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Content marketing teams from a multitude of industries across the globe understand a thing or two about video content creation pains. From the lack of editing expertise to insufficient tools to generate large volumes of content, it’s a tricky space that every marketer needs to navigate. On today’s episode of Startups On Demand, I am joined by , CEO, and Co-Founder of – an Israel-based startup that is set to revolutionize the content creation industry with the introduction of the first and only smart automatic video editing and management platform. Danielle Dafni Peech Today, Danielle talks about the launch of their latest product, Peech 2.0, how they leverage Generative AI, NLP, and machine learning, and what makes this platform different from other video solutions in the market. : Vested Interest Disclosure Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking. The author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR Omri: So, tell us something about yourself and your background in video editing and managing media. Danielle: I was actually part of the video industry my whole life. When I decided that I wanted to become a professional video editor, I bought my first video editing station and I decided to be a freelancer. I started working with companies where I learned everything, not just about the video industry or how to create videos, but also how videos play a crucial role in the marketing effort of big companies and how they use it. I noticed that there’s a specific type of video, all the verbal content videos: the videos where you can see the presenter sitting in front of a camera and just providing information. For me, as a video editor, it was very easy to work on, because what I needed to do back then was understand the content and visualize things, but it didn’t take me a lot of time to do, but on the other hand, it was very expensive for the companies, and they didn’t succeed to build like a machine to create lots of videos, so this is when the idea of Peech came into my mind. Omri: You guys are about to launch Peech 2.0. Can you tell us something about this new product and what we can expect? Danielle: One of the things that we basically are doing is take my hands and replace them with technology. For content marketing teams, what you need is to have the option of generating unlimited videos in no time, and to make sure that you publish new content every 2 days. So, we developed a flexible machine that you, as a content marketing team, just have to calibrate based on your brand guidelines or marketing needs. And within seconds, the Peech platform just takes the material of the verbal content video, analyzes the content itself, and visually packs it within seconds. Another thing we wanted them to feel like is that they have the independence to do it themselves – without the dependency on video editors, graphic designers, After Effects experts, etc. to be able to create unlimited versions for each video so they can generate about a hundred a month. Omri: Since the pandemic, there’s been a rise in video solution platforms due to the popularity of Tik Tok, YouTube shorts, IG reels, etc. What makes you guys different from the rest of the competition? Danielle: I don’t think the story is about video specifically. I think the story is much bigger than that because we are talking about content. From video, you can download an audio or a text – video is just the starting point. So one of the things we needed to make sure of is that we’re not doing the same things with the other solutions today. But we did ask content marketing teams, “why are you not using the other platforms?” and one of the things we learned is that they don’t have the knowledge and expertise of a video editor. The other thing we do differently is basically analyzing the content itself, so we learn everything about the company, the context, and the most important words and sentences that we need to emphasize. Basically, Peech knows how to take care of content, visualize it, and replace these experts to help businesses save time and money. https://youtu.be/UZHW38nSZM8?embedable=true Omri: Peech is called “Peech AI.” Can you tell us more about how the technology inside Peech works, particularly AI and NLP? Danielle: It’s all about the context. It’s all about understanding the context itself and generating videos specific to a particular company. From that content, we understand the context so we know what’s the right music for this video. Generative AI, for example – we’re in a time where you can create anything online with these amazing tools. You just need to write a sentence and you will get an image. You just need to describe what mood you are in and you will get the music you want. What Peech does is to take all these types of content – the music, the audio, the voiceover, the image, the footage, and our job is to merge them together to create a video that’s unique and personalized for this team to be able to provide them the marketing results they need. So it’s not just about creating a piece of video – it’s about creating a strategy. Almost 50% of consumers need to see at least 5 pieces of content before they contact your salesperson, so you need to be out there. You need to be not just on LinkedIn or Facebook. So we use all our AI and machine learning capabilities to make sure that it all starts with the content itself. So you and I, we won’t get the same video. Omri: We talked a lot about Peech and its tech capabilities. Who is this product for? Danielle: So we turn to content marketing teams because basically, this is their goal: to create more content, better content, and take advantage of the content they already have. So we want to provide them with the right tool. I can’t say that we don’t have customers right now that are influencers and people that create digital content, etc. But this is not our main target audience just for one reason: the content marketing teams have a real problem which is the inability to get the most out of the potential with what they have to do their job right. From our perspective, we want to design this tool for them to give them all their needs. The only thing we see that hinders them to do their job amazingly is the dependency they have on external websites and professional experts, and it doesn’t make any sense because when it comes to content marketing, the content is the issue – not the video editing or the visual elements. So we need to make sure that the automatic version will be good enough for them so they will be able to publish it without even touching it. Also published here

CEO Danielle Dafni on Peech, AI, Content Creation, and More

Authors:
(1) Aya Kherrour, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento;
(2) Marco Robol, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento;
(3) Marco Roveri, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento;
(4) Paolo Giorgini, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento. 6 Conclusion This work aimed to evaluate the performance of several known heuristic search algorithms, such as D*, D* Lite, LPA*, LRTA*, RTAA*, and ARA* in terms of solving time, memory consumption, and path cost. The evaluation was made using different randomly generated grid environments with different characteristics alongside personalized grid environments with horizontal walls and different wall lengths as different hinders. Our experimental evaluation revealed that all the algorithms exhibit different performances with strengths and weaknesses under different grid characterizations. D* Lite consistently generated the shortest paths even in obstacle-dense grids, indicating its efficiency in dense environments. ARA* consistently provides faster solutions as the grid size increases, particularly larger than 100, while RTTA* generates faster solutions in smaller grid sizes, with the advantage of not being affected by dense environments. Our study provides valuable insights into selecting the appropriate heuristic search algorithm in the pathfinding domain. Using these insights, we propose a selection algorithm used to optimize the performance needed in a pathfinding domain, such as, solving time, path length, or memory consumption. However, our evaluation focused only on static environments, while dynamic environments may introduce additional challenges. Furthermore, we considered a limited set of experiments, not covering all possible combinations of the grid characteristics. This limitation means that the selection algorithm might not always recommend the most optimal solution, as seen in the example we introduced to evaluate our algorithm. In future work, we aim to address these limitations as follows: Firstly, we plan to extend our evaluation of the search algorithms to include dynamic environments. Secondly, we intend to explore various combinations of both domain characterization and priorities. Furthermore, we want to include additional scenario configuration, extending the random obstacles and the walls scenarios. With such additional understanding, we aim to refine our selection algorithm to automatically take decisions among the best search algorithms, based on the type of obstacles in the local search space. References [1] Nafiz Arica, Aysegul Mut, Alper Yörükçü & Kadir Alpaslan Demir (2017): An Empirical Comparison of Search Approaches for Moving Agents. Comput. Intell. 33(3), pp. 368–400, doi:10.1111/coin.12092. [2] Yngvi Björnsson, Vadim Bulitko & Nathan R. Sturtevant (2009): TBA*: Time-Bounded A*. In Craig Boutilier, editor: IJCAI 2009, Proceedings of the 21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Pasadena, California, USA, July 11-17, 2009, pp. 431–436. Available at http://ijcai.org/ Proceedings/09/Papers/079.pdf. [3] David Bond, Niels A. Widger, Wheeler Ruml & Xiaoxun Sun (2010): Real-Time Search in Dynamic Worlds. In Ariel Felner & Nathan R. Sturtevant, editors: Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Search, SOCS 2010, Stone Mountain, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, July 8 10, 2010, AAAI Press, doi:10.1609/socs.v1i1.18174. Available at http://aaai.org/ocs/index.php/SOCS/SOCS10/paper/ view/2103. [4] Guillaume Brat, Ewen Denney, Dimitra Giannakopoulou, Jeremy Frank & Ari Jónsson (2006): Verification of autonomous systems for space applications. In: 2006 IEEE Aerospace Conference, IEEE, pp. 11–pp, doi:10.1109/AERO.2006.1656029. [5] Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest & Clifford Stein (2009): Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition. MIT Press. Available at http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ introduction-algorithms. [6] A. Elfes (1989): Using occupancy grids for mobile robot perception and navigation. Computer 22(6), pp. 46–57, doi:10.1109/2.30720. [7] Carlos Hernández & Jorge A. Baier (2011): Real-Time Heuristic Search with Depression Avoidance. In Toby Walsh, editor: IJCAI 2011, Proceedings of the 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, July 16-22, 2011, IJCAI/AAAI, pp. 578–583, doi:10.5591/978-1-57735-516- 8/IJCAI11-104. [8] Mohd Javaid, Abid Haleem, Ravi Pratap Singh & Rajiv Suman (2021): Substantial capabilities of robotics in enhancing industry 4.0 implementation. Cognitive Robotics 1, pp. 58–75, doi:10.1016/j.cogr.2021.06.001. [9] Sven Koenig (2001): Agent-Centered Search. AI Mag. 22(4), pp. 109–132, doi:10.1609/aimag.v22i4.1596. [10] Sven Koenig (2004): A Comparison of Fast Search Methods for Real-Time Situated Agents, pp. 864–871. doi:10.1109/AAMAS.2004.10122. Available at https://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/ AAMAS.2004.10122. [11] Sven Koenig & Maxim Likhachev (2002): D*Lite, pp. 476–483. Available at http://www.aaai.org/ Library/AAAI/2002/aaai02-072.php. [12] Sven Koenig & Maxim Likhachev (2006): Real-time adaptive A*. In Hideyuki Nakashima, Michael P. Wellman, Gerhard Weiss & Peter Stone, editors: 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2006), Hakodate, Japan, May 8-12, 2006, ACM, pp. 281–288, doi:10.1145/1160633.1160682. [13] Sven Koenig & Xiaoxun Sun (2009): Comparing real-time and incremental heuristic search for real-time situated agents. Auton. Agents Multi Agent Syst. 18(3), pp. 313–341, doi:10.1007/s10458 008-9061-x. [14] Richard E Korf (1990): Real-time heuristic search. Artificial intelligence 42(2-3), pp. 189–211, doi:10.1016/0004-3702(90)90054-4. [15] Maxim Likhachev, Geoffrey J. Gordon & Sebastian Thrun (2003): ARA*: Anytime A* with Provable Bounds on Sub-Optimality, pp. 767–774. Available at https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2003/hash/ ee8fe9093fbbb687bef15a38facc44d2-Abstract.html. [16] Manuel Müller, Timo Müller, Behrang Ashtari Talkhestani, Philipp Marks, Nasser Jazdi & Michael Weyrich (2021): Industrial autonomous systems: a survey on definitions, characteristics and abilities. atAutomatisierungstechnik 69(1), pp. 3–13, doi:10.1515/auto-2020-0131. [17] Michal Pechoucek, Simon G Thompson & Holger Voos (2008): Defence Industry Applications of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. Springer, doi:10.1007/978-3-7643-8571-2. [18] Francisco J Perez-Grau, J Ramiro Martinez-de Dios, Julio L Paneque, J Joaquin Acevedo, Arturo Torres-González, Antidio Viguria, Juan R Astorga & Anibal Ollero (2021): Introducing autonomous aerial robots in industrial manufacturing. Journal of Manufacturing Systems 60, pp. 312–324, doi:10.1016/j.jmsy.2021.06.008. [19] José Ricardo Sánchez-Ibáñez, Carlos Jesús Pérez-del-Pulgar & Alfonso García-Cerezo (2021): Path Planning for Autonomous Mobile Robots: A Review. Sensors 21(23), p. 7898, doi:10.3390/s21237898. [20] Anthony Stentz (1995): The Focussed D* Algorithm for Real-Time Replanning. In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 95, Montréal Québec, Canada, August 20-25 1995, 2 Volumes, Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 1652–1659. Available at http://ijcai.org/ Proceedings/95-2/Papers/082.pdf. [21] Dmitry S. Yershov & Steven M. LaValle (2011): Simplicial Dijkstra and A* algorithms for optimal feedback planning. In: 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2011, San Francisco, CA, USA, September 25-30, 2011, IEEE, pp. 3862–3867, doi:10.1109/IROS.2011.6095032. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Aya Kherrour, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento; (2) Marco Robol, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento; (3) Marco Roveri, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento; (4) Paolo Giorgini, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento. Authors: (1) Aya Kherrour, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento; (2) Marco Robol, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento; (3) Marco Roveri, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento; (4) Paolo Giorgini, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento. 6 Conclusion This work aimed to evaluate the performance of several known heuristic search algorithms, such as D*, D* Lite, LPA*, LRTA*, RTAA*, and ARA* in terms of solving time, memory consumption, and path cost. The evaluation was made using different randomly generated grid environments with different characteristics alongside personalized grid environments with horizontal walls and different wall lengths as different hinders. Our experimental evaluation revealed that all the algorithms exhibit different performances with strengths and weaknesses under different grid characterizations. D* Lite consistently generated the shortest paths even in obstacle-dense grids, indicating its efficiency in dense environments. ARA* consistently provides faster solutions as the grid size increases, particularly larger than 100, while RTTA* generates faster solutions in smaller grid sizes, with the advantage of not being affected by dense environments. Our study provides valuable insights into selecting the appropriate heuristic search algorithm in the pathfinding domain. Using these insights, we propose a selection algorithm used to optimize the performance needed in a pathfinding domain, such as, solving time, path length, or memory consumption. However, our evaluation focused only on static environments, while dynamic environments may introduce additional challenges. Furthermore, we considered a limited set of experiments, not covering all possible combinations of the grid characteristics. This limitation means that the selection algorithm might not always recommend the most optimal solution, as seen in the example we introduced to evaluate our algorithm. In future work, we aim to address these limitations as follows: Firstly, we plan to extend our evaluation of the search algorithms to include dynamic environments. Secondly, we intend to explore various combinations of both domain characterization and priorities. Furthermore, we want to include additional scenario configuration, extending the random obstacles and the walls scenarios. With such additional understanding, we aim to refine our selection algorithm to automatically take decisions among the best search algorithms, based on the type of obstacles in the local search space. References [1] Nafiz Arica, Aysegul Mut, Alper Yörükçü & Kadir Alpaslan Demir (2017): An Empirical Comparison of Search Approaches for Moving Agents. Comput. Intell. 33(3), pp. 368–400, doi:10.1111/coin.12092. [2] Yngvi Björnsson, Vadim Bulitko & Nathan R. Sturtevant (2009): TBA*: Time-Bounded A*. In Craig Boutilier, editor: IJCAI 2009, Proceedings of the 21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Pasadena, California, USA, July 11-17, 2009, pp. 431–436. Available at http://ijcai.org/ Proceedings/09/Papers/079.pdf. [3] David Bond, Niels A. Widger, Wheeler Ruml & Xiaoxun Sun (2010): Real-Time Search in Dynamic Worlds. In Ariel Felner & Nathan R. Sturtevant, editors: Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Search, SOCS 2010, Stone Mountain, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, July 8 10, 2010, AAAI Press, doi:10.1609/socs.v1i1.18174. Available at http://aaai.org/ocs/index.php/SOCS/SOCS10/paper/ view/2103. [4] Guillaume Brat, Ewen Denney, Dimitra Giannakopoulou, Jeremy Frank & Ari Jónsson (2006): Verification of autonomous systems for space applications. In: 2006 IEEE Aerospace Conference, IEEE, pp. 11–pp, doi:10.1109/AERO.2006.1656029. [5] Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest & Clifford Stein (2009): Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition. MIT Press. Available at http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ introduction-algorithms. [6] A. Elfes (1989): Using occupancy grids for mobile robot perception and navigation. Computer 22(6), pp. 46–57, doi:10.1109/2.30720. [7] Carlos Hernández & Jorge A. Baier (2011): Real-Time Heuristic Search with Depression Avoidance. In Toby Walsh, editor: IJCAI 2011, Proceedings of the 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, July 16-22, 2011, IJCAI/AAAI, pp. 578–583, doi:10.5591/978-1-57735-516- 8/IJCAI11-104. [8] Mohd Javaid, Abid Haleem, Ravi Pratap Singh & Rajiv Suman (2021): Substantial capabilities of robotics in enhancing industry 4.0 implementation. Cognitive Robotics 1, pp. 58–75, doi:10.1016/j.cogr.2021.06.001. [9] Sven Koenig (2001): Agent-Centered Search. AI Mag. 22(4), pp. 109–132, doi:10.1609/aimag.v22i4.1596. [10] Sven Koenig (2004): A Comparison of Fast Search Methods for Real-Time Situated Agents, pp. 864–871. doi:10.1109/AAMAS.2004.10122. Available at https://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/ AAMAS.2004.10122. [11] Sven Koenig & Maxim Likhachev (2002): D*Lite, pp. 476–483. Available at http://www.aaai.org/ Library/AAAI/2002/aaai02-072.php. [12] Sven Koenig & Maxim Likhachev (2006): Real-time adaptive A*. In Hideyuki Nakashima, Michael P. Wellman, Gerhard Weiss & Peter Stone, editors: 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2006), Hakodate, Japan, May 8-12, 2006, ACM, pp. 281–288, doi:10.1145/1160633.1160682. [13] Sven Koenig & Xiaoxun Sun (2009): Comparing real-time and incremental heuristic search for real-time situated agents. Auton. Agents Multi Agent Syst. 18(3), pp. 313–341, doi:10.1007/s10458 008-9061-x. [14] Richard E Korf (1990): Real-time heuristic search. Artificial intelligence 42(2-3), pp. 189–211, doi:10.1016/0004-3702(90)90054-4. [15] Maxim Likhachev, Geoffrey J. Gordon & Sebastian Thrun (2003): ARA*: Anytime A* with Provable Bounds on Sub-Optimality, pp. 767–774. Available at https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2003/hash/ ee8fe9093fbbb687bef15a38facc44d2-Abstract.html. [16] Manuel Müller, Timo Müller, Behrang Ashtari Talkhestani, Philipp Marks, Nasser Jazdi & Michael Weyrich (2021): Industrial autonomous systems: a survey on definitions, characteristics and abilities. atAutomatisierungstechnik 69(1), pp. 3–13, doi:10.1515/auto-2020-0131. [17] Michal Pechoucek, Simon G Thompson & Holger Voos (2008): Defence Industry Applications of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. Springer, doi:10.1007/978-3-7643-8571-2. [18] Francisco J Perez-Grau, J Ramiro Martinez-de Dios, Julio L Paneque, J Joaquin Acevedo, Arturo Torres-González, Antidio Viguria, Juan R Astorga & Anibal Ollero (2021): Introducing autonomous aerial robots in industrial manufacturing. Journal of Manufacturing Systems 60, pp. 312–324, doi:10.1016/j.jmsy.2021.06.008. [19] José Ricardo Sánchez-Ibáñez, Carlos Jesús Pérez-del-Pulgar & Alfonso García-Cerezo (2021): Path Planning for Autonomous Mobile Robots: A Review. Sensors 21(23), p. 7898, doi:10.3390/s21237898. [20] Anthony Stentz (1995): The Focussed D* Algorithm for Real-Time Replanning. In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 95, Montréal Québec, Canada, August 20-25 1995, 2 Volumes, Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 1652–1659. Available at http://ijcai.org/ Proceedings/95-2/Papers/082.pdf. [21] Dmitry S. Yershov & Steven M. LaValle (2011): Simplicial Dijkstra and A* algorithms for optimal feedback planning. In: 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2011, San Francisco, CA, USA, September 25-30, 2011, IEEE, pp. 3862–3867, doi:10.1109/IROS.2011.6095032. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Future Directions in Heuristic Search

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Expanding Your Content Skills to Get Closer to Tech So, you work on the non-technical side of the website, and you’re moving towards programming. 40. Google May Not Be Able to Crack Down on AI  Generated Words Google will fail to crack down on AI Generated content, but not for the reasons you think. In this blog post, I explored why and how I arrived at my conclusion. 41. How to Tell Your Product’s Story in Compelling Visuals: Advice for Startups on a Budget A great video can be worth a thousand words – particularly for showcasing your product. Learn how to make engaging videos for your startup on a budget! 42. The Metaverse Insider Partners with MILC Platform to Revolutionise the Global Media Industry The Metaverse Insider is proud to announce a partnership with MILC as part of its evolving Metaverse ecosystem. 43. Copywriting vs Content Writing If you believed that content writing and copywriting were the same thing, then you'd be wrong. 44. What's Next for Media - A Conversation With Sean McDonnell 45. 5 Tips to Create an Effective Content Strategy Want to connect with the right audience and increase your website traffic? Here are 5 useful tips to create an effective content strategy. 46. How to Create Promotional Assets: An Insider's Guide into the World of Graphic Design I offer you to go through the evolutionary stages of promo materials. 47. Understanding The Importance of Regular Content Updates For SEO In this piece, we’ll discuss content decay and how to spot it in its early stages. Then, I'll review the best practices for keeping older posts fresh. 48. How I Use Mind Mapping to Create Content (This One, Too) Find out how to leverage mind mapping to supercharge your content creation process. 49. How Putting your Book on a Blockchain can Change your Career Overnight Bend your mind around decentralized publishing with these success stories 50. Putting Up One Piece of Content a Day on Social So many people struggle to post consistent content every day on their social media. So, I decided to put these content ideas that anyone can use. 51. Kadeem Clarke On Love of Cars & Keeping Up With the Blockchain World Meet HackerNoon contributor Kadeem Clarke, Head of Labs at Momentum 6 and Founder of Clarke Global. 52. AI Vs. Copywriters: Exploring Artificial Intelligence in Digital Marketing How does artificial intelligence affect future content creation, and why do you need to be a part of the process? 53. 5 Content Strategies That Drive Your Readers to Act Great content—blog posts, case studies, newsletters, etc.—is a valuable tool for engaging your audience while providing value. Before ever asking for a sale you’re able to give them something, which drives a makes a great impression on anyone who comes across your content. 54. How To Make Your Case Study More Effective In marketing, a case study is a detailed document that shows your users how they can use your brand in specific situations to achieve enormous results. 55. On Passion Economy and Knowledge Entrepreneurs, with Jeremy Saenz, CPO of Kajabi The platform has reached impressive scale: Since its founding 10 years ago, Kajabi—which is bootstrapped—has empowered over 50,000 users in 120 countries. 56. How To Pitch Your Story and Get Published Tons of websites offer guest post opportunities, and probably you would love to get published at least in one of them. Working on both sides - publisher at Abstract Stylist and an independent blogger, I have a rare opportunity to share my insights and most common mistakes people make while pitching their guest posts. Let's take a look at 5 mistakes I see people make daily. 57. Top  Platforms to Launch an NFT Collection for Digital Content Creators Creators with zero to little coding experience can leverage any of these platforms to build an NFT collection, unlike many other currently available solutions. 58. Content Plan as an Instrument To Success The goal of all marketing efforts of any business is to create a customer data and interact with it to create brand loyalty and stimulate sales. One of the most effective and inexpensive ways to do this in today's multi-channel environment is content marketing. 59. This Approach Helped me to Drive 100,000 Organic Visits Yes. You read it right! You can generate 100,000 organic traffic by just changing your keyword approach. 60. 11 Ways to Find Inspiration for New Content Ideas A helpful post to find inspiration for your next piece of content 61. These Are The Secret Weapons of Fake News Modern fake news has evolved into a complex organism, carefully designed to hide its deceptive mechanisms from any potential victim. But although the fake news field has grown into every possible digital channel, the truth is that at its core, in order to be effective, it still relies on exploiting our most basic human characteristics. 62. Andreessen Horowitz is Betting on the Passion Economy Andreesen Horowitz has invested broadly across the creator economy, and, by platforming media, stands to gain billions whether or not creators succeed. 63. Why Human Curators Still Matter This article looks at the concept of curator economy, why it is important and its present state in the age of information overload. 64. How Blockchain and NFTs Can Change The Creative Industries What are the benefits of blockchain and NFTs for creative industries? How has their emergence and spread transformed the principles of communication there? 65. 5 Top Free Tools I Use to Create Great Content for HackerNoon Content creation has become an important part of any business on the Web. I share and discuss 5 top free tools I use to create superb content for HackerNoon 66. Happy 1-Year Podiversary, Hackers! Wow, someone pinch me! One year of The HackerNoon Podcast already?! 67. How to Become a Content Hacker: Top Tools for Hands-On Marketers I've been working as a single-person marketing department for the past two years with a primary focus on content hacking for the generation of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and brand awareness. It's needless to say that I wouldn't be able to punch above my own weight and be effective without using freelancers, interns, and online tools that help automate and facilitate inbound marketing efforts and reach crucial KPIs. 68. Get More Speaking Engagements By Building Your Personal Brand - Here's How This article is for all my friends and acquaintances, co-workers and aspiring product managers, mentees and anyone else who has ever asked me — 69. 6 Effective Tips For Content Creation in eCommerce Businesses Any e-commerce business has lately realized the importance of building a robust social media presence. And that is achieved primarily by creating quality content. However, other avenues such as e-commerce business websites or video platforms can thrive through creative and engaging content. 70. 6 Content Ideas to Boost Your Business Growth Learn how you can boost your business growth through 6 content marketing hacks. Explore types of content ideas you should develop to win people over. 71. The Effect of Blockchain Technology on Content Creation The blockchain gives content creators all over the world to gain full control over their income. Everyone from artists to photographers can earn at all levels 72. Will Content Continue to Rule? In the movie Little Women, Jo March’s (Saoirse Ronan) inky fingers give her away as the writer rather than just the bearer of someone else’s manuscript; as she claims initially in the newspaper editor’s office, she’s nervously visiting. The editor decisively strikes through many pages before accepting a story and making an offer of payment. Thrilled to the core, Jo March runs through the streets for she had sold her first piece of content! 73. Create Instagram Content your Audience Would Actually Like to See Find out how you can use these three types of content to boost your social media profile on Instagram to grow your brand, get more view and much more. 74. 6 Actionable Tactics to Improve Content Performance and Ace Content Metrics For content to be great, it should hit home with your readers, hook them in so they don’t leave your page, make a positive impact on them, and rank higher. 75. Learn How to Build an Airtable Content Calendar For Free Whether you’re a creator planning upcoming blog posts or a small business that’s focusing on publishing content to improve your SEO, your creative process will be enhanced by utilizing an intuitive content calendar. 76. 6 Easy Ways to Scale your Content Creation Strategy Want to scale your content creation strategy? Here are 6 easy ways to do that. 77. A Step-by-Step Content Marketing Guide for IT Companies Wondering how content marketing looks in 2021? Check out this article and learn more about content strategy, best distribution channels, and practical hacks. 78. 5 Tech Tools to Sharpen Your Creativity Creativity is important today because it helps us innovate and think outside the box. Knowing how to use your creativity can open up a world of opportunities, so it's worthwhile taking the time to sharpen these skills with the right tools. 79. Content Performance: 4 Ways to Optimize Content That Converts Writing engaging content only works if it converts. Here 4 tips that will help you optimize your content and help it to convert like crazy. 80. An SVOD Platform That Puts Creators and Consumers in Control - With DeFi Vabble, a blockchain-powered subscription video on demand (SVOD) service that gives both creators and consumers total power over their user experience. 81. The Social Media Marketer's Toolkit Here are the tools you’ll need in 2021 as a Social Media Manager to make your business generate a buzz on social media. 82. 8 Reasons Your Company Needs Content Marketing Strategy Most people still argue whether content marketing is still relevant in 2020. The truth is that content marketing isn’t going anywhere. 83. Create a Killer Content Marketing Strategy for Your Business in 9 Minutes How to create a killer content  strategy in 9 minutes 84. Why Clickbait Is Bad For You Clickbait helps increase click rate, but is it the best strategy for sharing content? Find out why clickbait is bad for you and how you can use it well here. 85. How to Create Better Content with an SEO Content Outline (Tips from 30+ Experts) Advice from 30+ experts on creating SEO content outlines. 86. 24 Content Strategy Tips From Pros For Technologists Who Want to Start Writing New to blogging? Or wish to revisit your content plan for your long-forgotten blog? You've come to the right place. 87. Pirates Won't Pass: How to Get Stolen Content Taken Down We want to tell you about one case where we helped remove plagiarized content from the web. Thank you for checking out the 87 most read stories about Content Creation on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

87 Stories To Learn About Content Creation

LIQUID FUELS AND THEIR COMBUSTION

ADVANTAGES OF THE BABCOCK & WILCOX BOILER

Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . “MARK TWAIN’S FIRST APPEARANCE” here “MARK TWAIN’S FIRST APPEARANCE” On October 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by
          his daughter in Norfolk, Conn., addressed her audience on the
          subject of stage-fright.  He thanked the people for making
          things as easy as possible for his daughter’s American debut as
          a contralto, and then told of his first experience before the
          public. My heart goes out in sympathy to any one who is making his first appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct process of memory I go back forty years, less one month—for I’m older than I look. I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me then only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as a lecturer. I knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the theatre. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could not escape. I got to the theatre forty-five minutes before the hour set for the lecture. My knees were shaking so that I didn’t know whether I could stand up. If there is an awful, horrible malady in the world, it is stage-fright-and seasickness. They are a pair. I had stage-fright then for the first and last time. I was only seasick once, too. It was on a little ship on which there were two hundred other passengers. I—was—sick. I was so sick that there wasn’t any left for those other two hundred passengers. It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theatre, and I peeked through the little peekholes they have in theatre curtains and looked into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too. By-and-by it lighted up, and the audience began to arrive. I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle themselves through the audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were to pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind lady in a box up there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the Governor. She was to watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into applause. At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to get started without it. I walked up and down—I was young in those days and needed the exercise—and talked and talked. Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my hearers. When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected. They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I happened to glance up at the box where the Governor’s wife was—you know what happened. Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-fright left me, never to return. I know if I was going to be hanged I could get up and make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for her for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her first appearance. And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her singing, which is, by-the-way, hereditary. 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). Mark Twain's Speeches. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3188/pg3188-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

“MARK TWAIN’S FIRST APPEARANCE”

Return to Pleasure Island

Astounding Stories of Super-Science March 1931, by Astounding Stories, is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Beyond the Vanishing Point - Chapter XII: Mysterious Little Golden Rock CHAPTER XII. Mysterious Little Golden Rock I need not detail the aftermath of our emergence from the atom. Dr. Kent and Babs followed me out within a few moments. But Alan was not with them! He had seen Polter fall. His father and Babs were safe. The sacrifice he had made in leaving Glora was no longer needed. Down there on the rocky plateau, Dr. Kent suddenly realized that Alan was dwindling. "Father, I must! Don't you understand? Glora's world is menaced. I can't leave her like this. My duty to you and Babs is ended. I did my best, Dad—you two are safe now." "Alan! My boy!" He was already down at Dr. Kent's waist, Bab's size. He held up his hand. "Dad, good-by." His rugged, youthful face was flushed, his voice choked. "You—you've been a mighty good father to me. Always." Babs flung her arms about him. "Alan, don't!" "But I must." He smiled whimsically as he kissed her. "You wouldn't want to leave George, would you? Never see him again? I'm not asking you to do that, am I?" "But, Alan—" "You've been a great little pal, Babs. I'll never forget it." "Alan! You talk as though you were never coming back!" "Do I? But of course I'm coming back!" He cast her off. "Babs, listen. Father's upset. That's natural. You tell him not to worry. I'll be careful, and do what I can to save that little city. I must find Glora and—" Babs was suddenly trembling with eagerness for him. "Yes! Of course you must, Alan!" "Find her and bring her out here! I'll do it! Don't you worry." He was dwindling fast. Dr. Kent had collapsed to a rock, staring down with horror-stricken eyes. Alan called up to Babs: "Listen! Have George watch the chunk of gold-quartz. Have it guarded and watched day and night. Handle it carefully, Babs!" "Yes! Yes! How long will you be gone, Alan?" "Heavens—how do I know? But I'll come back, don't you worry. Maybe in only a day or two of your time." "Right! Good-by, Alan!" "Good-by," his tiny voice echoed up. "Good-by, Babs—Father!" Babs could see his miniature face smiling up at her. She smiled back and waved her arm as he vanished into the pebbles at her feet. The eyes of youth! They look ahead; they see all things so easily possible! But old Dr. Kent was sobbing. It has broken Dr. Kent. A month now has passed. He seldom mentions Alan to Babs and me. But when he does, he tries to smile and say that Alan soon will return. He has been very ill this last week, though he is better now. He did not tell us that he was working to compound another supply of the drugs, but we knew it very well. And his emotion, the strain of it, made him break. He was in bed a week. We are living in New York, quite near the Museum of the American Society for Scientific Research. In a room of the biological department there, the precious fragment of golden quartz lies guarded. A microscope is over it, and there is never a moment of the day or night without an alert, keen-eyed watcher peering down. But nothing has appeared. Neither friend nor foe—nothing. I cannot say so to Babs, but often I fear that Dr. Kent will suddenly die, and the secret of his drugs die with him. I hinted once that I would make a trip into the atom if he would let me, but it excited him so greatly I had to laugh it off with the assurance that of course Alan will soon return safely to us. Dr. Kent is an old man now, unnaturally old, with, it seems, the full weight of eighty years pressing upon him. He cannot stand this emotion. I think he is despairingly summoning strength to work upon his drugs, fearful that he will not be equal to it. Yet more fearful to disclose the secret and unloose so diabolical a power. There are nights when with Dr. Kent asleep, Babs and I slip away and go to the Museum. We dismiss the guard for a time, and in that private room we sit hand in hand by the microscope to watch. The fragment of golden quartz lies on its clean white slab with a brilliant light upon it. Mysterious little golden rock! What secrets are there, down beyond the vanishing point in the realm of the infinitely small! Our human longings go to Alan and to Glora. But sometimes we are swept by the greater viewpoint. Awed by the mysteries of nature, we realize how very small and unimportant we are in the vast scheme of things. We envisage the infinite reaches of astronomical space overhead. Realms of largeness unfathomable. And at our feet, everywhere, are myriad entrances into the infinitely small. With ourselves in between—with our fatuous human consciousness that we are of some importance to it all! Truly there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy! INVISIBLE EYES An invisible eye that can see in the dark and detect the light of a ship two miles away on a black foggy night was introduced to newspaper men recently by its inventor, John Baird of television fame. He calls the invention "Noctovisor." It looks like a large camera and can be mounted on a ship or airplane. It was announced that it would soon be tried on trans-Atlantic liners. For the demonstration it was mounted in the garden of Baird's cottage, overlooking the twinkling lights of Dorking. In the dark beyond those lights an automobile headlight three miles away pointed toward the cottage. At a signal from the inventor a sheet of ebonite, as a substitute for a supposed fog, two miles thick, was placed in front of the headlight. Not a glimmer was then visible to the human eye, but it appeared on the noctovisor screen as a bright red disc. It was supposed to have particular value in permitting a navigator in a fog to tell the exact direction of a beacon and to estimate roughly its distance. The device is a combination of camera lens, television transmitter and television receiver. The lens throws a distant image on the exploring disc of the transmitter, through which it acts on a photo-electric cell sensitive to invisible infra-red rays. The receiver amplifies it for the observer. MOON ROCKETS Seventeen years of experimenting on a rocket designed by Prof. Albert H. Goddard of Clark University, to shriek its way from the earth to the moon, came to a glorious climax recently in an isolated and closely guarded section of Worcester when the rocket tore its flaming way through the air for a quarter-mile with a roar heard for a distance of two miles. Prof. Goddard said the rocket was shot out of its cradle, careened through the air a mass of flame, and landed about where it was directed to land, beyond the Auburn town line. Test of a new propellant was the object of his demonstration, Prof. Goddard said. Two or three times a week a small rocket goes up into the air a short distance, not enough to attract great attention. But the latest was a nine-foot rocket, shot out of a forty-foot tower. Near the tower is a safety post built of stone, with slits for peepholes. The experimental party stepped into the safety zone when the rocket was started. The forty-foot tower is built much like an oil well derrick. Inside it are two steel rails to fill grooves in the rocket. These guide the rocket much as rifling in a gun barrel guides a bullet. Prof. Goddard, when teaching at Princeton in 1912, evolved the idea of shooting a rocket to the moon by means of successive charges of explosive much as the new German rocket motor racers are powered. In this most recent experiment he used a new powder mixture. Prof. Goddard issued a statement after the demonstration, which said: "My test was one of a series of experiments with rockets using an entirely new propellant. There was no attempt to reach the moon or anything of such a spectacular nature. The rocket is normally noisy, possibly enough to attract considerable attention. The test was thoroughly satisfactory, nothing exploded in the air, and there was no damage except possibly that incidental to landing." 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. Various. 2009. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1931. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30166/30166-h/30166-h.htm#Beyond_the_Vanishing_Point . This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Vanishing Youth: The Mysterious Little Golden Rock 

বিলুপ্ত যুব: রহস্যময় লিটল গোল্ডেন রক

Verschwindende Jugend: Der geheimnisvolle kleine goldene Felsen

사라지는 청춘: 신비한 작은 황금바위

Kaybolan Gençlik: Gizemli Küçük Altın Kaya

Let's learn about via these 63 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Video Marketing /Learn Repo 1. First steps toward interactive live streaming Live video is central to many aspects of modern life, from the way we socialize and keep ourselves entertained to how we work, learn, and more. 2. Making Promotional Videos for Crypto Startups: Types, Strategies, Expectations, and Costs 3. How we Created Hide the Pain Harold’s Digital Twin with AI We recreated the most famous meme synthetically. Now, Hide the Pain Harold can speak 60 languages and send thousands of personalized videos a minute 4. Why Choosing The Right Video Platform Is Essential For Your Business The amount of video being created today, as opposed to pre-pandemic, has skyrocketed. 5. Shoppable Videos: The Untapped Market for Video Commerce? Shoppable videos are a new frontier in e-commerce to drive sales. Check out the best shoppable video platforms in 2023 in this comprehensive guide. 6. When Promoting Real Estate, the Importance of Video Marketing Cannot be Ignored Video advertising campaigns help customers make buying decisions. This assertion shouldn’t come across as news to anyone; rather, it is a truism that forms part ’n’ parcel of the new-age living experience. In the property world, video marketing campaigns are widely considered to be one of the most effective mediums for attaining the maximum exposure for a piece of real estate; and they normally feature quite overtly in the promotional initiatives of a large assortment of companies (and not just those that are concerned with real estate). 7. 5 Marketing Strategies for SaaS Companies In 2021 During this pandemic, SaaS companies are still those with the strongest chance of survival. Let's talk about which SaaS startup marketing strategies work best. 8. Creativity in Digital Marketing and Technology: How to Stand Out Everything that involves marketing has to do with how it is being perceived by the consumer. If it is appealing enough to the consumers, you get a click. 9. Video Production Could Increase Your Company's Marketing Efforts Video is no longer just one part of your overall marketing plan. It's central to your outreach and campaign aims, particularly your social plan. 10. What's Next for Media - A Conversation With Sean McDonnell 11. Wanna Get Great At Making Indie Games? Make Lots Of Them It's simple, really: ff you want to become a good game developer, you need to make lots of games. Let’s first start with why you need to be productive: the more games you make the better and faster you become at making games. Every new game you make is a new addition to your portfolio. Publish your games on different portals to see what the players think about your game, see what works, and what kind of ideas don’t. 12. Top 5 Video Marketing Tools for Businesses in 2022 Are you taking advantage of video marketing? Here are 5 video marketing tools you can use to boost your business. 13. 9 Hacks to Rank YouTube Videos in Google Do you have a few videos uploaded on your YouTube channel but got only 18 views? Don’t worry; it’s the story of every other YouTuber. The views on your YouTube video determine your success on the platform. That is why we see highly creative content over there. Not only for individuals, but YouTube is the best marketing platform for business owners. You can use YouTube as a part of a marketing strategy to reach masses. 14. The Step-by-step Process to Creating Effective Corporate Explainer Videos Let’s talk today about "How to Create Effective Explainer Videos". What are the types of explainer videos and how to make them for video marketing 15. How to Make Explanatory Videos for Your SaaS Product in Just 16 Hours For an explanatory video, there are multiple options. Easiest is to sit in front of your camera and speak or record your screen with voiceover. 16. How to Effectively Share Knowledge Within your Organisation With Guidde, you encourage organizational knowledge sharing even when someone leaves, all they have to do is record their steps in their last week. All their me 17. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Deepfakes How deepfakes are becoming the new norm in video creation. 18. 5 Key Benefits of Using Videos In Emails as A Marketing Strategy Video email marketing is a more effective technique of communicating with your customers. Videos are personal, engaging, & are great for improving conversions 19. CEO Danielle Dafni on Peech, AI, Content Creation, and More On today’s episode of Startups On Demand, I am joined by Danielle Dafni, CEO, and Co-Founder of Peech 20. 5 Proven Hacks for Crafting Video Content Your Audience Will Love Whether you're just starting with video marketing or looking to take your efforts to the next level, these hacks will up your game. 21. Why You Should Use YouTube in Your Content Strategy YouTube is the number-two search engine and the
largest video hosting platform on the Web.  What’s number one?  Google. 22. Leveraging Amazon IVS in Creating Unique Ecommerce Livestreaming Experience From powering live trivia sessions for Samsung, to helping fashion retailers sell out limited edition inventory in minutes, BeLive Technology has delivered more than 50 million hours of live video since 2018. Offering rich interactivity and analytics, the company’s customizable live streaming service is a go-to for notable brands and celebrities in southeast Asia looking to boost real-time viewer engagement and monetization. Available as an end-to-end white label solution for custom streaming platforms, a one-click install SDK for customers with an in-house development team, and a live shopping solution, BeLive Technology is built on a host of Amazon Web Services (AWS), including Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS) to ensure high-quality, low-latency, and resilient live streams. 23. How to Make a Startup Explainer Video To Entice Your Target Audience Are you a startup? These several expert tips and recommendations can help you create a truly engaging explainer video to present your business idea. 24. How our startup got 1 million TikTok views in one week without going viral The best way to improve your TikTok performance is to spend time on the app and see what videos perform well. While you're scrolling, interact with others. 25. Video is Disrupting Growth Marketing - TikTok, YouTube and More 89% of video marketers agree that video increases ROI, 87% claim that video has increased organic traffic. 26. How to Tell Your Product’s Story in Compelling Visuals: Advice for Startups on a Budget A great video can be worth a thousand words – particularly for showcasing your product. Learn how to make engaging videos for your startup on a budget! 27. 5 Tips to Get 245,466 Views on Your Tech Vlog In this article, I'll talk about how I got over 245,000 views on my tech vlog and give you some tips on how to replicate my success. 28. 4 Video Marketing Tricks and Tips for Massive Conversions Want to boost your conversions through video marketing? Here are a few tips and tricks to get started. 29. Beginners can make Money from Video Content Creation- Here's How Master how to make money with videos online with this practical guide for beginners! Monetize your video creation skills and earn extra income for your business 30. Hey, Content Creator! Here are 7 Tools You Can't Do Without Ready to boost your content creation skills to the next level? Stand out from the competition with these 7 tools for content creators! 31. My Thoughts on the Evolution of Live Streaming The pandemic created a need to feel more connected through the digital world. Being able to listen and communicate directly has become more essential. 32. What Holds People Back from Recording a Video at Work and How Guidde Solved It The purpose of Guidde is to help people, like you, record their videos. They may have numerous reasons why they haven’t started yet, and that’s where we come in 33. Ways to Skyrocket Your YouTube Subscribers in 2021 Becoming YouTube-rich has definitely become a trend this year. With more and more people showcasing their talents and going viral, it looks like we are about to witness many YouTube stars in the coming year. 34. Marketing's New Frontier and The Future of Media A conversation with Hillel Fuld, on marketing, the future of media, and his personal and professional endgame. 35. 12 Simple Tips to Engage Casual Visitors and Increase Conversion When you do a Google search for a query, how many web pages on Google Page 1 do you click? 36. Shopify Video Apps Lead Online Retail Sales Growth for SMBs With more than one million small businesses currently using Shopify (the third-largest online retailer in the U.S. after Amazon and eBay) there’s another growth happening right now. 37. How to Warm Up and Nurture Cold Leads Using Videos Is your CRM database full of cold leads that need to be warmed up? Are your current strategies not enough to nurture your prospects? It's time to hit them up with video content. 38. How I Built 1,000 Personalised Videos in Under 100 seconds This is how I built thousands of personalised videos at lightning speed. 39. 5 Easy Ways to Get Video Testimonials from Your Customers Customers' video testimonials help in creating brand trust, provide more leads & better higher customer retention rate. This post helps in getting testimonials. 40. Video Editing: A Quick Guide for Newbies There is good news. VlogBox team found out that with minimal skills, the right software, and a small bit of work, everyone can produce brilliant content today. 41. 5 Reasons Why Video Content Is Imperative for Your Website’s Success With the future of video content looking clear, organizations are reimagination reach as it relates to consumer attention. In this world, Video is king. 42. Why Introverted Entrepreneurs Should Invest in Influencer Marketing As a business owner, your hands are full and could use a little lightening of the load you are carrying. 43. How AI Can Help You Make Your Videos Amazing AI is taking over the video editing world by transforming the editing process, allowing organizations to cut time, decrease costs, and increase output. 44. How To Pick Top Video Call APIs and SDKs For Android and iOS Video calling is ideal for every type of industry and is considered one of the easiest and safest modes of communication. Because of this, several organizations around the globe are opting for live video chat apps and integrating real-time streaming chat software. The ultimate intention is to facilitate visitors on the website or portal and make communication easy and effective. But, how does an organization choose a video call service provider? And what are the factors to consider before opting for the best live video call APIs and SDKs? 45. 5 Strategies To Grow Your YouTube Channel YouTube is the most popular online video platform as of now. Over hundreds of hours of content is uploaded every minute on this platform, and on average, the viewership crosses billions of hours every day. 46. Field Notes from Using Video to Grow a Podcast Audience The more content a host creates, the bigger an audience grows. With that in mind, a host should create videos to grow their audience. Videos are an opportunity for hosts to experiment as creators, and build bigger and more engaged communities. 47. How to Create a Successful Video Monetization Strategy? Are you looking for a video monetization strategy? In this guide explained step by step how to create a video membership platform. 48. 5 Ways to Get More Likes on Your YouTube Videos Business owners and marketers around the globe know that YouTube is one of the best places to connect with their target audience. 49. 5 Powerful Reasons Why Live Streaming Is So Important For Enterprises Businesses with a well established online presence have the ability to build a strong relationship with their customers. Communicating with your target audience is no longer enough for today’s modern customers. Enterprises also secures a space in their area of expertise and actively share their knowledge with their audience through live streaming platforms. To stay at the top of the market, brands frequently post informative and engaging videos that are shared to their audience on social media in different online platforms. 50. Video CTAs: Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices I recently came across an interesting analogy from Neil Patel between CTAs in marketing and the theory of classical conditioning. 51. 5 Ways a Musician Can Monetize Their Skills During a Pandemic Photo by Sincerely Media 52. How YouTubers Can Improve Their Marketing Strategies in 2021 2020 with its lockdown affected both video creation and consumption, and that resulted in new rules in video marketing. 53. 7 Reasons to Use Video Marketing For Business Growth Indeed, the video has revolutionized the marketing world and is becoming one of the most profitable and trendy digital marketing approaches available till date. Well! It's not too hard to understand why 63% of the businesses started using video marketing, and out of those, 82% of businesses believe that videos are one of the vital parts of marketing strategy. 54. Integrating API-first Optimized Video Using a Headless CMS Video is hard. Encoding, serving the right version to the right browser, device optimization, bandwidth consideration, it’s all pretty daunting. Thankfully there’s Mux and the new Mux Videos Extension, which allow you to add best-in-class video delivery to your application without the headache. 55. Video Monetization Strategies:  Methods for Generating Revenue from Online Audiences The online video industry has become popular in the past years with many businesses offering a variety of video services on various niches in streaming media. Due to the high potential of the industry in both business and revenue perspective, many organizations are investing in the streaming market. If your business is looking to use on demand or live video content as a primary revenue streaming, knowing how to monetize videos is important. 56. Create Videos With Code [Free Tutorial] Video editing has never been something I truly enjoyed. I often found video editors cumbersome, and wasn’t willing to spend the time learning to use professional video editing applications. Let alone pay hundreds of dollars per year on an Adobe subscription. 57. How To Nail Video Email Marketing With Seasonal Email Campaigns Ah, so you've decided to use video marketing. A wise choice indeed, seeing as, according to Google, "6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV". 58. How To Create A Winning YouTube Marketing Strategy 13 Powerful Tips To Improve Your YouTube Channel 59. 5 Successful Explainer Videos Examples Are you a newborn brand, startup, or even established company launching a new product? Likely, you are now looking for ways to attract your audience’s attention and gain their loyalty. Good news! There is a great solution to obey the customer’s hearts and instill strong associations with your brand — animated explainer videos. 60. 4 Powerful Ways to Maximize Your Video Marketing ROI Are you thinking about adding videos to your marketing strategy? If so, you’re not alone. Business owners and marketers around the globe have quickly figured out that videos are one of the best ways to grow their brand. 61. Video Marketing Strategy in 2021: Your Complete Guide We all know Apple as a smart brand with innovative technology and a simple approach. 62. How CTV Changes Brand Advertising Successful branding is among the most crucial elements that set great companies apart from mediocre ones. But in the information age, where millions of voices compete for our attention across a myriad of channels, businesses struggle with executing an effective brand strategy. Not only do they have to make their brand clear and relatable, but also it’s important to make sure desired audiences notice it. 63. How We Communicate with 15000 Users/mo to Make Product Decisions Today, we handle ~500 customer chats/day. That is like talking to 15000 customers every single month, 1:1. Let’s see what we made out of it. Thank you for checking out the 63 most read stories about Video Marketing on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

63 Stories To Learn About Video Marketing

La Constantin by Alexandre Dumas, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter II LA CONSTANTIN - CHAPTER III ANGELIQUE-LOUISE DE GUERCHI was a woman of about twenty-eight years of age, tall, dark, and well made. The loose life she had led had, it is true, somewhat staled her beauty, marred the delicacy of her complexion, and coarsened the naturally elegant curves of her figure; but it is such women who from time immemorial have had the strongest attraction for profligate men. It seems as if dissipation destroyed the power to perceive true beauty, and the man of pleasure must be aroused to admiration by a bold glance and a meaning smile, and will only seek satisfaction along the trail left by vice. Louise-Angelique was admirably adapted for her way of life; not that her features wore an expression of shameless effrontery, or that the words that passed her lips bore habitual testimony to the disorders of her existence, but that under a calm and sedate demeanour there lurked a secret and indefinable charm. Many other women possessed more regular features, but none of them had a greater power of seduction. We must add that she owed that power entirely to her physical perfections, for except in regard to the devices necessary to her calling, she showed no cleverness, being ignorant, dull and without inner resources of any kind. As her temperament led her to share the desires she excited, she was really incapable of resisting an attack conducted with skill and ardour, and if the Duc de Vitry had not been so madly in love, which is the same as saying that he was hopelessly blind, silly, and dense to everything around him, he might have found a score of opportunities to overcome her resistance. We have already seen that she was so straitened in money matters that she had been driven to try to sell her jewels that very, morning. Jeannin was the first to ‘break silence. “You are astonished at my visit, I know, my charming Angelique. But you must excuse my thus appearing so unexpectedly before you. The truth is, I found it impossible to leave Paris without seeing you once more.” “Thank you for your kind remembrance,” said she, “but I did not at all expect it.” “Come, come, you are offended with me.” She gave him a glance of mingled disdain and resentment; but he went on, in a timid, wistful tone— “I know that my conduct must have seemed strange to you, and I acknowledge that nothing can justify a man for suddenly leaving the woman he loves—I do not dare to say the woman who loves him—without a word of explanation. But, dear Angelique, I was jealous.” “Jealous!” she repeated incredulously. “I tried my best to overcome the feeling, and I hid my suspicions from you. Twenty times I came to see you bursting with anger and determined to overwhelm you with reproaches, but at the sight of your beauty I forgot everything but that I loved you. My suspicions dissolved before a smile; one word from your lips charmed me into happiness. But when I was again alone my terrors revived, I saw my rivals at your feet, and rage possessed me once more. Ah! you never knew how devotedly I loved you.” She let him speak without interruption; perhaps the same thought was in her mind as in Quennebert’s, who, himself a past master in the art of lying; was thinking— “The man does not believe a word of what he is saying.” But the treasurer went on— “I can see that even now you doubt my sincerity.” “Does my lord desire that his handmaiden should be blunt? Well, I know that there is no truth in what you say.” “Oh! I can see that you imagine that among the distractions of the world I have kept no memory of you, and have found consolation in the love of less obdurate fair ones. I have not broken in on your retirement; I have not shadowed your steps; I have not kept watch on your actions; I have not surrounded you with spies who would perhaps have brought me the assurance, ‘If she quitted the world which outraged her, she was not driven forth by an impulse of wounded pride or noble indignation; she did not even seek to punish those who misunderstood her by her absence; she buried herself where she was unknown, that she might indulge in stolen loves.’ Such were the thoughts that came to me, and yet I respected your hiding-place; and to-day I am ready to believe you true, if you will merely say, ‘I love no one else!’” Jeannin, who was as fat as a stage financier, paused here to gasp; for the utterance of this string of banalities, this rigmarole of commonplaces, had left him breathless. He was very much dissatisfied with his performance; and ready to curse his barren imagination. He longed to hit upon swelling phrases and natural and touching gestures, but in vain. He could only look at Mademoiselle de Guerchi with a miserable, heart-broken air. She remained quietly seated, with the same expression of incredulity on her features. So there was nothing for it but to go on once more. “But this one assurance that I ask you will not give. So what I have—been told is true: you have given your love to him.” She could not check a startled movement. “You see it is only when I speak of him that I can overcome in you the insensibility which is killing me. My suspicions were true after all: you deceived me for his sake. Oh! the instinctive feeling of jealousy was right which forced me to quarrel with that man, to reject the perfidious friendship which he tried to force upon me. He has returned to town, and we shall meet! But why do I say ‘returned’? Perhaps he only pretended to go away, and safe in this retreat has flouted with impunity, my despair and braved my vengeance!” Up to this the lady had played a waiting game, but now she grew quite confused, trying to discover the thread of the treasurer’s thoughts. To whom did he refer? The Duc de Vitry? That had been her first impression. But the duke had only been acquainted with her for a few months—since she had—left Court. He could not therefore have excited the jealousy of her whilom lover; and if it were not he, to whom did the words about rejecting “perfidious friendship,” and “returned to town,” and so on, apply? Jeannin divined her embarrassment, and was not a little proud of the tactics which would, he was almost sure; force her to expose herself. For there are certain women who can be thrown into cruel perplexity by speaking to them of their love-passages without affixing a proper name label to each. They are placed as it were on the edge of an abyss, and forced to feel their way in darkness. To say “You have loved” almost obliges them to ask “Whom?” Nevertheless, this was not the word uttered by Mademoiselle de Guerchi while she ran through in her head a list of possibilities. Her answer was— “Your language astonishes me; I don’t understand what you mean.” The ice was broken, and the treasurer made a plunge. Seizing one of Angelique’s hands, he asked— “Have you never seen Commander de Jars since then?” “Commander de Jars!” exclaimed Angelique. “Can you swear to me, Angelique, that you love him not?” “Mon Dieu! What put it into your head that I ever cared for him? It’s over four months since I saw him last, and I hadn’t an idea whether he was alive or dead. So he has been out of town? That’s the first I heard of it.” “My fortune is yours, Angelique! Oh! assure me once again that you do not love him—that you never loved him!” he pleaded in a faltering voice, fixing a look of painful anxiety upon her. He had no intention of putting her out of countenance by the course he took; he knew quite well that a woman like Angelique is never more at her ease than when she has a chance of telling an untruth of this nature. Besides, he had prefaced this appeal by the magic words, “My fortune’ is yours!” and the hope thus aroused was well worth a perjury. So she answered boldly and in a steady voice, while she looked straight into his eyes— “Never!” “I believe you!” exclaimed Jeannin, going down on his knees and covering with his kisses the hand he still held. “I can taste happiness again. Listen, Angelique. I am leaving Paris; my mother is dead, and I am going back to Spain. Will you follow me thither?” “I—-follow you?” “I hesitated long before finding you out, so much did I fear a repulse. I set out to-morrow. Quit Paris, leave the world which has slandered you, and come with me. In a fortnight we shall be man and wife.” “You are not in earnest!” “May I expire at your feet if I am not! Do you want me to sign the oath with my blood?” “Rise,” she said in a broken voice. “Have I at last found a man to love me and compensate me for all the abuse that has been showered on my head? A thousand times I thank you, not for what you are doing for me, but for the balm you pour on my wounded spirit. Even if you were to say to me now, ‘After all, I am obliged to give you up’ the pleasure of knowing you esteem me would make up for all the rest. It would be another happy memory to treasure along with my memory of our love, which was ineffaceable, although you so ungratefully suspected me of having deceived you.” The treasurer appeared fairly intoxicated with joy. He indulged in a thousand ridiculous extravagances and exaggerations, and declared himself the happiest of men. Mademoiselle de Guerchi, who was desirous of being prepared for every peril, asked him in a coaxing tone— “Who can have put it into your head to be jealous of the commander? Has he been base enough to boast that I ever gave him my love?” “No, he never said anything about you; but someway I was afraid.” She renewed her assurances. The conversation continued some time in a sentimental tone. A thousand oaths, a thousand protestations of love were, exchanged. Jeannin feared that the suddenness of their journey would inconvenience his mistress, and offered to put it off for some days; but to this she would not consent, and it was arranged that the next day at noon a carriage should call at the house and take Angelique out of town to an appointed place at which the treasurer was to join her. Maitre Quennebert, eye and ear on the alert, had not lost a word of this conversation, and the last proposition of the treasurer changed his ideas. “Pardieu!” he said to himself, “it looks as if this good man were really going to let himself be taken in and done for. It is singular how very clear-sighted we can be about things that don’t touch us. This poor fly is going to let himself be caught by a very clever spider, or I’m much mistaken. Very likely my widow is quite of my opinion, and yet in what concerns herself she will remain stone-blind. Well, such is life! We have only two parts to choose between: we must be either knave or fool. What’s Madame Rapally doing, I wonder?” At this moment he heard a stifled whisper from the opposite corner of the room, but, protected by the distance and the darkness, he let the widow murmur on, and applied his eye once more to his peephole. What he saw confirmed his opinion. The damsel was springing up and down, laughing, gesticulating, and congratulating herself on her unexpected good fortune. “Just imagine! He loves me like that!” she was saying to herself. “Poor Jeannin! When I remember how I used to hesitate. How fortunate that Commander de Jars, one of the most vain and indiscreet of men, never babbled about me! Yes, we must leave town to-morrow without fail. I must not give him time to be enlightened by a chance word. But the Duc de Vitry? I am really sorry for him. However, why did he go away, and send no word? And then, he’s a married man. Ah! if I could only get back again to court some day!... Who would ever have expected such a thing? Good God! I must keep talking to myself, to be sure I’m not dreaming. Yes, he was there, just now, at my feet, saying to me, ‘Angelique, you are going to become my wife.’ One thing is sure, he may safely entrust his honour to my care. It would be infamous to betray a man who loves me as he does, who will give me his name. Never, no, never will I give him cause to reproach me! I would rather——” A loud and confused noise on the stairs interrupted this soliloquy. At one moment bursts of laughter were heard, and the next angry voices. Then a loud exclamation, followed by a short silence. Being alarmed at this disturbance in a house which was usually so quiet, Mademoiselle de Guerchi approached the door of her room, intending either to call for protection or to lock herself in, when suddenly it was violently pushed open. She recoiled with fright, exclaiming— “Commander de Jars!” “On my word!” said Quennebert behind the arras, “‘tis as amusing as a play! Is the commander also going to offer to make an honest woman of her? But what do I see?” He had just caught sight of the young man on whom de Jars had bestowed the title and name of Chevalier de Moranges, and whose acquaintance the reader has already made at the tavern in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. His appearance had as great an effect on the notary as a thunderbolt. He stood motionless, trembling, breathless; his knees ready to give way beneath him; everything black before his eyes. However, he soon pulled himself together, and succeeded in overcoming the effects of his surprise and terror. He looked once more through the hole in the partition, and became so absorbed that no one in the whole world could have got a word from him just then; the devil himself might have shrieked into his ears unheeded, and a naked sword suspended over his head would not have induced him to change his place. 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. Alexandre Dumas (2004). La Constantin. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2749/pg2749-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

Angelique-Louise De Guerchi

A Special Providence

362 Stories To Learn About Content Marketing

THE FETE—FIRST PART

THE SINS OF OTHERS

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 by Havelock Ellis is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . VISION III VISION III Beauty not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision—Movement—The Mirror—Narcissism—Pygmalionism—Mixoscopy—The Indifference of Women to Male Beauty—The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength—The Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible. Our discussion of the sensory element of vision in human sexual selection has been mainly an attempt to disentangle the chief elements of beauty in so far as beauty is a stimulus to the sexual instinct. Beauty by no means comprehends the whole of the influences which make for sexual allurement through vision, but it is the point at which all the most powerful and subtle of these are focussed; it represents a fairly definite complexus, appealing at once to the sexual and to the æsthetic impulses, to which no other sense can furnish anything in any degree analogous. It is because this conception of beauty has arisen upon it that vision properly occupies the supreme position in man from the point of view which we here occupy. Beauty is thus the chief, but it is not the sole, element in the sexual appeal of vision. In all parts of the world this has always been well understood, and in courtship, in the effort to arouse tumescence, the appeals to vision have been multiplied and at the same time aided by appeals to the other senses. Movement, especially in the form of dancing, is the most important of the secondary appeals to vision. This is so well recognized that it is scarcely necessary to insist upon it here; it may suffice to refer to a single typical example. The most decent of Polynesian dances, according to William Ellis, was the hura, which was danced by the daughters of chiefs in the presence of young men of rank with the hope of gaining a future husband. "The daughters of the chiefs, who were the dancers on these occasions, at times amounted to five or six, though occasionally only one exhibited her symmetry of figure and gracefulness of action. Their dress was singular, but elegant. The head was ornamented with a fine and beautiful braid of human hair, wound round the head in the form of a turban. A triple wreath of scarlet, white, and yellow flowers adorned the head-dress. A loose vest of spotted cloth covered the lower part of the bosom. The tihi, of fine white stiffened cloth frequently edged with a scarlet border, gathered like a large frill, passed under the arms and reached below the waist; while a handsome fine cloth, fastened round the waist with a band or sash, covered the feet. The breasts were ornamented with rainbow-colored mother-of-pearl shells, and a covering of curiously wrought network and feathers. The music of the hura was the large and small drum and occasionally the flute. The movements were generally slow, but always easy and natural, and no exertion on the part of the performers was wanting to render them graceful and attractive." We see here, in this very typical example, how the extraneous visual aids of movement, color, and brilliancy are invoked in conjunction with music to make the appeal of beauty more convincing in the process of sexual selection. [168] It may be in place here to mention, in passing, the considerable place which vision occupies in normal and abnormal methods of heightening tumescence under circumstances which exclude definite selection by beauty. The action of mirrors belongs to this group of phenomena. Mirrors are present in profusion in high-class brothels—on the walls and also above the beds. Innocent youths and girls are also often impelled to contemplate themselves in mirrors and sometimes thus, produce the first traces of sexual excitement. I have referred to the developed forms of this kind of self-contemplation in the Study of Auto-erotism, and in this connection have alluded to the fable of Narcissus, whence Näcke has since devised the term Narcissism for this group of phenomena. It is only necessary to mention the enormous production of photographs, representing normal and abnormal sexual actions, specially prepared for the purpose of exciting or of gratifying sexual appetites, and the frequency with which even normal photographs of the nude appeal to the same lust of the eyes. Pygmalionism, or falling in love with statues, is a rare form of erotomania founded on the sense of vision and closely related to the allurement of beauty. (I here use "pygmalionism" as a general term for the sexual love of statues; it is sometimes restricted to cases in which a man requires of a prostitute that she shall assume the part of a statue which gradually comes to life, and finds sexual gratification in this performance alone; Eulenburg quotes examples, Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 107.) An emotional interest in statues is by no means uncommon among young men during adolescence. Heine, in Florentine Nights, records the experiences of a boy who conceived a sentimental love for a statue, and, as this book appears to be largely autobiographical, the incident may have been founded on fact. Youths have sometimes masturbated before statues, and even before the image of the Virgin; such cases are known to priests and mentioned in manuals for confessors. Pygmalionism appears to have been not uncommon among the ancient Greeks, and this has been ascribed to their æsthetic sense; but the manifestation is due rather to the absence than to the presence of æsthetic feeling, and we may observe among ourselves that it is the ignorant and uncultured who feel the indecency of statues and thus betray their sense of the sexual appeal of such objects. We have to remember that in Greece statues played a very prominent part in life, and also that they were tinted, and thus more lifelike than with us. Lucian, Athenæus, Ælian, and others refer to cases of men who fell in love with statues. Tarnowsky (Sexual Instinct, English edition, p. 85) mentions the case of a young man who was arrested in St. Petersburg for paying moonlight visits to the statue of a nymph on the terrace of a country house, and Krafft-Ebing quotes from a French newspaper the case which occurred in Paris during the spring of 1877 of a gardener who fell in love with a Venus in one of the parks. (I. Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 297-305, brings together various facts bearing on this group of manifestations.) Necrophily, or a sexual attraction for corpses, is sometimes regarded as related to pygmalionism. It is, however, a more profoundly morbid manifestation, and may perhaps he regarded as a kind of perverted sadism. Founded on the sense of vision also we find a phenomenon, bordering on the abnormal, which is by Moll termed mixoscopy. This means the sexual pleasure derived from the spectacle of other persons engaged in natural or perverse sexual actions. (Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 308. Moll considers that in some cases mixoscopy is related to masochism. There is, however, no necessary connection between the two phenomena.) Brothels are prepared to accommodate visitors who merely desire to look on, and for their convenience carefully contrived peepholes are provided; such visitors are in Paris termed "voyeurs." It is said by Coffignon that persons hide at night in the bushes in the Champs Elysées in the hope of witnessing such scenes between servant girls and their lovers. In England during a country walk I have come across an elderly man carefully ensconced behind a bush and intently watching through his field-glass a couple of lovers reclining on a bank, though the actions of the latter were not apparently marked by any excess of indecorum. Such impulses are only slightly abnormal, whatever may be said of them from the point of view of good taste. They are not very far removed from the legitimate curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself unobserved, turns her glass on to a group of young men bathing naked. They only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is sought in preference to natural sexual gratification. They are also not normal when they involve, for instance, a man desiring to witness his wife in the act of coitus with another man. I have been told of the case of a scientific man who encouraged his wife to promote the advances of a young friend of his own, in his own drawing-room, he himself remaining present and apparently taking no notice; the younger man was astonished, but accepted the situation. In such a case, when the motives that led up to the episode are obscure, we must not too hastily assume that masochism or even mixoscopy is involved. For information on some of the points mentioned above see, e.g., I. Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil I, pp. 200 et seq.; Teil II, pp. 195 et seq. Wide, however, as is the appeal of beauty in sexual selection, it cannot be said to cover by any means the whole of the visual field in its sexual relationship. Beauty in the human species is, above all, a feminine attribute, making its appeal to men. Even for women, as has already been noted, beauty is still a feminine quality, which they usually admire, and in cases of inversion worship with an ardor which equals, if it does not surpass, that experienced by normal men. But the normal woman experiences no corresponding cult for the beauty of man. The perfection of the body of man is not behind that of woman in beauty, but the study of it only appeals to the artist or the æsthetician; it arouses sexual enthusiasm almost exclusively in the male sexual invert. Whatever may be the case among animals or even among savages, in civilization the man is most successful with women is not the most handsome man, and may be the reverse of handsome. The maiden, according to the old saying, who has to choose between Adonis and Hercules, will turn to Hercules. [169] A correspondent writes: "Men are generally attracted in the first instance by a woman's beauty, either of face or figure. Frequently this is the highest form of love they are capable of. Personally, my own love is always prompted by this. In the case of my wife there was certainly a leaven of friendship and moral sympathies but these alone would never have been translated into love had she not been young and good-looking. Moreover, I have felt intense passion for other women, in my relations with whom the elements of moral or mental sympathy have not entered. And always, as youth and beauty went, I believe I should transfer my love to some one else. "Now, in woman I fancy this element of beauty and youth does not enter so much. I have questioned a large number of women—some married, some unmarried, young and old ladies, shopgirls, servants, prostitutes, women whom I have known only as friends, others with whom I have had sexual relations—and I cannot recollect one instance when a woman said she had fallen in love with a man for his looks. The nearest approach to any sign of this was in the instance of one, who noticed a handsome man sitting near us in a hotel, and said to me: 'I should like him to kiss me.' "I have also noticed that women do not like looking at my body, when naked, as I like looking at theirs. My wife has, on a few occasions, put her hand over my body, and expressed pleasure at the feeling of my skin. (I have very fair, soft skin.) But I have never seen women exhibit the excitement that is caused in me by the sight of their bodies, which I love to look at, to stroke, to kiss all over." It is interesting to point out, in this connection, that the admiration of strength is not confined to the human female. It is by the spectacle of his force that the male among many of the lower animals sexually affects the female. Darwin duly allows for this fact, while some evolutionists, and notably Wallace, consider that it covers the whole field of sexual selection. When choice exists, Wallace states, "all the facts appear to be consistent with the choice depending on a variety of male characteristics, with some of which color is often correlated. Thus, it is the opinion of some of the best observers that vigor and liveliness are most attractive, and these are, no doubt, usually associated with some intensity of color, ... There is reason to believe that it is his [the male bird's] persistency and energy rather than his beauty which wins the day." (A. R. Wallace, Tropical Nature, 1898, p. 199.) In his later book, Darwinism (p. 295), Wallace reaffirms his position that sexual selection means that in the rivalry of males for the female the most vigorous secures the advantage; "ornament," he adds, "is the natural product and direct outcome of superabundant health and vigor." As regards woman's love of strength, see Westermarck, History of Marriage, p. 255. Women admire a man's strength rather than his beauty. This statement is commonly made, and with truth, but, so far as I am aware, its meaning is never analyzed. When we look into it, I think, we shall find that it leads us into a special division of the visual sphere of sexual allurement. The spectacle of force, while it remains strictly within the field of vision, really brings to us, although unconsciously, impressions that are correlated with another sense—that of touch. We instinctively and unconsciously translate visible energy into energy of pressure. In admiring strength we are really admiring a tactile quality which has been made visible. It may therefore be said that, while through vision men are sexually affected mainly by the more purely visual quality of beauty, women are more strongly affected by visual impressions which express qualities belonging to the more fundamentally sexual sense of touch. The distinction between the man's view and the woman's view, here pointed out, is not, it must be added, absolute. Even for a man, beauty, with all these components which we have already analyzed in it, is not the sole sexual allurement of vision. A woman is not necessarily sexually attractive in the ratio of her beauty, and with even a high degree of beauty may have a low degree of attraction. The addition of vivacity or the addition of languor may each furnish a sexual allurement, and each of these is a translated tactile quality which possesses an obscure potency from vague sexual implications. But while in the man the demand for these translated pressure qualities in the visible attractiveness of a woman are not usually quite clearly realized, in a woman the corresponding craving for the visual expression of pressure energy is much more pronounced and predominant. It is not difficult to see why this should be so, even without falling back on the usual explanation that natural selection implies that the female shall choose the male who will be the most likely father of strong children and the best protector of his family. The more energetic part in physical love belongs to the man, the more passive part to the woman; so that, while energy in a woman is no index to effectiveness in love, energy in a man furnishes a seeming index to the existence of the primary quality of sexual energy which a woman demands of a man in the sexual embrace. It may be a fallacious index, for muscular strength is not necessarily correlated with sexual vigor, and in its extreme degrees appears to be more correlated with its absence. But it furnishes, in Stendhal's phrase, a probability of passion, and in any case it still remains a symbol which cannot be without its effect. We must not, of course, suppose that these considerations are always or often present to the consciousness of the maiden who "blushingly turns from Adonis to Hercules," but the emotional attitude is rooted in more or less unerring instincts. In this way it happens that even in the field of visual attraction sexual selection influences women on the underlying basis of the more primitive sense of touch, the fundamentally sexual sense. [170] Women are very sensitive to the quality of a man's touch, and appear to seek and enjoy contact and pressure to a greater extent than do men, although in early adolescence this impulse seems to be marked in both sexes. "There is something strangely winning to most women," remarks George Eliot, in The Mill on the Floss, "in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help—the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs—meets a continual want of the imagination." Women are often very critical concerning a man's touch and his method of shaking hands. Stanley Hall (Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 8) quotes a gifted lady as remarking: "I used to say that, however much I liked a man, I could never marry him if I did not like the touch of his hand, and I feel so yet." Among the elements of sexual attractiveness which make a special appeal to women, extreme personal cleanliness would appear to take higher rank than it takes in the eyes of a man, some men, indeed, seeming to make surprisingly small demands of a woman in this respect. If this is so we may connect it with the fact that beauty in a woman's eye is to a much greater extent than in a man's a picture of energy, in other words, a translation of pressure contracts, with which the question of physical purity is necessarily more intimately associated than it is with the picture of purely visual beauty. It is noteworthy that Ovid (Ars Amandi, lib. I) urges men who desire to please women to leave the arts of adornment and effeminacy to those whose loves are homosexual, and to practice a scrupulous attention to extreme neatness and cleanliness of body and garments in every detail, a sun-browned skin, and the absence of all odor. Some two thousand years later Brummell in an age when extravagance and effeminacy often marked the fashions of men, introduced a new ideal of unobtrusive simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of perfumes), and exquisite good taste; he abhorred all eccentricity, and may be said to have constituted a tradition which Englishmen have ever since sought, more or less successfully to follow; he was idolized by women. It may be added that the attentiveness of women to tactile contacts is indicated by the frequency with which in them it takes on morbid forms, as the délire du contact, the horror of contamination, the exaggerated fear of touching dirt. (See, e.g., Raymond and Janet, Les Obsessions et la Psychasthénie.) 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. Havelock Ellis (2004). Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13613/pg13613-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

The sensory element of vision in human sexual selection

A Columbus of Space by Garrett Putman Serviss is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE EARTH THE EARTH Edmund's reference to the stars instantly drew my attention to the heavens. They were ablaze with amazing gems, but at first I could not see the earth among them. "I know what you are looking for," said Edmund. "Here, look through the peephole in the bow. From our present position the earth appears but little elevated above the horizon, but when we reach the caverns, which are in the center of the dark hemisphere, we shall see her overhead." I knelt at the peephole, and my heart was in my throat. There was our glorious planet, oh, so bright! and close beside her the moon. At the sight, an irrepressible longing arose in me to be once more at home. Jack and Henry took their turns at looking, and they were no less affected than I had been. But Edmund retained a perfect self-command: "Do you know," he asked with an odd smile (for now the lamps were glowing, and we had plenty of light in the car), "how long we have been absent from home?" Not one of us had kept a record. "It is just six hundred and four days," he continued, "since we left New York. We were sixteen days on our way to Venus; six days after our arrival at the caverns occurred the conjunction of the earth, and the ceremonies that Peter will not forget as long as he refrains from hair dye; two days later we departed for the sun lands; and since then five hundred and eighty days have passed. Now, between one conjunction of the earth and Venus to the next, five hundred and eighty-four days elapse. Already five hundred and eighty-two of those days have passed, so that within two days another conjunction will occur, and if we are then at the caverns we shall doubtless witness another sacrifice to the earth and the moon." "God forbid!" I exclaimed. "I feel as you do," said Edmund. "We have seen enough of such things. In order, then, to hasten our arrival at the caverns, where we must bury Juba, for on that I insist, I am going to rise up out of the atmosphere, in order that we may fly with planetary speed. We can thus reach the caverns, traversing the five thousand miles of distance that yet remain, in something like an hour, for some time must be lost in rising out of and returning into the atmosphere, and in the meantime I must make observations to determine our location. Having found the caverns we will complete our rites at Juba's grave, and get away for good before the sacrificial ceremonies begin." It was a programme that suited us all, and it was quickly carried out. I had not thought that my admiration of Edmund's ability could be increased, but it was carried a notch higher when I saw how easily, guiding himself by the ever-visible stars, he located the caverns. When he knew that he was directly over them he dropped the car swiftly, and we could not repress a cry as we saw directly beneath us the familiar shafts of light issuing from the ground. "We may have to do a little searching," said Edmund, as we approached the lights, "for, of course, my observations are not accurate enough to enable me to locate the exact spot where we landed before." But fortune favored us marvelously, and the very first opening that we approached was at once recognized, for there stood the sacrificial altar. We anchored the car near the shaft, and carried out Juba's coffin. "Wait here," said Edmund, "while I descend." "No, you're not going alone," exclaimed Jack. "I'll go with you." Edmund made no objection and he and Jack descended the steps. Half an hour elapsed before they returned, accompanied by a dozen of the natives, stolid, and not exhibiting the signs of surprise over our return which I had expected to see. Edmund had now made so much progress in their strange means of communication that he had little difficulty in causing them to comprehend what was wanted. They easily carried the coffin, and all of us followed down into the depths. It was the strangest funeral procession that ever a man saw! While the grave was being prepared in the underground cemetery where we had witnessed the interment of the first victim of our pistols, Henry and I remained as a sort of guard of honor for Juba in the lower of the two great chambers which have been described in the earlier chapters of this history, and there a most singular thing occurred. We were startled by a low whining, and looking about saw one of the doglike creatures which appeared to be the only inhabitants of the caverns except the natives seated on its haunches close to the coffin, and exhibiting exactly the signs of distress that a dog sometimes displays over its dead master. That we were taken aback by this scene I need not assure you. We had never observed, during our former visit, that either Juba or any of his people was followed by these creatures; in fact, they had always fled at our approach, and we had paid little attention to them. But now, if the poor animal could have spoken, he could not more plainly have told us that, by means of the mysterious instinct which beings of his kind possess, he had recognized the presence of his old master, and was mourning for him. It was truly a touching spectacle, and Henry was hardly less moved by it than I. When Edmund and Jack came back, having superintended the preparations, Jack was cut to the heart by the sight. Immediately he declared that the "dog" must accompany us in the car, and Edmund assented by a grave inclination of the head. The animal followed us to the grave, and remained there watching us intently. He seemed to have dismissed his fear, as if he comprehended that we were friends of his master. There were not more than twenty of the natives present at the interment, and none of them showed signs of sorrow. And when the grave was closed and we turned away, the little creature followed at our heels. Edmund had carved on a flat stone the word "JUBA," and left it lying on the grave, and Jack, having nothing else, threw a silver dollar on top of it. The natives probably regarded these things as talismans, or religious symbols, for they treated them with the greatest deference, and no doubt they lie there yet, and will continue to lie there through all the eons, for in those dry caverns the progress of decay can hardly be perceptible even after the passage of ages. It was a singular fact, noted by Edmund, that the natives exhibited not the slightest curiosity concerning their comrades who had been lost in the crystal mountains, and I really doubt whether they knew what the coffin contained. When we had paid the last honors to Juba, we began to think of our final departure. This place had become disagreeable to us. After the brilliant scenes that we had witnessed on the other side of the planet, the gloom here, and the absence of all that had made the land of perpetual daylight seem a paradise of beauty, were intensely oppressive to our spirits. But Edmund still wished to make some investigations, and we were compelled to await his movements. What the nature of his investigations was I do not know, for I was devoured by the desire to get away, and did not inquire. But fully twenty-four hours had elapsed before our leader was ready to depart. In the meanwhile "Juba's dog" had become firmly attached to Jack, who petted it as probably no creature of its race had ever been petted before. It was a strange-looking animal; about as large as a terrier, with a big square head, covered with long black hair, while, in startling imitation of the hirsute adornment of the natives themselves, its body was clothed with a golden-white pelt of silky texture. It would eat anything we offered it, and seemed immensely pleased with its new master, as it had every reason for being. During the last hours of our stay we noticed unmistakable indications of preparation for the dreaded ceremonies of the conjunction, and our departure was hastened on that account. The priests, whom Edmund had been compelled to put out of the way of further mischief on the former occasion, had been replaced by others, and we thought that, perhaps, this being the first opportunity for the display of their functions, they would try to make it memorable—which presented a still stronger reason why we should not delay. But, with one thing and another, we were held back until the very eve of the ceremonies. When we finally stood ready to enter the car, with Juba's dog at Jack's heels, the procession up the steps had already begun. Edmund decided to wait until the multitude had all assembled. They came trooping up into the starlight, and I am sure that they had no idea of what we intended to do. Undoubtedly they must have recalled what had happened on the other occasion, but they showed no sign of either regret or anxiety on that account. They arranged themselves in a dense circle, as before, and the priests took their place in the center. At this moment Edmund gave the word to enter the car. We sprang into it, and immediately Jack and I went out on a window ledge in order to get a better view of the scene. Edmund started the car, and we rose straight toward the earth which glowed in the zenith. Our movement was unexpected, and we at once arrested the attention even of the priests. The beginning of the ceremony was stopped short. All eyes were evidently drawn to us, and when they saw the direction that we were taking a low murmur arose. "Let me give them a parting salute," said Jack. Edmund thought a moment, and then said: "Very well, take a gun, but don't fire at them. If it terrifies them into abandoning their sacrifice we shall have done one good thing in this world." Jack instantly had the gun roaring, and although we were now high above their heads, we could see that they were seized with consternation, rising from their knees, and running wildly about. Whether the noise and the sight of us flying toward the earth, had the effect which Edmund had hoped for, will never be known; but the last sight we had of living beings on Venus was the spectacle of those white forms darting about in the starry gloom. Our long journey home was interrupted by one more almost tragic episode. When we had been ten days in flight, and the earth had become like a round moon of dazzling brilliance, Juba's dog, which had grown feeble and refused to eat, died. Jack was broken-hearted, and protested when Edmund said that the body of the animal must be thrown out. He would have liked to try to stuff the skin, but Edmund was firm. "But if you open a window," I said, "the air will escape." "Some of it will undoubtedly escape," Edmund replied. "But, luckily, this is the air of Venus which we are carrying, and being very dense, we can spare a little of it without serious results. I shall be quick, and there will be no danger." It was as he had said. When the window was partially opened, for only a second or two, we distinctly felt a lowering of the atmospheric pressure that made us gasp for a moment, but instantly Edmund had the window closed again, and we were all right. As we shot away we saw the little white body gleaming in the sunlight like a thistledown, and then it disappeared forever. "It is a new planet born," said Edmund, "and the law of gravitation will pay it as much attention as if it were a Jupiter. It may wander in space for untold ages, and sometime it may even fall within the sphere of the earth's attraction, and then Jack's wish will have been fulfilled; but it will be but a flying spark, flashing momentarily in the heavens as it shoots through the air." * * * * * Our home-coming was a strange one. For some reason of his own Edmund did not wish to take the car to New York. He landed in the midst of the Adirondack woods, far from any habitation, and there, concealed in a swamp, he insisted upon leaving the car. We made our way out of the wilderness to the nearest railway station, and our first care was to visit a barber and a clothing merchant. Probably, as we carried some of the guns, they took us for a party of hunters who wished to furbish up before revisiting civilization. On reaching New York, we went, in the evening, straight to the Olympus Club, where our arrival caused a sensation. We found Church in the old corner, staring dejectedly at a newspaper. He did not see who was approaching him. Jack slapped him on the shoulder, and as he looked up and recognized us he fell back nearly fainting, and with mouth open, unable to utter a word. "Come, old man," said Jack, "so we've found you! What did you run away for? Let me introduce you to the Columbus of Space, and don't you forget that I'm one of his lieutenants." I don't think that Church has ever fully believed our story. He thinks, to this day, that we lost our "balloon," as he calls it, and invented the rest. We purposely allowed the newspaper reporters to take the same view of the case, but when we four were alone we unburdened our hearts, and relived the marvelous life of Venus. I use the past tense, because I have yet to tell you most disquieting news. Edmund has disappeared. Within three months after our return he bade us good night at an unusually early hour and we have never seen him since, although more than a year has now elapsed since he went out of the room at the Olympus. Jack and I have made every effort to find a trace of him, without avail. Led by a natural suspicion, we have ransacked the Adirondack woods, but we could never satisfy ourselves that we had found the place where the car was left. Henry persists in the belief that Edmund is trying in secret to develop his invention, with the intention of "revolutionizing industry and making himself a multibillionaire." But Jack and I know better! Wherever he may be, whatever may occupy his wonderful powers, we feel that the ordinary concerns of the earth have no interest for him. Yet we are sure that if he is alive he often thinks of us. Last night as Jack and I were walking to the club with my completed manuscript under my arm, a falling star shot across the sky. "Do you know what that recalls to me?" asked Jack, with a far-off expression in his eyes. "What?" "Juba's dog." Neither of us spoke again before we reached the clubhouse steps, but I am certain that through both our minds there streamed a glittering procession of such memories as life on this planet could never give birth to. And they ended with a sigh. THE END 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. Garrett Putman Serviss (2005). A Columbus of Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8673/pg8673.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE EARTH

OFF FOR THE SUN LANDS

A Columbus of Space by Garrett Putman Serviss is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE PLANETARY LIMITED THE PLANETARY LIMITED But Edmund had seen the meteor sooner than I, and as quick as thought he swerved the car, and threw us all off our feet once more. But we should have been thankful if he had broken our heads, since he had saved us from instant destruction. The danger, however, was not yet passed. Scarcely had the immense dumb-bell (which Edmund declared must have been composed of solid iron, so great was its effect on his needles) disappeared, before there came from outside a blaze so fierce that it fairly slapped our lids shut. "A collision!" Edmund exclaimed. "The thing has struck another big meteor, and they are exchanging fiery compliments." He threw himself flat on the floor, and stared out of the peephole. Then he jumped to his feet and gave us another tumble. "They're all about us," he faltered, breathless with exertion; then, having drawn a deep inspiration, he continued: "We're like a boat in a raging freshet, with rocks, tree trunks, and cakes of ice threatening it on all sides. But we'll get out of it. The car obeys its helm as if it appreciated the danger. Why, I got away from that last fellow by setting up atomic reaction against it, as a boatman pushes with his pole." Even in the midst of our terror we could not but admire our leader. His resources seemed boundless, and our confidence in him grew with every escape. While he kept guard at the peepholes we watched for meteors from the windows. We must have come almost within striking distance of a thousand in the course of an hour, but Edmund decided not to diminish our speed, for he said that he could control the car quicker when it was under full headway. So on we rushed, dodging the things like a crow in a flock of pestering jays, and we really enjoyed the excitement. It was more fascinating sport than shooting rapids in a careening skiff, and at last we grew so confident in the powers of our car and its commander that we were rather sorry when the last meteor passed, and we found ourselves once more in open, unimpeded space. After that the time passed quietly. We ate our meals and went to bed and rose as regularly as if we had been at home. In one respect, however, things were very different from what they were on the earth. We had no night! The sun shone continually, although the sky was black and always glittering with stars. None of us needed to be told by our conductor that this was due to the fact that we no longer had the shadow of the earth to make night for us when the sun was behind it. The sun was now never behind the earth, or any other great opaque body, and when we wished to sleep we made an artificial night, for our special use, by closing all the shutters. And there was no atmosphere about us to diffuse the sunlight, and so to hide the stars. We kept count of the days by the aid of a calendar clock; there seemed to be nothing that Edmund had forgotten. And it was a delightful experience, the wonder of which grew upon us hour by hour. It was too marvelous, too incredible, to be believed, and yet—there we were! Once the idea suddenly came to me that it was astonishing that we had not long ago perished for lack of oxygen. I understood, of course, from what Edmund had said, that the mysterious machines along the wall absorbed the carbonic acid, but we must be constantly using up the oxygen. When I put my difficulty before Edmund he laughed. "That's the easiest thing of all," he said. "Look here." He threw open a little grating. "In there," he continued, "there's an apparatus which manufactures just enough oxygen to keep the air in good condition. It is supplied with materials to last a month, which will be much longer than this expedition will take." "There you are again," exclaimed Jack. "I was asking you about that when we ran into those pesky meteors. What is this expedition? Where are we going, anyway?" "Well," Edmund replied, "since we have become pretty good shipmates, I don't see any objection to telling you. We are going to Venus." "Going to Venus!" we all cried in a breath. "To be sure. Why not? We've got the proper sort of conveyance, haven't we?" There was no denying that. Our conveyance had already brought us some millions of miles out into space; why, indeed, should it not be able to carry us to Venus, or any other planet? "How far is it to Venus?" asked Jack. "When we quit the earth," Edmund answered, "Venus was rapidly approaching inferior conjunction. You know what that is," addressing me, "it's when the planet comes between the sun and the earth. The distance from the earth is not always the same at such a conjunction, but I figured out that on this occasion, after allowing for the circuit we should have to make, there would be just twenty-seven million miles to travel. At an average speed of twenty miles a second we could do that distance in fifteen days, fourteen and one half hours. But, of course, I had to lose some time going slow through the earth's atmosphere, for otherwise the car would have taken fire, like a meteor, on account of the friction. Then, too, I shall have to slow up on entering the atmosphere of Venus, which appears to be very deep and dense; so, upon the whole, I don't count on landing upon Venus in less than sixteen days from the time of our departure. We've already been out five days, and within eleven more I expect to introduce you to the inhabitants of another world." The inhabitants of another world! Again Edmund had thrown out an idea which took us all aback. "Do you believe there are any inhabitants on Venus?" I asked at length. "Certainly. I know there are." "For sure," put in Jack, stretching out his legs and pulling at his pipe. "Who'd go twenty-seven million miles to pay a visit if he didn't know there was somebody at home?" "Then that's what you put the arms aboard for," I remarked. "Yes, but I hope we shall not have to use them." "Strikes me that this is a sort of pirate ship," said Jack. "But what kind of arms have you got, Edmund?" For answer Edmund threw open a locker and showed us a gleaming array of automatic guns and pistols and even some cutlasses. "Decidedly piratical!" exclaimed the incorrigible Jack. "You'd better hoist the black flag. But, see here, Edmund, with all this inter-atomic energy that you talk about, why in the world didn't you invent something new—something that would just knock the Venustians silly, and blow their old planet up if necessary? Automatic arms are pretty good at home, on that unprogressive earth that you have spurned with your heels, but they'll likely be rather small pumpkins on Venus." "I didn't prepare anything else," Edmund replied, "because, in the first place, I was too busy with more important things, and in the second place because I don't really anticipate that we shall have any use for arms. I only took these as a precaution." "You mean to try moral suasion, I suppose," drawled Jack. "Well, anyhow, I hope they'll be glad to see us, and since it is Venus that we are going to visit, I don't look for much fighting. I'm glad you made it Venus instead of Mars, Edmund, for, from all I've heard of Mars with its fourteen-foot giants, I don't think I should like to try the pirate business in that direction." We all laughed at Jack's fancies; but there was something tremendously thrilling in the idea. Think of landing on another world! Think of meeting inhabitants there! Really, it made one's head spin. "Confound it, this is all a dream," I said to myself. "I'm on my back in bed with a nightmare. I'll kick myself awake." But do what I would I could make no dream of it. On the contrary, I felt that I had never been quite so much awake in all my life before. After a while we all settled down to take the thing in earnest. And then the charm of it began to master our imaginations. We talked over the prospects in all their aspects. Edmund said little, and Henry nothing, but Jack and I were stirred to the bottom of our romantic souls. Henry was different. He had no romance in his make-up. He always looked at the money in a thing. To his mind, going to Venus was playing the fool, when we had at our command the means of owning the earth. "Edmund," he said, after mumbling for a while under his breath, "this is the most utter tomfoolery that ever I heard of. Here you've got an invention that would revolutionize mechanics, and instead of utilizing it you rush off into space on a hairbrained adventure. You might have been twenty times a billionaire inside of a year if you had stayed at home and developed the thing. Why, it's folly; pure, beastly folly! Going to Venus! What can you make on Venus?" Edmund only smiled. After a little he said: "Well, I'm sorry for you, Henry. But then you're cut out on the ordinary pattern. But cheer up. When we go back, perhaps I'll let you take out a patent, and you can make the billions. For my part, Venus is more interesting to me than all the money you could pile up between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. Why," he continued, warming up, and straightening with a certain pride which he had, "am I not the Columbus of Space?—And you my lieutenants," he added, with a smile. "Right you are," cried Jack enthusiastically. "The Columbus of Space, that's the ticket! Where's old Archimedes now? Buried, by Jo! He couldn't go to Venus! And what need we care for your billionaires?" Edmund patted Jack on the back, and I rather sympathized with his enthusiasm myself. The time ran on, and we watched anxiously the day-hand of the calendar clock. Soon it had marked a week; then ten days; then a fortnight. We knew we must be getting very close to our goal, yet up to this time neither Jack, nor Henry, nor I had caught a glimpse of Venus. Edmund, however, had seen it, but he told us that in order to do so he had been obliged to alter our course because the planet was directly in the eye of the sun. In consequence of the change of course we were now approaching Venus from the east—flanking her, so to speak—and Edmund described her appearance as that of an enormous crescent. Finally he invited us to take a look for ourselves. I shall never forget that first view! It was only a glimpse, for Edmund was nervous about meteors again, and would allow us only a moment at the peephole because he wished to be continually on the watch himself. But, brief as was the view, that vast gleaming sickle hanging in the black sky was the most tremendous thing I ever looked upon! Soon afterwards Edmund changed the course again, and then we saw her no more. We had not come upon the swarms of meteors that Edmund had expected to find lurking about the planet, and he said that he now felt safe in running into her shadow, and making a landing on her night hemisphere. You will allow me to remind you that Schiaparelli had long before found out that Venus doesn't turn on her axis once every twenty-four hours, like the earth, but keeps always the same face to the sun; the consequence being that she has perpetual day on one side and perpetual night on the other. I asked Edmund why he should not rather land on the daylight side; but he replied that his plan was safer, and that we could easily go from one side to the other whenever we chose. It didn't turn out to be so easy after all, but that is another part of the story. "I hardly expect to find any inhabitants on the night side," Edmund remarked, "for it must be fearfully cold there—too cold for life to exist, perhaps; but I have provided against that as far as we are concerned. Still, one can never tell. There may be inhabitants there, and at any rate I am going to find out. If there are none, we'll just stop long enough to take a look at things, and then the car will quickly transport us to the daylight hemisphere, where life certainly exists. By landing on the uninhabited side, you see, we shall have a chance to reconnoiter a little, and can approach the inhabitants on the other side so much the more safely." "That sounds all right enough," said Jack, "but if Venus is correctly named, I'm for getting where the inhabitants are as quick as possible." When we swung round into the shadow of the planet we got her between the sun and ourselves, and as she completely hid the sun, we now had perpetual night about the car. Out of the peephole she looked like a stupendous black circle, blacker than the sky itself, but round the rim was a beautiful ring of light. "That's her atmosphere," Edmund explained, "lighted up by the sun from behind. But, for the life of me, I cannot tell what those immense flames mean." He referred to a vast circle of many-colored spires that blazed and flickered like a burning rainbow at the inner edge of the ring of light. It was one of the most awful, and yet beautiful, sights that I had ever gazed upon. "That's something altogether outside my calculations," Edmund added. "I can't account for it at all." "Perhaps they are already celebrating our arrival with fireworks," suggested Jack, always ready to take the humorous view of everything. "That's not fire," Edmund responded earnestly. "But what it is I confess I can't imagine. We'll find out, however, for I haven't come all this distance to be scared off." And here I must try to explain a very curious thing which had puzzled our senses, though not our understanding (because Edmund had promptly explained it), throughout the voyage, and that was—levitation. On our first day out from the earth, we began to notice the remarkable ease with which we handled things, and the strange tendency we had to bump into one another because we seemed to be all the time employing more strength than was necessary and almost to be able to walk on air. Jack declared that he felt as if his head had become a toy balloon. "It's the lack of weight," said Edmund. "Every time we double our distance from the earth we lose another three quarters of our weight. If I had thought to bring along a spring dynamometer, I could have shown you, Jack, that when we were 4,000 miles above the earth's surface the 200 good pounds with which you depress the scales at home had diminished to 50, and that when we had passed about 150,000 miles into space you weighed no more than a couple of ounces. From that point on, it has been the attraction of the sun to which we have owed whatever weight we had, and the floor of the car has been toward the sun, because, at that distance from the earth, the latter ceases to exercise the master force, and the pull of the sun becomes greater than the earth's. But as we approach Venus the latter begins to restore our weight, and when we arrive on her surface we shall weigh about four fifths as much as when we started from the earth." "But I don't look as if I had lost any avoirdupois," said Jack, glancing at his round limbs. "And when you give us a fling I seem to strike pretty hard, though in other respects I confess I do feel a good deal like an angel." "Ah," said Edmund, laughing, "that's the inertia of mass. Your mass is the same, although your weight has almost disappeared. Weight depends upon the distance from the attracting body, but mass is independent of everything." "Do you mean to say that angels are massive?" "They may be as massive as they like provided they keep well away from great centers of gravitation." "But Venus is such a center—then there can't be any angels there." "I hope to find something better than angels," was Edmund's smiling reply. Now, as we drew near to Venus, the truth of Edmund's statements became apparent. We felt that our weight was returning, and our muscular activity sinking back to the normal again. We imagined that every minute we could feel our feet pressing more heavily upon the floor. Our approach was so rapid that the immense black circle grew visibly minute by minute. Soon it was so large that we could no longer see its boundaries through the peephole in the floor. "We're now within a thousand miles," said Edmund, "and must be close to the upper limits of the atmosphere. I'll have to slow down, or else we'll be burnt up by the heat of friction." He proceeded to slow down a little more rapidly than was comfortable. It was jerk after jerk, as he dropped off the power, and put on the brakes, but at last we got down to the speed of a fast express train. Soon we were so close that the surface of the planet became dimly visible, simply from the starlight. We were now settling down very cautiously, and presently we began to notice curious shafts of light which appeared to issue from the ground, as if the surface beneath us had been sprinkled with iron founderies. "Aha!" cried Edmund, "I believe there are inhabitants on this side after all. Those lights don't come from volcanoes. I'm going to make for the nearest one, and we'll soon know what they are." Accordingly we steered for one of the gleaming shafts. It was a thrilling moment, I can tell you—that when we first saw another world than ours under our feet! As we approached the light it threw a pale illumination on the ground around. Everything appeared to be perfectly flat and level. It was like dropping down at night upon a vast prairie. But the features of the landscape were indistinguishable in the gloom. Edmund boldly continued to approach until we were within a hundred feet of the shaft of light, which we could now perceive issued directly from the ground. Suddenly, with the slightest perceptible bump, we touched the soil, and the car came to rest. We had landed on Venus! "It's unquestionably frightfully cold outside," said Edmund, "and we'll now put on these things." He dragged out of one of his many lockers four suits of thick fur garments, and as many pairs of fur gloves, together with caps and shields for the face, leaving only narrow openings for the eyes. When we had got them on we looked like so many Esquimaux. Finally Edmund handed each of us a pair of small automatic pistols, telling us to put them where they would be handy in our side pockets. "Boarders all!" cried the irrepressible Jack. "Pirates, do your duty!" Our preparations being made, we opened the door. The air that rushed in almost hardened us into icicles! "It won't hurt you," said Edmund in a whisper. "It can't be down to absolute zero on account of the dense atmosphere. You'll get used to it in a few minutes. Come on." His whispering gave us a sense of imminent danger, but nevertheless we followed as he led the way straight toward the shaft of light. On nearing it we saw that it came out of an irregularly round hole in the ground. When we got yet nearer we were astonished to see rough steps which led down into the pit. The next instant we were frozen in our tracks! For a moment my heart stopped beating. Standing on the steps, just below the level of the ground, and intently watching us, with eyes as big and luminous as moons, was a creature shaped like a man, but more savage than a gorilla! 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. Garrett Putman Serviss (2005). A Columbus of Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8673/pg8673.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

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