TaxBit: The game-changing platform to streamline your tax filing process and simplify financial management. Read more to find out its actual worth.

TaxBit Review: Simplify Your Crypto Tax Filing Process

Even with more money from the Inflation Reduction Act and a new direct file system, taxpayers will struggle with crypto filings.

New $80 billion IRS tax filing system still challenges crypto investors

The crypto tax software market is poised for significant growth, with a projected annual increase of 12.7%. By the year 2032, it’s anticipated to reach a substantial value of US$ 492.2 million. This suggests a rising demand for software solutions that help individuals and businesses navigate the complexities of cryptocurrency taxation.

Crypto Tax Software Market Analysis: An Impressive 12.7% CAGR Growth, Envisaged to Attain US$ 492.2 Million by 2032

Regulatory clarity in the U.S. would help the crypto space better roll out products and services that are beneficial to consumers, said TaxBit CEO Lindsey Argalas, who also spoke on Sunday’s panel. “I think many of us still have a lot of conviction ...

Crypto legislation would put US ‘back in the game,’ stakeholders say

A pair of House bills would help the industry gain clarity, scale digital asset products and promote financial inclusion, cryptocurrency stakeholders said Sunday on a panel at Money20/20.

Finding the best crypto tax software in 2023 is crucial for simplifying tax filing, especially for traders and investors like yourself. These innovative crypto tax tools, often referred to as the best crypto tax software, are designed to streamline the ...

Best Crypto Tax Calculator 2023: Top Picks for Hassle-Free Tax Filing

I joined TaxBit about 18 months ago. How has it been transitioning from COO to CEO at TaxBit? It's been a very natural evolution, which is obviously a good thing. I have a great partnership with ...

Future of Finance: TaxBit’s Argalas on the benefits of FinTech-TradFi collaboration, and how clear crypto rules would help everyone

In June, Lindsey Argalas ascended to the CEO position at crypto compliance and reporting company TaxBit after a stint as its chief operating officer. Since then, she has worked to help crypto companies and traditional tech companies like PayPal, Google, and Fidelity experiment with blockchain and crypto in a compliant way.

In June, Lindsey Argalas ascended to the CEO position at crypto compliance and reporting company TaxBit after a stint as its chief operating officer. Since then, she has worked to help crypto companies and traditional tech companies like PayPal ...

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Proper Navigation in SwiftUI With Coordinators: A Guide

Day 2: Wandering around the multiple paths 🛣️ In the third post of the #30DaysOfSwift series, I am going to teach you how to make a sticky navigation bar. The output would look something like this: Steps: Create a new SwiftView file called "HomeView." Replace the ContentView() with HomeView() in YourAppNameApp.swift (In this case, my project is called ShipiOS. Thus, file name is ShipiOSApp.swift). var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            HomeView()
        }
    } Lastly, add the following code in your HomeView() file: Code: struct HomeView: View {
    @State private var selectedTab = 0 // Track the selected tab
    let generator = UIImpactFeedbackGenerator(style: .light) // For Haptics

    @EnvironmentObject var userCommonData: CommonData

    var body: some View {
        TabView(selection: $selectedTab) {
            ContentView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Home", systemImage: "house")
                }
                .tag(0)

            SecondView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Chats", systemImage: "tray")
                }
                .tag(1)

            ThirdView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Profile", systemImage: "gearshape")
                }
                .tag(2)
        }
        .accentColor(Color("AppSecondaryColor"))
        .onChange(of: selectedTab) {
            generator.impactOccurred()
        }
    }

} Does it work? Let me know :) Happy coding! Day 2: Wandering around the multiple paths 🛣️ Day 2: Wandering around the multiple paths 🛣️ In the third post of the #30DaysOfSwift series, I am going to teach you how to make a sticky navigation bar. The output would look something like this: Steps: Create a new SwiftView file called "HomeView." Create a new SwiftView file called "HomeView." Replace the ContentView() with HomeView() in YourAppNameApp.swift (In this case, my project is called ShipiOS. Thus, file name is ShipiOSApp.swift). Replace the ContentView() with HomeView() in YourAppNameApp.swift (In this case, my project is called ShipiOS. Thus, file name is ShipiOSApp.swift). var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            HomeView()
        }
    } var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            HomeView()
        }
    } Lastly, add the following code in your HomeView() file: Lastly, add the following code in your HomeView() file: Code: struct HomeView: View {
    @State private var selectedTab = 0 // Track the selected tab
    let generator = UIImpactFeedbackGenerator(style: .light) // For Haptics

    @EnvironmentObject var userCommonData: CommonData

    var body: some View {
        TabView(selection: $selectedTab) {
            ContentView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Home", systemImage: "house")
                }
                .tag(0)

            SecondView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Chats", systemImage: "tray")
                }
                .tag(1)

            ThirdView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Profile", systemImage: "gearshape")
                }
                .tag(2)
        }
        .accentColor(Color("AppSecondaryColor"))
        .onChange(of: selectedTab) {
            generator.impactOccurred()
        }
    }

} struct HomeView: View {
    @State private var selectedTab = 0 // Track the selected tab
    let generator = UIImpactFeedbackGenerator(style: .light) // For Haptics

    @EnvironmentObject var userCommonData: CommonData

    var body: some View {
        TabView(selection: $selectedTab) {
            ContentView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Home", systemImage: "house")
                }
                .tag(0)

            SecondView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Chats", systemImage: "tray")
                }
                .tag(1)

            ThirdView() // Replace with your view
                .tabItem {
                    Label("Profile", systemImage: "gearshape")
                }
                .tag(2)
        }
        .accentColor(Color("AppSecondaryColor"))
        .onChange(of: selectedTab) {
            generator.impactOccurred()
        }
    }

} Does it work? Let me know :) Happy coding! Happy coding!

Navigation Bar Tutorial in iOS 18 - #30DaysOfSwift

Virtual Reality (VR) has long been considered useful for gaming and not much else. However, a recent study suggests that VR technology is terrific for exercise. The University of Victoria in Canada (UVic) conducted a study together with tech giant Meta to evaluate the impact of Meta’s VR fitness platform Supernatural’s workouts on energy expenditure. In the study, led by Dr. Ryan Rhodes at UVic and co-authored by Tabitha Craig and Dr. Yoah Sui, participants between the ages of 18-40 engaged in Supernatural Flow, a full-body cardio workout, which was discovered to have similar cardiovascular benefits to running. On the one hand, this is likely a clear effort by Meta to promote its product and demonstrate, using scientific backing, that its technology is beneficial for our health. On the other hand, it is plausible that combining VR technology with exercise makes it just as beneficial and effective, and is simultaneously entertaining. For many, exercise is a tedious bore. Today, with VR, it no longer needs to be. In addition to exercise, users can enjoy enhanced VR for yoga and overall wellbeing sessions. Many consumers will be pleased to know that Alo Moves, a well-known online on-demand "movement and mindfulness" platform is making a mixed reality yoga app for the Meta Quest 3 – the first of its kind to use virtual coaches for fully immersive at-home yoga sessions. The technology offers users the ability to exercise or practice yoga with a unique virtual reality experience, the key difference being that the coach will be in their home rather than in a virtual environment. In addition to the experience, the actual physical aspect of using VR for this purpose has benefits. Users can choose from an endless amount of sports options such as boxing or tennis. By playing such games, users are drawn into a virtual reality experience that engages them for longer than they might have exercised otherwise. Having a goal, such as winning a tennis game or a boxing round, gives people a goal to work towards and helps achieve a longer-lasting and more beneficial workout session. At the same time, some research has found that exercising with VR for a shorter period is just as beneficial as exercising for a longer period without the use of VR. A new study examining the effects of virtual reality exercise on mental health finds that people can cut down on the amount of weekly vigorous exercise and still maintain mood-boosting benefits. Other studies have also validated the positive psychological impacts of VR fitness, even for a shorter period of time than fitness without VR. It seems obvious that VR can help people through exercise and that it has physical and mental health benefits, but most people don’t seem to be aware of this. According to Athletech, 80% of Americans don’t exercise regularly with fun, captivating games and fitness workouts. VR companies aim to change this and attract more potential consumers to an activity long considered too tough to engage in. By demonstrating that VR exercise, aerobics, yoga, or meditation is psychologically and physically beneficial, as well as more fun and entertaining, it is likely that tech companies can convince millions more people to become interested in these activities combined with VR technology. If you never liked exercising or doing yoga, this is your moment. Buy a VR headset and immerse yourself in a fun and captivating world that will take your mind, body, and spirit to a whole new level. Virtual Reality (VR) has long been considered useful for gaming and not much else. However, a recent study suggests that VR technology is terrific for exercise. Virtual Reality (VR) The University of Victoria in Canada (UVic) conducted a study together with tech giant Meta to evaluate the impact of Meta’s VR fitness platform Supernatural’s workouts on energy expenditure. conducted a study Meta In the study, led by Dr. Ryan Rhodes at UVic and co-authored by Tabitha Craig and Dr. Yoah Sui, participants between the ages of 18-40 engaged in Supernatural Flow, a full-body cardio workout, which was discovered to have similar cardiovascular benefits to running. On the one hand, this is likely a clear effort by Meta to promote its product and demonstrate, using scientific backing, that its technology is beneficial for our health. On the other hand, it is plausible that combining VR technology with exercise makes it just as beneficial and effective, and is simultaneously entertaining. For many, exercise is a tedious bore. Today, with VR, it no longer needs to be. In addition to exercise, users can enjoy enhanced VR for yoga and overall wellbeing sessions. Many consumers will be pleased to know that Alo Moves , a well-known online on-demand "movement and mindfulness" platform is making a mixed reality yoga app for the Meta Quest 3 – the first of its kind to use virtual coaches for fully immersive at-home yoga sessions. Alo Moves The technology offers users the ability to exercise or practice yoga with a unique virtual reality experience, the key difference being that the coach will be in their home rather than in a virtual environment. In addition to the experience, the actual physical aspect of using VR for this purpose has benefits. Users can choose from an endless amount of sports options such as boxing or tennis. By playing such games, users are drawn into a virtual reality experience that engages them for longer than they might have exercised otherwise. Having a goal, such as winning a tennis game or a boxing round, gives people a goal to work towards and helps achieve a longer-lasting and more beneficial workout session. At the same time, some research has found that exercising with VR for a shorter period is just as beneficial as exercising for a longer period without the use of VR. research has found A new study examining the effects of virtual reality exercise on mental health finds that people can cut down on the amount of weekly vigorous exercise and still maintain mood-boosting benefits. Other studies have also validated the positive psychological impacts of VR fitness, even for a shorter period of time than fitness without VR. new study Other studies It seems obvious that VR can help people through exercise and that it has physical and mental health benefits, but most people don’t seem to be aware of this. According to Athletech , 80% of Americans don’t exercise regularly with fun, captivating games and fitness workouts. VR companies aim to change this and attract more potential consumers to an activity long considered too tough to engage in. According to Athletech By demonstrating that VR exercise, aerobics, yoga, or meditation is psychologically and physically beneficial, as well as more fun and entertaining, it is likely that tech companies can convince millions more people to become interested in these activities combined with VR technology. If you never liked exercising or doing yoga, this is your moment. Buy a VR headset and immerse yourself in a fun and captivating world that will take your mind, body, and spirit to a whole new level.

University Study Reveals VR’s Unexpected Benefits for Exercise

The Road to Senior Engineer: Management Is Not Just for Managers 

1811 Dictionary in the Vulgar Tongue: Section T

People on social media love to talk about investing, but few will do the due diligence for their investments. Throwing money at companies without doing any research is closer to gambling than investing. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but the gambler is much more likely to sell when an investment has a large drawdown than the investor. Due diligence enables investors to have high conviction in an investment, which helps prevent them from selling during a large drawdown. Until late last year, I was more of a gambler than an investor. So what changed? The perfect opportunity fell into my lap. I learned about a small-cap company at the intersection of my interests and knowledge in public policy, sports, gambling, and technology. The stars aligned when I realized that their mobile app had been on my phone for years. The company was called Score Media and Gaming (SCR/SCR.TO). To say I became obsessed might be an understatement. In late 2020, I officially became a shareholder in the company. On March 23, 2021, I published my first analysis supporting a public company. My long thesis for SCR was now public knowledge for the world. To summarize my research, I had high conviction in this company for the following reasons: Founder led Huge TAM being unlocked in sports betting by new legislation in North America Governments are always looking for new tax revenue sources, especially in times of budget crises (i.e., COVID spending). Sin taxes, such as gambling, are easier to gain public support. Asset light company Strong user base for their sports media app, which I had been using for years. This could lead to a low customer acquisition cost (CAC) in their future sports betting ecosystem. Access to first-party data via their media app –> more important with the IDFA/Apple advertisement changes A proven history of building mobile apps and websites (i.e., a tech company). Potential to vertically integrate with the technology stack for their sports betting product, improving margins and adding control over the recommendation engine. An established brand in Ontario, one of the largest sports betting markets in North America History of being ahead of technology and market trends, such as shifting to mobile apps and starting an online eSports brand Free social media advertising from a few Barstool accounts and personalities because PENN had a minority stake in SCR Future TAM expansion opportunities in iGaming After doing the due diligence, I truly believed I found a potential multi-bagger. Around the time I published my article, I managed to convince almost a dozen friends and family to put some money in as well. As soon as everyone did, the stock tanked. Lesson #1: You should not rely solely on fundamental analysis for investment. All of my research was based on fundamentals but ignored one of the most important elements of investing: timing. Four weeks after my publication, SCR was down 31 percent. Eight weeks after my publication, it was down 47 percent. You will notice the huge drop from March 2021 through May 2021 in the chart from Koyfin below. After such a huge drawdown, what do you think happened next? As any normal shareholder would do, my friends and family began questioning my advice. Doubt and skepticism filled the air in every text or discussion. Their questions and concerns continued for months. Lesson #2: Be extremely cautious about giving investment advice to anyone. Their money and your reputation are at stake. Throughout this time, I had to repeatedly explain my reasoning for being long SCR. Often this had to be conveyed over a short text or a quick phone call. I constantly reiterated that huge drawdowns are normal for small caps and the long-term thesis remained largely intact. Lesson #3: You should be able to explain your investment thesis in a simple story to anyone, regardless of their background in investing. During this time of poor performance, I doubled down on my bet. I continued to dollar cost average my position and encouraged everyone to follow suit. This lowered our average price of purchase but shifted everyone’s portfolio allocation heavily towards one company. At times, SCR was more than 10 percent of my portfolio. For my friends and colleagues, it represented a sizeable percentage, too. Lesson #4: If you can’t do technical analysis, strongly consider dollar-cost averaging into a position for an individual stock. Meanwhile, we were all waiting for the one political event that would significantly impact the company’s future TAM. This was bill C-218 that proposed the legalization of single-event sports betting in Canada. Having 10 percent of your portfolio dependent on one unpredictable event is gut-wrenching. Anyone can tell you what uncertainty means, but living it every day can have a material impact on your mental state. There were days where my anxiety levels were very uncomfortable. Lesson #5: Drawdowns are incredibly painful no matter your conviction. Finally, we made it to the day of the Canadian Senate vote. SCR had been performing well during the weeks leading up to the event. I was optimistic about the future, but in the back of my mind knew about the term “sell the news. “ In the days after the bill was legalized, the stock declined 20 percent. Four weeks after the legislation had passed, the stock was close to the lowest point since their Nasdaq listing. Lesson #6: Sell the news events are a strange market phenomenon. The market is capable of declining no matter how positive the catalyst might be. After so many months of emotional pain, I began to wonder how long it could take for SCR’s price to reflect my thesis. If this huge, positive catalyst couldn’t maintain a higher market price, then what would? The next obvious catalysts on the horizon appeared to be earnings calls in 2022. This would show whether SCR could capture a large market share of sports betting in the Ontario market. While I still believed in this outcome, I was not blind to the bear thesis. What happens when the top competitors (e.g., DKNG, FanDuel, MGM) are willing to spend limitless amounts of advertising dollars to acquire customers? If these companies can sustain losses for years, then SCR’s theoretical low CAC advantage might remain just that. A theory. Lesson #7: No matter how much research you do, your thesis could take years to play out. Days will feel like weeks, weeks will feel like months, and months will feel like years. Throughout this period, I noticed a pattern among SPACs and many of the exciting, futuristic stocks. This included my beloved SCR. The pattern was the following: Lesson #8: Speculative earnings often mean temporary boosts in stock prices. Realized earnings will sustain higher stock valuations more permanently. Most of SCR’s future revenue was unproven; therefore, it was uncertain. And the market HATES uncertainty. With such a large drawdown, I began to debate whether to sell most of my position for tax harvesting and reenter in 30 days. After much internal debate, I chose not to and voiced my slight hesitation to my fellow shareholders. Lesson #9: Be extremely careful about tax harvesting during large drawdowns for volatile stocks. Anything can happen during the 30 day period where you are not holding a stock. On Aug 5, 2021, I awoke to a barrage of texts, missed calls, and notifications. I ignored the calls and texts because I saw a strange email subject flash across the screen. After opening the email, I learned that PENN had acquired SCR. The stock opened at 29.55, an incredible 63 percent increase from the previous day’s close. Because of months of depressing performance, it took me a couple of days to process how good of a result this was. Lesson #10: It only takes one other person, or company, to agree with your thesis to potentially change everything. In this case, PENN must have put the same premium on SCR’s theoretical low CAC ecosystem as I did. After collecting my thoughts, I summarized the result of the investment recommendation to my family and friends. Below is the performance breakdown for our SCR investment compared with the S&P500 and domestic small caps from March 22, 2021, through August 6, 2021. Additional cost bases are displayed since we continued to add to our SCR position as its price declined. S&P 500 (VOO): 12% Small cap (IWM): -1% SCR ($27 cost basis): 22% SCR($24): 37% SCR($22): 50% After seeing these results, some readers might think I’m a good investor. After seeing all of my mistakes, some readers might say that I was lucky. Lesson #11: It is incredibly difficult to evaluate whether someone is a good investor. It could take years to come to any sort of conclusion. ~ The Data Generalist *Approximate calculations, assuming VOO, IWM, and SCR $27 cost basis) were purchased on March 22, 2021. SCR continued to be purchased at different cost bases as it declined. All percentages are based on selling the respective shares on August 6, 2021. Image Source: Tabitha Turner on Unsplash Also Published On: https://thedatageneralist.com/lessons-from-my-first-high-conviction-investment/

What I Learned From Going "All In" On My First High-Conviction Stock Investment

Each week, we share five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally. 1. Forfeit your spot if the lineup is too male (or pale) Upon realizing he’d been named to a list, Tom Peters took a look at the other winners and : Top 30 Management Professionals tweeted body[data-twttr-rendered="true"] {background-color: transparent;}.twitter-tweet {margin: auto !important;} I think 4 women out of 30 means the judges weren't looking hard enough or casting a broad enough net. Minimum 10 F next year, and I'll forfeit my spot. @wsbexperience @DanielPink @JosephEStiglitz — @tom_peters function notifyResize(height) {height = height ? height : document.documentElement.offsetHeight; var resized = false; if (window.donkey && donkey.resize) {donkey.resize(height); resized = true;}if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var obj = {iframe: window.frameElement, height: height}; parent._resizeIframe(obj); resized = true;}if (window.location && window.location.hash === "#amp=1" && window.parent && window.parent.postMessage) {window.parent.postMessage({sentinel: "amp", type: "embed-size", height: height}, "*");}if (window.webkit && window.webkit.messageHandlers && window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize) {window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize.postMessage(height); resized = true;}return resized;}twttr.events.bind('rendered', function (event) {notifyResize();}); twttr.events.bind('resize', function (event) {notifyResize();});if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var maxWidth = parseInt(window.frameElement.getAttribute("width")); if ( 500 < maxWidth) {window.frameElement.setAttribute("width", "500");}} This is how you do it, people. 2. Feature a diversity of people in slide decks and other media We’ve , and we’re saying it again. When using stock photos, feature a diversity of people. It may be understated, but the simple act of using stock photos that feature people of color and other underrepresented groups makes a difference. Seeing someone who looks like you on a company’s careers page, in the promotions for a conference or event, or in a presentation deck is a clear signal that people who look like you belong. Representation matters. said it before And we just learned about . The photos are of women who are usually excluded from the media’s representation of “natural beauty.” Bonus: it’s free, and you can use the images within Canva or download them for other uses. a new collection by Canva, featuring women in their natural state Photo of older woman with gray curly hair, sitting at a desk. For more stock photo sites that feature members of underrepresented groups, we’ve got . some recommendations on the Better Allies website 3. Give credit, even if (or especially if) that person isn’t well-known This week, author : Stephen King tweeted body[data-twttr-rendered="true"] {background-color: transparent;}.twitter-tweet {margin: auto !important;} My wife is rightly pissed by headlines like this: "Stephen King and his wife donate $1.25M to New England Historic Genealogical Society." The gift was her original idea, and she has a name: TABITHA KING. Her response follows. — @StephenKing function notifyResize(height) {height = height ? height : document.documentElement.offsetHeight; var resized = false; if (window.donkey && donkey.resize) {donkey.resize(height); resized = true;}if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var obj = {iframe: window.frameElement, height: height}; parent._resizeIframe(obj); resized = true;}if (window.location && window.location.hash === "#amp=1" && window.parent && window.parent.postMessage) {window.parent.postMessage({sentinel: "amp", type: "embed-size", height: height}, "*");}if (window.webkit && window.webkit.messageHandlers && window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize) {window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize.postMessage(height); resized = true;}return resized;}twttr.events.bind('rendered', function (event) {notifyResize();}); twttr.events.bind('resize', function (event) {notifyResize();});if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var maxWidth = parseInt(window.frameElement.getAttribute("width")); if ( 500 < maxWidth) {window.frameElement.setAttribute("width", "500");}} Allies, let’s be sure to give credit to the person who originated an idea. Regardless of whether someone else now working on the idea is better known within our company, our industry, or worldwide. 4. Use inclusive language in marketing and advertising During the Oscars, Nike released a powerful new . If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth watching. “Just do it” ad While we’re fans of the ad, and definitely support female athletes and other women daring to do what was thought impossible, we wish Nike had used more inclusive language. Specifically, the ad uses the word “crazy” ten times. Ten times! Wondering why that’s a big deal? Using “crazy” in casual conversation can diminish the experience of people who live with mental health conditions. A simple and equally powerful alternative would have been to use “outrageous” instead. 5. Redirect misdirected questions In the 2017 , hundreds of women working in tech positions were polled. And 88 percent said they had seen a question directed toward a male colleague when they themselves were the most qualified person in the meeting to answer it. And it’s not just men who are guilty of this, because people of all gender identities are taught to assume that men naturally hold more power. “Elephant in the Valley” survey Chances are good that misdirected questions surface in meetings at your company, too. As an ally, redirect the question to the most qualified person. All it takes is a simple “Deepa is the expert on that topic. Let’s hear from her” or “Ann wrote the API. She’s the best person to answer your question.” Graphic reading “88% of women report having questions directed to men that should have been addressed to them. Being an ally is a journey. Want to join us? 😍 Follow @betterallies on , , , or . Twitter Medium Instagram Pinterest ✉️ This content originally appeared in our newsletter, . to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. 5 Ally Actions Subscribe 📖 Read the book. Better Allies 👕 Get your Better Allies gear Together, we can — and will — make a difference.

Actions to Diversify Listicles, Slide Decks, Ads, and More

You can read this article on my own blog, if you prefer that to medium. is a fairly new column store database. It’s developed by the guys over at Yandex (the Google of Russia), made to scale horizontally reasonably well and run high speed aggregate queries on hundreds of billions of rows of data. Clickhouse It uses its own SQL dialect and it matches pl/pgSQL in terms of expressivity and simplicity. It even includes higher order functions for working with nested object within rows, such as and . arrayMap arrayFilter What is Clickhouse used for ? In short, Clickhouse is used to run fast analytics on very large amount of data. It’s rather bad as a transactional database, but it can run aggregate queries on billions of rows in sub second times. It fills the ever increasing niche that technologies like Hadoop, Spark, Druid, Big Query, Redshift, Athena and MonetDb aim for. It allows a team to easily store and analyze large sets of data with high dimensionality. More importantly, it blows the aforementioned solutions out of the water in terms of speed and query complexity. Clickhouse is meant solely for analytic workloads, so as long as you have a lot of and aggregated functions such as , and it will be blazing fast, even if your number of rows is in the 11 to 12 digits area. But if you want to do a lot of large scale joins and point queries, a typical RDBMS is still going to be the better choice. GROUP BY COUNT SUM DISTINCT It should be noted here, Clickhouse does not yet support queries like and in its stable syntax. Even when it will, they will be slow due to its compression mechanism. Again, this is not a database meant for transactional workloads. DELETE UPDATE It will also compress your data, the space this saves is based on the column granularity and on how much query speed you are willing to sacrifice. The way Clickhouse compresses and partitions data is a key to its quick queries. If you want to read more about how column stores work, I would suggest you start with the , since most of the information there is quite easy to understand and accurate. Wikipedia article What exactly makes Clickhouse amazing ? 1It’s extremely easy to setup and use,even if you need data replication and data distribution on a few dozen machines. Deploying a Clickhouse cluster on 3 machines is almost instant if you are familiar with what you are doing and could take you a few hours to do properly if you are learning everything from scratch. No need for obscure libraries, no endless configuration files, user permission issues and arcane problems with data distribution and replication. 2 It’s not fragile. One horrible thing I’ve noticed in my rendezvous with various “big data” technologies (spark is a chief offender here) is that they tend to often break with no warning and for no apparent reason. Even worse, they give little information as to why the problem happened within the humongous logs they generate. Clickhouse is designed to recover from failure and it produces quite a reasonably sized system log with clear explanations of the problems it encountered. 3 It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it adds a steam engine to the carriage. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Clickhouse is that it doesn’t try to push a lot of limitations on you nor does it force you to completely re-think the way you store and query your data. Its data types cover everything from nested structure to matrices, it has a gigantic library of functions and one of the most versatile query language that I’ve ever seen. Unlike Map-reduce or other column store solutions, that will force you to rethink your entire schema, you can pretty much duplicate a transactional database schema with Clickhouse and it will do just fine. 4It’s actually got quite an amazing documentation and a great community. Perhaps the nastiest thing with “big data” technologies nowadays is that most of them are designed in order to sell support. A prime example of this would be Druid, open source and free in theory, but an unbreakable bastion of weird complexity coupled with a complete lack of documentation and community involvement. is relatively easy to search through and it’s being groomed, expanded and improved constantly. Clickhouse’s documentation The community is nothing short of amazing, it’s quite tiny, consisting of the developers and users from Yandex plus a few other early adopters, but that hasn’t stopped every question and issue I raised on Github and StackOverflow from being answered within hours. The developer also seem to very receptive to contributors external to Yandex. Enough talk, let’s install the thing The first step is to install Clickhouse, for the purpose of this tutorial, it’s best to have a machine running Debian or Ubuntu, since that’s the official OS Yandex supports. It’s also quite easy to install it on , I’ve personally installed it with success from the on Arch, it exists as a . If all else fails, you can use the or . Fedora, CentOS, Suse and RHEL AUR repository package for Gentoo docker image build it from source To install it on Ubuntu, the execute the following: sudo apt-add-repository 'deb http://repo.yandex.ru/clickhouse/deb/stable/ main/' sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv E0C56BD4 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install clickhouse-client clickhouse-server Now you can start the server as a daemon by running and connect to it via the client by running . sudo systemctl start clickhouse-server clickhouse-client If you want to play around with the configurations, you can find them inside and respectively. /etc/clickhouse-server /etc/clickhouse-client Playing with some data For this introduction, I chose to use the , it’s a rather small dataset of ~1 million rows, but it means downloading and insertion will be very quick. The query speed will scale linearly with larger datasets as long as they fit on a local RAID and won’t suffer to much if data is distributed. NYC property taxes dataset In case you’ve installed an older version you may want to run: SET experimental_allow_extended_storage_definition_syntax = 1; This will allow you to use the syntax used throughout this tutorial. If your version is new enough, trying to run this will just throw an exception, no need to worry, you are all set. Let’s create our database and table: CREATE DATABASE test_database; USE test_database; CREATE TABLE tax_bills_nyc (bbl Int64,owner_name String,address String,tax_class String,tax_rate String,emv Float64,tbea Float64,bav Float64,tba String,property_tax String,condonumber String,condo String,insertion_date DateTime MATERIALIZED now()) Before we insert that data, let’s look at the things which might be a bit unclear here. is a way to create to column that is automatically set whenever a row is inserted based on the function after the keyword. In this case, the function I chose to use is , in order to get the insertion timestamp for each row. MATERIALIZED now() sets the storage engine for the table. There are many types of that clickhouse supports. Including your bog standard engine, engines that are meant to buffer rows when a very high write rate is needed, engines that are meant to speed up joins and many others. MergeTrees are the best table engines for most analytic queries, and the engine is the most simple of those, and usually the best choice. ENGINE = MergeTree table engines MEMORY BUFFER JOIN MergeTree Whilst I the specific of the engines would take too long to explain here. If you are familiar with , , , or … then thing of MergeTrees as being something conceptually close to that. MergeTree long-structured merge-trees Radix trees immutable “Vectors” Merkel trees Patricia trees If you aren’t, I’d like to invite you to the when your local church of Functional programming next meets. data structures sermon will partition the table using the column. Partitions are the largest storage unit under tables in clickhouse. You can delete partitions, attach partitions and temporarily drop partitions. Efficient clickhouse replication and distribution also depends on good partitioning. PARTITION BY tax_class tax_class From the end user perspective, what you should care about most is that partitions are very fast to operate on using , and . > < == For the column you partition by, you should chose one with somewhat low granularity, as a general rule of thumb. A good rule of thumb is to have less than 1000 distinct values per billion of rows. When your data associated with a point in time, a good partition key is the date associated with every row. is similar to a btree index in an RDBMS, from a user perspective. It speeds up queries using comparison operators. Unlike , you can use high granularity data here without losing performance. Again, in the case of a table where you often query based on a time associate with each data point, a good candidate for this value is the timestamp of each row. You can order your table by a combination of columns if you so desire. ORDER BY PARTITION Now you should be familiar with most of the new concepts you need to get along with Clickhouse, the rest should feel quite natural to you. Let’s insert our data: curl -X GET 'http://taxbills.nyc/tax_bills_june15_bbls.csv'  | /usr/bin/clickhouse-client --input_format_allow_errors_num=10 --query="INSERT INTO test_database.tax_bills_nyc FORMAT CSV" That should take a few seconds or minutes based on your internet speed, once it’s done, we can start testing some queries. If you want to work with a bigger dataset but don’t have time to define your own table, just run the above command a few more times :) Let’s take it for a ride Ok, lets run our first query, don’t blink: . That query should have been relatively instant, probably done in sub ms time if you are using server grade hardware. SELECT COUNT(*)/pow(10,3) FROM tax_bills_nyc For the purpose of this tutorial I’m using an E3–1270v6 with 32GB of EEC DDR4 at 2.133 GHz, but really, any old server or laptop will do. Lets try something a bit harder: SELECT SUM(emv) as total_emv, SUM(tbea) as total_tbea, SUM(bav) as total_bav, tax_class,tax_rateFROM tax_bills_nycGROUP BY tax_class, tax_rate That should have taken somewhere between 50 to 10ms depending on your machine, quite the feat for doing a GROUP BY 2 dimensions and summing up 4 different columns. Ok, what if we add a high dimensionality column in the , let’s say the owner’s name, since there are about 885,000 distinct names in the dataset: GROUP BY SELECT SUM(emv) as total_emv, SUM(tbea) as total_tbea, SUM(bav) as total_bav, tax_class,tax_rateFROM tax_bills_nycGROUP BY tax_class, tax_rate, owner_name That was probably slightly slower, but it still probably took under half a second, despite the high granularity of our new grouping criteria. But, if we built our schema correctly, we should be able to filter most queries using our order or partition column, let’s add a where clause based on the column: tax_class SELECT SUM(emv) as total_emv, SUM(tbea) as total_tbea, SUM(bav) as total_bav, tax_class,tax_rateFROM tax_bills_nycWHERE tax_class='1c - condo in 1-3 unit building'GROUP BY tax_class, tax_rate, owner_name Suddenly, our query time drops in the sub 10ms range again. Clickhouse not only offers speed, but it has various type and value manipulation functions that can allow us to easily write a query which output something that’s easily human readable: SELECT concat(toString(uniq(owner_name) / pow(10, 3)), ' thousand distinct names among the owners of ', toString(uniq(address) / pow(10, 3)), ' thousand properties') AS result FROM tax_bills_nyc This should give you a result similar to: 85.058 thousand distinct names among the owners of 989.466 thousand properties Ok, let’s try and see what happens if we try grouping by every single column in this table. To save you some typing, we’ll use the function, which will essentially do just that. DISTINCT(*) SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(*)) FROM tax_bills_nyc Surprisingly enough, this once again takes under half a second. It might actually be quicker then some of the previous GROUP BYs since we didn’t have to transform any of the string typed columns into a printable version. In my books, that was quite impressive when I first saw it. Have I peeked() your interest ? Hopefully you can see why I’m very excited about this database due to the expressive syntax and amazing query speed alone. This was mostly a toy dataset, meant to make this tutorial easy to follow. So I encourage you to try and go up to a few billion rows and see for yourself how unbelievable this database is. As for the dataset you want to do that with, I leave that up to you. Maybe try one of your large internal tables on which you often have trouble running analytical queries. Try formatting some of the data in your “data lake”, which you’d usually use a tool like Spark or Athena to query, and insert it into Clickhouse. If enough people are interested, I might produce a followup article or series with some more tips, tricks and real world usecases for Clickhouse. If you enjoyed this article you may also like: Imaginary Problems Are the Root of Bad Software If I were to select the worst Linux syscall

Clickhouse, an analytics database for the 21st century

( , and ) recently attended the Techstars Cloud 2015 program in San Antonio, Texas. Since getting accepted late last year, I’ve talked to a lot of people interested in and accelerators in general. I figured it would be a good idea to share our story and some of my thoughts as a CTO. Our company Derek Lenny myself Techstars Techstars You could define as an accelerator for early stage startups. In reality, it’s a lot more than that. Techstars is a family of incredible people who understand more than the Xs and Os of starting a company. Let me elaborate… Techstars Verticals Techstars runs 18 programs world wide, 8 of which are city programs and not focused on a specific vertical. The remaining 10 are vertical programs and accept companies focusing on cloud, , health, education, wearables and more. robotics Having 10 companies in a common vertical is great from an investor’s point of view. If you’re managing a fund and thinking about attending a demo day then it makes more sense to go somewhere and see 10 companies in your space than a generic program that might have 1–2 companies you care about. The investor thing is nice but the real draw for me is the value you give and get from your peers during the program. I loved interacting with all of the companies in the Cloud program. They certainly helped team Knowtify along the way and we’re very grateful for that. The logo for the Techstars Cloud program. Application process Going into the application process, was 9 months old with 3 employees and a functional beta product with a few paying customers. We were living on a small investment from friends and family. Several months earlier we applied for and so we were fairly familiar with accelerator applications. Knowtify YC 500 startups Techstars was far and away a better experience. I’m obviously biased in my assessment but the biggest difference for me was transparency. To kick things off, I had a face to face meeting with , the 2015 Cloud Managing Director, before ever submitting our application. From there, he made himself available by email and Google Hangout for the next few weeks in case we had any questions. That alone made it a better experience. Flying out to San Antonio to meet the team at and pitch our company, took it to the next level. The vibe just felt right. Blake Yeager Geekdom Waiting for a decision was far more tolerable when we didn’t feel left in the dark. The process took about 3–4 weeks. We got a thumbs up from Blake over Google Hangout. It was fitting and just felt great getting accepted into the Techstars family. San Antonio In early January we packed our bags and moved from San Francisco to San Antonio. It’s actually a pretty nice city with a growing tech community thanks to , and . Here are a few of the city highlights and lowlights. Techstars Geekdom Codeup Food wise, I have to say I expected a little more. The BBQ is solid and Texas seems to be the land of burgers…but I didn’t have a great steak on my trip. There aren’t a lot of options for Asian and European food. Southern California Mexican is better than Tex-Mex. Fun fact: Texans don’t seem to be wine drinkers but they do like a good beer. Some of the outdoors eateries had 50+ beers on tap. I even heard tale of a place with over 200! Texans are a lot more patient than Californians. They are also generally very nice and hospitable. No sidewalks or bike lanes! It’s not a great place to be a pedestrian. In San Antonio you don’t have to pay for bags at the grocery store or sort your trash into 3 piles after eating! Living halfway across the country from was by far the worst part of the trip. Everything would have been better with her there. Evy Wilkins Remember the Alamo Brewery! They gave us a free keg of beer every week during the program. Teams , , , , , , , , , and . Appbase Bitfusion Card Isle Callinize Elasticode Fantasmo Studios Knowtify Nebulab Stabilitas VirtKick Showing up in San Antonio on day 1 and meeting the teams was very exciting. The diversity committee was pleased There were teams representing 4 countries Nobody shared an HQ in a common city Only a few of us were post revenue Some founders were fairly young Only 2 repeat founders People came from a variety of backgrounds Surprisingly we had 6 military veteran founders I would have liked to see more… Women founders Founders with a stronger background in UX/Design Older founders (we were mostly all in our 20s/30s) Subu Rama and team Bitfusion scores a point at the Startup Olympics! Cloud Staff Techstars had 6 inspired people working 24/7 to help us build our companies. and ran the show. I certainly couldn’t have chosen a better team. They are organized, smart, creative, assertive and tough but fair. On top of that, they get shit done. Blake Kara , , and were our Hackstars & Associates. They helped companies do everything from redesign and rebrand (including us) to producing content and managing social media. They put in long hours without pay and pulled off some amazing work. Chris Josh Tabitha Erik As token of our thanks, we gave the Hackstars & Associates a pinata at the end of the program. I know that is some insanely skewed compensation for anyone out there counting beans. But at Techstars, we . More on that later. #givefirst Blake’s first program as a Managing Director. Storytelling It’s really the basis for everything you do as an early stage company. A story helps the team develop a clear vision that can be articulated to investors, new employees, customers and the press. Why storytelling? It’s really the basis for everything you do as an early stage company. A story helps the team develop a clear vision that can be articulated to investors, new employees, customers and the press. What’s the Knowtify story? We’re building an engagement marketing platform to help software companies market to their . Our first offering is a full-stack email tool to let marketers design and manage all of their emails from one spot. This includes digest, transactional, behavioral and announcement emails. Once we nail that, we’ll expand into new channels such as SMS, retargeting and in-app messages. existing customers How Knowtify turns a new user into a happy user. Design by Lenny Mentor Madness (1st month) The first month of Techstars is like speed dating for companies and mentors. You talk to as many entrepreneurs as possible from the Techstars network. The goal is to find 3–5 people you like working with to help grow the company over the next 2 months leading up to demo day. I’m sure we easily talked to more than 50 people. Some days we’d talk to 5–7 mentors. Other days we’d only talk to 1–2. In the end we paired up with 4 pretty amazing mentors. , , , . Daniel Feld Paul Ford Dirk Elmendorf Rodney Rice Paul Ford doing his thing. Mentor Month (2nd month) The second month of the program was about spending a few hours per week with each mentor and really cranking away on messaging and the product. This is where our vision really started to come together. Over the first month, it probably took 15–20 minutes to explain what we do. After the 2nd month, we were able to get there in under 1–2 minutes. Being able to explain what you do fast just makes the discussion so much more productive. Instead of people asking questions like… How is Knowtify different from X? You get questions like… Can Knowtify help me accomplish Y? Pitch practice (3rd month) In the 3rd month, the focus is purely on getting ready for demo day. We spent part of the month getting documents ready to share with investors but I’d say most of it was in preparing our demo day pitch. probably practiced pitching our company over 200 times. In the final week I’d say he averaged over 20 pitches per day. Derek Demo day Overall I’d say demo day went well for all of the companies in our batch. Everyone delivered a presentable pitch. A few presenters forgot a minor line or 2 but nothing close to catastrophic. I’m probably biased but and delivered an excellent pitch for . The slides looked great and the story helped paint our vision. I’ll share a video soon if we add it to Youtube. Derek Lenny Knowtify The investor turnout was good. I’d guess around 100 investors attended the event and who knows how many were watching from the sideline. We had some good discussions during the after party. Definitely looking forward to some of the follow up conversations. Demo day introductions. CEO/CTO Dinners Every week either the CEOs or the CTOs got together for dinner. This is a great concept but I didn’t personally get as much out of dinners as I could have. Here’s why: We had dinner in the middle of the week after long days. I often felt mentally exhausted. Dinners often interrupted a coding session and I found it hard to detach from the project and be social. A lot of the venues we chose were loud and crowded. Having said that, I would have preferred to do breakfast with CTOs rather than dinners. That way everyone is rested, it’s a more relaxing environment and people aren’t thinking about finishing a project. But I don’t think other people share my opinion here. It all really depends on your work style. Productivity It is absolutely a challenge to keep pace with your product while a large portion of each day into Techstars. But it is absolutely worth it. What you lose in productivity, you gain in many other areas. investing We focused on contracting instead of hiring during the program to keep things moving. This worked out well for us because we landed a top notch backend engineer and a super creative content marketer. Thanks and ! Joshua McKinney David Smooke went another route. Instead of contracting, they hired 3 junior developers straight out of a coding school called . I was skeptical of the move at the time because making a junior hire requires a lot of upfront time which you don’t really have during the program. But it worked out well for them. Team Stabilitas Codeup Team Stabilitas doubling their team size. #givefirst , one of the founders of Techstars, lives by this wonderful ‘give before you get’ philosophy. The idea is not born out of pure altruism where you give but don’t get. It’s hard to pay bills without the getting side of the equation. What this means is don’t worry as much about being transactional and clearly defining what you get for what you give. Instead, just focus on giving first. If the relationship evolves then getting will follow. Brad Feld This is a great technique we can all use to invest in our business and personal relationships. Not every relationship will pan out. Sometimes you’ll give without getting. That’s ok because the relationships that do work out will be stronger. Events On average 2–3 times per week Blake would bring in an expert from the Techstars network to give a talk on a wide variety of business topics. Sometimes people would talk about fundraising, design, development, marketing or success/failure stories. Some talks were formal and others were very informal. I was a fan of the talks. The quality was great and they added diversity to the program. Only a few of talks featured subpar content or were too promotional in nature. KPIs Every Wednesday night we’d get together and share our company KPIs. Most companies would focus on 2–3 numbers that represent the value customers are getting from their products. This was easily one of my biggest personal take aways from the program. Before, I always thought KPIs were just bullshit vanity metrics companies use to show everyone how great they are. It’s clear that a lot of people use KPIs in this way. But if you focus on the right numbers for the right reasons then KPIs can be a great source of inspiration for the team. Don’t show a number that’s too abstracted away from everyone’s day to day lives. Sure MRR is important but if you’re a developer and you see that number, how does it influence your actions? Instead, focus on a more approachable number you think will impact MRR. Maybe that number is weekly active users. Now it becomes actionable. Team members can take actions with the intention of bringing users back into the app. (email, social…) If you start driving up a KPI but it’s not impacting MRR the way you expect, then you’ve probably made a bad assumption or you’re measuring it wrong. Just reevaluate. KPIs aren’t set in stone. KPIs are no joke. Werewolf Werewolf is the official game of Techstars companies everywhere. At least once per week we’d all get together to drink beer and play this dramatic game of trust and deceit. Feelings were hurt, chairs thrown, alliances forged and broken…we had some serious fun. If you’re a werewolf, don’t be a “me too voter”. Playing coy can work but it’s a strategy too commonly used by the werewolves. Pro tip #1: Talk to your neighbors. If you don’t collaborate, you won’t last long as a villager or a werewolf. Pro tip #2: If you’re playing with a significant other, it might be a good idea not playing as neighbors. I’m sorry of team village. Pro tip #3: Evy Somebody is about to get lynched. Conclusion Techstars was a wonderful experience for me personally and for our company. It wasn’t all chocolate cake and fairy dust but I’d rate it a solid 9.1 out of 10. That is a very high number for me. Once a holiday was declared because I gave something an 8.4. Not because I’m famous or anything…I’m just usually more critical than this post might imply ;) Interested in learning more about , or anything in between? or send me an email at . Techstars Knowtify Follow me on Twitter dane@knowtify.io

The Techstars Experience

Dick Sands the Boy Captain by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A MAGICIAN here A MAGICIAN. On finding that Cousin Benedict did not return to his quarters at the proper hour, Mrs. Weldon began to feel uneasy. She could not imagine what had become of him; his tin box with its contents were safe in his hut, and even if a chance of escape had been offered him, she knew that nothing would have induced him voluntarily to abandon his treasures. She enlisted the services of Halima, and spent the remainder of the day in searching for him, until at last she felt herself driven to the conviction that he must have been confined by the orders of Alvez himself; for what reason she could not divine, as Benedict had undoubtedly been included in the number of prisoners to be delivered to Mr. Weldon for the stipulated ransom. But the rage of the trader when he heard of the escape of the captive was an ample proof that he had had no hand in his disappearance. A rigorous search was instituted in every direction, which resulted in the discovery of the mole-track. Here beyond a question was the passage through which the fly-catcher had found his way. "Idiot! fool! rascal!" muttered Alvez, full of rage at the prospect of losing a portion of the redemption-money; "if ever I get hold of him, he shall pay dearly for this freak." The opening was at once blocked up, the woods were scoured all round for a considerable distance, but no trace of Benedict was to be found. Mrs. Weldon was bitterly grieved and much overcome, but she had no alternative except to resign herself as best she could to the loss of her unfortunate relation; there was a tinge of bitterness in her anxiety, for she could not help being irritated at the recklessness with which he had withdrawn himself from the reach of her protection. Meanwhile the weather for the time of year underwent a very unusual change. Although the rainy season is ordinarily reckoned to terminate about the end of April, the sky had suddenly become overcast in the middle of June, rain had recommenced falling, and the downpour had been so heavy and continuous that all the ground was thoroughly sodden. To Mrs. Weldon personally this incessant rainfall brought no other inconvenience beyond depriving her of her daily exercise, but to the natives in general it was a very serious calamity. The ripening crops in the low-lying districts were completely flooded, and the inhabitants feared that they would be reduced to the greatest extremities; all agricultural pursuits had come to a standstill, and neither the queen nor her ministers could devise any expedient to avert or mitigate the misfortune. They resolved at last to have recourse to the magicians, not those who are called in request to heal diseases or to procure good luck, but to the , sorcerers of a superior order, who are credited with the faculty of invoking or dispelling rain. mganga But it was all to no purpose. It was in vain that the monotoned their incantations, flourished their rattles, jingled their bells, and exhibited their amulets; it was equally without avail that they rolled up their balls of dirt and spat in the faces of all the courtiers: the pitiless rain continued to descend, and the malign influences that were ruling the clouds refused to be propitiated. mganga The prospect seemed to become more and more hopeless, when the report was brought to Moena that there was a most wonderful resident in the north of Angola. He had never been seen in this part of the country, but fame declared him to be a magician of the very highest order. Application, without delay, should be made to him; he surely would be able to stay the rain. mganga Early in the morning of the 25th a great tinkling of bells announced the magician's arrival at KazonndÃ©. The natives poured out to meet him on his way to the , their minds being already predisposed in his favour by a moderation of the downpour, and by sundry indications of a coming change of wind. chitoka The ordinary practice of the professors of the magical art is to perambulate the villages in parties of three or four, accompanied by a considerable number of acolytes and assistants. In this case the came entirely alone. He was a pure negro of most imposing stature, more than six feet high, and broad in proportion. All over his chest was a fantastic pattern traced in pipe-clay, the lower portion of his body being covered with a flowing skirt of woven grass, so long that it made a train. Round his neck hung a string of birds' skulls, upon his head he wore a leathern helmet ornamented with pearls and plumes, and about his waist was a copper girdle, to which was attached bells that tinkled like the harness of a Spanish mule. The only instrument indicating his art was a basket he carried made of a calabash containing shells, amulets, little wooden idols and other fetishes, together with what was more important than all, a large number of those balls of dung, without which no African ceremony of divination could ever be complete. mganga One peculiarity was soon discovered by the crowd; the was dumb, and could utter only one low, guttural sound, which was quite unintelligible; this was a circumstance, however, that seemed only to augment their faith in his powers. mganga With a stately strut that brought all his tinkling paraphernalia into full play, the magician proceeded to make the circuit of the market-place. The natives followed in a troop behind, endeavouring, like monkeys, to imitate his every movement. He turned into the main thoroughfare, and began to make his way direct to the royal residence, whence, as soon as the queen heard of his approach, she advanced to meet him. On seeing her, the bowed to the very dust; then, rearing himself to his full height, he mganga [Illustration: The entire crowd joined in. 441.] Page pointed aloft, and by the significance of his animated gestures indicated that, although the fleeting clouds were now going to the west, they would soon return eastwards with a rotatory motion irresistibly strong. All at once, to the surprise of the beholders, he stooped and took the hand of the mighty sovereign of KazonndÃ©. The courtiers hurried forward to check the unprecedented breach of etiquette, but the foremost was driven back with so staggering a blow that the others deemed it prudent to retire. The queen herself appeared not to take the least offence at the familiarity; she bestowed a hideous grimace, which was meant for a smile, upon her illustrious visitor, who, still keeping his hold upon her hand, started off walking at a rapid pace, the crowd following in the rear. He directed his steps towards the residence of Alvez, and finding the door closed, applied his strong shoulder to it with such effect, that it fell bodily to the ground, and the passive sovereign stood within the limits of the enclosure. The trader was about to summon his slaves and soldiers to repel the unceremonious invasion of his premises, but on beholding the queen all stepped back with respectful reverence. Before Alvez had time to ask the sovereign to what cause he was indebted for the honour of her visit, the magician had cleared a wide space around him, and had once again commenced his performances. Brandishing his arms wildly he pointed to the clouds as though he were arresting them in their course; he inflated his huge cheeks and blew with all his strength, as if resolved to disperse the heavy masses, and then stretching himself to his full height, he appeared to clutch them in his giant grasp. Deeply impressed, the superstitious Moena was half beside herself with excitement; she uttered loud cries and involuntarily began herself to imitate every one of the gestures. The entire crowd joined in, and very soon the low guttural note of the sorcerer was lost, totally drowned in the turmoil of howls, shrieks, and discordant songs. mganga's To the chagrin, however, both of the queen and her subjects, there was not the slightest intimation that the clouds above were going to permit a rift by which the rays of the tropical sun could find a passage. On the contrary, the tokens of improvement in the weather, which had been observed in the early morning, had all disappeared, the atmosphere was darker than ever, and heavy storm-drops began to patter down. A reaction was beginning to take place in the enthusiasm of the crowd. After all, then, it would seem that this famous from whom so much had been expected, had no power above the rest. Disappointment every moment grew more keen, and soon there was a positive display of irritation. The natives pressed around him with closed fists and threatening gestures. A frown gathered on Moena's face, and her lips opened with muttered words clear enough to make the magician understand that his ears were in jeopardy. His position was evidently becoming critical. mganga An unexpected incident suddenly altered the aspect of affairs. The was quite tall enough to see over the heads of the crowd, and all at once pausing in the midst of his incantations, he pointed to a distant corner of the enclosure. All eyes were instantly turned in that direction. Mrs. Weldon and Jack had just come out of their hut, and catching sight of them, the stood with his left hand pointing towards them and his right upstretched towards the heavens. mganga mganga Intuitively the multitude comprehended his meaning. Here was the explanation of the mystery. It was this white woman with her child that had been the cause of all their misery, it was owing to them that the clouds had poured down this desolating rain. With yells of execration the whole mob made a dash towards the unfortunate lady who, pale with fright and rigid as a statue, stood clasping her boy to her side. The , however, anticipated them. Having pushed his way through the infuriated throng, he seized the child and held him high in the air, as though about to hurl him to the ground, a peace-offering to the offended gods. mganga [Illustration: "Here they are, captain! both of them!!"] Mrs. Weldon gave a piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the earth. Lifting her up, and making a sign to the queen that all would now be right, the retreated carrying both mother and child through the crowd, who retreated before him and made an open passage. mganga Alvez now felt that it was time to interfere. Already one of his prisoners had eluded his vigilance, and was he now to see two more carried off before his eyes? was he to lose the whole of the expected ransom? no, rather would he see KazonndÃ© destroyed by a deluge, than resign his chance of securing so good a prize. Darting forwards he attempted to obstruct the magician's progress; but public opinion was against him; at a sign from the queen, he was seized by the guards, and he was aware well enough of what would be the immediate consequence of resistance. He deemed it prudent to desist from his obstruction, but in his heart he bitterly cursed the stupid credulity of the natives for supposing that the blood of the white woman or the child could avail to put an end to the disasters they were suffering. Making the natives understand that they were not to follow him, the magician carried off his burden as easily as a lion would carry a couple of kids. The lady was still unconscious, and Jack was all but paralyzed with fright. Once free of the enclosure the crossed the town, entered the forest, and after a march of three miles, during which he did not slacken his pace for a moment, reached the bank of a river which was flowing towards the north. mganga Here in the cavity of a rock, concealed by drooping foliage, a canoe was moored, covered with a kind of thatched roof; on this the magician deposited his burden, and sending the light craft into mid-stream with a vigorous kick, exclaimed in a cheery voice,- "Here they are, captain! both of them! Mrs. Weldon and Master Jack, both! We will be off now! I hope those idiots of KazonndÃ© will have plenty more rain yet! Off we go!" About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2005). Dick sands, the boy Captain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3250.html.images This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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