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Multiple investigations from The Markup have been recognized in a range of categories by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing’s 2022 . Best in Business Awards Working for an Algorithm Dara Kerr’s stories documenting attacks on gig workers and ride-hail drivers won in the Features and Travel/Transportation categories. In addition to a that revealed through gripping personal narrative how Uber’s failure to swiftly comply with subpoenas left drivers vulnerable, reporting in our “ ” series was also honored for the crisis and creating that tracks carjackings or attempted carjackings of gig workers nationwide. months-long investigation Working for an Algorithm quantifying the only database Congrats to the entire team that worked on this series: Dara Kerr, Maddy Varner, Ko Bragg, Kris Fischer, Gabriel Hongsdusit, Maria Puertas, Jill Jaroff, Sid Hastings, and Anson Chan, and our publishing partner The Verge. Still Loading Our investigation, “ ,” won in the Data Journalism and Media/Entertainment categories. that a quartet of telecom giants disproportionately offered lower-income and least-White neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price as speedy connections they offered in other parts of town. Still Loading Our story revealed Until The Markup published this investigation, customers receiving the worst deals had no idea about the disparity. Since publication, investigative reporters Leon Yin and Aaron Sankin have briefed local-, federal-, and state-level lawmakers and regulators about our findings. They’ve how to localize the story for their own communities, which many publications did. created a guide showing other journalists We also worked with Outlier Media before launch, sharing our data analysis, and Outlier focused on Detroiters on publication day. published its own story Dozens of news organizations also republished The Markup’s story through our partnership with the Associated Press for this project. The investigation has also proved a crucial resource for government officials working to bring more Americans online. Congrats to the team that worked on this series: Leon Yin, Aaron Sankin, Evelyn Larrubia, Joel Eastwood, Gabriel Hongsdusit, Paroma Soni, Jeremy Singer-Vine, Maria Puertas, Jill Jaroff, and our publishing partners. The Pixel Hunt Stories from our “ ” series won honorable mentions in the Investigative and Technology categories. Pixel Hunt The three stories recognized by the award revealed that about patients from medical websites, dozens of have sent patients’ sensitive health information to multiple big tech companies, and that have been sending users financial information to Facebook. Facebook is receiving sensitive medical information telehealth startups tax filing websites Since publication, mental health startup Cerebral has , have been filed, and our work has been the Department of Health and Human Services, in U.S. Senate , and in from eight senators to subjects of our stories. admitted to disclosing users’ sensitive health data in violation of HIPAA multiple class action lawsuits cited by hearings letters Congrats to the team that worked on this series: Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Todd Feathers, Surya Mattu, Colin Lecher, Angie Waller, Katie Palmer of STAT, Rina Palta, Micha Gorelick, Gabriel Hongsdusit, Maria Puertas, and Jill Jaroff. Congratulations as well, to our partners at STAT and The Verge, who either coreported or copublished these stories with us. Congratulations to all of . this year’s SABEW Awards honorees By The Markup Also published here Photo by on Uwe Conrad Unsplash

The Markup Wins Four Journalism Awards in the 2022 Best in Business Awards

An investigation by The Markup into online tracking by hospitals was recognized by the Association for Health Care Journalists, winning third place in the large investigative category of AHCJ’s . Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism AHCJ awards the best health reporting in print, broadcast, and online media and announced The Markup’s award in the online media division on Feb. 22, 2023. In the story recognized by AHCJ, “ ,” we revealed that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the U.S., along with at least seven health care systems, were sending patients’ sensitive health information to Facebook through a web tracking tool. Facebook Is Receiving Sensitive Medical Information from Hospital Websites The tool, known as the Meta Pixel, exposed patients’ internet “IP” addresses, effectively linking their medical information and doctor’s appointments to their identity. Under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, health data linked to an IP address is protected, and organizations covered by HIPAA, like hospitals, cannot share it with third parties without patient consent or a contract that requires the third party to provide the same level of protection. A former senior privacy adviser to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was quoted in our investigation saying, “I cannot say [sharing this data] is for certain a HIPAA violation. It is quite likely a HIPAA violation.” The investigation revealed that the health care providers sent Facebook, at times, patients’ specific conditions, the search terms they entered to find the right doctor, the name and dosage of their medication, their sexual orientation, and the name of their doctor. The investigation was enabled by the Pixel Hunt project, a collaboration between The Markup and Mozilla Rally. The project was a crowd-sourced undertaking in which anyone could install in order to send The Markup data on the Meta Pixel as it appeared on sites that they visited. Mozilla’s Rally browser add-on This allowed The Markup to discover when sensitive information was sent to Facebook from within password-protected patient portals. Impact In North Carolina, where several health care systems’ patient portals were sending sensitive information to Facebook, lawmakers demanded a probe, and the attorney general’s office . began an investigation In the U.S. Senate, on the issue during a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia later to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook parent company Meta. Jon Ossoff of Georgia questioned Facebook cited The Markup’s investigation in a letter The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), citing our story, issued updated guidance on the “ ,” confirming that “tracking technologies” on patient portal pages are generally covered by HIPAA privacy rules. Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates Additionally, HHS said that such rules also cover pages that might be encountered by nonpatients and before a password is entered, such as appointment pages and health condition information pages. Before this HHS guidance was issued, there was disagreement in the health law sector on whether such pages were covered under HIPAA. Patients of hospitals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and of two regional health care systems brought at least five class action lawsuits against Meta, alleging that the company broke various state and federal laws. The health care providers themselves also further amended their practices. As of Oct. 20, 2022, at least 35 of the 40 hospitals and health systems identified in our story had removed the pixel from at least portions of their websites. At least five health care systems sent HHS and a combined 6.4 million patients “breach” notifications, required under HIPAA, stating that data submitted to their websites may have been inappropriately sent by the trackers. The Markup also strongly believes in showing our work and for the Pixel Hunt series, which included the hospital tracking investigation. did so A huge congratulations to the entire team that worked on the piece: Todd Feathers, Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Angie Waller, Surya Mattu, Rina Palta, Micha Gorelick, Gabriel Hongsdusit, Maria Puertas, and Jill Jaroff. Congratulations to all of this year’s Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism . honorees By The Markup Also published here Photo by on Giorgio Trovato Unsplash

The Markup Honored by AHCJ Awards for Revealing That Several Hospitals Were in Bed With Facebook 

There are annual seasonal changes in the human organism

Hospital Websites are Giving Facebook Sensitive Information

This article is a collaboration with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Facebook is collecting ultrasensitive personal data about abortion seekers and enabling anti-abortion organizations to use that data as a tool to target and influence people online, in violation of its own policies and promises. In the wake of a signaling the likely end of nationwide abortion protections_,_ privacy experts are sounding alarms about all the ways people’s data trails could be used against them if some states criminalize abortion. leaked Supreme Court opinion A joint investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Markup found that the world’s largest social media platform is already collecting data about people who visit the websites of hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers, which are quasi-health clinics, mostly run by religiously aligned organizations whose mission is to persuade people to choose an option other than abortion. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, prohibits websites and apps that use Facebook’s advertising technology from sending Facebook “ ” data. sexual and reproductive health After investigations by in 2019 and in 2021, the social media giant to help detect sensitive health data and blocked data that contained any of 70,000 health-related terms. The Wall Street Journal New York state regulators created a machine-learning system But Reveal and The Markup have found Facebook’s code on the websites of hundreds of anti-abortion clinics. Using , a Markup tool that detects cookies, keyloggers, and other types of user-tracking technology on websites, Reveal analyzed the sites of —with data provided by the University of Georgia—and found that at least 294 shared visitor information with Facebook. Blacklight nearly 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers In many cases, the information was extremely sensitive—for example, whether a person was considering abortion or looking to get a pregnancy test or emergency contraceptives. In a statement to Reveal and The Markup, Facebook spokesperson Dale Hogan said, “It is against our policies for websites and apps to send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools,” which includes its . advertising technology “Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it detects, and we work to educate advertisers on how to properly set up our Business Tools.” Facebook declined to answer detailed questions about its filtering systems and policies on data from crisis pregnancy centers. It’s unknown whether the filters caught any of the data, but our investigation showed a significant amount made its way to Facebook. Credit:https://www.facebook.com/privacy/center More than a third of the websites sent data to Facebook when someone made an appointment for an “abortion consultation” or “pre-termination screening.” And at least 39 sites sent Facebook details such as the person’s name, email address, or phone number. Facebook takes in data from crisis pregnancy centers through a tracking tool called the that works whether or not a person is logged in to their Facebook account. Meta Pixel The pixel is largely an advertising tool that allows businesses to do things like buy Facebook ads targeted to people who have visited their website or to people who share similar interests or demographics with their site’s other visitors. This is a mostly automated process in which the business does not have access to information about the specific users being targeted. It’s how this data is later used. not clear Crisis pregnancy centers and other businesses can choose whether to install pixel on their websites, though many website builders and third-party services automatically embed trackers. In 2020, The Markup of the 80,000 most popular sites use the ad tracker, and Facebook has said are on websites across the internet. found that 30 percent millions of pixels Facebook says pixel data can be . stored for years That personal data can be used in a number of ways. The centers can deliver targeted advertising, on Facebook or elsewhere, aimed at deterring an individual from getting an abortion. It can be used to build anti-abortion ad campaigns—and spread misinformation about reproductive health—targeted at people with similar demographics and interests. And, in the worst-case scenario now contemplated by privacy experts, that digital trail might even be used as evidence against abortion seekers in states where the procedure is outlawed. “I think this is going to be a wake-up call for millions of Americans about how much danger this tracking puts them in when laws change and people can weaponize these systems in ways that once seemed impossible,” said Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the New York–based Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. Facebook and crisis pregnancy centers “are operating with virtually no rules,” he said. Facebook has that are supposed to block sensitive personal data. But the platform’s filters have often proved to be porous against the vast amount of information they take in every day. policies and filters Essentially, that means the company is putting the onus on its advertising clients to monitor themselves. And Facebook does not have an incentive to crack down on violations of its advertising policies, said Serge Egelman, research director of the Usable Security & Privacy Group at UC Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. “That costs them money to do. As long as they’re not legally obligated to do so, why would they expend any resources to fix this?” Using Data to Make Abortion “Unthinkable” Crisis pregnancy centers market themselves as being in the “pregnancy resource” business, offering a range of free or low-cost services from pregnancy tests to baby clothing and “options consultations.” But their mission, articulated by Heartbeat International, the largest crisis pregnancy center network in the world, is : “to make abortion unwanted today and unthinkable for future generations.” far more sweeping Although many centers resemble medical clinics, the majority are not licensed medical facilities. Thus, most are not required to follow most privacy protections against the sharing of personal health information, including the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. In recent years, crisis pregnancy centers have become increasingly savvy about targeting people using sophisticated digital tools and infrastructure. Heartbeat International, for example, has developed suites of products to help individual centers improve their online presence, digital advertising, and data management. These online tools enable the centers to amass , including medical histories, details about prior pregnancies, and even ultrasound photos, and store and share that information with networks of anti-abortion partners. highly personal information As Heartbeat International says on its webpage marketing its : “Big data is revolutionizing all sorts of industries. Why shouldn’t it do the same for a critical ministry like ours?” data management system When asked about Heartbeat International’s data-sharing practices, spokesperson Andrea Trudden said, “Heartbeat International encourages all pregnancy help organizations to utilize a variety of marketing to reach those seeking pregnancy help.” But, she said, “we do not require affiliates to provide such details to us.” Crisis pregnancy centers also have been documented as spreading false or misleading information about abortion, contraceptives, and other reproductive health topics, including on Facebook. In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Facebook showed ads promoting an unproven medical procedure known as abortion pill reversal . as many as 18.4 million times Many of those advertisements were linked to Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network project, which did not respond to a request for comment. How We Tracked the Data To test how Facebook and crisis pregnancy centers have been using the data the pixel collects, Reveal reporter Grace Oldham created a new Facebook profile in late April solely for this investigation. Then, while logged in to Facebook, she visited the 294 crisis pregnancy center websites that Blacklight found to have a pixel, clicking through each website and, when available, filling out appointment request forms. Oldham conducted the research in a clean browser with a cleared cache. In early May, she and Reveal data reporter Dhruv Mehrotra used Meta’s to and review the data of the clean Facebook account. Privacy Center download They found that Facebook retained data about Oldham’s interactions with 88 percent of those crisis pregnancy center websites, linking her behavior to her Facebook profile. For instance, Facebook knew Oldham had scheduled an appointment with the Pregnancy Resource Center of Owasso, Okla. That state’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, signed in late May that bans virtually all abortions from the point of fertilization and took effect immediately. a law The Owasso center did not respond to a request for comment, but after we reached out, Facebook’s tracking pixel was removed from every page on the center’s website. Our analysis found that in if Roe v. Wade is overturned, at least 120 crisis pregnancy centers sent data to Facebook about their website visitors. states that will ban most or all abortions In Tennessee, for example, where the is poised to outlaw abortion statewide, Facebook retained data from Oldham’s interactions with 11 centers. Next Steps Resources in Dunlap sent data to Facebook about every single page Oldham visited on its site. Human Life Protection Act Facebook stored that data and knew that Oldham had submitted an appointment request with the center. Next Steps’ executive director, Debbie Chandler, told Reveal and The Markup that the people she hired to manage her website and marketing disagreed that “any private information was being sent to Facebook.” Credit:Nextstepinfo.org We also found that anti-abortion marketing companies gained access to some of Oldham’s pixel data, even though she never interacted with their websites. These included Choose Life Marketing, whose website claims to help crisis pregnancy centers develop digital strategies to “reach more abortion-minded women,” and Stories Marketing, a social media marketing company for “pregnancy centers and life-affirming organizations.” Those organizations also added Oldham’s Facebook profile to audience groups capable of targeting her and people like her with ads for their services as well as anti-abortion messaging. Choose Life Marketing and Stories Marketing did not respond to requests for comment. custom In their online materials, the marketing companies explain why Facebook plays such an important role in their digital strategies. “Facebook ads have the highest return on investment (ROI) of any type of online marketing—even twice the ROI of Google Ads,” Stories Marketing , adding, “Facebook ads can also be placed on Instagram and other apps for free, extending your reach at no extra cost.” says According to : “Retargeting is an effective method of keeping your center at the forefront of their minds.… This digital marketing method can also help build credibility and trust as women go through the decision-making process because your center’s name becomes familiar to them.” Choose Life We first ran our analysis in February and repeated it using the same methodology in early May. The results of both analyses were similar. As of Tuesday, Facebook still had data about Oldham’s interactions on crisis pregnancy center websites. Abortion Data Collection “Ripe for Abuse” Cahn, of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, expressed concerns about how law enforcement agencies could use Facebook data to find people seeking abortions should the procedure become illegal in some states. “It’s ripe for abuse,” he said of Facebook’s data collection. “It seems indefensible to me that we are allowing companies to have so much power to expose our most intimate moments to these platforms and have them use it against us.” In recent years, law enforcement agencies have barraged tech companies like Google and Uber with for user data. demands Often, these legal requests don’t target individual suspects but instead compel the company to divulge data about people in a particular place or searches using specific keywords. According to the most recent data available from , the company received nearly 60,000 government requests for data from July to December 2021 and complied 88 percent of the time. Facebook’s Transparency Center Although crisis pregnancy centers could provide law enforcement with data about anyone who had voluntarily provided personal information, they probably don’t have the technology to disclose specific information about individuals who had merely visited their websites. But Facebook is different. Because the social media company can link activity on a crisis pregnancy center site to an individual’s profile, Facebook is in a much better position to divulge granular data about the center’s website visitors than the center itself. Data from search engine histories played a key role in a 2018 criminal case, in which for second-degree murder after suffering a pregnancy loss at home. a Mississippi woman was indicted The evidence included internet searches the woman had allegedly conducted for how to “buy Misoprostol abortion pill online.” The charges eventually were dropped. “There’s nothing to stop police from using Facebook ad-targeting data the same way they’ve been using Google’s data, as a mass digital dragnet,” Cahn said. Laura Lazaro Cabrera, a legal officer at London-based , said that even metadata, like the titles of webpages or URLs, can be revealing. Privacy International “Think about what you can learn from a URL that says something about scheduling an abortion,” she said. “Facebook is in the business of developing algorithms. They know what sorts of information can act as a proxy for personal data.” Getting Facebook to Fix the Problem Privacy experts have been warning for years that Facebook’s laissez-faire attitude toward how clients use its advertising technology is vulnerable to exploitation. After The Wall Street Journal and New York state regulators exposed how the social media behemoth collected sensitive user data from popular health apps that chart everything from heart rates to menstrual cycles, Facebook claimed to have implemented sophisticated filtering mechanisms to detect and prevent it from taking in sensitive health data. According to , the filters were supposed to block “70,000 terms related to topics such as sexual health and medical conditions.” the Journal But our investigation found that Facebook has continued to ingest data from webpages with obvious sexual health information— including ones with URLs that include phrases such as “post-abortion,” “i-think-im-pregnant,” and “abortion-pill.” Despite Facebook’s official policy prohibiting websites from sending it , it’s unclear what, if anything, the platform does to educate its advertising clients about the policy and proactively enforce it. sensitive health information One way for Facebook to prevent anti-abortion organizations from misusing its ad technology would be to strengthen the filters it already has in place or to discontinue the pixel tool entirely. But the reality, said Egelman of UC Berkeley, is that the company’s in advertising revenue creates a huge financial disincentive to block user information. $115 billion a year “This is their business. The more data they get, the more targeted advertising they can do, and that’s the gravy train for them: targeted ads,” he said. “If they’re proactive about cutting off sites like that, it impacts their revenue in multiple ways.” In the absence of Facebook action, Egelman says he thinks that the best fix is public pressure and tough legislation. That’s what happened last year, when critical backlash prompted Meta-owned Instagram to its plans for a kids’ version of its social media software. shelve While no comprehensive federal data privacy legislation currently exists in the United States, a called the American Data Privacy and Protection Act was released in early June that, if passed, could increase the Federal Trade Commission’s power to regulate and enforce how companies can use sensitive health data. draft of a bill Until then, however, it remains up to state legislatures to enact consumer privacy protections. Brandie Nonnecke, founding director of the CITRIS Policy Lab at UC Berkeley, said the European Union is creating stronger protections that would apply through the . Digital Services Act The new guidelines, which are awaiting formal approval by the European Parliament and E.U. Council, will require large online platforms, like Facebook, and search engines to proactively identify ways their systems could be abused and create strategies to prevent that misuse. “We’re not in a place where there is robust enough transparency and accountability on these data ecosystems and how they’re being used,” she said, “and especially the vulnerabilities to individuals.” By and Grace Oldham Dhruv Mehrotra Byard Duncan and Surya Mattu contributed to this story. It was edited by Nina Martin, Soo Oh, Rina Palta, and Andrew Donohue and copy edited by Nikki Frick. Grace Oldham can be reached at , and Dhruv Mehrotra can be reached at goldham@revealnews.org . Follow them on Twitter: dmehrotra@revealnews.org @grace_c_oldham and . @dmehro Also published here Photo by on Glen Carrie Unsplash

Facebook and Anti-Abortion Clinics Have Your Info 

Crypto Crash? Not Really... 

Looking for the best AR software for your app? This guide will help you choose from the 10 best AR programs that lead in 2022. Keep reading to find also our tips on what to consider while selecting an augmented reality platform. 4 Top Augmented Reality Platform Technologies Before deciding on the best AR programs, let’s first discuss the most popular AR technologies that you can implement into your app. Marker-Based AR This type of augmented reality is also known as image recognition or recognition-based AR. Augmentation happens when the camera recognizes a required marker. It could be an image, an object, a text, or a sound. A simple example is an AR book. Characters go live when you point a smartphone camera at the book. Face AR works almost the same way as marker-based, but the marker is a face. Face AR You've surely used this augmented reality platform technology. Snapchat filters and are the most vivid examples. Instagram face effects employs face recognition and tracking technology to let users apply 3D filters, Snapchat-like lenses, real-time makeovers, face masks, and avatars to augment user appearances. Face AR software This way, you drive user engagement, increase sessions, and boost in-app sales. This AR software type is a perfect match for the communication, e-commerce, education, advertising, and gaming industries. Let's imagine you run an e-commerce business. You integrate face augmented reality software and offer users a . virtual try-on feature This makes them excited as they can try before they buy. In turn, it boosts user engagement, increases session time, and drives sales. Want to Boost Sales with AR Software?Get a 14-Day Free Trial Right Now Location-Based AR This type of AR software solutions uses a smartphone’s GPS, camera, compass, and accelerometer to tie an object to a specific area. Pokemon GO is the best example. Users could spot virtual creatures at specific locations displayed on an in-app map. Projection-Based AR Frequently referred to as spatial AR, this technology allows the rendering of virtual objects in a physical space on or around the user. Activation happens when a user touches a surface lit by a projector to interact with virtual objects that are integrated into the environment. Users and virtual objects can move within a specified zone in the area where the projector and camera are placed. 10 Best AR Software Solutions in 2022 Meishe Meishe is one of the best Beijing-based augmented reality platforms. It offers face tracking and AR software along with a video editing SDK. The key features of Meishe's AR toolkits are 2D/3D masks, background separation, triggers, beautification, gesture recognition, etc. The core offerings by Meishe: Efficient and accurate face detection Rich sticker effects Beauty makeup Gesture detection Face prop making tools. What Brands Trust Meishe? Asus, Xiaomi, Oppo, Splice, and Vivo are using the AR software solutions by Meishe. How Much Does It Cost? The augmented reality platform offers a free trial period and requires contacting for getting pricing details. What Platforms Are Supported? Meishe's augmented reality SDK supports mobile, web, and desktop platforms. Banuba Face AR SDK Banuba is among the top face AR software focused on face-related augmented reality. The key product is called Face AR SDK. It is an advanced augmented reality platform with multiple features and a list of high-profile users. Face AR is about empowering your business with increased sessions, , and grown sales. better user engagement The 4 key modules of our SDK are: AR face filters Unity face tracking functionality AR beautification features Web AR software. They all are about real-time facial animated Snapchat-like 3D filters. Using face-tracking technology, we offer >1,000 ready-made AR effects. They include makeup, hair color, face morphing, background segmentation, beautification, game filters, LUTs, and . many others What's more, Banuba is among the few commercially available augmented reality kits with a . Try it right now in your browser. background segmentation for web apps What Brands Trust Banuba AR Software? Meta, Gucci, Samsung, Voicemod, Paltalk, and Smilegate are already using augmented reality platforms by Banuba. How Much Does It Cost? fully depends on the set of features you need. The more features you need, the higher is the subscription fee. Our pricing What Platforms Are Supported? Our augmented reality toolkit is compatible with iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Web, and Unity. DeepAR DeepAR enters the list of the 14 best AR programs with its advanced augmented reality SDK. Since 2014, the company has been employing scientists from MIT, ESIEE Paris, and other institutions to create next-gen AR software. They've created and released multiple augmented reality tools including: AR face filters Beautification & makeup tools Hair and background segmentation Emotion detection Body tracking. The company offers hundreds of ready-made 3D masks that you can try in real-time . here What's more, you can utilize Creator Studio - an all-in-one hub to combine masks, special effects, and filters. Simply put, it's a place where you can generate AR effects yourself. It improves user-generated content and increases user engagement along with in-app sessions. Also, the company offers the advertising augmented reality toolkit. It allows you to utilize premium AR ad units for web, iOS, Android, and Unity platforms. What Brands Trust DeepAR? Google, Coca-Cola, Lego, Tencent, and RayBan are using DeepAR's augmented reality platforms to drive sales. How Much Does It Cost? The product's pricing is based on monthly active users (MAUs). You can use its AR toolkits for free having up to 10 MAUs. What Platforms Are Supported? Supports mobile platforms, desktop, and web. ARGear/Seerslab Seerslab is a Korean AR software company serving augmented reality business needs since 2014. Its main product is ARGear SDK - an augmented reality toolkit for developers. It includes 3 main components: with key features AR SDK to create, manage and monitor your AR content Advanced console with >1,000 AR filters. Augmented reality content Simply put, it's an all-in-one toolbox for your AR business needs. From creating content to managing and monitoring its efficiency. ARGear focuses on 6 use cases: to drive adoption 5G to boost the shopping experience Commerce to drive a fun and unique streaming experience Live Streaming to increase engagement and interactivity Video Calls to empower your app with AR features AR Camera to change the way we see, imagine, and learn. Education What are the core features of AR SDK by ARGear? Facial Landmark Engine Facial Landmark Trigger 2D Animation Sticker / Effects Face Mask 3D Animation Sticker 3D Avatar Virtual Background What Brands Use ARGear? Samsung, eBay, LG, Pepsi, Codac, and Amway are utilizing easy to use augmented reality software by Seerslab. How Much Does It Cost? You can use it for free with limitations. The pricing depends on MAUs, content, and network usage if you need more. What Platforms Are Supported? The AR SDK supports Android, iOS, and Unity platforms. Vuforia One of the best software for augmented reality by Qualcomm, Vuforia serves AR needs successfully. Just to know, renowned Qualcomm was a leading company in building wireless communication means and SoC electronic microchips within its powerful R&D labs. Vuforia specializes in releasing AR software solutions for manufacturing, service, and marketing needs. BAE Systems, Toyota, Volvo Group, Howden, and Cannondale are well-known brands that use Vuforia's augmented reality SDK. How does this SDK work? It uses a QCAR library in C++ as the core element with real objects (image cube, cuboid, cylinder) and target rendering functionality. Simply put, QCAR recognizes real objects and lets your app array virtual objects in the required locations and proportions.  The key SDK features include: Extended Tracking & Smart Terrain Vuforia Object Scanner to recognize 2D/3D objects Text recognition with in-built 100,000-word English vocabulary VuMarks to detect barcodes that can contain data or act as markers Virtual buttons that can turn any surface into a touchscreen Smart glasses support Storing data on the device or in the Cloud. How Much Does It Cost? It has free and paid subscription plans with a free trial: Classic – $499 per time, Cloud – $99 per month, Pro for commercial use, Individual pricing. What Platforms Are Supported? Vuforia AR software solutions support Android, iOS, Universal Windows Platform, and Unity. Wikitude Wikitude is among the best AR programs and frameworks to create augmented reality apps. First launched back in 2008 by an Australian development company, Wikitude holds its top position in serving market AR needs. The company constantly enhances its AR SDK with the latest release in 2020. of the augmented reality toolkit are: The main features Object & scene tracking Instant image tracking Multiple image targets Cloud recognition Geo AR technologies AR bridge for integrations. The platform offers high flexibility for engineers to generate customized solutions and render objects. The one and only limitation is to use JavaScript code along with Wikitude JS or Native SDK. What Platforms Are Supported? The AR SDK supports Android, iOS, and Windows for tablets. How Much Does It Cost? Wikitude provides a free trial with watermarks and paid subscription plans (starting from €1,990 per app). ARKit ARKit is perhaps one of the most popular augmented reality software kits first introduced at WWDC 2017 by Apple. The leader of AR toolkits was designed specifically to create mobile AR apps for the iOS platform. This means ARKit is a perfect choice if you launch apps for iPhones and iPads. What's more, the product supports Arkit Unity with a unique feature: you no longer need to connect additional markers like iBeacon to orientate and route. The key AR SDK features include: 2D image detection and tracking 3D objects and space recognition; Multi shared AR experience for creating multiplayer AR games; Horizontal planes detection Lighting estimation Facial tracking. How Much Does It Cost? The ARKit augmented reality platform is open-source and free. ARCore ARCore is a top AR SDK software and Google's response to Apple's ARKit. The product was released back in 2018 and provides a great difference from its main competitor. ARCore supports both Android and iOS platforms and offers 3 core technologies: Motion tracking Environmental recognition Lighting recognition. They all help you embed virtual content into real environments. The AR SDK software's core is an advanced 3D model. It reacts to any changes in lighting and creates shades. What's more, mobile devices don't affect the model operation in space. This means generated targets are automatically attached to any environmental surfaces. of the augmented reality SDK include: The key features Phone’s motion and position tracking Lighting estimation Surface, size, and location detection to understand an environment Placing texts and virtual objects in a certain spot and sharing them with other app users; Working with Java/OpenGL, Unreal, and Unity; Creating 3D objects with Tilt Brush and Blocks VR building tools. What Platforms Are Supported? One of the best AR programs supports Android 7.0+, iOS 11+, Android NDK, Unity for Android, Unity для iOS, Unreal Engine. How Much Does It Cost? ARCore is completely open-source and free. MaxST MaxST AR SDK software is yet another powerful augmented reality toolkit for mobile development. The product focuses on industrial AR needs serving such global giants as KIA, Hyundai, Samsung, Nokia, LG, and others. MaxST AR software provides 2 different AR SDK software: a 2D toolkit for image tracking and 3D kit for scanning and recognizing surroundings. The latter offers : 8 key functions to place desired content in the space Instant tracker to extract feature points, track surroundings, and save them Visual SLAM to track targets and augment virtual objects on a map Object tracker to augment virtual contents by marker recognition & tracking Marker tracker to recognize target images and augment virtual contents Image tracker for a cloud-based image recognition service Cloud recognizer to augment virtual contents QR code tracker for fast and accurate results. QR/Barcode reader What Platforms Are Supported? MaxST supports Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS platforms. How Much Does It Cost? The augmented reality platform is available for free (with watermarks) and includes paid subscription EasyAR EasyAR is among the top yet underestimated AR software solutions released by an Asian company. It offers 3 AR products: AR Cloud, EasyAR Sense, and CRS. AR Cloud is a cloud-based augmented reality platform that empowers travel, real estate, education, and business marketing domains. EasyAR Sense is an advanced AR SDK to track motion, surface, 3D objects, and planar images. EasyAR Cloud Recognition Service (CRS) is a web platform offering cloud-based image recognition technologies and large databases. Compared to the above AR software solutions, the product doesn't provide an all-in-one built-in object manager. This means you can identify targets by regenerating previously defined 3D models. This way, objects are created in runtime. The key features of EasyAR include: image recognition 3D objects identification Cloud recognition Smart Glass employment AR-based screen recording Transition of files to storages export, import, and integration of assets. What Platforms Are Supported? The augmented reality tools support Android, iOS, UWP, Unity Editor, Windows, macOS. What Brands Use EasyAR? KFC, Vogue, and Pepsi utilize EasyAR solutions to drive their business. How Much Does It Cost? The augmented reality SDK is free but requires a generated key. 5 Tips to Choose Your Augmented Reality Platform In most cases, AR development is both pricey and time-consuming. These reasons make you often choose ready-to-use SDKs as they save resources on integrating AR into your products or services. Now we want to go through 5 tips and things you should consider while choosing AR software solutions. Let's take our Face AR SDK as an example. Launch Date If you need a quick product launch to occupy a niche or gain a competitive advantage in the market, then a proprietary SDK could be the best option. Our AR SDK software saves your development time. The matter is that our face AR features can be quickly integrated into your app. On the other hand, in-house development can take months or even years before these features go live. Development Costs Some open-source solutions like provide you with a set of ready-to-use features and modules. They can give you a good and fast start.But during the development process. OpenCV they require more investments In contrast, you know proprietary SDK licensing costs in advance. They are fixed and let you plan investments and activities transparently. What's more, you can integrate such AR features when you need them without limitations. AR Content Using open-source AR software could be enough for introducing basic AR technologies. But what happens if you need to create original AR content? It may include AR masks, filters, avatars, furniture, or virtual surface enhancements? This takes additional effort and may lead to higher costs and time spent by your business. This is especially true for face AR development. It requires solid niche experience and expertise. In this case, you can benefit from the native object libraries and tools for creating custom AR content like Face Filters SDK. Platforms Platform compatibility is another crucial aspect. For sure, you may want to run your apps on multiple platforms. The more platforms you cover, the more audience you get. But many AR software solutions focus solely on supporting 1 or 2 platforms. This brings limitations to your growth strategy. In contrast, proprietary solutions like Banuba SDK optimize technology for each platform. Feature Stack The more features an SDK offers, the more you can scale your app. But scalability may become an issue if AR software solutions solve narrow tasks only. This means you should choose a large-scale AR SDK with potential features you may want to add in the future. For sure, you may initially overpay for those features you don't currently use. But you will win anyway. Replacing your infrastructure and changing the AR software provider is way more pricey. Conclusion Augmented reality allows extending, enhancing, and modifying real-world objects around us via technology. And we hope our list of the 10 best AR programs helped you choose the most easy to use augmented reality software for your business. The blog post was originally published at . Banuba Blog

10 Best AR Software for Your Business App in 2022

A revolution in privacy, security, and data is coming. Are you ready?

PARIS, France, March 5th, 2024/Chainwire/--**Uniting Web3 Visionaries and Global Leaders. Following the success of its 2023 edition, the Proof of Talk summit, heralded as the Davos of Web3, is back for its second year and brings together thought leaders, investors, CEOs, founders, exchanges, digital asset managers, and regulatory authorities for networking and thought-provoking sessions. Held on 10 and 11 June at the historic Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre Palace at the heart of Paris, this summit has its sights on delivering a unique event with a highly-curated audience dedicated to shaping the future of blockchain and global policy. Last year, Proof of Talk welcomed over 1500 ecosystem participants, including key figures from Binance, VanEck, Ripple, and the World Economic Forum, alongside CEOs and founders of leading blockchain companies and government representatives. After the event distinguished investor, venture partner, and Proof of Talk attendee Leeor Groen, Managing Director, Spartan Group, aptly noted that it was “where Web3 meets the spirit of Davos.” The summit facilitated crucial discussions on rebuilding trust within Web3, reflecting the industry's need for a platform that encourages genuine engagement, meaningful connections, and strategic collaboration. With the SEC’s recent spot Bitcoin ETF approvals and the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation bringing more clarity to the space in Europe, the stage is truly set for widespread blockchain adoption and development of digital assets beyond cryptocurrency. This year’s conference harnesses and reflects this revitalization and will assemble blockchain and Web3 professionals from around the world to engage with C-level executives, explore partnerships, and generate investment opportunities that will reshape industries and create new paradigms. The highly-curated 2024 forum seeks to welcome over 2500 participants. Combined with a speaker lineup featuring CEOs, founders, and leaders of the Web3 and digital assets industry, the summit features impact-focused networking and a refined agenda. A few of the speakers include: ·     Joseph Lubin CEO and Founder at Consensys ·     Jenny Johnson, CEO, Franklin Templeton ·     Tim Draper, Founder, DFJ ·     Ophelia Snyder, Cofounder President, Ark 21 Shares ·     Mihailo Bjelic, Co-Founder, Polygon ·     Raoul Pal, Crypto Macro Economist ·     Yat Siu, Chairman, Animoca ·     John Wu, President, Ava Labs ·     Justin Sun, Founder, Tron ·     Marieke Flament, former CEO, Near Foundation ·     Dominic Williams, Founder, DFINITY ·     Björn Wagner, CEO, Parity technologies and Polkadot ·     Jon Fink Isaksen, Head of Policy, Uniswap ·     Matthew Siegel, Head of Digital Assets, Van Eck ·     Christopher Donovan, COO, NEAR Foundation ·     Lex Sokolin, Managing Partner, Generative Ventures ·     Digital asset leads from over 30 major TradFi banks ·     Partners from 100+ attending VCs The summit’s agenda also actively reflects Web3’s growing importance, with over 20 panels, 10+ workshops, and over five keynotes and firesides on key topics shaping Web3’s future. These include real world asset tokenization, AI-blockchain integration, gaming evolution, and smart contract security. Zohair Dehnadi, Co-Founder, Proof of Talk and Partner, X-Ventures: “We are overwhelmed by the positive feedback we received from our 2023 summit, with some attendees even sharing it reminded them of the World Economic Forum’s early days. We’re also delighted at all the interest from both speakers and potential sponsors for this year’s edition. “Right now, the industry is on the brink of a new era, and we’ve harnessed this enthusiasm to curate an event with the most influential people from Web3, digital assets, and traditional finance to shape the agenda of the future.” It’s important to provide an inspirational forum for these players, from founders and funds to legal experts and regulatory authorities, to engage in high-impact networking, share best practices, and have those necessary but tough discussions that will safely move the space forward. I’m proud to offer the industry such an exclusive experience at one of Paris’ most iconic locations, and am looking forward to seeing everyone in June!” About Proof of Talk Proof of Talk is setting a new standard in the Web3 conference landscape, positioning itself not just as another web3 conference but as a pivotal forum where the promise of decentralization comes to life. The summit uniquely combines the essence of traditional economic forums with the dynamic, decentralized Web3 community, fostering an innovative ecosystem of dialogue and action. It stands as a platform for change, where every voice, from the seasoned economist to the radical Web3 founder, contributes to a collective vision of a decentralized economic future. By facilitating engaging discussions and unparalleled networking, participants shape this new landscape. Learn more at www.proofoftalk.io About X Ventures X Ventures is a Germany-based digital assets investment fund dedicated to supporting and empowering entrepreneurs in the Web3 industry. Alongside its investment activities, X Ventures founded www.xschool.io, aiming to provide accessible education to future leaders worldwide. Contact Shanna Molina Cognito shanna.molina@cognitomedia.nl +31 6 18 72 87 55 This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here.

Proof Of Talk Returns To The Louvre Palace As Agenda-Setting Event For Web3

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Mr. Slope Bids Farewell to the Palace and Its Inhabitants here Mr. Slope Bids Farewell to the Palace and Its Inhabitants We must now take leave of Mr. Slope, and of the bishop also, and of Mrs. Proudie. These leave-takings in novels are as disagreeable as they are in real life; not so sad, indeed, for they want the reality of sadness; but quite as perplexing, and generally less satisfactory. What novelist, what Fielding, what Scott, what George Sand, or Sue, or Dumas, can impart an interest to the last chapter of his fictitious history? Promises of two children and superhuman happiness are of no avail, nor assurance of extreme respectability carried to an age far exceeding that usually allotted to mortals. The sorrows of our heroes and heroines, they are your delight, oh public!—their sorrows, or their sins, or their absurdities; not their virtues, good sense, and consequent rewards. When we begin to tint our final pages with , as in accordance with fixed rule we must do, we altogether extinguish our own powers of pleasing. When we become dull, we offend your intellect; and we must become dull or we should offend your taste. A late writer, wishing to sustain his interest to the last page, hung his hero at the end of the third volume. The consequence was that no one would read his novel. And who can apportion out and dovetail his incidents, dialogues, characters, and descriptive morsels so as to fit them all exactly into 930 pages, without either compressing them unnaturally, or extending them artificially at the end of his labour? Do I not myself know that I am at this moment in want of a dozen pages, and that I am sick with cudgelling my brains to find them? And then, when everything is done, the kindest-hearted critic of them all invariably twits us with the incompetency and lameness of our conclusion. We have either become idle and neglected it, or tedious and overlaboured it. It is insipid or unnatural, overstrained or imbecile. It means nothing, or attempts too much. The last scene of all, as all last scenes we fear must be, couleur de rose Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. I can only say that if some critic who thoroughly knows his work, and has laboured on it till experience has made him perfect, will write the last fifty pages of a novel in the way they should be written, I, for one, will in future do my best to copy the example. Guided by my own lights only, I confess that I despair of success. For the last week or ten days Mr. Slope had seen nothing of Mrs. Proudie, and very little of the bishop. He still lived in the palace, and still went through his usual routine work; but the confidential doings of the diocese had passed into other hands. He had seen this clearly and marked it well, but it had not much disturbed him. He had indulged in other hopes till the bishop's affairs had become dull to him, and he was moreover aware that, as regarded the diocese, Mrs. Proudie had checkmated him. It has been explained, in the beginning of these pages, how three or four were contending together as to who, in fact, should be Bishop of Barchester. Each of these had now admitted to himself (or boasted to herself) that Mrs. Proudie was victorious in the struggle. They had gone through a competitive examination of considerable severity, and she had come forth the winner, . Mr. Slope had for a moment run her hard, but it was only for a moment. It had become, as it were, acknowledged that Hiram's Hospital should be the testing-point between them, and now Mr. Quiverful was already in the hospital, the proof of Mrs. Proudie's skill and courage. facile princeps All this did not break down Mr. Slope's spirit, because he had other hopes. But, alas, at last there came to him a note from his friend Sir Nicholas, informing him that the deanship was disposed of. Let us give Mr. Slope his due. He did not lie prostrate under this blow, or give himself up to vain lamentations; he did not henceforward despair of life and call upon gods above and gods below to carry him off. He sat himself down in his chair, counted out what monies he had in hand for present purposes and what others were coming in to him, bethought himself as to the best sphere for his future exertions, and at once wrote off a letter to a rich sugar-refiner's wife in Baker Street, who, as he well knew, was much given to the entertainment and encouragement of serious young evangelical clergymen. He was again, he said, "upon the world, having found the air of a cathedral town, and the very nature of cathedral services, uncongenial to his spirit;" and then he sat awhile, making firm resolves as to his manner of parting from the bishop, and also as to his future conduct. At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue (black), To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. Having received a formal command to wait upon the bishop, he rose and proceeded to obey it. He rang the bell and desired the servant to inform his master that, if it suited his lordship, he, Mr. Slope, was ready to wait upon him. The servant, who well understood that Mr. Slope was no longer in the ascendant, brought back a message saying that "his lordship desired that Mr. Slope would attend him immediately in his study." Mr. Slope waited about ten minutes more to prove his independence, and then he went into the bishop's room. There, as he had expected, he found Mrs. Proudie, together with her husband. "Hum, ha—Mr. Slope, pray take a chair," said the gentleman bishop. "Pray be seated, Mr. Slope," said the lady bishop. "Thank ye, thank ye," said Mr. Slope, and walking round to the fire, he threw himself into one of the armchairs that graced the hearth-rug. "Mr. Slope," said the bishop, "it has become necessary that I should speak to you definitively on a matter that has for some time been pressing itself on my attention." "May I ask whether the subject is in any way connected with myself?" said Mr. Slope. "It is so—certainly—yes, it certainly is connected with yourself, Mr. Slope." "Then, my lord, if I may be allowed to express a wish, I would prefer that no discussion on the subject should take place between us in the presence of a third person." "Don't alarm yourself, Mr. Slope," said Mrs. Proudie, "no discussion is at all necessary. The bishop merely intends to express his own wishes." "I merely intend, Mr. Slope, to express my own wishes—no discussion will be at all necessary," said the bishop, reiterating his wife's words. "That is more, my lord, than we any of us can be sure of," said Mr. Slope; "I cannot, however, force Mrs. Proudie to leave the room; nor can I refuse to remain here if it be your lordship's wish that I should do so." "It is his lordship's wish, certainly," said Mrs. Proudie. "Mr. Slope," began the bishop in a solemn, serious voice, "it grieves me to have to find fault. It grieves me much to have to find fault with a clergyman—but especially so with a clergyman in your position." "Why, what have I done amiss, my lord?" demanded Mr. Slope boldly. "What have you done amiss, Mr. Slope?" said Mrs. Proudie, standing erect before the culprit and raising that terrible forefinger. "Do you dare to ask the bishop what you have done amiss? Does not your conscience—" "Mrs. Proudie, pray let it be understood, once for all, that I will have no words with you." "Ah, sir, but you will have words," said she; "you must have words. Why have you had so many words with that Signora Neroni? Why have you disgraced yourself, you a clergyman, too, by constantly consorting with such a woman as that—with a married woman—with one altogether unfit for a clergyman's society?" "At any rate I was introduced to her in your drawing-room," retorted Mr. Slope. "And shamefully you behaved there," said Mrs. Proudie; "most shamefully. I was wrong to allow you to remain in the house a day after what I then saw. I should have insisted on your instant dismissal." "I have yet to learn, Mrs. Proudie, that you have the power to insist either on my going from hence or on my staying here." "What!" said the lady. "I am not to have the privilege of saying who shall and who shall not frequent my own drawing-room! I am not to save my servants and dependants from having their morals corrupted by improper conduct! I am not to save my own daughters from impurity! I will let you see, Mr. Slope, whether I have the power or whether I have not. You will have the goodness to understand that you no longer fill any situation about the bishop, and as your room will be immediately wanted in the palace for another chaplain, I must ask you to provide yourself with apartments as soon as may be convenient to you." "My lord," said Mr. Slope, appealing to the bishop, and so turning his back completely on the lady, "will you permit me to ask that I may have from your own lips any decision that you may have come to on this matter?" "Certainly, Mr. Slope, certainly," said the bishop; "that is but reasonable. Well, my decision is that you had better look for some other preferment. For the situation which you have lately held I do not think that you are well suited." "And what, my lord, has been my fault?" "That Signora Neroni is one fault," said Mrs. Proudie; "and a very abominable fault she is; very abominable and very disgraceful. Fie, Mr. Slope, fie! You an evangelical clergyman indeed!" "My lord, I desire to know for what fault I am turned out of your lordship's house." "You hear what Mrs. Proudie says," said the bishop. "When I publish the history of this transaction, my lord, as I decidedly shall do in my own vindication, I presume you will not wish me to state that you have discarded me at your wife's bidding—because she has objected to my being acquainted with another lady, the daughter of one of the prebendaries of the chapter?" "You may publish what you please, sir," said Mrs. Proudie. "But you will not be insane enough to publish any of your doings in Barchester. Do you think I have not heard of your kneelings at that creature's feet—that is, if she has any feet—and of your constant slobbering over her hand? I advise you to beware, Mr. Slope, of what you do and say. Clergymen have been unfrocked for less than what you have been guilty of." "My lord, if this goes on I shall be obliged to indict this woman—Mrs. Proudie I mean—for defamation of character." "I think, Mr. Slope, you had better now retire," said the bishop. "I will enclose to you a cheque for any balance that may be due to you; under the present circumstances, it will of course be better for all parties that you should leave the palace at the earliest possible moment. I will allow you for your journey back to London and for your maintenance in Barchester for a week from this date." "If, however, you wish to remain in this neighbourhood;" said Mrs. Proudie, "and will solemnly pledge yourself never again to see that woman, and will promise also to be more circumspect in your conduct, the bishop will mention your name to Mr. Quiverful, who now wants a curate at Puddingdale. The house is, I imagine, quite sufficient for your requirements, and there will moreover be a stipend of fifty pounds a year." "May God forgive you, madam, for the manner in which you have treated me," said Mr. Slope, looking at her with a very heavenly look; "and remember this, madam, that you yourself may still have a fall;" and he looked at her with a very worldly look. "As to the bishop, I pity him!" And so saying, Mr. Slope left the room. Thus ended the intimacy of the Bishop of Barchester with his first confidential chaplain. Mrs. Proudie was right in this; namely, that Mr. Slope was not insane enough to publish to the world any of his doings in Barchester. He did not trouble his friend Mr. Towers with any written statement of the iniquity of Mrs. Proudie, or the imbecility of her husband. He was aware that it would be wise in him to drop for the future all allusion to his doings in the cathedral city. Soon after the interview just recorded he left Barchester, shaking the dust off his feet as he entered the railway carriage; and he gave no longing, lingering look after the cathedral towers as the train hurried him quickly out of their sight. It is well known that the family of the Slopes never starve: they always fall on their feet, like cats; and let them fall where they will, they live on the fat of the land. Our Mr. Slope did so. On his return to town he found that the sugar-refiner had died and that his widow was inconsolable—in other words, in want of consolation. Mr. Slope consoled her, and soon found himself settled with much comfort in the house in Baker Street. He possessed himself, also, before long, of a church in the vicinity of the Red Road, and became known to fame as one of the most eloquent preachers and pious clergymen in that part of the metropolis. There let us leave him. Of the bishop and his wife very little further need be said. From that time forth nothing material occurred to interrupt the even course of their domestic harmony. Very speedily, a further vacancy on the bench of bishops gave to Dr. Proudie the seat in the House of Lords, which he at first so anxiously longed for. But by this time he had become a wiser man. He did certainly take his seat, and occasionally registered a vote in favour of Government views on ecclesiastical matters. But he had thoroughly learnt that his proper sphere of action lay in close contiguity with Mrs. Proudie's wardrobe. He never again aspired to disobey, or seemed even to wish for autocratic diocesan authority. If ever he thought of freedom, he did so as men think of the millennium, as of a good time which may be coming, but which nobody expects to come in their day. Mrs. Proudie might be said still to bloom, and was, at any rate, strong, and the bishop had no reason to apprehend that he would be speedily visited with the sorrows of a widower's life. He is still Bishop of Barchester. He has so graced that throne that the Government has been averse to translate him, even to higher dignities. There may he remain, under safe pupilage, till the newfangled manners of the age have discovered him to be superannuated and bestowed on him a pension. As for Mrs. Proudie, our prayers for her are that she may live forever. 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. Anthony Trollope (2002). Barchester Towers. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3409/pg3409-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

Mr. Slope Bids Farewell to the Palace and Its Inhabitants

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Our Paladin in His Glory here Our Paladin in His Glory WE WERE doomed to suffer tedious waits and delays, and we settled ourselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting the slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when God should please to send it. The Paladin was the only exception—that is to say, he was the only one who was happy and had no heavy times. This was partly owing to the satisfaction he got out of his clothes. He bought them at second hand—a Spanish cavalier’s complete suit, wide-brimmed hat with flowing plumes, lace collar and cuffs, faded velvet doublet and trunks, short cloak hung from the shoulder, funnel-topped buskins, long rapier, and all that—a graceful and picturesque costume, and the Paladin’s great frame was the right place to hang it for effect. He wore it when off duty; and when he swaggered by with one hand resting on the hilt of his rapier, and twirling his new mustache with the other, everybody stopped to look and admire; and well they might, for he was a fine and stately contrast to the small French gentlemen of the day squeezed into the trivial French costume of the time. He was king bee of the little village that snuggled under the shelter of the frowning towers and bastions of Courdray Castle, and acknowledged lord of the tap-room of the inn. When he opened his mouth there, he got a hearing. Those simple artisans and peasants listened with deep and wondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world—all of it that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate—and that was a wide stretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been in battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and surprises, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk, hero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was the pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were his obliged and willing servants. Most people who have the narrative gift—that great and rare endowment—have with it the defect of telling their choice things over the same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound stale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with the Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and interesting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it was the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but always made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties on the enemy’s side each time, and more general wreck and disaster all around, and more widows and orphans and suffering in the neighborhood where it happened. He could not tell his battles apart himself, except by their names; and by the time he had told one of then ten times it had grown so that there wasn’t room enough in France for it any more, but was lapping over the edges. But up to that point the audience would not allow him to substitute a new battle, knowing that the old ones were the best, and sure to improve as long as France could hold them; and so, instead of saying to him as they would have said to another, “Give us something fresh, we are fatigued with that old thing,” they would say, with one voice and with a strong interest, “Tell about the surprise at Beaulieu again—tell it three or four times!” That is a compliment which few narrative experts have heard in their lifetime. At first when the Paladin heard us tell about the glories of the Royal Audience he was broken-hearted because he was not taken with us to it; next, his talk was full of what he would have done if he had been there; and within two days he was telling what he did do when he was there. His mill was fairly started, now, and could be trusted to take care of its affair. Within three nights afterward all his battles were taking a rest, for already his worshipers in the tap-room were so infatuated with the great tale of the Royal Audience that they would have nothing else, and so besotted with it were they that they would have cried if they could not have gotten it. Noel Rainguesson hid himself and heard it, and came and told me, and after that we went together to listen, bribing the inn hostess to let us have her little private parlor, where we could stand at the wickets in the door and see and hear. The tap-room was large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting little tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor, and its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a comfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights as these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping their wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly way while they waited for the historian. The host, the hostess, and their pretty daughter were flying here and there and yonder among the tables and doing their best to keep up with the orders. The room was about forty feet square, and a space or aisle down the center of it had been kept vacant and reserved for the Paladin’s needs. At the end of it was a platform ten or twelve feet wide, with a big chair and a small table on it, and three steps leading up to it. Among the wine-sippers were many familiar faces: the cobbler, the farrier, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the armorer, the maltster, the weaver, the baker, the miller’s man with his dusty coat, and so on; and conscious and important, as a matter of course, was the barber-surgeon, for he is that in all villages. As he has to pull everybody’s teeth and purge and bleed all the grown people once a month to keep their health sound, he knows everybody, and by constant contact with all sorts of folk becomes a master of etiquette and manners and a conversationalist of large facility. There were plenty of carriers, drovers, and their sort, and journeymen artisans. When the Paladin presently came sauntering indolently in, he was received with a cheer, and the barber hustled forward and greeted him with several low and most graceful and courtly bows, also taking his hand and touching his lips to it. Then he called in a loud voice for a stoup of wine for the Paladin, and when the host’s daughter brought it up on the platform and dropped her courtesy and departed, the barber called after her, and told her to add the wine to his score. This won him ejaculations of approval, which pleased him very much and made his little rat-eyes shine; and such applause is right and proper, for when we do a liberal and gallant thing it is but natural that we should wish to see notice taken of it. The barber called upon the people to rise and drink the Paladin’s health, and they did it with alacrity and affectionate heartiness, clashing their metal flagons together with a simultaneous crash, and heightening the effect with a resounding cheer. It was a fine thing to see how that young swashbuckler had made himself so popular in a strange land in so little a while, and without other helps to his advancement than just his tongue and the talent to use it given him by God—a talent which was but one talent in the beginning, but was now become ten through husbandry and the increment and usufruct that do naturally follow that and reward it as by a law. The people sat down and began to hammer on the tables with their flagons and call for “the King’s Audience!—the King’s Audience!—the King’s Audience!” The Paladin stood there in one of his best attitudes, with his plumed great hat tipped over to the left, the folds of his short cloak drooping from his shoulder, and the one hand resting upon the hilt of his rapier and the other lifting his beaker. As the noise died down he made a stately sort of a bow, which he had picked up somewhere, then fetched his beaker with a sweep to his lips and tilted his head back and drained it to the bottom. The barber jumped for it and set it upon the Paladin’s table. Then the Paladin began to walk up and down his platform with a great deal of dignity and quite at his ease; and as he walked he talked, and every little while stopped and stood facing his house and so standing continued his talk. We went three nights in succession. It was plain that there was a charm about the performance that was apart from the mere interest which attaches to lying. It was presently discoverable that this charm lay in the Paladin’s sincerity. He was not lying consciously; he believed what he was saying. To him, his initial statements were facts, and whenever he enlarged a statement, the enlargement became a fact too. He put his heart into his extravagant narrative, just as a poet puts his heart into a heroic fiction, and his earnestness disarmed criticism—disarmed it as far as he himself was concerned. Nobody believed his narrative, but all believed that he believed it. He made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so casually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made. He spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the governor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle the governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father. He did not seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they dropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way. By his first night’s account the governor merely attached him to the Maid’s military escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his uncle the governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear guard; the third night his father the governor put the whole command, Maid and all, in his special charge. The first night the governor spoke of him as a youth without name or ancestry, but “destined to achieve both”; the second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the latest and worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of him as the lineal descendent of the whole dozen. In three nights he promoted the Count of Vendome from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then brother-in-law. At the King’s Audience everything grew, in the same way. First the four silver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and by that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to lengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate them. Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large way. The first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and exaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third night he added illustration to description. He throned the barber in his own high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court watched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment, expecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept permanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would follow. He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever of excitement and anticipation, then came his climax. Turning to the barber, he said: “But mark you what she did. She gazed steadfastly upon that sham’s villain face as I now gaze upon yours—this being her noble and simple attitude, just as I stand now—then turned she—thus—to me, and stretching her arm out—so—and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a battle, ‘Pluck me this false knave from the throne!’ I, striding forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him aloft—thus—as if he had been but a child.” (The house rose, shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this magnificent exhibition of strength—and there was not the shadow of a laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber hanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was a thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) “Then I set him down upon his feet—thus—being minded to get him by a better hold and heave him out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he escaped with his life. “Then she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of hers, which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom looketh out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the kernel of truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon a young man modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he truly was, saying, ‘I am thy servant—thou art the King!’ Then all were astonished, and a great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in it, so that the walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it.” He made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience, augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities; then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head which the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made his conclusion—thus: “Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously—as indeed was her desert—and, turning to me, said, ‘Take this signet-ring, son of the Paladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,’ said he, touching my temple, ‘preserve this brain, France has use for it; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be hooped with a ducal coronet one day.’ I took the ring, and knelt and kissed his hand, saying, ‘Sire, where glory calls, there will I be found; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when France and the throne need help—well, I say nothing, for I am not of the talking sort—let my deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.’ “So ended the most fortunate and memorable episode, so big with future weal for the crown and the nation, and unto God be the thanks! Rise! Fill your flagons! Now—to France and the King—drink!” They emptied them to the bottom, then burst into cheers and huzzas, and kept it up as much as two minutes, the Paladin standing at stately ease the while and smiling benignantly from his platform. 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. Mark Twain (2004). Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2874/pg2874-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

Our Paladin in His Glory

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . The Paladin Groans and Boasts here The Paladin Groans and Boasts WE WERE twenty-five strong, and well equipped. We rode in double file, Joan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz at the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear. In two or three hours we should be in the enemy’s country, and then none would venture to desert. By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and execrations from different points along the line, and upon inquiry found that six of our men were peasants who had never ridden a horse before, and were finding it very difficult to stay in their saddles, and moreover were now beginning to suffer considerable bodily torture. They had been seized by the governor at the last moment and pressed into the service to make up the tale, and he had placed a veteran alongside of each with orders to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he tried to desert. These poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could, but their physical miseries were become so sharp by this time that they were obliged to give them vent. But we were within the enemy’s country now, so there was no help for them, they must continue the march, though Joan said that if they chose to take the risk they might depart. They preferred to stay with us. We modified our pace now, and moved cautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their sorrows to themselves and not get the command into danger with their curses and lamentations. Toward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all but the sentries were sound asleep in spite of the cold ground and the frosty air. I woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying sleep that at first my wits were all astray, and I did not know where I was nor what had been happening. Then my senses cleared, and I remembered. As I lay there thinking over the strange events of the past month or two the thought came into my mind, greatly surprising me, that one of Joan’s prophecies had failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who were to join us at the eleventh hour? By this time, you see, I had gotten used to expecting everything Joan said to come true. So, being disturbed and troubled by these thoughts, I opened my eyes. Well, there stood the Paladin leaning against a tree and looking down on me! How often that happens; you think of a person, or speak of a person, and there he stands before you, and you not dreaming he is near. It looks as if his being near is really the thing that makes you think of him, and not just an accident, as people imagine. Well, be that as it may, there was the Paladin, anyway, looking down in my face and waiting for me to wake. I was ever so glad to see him, and jumped up and shook him by the hand, and led him a little way from the camp—he limping like a cripple—and told him to sit down, and said: “Now, where have you dropped down from? And how did you happen to light in this place? And what do the soldier-clothes mean? Tell me all about it.” He answered: “I marched with you last night.” “No!” (To myself I said, “The prophecy has not all failed—half of it has come true.”) “Yes, I did. I hurried up from Domremy to join, and was within a half a minute of being too late. In fact, I was too late, but I begged so hard that the governor was touched by my brave devotion to my country’s cause—those are the words he used—and so he yielded, and allowed me to come.” I thought to myself, this is a lie, he is one of those six the governor recruited by force at the last moment; I know it, for Joan’s prophecy said he would join at the eleventh hour, but not by his own desire. Then I said aloud: “I am glad you came; it is a noble cause, and one should not sit at home in times like these.” “Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid in the clouds when the storm calls it.” “That is the right talk. It sounds like you.” That pleased him. “I’m glad you know me. Some don’t. But they will, presently. They will know me well enough before I get done with this war.” “That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you will make yourself conspicuous.” He was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder. He said: “If I know myself—and I think I do—my performances in this campaign will give you occasion more than once to remember those words.” “I were a fool to doubt it. That I know.” “I shall not be at my best, being but a common soldier; still, the country will hear of me. If I were where I belong; if I were in the place of La Hire, or Saintrailles, or the Bastard of Orleans—well, I say nothing. I am not of the talking kind, like Noel Rainguesson and his sort, I thank God. But it will be something, I take it—a novelty in this world, I should say—to raise the fame of a private soldier above theirs, and extinguish the glory of their names with its shadow.” “Why, look here, my friend,” I said, “do you know that you have hit out a most remarkable idea there? Do you realize the gigantic proportions of it? For look you; to be a general of vast renown, what is that? Nothing—history is clogged and confused with them; one cannot keep their names in his memory, there are so many. But a common soldier of supreme renown—why, he would stand alone! He would the be one moon in a firmament of mustard-seed stars; his name would outlast the human race! My friend, who gave you that idea?” He was ready to burst with happiness, but he suppressed betrayal of it as well as he could. He simply waved the compliment aside with his hand and said, with complacency: “It is nothing. I have them often—ideas like that—and even greater ones. I do not consider this one much.” “You astonish me; you do, indeed. So it is really your own?” “Quite. And there is plenty more where it came from”—tapping his head with his finger, and taking occasion at the same time to cant his morion over his right ear, which gave him a very self-satisfied air—“I do not need to borrow my ideas, like Noel Rainguesson.” “Speaking of Noel, when did you see him last?” “Half an hour ago. He is sleeping yonder like a corpse. Rode with us last night.” I felt a great upleap in my heart, and said to myself, now I am at rest and glad; I will never doubt her prophecies again. Then I said aloud: “It gives me joy. It makes me proud of our village. There is not keeping our lion-hearts at home in these great times, I see that.” “Lion-heart! Who—that baby? Why, he begged like a dog to be let off. Cried, and said he wanted to go to his mother. Him a lion-heart!—that tumble-bug!” “Dear me, why I supposed he volunteered, of course. Didn’t he?” “Oh, yes, he volunteered the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he found I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement. Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran there, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and he begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the governor allowed me to join, but wouldn’t let Noel off, because he was disgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he’ll do the King’s service; he’ll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a pygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!” “Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and disappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow.” The Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said: “I don’t see how you can talk like that, I’m sure I don’t. I don’t see how you could have got such a notion. I don’t dislike him, and I’m not saying these things out of prejudice, for I don’t allow myself to have prejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him from the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults, and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they’ll bear inspection—I have that idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn’t the saddle hurt me? Pooh—I was as much at home in it as if I had been born there. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those old soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything like it. But him—why, they had to hold him on, all the time.” An odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin unconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and limped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse. At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite, and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick. If this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness seemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind it; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work of Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and perfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light heart had to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the Paladin had only needed development in order to meet its requirements, consequently the development was taken in hand and diligently attended to and looked after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect and damage of far more important concerns. The result was an unqualified success. Noel prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else’s; the Paladin preferred anybody’s to Noel’s. The big fellow was often seen with the little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is often seen with the gnat. With the first opportunity, I had a talk with Noel. I welcomed him to our expedition, and said: “It was fine and brave of you to volunteer, Noel.” His eye twinkled, and he answered: “Yes, it was rather fine, I think. Still, the credit doesn’t all belong to me; I had help.” “Who helped you?” “The governor.” “How?” “Well, I’ll tell you the whole thing. I came up from Domremy to see the crowds and the general show, for I hadn’t ever had any experience of such things, of course, and this was a great opportunity; but I hadn’t any mind to volunteer. I overtook the Paladin on the road and let him have my company the rest of the way, although he did not want it and said so; and while we were gawking and blinking in the glare of the governor’s torches they seized us and four more and added us to the escort, and that is really how I came to volunteer. But, after all, I wasn’t sorry, remembering how dull life would have been in the village without the Paladin.” “How did he feel about it? Was he satisfied?” “I think he was glad.” “Why?” “Because he said he wasn’t. He was taken by surprise, you see, and it is not likely that he could tell the truth without preparation. Not that he would have prepared, if he had had the chance, for I do not think he would. I am not charging him with that. In the same space of time that he could prepare to speak the truth, he could also prepare to lie; besides, his judgment would be cool then, and would warn him against fooling with new methods in an emergency. No, I am sure he was glad, because he said he wasn’t.” “Do you think he was very glad?” “Yes, I know he was. He begged like a slave, and bawled for his mother. He said his health was delicate, and he didn’t know how to ride a horse, and he knew he couldn’t outlive the first march. But really he wasn’t looking as delicate as he was feeling. There was a cask of wine there, a proper lift for four men. The governor’s temper got afire, and he delivered an oath at him that knocked up the dust where it struck the ground, and told him to shoulder that cask or he would carve him to cutlets and send him home in a basket. The Paladin did it, and that secured his promotion to a privacy in the escort without any further debate.” “Yes, you seem to make it quite plain that he was glad to join—that is, if your premises are right that you start from. How did he stand the march last night?” “About as I did. If he made the more noise, it was the privilege of his bulk. We stayed in our saddles because we had help. We are equally lame to-day, and if he likes to sit down, let him; I prefer to stand.” 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. Mark Twain (2004). Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2874/pg2874-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

The Paladin Groans and Boasts

Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. A BEGGAR'S PALACE CHAPTER V. A BEGGAR'S PALACE That I had said something, in the act of waking, I felt sure: the hoarse stifled cry was still ringing in my ears, even if the startled look of my fellow-traveler had not been evidence enough: but what could I possibly say by way of apology? “I hope I didn't frighten you?” I stammered out at last. “I have no idea what I said. I was dreaming.” “You said 'Uggug indeed!'” the young lady replied, with quivering lips that would curve themselves into a smile, in spite of all her efforts to look grave. “At least—you didn't say it—you shouted it!” “I'm very sorry,” was all I could say, feeling very penitent and helpless. “She has Sylvie's eyes!” I thought to myself, half-doubting whether, even now, I were fairly awake. “And that sweet look of innocent wonder is all Sylvie's too. But Sylvie hasn't got that calm resolute mouth nor that far-away look of dreamy sadness, like one that has had some deep sorrow, very long ago—” And the thick-coming fancies almost prevented my hearing the lady's next words. “If you had had a 'Shilling Dreadful' in your hand,” she proceeded, “something about Ghosts or Dynamite or Midnight Murder—one could understand it: those things aren't worth the shilling, unless they give one a Nightmare. But really—with only a medical treatise, you know—” and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt, at the book over which I had fallen asleep. Her friendliness, and utter unreserve, took me aback for a moment; yet there was no touch of forwardness, or boldness, about the child for child, almost, she seemed to be: I guessed her at scarcely over twenty—all was the innocent frankness of some angelic visitant, new to the ways of earth and the conventionalisms or, if you will, the barbarisms—of Society. “Even so,” I mused, “will Sylvie look and speak, in another ten years.” “You don't care for Ghosts, then,” I ventured to suggest, “unless they are really terrifying?” “Quite so,” the lady assented. “The regular Railway-Ghosts—I mean the Ghosts of ordinary Railway-literature—are very poor affairs. I feel inclined to say, with Alexander Selkirk, 'Their tameness is shocking to me'! And they never do any Midnight Murders. They couldn't 'welter in gore,' to save their lives!” “'Weltering in gore' is a very expressive phrase, certainly. Can it be done in any fluid, I wonder?” “I think not,” the lady readily replied—quite as if she had thought it out, long ago. “It has to be something thick. For instance, you might welter in bread-sauce. That, being white, would be more suitable for a Ghost, supposing it wished to welter!” “You have a real good terrifying Ghost in that book?” I hinted. “How could you guess?” she exclaimed with the most engaging frankness, and placed the volume in my hands. I opened it eagerly, with a not unpleasant thrill (like what a good ghost-story gives one) at the 'uncanny' coincidence of my having so unexpectedly divined the subject of her studies. It was a book of Domestic Cookery, open at the article Bread Sauce.' I returned the book, looking, I suppose, a little blank, as the lady laughed merrily at my discomfiture. “It's far more exciting than some of the modern ghosts, I assure you! Now there was a Ghost last month—I don't mean a real Ghost in in Supernature—but in a Magazine. It was a perfectly flavourless Ghost. It wouldn't have frightened a mouse! It wasn't a Ghost that one would even offer a chair to!” “Three score years and ten, baldness, and spectacles, have their advantages after all!”, I said to myself. “Instead of a bashful youth and maiden, gasping out monosyllables at awful intervals, here we have an old man and a child, quite at their ease, talking as if they had known each other for years! Then you think,” I continued aloud, “that we ought sometimes to ask a Ghost to sit down? But have we any authority for it? In Shakespeare, for instance—there are plenty of ghosts there—does Shakespeare ever give the stage-direction 'hands chair to Ghost'?” The lady looked puzzled and thoughtful for a moment: then she almost clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, he does!” she cried. “He makes Hamlet say 'Rest, rest, perturbed Spirit!”' “And that, I suppose, means an easy-chair?” “An American rocking-chair, I think—” “Fayfield Junction, my Lady, change for Elveston!” the guard announced, flinging open the door of the carriage: and we soon found ourselves, with all our portable property around us, on the platform. The accommodation, provided for passengers waiting at this Junction, was distinctly inadequate—a single wooden bench, apparently intended for three sitters only: and even this was already partially occupied by a very old man, in a smock frock, who sat, with rounded shoulders and drooping head, and with hands clasped on the top of his stick so as to make a sort of pillow for that wrinkled face with its look of patient weariness. “Come, you be off!” the Station-master roughly accosted the poor old man. “You be off, and make way for your betters! This way, my Lady!” he added in a perfectly different tone. “If your Ladyship will take a seat, the train will be up in a few minutes.” The cringing servility of his manner was due, no doubt, to the address legible on the pile of luggage, which announced their owner to be “Lady Muriel Orme, passenger to Elveston, via Fayfield Junction.” As I watched the old man slowly rise to his feet, and hobble a few paces down the platform, the lines came to my lips:— “From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,
    With toil his stiffen'd limbs he rear'd;
    A hundred years had flung their snows
    On his thin locks and floating beard.” {Image...'Come, you be off!'} But the lady scarcely noticed the little incident. After one glance at the 'banished man,' who stood tremulously leaning on his stick, she turned to me. “This is not an American rocking-chair, by any means! Yet may I say,” slightly changing her place, so as to make room for me beside her, “may I say, in Hamlet's words, 'Rest, rest—'” she broke off with a silvery laugh. “—perturbed Spirit!”' I finished the sentence for her. “Yes, that describes a railway-traveler exactly! And here is an instance of it,” I added, as the tiny local train drew up alongside the platform, and the porters bustled about, opening carriage-doors—one of them helping the poor old man to hoist himself into a third-class carriage, while another of them obsequiously conducted the lady and myself into a first-class. She paused, before following him, to watch the progress of the other passenger. “Poor old man!” she said. “How weak and ill he looks! It was a shame to let him be turned away like that. I'm very sorry—” At this moment it dawned on me that these words were not addressed to me, but that she was unconsciously thinking aloud. I moved away a few steps, and waited to follow her into the carriage, where I resumed the conversation. “Shakespeare must have traveled by rail, if only in a dream: 'perturbed Spirit' is such a happy phrase.” “'Perturbed' referring, no doubt,” she rejoined, “to the sensational booklets peculiar to the Rail. If Steam has done nothing else, it has at least added a whole new Species to English Literature!” “No doubt of it,” I echoed. “The true origin of all our medical books—and all our cookery-books—” “No, no!” she broke in merrily. “I didn't mean our Literature! We are quite abnormal. But the booklets—the little thrilling romances, where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty—surely they are due to Steam?” “And when we travel by Electricity if I may venture to develop your theory we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and the Wedding will come on the same page.” “A development worthy of Darwin!”, the lady exclaimed enthusiastically. “Only you reverse his theory. Instead of developing a mouse into an elephant, you would develop an elephant into a mouse!” But here we plunged into a tunnel, and I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to recall a few of the incidents of my recent dream. “I thought I saw—” I murmured sleepily: and then the phrase insisted on conjugating itself, and ran into “you thought you saw—he thought he saw—” and then it suddenly went off into a song:— “He thought he saw an Elephant,
    That practised on a fife:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A letter from his wife.
    'At length I realise,' he said,
    “The bitterness of Life!'” And what a wild being it was who sang these wild words! A Gardener he seemed to be yet surely a mad one, by the way he brandished his rake—madder, by the way he broke, ever and anon, into a frantic jig—maddest of all, by the shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza! {Image....The gardener} It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of an Elephant: but the rest of him was skin and bone: and the wisps of loose straw, that bristled all about him, suggested that he had been originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come out. Sylvie and Bruno waited patiently till the end of the first verse. Then Sylvie advanced alone (Bruno having suddenly turned shy) and timidly introduced herself with the words “Please, I'm Sylvie!” “And who's that other thing?', said the Gardener. “What thing?” said Sylvie, looking round. “Oh, that's Bruno. He's my brother.” “Was he your brother yesterday?” the Gardener anxiously enquired. “Course I were!” cried Bruno, who had gradually crept nearer, and didn't at all like being talked about without having his share in the conversation. “Ah, well!” the Gardener said with a kind of groan. “Things change so, here. Whenever I look again, it's sure to be something different! Yet I does my duty! I gets up wriggle-early at five—” “If I was oo,” said Bruno, “I wouldn't wriggle so early. It's as bad as being a worm!” he added, in an undertone to Sylvie. “But you shouldn't be lazy in the morning, Bruno,” said Sylvie. “Remember, it's the early bird that picks up the worm!” “It may, if it likes!” Bruno said with a slight yawn. “I don't like eating worms, one bit. I always stop in bed till the early bird has picked them up!” “I wonder you've the face to tell me such fibs!” cried the Gardener. To which Bruno wisely replied “Oo don't want a face to tell fibs wiz—only a mouf.” Sylvie discreetly changed the subject. “And did you plant all these flowers?” she said. “What a lovely garden you've made! Do you know, I'd like to live here always!” “In the winter-nights—” the Gardener was beginning. “But I'd nearly forgotten what we came about!” Sylvie interrupted. “Would you please let us through into the road? There's a poor old beggar just gone out—and he's very hungry—and Bruno wants to give him his cake, you know!” “It's as much as my place is worth!” the Gardener muttered, taking a key from his pocket, and beginning to unlock a door in the garden-wall. “How much are it wurf?” Bruno innocently enquired. But the Gardener only grinned. “That's a secret!” he said. “Mind you come back quick!” he called after the children, as they passed out into the road. I had just time to follow them, before he shut the door again. We hurried down the road, and very soon caught sight of the old Beggar, about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and the children at once set off running to overtake him. Lightly and swiftly they skimmed over the ground, and I could not in the least understand how it was I kept up with them so easily. But the unsolved problem did not worry me so much as at another time it might have done, there were so many other things to attend to. The old Beggar must have been very deaf, as he paid no attention whatever to Bruno's eager shouting, but trudged wearily on, never pausing until the child got in front of him and held up the slice of cake. The poor little fellow was quite out of breath, and could only utter the one word “Cake!” not with the gloomy decision with which Her Excellency had so lately pronounced it, but with a sweet childish timidity, looking up into the old man's face with eyes that loved 'all things both great and small.' The old man snatched it from him, and devoured it greedily, as some hungry wild beast might have done, but never a word of thanks did he give his little benefactor—only growled “More, more!” and glared at the half-frightened children. “There is no more!”, Sylvie said with tears in her eyes. “I'd eaten mine. It was a shame to let you be turned away like that. I'm very sorry—” I lost the rest of the sentence, for my mind had recurred, with a great shock of surprise, to Lady Muriel Orme, who had so lately uttered these very words of Sylvie's—yes, and in Sylvie's own voice, and with Sylvie's gentle pleading eyes! “Follow me!” were the next words I heard, as the old man waved his hand, with a dignified grace that ill suited his ragged dress, over a bush, that stood by the road side, which began instantly to sink into the earth. At another time I might have doubted the evidence of my eyes, or at least have felt some astonishment: but, in this strange scene, my whole being seemed absorbed in strong curiosity as to what would happen next. When the bush had sunk quite out of our sight, marble steps were seen, leading downwards into darkness. The old man led the way, and we eagerly followed. The staircase was so dark, at first, that I could only just see the forms of the children, as, hand-in-hand, they groped their way down after their guide: but it got lighter every moment, with a strange silvery brightness, that seemed to exist in the air, as there were no lamps visible; and, when at last we reached a level floor, the room, in which we found ourselves, was almost as light as day. It was eight-sided, having in each angle a slender pillar, round which silken draperies were twined. The wall between the pillars was entirely covered, to the height of six or seven feet, with creepers, from which hung quantities of ripe fruit and of brilliant flowers, that almost hid the leaves. In another place, perchance, I might have wondered to see fruit and flowers growing together: here, my chief wonder was that neither fruit nor flowers were such as I had ever seen before. Higher up, each wall contained a circular window of coloured glass; and over all was an arched roof, that seemed to be spangled all over with jewels. With hardly less wonder, I turned this way and that, trying to make out how in the world we had come in: for there was no door: and all the walls were thickly covered with the lovely creepers. “We are safe here, my darlings!” said the old man, laying a hand on Sylvie's shoulder, and bending down to kiss her. Sylvie drew back hastily, with an offended air: but in another moment, with a glad cry of “Why, it's Father!”, she had run into his arms. {Image...A beggar's palace} “Father! Father!” Bruno repeated: and, while the happy children were being hugged and kissed, I could but rub my eyes and say “Where, then, are the rags gone to?”; for the old man was now dressed in royal robes that glittered with jewels and gold embroidery, and wore a circlet of gold around his head. 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. Lewis Carroll (1996). Sylvie and Bruno. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/620/pg620-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

A BEGGAR'S PALACE

The Ice Palace

The Prince Comes Back to the Enchanted Palace

Your Guide For Overcoming Procrastination and Getting Down to Work

Transcendence Book 10: The Ultimate "Why?"

**MIAMI, Florida, July 23rd, 2024/Chainwire/--**FLOKI, the cryptocurrency ecosystem, announced today that Valhalla, a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) spin on the classic Creature-Collection adventure, will be the Associate Sponsor for India’s Tour of Sri Lanka. This partnership will give Valhalla significant visibility through mid-wicket pitch mats, ground LED boards, backdrops, and other high-visibility ground assets. Floki is the people’s cryptocurrency and the utility token of the Floki Ecosystem. FLOKI aims to become the world’s most known and used cryptocurrency, focusing on utility, philanthropy, community, and marketing. India will be touring Sri Lanka following their historic T20 World Cup championship win in the USA. The series will commence with back-to-back T20Is on July 27, followed by ODIs starting on August 1, with a two-day gap between each match. The series is expected to attract significant viewership, with estimations predicting a cumulative viewership of 180 to 220 million for both the ODI and T20I series. Sri Lanka Cricket expressed excitement about the partnership, stating it will bring more visibility and engagement to the sport. A Media Representative for FLOKI said, "It is with great enthusiasm that we at FLOKI step into a partnership to sponsor the India Tour of Sri Lanka 2024, an arena where the sport's heart beats as fervently as our dedication to being a cryptocurrency for all.” “Building on our previous associations with Cricket, FLOKI continues the belief that cricket, like FLOKI, transcends boundaries and unites people from all walks of life. Valhalla gives gamers and fans a realistic platform that they can explore alone or as a clan, partake in a dynamic, player-driven economy to rise in the community ranks, and make their mark in the competitive, animated world mirroring the opportunities cricket provides in the real world. This partnership signifies our commitment to integrating the world of gaming, cryptocurrency, and sports in a meaningful way." The series will also mark the first time both teams play under their new coaches, Gautam Gambhir for India and Sanath Jayasuriya for Sri Lanka. The Pallekele International Cricket Stadium will host the T20Is, while the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo will host the ODIs. About Valhalla Valhalla is a spin on the classic Creature-Collection adventure set in a vibrant, lively, MMORPG open-world inspired by Norse mythology. Players interact with a diverse set of eccentric creatures called Veras, discovering, taming, training, and trading them. Alone or as a clan, players partake in a dynamic, player-driven economy to rise in community ranks and achieve tactical supremacy on the hexagonal-grid battlefield. Website: Valhalla.game About Floki Floki is the people’s cryptocurrency and utility token of the Floki Ecosystem. Floki aims to become the world’s most known and used cryptocurrency, focusing on utility, philanthropy, community, and marketing. Floki currently has over 490,000 holders and a strong brand recognized globally thanks to strategic marketing partnerships. For more information, users can visit Floki's: Website | YouTube | Telegram | Instagram | TikTok | Discord | Facebook | Reddit | Twitch Contact Community Relations Officer Pedro Vidal Floki marketing@floki.com This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. **MIAMI, Florida, July 23rd, 2024/Chainwire/--**FLOKI, the cryptocurrency ecosystem, announced today that Valhalla, a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) spin on the classic Creature-Collection adventure, will be the Associate Sponsor for India’s Tour of Sri Lanka. This partnership will give Valhalla significant visibility through mid-wicket pitch mats, ground LED boards, backdrops, and other high-visibility ground assets. Floki is the people’s cryptocurrency and the utility token of the Floki Ecosystem. FLOKI aims to become the world’s most known and used cryptocurrency, focusing on utility, philanthropy, community, and marketing. India will be touring Sri Lanka following their historic T20 World Cup championship win in the USA. The series will commence with back-to-back T20Is on July 27, followed by ODIs starting on August 1, with a two-day gap between each match. The series is expected to attract significant viewership, with estimations predicting a cumulative viewership of 180 to 220 million for both the ODI and T20I series. Sri Lanka Cricket expressed excitement about the partnership, stating it will bring more visibility and engagement to the sport. A Media Representative for FLOKI said, "It is with great enthusiasm that we at FLOKI step into a partnership to sponsor the India Tour of Sri Lanka 2024, an arena where the sport's heart beats as fervently as our dedication to being a cryptocurrency for all.” A Media Representative for FLOKI said, "It is with great enthusiasm that we at FLOKI step into a partnership to sponsor the India Tour of Sri Lanka 2024, an arena where the sport's heart beats as fervently as our dedication to being a cryptocurrency for all.” “Building on our previous associations with Cricket, FLOKI continues the belief that cricket, like FLOKI, transcends boundaries and unites people from all walks of life. Valhalla gives gamers and fans a realistic platform that they can explore alone or as a clan, partake in a dynamic, player-driven economy to rise in the community ranks, and make their mark in the competitive, animated world mirroring the opportunities cricket provides in the real world. This partnership signifies our commitment to integrating the world of gaming, cryptocurrency, and sports in a meaningful way." “Building on our previous associations with Cricket, FLOKI continues the belief that cricket, like FLOKI, transcends boundaries and unites people from all walks of life. Valhalla gives gamers and fans a realistic platform that they can explore alone or as a clan, partake in a dynamic, player-driven economy to rise in the community ranks, and make their mark in the competitive, animated world mirroring the opportunities cricket provides in the real world. This partnership signifies our commitment to integrating the world of gaming, cryptocurrency, and sports in a meaningful way." The series will also mark the first time both teams play under their new coaches, Gautam Gambhir for India and Sanath Jayasuriya for Sri Lanka. The Pallekele International Cricket Stadium will host the T20Is, while the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo will host the ODIs. About Valhalla Valhalla is a spin on the classic Creature-Collection adventure set in a vibrant, lively, MMORPG open-world inspired by Norse mythology. Players interact with a diverse set of eccentric creatures called Veras, discovering, taming, training, and trading them. Alone or as a clan, players partake in a dynamic, player-driven economy to rise in community ranks and achieve tactical supremacy on the hexagonal-grid battlefield. Website: Valhalla.game Valhalla.game Valhalla.game About Floki Floki is the people’s cryptocurrency and utility token of the Floki Ecosystem. Floki aims to become the world’s most known and used cryptocurrency, focusing on utility, philanthropy, community, and marketing. Floki currently has over 490,000 holders and a strong brand recognized globally thanks to strategic marketing partnerships. For more information, users can visit Floki's: Floki Floki Website | YouTube | Telegram | Instagram | TikTok | Discord | Facebook | Reddit | Twitch Website Website YouTube YouTube Telegram Telegram Instagram Instagram TikTok TikTok Discord Discord Facebook Facebook Reddit Reddit Twitch Twitch Contact Community Relations Officer Pedro Vidal Floki marketing@floki.com This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here . here here

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