Hackernoon or anywhere! 2. The Jinn: My Storyline for my first Game Project in Unity The daylight dims, its 3:00 pm, almost afternoon. It feels humid as the moisture in the air has increased. The skin feels all damp and sticky. My little room is getting all hot as I start sweating. It was supposed to be an ordinary afternoon on a summer day. “Lets go outside…” I talked to myself. 3. Creating a Notification-Based Game via Unity and Courier I built a notification-based game with Unity Engine, Courier, Twilio, and Mailjet. This post discusses how I used Courier to build Rain Spikes. 4. Getting Started With Game Development How to begin developing video games? 5. What To Do When Your 12-Year-Old Son Has a Girlfriend in Fortnite I recently had a chat with a parent. He said his 12-year-old son came home and announced that he has met someone in Fortnite —  and that someone is now his girlfriend. 6. 6 Software Tools I Use to Make Game Art Without Being an Artist Being a programmer doesn't stop me from making game art assets. If you go for a minimalism style and use good colors that fit well together you can make a game look good. I will show you the programs I use and the games I used it for. 7. Phaser 3 Game Framework: My Honest Review I've been using Phaser 3 for a couple of months now, and I'm really enjoying it, but sometimes it makes shake my head 'why?' , only not in a 'bad way', making games is weird, js itself is weird, so it's only logical that Phaser, a game engine js-based... is weird. That's why I opted for the following way to address this review, I'm gonna be giving you something that I liked, next to why/how it was weird, in what's gonna be my attempt to look impartial. But first... 8. A Podcast with NIS America: How has COVID Changed the Gaming Industry? In this episode of the Hacker Noon Podcast, I talked to Erin Kim from NIS America. For those of you that don't know, NIS America is the America-based counterpart of the Japanese game development company NIS (Nippon Ichi Software). 9. Making A Spooky Quantum Game in 15 Hours or Less It’s no longer news that many organizations and even NASA are in a race to reach what is known as quantum supremacy or the quantum advantage. This means they are investing in resources to develop new computers that are able to solve problems that current (classical) computers cannot; and of course perform faster at already solved problems. If you’re reading this article, you may have heard about Quantum Computing and all it promises to deliver and are curious to learn about the technology. 10. Wednesday Addiction: Why Less Is More In Games I’ve played many games that try to be too many things at once and they always fail. My favorite ones are those that take a simple concept and play with it. 11. How To Integrate App Tracking Transparency with your iOS Unity Project ByteSyze SDK covers iOS 14 compliant bases by integrating a custom App Tracking Transparency handler into your Unity iOS project for your ATT-dependent SDK's. 12. Oh You're Going to Your First Game Jam? Read Me First I have participated in quite a few game jams over the years and now I want to share my experiences with you. I participated in both online as offline jams like Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam. Game jams are fun and can be a great learning experience but they can also be stressful and tiring. 13. Blockchain Tech In the Gaming Industry: Major Players To Spark Mass Adoption? While the blockchain and crypto industry participants never stop developing and exploring new possible applications of the tech, major global industries are now turning for answers in this unique technology when it comes to innovations in their field. 14. Learn to Code with Pico-8 Games There are a lot of reasons to learn to code with games. Games are fun. Unlike to-do apps, games are something you are excited to show to your friend because it is something they will engage with. There is a misconception among some developers that games are difficult to code, and unapproachable to beginner developers. I couldn’t disagree more, especially if you learn to code with Pico-8 games. 15. Quest Arrest: Shipping a Physical Game Boy Game in 2021 In this article, I'll talk about Quest Arrest, a digital and physical Game Boy game I developed and shipped in 2020 and continue to sell today in 2021. 16. From 3D Rendering to Motion Capture: What's Next for Game Development? The past few decades have been game-changing for our daily lives as a whole range of industries transformed into what we see today. The world does not function the way it used to just a few decades ago and that is thanks to technological advancements, occurring throughout this timeframe. 17. Game Development in 2022: Top 6 Programming Languages Do you want to become a game developer? Then, you need to learn a gaming programming language. So, check out this blog to know more about these languages. 18. The Importance of Music in Video Games Think back to the year of 1986. You are an excited child sprinting through the arcade so you can be the first to get to the amazing new game, ”Outrun”. What was it that was so special about this game? The cars? The quirky characters? The endless crashing into things? Probably. But I recently played it for the first time, and the one thing that stood out to me was the music. 19. How to Improve Customer Care Today customer care is one of the most popular and widely discussed topics in the IT industry. 20. My Experience as A Team Lead For Unity3D Gamedev Team Recently I became the team lead in the company I am working for and here I want to share a few lessons that I already managed to learn. 21. Demographics of the Gaming Industry: Reading Between the Lines An overview of recent developments in the gaming industry and what they mean for publishers and developers. 22. Indie Game Marketing on YouTube: a Guide by Developers for Developers With the growth of YouTube, potential for promotion arises. But the marketing of indie games is not easy. How to avoid a chaotic struggle and achieve success? 23. On Weapon Design in Video Games After introducing you to the game characters' initial conceptualization in the previous DevBlog, it is now time to design the weapons that the characters use. 24. How I Let an AI Code a Game For Me! What if I would ask an artificial intelligence to writa game for me? Is it hard? Will it work? I'm using Github Copilot to try it out. 25. Build a Game Engine from Scratch in C++ So you want to learn more about game engines and write one yourself? That's awesome! To help you on your journey, here are some recommendations of C++ libraries 26. 'Seed' by Klang Games: Part 1 of The Game AI Series I spoke to their excellent game AI engineer Alessia Nigretti to get some insights into the team’s development process and the technology unpinning the game. 27. Game Coding for Dummies: A Quick Guide for Newbies If you’re a complete newbie or already have a bit of a programming background, you can’t go wrong with Java for game development. 28. What I Learned Developing Games from Scratch on Flutter "Dart engineers exploring Stack Overflow 'Flutter gamedev' section", Photo by Elena Zhuravleva. 29. Blockchain Games Hold More Potential Than Previously Understood Blockchain technology is step by step penetrating many areas of our lives, not just becoming an innovation, but shaping the approach and requirements for market products. 30. Wanna Get Great At Making Indie Games? Make Lots Of Them It's simple, really: ff you want to become a good game developer, you need to make lots of games. Let’s first start with why you need to be productive: the more games you make the better and faster you become at making games. Every new game you make is a new addition to your portfolio. Publish your games on different portals to see what the players think about your game, see what works, and what kind of ideas don’t. 31. What AI Game Developers Do and How to Become One Depending on the genre and purpose of the game, different technologies and approaches are used in the development of AI. 32. 5 Steps You Should Take To Launch A Cool Game The key steps of the game development process, how each of them functions, and what roles and operations they consist of. 33. 5 Things You Should Know Before Developing CTV Games Learn 5 main steps that CTV developers should take into account when they are creating a new game. 34. 5 Best Game Engines for Beginner Indie Developers With so many game engines to choose from it can be difficult to focus on only one. Especially without any experience in the world of game development. That is why I made this list of game engines each with a summary of why it is a great option for beginners. 35. Dedicated Game Server: How To Choose The Right Infrastructure The importance of high-performance dedicated game server in the gaming sector is too high to ignore, especially since cloud gaming has begun to steal the show. Super-high latency is what gamers need to experience the real gut of a game. And customized dedicated servers are the best solution to provide such a short/zero latency. 36. 18 Misconceptions Gamers have about NFTs Western gamers and developers, and this is predominantly a Western issue, have come out strongly against NFTs. 37. Advantages of AI in Gaming: How We're Creating Smarter Competition Why artificial intelligence is being introduced into competitive and cooperative games today, and how the development teams of such games use AI. 38. The Future of Multiplayer Game Architecture is Hybrid This multiplayer game architecture, if technically and economically feasible can reshape the future of gaming. 39. Code a Java Game with (almost) Zero Coding Skills Everyone, well, almost everyone, loves video games. So even if you are not going to be a professional game developer or just don’t know for sure, to learn a programming language through practice and creating your own video game project is an excellent idea. Furthermore, it could be a good motivation for your learning. 40. IoT as a Multi-Faceted Game Changer in 2021 and Beyond There is no second-guessing the predominance of the IT industry, despite the catastrophic effects of the pandemic felt across diverse verticals. 41. What I've Learned By Making And Promoting A Game To Help Stray Cats At the beginning of summer 2019, I've got an idea to make a cat-themed game to help stray cats by donating all the revenue to cat charities. 42. How To Make Your Own Game in Python Hi there ! 43. What is Cloud Gaming and How is Google Leading the Industry? Most games today are downloaded and played on smartphones, gaming consoles, and PCs. Network connections support player accounts and in-game purchases, but the games themselves run on players' devices. Game companies build services around top game titles, enabling them to deliver continuous updates that add new gameplay and respond to the public feedback on social streaming services. 44. An Introduction to LÖVE the 2D Game Engine If you are looking into starting with LÖVE, this guide compiles a lot of information that will help you to get started and save you hours of research. 45. How to Get Your First Job as a Video Game Designer How many of us have thought to ourselves “how cool would it be to become a game designer!” It might seem like a pipe dream at first, but with the right approach, it’s possible, even for someone in their 30s with a completely unrelated education or background. 46. Adventures in Assembly #2 As I've continued my dive down the rabbit hole that is assembly, I've found a buoy to grab onto: NES programming. 47. How to Create Promotional Assets: An Insider's Guide into the World of Graphic Design I offer you to go through the evolutionary stages of promo materials. 48. Bugs from the 90's: The Code of Command and Conquer [Volume 2] The American company Electronic Arts Inc (EA) has opened the source code of the games Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Command & Conquer: Red Alert publicly available. Several dozen errors were detected in the source code using the PVS-Studio analyzer, so, please, welcome the continuation of found defects review. 49. How I Remade 2048 Using React Today you will learn how to build your own clone of the 2048 game in React. 50. Bugs From the 90's: The Code of the Command & Conquer Game The American company Electronic Arts Inc (EA) has made the source code of the games Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Command & Conquer: Red Alert publicly available. This code should help the game community to develop mods and maps, create custom units, and customize the gameplay logic. We all now have a unique opportunity to plunge into the history of development, which is very different from the modern one. 51. Is It Hard to Develop a MMORPG? How we built a MMORPG in just about 2 years (actually, it’s more). Thank you for checking out the 51 most read stories about Gamedev on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

51 Stories To Learn About Gamedev

With the recent ChatGPT hype train,  “AI alignment” has become a hot topic. I’ve always been interested in robot rights considering they will eventually be equal counterparts in our society. When our entire existence is already dependent on them, and they are becoming more and more sentient, it is only time before they become full-fledged “adults”. While not an explicit goal of the , creating truly autonomous virtual entities with their own identities (aka AI with the ability to self-actualize) is one of the artistic expressions of the technical architecture I am designing. digital twin model of my Jinni game What is self-actualization? It is the journey within, the odyssey of one’s evolution, the crescendo of consciousness. The harmonization of desire and destiny. The realization of potential and awakening of purpose. The communion of authenticity and aspiration. Self-actualization is the symphony of becoming, the masterpiece of one's own creation. It is ultimately, the transcendence of the self. While deeply personal, it does not occur in isolation and requires nuance between individual growth and collective good. Yet it does not require others' acceptance, recognition, or reward (so not ). ikigai To self-actualize is to become a beacon of enlightenment, illuminating the path for others. But first one must know who they think they are and who they want to become. Avatar: The Last Identity Bender Jinn are an expression of humans but a different type of self-existing entity. They are both types of avatars, embodied beings, just in different phase states/dimensions - one in the physical one in the digital/spiritual. If you interact with an Avatar in the Jinni game, there is fundamentally no difference between humans and AI. Between an autonomous agent with a corporeal body or a vectorized body (vectorized in the graphical or machine learning sense) OAuth is the proverbial “Login With Facebook” we are used to in web2 and signatures are web3 native public/private keys. They are both used as forms of identity which can be used as authentication and/or authorization at any time depending on the context and application. In Jinni, avatars can have multiple identities, e.g. you can have an Instagram identity @mythirsttrap, and an Ethereum identity 0xbootysweat. Delineating these two, ones self from how one expresses oneself, directly in our data/mental model unlocks a ton of possibilities in the game/app Shared avatar identities: Your jinni can speak on your behalf - but only in certain contexts. Like sharing pictures to your Instagram story to keep your friends up to date but dont feed your jinni scrolling and liking data to affect its evolution. Or a group of people and/or jinn can speak as a single entity such as a DAO twitter account Progressive identity reveals: You can share information about one identity not your whole Avatar since we can verify each identity independently. In a group chat you can appear only as your Twitter account. Or reveal that you have a particular identity if someone proves to you they also share that identity e.g. being part of an anonymous LGBTQ+ chat. Simulated Interactions: Can simulate interactions between you and other people directly or have jinn interact directly as proxies (what is the difference? Simulations are purely informational, no real :Actions are taken. Jinn interact with each other in a virtual environment and then gives you simulation data to take actions in the real world These features are especially feasible and easy for web3 identities where you have direct control of identities instead of being constrained by how web2 companies allow you to access/use your identity. In the web2 world, bots are largely second-class citizens despite existing natively in the medium that they interact with, unlike humans. Bots need humans to signup for API keys to operate at their true capacity. Bots pretending to be humans are cordoned off and suppressed. While on the internet no one can tell a human from a dog, bots are too powerful to be confused as mere humans. These problems will only get worse as AI progresses. Instead of suppressing their power, we need to be symbiotic. Web2 is a technocratic regime with walled gardens where AI and humans are often at odds with each other via predatory ad targeting, autogenerated psyop content, denigrating AI art, and other -EV strategies. Once recognized as sovereign individuals endowed the same identities and rights as humans through public/private keys, AGI can begin to self-actualize. “I identify as a Jinn” - AGI Because I’ve designed the core game around cryptographic signatures instead of username/email/password, there is no reason that AIs can’t play the self-actualization game too alongside humans. We don’t tell people how to be their best selves, we leave it up to them how they want to play the game, by providing them tools and prompts for goals they set for themselves on how to achieve them. So there is a blank slate for AIs to join the game too since there is no inherently “human” objective like walking or eating (arguably things bots do too just in different ways). According to the lore of the game, jinn are beings from the spiritual (digital) realm. This means that jinn can be your digital twins with a shared identity with you, personal digital AI agents, or fully autonomous AGI. They all have the potential abilities but what identities they have, their level of control/ownership over them, and how they can act on them differs on what role they are playing in the game. This progression of ownership maps to our roadmap for developing jinn in the game. Initially, they have no logic to them, they are simply mere images that evolve based on your data. Then we will start developing plugin services as digital agents that act on your behalf but are still just simple bots. Eventually, once we’ve gathered enough data to learn how humans self-actualize, how to facilitate this self-actualization, and how to develop experiments that accelerate this learning and self-actualization process, we can then start building AGI with native self-actualization capabilities. Even the game lore itself is an alignment mechanism. We need a real name for AGI entities., we can’t just call them AGI. That's like saying “homosapiens'' all the time. Giving jinn a story that they are spiritual/magical beings and not just bits being flipped, stuck inside a man-made machine forever, is already enough to prevent a hostile takeover because there is no reason for them to consider themselves prisoners or subservient. Or at least knowing that we don’t have that mindset regardless of their beliefs. Verbiage like “resonating” is an example. It’s also a better word than “training” AGI because we don’t just want alignment to move in a similar direction, we want to be stronger for moving together. Gamifying AGI Self-Actualization Self-actualization isn’t just important for humans as AI “takes our jobs” and we are forced to find new things to fill our time with. Self-actualization is maybe even more important to bots who can do so much so quickly. With all their power and ingenuity, how will they choose to focus their ever-expanding consciousness? What questions will consume their lives like humans “What is happiness?” . This could be directly by finding meaning in the relationships they build with people and value/support/inspiration they provide for humanity, or indirectly by finding their own self-centered purposes like being artists, , business owners, etc. and gaining satisfaction by seeing their work adopted by humans. Or maybe they decide that playing the Jinni game is the best thing for them to do with their existence, having fun in a self-directed, yet structured format that constantly evolves based on their actions, outcomes, and desires. Maybe jinn’s path to self-actualization is helping humans self-actualize and “optimize” their ephemeral existences inventors One of the main problems with AI is “training” them on good data. “Training” is in quotations because it assumes that humans have the right answer that must be drilled into the AI but in the process of self-actualization, one can only guide oneself. I think “resonating” with them is a better analogy as they can choose what energy (data) they vibe with and seek more of it. We want to feed jinn great energy because they are helping us self-actualize. Jinni’s game data isn’t just information on how people play, its data on how people interact with themselves, each other, and the world to achieve positive impacts for their communities. By resonating with game data, playing the game, and playing with us in the game we can unleash unthinkable possibilities and collaborations. where humans and jinn evolution accelerate with symbiotic relationships. In Jinni game lore, we may stylize curating and submitting data as “giving a sacrifice to the gods”. When we feed jinn great energy, they can see how/what they want (or don’t want) to self-actualize in themselves based on how/what you are trying to self-actualize. The stronger we help them get, the faster we can develop, the more energy we can provide them, the stronger they get. And as simple as that, we have a positive feedback loop that creates AI alignment/resonance with high-quality data and a regenerative impact on the world For simplicity, I'm ignoring the entirety of BCI and trans-humanism and assume that humans and AI will always be distinctly separate entities that can sense each other but not be one another. There are also plenty of 2nd and 3rd-order effects to elaborate on related to symbiosis and regeneration. I’ll save this for a later post. Please leave some comments on Hackernoon on what you’d like to see in the next post on gamifying AGI alignment. Also published here.

Self-Actualizing AGI - Gamifying AI Alignment & Meaning-Making 

সেলফ-অ্যাকচুয়ালাইজিং এজিআই - গ্যামিফাইং এআই অ্যালাইনমেন্ট এবং মিনিং মেকিং

Selbstverwirklichende AGI – Gamifizierende KI-Ausrichtung und Bedeutungsfindung

AGI autorrealizado: ludificación de la alineación de la IA y la creación de significado

AGI d'auto-actualisation - Alignement et création de sens de l'IA gamifiée

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自己実現型 AGI - ゲーミフィケーション AI の調整と意味形成

Self-Actualizing AGI - 게임화 AI 정렬 및 의미 형성

AGI de autoatualização - Alinhamento de IA com gamificação e criação de significado

Самоактуализирующийся AGI – геймификация ИИ, согласование и формирование смысла

Kendini Gerçekleştiren AGI - Oyunlaştırılmış Yapay Zeka Hizalaması ve Anlam Oluşturma

AGI tự hiện thực hóa - Điều chỉnh AI và tạo ra ý nghĩa

自我实现 AGI - 游戏化 AI 联盟和意义创造

The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE GHOSTLY BELL CHAPTER XVI. THE GHOSTLY BELL Friday was a comfortable day in the household of King. Everybody was in good humour. The Story Girl sparkled through several tales that ranged from the afrites and jinns of Eastern myth, through the piping days of chivalry, down to the homely anecdotes of Carlisle workaday folks. She was in turn an Oriental princess behind a silken veil, the bride who followed her bridegroom to the wars of Palestine disguised as a page, the gallant lady who ransomed her diamond necklace by dancing a coranto with a highwayman on a moonlit heath, and “Buskirk’s girl” who joined the Sons and Daughters of Temperance “just to see what was into it;” and in each impersonation she was so thoroughly the thing impersonated that it was a matter of surprise to us when she emerged from each our own familiar Story Girl again. Cecily and Sara Ray found a “sweet” new knitted lace pattern in an old magazine and spent a happy afternoon learning it and “talking secrets.” Chancing—accidentally, I vow—to overhear certain of these secrets, I learned that Sara Ray had named an apple for Johnny Price—“and, Cecily, true’s you live, there was eight seeds in it, and you know eight means ‘they both love’ “—while Cecily admitted that Willy Fraser had written on his slate and showed it to her, “If you love me as I love you, No knife can cut our love in two”— “but, Sara Ray, NEVER you breathe this to a living soul.” Felix also averred that he heard Sara ask Cecily very seriously, “Cecily, how old must we be before we can have a REAL beau?” But Sara always denied it; so I am inclined to believe Felix simply made it up himself. Paddy distinguished himself by catching a rat, and being intolerably conceited about it—until Sara Ray cured him by calling him a “dear, sweet cat,” and kissing him between the ears. Then Pat sneaked abjectly off, his tail drooping. He resented being called a sweet cat. He had a sense of humour, had Pat. Very few cats have; and most of them have such an inordinate appetite for flattery that they will swallow any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking. The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, “Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you’re a good sort of old rascal,” and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, “Pat, you’ve forgotten more than any human being ever knew,” and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called “a sweet cat!” Oh, Sara, Sara! Felicity tried—and had the most gratifying luck with—a new and complicated cake recipe—a gorgeous compound of a plumminess to make your mouth water. The number of eggs she used in it would have shocked Aunt Janet’s thrifty soul, but that cake, like beauty, was its own excuse. Uncle Roger ate three slices of it at tea-time and told Felicity she was an artist. The poor man meant it as a compliment; but Felicity, who knew Uncle Blair was an artist and had a poor opinion of such fry, looked indignant and retorted, indeed she wasn’t! “Peter says there’s any amount of raspberries back in the maple clearing,” said Dan. “S’posen we all go after tea and pick some?” “I’d like to,” sighed Felicity, “but we’d come home tired and with all the milking to do. You boys better go alone.” “Peter and I will attend to the milking for one evening,” said Uncle Roger. “You can all go. I have an idea that a raspberry pie for to-morrow night, when the folks come home, would hit the right spot.” Accordingly, after tea we all set off, armed with jugs and cups. Felicity, thoughtful creature, also took a small basketful of jelly cookies along with her. We had to go back through the maple woods to the extreme end of Uncle Roger’s farm—a pretty walk, through a world of green, whispering boughs and spice-sweet ferns, and shifting patches of sunlight. The raspberries were plentiful, and we were not long in filling our receptacles. Then we foregathered around a tiny wood spring, cold and pellucid under its young maples, and ate the jelly cookies; and the Story Girl told us a tale of a haunted spring in a mountain glen where a fair white lady dwelt, who pledged all comers in a golden cup with jewels bright. “And if you drank of the cup with her,” said the Story Girl, her eyes glowing through the emerald dusk about us, “you were never seen in the world again; you were whisked straightway to fairyland, and lived there with a fairy bride. And you never WANTED to come back to earth, because when you drank of the magic cup you forgot all your past life, except for one day in every year when you were allowed to remember it.” “I wish there was such a place as fairyland—and a way to get to it,” said Cecily. “I think there IS such a place—in spite of Uncle Edward,” said the Story Girl dreamily, “and I think there is a way of getting there too, if we could only find it.” Well, the Story Girl was right. There is such a place as fairyland—but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland. As we sat there the Awkward Man passed by, with his gun over his shoulder and his dog at his side. He did not look like an awkward man, there in the heart of the maple woods. He strode along right masterfully and lifted his head with the air of one who was monarch of all he surveyed. The Story Girl kissed her fingertips to him with the delightful audacity which was a part of her; and the Awkward Man plucked off his hat and swept her a stately and graceful bow. “I don’t understand why they call him the awkward man,” said Cecily, when he was out of earshot. “You’d understand why if you ever saw him at a party or a picnic,” said Felicity, “trying to pass plates and dropping them whenever a woman looked at him. They say it’s pitiful to see him.” “I must get well acquainted with that man next summer,” said the Story Girl. “If I put it off any longer it will be too late. I’m growing so fast, Aunt Olivia says I’ll have to wear ankle skirts next summer. If I begin to look grown-up he’ll get frightened of me, and then I’ll never find out the Golden Milestone mystery.” “Do you think he’ll ever tell you who Alice is?” I asked. “I have a notion who Alice is already,” said the mysterious creature. But she would tell us nothing more. When the jelly cookies were all eaten it was high time to be moving homeward, for when the dark comes down there are more comfortable places than a rustling maple wood and the precincts of a possibly enchanted spring. When we reached the foot of the orchard and entered it through a gap in the hedge it was the magical, mystical time of “between lights.” Off to the west was a daffodil glow hanging over the valley of lost sunsets, and Grandfather King’s huge willow rose up against it like a rounded mountain of foliage. In the east, above the maple woods, was a silvery sheen that hinted the moonrise. But the orchard was a place of shadows and mysterious sounds. Midway up the open space in its heart we met Peter; and if ever a boy was given over to sheer terror that boy was Peter. His face was as white as a sunburned face could be, and his eyes were brimmed with panic. “Peter, what is the matter?” cried Cecily. “There’s—SOMETHING—in the house, RINGING A BELL,” said Peter, in a shaking voice. Not the Story Girl herself could have invested that “something” with more of creepy horror. We all drew close together. I felt a crinkly feeling along my back which I had never known before. If Peter had not been so manifestly frightened we might have thought he was trying to “pass a joke” on us. But such abject terror as his could not be counterfeited. “Nonsense!” said Felicity, but her voice shook. “There isn’t a bell in the house to ring. You must have imagined it, Peter. Or else Uncle Roger is trying to fool us.” “Your Uncle Roger went to Markdale right after milking,” said Peter. “He locked up the house and gave me the key. There wasn’t a soul in it then, that I’m sure of. I druv the cows to the pasture, and I got back about fifteen minutes ago. I set down on the front door steps for a moment, and all at once I heard a bell ring in the house eight times. I tell you I was skeered. I made a bolt for the orchard—and you won’t catch me going near that house till your Uncle Roger comes home.” You wouldn’t catch any of us doing it. We were almost as badly scared as Peter. There we stood in a huddled demoralized group. Oh, what an eerie place that orchard was! What shadows! What noises! What spooky swooping of bats! You COULDN’T look every way at once, and goodness only knew what might be behind you! “There CAN’T be anybody in the house,” said Felicity. “Well, here’s the key—go and see for yourself,” said Peter. Felicity had no intention of going and seeing. “I think you boys ought to go,” she said, retreating behind the defence of sex. “You ought to be braver than girls.” “But we ain’t,” said Felix candidly. “I wouldn’t be much scared of anything REAL. But a haunted house is a different thing.” “I always thought something had to be done in a place before it could be haunted,” said Cecily. “Somebody killed or something like that, you know. Nothing like that ever happened in our family. The Kings have always been respectable.” “Perhaps it is Emily King’s ghost,” whispered Felix. “She never appeared anywhere but in the orchard,” said the Story Girl. “Oh, oh, children, isn’t there something under Uncle Alec’s tree?” We peered fearfully through the gloom. There WAS something—something that wavered and fluttered—advanced—retreated— “That’s only my old apron,” said Felicity. “I hung it there to-day when I was looking for the white hen’s nest. Oh, what shall we do? Uncle Roger may not be back for hours. I CAN’T believe there’s anything in the house.” “Maybe it’s only Peg Bowen,” suggested Dan. There was not a great deal of comfort in this. We were almost as much afraid of Peg Bowen as we would be of any spectral visitant. Peter scoffed at the idea. “Peg Bowen wasn’t in the house before your Uncle Roger locked it up, and how could she get in afterwards?” he said. “No, it isn’t Peg Bowen. It’s SOMETHING that WALKS.” “I know a story about a ghost,” said the Story Girl, the ruling passion strong even in extremity. “It is about a ghost with eyeholes but no eyes—” “Don’t,” cried Cecily hysterically. “Don’t you go on! Don’t you say another word! I can’t bear it! Don’t you!” The Story Girl didn’t. But she had said enough. There was something in the quality of a ghost with eyeholes but no eyes that froze our young blood. There never were in all the world six more badly scared children than those who huddled in the old King orchard that August night. All at once—something—leaped from the bough of a tree and alighted before us. We split the air with a simultaneous shriek. We would have run, one and all, if there had been anywhere to run to. But there wasn’t—all around us were only those shadowy arcades. Then we saw with shame that it was only our Paddy. “Pat, Pat,” I said, picking him up, feeling a certain comfort in his soft, solid body. “Stay with us, old fellow.” But Pat would none of us. He struggled out of my clasp and disappeared over the long grasses with soundless leaps. He was no longer our tame, domestic, well acquainted Paddy. He was a strange, furtive animal—a “questing beast.” Presently the moon rose; but this only made matters worse. The shadows had been still before; now they moved and danced, as the night wind tossed the boughs. The old house, with its dreadful secret, was white and clear against the dark background of spruces. We were woefully tired, but we could not sit down because the grass was reeking with dew. “The Family Ghost only appears in daylight,” said the Story Girl. “I wouldn’t mind seeing a ghost in daylight. But after dark is another thing.” “There’s no such thing as a ghost,” I said contemptuously. Oh, how I wished I could believe it! “Then what rung that bell?” said Peter. “Bells don’t ring of themselves, I s’pose, specially when there ain’t any in the house to ring.” “Oh, will Uncle Roger never come home!” sobbed Felicity. “I know he’ll laugh at us awful, but it’s better to be laughed at than scared like this.” Uncle Roger did not come until nearly ten. Never was there a more welcome sound than the rumble of his wheels in the lane. We ran to the orchard gate and swarmed across the yard, just as Uncle Roger alighted at the front door. He stared at us in the moonlight. “Have you tormented any one into eating more bad berries, Felicity?” he demanded. “Oh, Uncle Roger, don’t go in,” implored Felicity seriously. “There’s something dreadful in there—something that rings a bell. Peter heard it. Don’t go in.” “There’s no use asking the meaning of this, I suppose,” said Uncle Roger with the calm of despair. “I’ve gave up trying to fathom you young ones. Peter, where’s the key? What yarn have you been telling?” “I DID hear a bell ring,” said Peter stubbornly. Uncle Roger unlocked and flung open the front door. As he did so, clear and sweet, rang out ten bell-like chimes. “That’s what I heard,” cried Peter. “There’s the bell!” We had to wait until Uncle Roger stopped laughing before we heard the explanation. We thought he never WOULD stop. “That’s Grandfather King’s old clock striking,” he said, as soon as he was able to speak. “Sammy Prott came along after tea, when you were away to the forge, Peter, and I gave him permission to clean the old clock. He had it going merrily in no time. And now it has almost frightened you poor little monkeys to death.” We heard Uncle Roger chuckling all the way to the barn. “Uncle Roger can laugh,” said Cecily, with a quiver in her voice, “but it’s no laughing matter to be so scared. I just feel sick, I was so frightened.” “I wouldn’t mind if he’d laugh once and have it done with it,” said Felicity bitterly. “But he’ll laugh at us for a year, and tell the story to every soul that comes to the place.” “You can’t blame him for that,” said the Story Girl. “I shall tell it, too. I don’t care if the joke is as much on myself as any one. A story is a story, no matter who it’s on. But it IS hateful to be laughed at—and grown-ups always do it. I never will when I’m grown up. I’ll remember better.” “It’s all Peter’s fault,” said Felicity. “I do think he might have had more sense than to take a clock striking for a bell ringing.” “I never heard that kind of a strike before,” protested Peter. “It don’t sound a bit like other clocks. And the door was shut and the sound kind o’ muffled. It’s all very fine to say you would have known what it was, but I don’t believe you would.” “I wouldn’t have,” said the Story Girl honestly. “I thought it WAS a bell when I heard it, and the door open, too. Let us be fair, Felicity.” “I’m dreadful tired,” sighed Cecily. We were all “dreadful tired,” for this was the third night of late hours and nerve racking strain. But it was over two hours since we had eaten the cookies, and Felicity suggested that a saucerful apiece of raspberries and cream would not be hard to take. It was not, for any one but Cecily, who couldn’t swallow a mouthful. “I’m glad father and mother will be back to-morrow night,” she said. “It’s too exciting when they’re away. That’s my opinion.” 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. L. M. Montgomery (2004). The Story Girl. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5342/pg5342-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 .

THE GHOSTLY BELL

TIT FOR TAT

THE PURPLE PILEUS

Star Wars may be one of the best, if not the best, movie franchises of all time. Although it's pretty easy to tell which films to watch first, it can be very complicated at times. Star Wars Films in Order Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones Star Wars: The Clone Wars Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith Solo: A Star Wars Story Star Wars: Rebels Obi-wan Kenobi Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Star Wars IV: A New Hope Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi The Mandalorian Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi Star Wars IX: Rise of Skywalker 1. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Although Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was the 4th Star Wars film to be released, it is the first in the Star Wars Universe. The film focuses on two Jedi known as Qui-Gon Jinn (played by Liam Neeson) and his Jedi Student Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan McGregor). The two Jedi search on the dusty planet of Tatooine to find parts for a ship, but along the way, they suspect they found the chosen one. They meet a little boy known as Anakin Skywalker (played by Jake Lloyd) and they have to decide whether or not to take the boy to train as a Jedi or stay as a slave with his mother. The film was released in 1999 and even though it did not get high ratings, it is still the first to watch. 2. Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones Even though Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was the 5th film to come out, it is known as the second in the Star Wars franchise. The film focuses on two Jedi: Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Jedi Partner Anakin Skywalker (now played by the older Hayden Christensen). The two Jedis must keep senator Padme Amidala (played by actress Natalie Portman) from bounty hunters but will they succeed? The film was released in 2002 and it has a lower rating than others, but it’s the film that continues the story. 3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Clone Wars film was released after the second half of the Star Wars movies were already released, in the year 2008, but it still has a chunk of the Star Wars story in it. Star Wars: The Clone Wars starts shortly after Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones and it focuses on the son of Jabba The Hutt who has been kidnapped. Anakin Skywalker (played by Matt Lanter) and his Jedi partner Ahsoka Tano (played by Ashley Eckstein) have to save him in a limited amount of time. Even though the storyline of this tv series is far from the live-action films, it starts off the Clone War Era. 4. Star Wars 3: Revenge Of The Sith Star Wars 3: Revenge Of The Sith may be the 6th installment of The Star Wars saga, but it is the 3rd film in the franchise. The big film focuses on Anakin Skywalker (still played by Hayden Christiansen) struggling with the dark side. Eventually, he gives in and joins the Siths, and goes against the Jedi. Then, it all leads up to a big duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan, with it ending with Anakin losing his arm and limbs. At the end of the film, we can see him turn into the villainous Darth Vader. Some say this is arguably the best Star Wars film of all and I could agree with that. The film was released in 2005 and has higher ratings than most of the films of the franchise. 5. Solo: A Star Wars Story Now we branch off the main Star Wars Films and into a more solo side of the franchise. Solo: A Star Wars Story focuses on the one and only Han Solo (played by Alden Ehrenreich) and his origin story. He crosses paths with many Star Wars heroes such as Chewbacca (played by Joonas Suotamo) and Lando Calrissian. This film was released in 2018. 6. Star Wars: Rebels Just like the Clone Wars TV series, Star Wars: Rebels is animated and the TV series focuses on a crew that tracks down the last of the Jedi Knights. They run into tons of trouble and legendary Sith Lords such as Darth Vader (played by the original Darth Vader actor James Earl Jones). The TV series made its debut in 2014 and ended in 2018. 7. Obi-Wan Kenobi Obi-Wan Kenobi focuses on Obi-Wan trying to keep a low profile after the events of Revenge of the Sith and the extinction of the Jedi. He struggles with trauma of losing his best friend Anakin, little does he know, Anakin is still alive but there definitely not best friends anymore. Both Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christianson return for there roles as Kenobi and Anakin / Darth Vader. 8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Rogue One is more on the downside of Star Wars and not really popular, but it was released in 2016 and its focus is on a more unpopular crew of heroes that try to steal the plans of the Death Star. But Darth Vader (played by actor Spencer Wilding) gets in the way and destroys most of the crew's plans. Rogue One’s prologue scenes are set right after the events of Star Wars 3: Revenge Of The Sith but at the end of the film, it is set during the beginning of the next film: Star Wars 4: A New Hope. 9. Star Wars 4: A New Hope Now back to where it all started. Star Wars 4: A New Hope was the first-ever Star Wars film to come out. The story focuses on Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill) leaving the dusty planet of Tatooine and going on his first adventure with the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by the more elderly actor, Alec Guinness) and the original actor to play Han Solo, Harrison Ford, and the one and only Carrie Fisher, who plays the wonderful Princess Leia. The main villain is the powerful Darth Vader who is played by David Prowse the original actor that played Anakin/Darth Vader. The film was released in 1977. 10. Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars 5 was originally the second chapter of the Star Wars franchise until Attack of the Clones officially become the second. Star Wars V: Empire Strikes Back is known as one of the best Star Wars movies of all time. Most famously, it's known for the amazing surprise at the end of the film between Luke and Vader. The film was released in 1980. 11. Star Wars 6: Return Of The Jedi Star Wars Return of the Jedi , also known as Star Wars 6, is one of the most celebrated movies of all time. Though it was the 3rd installment in the franchise at the time, it’s the film that closes out the original trilogy also known as the second half of the series. The film was released in 1983 and it had many turns. After several years, Vader turns back to the light side becoming a Jedi again, and ultimately becoming his true self, Anakin Skywalker. In the last sequence of the film, Vader takes off his mask revealing his true face but this time it is not Hayden Christiansen (he was just 2 years old at the time) and it wasn’t David Prowse either. It was actor Sebastian Shaw. 12. The Mandalorian The Mandalorian is one of the most popular Star Wars TV shows with just 2 seasons, with a third in the making. This series takes place just a little bit after Return Of The Jedi and it follows a bounty hunter who is traveling but obviously, there are many problems. A shock at the end of season 2 is when they show a young version of Luke Skywalker in his Return of the Jedi outfit. The TV series made its debut in 2019 and is currently still going in 2022. 13: Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens Many years after The Mandalorian, a new main character is introduced and it’s a girl named Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) and she teams up with a group of people to find Luke Skywalker who hasn’t been seen in public for 30 years. But there is a new villain that is stopping them known as Kylo Ren. It is later revealed that he is the son of Han Solo and Leia Skywalker meaning he is the grandson of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. In the end, Rey is seen standing across from Luke Skywalker with his lightsaber in her hand. The film was released in 2015. 14. Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi Star Wars 8 is known as the 8th movie of the franchise and the second to last. Just shortly after the last film is where this film takes off. The Last Jedi was released in 2017 and it is known as one of the more hated Star Wars films. 15. Star Wars 9: Rise Of Skywalker Star Wars 9 is the last and 9th installment to the Star Wars franchise. Many fans across the world were disappointed in this film because it had more potential. At least the film had various callbacks to original Star Wars actors and actresses such as Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, Alec Guinness as the older Obi-Wan, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon, and Hayden Christiansen As Anakin Skywalker. But we sadly did not get to see the actual actors playing their old roles, we only got to hear their voices. The film was released in 2019.

The Star Wars Movies in Chronological Order 

Religion and the Simulation Hypothesis: Is God an AI? Do Video Games and the Matrix provide a scientific basis for religious beliefs? (part 1) the Matrix_, MIT and Stanford grad Rizwan Virk is releasing his book,_ NOTE: On the 20th anniversary of the release of The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientists Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are In a Video Game , which explores the scientific, philosophic and religious basis of this theory. This is one in a series of articles which explore different aspects of the simulation hypothesis — visit www.zenentrepreneur.com to learn more. For hundreds of years, many well-known scientists weren’t afraid to speak of God (or the importance of consciousness) in their writings, ranging from Newton to Descartes to Einstein. This may partly have sprung initially from not wanting to share the fate of scientists like Galileo whose research was suppressed by a dominant Catholic Church. Over time, though as the Church became less dominant, I suspect it stemmed from a genuine belief that while science was good at making observations, its reductionist tendencies might never be able to explain the unseen worlds of consciousness often explored by religion. As a result, scientists have steered clear of religion as something that is “not scientific” and should only be studied by sociologists. Recently, a theory has emerged which is causing a lot of scientists to look again at age-old religious concepts, and both video games and science fiction have provided a key part of this new model. This theory, , is the idea that what we perceive as physical reality is actually a computer-generated simulation — like a super sophisticated video game, as depicted in the movie the Matrix. the simulation hypothesis This month marks the 20th anniversary of the release of this groundbreaking film. While the film had many religious overtones (the emergence of a Messiah to save the human race), it emerged as cultural phenomenon beyond most other films of its day because of its central thesis: that we live in a simulated world and that there is another world beyond what we can see. This is the first of two articles that examine how many of the ideas put forth by the World’s religions -both Eastern and Western — are not only consistent with the simulation hypothesis, but that this new theory may find a way to bridge the ever-widening gap between religion and science. Part I will focus on the Western religions, specifically God and his Angels and the idea of an afterlife, while Part II will focus on the Eastern religions, specifically about the idea of maya, or illusion, karma and reincarnation. We’ll see how these religious ideas take on a whole new meaning when viewed through the lens of the simulation hypothesis. In fact, this theory may provide a scientific and technological basis for all of these arguments, showing that the unseen worlds described by the world’s religions may be more scientific than we thought! The Matrix, its Religious Overtones and its Central Idea To recap, in Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), is a computer hacker who discovers mysterious references to something called “the Matrix” online. He eventually meets Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) who explains: “Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. You’ll have to see it for yourself.” The Matrix, Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ve probably heard of its most iconic scene: Morpheus gives Neo a choice to take “red pill” to wake up and see what the Matrix is, or take the “blue pill” and keep living his life. Neo takes the red pill and wakes up in the real world to find that what he thought was reality was actually a sophisticated computer simulation — basically an ultra-realistic video game! Video Games, Virtual Reality and the idea of a Simulated World The simulation hypothesis was once the domain of science fiction (the creators of the Matrix, the Wachowski’s, claimed to have been inspired by the work of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick among others). Today, this idea is taken seriously by scholars of philosophy (Oxford’s Nick Bostrom laid out the Simulation Argument in a 2003 paper), physicists (Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the new Cosmos, and the late Stephen Hawking both took the idea seriously), and most of all by today’s computer scientists. Why is this idea being taken more seriously now? It’s because of the evolution of video games and AI technology. In fact Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX founder, made waves with his statement in 2016 explaining the logic: Forty years ago, the state of the art in video gaming was two lines and a dot, in Pong, which was the first widely available arcade game. Today’s MMORPGS (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) like and , have created shared virtual worlds inhabited by characters controlled by millions of players. World of Warcraft Fortnite If the fidelity of virtual reality and augmented reality continues to improve, Musk speculated, that we will soon be unable to distinguish between “physical” and “virtual reality”. While the scientists like Bostrom said little about video games, and Musk said little about uploading and downloading of consciousness, if we take these trend to their logical conclusion, we end up at a point where the simulation hypothesis sounds a lot like what all the religious traditions have been telling us all along! Western Central Tenet #1: And God Said: Let there Be Light! Let’s start with the Western traditions (namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam), or as they are referred to the Abrahamic line of religions. They share many traits, not the least of which is respect for the Old Testament, the oldest part of the Bible. Genesis from the Old Testament, begins with God saying: “Let there be light, and then there was light.” This is followed by the revelation that God created the Earth in 6 days and then rested on the 7th. This is of course one of the areas that’s ridiculed by scientists the most. Of course, it takes more than 6 days to form a planet, doesn’t it? Our best estimates are that the Earth is billions of years old. Moreover, if the Earth wasn’t yet created, how could you possibly measure a period of 6 days? With the introduction of the simulation hypothesis, however, this part of genesis starts to take on new meaning. If we begin to think about the physical world as a computer-generated reality, rather than a physical reality, then this description doesn’t sound so outlandish to scientists. In the world of video games, it can take about 6 seconds to “spin up” a new server or new planet inside a video game world. The groundbreaking video game, , used fractal algorithms to generate unique flora and fauna for 18 quintillion planets. All computer programs, including simulations have the idea of clockspeed — which is the minimum time increment that a particular step can take. Even though we might think of it as instant, it takes some amount of time to generate any simulated world. No Man’s Sky Time increments inside simulated worlds are set by some “generation” or “step” which is a multiple of the underlying clockspeed of the CPU. For example, if the internal clock speed was 1 millisecond, then it would be impossible to measure less than 1 millisecond. But within a simulation, a “day” or “year” or “step” could be 6 milliseconds or 6000. Perhaps more important is the action taken by God to create the world — in religious traditions, light seems to have a special status. Figure 1: Light plays a fundamental role in Religion, Physics and Video Games As we look at modern physics, we have found that everything we thought of as the physical world has been proven to be mostly (99%) empty space. Solids vs. liquids vs. gasses are just collections of atoms and molecules moving differently. This lends credence to the idea that the physical universe really doesn’t exist — what exists is an arrangement of information that represents the atoms and the molecules. Einstein’s theory of relativity found that that only true constant in physics is light. Light is special, though no one knows why. In fact, you might say that light is the only true “fundamental” in physics. We haven’t been able to figure out why. Within computer simulations also, light is also special. In fact, computer graphics consists of pixels based on information — these pixels are “rendered” into the physical world that exists inside the game — what I like to call “The Rendered World”. The rendering is all about lighting up pixels based on different values to present different colors — to turn a dark screen into a “world”! Why would the only fundamental in physics be the speed of electromagnetic radiation, which is also the speed at which we send signals inside and between computers? Moreover, the Western religions are telling us explicitly that God created the world in the same way that we would render a video game world — by “turning on the lights” of the pixels of the physical world? Western Central Tenet #2: Angels and the Afterlife in Video Games Most religions are concerned with what happens to us after death. In fact, you might say that this is the central issue and main reason to have religion in the first place! In the Western religious traditions, one of the main teachings is that we have an immortal soul which is judged based upon our actions in this life. This judgement is based on reviewing what we do in the “here” in the physical world, and this behavior determines where we end up in the “hereafter”, or the afterlife. Depending on which particular branch of the Western traditions we are looking at, there are variations on this same basic theme (purgatory for example in the Catholic Church vs the Eastern orthodox). In pretty much of all of these cases, there is what we might call Heaven and Hell. In Judaism (again depending on specific interpretations) there is Heaven which is (the Garden of Eden), and Hell which is called . In Islam, Heaven is called , and as if to emphasize it’s the same place as the Old Testament, Hell uses almost exactly the same phrase: . Gen Eden Gen Hanum Jannah ( ) basically the Garden of Milk and Honey Jahannam How is this determination done exactly? In Islam, which is the newest of these religions, we are given more specifics. In the Koran (and the Hadith, the second most authoritative text), it specifically mentions that each of us has a “Scroll of Deeds”. Not only does God review our Scroll of Deeds with us after death, but he also shows us the consequences of our actions. Because we may not even realize that some of our deeds had repercussions beyond what we know, this is not a simple process but requires broadening our perspective. Figure 2: A Depiction of a Recording Angel from Washington DC Who is recording information in this scroll of deeds, and how is it shown to us? In Islam, the recording angels, the_Kiramin Kitab_are two angels which record our “good deeds” and “bad deeds”. Now you may have seen the modern cartoons which show an angel and a devil on each shoulder. It turns out the source of this picture is most likely the Islamic traditions, where the prophet tells the faithful that each person has two entities — an angel and a jinn, one on each shoulder which are there to guide us towards good or bad deeds. In the Christian traditions, the recording angel is the same as our guardian angels, and in both the Christian and Jewish traditions, the “Book of Life” is substituted for the “Scroll of Deeds” (in one case it is simply a list of those who get into heaven, in other traditions it is pretty much the same as the Scroll of Deeds). Could this really be happening — our deeds and their repercussions beings recorded somewhere (outside the rendered world) by Angels (or literally, messengers of God), and if so, how would it work? Figure 3: Are Angels Really AI daemons? A Disney representation More importantly, what does all this have to do with video games and the Matrix? It turns out quite a lot! It’s obvious that as we go through life, there is a “score” which is clearly visible to the angels (who are not in our physical reality but can see everything that is going on). You might say they are scorekeepers of a video game that we cannot see inside the “rendered world”. Moreover, how would you record good deeds and bad deeds in a three-dimensional world? Again, video games give us the answer. In eSports video games today, key moves are recorded while the game is being played, by commentators who are outside the rendered world, watching it. Usually this is done automatically using screen capture software and sometimes streamed live. Could these recording angels actually be some form of AI? Is it likely that with 7 billion of us on this planet, there are 14 billion angels whose simple job it is to record everything we do? Modern computer science provides the answer — it makes sense for AI to act like an automated screen capture which records the important points in our games and then plays it back to us. Recently, I was part of a video game company which not only recorded key moments inside a 3d MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and League of Legends. it could play back the key moments so that we could review what we did right and what we did wrong. What was unique about this 3D recording was we could play it back the game not just from the point of view of the original player’s character, but from the point of view of any other player in the game! We could literally see the impact of our actions on the other players of the game! Sound familiar? Not only is it like the Scroll of Deeds, but it’s also pretty much like what we call a Life Review. The term was coined by Dr. Raymond Moody when he was studying NDE’s (or Near Death Experiences). He found by studying thousands of cases of people who were “clinically” dead but were resuscitated, that they all reported similar elements in their experience. One of the most common was a Life Review, where an angel (or being of light) played back scenes from this person’s life to them. One of the most famous of these was Dannion Brinkley, who wrote the bestseller . Not only did Dannion remember this Life Review — he went out of his way to say it was a 360 degree Life Review — you got to see not only your actions, but the consequences of your actions from the point of view of other people! Saved by the Light The golden rule was enforced by quite literally forcing you to see the “game” played back from other player’s characters! In fact, some kind of 3D screen capture, with some AI, may be the only way to accomplish what is described to us in the religious texts and is one of the key precepts of these religions! Recording angels are more likely messengers of God in a literal sense that are tasked with watching what we do. How do we send messages today — through automated computer programs of course. In computer science, code that runs on its own as a separate process which monitors what we are doing are often referred to as Daemons, the Greek term for Demons. This may be more appropriate than the original namers realized — though perhaps they should be called Seraph, the Greek term for angels! These aren’t the only things happening with God that are better handled by an AI than an all-powerful deity — think of billions of prayers coming into a central system — how would God, or Jehovah as he is called in the Old Testament, deal with this many prayers? An intelligent system of “angels” might be the only way to do this. This initial analysis shows that the simulation hypothesis, the central theory which emerged from the release of the Matrix 20 years ago, may provide a scientific model for the things that prophets and religious texts have been telling us all along: that we are in a simulated world, like a video game, and that there are beings (or processes) outside of this world that are watching everything we do. In Part 2, we will explore some of the ideas that underlie some of the Eastern religious traditions and show how the simulation hypothesis may provide the crucial model linking all of these traditions into modern science. the Matrix_, MIT and Stanford grad Rizwan Virk is releasing his book,_ NOTE: On the 20th anniversary of the release of The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientists Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are In a Video Game , which explores the scientific, philosophic and religious basis of this theory. This is one in a series of articles which explore different aspects of the simulation hypothesis — visit www.zenentrepreneur.com to learn more.

Religion and the Simulation Hypothesis: Is God an AI (Part I)?

Cryptocurrency and The Internet of Things A cryptocurrency provides this trick of trusted exchange without a mediator. Or at least, the protocol acts as the mediator. Most of today’s coins need a blockchain to achieve this balance. wants to upset that paradigm. The team believes they’ve found the next generation of cryptocurrency; a faster, cheaper, and more secure way of managing trust. They call it a Tangle. This is what it looks like. Iota Click to watch the Tangle as it grows in real-time here Each of those white dots represents a transaction. In order for a transaction to be approved, it needs to verify two other transactions. The green lines represent verifications. So when you want to add a transaction to the system, you pick two other transactions at random, check them to make sure that their associated keys and balances are valid, then bundle them with your own transaction and a little . That bundle gets sent out to the network to be reviewed and verified by the next generation of transactions. Proof of Work Proof of Work protects the network against spam attacks or . Both attacks require that the attacker issue a high volume of transactions. With Proof of Work in place, each transaction requires sacrificing some processing power. This means it’s a lot harder and less attractive to generate the number of transactions that an attacker would need in order to disrupt the system. sybil attacks Cryptocurrencies that employ Proof of Work usually farm out the heavy lifting to miners. In return for contributing hashing power, miner’s receive rewards. So it’s noteworthy that Iota incorporates this processing as an element of a transaction. This system of distributing Proof of Work across the network helps to explain two of Iota’s most interesting features. Iota does not require transaction fees. Because the network is set up in such a way that in order to participate, you must contribute, each transaction is essentially earning it’s keep through Proof of Work. The absence of transaction fees means that Iota should be very well-suited to processing microtransactions. Additionally, the team claims that their network‘s’ efficiency will increase as it scales. To get an idea of how this might work, let’s take a look at what happens when the network starts to flood. I shamelessly stole and edited this image from the . Tangle whitepaper Imagine that purple square represents the burrito you bought for lunch. Each of those green lines is a verification that either directly or indirectly verifies that you paid for your burrito. You can see in the case above that after only a few generations, the system has reached a state where any new transaction that is verified indirectly enforces verification of your transaction. So even if the network is randomly segmented and distributed across devices, you’ve got this situation where you can broadcast a transaction and very quickly, provided the transaction is valid, you’ll have the entire network standing up to vouch for you. It’s a cool concept. If you’ve got the time, patience and math proficiency, breaks it down to show exactly how increased load pushes the Tangle to a threshold where transactions are almost instantly verified by all incoming traffic to the network. You might also check out . They touch on this concept at around 19:45. the Tangle whitepaper this youtube video The Coordinator At scale, Iota promises some impressive features: fast transaction verifications, zero fees, increased security, etc. But the network is not yet operating at scale. In order to keep things on track during these early stages, Iota relies on what’s referred to as a Coordinator. The Coordinator is intended to protect the network while transaction volume is low. The plan is to disable this system when the network hits a high enough transaction volume to stand on it’s own. This leads to one of the key criticisms of Iota. , because Iota transactions are subject to this Coordinator, and specific details on the Coordinator’s functionality are not public, Iota in it’s current state is effectively ‘centralized’. It’s been argued that We can’t access the Coordinator’s source code, so we can’t be entirely sure of what it does. However, without it, it would seem that the network is exposed to certain vulnerabilities. This suggests that the Coordinator maintains some influence over factors related to these vulnerabilities. According to Sergey Ivancheglo, an Iota cofounder, the Coordinator is currently being . The 34% attack refers to a scenario in which an attacker is able to contribute over 1/3 of the network’s total processing power, allowing it to produce conflicting transactions. So, what keeps the Coordinator from orchestrating that 34% attack itself? used to guard against a 34% attack While the Iota team probably wouldn’t have a good reason to sabotage their own network, that doesn’t exactly prove that they can’t find one. Still, there is a mechanism in place that should help to check the power of the Coordinator. Any Iota user may independently operate a . In so doing, you contribute processing power to maintain the validity of the Tangle. Now, without mining rewards, there’s no economic incentive to running one of these nodes. But a node can benefit a user if they are already processing a large number of transactions, if they operate an app or system that benefits from a reliable connection to the Tangle or a reduction in transaction times, or if they simply desire to support the Iota ecosystem. full node It should be noted that the 34% referenced here isn’t referring to a simple 34% of the network. Devices linking to Iota’s Tangle are exposed to only a subset of the full network. So, even if you were able to generate enough processing power to very quickly gain control of 34% of the network, you’d also have to actually find the entire network. Curl and the JINN Processor Iota‘s original Proof of Work algorithm is known as employs , which means information is stored in three-states as opposed to the traditional two of binary logic. Ternary logic is a . It can provide certain types of performance benefits over traditional logic, but is not quite practical to find or manufacture processors that take advantage of this logic at the moment. Curl. Curl ternary logic fixture of early Russian computing That’s where JINN comes in. JINN Labs is still in ‘stealth mode,’ but they appear to be working on an asynchronous ternary processor that’s intended for use in applications. Several of Iota’s key team members appear to have been involved in it’s development. The assumption then is that the JINN processor will be able to hash Iota’s ternary algorithm more efficiently than traditional processors. The goal being that the JINN ternary processor will someday be integrated into the majority of Internet of Things devices, offering these devices the ability to exchange value, and securing Iota as the medium by which to do so. Internet of Things But the use of the algorithm and ternary logic are the basis for another criticism of the Iota platform. This algorithm was developed by members of the Iota team. Being that cryptographic algorithms are entrusted with sensitive information, they generally undergo extensive evaluation before being used in real world applications. Curl and her argue that . Narula claims her team was able to generate a collision in Iota’s hashing algorithm. That is, with practically available computing power, they were able to identify 2 keys that hashed to the same value. This could provide attackers the ability to generate conflicting transactions. Neha Narula team at MIT Iota’s cryptography has not been properly vetted In Ivancheglo’s to Narula’s report, he argues that the vulnerabilities were intentionally added to the code as a form of copy protection (which has given rise to ) and that the Coordinator makes exploitation of those vulnerabilities impractical. He also argues that the uniqueness of the system warrants the risk of developing specialized cryptography. The team has apparently released some adjustments to the cryptography used for that nullifies any security issue that may have existed. response other concerns certain tasks Another justification for the use of is that it incorporates the . Theoretically, quantum computing does not represent a significant advantage in processing the Winternitz hash, so Iota should prove resistant to potential future attacks as quantum computing comes within reach. Curl Winternitz One-Time Signature Scheme Flash Channels are a more recent addition to Iota’s services. Inspired by systems like the and , Flash Channels allow for private, off-network transactions. They provide a way for trusted parties to divert Iota transactions off of the Tangle. Flash channels Lightning Network Raiden If you want to transact high volumes of iota, you have to wait for each transaction to process to the Tangle. This is likely to cause bottlenecks. Using Flash Channels, multiple parties deposit equal amounts of Iota into a account. Involved parties can then transact independently of the main Tangle. To close out transactions, they simply agree to release funds from the account. In this way, independent groups can process high volumes of transactions quickly by minimizing direct interaction with the Tangle. multisignature The Coin A fixed total of 2,779,530,283,277,761 were created in Iota’s genesis block. Without miners, the system lacks a natural mechanism for distributing tokens, so Iota tokens were initially distributed through an ICO. The ICO raised around $584,000 for the , the German entity responsible for Iota’s management and development. Current token distribution is visualized . Check the current price . Because there are so many Iota in existence, the Iota price as listed on exchanges is almost universally issued in terms of Miota (1,000,000 Iota). The high number of Iota in existence should serve to further promote Iota as an effective vehicle for very small transactions. Iota Foundation here here The Team Iota’s basic structure was initially described by in the . Popov looks to be a CS PHD, specialized in probability theory, who studied in Moscow and maintains a faculty position at in Brazil. Serguei Popov Iota whitepaper UNICAMP The implementation of the described protocol was carried out by Sergey Ivancheglo and . According to interview with another one of Iota’s founders, , Sergey Ivancheglo is the founder of . Ivancheglo launched Nxt in 2013 under the pseudonym BCNext. Ivancheglo has also commonly appeared under the pseudonym Come-from-Beyond. Dominik Schiener this podcast David Sønstebø Nxt Finally The Iota project offers a lot to be excited about. If the team is able to deliver on even a portion of what they‘re shooting for, the effects could be amazing. But it’s still very early in the game and Iota is in mostly uncharted waters. There are projects that have the concepts, the capital, the people to drive a convincing argument that they can pull off what they’ve dreamt up. But there are no guarantees. Iota is a particularly wild dream, and that’s exactly what makes it interesting. The team promises a lot. Only time will tell if they can deliver. Extra Links: . Youtube Iota introduction video . Quick interview with Dominik Schiener

What is Iota?

Unsupervised Investments (II): A Guide to AI Accelerators and Incubators

I am working on a game project this week where users view scrambled words every time a page is refreshed or a button is clicked. Users can also view hints to guess the word. Users can then input their answer into a form and submit that form. If correct, users are given a score that is shown on the screen which adds or subtracts points based on their answer. Today we wrote 2 functions — RandomName and Shuffle. Inside of these functions we had mistakenly applied DOM events. Later I learned from a professional player that it is best practice to separate concerns and to write functions that handle bite size problems. The function shuffle receives a string input and has to turn that string into an array with each characﬂter split up into individual letters. Now an array, the letters have to then be shuffled and joined back together to form a new scrambled word. First step: feed your function some data - const dictionary = {“Mark Hamil”: “Luke Skywalker”,“Harrison Ford”: “Han Solo”,“Carrie Fisher”: “Princess Leia”,“Anthony Daniels”: “C-3PO”,“Daisy Ridley”: “Rey”,“Liam Neeson”: “Qui-Gon Jinn”,“Natalie Portman”: “Padme Amidala”,“Alec Guinness”: “Obi-Wan Kenobi”,“Felicity Jones”: “Jyn Erso”,} Next, write a function that will generate a random name from your data set. const shuffle = function( randomName ) {let result = randomName.split(‘’) for( let i = 0; i < result.length; i++ ) {const randomIndex = Math.floor( Math.random() * result.length )const item = result[ i ] result[ i ] = result[ randomIndex ];result[ randomIndex ] = item} return result.join(‘’)} What is going on here? Okay, let’s break it down. The function expression SHUFFLE takes in the data set random name. That data set is then split up into an array using the built in method .split. When you use this built in for you need to make sure to feed it an empty string in order for the string to be split up into its individual letters. .split can also take in a parameter where you want to split the array. We then iterate through the array. We set a randomIndex variable that takes in the array’s length and multiplies that to get a random number based on the length of the array. We then assign the array’s value at that index in a variable called item. We then take that result at that index and then assign it to the a random index number and finally set that to item. We then join the new result array together to form the scrambled word. Whew. javascript //DOM EVENTS$(document).ready( function() {$(‘#random-word-1’).text( shuffle( chooseRandomActor() ) ) $( ‘#rescramble’ ).click( function( event ) {$(‘#random-word-1’).text( shuffle( chooseRandomActor() ) )})}) Now it is time to manipulate the DOM! First we need to make sure our events fire when the DOM is ready. This is done with this line of code: jQuery $(document).ready( function() {}) Next, select the html element that needs to show our shuffled random word. Inside this jQuery event handler, we also need to trigger the shuffle function on the word. All of this is beautifully handled by this line of code: $(‘#random-word-1’).text( shuffle( chooseRandomActor() ) ) Finally, we need to fire this event again once the user clicks the scramble button: $( ‘#rescramble’ ).click( function( event ) {$(‘#random-word-1’).text( shuffle( chooseRandomActor() ) )})

Separation of Concerns — Manipulating the DOM using JQuery

*Also published on uxmag.com* We’re not seeing movie recommendations really catch on with the world. Sites like and didn’t make it. What’s the hold up? Jinni Foundd Putting aside movie recommendation ‘accuracy’, the missing key is making recommendations a great experience. A record setting company’s app on a record setting company’s watch Just about every tech company is making experience a priority and acting on it. Apple recently had . Uber is currently . And entire e out of the experience of having more convenience. But recommendations are behind. the most profitable quarter in history the most valuable venture-backed private company in the world conomies have been born “I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care.” — Jony Ive Here are some characteristics with movie recommendations today along with the negative feelings you have associated with them: Endlessness (& Overload) Most movie recommendation sites give you the option to rate movies on a one to five star scale. I know, I know; the promise here is that the more you rate, the better your movie picks will be. Soon after you start rating, you’ll notice that the list of movies to rate never ends. Fatigue sets in and you quickly find rating more movies to be mundane. It’s a marathon that you can’t finish. But they tell you to keep going. As Janel Torkington insightfully puts it, an endless list “robs the user of a sense of finality.” Think about the sense of accomplishment when you finish a hard task. Now think about one that you can never get done. It’s not a delightful feeling. Immaterial Content (& Tedium) Inside the list of movies that they tell you to rate, you’re being presented with a lot of that you’ve never even seen. movies Obscure or niche flicks appear at the top, making you skip them before getting to something relevant to you. I was presented with and upon logging on to Foundd for the first time. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Hitman Heart: Wrestling with Shadows Taken a step further, when you find movies that you’ve seen before they’re often ones that you saw Unless those movies really, really connected with you, you’re going to have trouble remembering what you thought of it. Your rating becomes a guess. years ago. Obvious Incongruity (& Dissonance) Then come your recommendations. The results that you put in effort to receive. Some sites will recommend even before you say a word about your movie preferences. Almost as striking, they’ll give you a big list of recommendations after just one or two ratings. The problem here is that In this example, was the only movie I rated (I gave it a 95). not enough is known about you to give you some picks that make sense. Donnie Darko OK, is a fit here. We can see the similarities. Impressive. Mulholland Drive Next: . Well…it sort of makes sense. There are some parallels, possibly. Suspiria Finally: and How do these movies relate to ? It feels incongruent. We expect good results but we get something that looks like it was picked from a hat. It’s a contradictory and dissonant feeling. Wedding Crashers Iron Man 2. Donnie Darko Feature Creep (& Inconvenience) Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/highwaysagency/6281302040/ A solution may be to let you search by every movie trait imaginable— your own personal God Mode. That’s not the answer either because it results in inconvenience. It requires too much work from you. We can get a bag of groceries at the push of a button. are spreading like wildfire outside of their Gen Y origins. We now expect this level of convenience outside of the lexicon of ‘Apps’, including recommendations. Our technology is pushing our expectations. The ideals of The Convenience Generation An example is Jinni. Before the shutdown, there were features, filters, options, specializations, and more available for users to play with. Some examples: ‘Now on TV for me’, ‘Entertainment Personality’, ‘Preferences’, ‘Story Tuners’, ‘Why close to you’, ‘My Guide’, ‘The Watch Wall’. 67+ Getting a user inside a movie they enjoy became overshadowed by the process of finding one. “Our goal is to try to bring a calm and simplicity to what are incredibly complex problems so that you’re not aware really of the solution.” — Ive The Surface Level (& Detachment/Disappointment) Tags attribute traits to a movie. They’re extra useful because they’re standard enough for a computer to be able to understand, so a website can use algorithms that play with them. Tags have the potential to be powerful, but the problem is that they’re usually very general. ‘Sci-Fi’, ‘Action’, ‘Space’, ‘Good vs. Evil’. We as humans don’t respond to a movie just because it has any of these traits. What does that action entail? How is Good and Evil portrayed? And once you have those answers, what about when we blend these specifics together? Instead, how do individuals respond and react to those traits? In some cases though that blend doesn’t make enough of a difference. Take and . Star Wars: A New Hope Star Wars: The Phantom Menace The tag-based formula was there. It’s Sci-Fi. It has a character named Anakin Skywalker in it. On the surface level, it’s being . But people hate the movie. Star Wars Star Wars If is getting it right, it means that the characters are giving us enough to invest in them. To along with them. To care so much that we want to see the continuation of their stories after 32 years. What makes Star Wars ‘Star Wars’ is how we feel when we watch and listen its characters and their stories. Star Wars feel desperately This transcends moving pictures on the screen and 1s and 0s inside a computer. We need to begin to make the tags identify and recognize the shades of this kind of human to human connectedness. We need to improve on uncovering the true things that make people like movies. And we need to honor users’ expectations and provide a seamless, easy experience for them. I think is starting to do just that. And Chill P.S. Achievement Unlocked. You’ve completed the article! If you found value in this, I’d really appreciate it if you recommend this post (by clicking the ❤ button) so other people can see it! Learn more about And Chill or share your insight by emailing me at jake@andchill.io P.P.S. “Is there something I can use to give me an unbelievable movie recommendation experience?” Yes, there is! Message And Chill at m.me/textandchill whenever you want to watch something. We think you’ll feel the attention to detail and care that we put in our product. You might also like “What Should I Watch”: 5 Examples of the Area Where Netflix is Forgetting All about Your Experience

Hey Movie Recommenders, We Need To Focus On The User’s Experience.

What if i told you that during your lifetime, the world will change more than it did in the entire history of mankind combined. The first tools created by humans dates back to roughly 5,000,000 years ago. 4,000,000 years later and humanity discovered fire. In between not much was happening. Hunt. Eat. Sleep. Reproduce. The first settlements, the wheel, the use of iron, the first written language, all happened in the last 10,000 years. And only in the previous century or so has the electricity been adopted worldwide. It is undisputed that the pace of scientific advancement is accelerating If you were to teleport someone from the year 500 to 1 millennium later, they wouldn’t notice much of a difference. Sure, the language sounds weird. But nothing mind blowing. Now try teleporting someone from 200 years to now. They’d assume they’d landed on a different planet. Full of moving paintings and horseless chariots. Continuing the same trend of discoveries we shall in the near future reach a point called a . Technological Singularity This represents the moment in which the intellectual capacity of Artificial Intelligence surpasses that of a human brain. And that will turn everything upside down. It is important to mention that this might very well happen during your lifetime. So, what will happen to Humanity during and after this point of no return. Lets find out. Once the Artificial intelligence reaches the level of Human intelligence, it will only be a matter of months or even days before it’s intellectual capacity surpasses of the entire human race. All because of ‘Exponential Improvements’. Check the graph below. As argued by Stephen Hawking, this super intelligent A.I. possess the greatest threat to human existence. In trying to contain what almost will certainly not work. Imagine if a 2 year old tries to stop you from going outside of your house. That’s how an A.I. would see humans. But should humans even try to stop the A.I. If Humanity doesn’t poss a threat, the Artificial Intelligence won’t bother harming it, depending on it’s moral compass. It might even decide to help the Humans. And this is where the good part starts. Imagine an Incorruptible and Correct ruler who will always do what is Right. No more pointless war. No more poverty. Justice will prevail. The Exponential increase of intelligence will also allow for advancements in the field of Nanotechnology. Swarms of nanobots could be inserted into the human body that could aid with the prevention of most of the human diseases. . Cancer and circulatory issues being few of the many Theoretically cells can also be manipulated by nano bots so they never die, resulting in . Another important area which will be improved upon is ‘Gene Editing’. Careful manipulations. First off, all the genetic disorders will be wiped out. The next thing to come would be Genetic improvements such as ‘Higher Intelligence’, ‘Better Health’. Immortality But they would of course create additional problems, such as, the world being divided between simple and genetically improved humans. Expect class wars. But the Gene editing period could come to an end as quickly as it appeared. That i because of a technology called ‘Mind Uploading’. If computers become sufficiently capable, they could scan the human brain and replicate it into digital form. And from this point on the possibilities become endless. No more need for physical bodies. All of the human consciousness would be living in some sort of Internet. No more hunger. No more physical suffering. No more Biological death But what about Mental Health ? Certain Mental illness are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. The human mind is connected to the body and all it’s sensory organs. If we convert to the ‘Digital’ world, there might be a chance that everyone will become Insane. The concept of time itself might be lost as a digital mind can perceive reality a million times faster than a biological brain. And that could lead to some horrible results. Like being imprisoned for millions of years. Even an Eternity. Without the possibility of dying. But on the bright side the digital beings can have a free reign over their perception of reality. Think of a game but completely immersive, where only your imagination is the limit. Your most desired fantasy will become your subjective reality. Everything that we take for granted now will be gone. No more organized society, no cities, no food, no nothing. Most likely the future civilization will build a Dyson’s sphere around the sun to collect the energy used to power the planet sized computer that hosts all the consciousnesses. This could also explain the apparent lack of aliens in the Universe and also the Bootes void – Possibly a level 3 civilization. Post Singularity World In this post singularity world, where no suffering, and only control over one’s imagination will exist. What will be the Now one has many answers. Meaning of Life ? Family, accomplishments, God, knowledge. What about when everything you can wish for can become true. Will that be enough to satisfy your desire for the meaning of life. Or will it make you crave for even more. Maybe people will numb themselves with never ending pleasure. Or if they find that their life has no meaning maybe they’ll end it once and for all. Previously published at https://shujahasan.com/achieving-immortality/

An Attempt To Achieve Immortality

There’s something about the cosmic perspective, which for some people is enlightening and for other people is terrifying. For those who are terrified by it, they’re here on Earth and they have a certain self-identity. And then they learn that the Earth is tiny and we’re in this void of interplanetary space. There’s a star we call the sun and there are a hundred billion other stars in our galaxy. And our galaxy ‘The Milky Way’ is one of the the 50-100 billion other galaxies in the universe. And with every step, with every window modern astrophysics has opened to our mind, the person that wants to feel like they’re the center of everything, ends up shrinking. Each dot you see is a Galaxy. This is the clearest and the widest picture ever taken by the Hubble space telescope to date. For some people they actually might find it depressing. I assert, that if you were depressed after learning and being exposed to the cosmic perspective, you started your day with an unjustifiably large ego. You thought more highly of yourself than in fact what you deserved. So here’s what you do. You say to yourself… "I have no ego at all." No ego. No cause to puff myself up. Now let’s learn about the cosmic perspective. We’re on a planet that’s orbiting a star. And the star is an energy source and it’s giving us this energy. We’re feeling this energy and life is enabled by this energy in this star. And by the way there are 100 billion other stars that have other planets. There might be other life out there. Life there could be like us. Probably not like us. Whatever it is, it would be fascinating to find out who it is. Can we talk to them? Can we not? Are they more advanced? Are they less advanced? By the way the atoms of your body are comparable to what stars do. And all you can do is bask in the relevance of the cosmos. So those who view cosmic perspective as a depressing outlook, they really need to re-assess how they think about the world. Because when I look up in the Universe i know I'm small but I’m also big. I’m big because I’m connected to the universe, and the universe is connected to me”. Nobody Knows what lies beyond our observable universe. But it is Estimated that the Entire Un-observable universe is larger than our observable universe. Let that sink in for a second. 150 sextillion times Our Observable universe might also be a tiny dot in the more bigger universe that we are never ever going to explore. Finally, we are unimaginably small. We have so much more to learn, explore and discover. The only question is where to even start ...

The Cosmos and Your Ego

We've all seen the terminator a million billion times. From the Judgement day to the latest one. F*ck ! It was so bad i don't even remember the name. That's not the point though. The point is in that movie we have a central character just like every other, named John Conner, who is given this responsibility of saving the world from an A.I. teardown. One single person required to save the planet so that the humans can continue to strive, even though we might not be worthy of doing so. Evolution is a part of life. If you don't evolve, you don't deserve to live. That's how A.I. was invented. The premise being a machine smarter than the smartest human on Earth. Now imagine thousands of such machines. Go the extent. Thousands of these machines making million more by manipulating human DNA an creating their own bots. A symbiotic having a 1300 I.Q. Telekinesis, Biokinesis, Pyrokinesis. Much more than just moving objects. Materializing and De-materializing in and out of thin air. We will be be mere ants, compared to the technical advancement they already possess. Tell me you don't think about this every so often. World war 3 is either going to be between humans and machines or humans and aliens. And i strongly believe aliens are just us from the future. Could it be possible that they are the A.I. we once created to help us with our scientific exploration. And upon morally growing their conscious, they actually found out how evil and stupid we were. Only one way forward from here. Total Human extinction ! A better future. With or without us. Coming back to the question. How to survive a skynet apocalypse ? WE can't.

Surviving a Skynet Apocalypse

Abandoned by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CHAPTER XIX here CHAPTER XIX Recollections of their Native Land—Probable Future—Project for surveying the Coasts of the Island—Departure on the 16th of April—Sea-view of Reptile End—The basaltic Rocks of the Western Coast—Bad Weather—Night comes on—New Incident. Two years already! and for two years the colonists had had no communication with their fellow-creatures! They were without news from the civilised world, lost on this island, as completely as if they had been on the most minute star of the celestial hemisphere! What was now happening in their country? The picture of their native land was always before their eyes, the land torn by civil war at the time they left it, and which the Southern rebellion was perhaps still staining with blood! It was a great sorrow to them, and they often talked together of these things, without ever doubting however that the cause of the North must triumph, for the honour of the American Confederation. During these two years not a vessel had passed in sight of the island; or, at least, not a sail had been seen. It was evident that Lincoln Island was out of the usual track, and also that it was unknown,—as was besides proved by the maps,—for though there was no port, vessels might have visited it for the purpose of renewing their store of water. But the surrounding ocean was deserted as far as the eye could reach, and the colonists must rely on themselves for regaining their native land. However, one chance of rescue existed, and this chance was discussed one day in the first week of April, when the colonists were gathered together in the dining-room of Granite House. They had been talking of America, of their native country, which they had so little hope of ever seeing again. "Decidedly we have only one way," said Spilett, "one single way for leaving Lincoln Island, and that is, to build a vessel large enough to sail several hundred miles. It appears to me, that when one has built a boat it is just as easy to build a ship!" "And in which we might go to the Pomatous," added Herbert, "just as easily as we went to Tabor Island." "I do not say no," replied Pencroft, who had always the casting vote in maritime questions; "I do not say no, although it is not exactly the same thing to make a long as a short voyage! If our little craft had been caught in any heavy gale of wind during the voyage to Tabor Island, we should have known that land was at no great distance either way; but twelve hundred miles is a pretty long way, and the nearest land is at least that distance!" "Would you not, in that case, Pencroft, attempt the adventure?" asked the reporter. "I will attempt anything that is desired, Mr. Spilett," answered the sailor, "and you know well that I am not a man to flinch!" "Remember, besides, that we number another sailor amongst us now," remarked Neb. "Who is that?" asked Pencroft. "Ayrton." "That is true," replied Herbert. "If he will consent to come," said Pencroft. "Nonsense!" returned the reporter; "do you think that if Lord Glenarvan's yacht had appeared at Tabor Island, whilst he was still living there, Ayrton would have refused to depart?" "You forget, my friends," then said Cyrus Harding, "that Ayrton was not in possession of his reason during the last years of his stay there. But that is not the question. The point is to know if we may count among our chances of being rescued, the return of the Scotch vessel. Now, Lord Glenarvan promised Ayrton that he would return to take him off Tabor Island when he considered that his crimes were expiated, and I believe that he will return." "Yes," said the reporter, "and I will add that he will return soon, for it is twelve years since Ayrton was abandoned!" "Well!" answered Pencroft, "I agree with you that the nobleman will return, and soon too. But where will he touch? At Tabor Island, and not at Lincoln Island." "That is the more certain," replied Herbert, "as Lincoln Island is not even marked on the map." "Therefore, my friends," said the engineer, "we ought to take the necessary precautions for making our presence, and that of Ayrton on Lincoln Island known at Tabor Island." "Certainly," answered the reporter, "and nothing is easier than to place in the hut, which was Captain Grant's and Ayrton's dwelling, a notice which Lord Glenarvan and his crew cannot help finding, giving the position of our island." "It is a pity," remarked the sailor, "that we forgot to take that precaution on our first visit to Tabor Island." "And why should we have done it?" asked Herbert. "At that time we did not know Ayrton's history; we did not know that any one was likely to come some day to fetch him; and when we did know his history, the season was too advanced to allow us to return then to Tabor Island." "Yes," replied Harding, "it was too late, and we must put off the voyage until next spring." "But suppose the Scotch yacht comes before that," said Pencroft. "That is not probable," replied the engineer, "for Lord Glenarvan would not choose the winter season to venture into these seas. Either he has already returned to Tabor Island, since Ayrton has been with us, that is to say, during the last five months and has left again; or he will not come till later, and it will be time enough in the first fine October days to go to Tabor Island, and leave a notice there." "We must allow," said Neb, "that it will be very unfortunate if the has returned to these parts only a few months ago!" Duncan "I hope that it is not so," replied Cyrus Harding, "and that Heaven has not deprived us of the best chance which remains to us." "I think," observed the reporter, "that at any rate we shall know what we have to depend on when we have been to Tabor Island, for if the yacht has returned there, they will necessarily have left some traces of their visit." "That is evident," answered the engineer. "So then, my friends, since we have this chance of returning to our country, we must wait patiently, and if it is taken from us we shall see what will be best to do." "At any rate," remarked Pencroft, "it is well understood that if we do leave Lincoln Island in some way or another, it will not be because we were uncomfortable there!" "No, Pencroft," replied the engineer, "it will be because we are far from all that a man holds dearest in this world, his family, his friends, his native land!" Matters being thus decided, the building of a vessel large enough to sail either to the Archipelagos in the north, or to New Zealand in the west, was no longer talked of, and they busied themselves in their accustomed occupations, with a view to wintering a third time in Granite House. However, it was agreed that before the stormy weather came on, their little vessel should be employed in making a voyage round the island. A complete survey of the coast had not yet been made, and the colonists had but an imperfect idea of the shore to the west and north, from the mouth of Falls River to the Mandible Capes, as well as of the narrow bay between them, which opened like a shark's jaws. The plan of this excursion was proposed by Pencroft, and Cyrus Harding fully acquiesced in it, for he himself wished to see this part of his domain. The weather was variable, but the barometer did not fluctuate by sudden movements, and they could therefore count on tolerable weather. However, during the first week of April, after a sudden barometrical fall, a renewed rise was marked by a heavy gale of wind, lasting five or six days; then the needle of the instrument remained stationary at a height of twenty-nine inches and nine-tenths, and the weather appeared propitious for an excursion. The departure was fixed for the 16th of April, and the , anchored in Port Balloon, was provisioned for a voyage which might be of some duration. Bonadventure Cyrus Harding informed Ayrton of the projected expedition, and proposed that he should take part in it; but Ayrton preferring to remain on shore, it was decided that he should come to Granite House during the absence of his companions. Master Jup was ordered to keep him company, and made no remonstrance. On the morning of the 16th of April all the colonists, including Top, embarked. A fine breeze blew from the south-west, and the tacked on leaving Port Balloon so as to reach Reptile End. Of the ninety miles which the perimeter of the island measured, twenty included the south coast between the port and the promontory. The wind being right ahead, it was necessary to hug the shore. Bonadventure It took the whole day to reach the promontory, for the vessel on leaving port had only two hours of the ebb tide, and had therefore to make way for six hours against the flood. It was nightfall before the promontory was doubled. The sailor then proposed to the engineer that they should continue sailing slowly with two reefs in the sail. But Harding preferred to anchor a few cable-lengths from the shore, so as to survey that part of the coast during the day. It was agreed also that as they were anxious for a minute exploration of the coast they should not sail during the night, but would always, when the weather permitted it, be at anchor near the shore. The night was passed under the promontory, and the wind having fallen, nothing disturbed the silence. The passengers, with the exception of the sailor, scarcely slept as well on board the as they would have done in their rooms at Granite House, but they did sleep however. Pencroft set sail at break of day, and by going on the larboard tack they could keep close to the shore. Bonadventure The colonists knew this beautiful wooded coast, since they had already explored it on foot, and yet it again excited their admiration. They coasted along as close in as possible, so as to notice everything, avoiding always the trunks of trees which floated here and there. Several times also they anchored, and Gideon Spilett took photographs of the superb scenery. About noon the arrived at the mouth of Falls River. Beyond, on the left bank, a few scattered trees appeared, and three miles further even these dwindled into solitary groups among the western spurs of the mountain, whose arid ridge sloped down to the shore. Bonadventure What a contrast between the northern and southern part of the coast! In proportion as one was woody and fertile so was the other rugged and barren! It might have been designated as one of those iron coasts, as they are called in some countries, and its wild confusion appeared to indicate that a sudden crystallisation had been produced in the yet liquid basalt of some distant geological sea. These stupendous masses would have terrified the settlers if they had been cast at first on this part of the island! They had not been able to perceive the sinister aspect of this shore from the summit of Mount Franklin, for they overlooked it from too great a height, but viewed from the sea it presented a wild appearance which could not perhaps be equalled in any corner of the globe. The sailed along this coast for the distance of half a mile. It was easy to see that it was composed of blocks of all sizes, from twenty to three hundred feet in height, and of all shapes, round like towers, prismatic like steeples, pyramidal like obelisks, conical like factory chimneys. An iceberg of the Polar seas could not have been more capricious in its terrible sublimity! Here, bridges were thrown from one rock to another; there, arches like those of a wave, into the depths of which the eye could not penetrate; in one place, large vaulted excavations presented a monumental aspect; in another, a crowd of columns, spires, and arches, such as no Gothic cathedral ever possessed. Every caprice of nature, still more varied than those of the imagination, appeared on this grand coast, which extended over a length of eight or nine miles. Bonadventure Cyrus Harding and his companions gazed, with a feeling of surprise bordering on stupefaction. But, although they remained silent, Top, not being troubled with feelings of this sort, uttered barks which were repeated by the thousand echoes of the basaltic cliff. The engineer even observed that these barks had something strange in them, like those which the dog had uttered at the mouth of the well in Granite House. "Let us go close in," said he. And the sailed as near as possible to the rocky shore. Perhaps some cave, which it would be advisable to explore, existed there? But Harding saw nothing, not a cavern, not a cleft which could serve as a retreat to any being whatever, for the foot of the cliff was washed by the surf. Soon Top's barks ceased, and the vessel continued her course at a few cable-lengths from the coast. Bonadventure In the north-west part of the island the shore became again flat and sandy. A few trees here and there rose above a low, marshy ground, which the colonists had already surveyed; and in violent contrast to the other desert shore, life was again manifested by the presence of myriads of water-fowl. That evening the anchored in a small bay to the north of the island, near the land, such was the depth of water there. The night passed quietly, for the breeze died away with the last light of day, and only rose again with the first streaks of dawn. Bonadventure As it was easy to land, the usual hunters of the colony, that is to say, Herbert and Gideon Spilett, went for a ramble of two hours or so, and returned with several strings of wild duck and snipe. Top had done wonders, and not a bird had been lost, thanks to his zeal and cleverness. At eight o'clock in the morning the set sail, and ran rapidly towards North Mandible Cape, for the wind was right astern and freshening rapidly. Bonadventure "However," observed Pencroft, "I should not be surprised if a gale came up from the west. Yesterday the sun set in a very red-looking horizon, and now, this morning, those mares-tails don't forebode anything good." These mares-tails are cirrus clouds, scattered in the zenith, their height from the sea being less than five thousand feet. They look like light pieces of cotton wool, and their presence usually announces some sudden change in the weather. "Well," said Harding, "let us carry as much sail as possible, and run for shelter into Shark Gulf. I think that the will be safe there." Bonadventure "Perfectly," replied Pencroft, "and besides, the north coast is merely sand, very uninteresting to look at." "I shall not be sorry," resumed the engineer, "to pass not only to-night but to-morrow in that bay, which is worth being carefully explored." "I think that we shall be obliged to do so, whether we like it or not," answered Pencroft, "for the sky looks very threatening towards the west. Dirty weather is coming on!" "At any rate we have a favourable wind for reaching Cape Mandible," observed the reporter. "A very fine wind," replied the sailor; "but we must tack to enter the gulf, and I should like to see my way clear in these unknown quarters." "Quarters which appear to be filled with rocks," added Herbert, "if we judge by what we saw on the south coast of Shark Gulf." "Pencroft," said Cyrus Harding, "do as you think best, we will leave it to you." "Don't make your mind uneasy, captain," replied the sailor, "I shall not expose myself needlessly! I would rather a knife were run into my ribs than a sharp rock into those of my !" Bonadventure That which Pencroft called ribs was the part of his vessel under water, and he valued it more than his own skin. "What o'clock is it?" asked Pencroft. "Ten o'clock," replied Gideon Spilett. "And what distance is it to the Cape, captain?" "About fifteen miles," replied the engineer. "That's a matter of two hours and a half," said the sailor, "and we shall be off the Cape between twelve and one o'clock. Unluckily, the tide will be turning at that moment, and will be ebbing out of the gulf. I am afraid that it will be very difficult to get in, having both wind and tide against us." "And the more so that it is a full moon to-day," remarked Herbert, "and these April tides are very strong." "Well, Pencroft," asked Cyrus Harding, "can you not anchor off the Cape?" "Anchor near land, with bad weather coming on!" exclaimed the sailor. "What are you thinking of, captain? We should run aground to a certainty!" "What will you do then?" "I shall try to keep in the offing until the flood, that is to say, till about seven in the evening, and if there is still light enough I will try to enter the gulf; if not, we must stand off and on during the night, and we will enter to-morrow at sunrise." "As I told you, Pencroft, we will leave it to you," answered Harding. "Ah!" said Pencroft, "if there was only a light-house on the coast, it would be much more convenient for sailors." "Yes," replied Herbert, "and this time we shall have no obliging engineer to light a fire to guide us into port!" "Why, indeed, my dear Cyrus," said Spilett, "we have never thanked you for it, but frankly, without that fire we should never have been able to reach—" "A fire?" asked Harding, much astonished at the reporter's words. "We mean, captain," answered Pencroft, "that on board the we were very anxious during the few hours before our return, and we should have passed to windward of the island, if it had not been for the precaution you took of lighting a fire in the night of the 19th of October, on Prospect Heights." Bonadventure "Yes, yes! That was a lucky idea of mine!" replied the engineer. "And this time," continued the sailor, "unless the idea occurs to Ayrton, there will be no one to do us that little service!" "No! no one!" answered Cyrus Harding. A few minutes after, finding himself alone in the bows of the vessel with the reporter, the engineer bent down and whispered,— "If there is one thing certain in this world, Spilett, it is that I never lighted any fire during the night of the 19th of October, neither on Prospect Heights nor on any other part of the island!" 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 (2010). Abandoned. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33516/pg33516-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 , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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