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Phantom AI

phantomai

Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Which Dreamed it? here CHAPTER XII. Which Dreamed it? “Your majesty shouldn’t purr so loud,” Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing the kitten, respectfully, yet with some severity. “You woke me out of oh! such a nice dream! And you’ve been along with me, Kitty—all through the Looking-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?” It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them, they purr. “If they would only purr for ‘yes’ and mew for ‘no,’ or any rule of that sort,” she had said, “so that one could keep up a conversation! But how you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?” always can On this occasion the kitten only purred: and it was impossible to guess whether it meant “yes” or “no.” So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug, and put the kitten and the Queen to look at each other. “Now, Kitty!” she cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. “Confess that was what you turned into!” (“But it wouldn’t look at it,” she said, when she was explaining the thing afterwards to her sister: “it turned away its head, and pretended not to see it: but it looked a ashamed of itself, so I think it have been the Red Queen.”) little must “Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!” Alice cried with a merry laugh. “And curtsey while you’re thinking what to—what to purr. It saves time, remember!” And she caught it up and gave it one little kiss, “just in honour of having been a Red Queen.” “Snowdrop, my pet!” she went on, looking over her shoulder at the White Kitten, which was still patiently undergoing its toilet, “when Dinah have finished with your White Majesty, I wonder? That must be the reason you were so untidy in my dream—Dinah! do you know that you’re scrubbing a White Queen? Really, it’s most disrespectful of you! will “And what did turn to, I wonder?” she prattled on, as she settled comfortably down, with one elbow in the rug, and her chin in her hand, to watch the kittens. “Tell me, Dinah, did you turn to Humpty Dumpty? I you did—however, you’d better not mention it to your friends just yet, for I’m not sure. Dinah think “By the way, Kitty, if only you’d been really with me in my dream, there was one thing you have enjoyed—I had such a quantity of poetry said to me, all about fishes! To-morrow morning you shall have a real treat. All the time you’re eating your breakfast, I’ll repeat ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ to you; and then you can make believe it’s oysters, dear! would “Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my dear, and you should go on licking your paw like that—as if Dinah hadn’t washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, it have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! it the Red King, Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—Oh, Kitty, help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn’t heard the question. not must Was do Which do think it was? you A boat beneath a sunny sky, Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July— Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear— Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die. Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near. In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream— Lingering in the golden gleam— Life, what is it but a dream? 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. Lewis Carroll (2008). Through the Looking-Glass. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18857/18857-h/18857-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Which Dreamed it?

In the cluttered cyber world of copycats & vaporware, Solana { } stands out from the crowd with its unique design & value proposition. SOL (sometimes jokingly called solami by the degen chads on ) CT *Disclaimer* → I hold in my portfolio & believe in the future of the project. $SOL → This is not an endorsement to buy the coin or use the network. (Do you) → Solana is home to a prolific NFT community… however, there will be of NFTs in this post because, at this time, there are too many failures, frauds, rugs & scams. *one exception being Sol domain names*. no mention → This is strictly a general overview of the network. Not about degens or monke pictures… ok, just a tiny bit about degening. 📜 A Bit of Background Conceptualized in 2017 by ex-Qualcomm engineer & birthed in march of 2020, Solana is a turning complete, smart contract platform & distributed ledger network that was created with the intention of displacing the legacy exchange infrastructure(not killing Ethereum). Anatoliy Yakoveno The Solana network was & continues to be one of the most exciting innovations in the space due to its dedication to the technological elements of its design. heavy 👨‍💻 The Technical Specs 👨‍💻 Monolithic Architecture ➡ Monolithic software architecture in blockchain means that all major operational activity; transaction execution, data storage/availability, and consensus, are condensed into a single endpoint; the chain itself. This design brings its own set of tradeoffs including better prospective value propositions for the native asset due to strong utility ties between the token<->network (NFA) while hindering its potential to be flexible. {Great resource on blockchain software architecture here} Example of another crypto with Monothlic architecture: Bitcoin (BTC). POH (Proof-Of-History) ➡ Proof-Of-History is a novel tweak to the POS consensus model through the implementation of as a module. Technically, Proof of History happens before state consensus is reached by allowing block producers the ability to submit blocks & organize/confirm them later. This is made possible by a combination of two things: time & 1) the application of pBFT + VDF (verifiable delay functions) the ( ). That helps in eliminating the issue of scalability and transaction ordering. Clustering of consensus nodes rather than 1 node doing all the work, on Solana, there are clusters of 25 nodes that are batching tx’s for consensus at any given time Asynchronicity in block production & contract execution ➡ Basically, the ability to operate at max capacity without bloating/interrupting the network. (outages mentioned in the next section) Partially made possible through node clustering & partially made possible through a parallel processing technique called . Sealeveling The technical aspect of this are far beyond the scope of this article, but if you want to dive deeper on it, make sure to check out this post Written in RUST programming language ➡ While not easy to learn for beginner developers, RUST is considered to be among the strongest of programming languages. At a very basic level, RUST is a low-level language that talks directly to hardware with an intense focus on memory allocation. Here is a great piece to understand the benefits of RUST as a language. * Multi-Client Architecture ( ) ➡ in development Within the context of blockchain, a is the software that must be utilized in order to connect a piece of hardware to the network. client A delicate nuance in distributed system design that is rarely (if ever) brought to the public’s consciousness, is that software clients are an important touchpoint for the security & decentralization of a network. If a network only has 1 software client, and if for any reason that client has a bug, then the whole network is at risk. The more clients, the more resilient the network becomes. Extremely Fast ➡ The block time is 400 milliseconds; that is approximately 30–32.5x faster than Ethereum(ETH) & 1,500x faster than Bitcoin (BTC). Huge & growing developer ecosystem ➡ Over 2,000 monthly active developers puts Solana as the 2nd most active network by developer activity; ahead of Polkadot & only behind Ethereum. High Throughput ➡ The network averages ~5,000 TPS on a day-to-day basis & has the capacity to scale, in theory, indefinitely. The network is only constrained by the amount & type of hardware used by the nodes. As hardware improves, the network becomes more efficient; as more nodes join, the network becomes more efficient. So then LFGrow. ⚠ 💨⚠ 💨 Headwinds ➡ Is a VC chain. Supported heavily by deep-pocketed venture capital firms. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does reduce the network's credibility in terms of decentralization. Was endorsed by (SBF) & FTX; ➡ As basically everybody in the world knows, Sam-Bankman Fried was the single biggest supporter of the Solana network. Actually recorded saying “ ” as well as injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the project, the once heroic supporter has now become the sh*tstain across the windshield of Solana’s life. Sell me all of your Solana & then Fuck off Suffers from Outages ➡ The single biggest hurdle that keeps on messing with the project. This is not a small issue; if outages happen while people have money on the network, real-life problems occur. As of this writing, the network has faced roughly 10 full outages & countless partial outages. If you want to explore all of them, here is a great uptime resource. Community is… interesting. ➡ I love SOL. I love the developers. I love the project. I Even love Solana ! But I cannot for the life of me figure out how it keeps attracting low-IQ people to its user base. At first, I thought it was just wrought with bots… but then I found out… CT Dear reader, I SWEAR to you, I personally know real SOL users that pronounce SolanA as SolanO. I asked them why… they don't know… 🤦‍♂️ I digress. 🧰Ecosystem Resources: Since the turbulence of the recent market activity, many tools in the Solana ecosystem are sunsetting (r.i.p. Serum) while others are just dying off due to a lack of interest. Nevertheless, there still remain a handful of applications that have only strengthened their positions over this time. Below, I have tried my best to organize as many “valid” tools as possible: Wallets Phantom - https://phantom.app/ Solflare - https://solflare.com/ DEXes Raydium - https://raydium.io/ Orca - https://www.orca.so/ Saber - https://app.saber.so/ Lifinity - https://lifinity.io/ Atrix - https://atrix.finance/ Soldex - https://soldex.ai/ Saros - https://saros.finance/ Aldrin - https://aldrin.com/ DexLab - https://www.dexlab.space/ Crema - https://www.crema.finance/ Lending/Borrowing & Stablecoin Minting Larix - https://projectlarix.com/ Solend - https://solend.fi/ Apricot - https://apricot.one/ Port - https://port.finance/ Jet - https://www.jetprotocol.io/ PsyFI - https://www.psyfi.io/ Hubble - https://hubbleprotocol.io/ Ratio - https://ratio.finance/ Parrot - https://parrot.fi/mint/ Meteroa - https://www.meteora.ag/ Liquid Staking Marinade - https://marinade.finance/ Socean - https://www.socean.fi/en/ Yield Aggregators Tulip - https://tulip.garden/#home Cropper - https://cropper.finance/ Katana - https://katana.so/ Kamino - https://app.kamino.finance/ Sunny - https://app.sunny.ag/ Francium - https://francium.io/ Explorers & Analtyics Solana Explorer - https://explorer.solana.com/ Solana FM - https://solana.fm/ SolScan - https://solscan.io/ Solana Beach - https://solanabeach.io/ ChainCrunch - https://chaincrunch.cc/ Synthetic Assets Synthetify - https://synthetify.io/ Dashboard & Portfolio Sonar Watch - https://sonar.watch/ Sols Watch - https://sols.watch/portfolio Step Finance - https://www.step.finance/ Ape Bored - https://apeboard.finance/dashboard Domain Names Bonfida — https://naming.bonfida.org/ MISC. → Fantastic report by Messari on the S . tate of Solana in Q4 2022 → Great Interview with the Founder on the Future of Solana beyond 2023 I will end this all with a timeless quote ; (←POH pun intended) “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” — Steve Jobs May your bags always be full & overflowing 🥂 Also published here

Everything You Need to Know About Solana: An Essential Guide

Kilmeny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT CHAPTER V. A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT Shortly before sunset that evening Eric went for a walk. When he did not go to the shore he liked to indulge in long tramps through the Lindsay fields and woods, in the mellowness of “the sweet ‘o the year.” Most of the Lindsay houses were built along the main road, which ran parallel to the shore, or about the stores at “The Corner.” The farms ran back from them into solitudes of woods and pasture lands. Eric struck southwest from the Williamson homestead, in a direction he had not hitherto explored, and walked briskly along, enjoying the witchery of the season all about him in earth and air and sky. He felt it and loved it and yielded to it, as anyone of clean life and sane pulses must do. The spruce wood in which he presently found himself was smitten through with arrows of ruby light from the setting sun. He went through it, walking up a long, purple aisle where the wood-floor was brown and elastic under his feet, and came out beyond it on a scene which surprised him. No house was in sight, but he found himself looking into an orchard; an old orchard, evidently long neglected and forsaken. But an orchard dies hard; and this one, which must have been a very delightful spot once, was delightful still, none the less so for the air of gentle melancholy which seemed to pervade it, the melancholy which invests all places that have once been the scenes of joy and pleasure and young life, and are so no longer, places where hearts have throbbed, and pulses thrilled, and eyes brightened, and merry voices echoed. The ghosts of these things seem to linger in their old haunts through many empty years. The orchard was large and long, enclosed in a tumbledown old fence of longers bleached to a silvery gray in the suns of many lost summers. At regular intervals along the fence were tall, gnarled fir trees, and an evening wind, sweeter than that which blew over the beds of spice from Lebanon, was singing in their tops, an earth-old song with power to carry the soul back to the dawn of time. Eastward, a thick fir wood grew, beginning with tiny treelets just feathering from the grass, and grading up therefrom to the tall veterans of the mid-grove, unbrokenly and evenly, giving the effect of a solid, sloping green wall, so beautifully compact that it looked as if it had been clipped into its velvet surface by art. Most of the orchard was grown over lushly with grass; but at the end where Eric stood there was a square, treeless place which had evidently once served as a homestead garden. Old paths were still visible, bordered by stones and large pebbles. There were two clumps of lilac trees; one blossoming in royal purple, the other in white. Between them was a bed ablow with the starry spikes of June lilies. Their penetrating, haunting fragrance distilled on the dewy air in every soft puff of wind. Along the fence rosebushes grew, but it was as yet too early in the season for roses. Beyond was the orchard proper, three long rows of trees with green avenues between, each tree standing in a wonderful blow of pink and white. The charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing had ever done before. He was not given to romantic fancies; but the orchard laid hold of him subtly and drew him to itself, and he was never to be quite his own man again. He went into it over one of the broken panels of fence, and so, unknowing, went forward to meet all that life held for him. He walked the length of the orchard’s middle avenue between long, sinuous boughs picked out with delicate, rose-hearted bloom. When he reached its southern boundary he flung himself down in a grassy corner of the fence where another lilac bush grew, with ferns and wild blue violets at its roots. From where he now was he got a glimpse of a house about a quarter of a mile away, its gray gable peering out from a dark spruce wood. It seemed a dull, gloomy, remote place, and he did not know who lived there. He had a wide outlook to the west, over far hazy fields and misty blue intervales. The sun had just set, and the whole world of green meadows beyond swam in golden light. Across a long valley brimmed with shadow were uplands of sunset, and great sky lakes of saffron and rose where a soul might lose itself in colour. The air was very fragrant with the baptism of the dew, and the odours of a bed of wild mint upon which he had trampled. Robins were whistling, clear and sweet and sudden, in the woods all about him. “This is a veritable ‘haunt of ancient peace,’” quoted Eric, looking around with delighted eyes. “I could fall asleep here, dream dreams and see visions. What a sky! Could anything be diviner than that fine crystal eastern blue, and those frail white clouds that look like woven lace? What a dizzying, intoxicating fragrance lilacs have! I wonder if perfume could set a man drunk. Those apple trees now—why, what is that?” Eric started up and listened. Across the mellow stillness, mingled with the croon of the wind in the trees and the flute-like calls of the robins, came a strain of delicious music, so beautiful and fantastic that Eric held his breath in astonishment and delight. Was he dreaming? No, it was real music, the music of a violin played by some hand inspired with the very spirit of harmony. He had never heard anything like it; and, somehow, he felt quite sure that nothing exactly like it ever had been heard before; he believed that that wonderful music was coming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist, and translating itself into those most airy and delicate and exquisite sounds for the first time; the very soul of music, with all sense and earthliness refined away. It was an elusive, haunting melody, strangely suited to the time and place; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the woods, the eerie whispering of the grasses at dewfall, the white thoughts of the June lilies, the rejoicing of the apple blossoms; all the soul of all the old laughter and song and tears and gladness and sobs the orchard had ever known in the lost years; and besides all this, there was in it a pitiful, plaintive cry as of some imprisoned thing calling for freedom and utterance. At first Eric listened as a man spellbound, mutely and motionlessly, lost in wonderment. Then a very natural curiosity overcame him. Who in Lindsay could play a violin like that? And who was playing so here, in this deserted old orchard, of all places in the world? He rose and walked up the long white avenue, going as slowly and silently as possible, for he did not wish to interrupt the player. When he reached the open space of the garden he stopped short in new amazement and was again tempted into thinking he must certainly be dreaming. Under the big branching white lilac tree was an old, sagging, wooden bench; and on this bench a girl was sitting, playing on an old brown violin. Her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she did not see Eric. For a few moments he stood there and looked at her. The pictures she made photographed itself on his vision to the finest detail, never to be blotted from his book of remembrance. To his latest day Eric Marshall will be able to recall vividly that scene as he saw it then—the velvet darkness of the spruce woods, the overarching sky of soft brilliance, the swaying lilac blossoms, and amid it all the girl on the old bench with the violin under her chin. He had, in his twenty-four years of life, met hundreds of pretty women, scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really beautiful women. But he knew at once, beyond all possibility of question or doubt, that he had never seen or imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the orchard. Her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went from him in his first delight of it. Her face was oval, marked in every cameo-like line and feature with that expression of absolute, flawless purity, found in the angels and Madonnas of old paintings, a purity that held in it no faintest strain of earthliness. Her head was bare, and her thick, jet-black hair was parted above her forehead and hung in two heavy lustrous braids over her shoulders. Her eyes were of such a blue as Eric had never seen in eyes before, the tint of the sea in the still, calm light that follows after a fine sunset; they were as luminous as the stars that came out over Lindsay Harbour in the afterglow, and were fringed about with very long, soot-black lashes, and arched over by most delicately pencilled dark eyebrows. Her skin was as fine and purely tinted as the heart of a white rose. The collarless dress of pale blue print she wore revealed her smooth, slender throat; her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows and the hand which guided the bow of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her, perfect in shape and texture, firm and white, with rosy-nailed taper fingers. One long, drooping plume of lilac blossom lightly touched her hair and cast a wavering shadow over the flower-like face beneath it. There was something very child-like about her, and yet at least eighteen sweet years must have gone to the making of her. She seemed to be playing half unconsciously, as if her thoughts were far away in some fair dreamland of the skies. But presently she looked away from “the bourne of sunset,” and her lovely eyes fell on Eric, standing motionless before her in the shadow of the apple tree. The sudden change that swept over her was startling. She sprang to her feet, the music breaking in mid-strain and the bow slipping from her hand to the grass. Every hint of colour fled from her face and she trembled like one of the wind-stirred June lilies. “I beg your pardon,” said Eric hastily. “I am sorry that I have alarmed you. But your music was so beautiful that I did not remember you were not aware of my presence here. Please forgive me.” He stopped in dismay, for he suddenly realized that the expression on the girl’s face was one of terror—not merely the startled alarm of a shy, childlike creature who had thought herself alone, but absolute terror. It was betrayed in her blanched and quivering lips and in the widely distended blue eyes that stared back into his with the expression of some trapped wild thing. It hurt him that any woman should look at him in such a fashion, at him who had always held womanhood in such reverence. “Don’t look so frightened,” he said gently, thinking only of calming her fear, and speaking as he would to a child. “I will not hurt you. You are safe, quite safe.” In his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step forward. Instantly she turned, and, without a sound, fled across the orchard, through a gap in the northern fence and along what seemed to be a lane bordering the fir wood beyond and arched over with wild cherry trees misty white in the gathering gloom. Before Eric could recover his wits she had vanished from his sight among the firs. He stooped and picked up the violin bow, feeling slightly foolish and very much annoyed. “Well, this is a most mysterious thing,” he said, somewhat impatiently. “Am I bewitched? Who was she? WHAT was she? Can it be possible that she is a Lindsay girl? And why in the name of all that’s provoking should she be so frightened at the mere sight of me? I have never thought I was a particularly hideous person, but certainly this adventure has not increased my vanity to any perceptible extent. Perhaps I have wandered into an enchanted orchard, and been outwardly transformed into an ogre. Now that I have come to think of it, there is something quite uncanny about the place. Anything might happen here. It is no common orchard for the production of marketable apples, that is plain to be seen. No, it’s a most unwholesome locality; and the sooner I make my escape from it the better.” He glanced about it with a whimsical smile. The light was fading rapidly and the orchard was full of soft, creeping shadows and silences. It seemed to wink sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at his perplexity. He laid the violin bow down on the old bench. “Well, there is no use in my following her, and I have no right to do so even if it were of use. But I certainly wish she hadn’t fled in such evident terror. Eyes like hers were never meant to express anything but tenderness and trust. Why—why—WHY was she so frightened? And who—who—WHO—can she be?” All the way home, over fields and pastures that were beginning to be moonlight silvered he pondered the mystery. “Let me see,” he reflected. “Mr. Williamson was describing the Lindsay girls for my benefit the other evening. If I remember rightly he said that there were four handsome ones in the district. What were their names? Florrie Woods, Melissa Foster—no, Melissa Palmer—Emma Scott, and Jennie May Ferguson. Can she be one of them? No, it is a flagrant waste of time and gray matter supposing it. That girl couldn’t be a Florrie or a Melissa or an Emma, while Jennie May is completely out of the question. Well, there is some bewitchment in the affair. Of that I’m convinced. So I’d better forget all about it.” But Eric found that it was impossible to forget all about it. The more he tried to forget, the more keenly and insistently he remembered. The girl’s exquisite face haunted him and the mystery of her tantalized him. True, he knew that, in all likelihood, he might easily solve the problem by asking the Williamsons about her. But somehow, to his own surprise, he found that he shrank from doing this. He felt that it was impossible to ask Robert Williamson and probably have the girl’s name overflowed in a stream of petty gossip concerning her and all her antecedents and collaterals to the third and fourth generation. If he had to ask any one it should be Mrs. Williamson; but he meant to find out the secret for himself if it were at all possible. He had planned to go to the harbour the next evening. One of the lobstermen had promised to take him out cod-fishing. But instead he wandered southwest over the fields again. He found the orchard easily—he had half expected NOT to find it. It was still the same fragrant, grassy, wind-haunted spot. But it had no occupant and the violin bow was gone from the old bench. “Perhaps she tiptoed back here for it by the light o’ the moon,” thought Eric, pleasing his fancy by the vision of a lithe, girlish figure stealing with a beating heart through mingled shadow and moonshine. “I wonder if she will possibly come this evening, or if I have frightened her away for ever. I’ll hide me behind this spruce copse and wait.” Eric waited until dark, but no music sounded through the orchard and no one came to it. The keenness of his disappointment surprised him, nay more, it vexed him. What nonsense to be so worked up because a little girl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear! Where was his common sense, his “gumption,” as old Robert Williamson would have said? Naturally a man liked to look at a pretty face. But was that any reason why he should feel as if life were flat, stale, and unprofitable simply because he could not look at it? He called himself a fool and went home in a petulant mood. Arriving there, he plunged fiercely into solving algebraical equations and working out geometry exercises, determined to put out of his head forthwith all vain imaginings of an enchanted orchard, white in the moonshine, with lilts of elfin music echoing down its long arcades. The next day was Sunday and Eric went to church twice. The Williamson pew was one of the side ones at the top of the church and its occupants practically faced the congregation. Eric looked at every girl and woman in the audience, but he saw nothing of the face which, setting will power and common sense flatly at defiance, haunted his memory like a star. Thomas Gordon was there, sitting alone in his long, empty pew near the top of the building; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupied the front pew of the gallery. He had a powerful and melodious, though untrained voice, which dominated the singing and took the colour out of the weaker, more commonplace tones of the other singers. He was well-dressed in a suit of dark blue serge, with a white collar and tie. But Eric idly thought it did not become him so well as the working clothes in which he had first seen him. He was too obviously dressed up, and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his surroundings. For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard. Monday evening he went cod-fishing, and Tuesday evening he went up to play checkers with Alexander Tracy. Alexander won all the games so easily that he never had any respect for Eric Marshall again. “Played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering,” he complained to his wife. “He’ll never make a checker player—never in this world.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2004). Kilmeny of the Orchard. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5341/pg5341-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.

A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT

Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE PHANTOM BOWMEN THE PHANTOM BOWMEN As Jav leaped toward him Carthoris laid his hand upon the hilt of his long-sword. The Lotharian halted. The great apartment was empty save for the four at the dais, yet as Jav stepped back from the menace of the Heliumite’s threatening attitude the latter found himself surrounded by a score of bowmen. From whence had they sprung? Both Carthoris and Thuvia looked their astonishment. Now the former’s sword leaped from its scabbard, and at the same instant the bowmen drew back their slim shafts. Tario had half raised himself upon one elbow. For the first time he saw the full figure of Thuvia, who had been concealed behind the person of Carthoris. “Enough!” cried the jeddak, raising a protesting hand, but at that very instant the sword of the Heliumite cut viciously at its nearest antagonist. As the keen edge reached its goal Carthoris let the point fall to the floor, as with wide eyes he stepped backward in consternation, throwing the back of his left hand across his brow. His steel had cut but empty air—his antagonist had vanished—there were no bowmen in the room! “It is evident that these are strangers,” said Tario to Jav. “Let us first determine that they knowingly affronted us before we take measures for punishment.” Then he turned to Carthoris, but ever his gaze wandered to the perfect lines of Thuvia’s glorious figure, which the harness of a Barsoomian princess accentuated rather than concealed. “Who are you,” he asked, “who knows not the etiquette of the court of the last of jeddaks?” “I am Carthoris, Prince of Helium,” replied the Heliumite. “And this is Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth. In the courts of our fathers men do not prostrate themselves before royalty. Not since the First Born tore their immortal goddess limb from limb have men crawled upon their bellies to any throne upon Barsoom. Now think you that the daughter of one mighty jeddak and the son of another would so humiliate themselves?” Tario looked at Carthoris for a long time. At last he spoke. “There is no other jeddak upon Barsoom than Tario,” he said. “There is no other race than that of Lothar, unless the hordes of Torquas may be dignified by such an appellation. Lotharians are white; your skins are red. There are no women left upon Barsoom. Your companion is a woman.” He half rose from the couch, leaning far forward and pointing an accusing finger at Carthoris. “You are a lie!” he shrieked. “You are both lies, and you dare to come before Tario, last and mightiest of the jeddaks of Barsoom, and assert your reality. Some one shall pay well for this, Jav, and unless I mistake it is yourself who has dared thus flippantly to trifle with the good nature of your jeddak. “Remove the man. Leave the woman. We shall see if both be lies. And later, Jav, you shall suffer for your temerity. There be few of us left, but—Komal must be fed. Go!” Carthoris could see that Jav trembled as he prostrated himself once more before his ruler, and then, rising, turned toward the Prince of Helium. “Come!” he said. “And leave the Princess of Ptarth here alone?” cried Carthoris. Jav brushed closely past him, whispering: “Follow me—he cannot harm her, except to kill; and that he can do whether you remain or not. We had best go now—trust me.” Carthoris did not understand, but something in the urgency of the other’s tone assured him, and so he turned away, but not without a glance toward Thuvia in which he attempted to make her understand that it was in her own interest that he left her. For answer she turned her back full upon him, but not without first throwing him such a look of contempt that brought the scarlet to his cheek. Then he hesitated, but Jav seized him by the wrist. “Come!” he whispered. “Or he will have the bowmen upon you, and this time there will be no escape. Did you not see how futile is your steel against thin air!” Carthoris turned unwillingly to follow. As the two left the room he turned to his companion. “If I may not kill thin air,” he asked, “how, then, shall I fear that thin air may kill me?” “You saw the Torquasians fall before the bowmen?” asked Jav. Carthoris nodded. “So would you fall before them, and without one single chance for self-defence or revenge.” As they talked Jav led Carthoris to a small room in one of the numerous towers of the palace. Here were couches, and Jav bid the Heliumite be seated. For several minutes the Lotharian eyed his prisoner, for such Carthoris now realized himself to be. “I am half convinced that you are real,” he said at last. Carthoris laughed. “Of course I am real,” he said. “What caused you to doubt it? Can you not see me, feel me?” “So may I see and feel the bowmen,” replied Jav, “and yet we all know that they, at least, are not real.” Carthoris showed by the expression of his face his puzzlement at each new reference to the mysterious bowmen—the vanishing soldiery of Lothar. “What, then, may they be?” he asked. “You really do not know?” asked Jav. Carthoris shook his head negatively. “I can almost believe that you have told us the truth and that you are really from another part of Barsoom, or from another world. But tell me, in your own country have you no bowmen to strike terror to the hearts of the green hordesmen as they slay in company with the fierce banths of war?” “We have soldiers,” replied Carthoris. “We of the red race are all soldiers, but we have no bowmen to defend us, such as yours. We defend ourselves.” “You go out and get killed by your enemies!” cried Jav incredulously. “Certainly,” replied Carthoris. “How do the Lotharians?” “You have seen,” replied the other. “We send out our deathless archers—deathless because they are lifeless, existing only in the imaginations of our enemies. It is really our giant minds that defend us, sending out legions of imaginary warriors to materialize before the mind’s eye of the foe. “They see them—they see their bows drawn back—they see their slender arrows speed with unerring precision toward their hearts. And they die—killed by the power of suggestion.” “But the archers that are slain?” exclaimed Carthoris. “You call them deathless, and yet I saw their dead bodies piled high upon the battlefield. How may that be?” “It is but to lend reality to the scene,” replied Jav. “We picture many of our own defenders killed that the Torquasians may not guess that there are really no flesh and blood creatures opposing them. “Once that truth became implanted in their minds, it is the theory of many of us, no longer would they fall prey to the suggestion of the deadly arrows, for greater would be the suggestion of the truth, and the more powerful suggestion would prevail—it is law.” “And the banths?” questioned Carthoris. “They, too, were but creatures of suggestion?” “Some of them were real,” replied Jav. “Those that accompanied the archers in pursuit of the Torquasians were unreal. Like the archers, they never returned, but, having served their purpose, vanished with the bowmen when the rout of the enemy was assured. “Those that remained about the field were real. Those we loosed as scavengers to devour the bodies of the dead of Torquas. This thing is demanded by the realists among us. I am a realist. Tario is an etherealist. “The etherealists maintain that there is no such thing as matter—that all is mind. They say that none of us exists, except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality. “According to Tario, it is but necessary that we all unite in imagining that there are no dead Torquasians beneath our walls, and there will be none, nor any need of scavenging banths.” “You, then, do not hold Tario’s beliefs?” asked Carthoris. “In part only,” replied the Lotharian. “I believe, in fact I know, that there are some truly ethereal creatures. Tario is one, I am convinced. He has no existence except in the imaginations of his people. “Of course, it is the contention of all us realists that all etherealists are but figments of the imagination. They contend that no food is necessary, nor do they eat; but any one of the most rudimentary intelligence must realize that food is a necessity to creatures having actual existence.” “Yes,” agreed Carthoris, “not having eaten to-day I can readily agree with you.” “Ah, pardon me,” exclaimed Jav. “Pray be seated and satisfy your hunger,” and with a wave of his hand he indicated a bountifully laden table that had not been there an instant before he spoke. Of that Carthoris was positive, for he had searched the room diligently with his eyes several times. “It is well,” continued Jav, “that you did not fall into the hands of an etherealist. Then, indeed, would you have gone hungry.” “But,” exclaimed Carthoris, “this is not real food—it was not here an instant since, and real food does not materialize out of thin air.” Jav looked hurt. “There is no real food or water in Lothar,” he said; “nor has there been for countless ages. Upon such as you now see before you have we existed since the dawn of history. Upon such, then, may you exist.” “But I thought you were a realist,” exclaimed Carthoris. “Indeed,” cried Jav, “what more realistic than this bounteous feast? It is just here that we differ most from the etherealists. They claim that it is unnecessary to imagine food; but we have found that for the maintenance of life we must thrice daily sit down to hearty meals. “The food that one eats is supposed to undergo certain chemical changes during the process of digestion and assimilation, the result, of course, being the rebuilding of wasted tissue. “Now we all know that mind is all, though we may differ in the interpretation of its various manifestations. Tario maintains that there is no such thing as substance, all being created from the substanceless matter of the brain. “We realists, however, know better. We know that mind has the power to maintain substance even though it may not be able to create substance—the latter is still an open question. And so we know that in order to maintain our physical bodies we must cause all our organs properly to function. “This we accomplish by materializing food-thoughts, and by partaking of the food thus created. We chew, we swallow, we digest. All our organs function precisely as if we had partaken of material food. And what is the result? What must be the result? The chemical changes take place through both direct and indirect suggestion, and we live and thrive.” Carthoris eyed the food before him. It seemed real enough. He lifted a morsel to his lips. There was substance indeed. And flavour as well. Yes, even his palate was deceived. Jav watched him, smiling, as he ate. “Is it not entirely satisfying?” he asked. “I must admit that it is,” replied Carthoris. “But tell me, how does Tario live, and the other etherealists who maintain that food is unnecessary?” Jav scratched his head. “That is a question we often discuss,” he replied. “It is the strongest evidence we have of the non-existence of the etherealists; but who may know other than Komal?” “Who is Komal?” asked Carthoris. “I heard your jeddak speak of him.” Jav bent low toward the ear of the Heliumite, looking fearfully about before he spoke. “Komal is the essence,” he whispered. “Even the etherealists admit that mind itself must have substance in order to transmit to imaginings the appearance of substance. For if there really was no such thing as substance it could not be suggested—what never has been cannot be imagined. Do you follow me?” “I am groping,” replied Carthoris dryly. “So the essence must be substance,” continued Jav. “Komal is the essence of the All, as it were. He is maintained by substance. He eats. He eats the real. To be explicit, he eats the realists. That is Tario’s work. “He says that inasmuch as we maintain that we alone are real we should, to be consistent, admit that we alone are proper food for Komal. Sometimes, as to-day, we find other food for him. He is very fond of Torquasians.” “And Komal is a man?” asked Carthoris. “He is All, I told you,” replied Jav. “I know not how to explain him in words that you will understand. He is the beginning and the end. All life emanates from Komal, since the substance which feeds the brain with imaginings radiates from the body of Komal. “Should Komal cease to eat, all life upon Barsoom would cease to be. He cannot die, but he might cease to eat, and, thus, to radiate.” “And he feeds upon the men and women of your belief?” cried Carthoris. “Women!” exclaimed Jav. “There are no women in Lothar. The last of the Lotharian females perished ages since, upon that cruel and terrible journey across the muddy plains that fringed the half-dried seas, when the green hordes scourged us across the world to this our last hiding-place—our impregnable fortress of Lothar. “Scarce twenty thousand men of all the countless millions of our race lived to reach Lothar. Among us were no women and no children. All these had perished by the way. “As time went on, we, too, were dying and the race fast approaching extinction, when the Great Truth was revealed to us, that mind is all. Many more died before we perfected our powers, but at last we were able to defy death when we fully understood that death was merely a state of mind. “Then came the creation of mind-people, or rather the materialization of imaginings. We first put these to practical use when the Torquasians discovered our retreat, and fortunate for us it was that it required ages of search upon their part before they found the single tiny entrance to the valley of Lothar. “That day we threw our first bowmen against them. The intention was purely to frighten them away by the vast numbers of bowmen which we could muster upon our walls. All Lothar bristled with the bows and arrows of our ethereal host. “But the Torquasians did not frighten. They are lower than the beasts—they know no fear. They rushed upon our walls, and standing upon the shoulders of others they built human approaches to the wall tops, and were on the very point of surging in upon us and overwhelming us. “Not an arrow had been discharged by our bowmen—we did but cause them to run to and fro along the wall top, screaming taunts and threats at the enemy. “Presently I thought to attempt the thing—the great thing. I centred all my mighty intellect upon the bowmen of my own creation—each of us produces and directs as many bowmen as his mentality and imagination is capable of. “I caused them to fit arrows to their bows for the first time. I made them take aim at the hearts of the green men. I made the green men see all this, and then I made them see the arrows fly, and I made them think that the points pierced their hearts. “It was all that was necessary. By hundreds they toppled from our walls, and when my fellows saw what I had done they were quick to follow my example, so that presently the hordes of Torquas had retreated beyond the range of our arrows. “We might have killed them at any distance, but one rule of war we have maintained from the first—the rule of realism. We do nothing, or rather we cause our bowmen to do nothing within sight of the enemy that is beyond the understanding of the foe. Otherwise they might guess the truth, and that would be the end of us. “But after the Torquasians had retreated beyond bowshot, they turned upon us with their terrible rifles, and by constant popping at us made life miserable within our walls. “So then I bethought the scheme to hurl our bowmen through the gates upon them. You have seen this day how well it works. For ages they have come down upon us at intervals, but always with the same results.” “And all this is due to your intellect, Jav?” asked Carthoris. “I should think that you would be high in the councils of your people.” “I am,” replied Jav, proudly. “I am next to Tario.” “But why, then, your cringing manner of approaching the throne?” “Tario demands it. He is jealous of me. He only awaits the slightest excuse to feed me to Komal. He fears that I may some day usurp his power.” Carthoris suddenly sprang from the table. “Jav!” he exclaimed. “I am a beast! Here I have been eating my fill, while the Princess of Ptarth may perchance be still without food. Let us return and find some means of furnishing her with nourishment.” The Lotharian shook his head. “Tario would not permit it,” he said. “He will, doubtless, make an etherealist of her.” “But I must go to her,” insisted Carthoris. “You say that there are no women in Lothar. Then she must be among men, and if this be so I intend to be near where I may defend her if the need arises.” “Tario will have his way,” insisted Jav. “He sent you away and you may not return until he sends for you.” “Then I shall go without waiting to be sent for.” “Do not forget the bowmen,” cautioned Jav. “I do not forget them,” replied Carthoris, but he did not tell Jav that he remembered something else that the Lotharian had let drop—something that was but a conjecture, possibly, and yet one well worth pinning a forlorn hope to, should necessity arise. Carthoris started to leave the room. Jav stepped before him, barring his way. “I have learned to like you, red man,” he said; “but do not forget that Tario is still my jeddak, and that Tario has commanded that you remain here.” Carthoris was about to reply, when there came faintly to the ears of both a woman’s cry for help. With a sweep of his arm the Prince of Helium brushed the Lotharian aside, and with drawn sword sprang into the corridor without. 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. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1993). Thuvia, Maid of Mars. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72/pg72-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 PHANTOM BOWMEN

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . The Fear-Phantom The Fear-Phantom From a lofty perch Tarzan viewed the village of thatched huts across the intervening plantation. He saw that at one point the forest touched the village, and to this spot he made his way, lured by a fever of curiosity to behold animals of his own kind, and to learn more of their ways and view the strange lairs in which they lived. His savage life among the fierce wild brutes of the jungle left no opening for any thought that these could be aught else than enemies. Similarity of form led him into no erroneous conception of the welcome that would be accorded him should he be discovered by these, the first of his own kind he had ever seen. Tarzan of the Apes was no sentimentalist. He knew nothing of the brotherhood of man. All things outside his own tribe were his deadly enemies, with the few exceptions of which Tantor, the elephant, was a marked example. And he realized all this without malice or hatred. To kill was the law of the wild world he knew. Few were his primitive pleasures, but the greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so he accorded to others the right to cherish the same desires as he, even though he himself might be the object of their hunt. His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does; for it has remained for man alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death. And when he killed for revenge, or in self-defense, he did that also without hysteria, for it was a very businesslike proceeding which admitted of no levity. So it was that now, as he cautiously approached the village of Mbonga, he was quite prepared either to kill or be killed should he be discovered. He proceeded with unwonted stealth, for Kulonga had taught him great respect for the little sharp splinters of wood which dealt death so swiftly and unerringly. At length he came to a great tree, heavy laden with thick foliage and loaded with pendant loops of giant creepers. From this almost impenetrable bower above the village he crouched, looking down upon the scene below him, wondering over every feature of this new, strange life. There were naked children running and playing in the village street. There were women grinding dried plantain in crude stone mortars, while others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flour. Out in the fields he could see still other women hoeing, weeding, or gathering. All wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets. Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while several were further ornamented by huge nose rings. Tarzan of the Apes looked with growing wonder at these strange creatures. Dozing in the shade he saw several men, while at the extreme outskirts of the clearing he occasionally caught glimpses of armed warriors apparently guarding the village against surprise from an attacking enemy. He noticed that the women alone worked. Nowhere was there evidence of a man tilling the fields or performing any of the homely duties of the village. Finally his eyes rested upon a woman directly beneath him. Before her was a small cauldron standing over a low fire and in it bubbled a thick, reddish, tarry mass. On one side of her lay a quantity of wooden arrows the points of which she dipped into the seething substance, then laying them upon a narrow rack of boughs which stood upon her other side. Tarzan of the Apes was fascinated. Here was the secret of the terrible destructiveness of The Archer’s tiny missiles. He noted the extreme care which the woman took that none of the matter should touch her hands, and once when a particle spattered upon one of her fingers he saw her plunge the member into a vessel of water and quickly rub the tiny stain away with a handful of leaves. Tarzan knew nothing of poison, but his shrewd reasoning told him that it was this deadly stuff that killed, and not the little arrow, which was merely the messenger that carried it into the body of its victim. How he should like to have more of those little death-dealing slivers. If the woman would only leave her work for an instant he could drop down, gather up a handful, and be back in the tree again before she drew three breaths. As he was trying to think out some plan to distract her attention he heard a wild cry from across the clearing. He looked and saw a black warrior standing beneath the very tree in which he had killed the murderer of Kala an hour before. The fellow was shouting and waving his spear above his head. Now and again he would point to something on the ground before him. The village was in an uproar instantly. Armed men rushed from the interior of many a hut and raced madly across the clearing toward the excited sentry. After them trooped the old men, and the women and children until, in a moment, the village was deserted. Tarzan of the Apes knew that they had found the body of his victim, but that interested him far less than the fact that no one remained in the village to prevent his taking a supply of the arrows which lay below him. Quickly and noiselessly he dropped to the ground beside the cauldron of poison. For a moment he stood motionless, his quick, bright eyes scanning the interior of the palisade. No one was in sight. His eyes rested upon the open doorway of a nearby hut. He would take a look within, thought Tarzan, and so, cautiously, he approached the low thatched building. For a moment he stood without, listening intently. There was no sound, and he glided into the semi-darkness of the interior. Weapons hung against the walls—long spears, strangely shaped knives, a couple of narrow shields. In the center of the room was a cooking pot, and at the far end a litter of dry grasses covered by woven mats which evidently served the owners as beds and bedding. Several human skulls lay upon the floor. Tarzan of the Apes felt of each article, hefted the spears, smelled of them, for he “saw” largely through his sensitive and highly trained nostrils. He determined to own one of these long, pointed sticks, but he could not take one on this trip because of the arrows he meant to carry. As he took each article from the walls, he placed it in a pile in the center of the room. On top of all he placed the cooking pot, inverted, and on top of this he laid one of the grinning skulls, upon which he fastened the headdress of the dead Kulonga. Then he stood back, surveyed his work, and grinned. Tarzan of the Apes enjoyed a joke. But now he heard, outside, the sounds of many voices, and long mournful howls, and mighty wailing. He was startled. Had he remained too long? Quickly he reached the doorway and peered down the village street toward the village gate. The natives were not yet in sight, though he could plainly hear them approaching across the plantation. They must be very near. Like a flash he sprang across the opening to the pile of arrows. Gathering up all he could carry under one arm, he overturned the seething cauldron with a kick, and disappeared into the foliage above just as the first of the returning natives entered the gate at the far end of the village street. Then he turned to watch the proceeding below, poised like some wild bird ready to take swift wing at the first sign of danger. The natives filed up the street, four of them bearing the dead body of Kulonga. Behind trailed the women, uttering strange cries and weird lamentation. On they came to the portals of Kulonga’s hut, the very one in which Tarzan had wrought his depredations. Scarcely had half a dozen entered the building ere they came rushing out in wild, jabbering confusion. The others hastened to gather about. There was much excited gesticulating, pointing, and chattering; then several of the warriors approached and peered within. Finally an old fellow with many ornaments of metal about his arms and legs, and a necklace of dried human hands depending upon his chest, entered the hut. It was Mbonga, the king, father of Kulonga. For a few moments all was silent. Then Mbonga emerged, a look of mingled wrath and superstitious fear writ upon his hideous countenance. He spoke a few words to the assembled warriors, and in an instant the men were flying through the little village searching minutely every hut and corner within the palisades. Scarcely had the search commenced than the overturned cauldron was discovered, and with it the theft of the poisoned arrows. Nothing more they found, and it was a thoroughly awed and frightened group of savages which huddled around their king a few moments later. Mbonga could explain nothing of the strange events that had taken place. The finding of the still warm body of Kulonga—on the very verge of their fields and within easy earshot of the village—knifed and stripped at the door of his father’s home, was in itself sufficiently mysterious, but these last awesome discoveries within the village, within the dead Kulonga’s own hut, filled their hearts with dismay, and conjured in their poor brains only the most frightful of superstitious explanations. They stood in little groups, talking in low tones, and ever casting affrighted glances behind them from their great rolling eyes. Tarzan of the Apes watched them for a while from his lofty perch in the great tree. There was much in their demeanor which he could not understand, for of superstition he was ignorant, and of fear of any kind he had but a vague conception. The sun was high in the heavens. Tarzan had not broken fast this day, and it was many miles to where lay the toothsome remains of Horta the boar. So he turned his back upon the village of Mbonga and melted away into the leafy fastness of the forest. 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. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1993). Tarzan of the Apes. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78/pg78-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 Fear-Phantom

Whether you’re a DevOps, SRE, or just a data-driven individual, you’re probably addicted to dashboards and metrics. We look at our metrics to see how our system is doing, whether on the infrastructure, the application, or the business level. We trust our metrics to show us the status of our system and where it misbehaves. But do our metrics show us what really happened? You’d be surprised how often it’s not the case. In this post I will look into the math and mechanics behind metrics, some common misconceptions, what it takes to have accurate metrics, and if there even is such a thing. Metrics essentials Metrics are essentially roll-ups of raw events. During this roll-up process, the events are translated into numerical data points. A simple example is errors occurring in the system, with a simple metric to count the errors. Metrics can also involve multiple variables, such as a count of requests with a response time higher than 1 second. When measured over time, these data points form a . time series Metrics can be of various types, such as Counters, Gauges, and Histograms. are used for the cumulative counting of events, as we saw in the above examples. typically represent the latest value of measurement. And then there are more elaborate types such as that can sample the of metric values, by counting events in configurable “buckets” or “bins”. For example, you may want to understand the memory usage percent segmented by pods across your cluster in given points in time. Counters Gauges Histograms distribution The mechanics of metrics In an ideal world, we would ingest and store all the raw events, and then calculate the metrics on query time. This would allow us to slice and dice the events in any way we need, and ask any ad-hoc questions we desire. In the real world, however, keeping all the raw events for extended periods of time can be prohibitively expensive, due to the high volumes of data. To overcome this, events are frequently rolled up into metrics in the collection pipeline, while discarding the raw events or retaining them for short periods only. This is oftentimes a matter of a simple configuration in your metrics collector agent. In addition to reducing cost, aggregation upon collection can improve the performance of real-time analytics with higher metric transmission and ingestion rates at a higher frequency, and by avoiding heavy aggregations and calculations on query time. The math of metrics in a nutshell This rolling-up process involves some math. We might want to calculate the mean or median of the response times, or maybe a percentile, or an aggregation over a time window. We might also want to roll up multiple events into one composite metric. For example, I may want to calculate the 95th percentile (commonly known as P95) of all the pods of a specific service across my cluster. Even if you don’t like math, you cannot avoid it with metrics. You need to understand the different aggregation functions, and the relation between the question you wish to ask and the metric and aggregate you need in order to answer it. Let’s look at the Average function as an example, as many tend to start there. Averages, by definition, smoothen things up and will be less suitable for flushing out anomalous behavior and outliers. When investigating latency problems, for example, it will be quite useless to look at average metric values, and you’d be better off looking at percentiles. Determine your questions, design your metrics accordingly In a way, you can think about these metrics as a lossy compression, during which we lose data and context from the raw events. If we don’t keep the raw events, then we need to determine upfront what’s important for us. For example, if I only calculate the average value over the data, I will not be able to ask about the P95 (95th percentile) later over the pre-aggregated data. You need to determine what questions you want to answer, what’s important for you, and design your metrics and aggregations accordingly. A common mistake is that people avoid this design phase, and just use the preset metrics and default values provided out of the box with their metrics collector of choice. While you may think these defaults represent some industry standard, these are oftentimes quite legacy, and in most cases won’t be in tune with your specific needs. https://youtu.be/t9hpWv7fVSk?t=555?embedable=true The measurement problem Just like in physics, the measurement problem occurs when we measure a (seemingly) continuous property at discrete intervals, often called the , which determines the This creates a distorted representation, where the metric may not actually reflect the originally measured property. For example, if we measure the CPU utilization every 60 seconds, then any CPU outlier happening between these sampling points will be invisible to us. sampling interval sampling rate. Moreover, in order to draw a consecutive line, visualization tools oftentimes average over consecutive data points, which gives the misleading appearance of a smooth line. On some occasions the opposite can occur, where you can get artifacts in your metrics that aren’t real, like peaks in your metrics that don’t really exist. This can happen when running aggregations within the storage backend, due to the in which the calculation is being made. Mean time to detection The sampling period also influences how fast a change in the system will be visible in the metrics. Most algorithms require five data points to detect a trend. If the sampling interval is 60 sec, then the simple math determines that it will take five minutes (that is, 60 sec X 5 data points) before we see something is wrong. Could you afford to wait 5 minutes to know that your system crashed? Using shorter sampling intervals (i.e. higher sampling rates) will shorten this period and enable us to detect and react faster. Of course, higher sampling rates incur overhead in CPU and storage, so we need to find the configuration that strikes the right balance for our needs. Varying resolution and downscaling A common practice is to save metrics in different resolutions in a tiered approach, to reduce cost. For example, you may want to save the metric every 10 seconds for the first day, but then every 5 minutes for the next week, and perhaps every 1 hour for the month or more ahead. This practice assumes that we need the finest granularity for the near real-time period, which we may need it if there’s an issue in the system, while investigations over longer periods require larger-scale trends. The different granularities can be achieved by downscaling the metrics, namely calculating the less granular metric off of the higher granularity one. While this sounds perfectly reasonable, math can interfere here, as some aggregation functions are not compatible with certain computations, and can therefore not be aggregated later. For example, percentiles are not additive and cannot be summed up. So, following the above example, if you have a P99 percentile sampled with 10 seconds resolution, you can’t roll them up to a 5-minute resolution. It’s important to be cognizant of the compatibility of the aggregation functions, and when using non-compatible functions such as percentiles, to make design decisions about which resolutions we require, and calculate these time series upfront. The varying resolution is not limited only to the time factor. Another example is saving per-pod data, and then wishing to “group by” nodes or clusters. The same constraint applies here, meaning that if we expect to be interested in slicing and dicing a percentile-based metric per node, per region, per namespace, or across the entire cluster, we need to pre-aggregate accordingly. Another approach is to give up the accuracy of measurements to gain compatibility in computation, by using histograms. You can take histograms of a few servers and sum them up, or histograms of several time windows and sum them up, and then to downscale. The problem is that in this case, percentiles will be estimates rather than accurate. It’s also important to note that histograms are more time-consuming in storage and throughput, as every sample is not just a single number but a few samples (one per bucket). Summary Metrics are a powerful way to monitor our applications. But they are not necessarily representative of the actual system’s state. It requires an understanding of the math and nature of metrics, as well as careful design, to make sure our metrics are indeed useful to answer the questions we need. Having access to the raw data in addition to the metrics is always good, as this is ultimately the source of truth. Want to learn more? Check out the OpenObservability Talks episode: on , or . All Metrics Are Wrong, Some Are Useful Spotify Apple Podcasts other podcast apps This article was originally . here

Why Your Monitoring Dashboard May Be Feeding You Phantom Metrics

Por qué su tablero de monitoreo puede estar brindándole métricas fantasma

Pourquoi votre tableau de bord de surveillance peut-il vous fournir des métriques fantômes

आपका मॉनिटरिंग डैशबोर्ड आपको फैंटम मेट्रिक्स क्यों खिला सकता है

モニタリング ダッシュボードがファントム メトリックを提供している理由

Por que seu painel de monitoramento pode estar alimentando você com métricas fantasmas

Tại sao Bảng điều khiển giám sát của bạn có thể cung cấp cho bạn các số liệu ảo

为什么您的监控仪表板可能会为您提供幻象指标

Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Phantoms of Reality - Chapter IX: "Alexandre—" Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930: CHAPTER IX. "Alexandre—" Derek turned back to the balcony. It had been a brief interlude. The mob in the garden, the soldiers at the top of the stairway, and the other guards high on the bridge of the tower were all standing gazing. Shouts again arose as Derek appeared. Again he raised his arms. This time his voice rang out. "Silence all of you! I am a friend! Silence!" At first they did not heed him; then someone shouted: "Quiet! Listen to him! Let him talk!" The crowd was bellowing, and then they ceased. The bell was still. In the hush came Derek's voice: "I am a friend. I come from foreign lands, from distant lands of strange people and strange magic." For answer the crowd shouted and milled in confusion. A stone came up and then another. Derek stood immovable, like a statue gazing down at them. "I command you to disperse. You will not? Then look at me! Look at me, all of you. My will is law beyond this king—beyond these palace soldiers—beyond any power you have ever known." Then I knew a part of Derek's purpose! He had pressed the mechanism at his wrist. He stood imperious with upraised arms. The garden was in a tumult, but in a moment it died. A wave of horror swept the crowd. A freezing, incredulous horror. They stood staring, incredulous, silent, swept with a widening wave of horror. The figure of Derek on the balcony was fading, turning luminous. A wraith, a ghost of his menacing shape standing there. It faded until it was almost gone, and then, as he reversed the mechanism, it materialized again. A moment passed, then he stood again solid before them. His voice rang out, "Will you obey me now? I am a friend of the toilers!" They were prostrate before him. There is no fear more terrible than the fear of the supernatural. In all of history there has been in our world no worship more abject than the worship and fear of a primitive people for its supernatural God. On the platform beneath the balcony, the palace soldiers stared up, horrified. Then they too were prostrate before Derek's threatening gestures and commanding voice. I stood watching, listening. And suddenly, from the prostrate crowd, a man leaped up. In the silence his amazed voice carried over the garden. "Alexandre! It is our Prince Alexandre! Our lost prince!" He stood staring at Derek, his arms gesturing to his comrade around him. He shouted it again: "Our rightful king, come back to us! Don't you recognize him? I saw him go! He went like that—fading into a ghost. Ten years ago, when Leonto killed his father and would have killed him had he not escaped!" The crowd was standing up now. They recognized Derek! There was no doubt of it. The garden was ringing with the tumultuous shouts, "Alexandre! Our lost prince has come back to us!" My head was whirling with it. Derek, prince of this realm? I could see that it was true. Escaped from here as a young lad, when his throne was usurped. Returning now, a man, to claim his own. And suddenly he turned and flashed me his smile. The din from the garden drowned his words. The crowd was shouting: "Alexandre! Our lost prince!" The king's guards on the lower platform stood sullen, confused. I heard footsteps behind me. I whirled around. From the room, the group of Rohbar's crimson nobles were rushing toward me! Their swords were out. One of them shouted, "Kill them now! We must kill them and have done!" There were five or six men in the group. They were no more than ten feet away from me. They came leaping. I stood in the window opening, with only my dirk to oppose them. I shouted, "Derek! Derek!" I think I took a step backward. I was out on the balcony. It flashed over me—Derek and I were caught out here! The first of the red cloaked figures came hurtling through the doorway. I leaped to avoid his sword. I saw the others crowding behind him. Then I felt Derek shove me violently aside. I half fell, but recovered myself at the balcony rail. Five of the crimson nobles were on the balcony. Derek confronted them. His aspect made them pause. They stood, with outstretched swords. The garden was silent; the crowd stared up. And in the silence Derek roared, "Get back! All of you, go back inside! Back, or I'll kill you!" In Derek's right hand he held the cylinder outstretched, leveled at the menacing nobles. "Back, I say!" But instead they rushed him. There was a flash. From the cylinder it seemed that a ray spat out, a flash of silver light. It caught the three men who were in advance of the others. Their swords dropped with a clatter to the balcony floor. They stood, transfixed. An instant. Derek's silver ray played upon them. Their red cloaks were painted with its silver sheen. They were shimmering! I gasped, staring. The other nobles, beyond the ray, had fallen back. And they too stood staring in horror. Another instant The three figures wavered. I saw the face of one of them, with the shock of incredulous horror still upon it. A face turning luminous! A face, erased, with only the staring eyes to mark where it had been! There was a moment when the three stricken men stood like shimmering ghosts, with Derek's deadly ray upon them. Then they were gone! It seemed, just as they vanished, that they were falling through the balcony floor.... Derek snapped off his ray. He rasped, "Back into that room, I tell you!" The remaining nobles fled before him. He turned again to the balcony rail. "My people—yes, I am Alexandre—I had not thought you would recognize me so soon. But you are right—the time has come for me to claim my inheritance. And I will rule you justly." His cylinder was still in his hand; he swept a watchful glance behind him. I thought of Rohbar. He was in the next room, with the king. Had they seen this attack upon Derek? They must have heard the crowd shouting, "Alexandre!" It seemed strange they did not appear. I recall now, as I look back to this moment on the balcony, that I suddenly thought of Hope. She had been beside me just before the nobles attacked. I did not see her now. I was startled, but thought of her was driven from my mind. From within the palace a scream sounded. A girl screaming. But it was not Hope's voice. A girl, screaming, and then shouting: "The king is dead!" Derek came rushing at me. "Charlie, that—" We heard it again. "The king is dead!" We hurried into the adjoining room. There was no one to stop us—no one up here now who dared oppose Derek. The terrified nobles in the room fell cringing before him. "Alexandre—spare us! We are loyal to you!" He strode past them. In the adjacent apartment we found the king lying upon the floor. A wound in his throat welled crimson. He had evidently been lying here alone, and had just now been found by a girl who had entered. He was not quite dead. Derek bent over him. He opened his eyes. He gasped faintly: "Rohbar—killed me. Rohbar and that—accursed crimson Sensua...." His voice trailed away. The light went out of his staring eyes. Derek laid him gently back on the floor. And as though already the news of his death had miraculously spread, the bell in the castle tower began tolling. Not clanging now. Tolling, with slow, solemn accent. The crowd evidently recognized it. We could hear the shouts: "Death! Death has come!" Derek's eyes ware blazing as he stood up. "The end, Charlie! I would not have planned this, and yet...." He did not finish. He whirled, rushed back to the other room and to the balcony. The scene was again in confusion the crowd milling, voices shouting: "The king is dead!" At the edge of the garden a woman's shrill, hysterical laughter rose over the din. Derek called, "Yes, the king is dead!" He paused. Then he added, "If you want me—if I have your loyalty—I will claim my throne." A tumult interrupted him. "Alexandre! King Alexandre!" He spread his arms, but he could not silence them. "The king is dead. Long live King Alexandre!" A wave of it swept over the garden, engulfing the castle. At the main entrance Leonto's soldiers stood sullen, listening to it. Derek stood triumphant. His hands were outstretched, palms down. But up on the circular bridge at the top of the tower there was a sudden commotion. The soldiers up there had vanished, moved back within the tower to make room for other figures. I stared amazed, transfixed. A huge man in leather garments was there, with a sword stuck in his wide belt. A man with a bullet head, a heavy face, gazing down.... Rohbar! And held in front of him the slender figure of a girl. Hope! He clutched her, his thick arm encircling her breast. With sinking heart I realized what had happened. Hope had moved away from me. Every one in the room had been intent upon Derek. Rohbar had come quietly in, after murdering the king, had seized Hope, stifled her outcry, and had taken her up into the tower. And I had promised Derek that I would shield this girl from harm! The horror of it—the self-condemnation of it—swept me, froze me to numbness. I could not think; I could only stand and stare. Rohbar held Hope like a shield before him. The low railing hardly reached her knees. A sheer drop to the garden beneath. He held her tightly, and in his free hand I saw his dirk come up menacingly against her white throat. His voice called: "Silent, down there! Alexandre, you traitor! Silence!" Derek stared up. The triumph faded from him. He stared, stricken. The crowd stared. The soldiers on the lower platform ceased their shouting and gazed up at these new actors, come so unexpectedly upon the stage. Again Rohbar called, to the guards this time: "I represent your King Leonto. This Alexandre is a traitor to us all. And he cannot harm me! I defy him. Look at him! I defy him to use his evil weapon upon me!" Derek was silent. A single adverse move and Rohbar's knife would stab into Hope's throat. Derek's ray was powerless. A flash from it would have killed Hope, not Rohbar. The king's soldiers saw Derek's indecision. One of them shouted, "He cannot harm us! Look, he is frightened!" The crowd recognized Hope. They began calling her name. And calling, "Master Rohbar, do not harm our Hope!" "I will not harm her! Not if you do what I tell you! Leave the garden—go quietly! I will deal with this traitor!" He added to the guards, "Go up and seize him! He cannot hurt you! Traitor! Seize him! If he does not yield—if any of this crowd attacks you—then I will kill Hope." Derek stood clinging to the balcony rail. With Rohbar's watchful gaze upon him he did not dare turn or move. I was standing back from the balcony, behind Derek and partly in the room. No one thought of me. No one from outside could see me. And I, who had played no part in this, save that one I had neglected, suddenly saw my role. My cue was sounding. My role to play, here upon this tumultuous stage. I turned back into the dim room. A few frightened men and girls were here. They were all crowding forward, gazing through the windows at the scene outside. No one noticed me, but I saw, with sudden realization, my role to play. I darted across the room, out into the dim, deserted corridor of the castle. 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. 2012. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41481/41481-h/41481-h.htm#Phantoms_of_Reality 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 .

Phantoms of Reality - Chapter IX Alexandre

One of the biggest cliches in the current hype about Web 3.0 is the concept of decentralization. The term has taken on many self-important quasi-philosophical features, such as Enlightenment-era ideals of autonomy, self-determination, and the ultimate subjective: “freedom”. All across the web, you can read articles proclaiming the dawn of “decentralized digital identity”, which just begs the question: is digital identity something that could be decentralized? Setting aside much of the (mostly manufactured) cheerleading for “decentralization” in all forms, I want to focus on how digital identity, almost by definition, could never possibly be decentralized. I believe pretty much the exact opposite is true: digital identity will be the ultimate centralized commodity (perhaps it already is). One of the key features that decentralization zealots rely on is blockchain technology. Despite what some may say, blockchain is not inherently decentralized any more than any other database. It could be argued that it is apt to be even more centralized since blockchain is immutable. Those who have access to an immutable blockchain database could certainly wield a lot of power over the data stored therein. This brings up another question: is your digital identity immutable? What exactly is your digital identity anyway? Digital Identity Digital identity is merely a dataset that is constantly updating and fluctuating. This dataset is a construct, an avatar of you or who you are. These datasets are collections of any scattered behaviors, actions, and interactions you may (or may not) have online with myriad people and organizations. Is that collection WHO you are? Or, isn’t it just a sample of WHAT you have done? Is a pattern the same thing as a person? Maybe this is pedantic, but there is a huge difference between who you are and what you do. For example, if I buy several books on Amazon about true crime and serial killers, does that indicate that I am a criminal, murderer, lawyer, or investigator? If I were to post on Twitter some thoughts and opinions on food prices, does that make me an economist? Herein lies much of the problem with the concept of digital identity: human beings are NOT simple datasets that can be aggregated and put into neat little boxes on any sort of database, whether it be blockchain or whatever. The whole idea of digital identity is an invention of corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations for purposes of profit and control. Facebook, Twitter, and others seem to revel in the power they have to remove people from their platforms for nearly any reason. They accomplish this through the control they have over your “digital identity”, which can be interpreted and manipulated at will in any context. To think that anyone could somehow achieve autonomous control over their own digital identity is a pure illusion (or more accurately: delusion). Blockchain will not facilitate autonomy over digital identity, as once anything is “written” to the blockchain, it is there permanently. Forever. Blockchain may have some utility in cases of asset ownership and trade, but digital identity is not an “asset” that anyone “owns” or even “possesses”. Digital identity is a phantom that constantly changes depending on the context of where it is being used. There is not going to be decentralization of digital identity, but there will most certainly be more centralization of it. Your credit score, education and medical records, criminal history, online habits, banking and money, and any other data that is inherently quantifiable are not even really “yours”. Unless you want to go live out in a cave somewhere and never interact with another person again, everything you do is inevitably being used as a data commodity. There will be no decentralized blockchain that is free from observation and commodification. The reality is much worse, as the opposite becomes easier: since blockchain cannot be rewritten, your digital identity will likely contain mistakes, errors, and outdated info, and will always be subject to the rule of law. Too much quasi-libertarian nonsense permeates the blockchain space, where these myths of decentralized everything swirl around in an echo chamber. Governments, institutions, and corporations will always use laws and regulations to assert authority over any blockchain-related info. How could it be otherwise? What about the innumerable ways in which you can attempt to mask or manipulate your own digital identity? Do you have different email addresses for different purposes: business, personal, or otherwise? Have you ever used a temporary email account? Do you have an alias? Do you have anything in your background that you would rather some people not know about? Do you think that employers will not have any access to your records just because they are on the blockchain? What about lawyers, judges, and governments? How is it decentralization when entities with these powers and abilities retain such access? This entire issue reminds me of an important distinction within the field of web development: the difference between authentication and authorization. Just because someone’s digital identity or credentials have authorized access to something does not necessarily allow them authorization to any and everything. When logging into a website, you authenticate your digital identity by entering the correct information or data. Once you log in (depending on the situation) you may or may not have authorization to every feature of that site. The situation does not change because now your credentials and records are stored in a blockchain database rather than any other database. You can authenticate who you are in the physical world, but that does not necessarily mean you have the authorization to stop the use of your info. The control over such things as authorization will always be subject to higher-order authorities in any society where there is the rule of law. Decentralization, autonomy, and total revolution is not going to take place via blockchain databases. If only it were so easy.

The Digital Identity Phantom Menace

Satoshi Nakamoto — the maverick inventor of Bitcoin — not only saw a pregnant future but also made us its midwives as well. He planted his genius idea in our minds and armed us with a technology whose symbolism is freedom. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? We will never stop wondering until the Genesis block is altered! Thirteen years since the invention of Bitcoin and its underlying technology, there has been no shortage of pretenders vying for its throne. But the thesis that has been established is that it was invented by a mysterious figure with a Japanese name. Hence, the puzzle that unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity has become remains unsolvable — for the most part. While Satoshi is largely unknown, his involvement in the early development of Bitcoin is mammoth. In point of fact, there is a semblance of facticity pointing to the whitepaper he penned, the Genesis mining of Bitcoin, Satoshi’s 50 Bitcoin rewards, Satoshi’s 980,000 mined Bitcoins, his acquaintance with Hal Finley, the first Bitcoin recipient in history, and Satoshi’s understanding of the price of fame. Today, much of what we know about the mysterious inventor of comes from the amalgamation of clues, facts, and theories. But the sad truth is that we know next to nothing about him — not even the choice of gender ascribed to his vague personality is enough to go by. Bitcoin Moreover, it is essentially in dispute whether the shadowy figure of Satoshi Nakamoto satisfies the biological requirements for the honor of being called human. But, Satoshi being a Japanese name for the masculine gender is nothing but a mere assumption to go by. What if Satoshi was an AI robot? What if our judgment of Satoshi’s gender and masculinity is dead wrong? What if he was a woman or even a trans man? And what if “Satoshi Nakamoto” is just a monicker used by a group of nerds?! Is Satoshi better Known Than Unknown? The world’s obsession with Satoshi Nakamoto continues to grow yearly matching almost the growing popularity of Bitcoin itself. In colleges where cryptocurrency will be taught in the future, a chapter dedicated to Satoshi will be taught to students who wish to learn more about how Bitcoin was invented. There would be endless questions about who he was and why he is unknown, and they will be made to realize that whoever alters the Genesis block is the real Satoshi. In a world as chaotic as ours, it is easy to imagine a couple of things that are most likely to trail the discovery of Satoshi since his name has already made him a subject of multiple interests. Although his shoes are too big for anyone to wear, his legendary status hints at various possibilities; from risking an attack on his life or that of anyone close to him, to the truckload of lawsuits waiting for him, and to the war of the press and the Establishment. The Genesis Block In solving the puzzle of Satoshi’s disappearance, the Genesis block; the first Bitcoin block, will have to be altered by Satoshi himself or whoever has the keys to it. Changing it is similar to cutting the except that whoever is able to do so will be said to have conquered the world without an army. Knot of Gordium The Genesis block is a milestone. It is the first block that was ever recorded in the history of Bitcoin; it had a reward of 50 Bitcoins which Satoshi earned after mining the first Bitcoin, and it contained a text referring to the vanity of relying on traditional banks. This block altogether marked the remarkable beginning of Bitcoin. However, it has remained inactive since Satoshi’s last correspondence with Hal Thomas Finney, the famed American computer scientist, lending credence to the fact that he was at some point involved in the early development of the Bitcoin software, and proving that he might have worked out the code before writing the Bitcoin whitepaper. There are in the genesis block 50 unspendable Bitcoins locked by Satoshi for reasons best known to him or them. And it is popularly believed that whenever he sells off his stash at once, Bitcoin would tremendously lose its value and go to zero. To date, evidence pointing to the first Bitcoin transaction has been the public address of Satoshi which currently holds the locked reward from the first mining. Most people believe that Satoshi, real or imagined, exerts a profound influence on the movement of Bitcoin. Conclusion Whether dead or alive, and whether real or fake, Satoshi‘s name has reached the ends of the earth. In theory, he is one of the wealthiest men in today’s world thanks to his precious stash. But, we may never know his true identity despite the refined computer genius that he is touted to be. Satoshi could be the mask of an entity or the true identity of a middle age man laughing at the folly of the entire world behind his computer screen, making a fool of money, or patiently waiting for the fullness of time to make all of the world’s wealthy men poor in comparison. If Bitcoin ever achieves its full potential, Satoshi Nakamoto’s statue (whatever it will look like) will be everywhere around the globe. Also published here.

The Genesis Block and The Phantom: A Story of Satoshi Nakamoto

Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Phantoms of Reality - Chapter I: Wall Street—or the Open Road? Phantoms of Reality A COMPLETE NOVEL By Ray Cummings The office room faded.... I was lying on another floor.... New walls sprang around me. CHAPTER I. Wall Street—or the Open Road? When I was some fifteen years old, I once made the remark, "Why, that's impossible." The man to whom I spoke was a scientist. He replied gently, "My boy, when you are grown older and wiser you will realize that nothing is impossible." Somehow, that statement stayed with me. In our swift-moving wonderful world I have seen it proven many times. They once thought it impossible to tell what lay across the broad, unknown Atlantic Ocean. They thought the vault of the heavens revolved around the earth. It was impossible for it to do anything else, because they could see it revolve. It was impossible, too, for anything to be alive and yet be so small that one might not see it. But the microscope proved the contrary. Or again, to talk beyond the normal range of the human voice was impossible, until the telephone came to show how simply and easily it might be done. I never forgot that physician's remark. And it was repeated to me some ten years later by my friend, Captain Derek Mason, on that memorable June night of 1929. My name is Charles Wilson. I was twenty-five that June of 1929. Although I had lived all of my adult life in New York City, I had no relatives there and few friends. I had known Captain Mason for several years. Like myself, he seemed one who walked alone in life. He was an English gentleman, perhaps thirty years old. He had been stationed in the Bermudas, I understood, though he seldom spoke of it. I always felt that I had never seen so attractive a figure of a man as this Derek Mason. An English aristocrat, he was, straight and tall and dark, and rather rakish, with a military swagger. He affected a small, black mustache. A handsome, debonair fellow, with an easy grace of manner: a modern d'Artagnan. In an earlier, less civilized age, he would have been expert with sword and stick, I could not doubt. A man who could capture the hearts of women with a look. He had always been to me a romantic figure, and a mystery that seemed to shroud him made him no less so. A friendship had sprung up between Derek Mason and me, perhaps because we were such opposite types! I am an American, of medium height, and medium build. Ruddy, with sandy hair. Derek Mason was as meticulous of his clothes, his swagger uniforms, as the most perfect Beau Brummel. Not so myself. I am careless of dress and speech. I had not seen Derek Mason for at least a month when, one June afternoon, a note came from him. I went to his apartment at eight o'clock the same evening. Even about his home there seemed a mystery. He lived alone with one man servant. He had taken quarters in a high-class bachelor apartment building near lower Fifth Avenue, at the edge of Greenwich Village. All of which no doubt was rational enough, but in this building he had chosen the lower apartment at the ground-floor level. It adjoined the cellar. It was built for the janitor, but Derek had taken it and fixed it up in luxurious fashion. Near it, in a corner of the cellar, he had boarded off a square space into a room. I understood vaguely that it was a chemical laboratory. He had never discussed it, nor had I ever been shown inside it. Unusual, mysterious enough, and that a captain of the British military should be an experimental scientist was even more unusual. Yet I had always believed that for a year or two Derek had been engaged in some sort of chemical or physical experiment. With all his military swagger he had the precise, careful mode of thought characteristic of the man of scientific mind. I recall that when I got his note with its few sentences bidding me come to see him, I had a premonition that it marked the beginning of something strange. As though the portals of a mystery were opening to me! Nothing is impossible! Nevertheless I record these events into which I was plunged that June evening with a very natural reluctance. I expect no credibility. If this were the year 2000, my narrative doubtless would be tame enough. Yet in 1929 it can only be called a fantasy. Let it go at that. The fantasy of to-day is the sober truth of to-morrow. And by the day after, it is a mere platitude. Our world moves swiftly. Derek received me in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon Derek's lean graceful figure as he flung himself down and produced cigarettes. He said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—something to offer you." He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling. "But I don't understand what you mean," I protested. He retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization. Tired of Wall Street." "I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough." His eyes held me. He was smiling half whimsically: his voice was only half serious. Yet I could see, in the smoldering depths of those luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied his smiling lips and his gay tone. He interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—and perhaps a fair lady...." "Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages." I thought he would grin, but he turned suddenly solemn. "I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie." "King of what? Where?" He spread his lean brown hands with a gesture. He shrugged. "What matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of romance—it will come to you." I said, "Henchman to a king?" But still he would not smile. "Yes. If I were king. I'm serious. Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world, but...." He checked himself. He went on, "You are the same. You have no relatives?" "No. None that ever think of me." "Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?" "No," I smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never." "But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" He was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a great wrong? Rescue an oppressed people, overturn the tyranny of an evil monarch, and put your friend and the girl he loves upon the throne? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?" I matched his caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek." 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. 2012. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41481/41481-h/41481-h.htm#Phantoms_of_Reality 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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