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My journey in software development began several years ago after a conversation with a friend. He had recently hired a small development company to help him build an app for his commercial real estate business. As we spoke more about it, I thought about my own ideas for apps and wondered if that was something I could do. I had learned some basic HTML & CSS and built a couple of simple websites in the past, but I had no experience with anything more complex than that and started thinking about what I might need to learn to build apps myself. It was around then that I decided I was going to learn how to code. I began asking people I knew who worked in tech what programming language I should learn. One friend suggested learning JavaScript at an in-person coding boot camp in NYC, so I looked into that program, and others liked it. I noticed that a lot of them were teaching a similar web development stack – JavaScript, Node, Express, Mongo, and so on. I liked the idea of enrolling in a coding boot camp, but I thought maybe before I committed to an expensive in-person program, I should try something online – to be sure that it was not only something I could do but would be something that I’d want to continue to pursue. Coding Bootcamps After exploring a number of different online learning platforms, in the fall of 2019, I enrolled in The Web Developer Bootcamp at Udemy and devoted much of the next several months to learning the material covered in that course. I quickly found that one of the great things about online platforms like Udemy is that it can be very affordable if you time things right – because courses are frequently offered at a generous discount – so I could buy several classes on the same subject, then concentrate on the one or two that I liked the most. I bought a few more coding boot camps and JavaScript courses so I could cherry-pick through them for a fresh perspective when I was having difficulty understanding certain material – like some of the more advanced JavaScript topics. In the meantime, I worked through The Web Developer Bootcamp from start to finish, and as I got closer to completing it, I began to apply some of what I’d learned to build various front and back-end elements – e.g., forms & UI’s, RESTful routing & Express middleware, and database schemas & CRUD operations. Touring and COVID I’ve been playing music professionally for some time and had several performances scheduled around the northeast US in March 2020, so in late February of that year, I stepped away from coding to begin practicing for my shows and preparing to be on the road for a few weeks. It was around that time that reports about a new “coronavirus” that was slowly spreading around the US began appearing on the news more frequently. I was touring with another guitarist, and we played several shows between Minneapolis and Washington DC before driving to NYC for the final show on March 15th. That morning, the venue called and said they were closing down temporarily because of COVID – which, as we all learned in the coming weeks, was what was about to happen everywhere. It was tough timing for me because I was getting to a place in my music career where I was being invited to perform more frequently, and I was accumulating more bookings on the horizon than I’d had in the past – then COVID threw a wrench in the whole thing, and I found myself right back in Massachusetts in front of my computer again for the next 18 months. Building My First App During that time, I continued to apply what I’d been learning to build what would eventually become my first full-scale Node/Express/Mongo production web app, Gigpromoter. From initial concept through deployment and maintenance, I learned about every stage of building and deploying a production web application through the experience of doing it – including the development of application language and content, user interface design and layout, back-end architecture, testing, and cybersecurity implementation, and site optimization & web performance. While I was building it, I also saw how much my original concept changed and evolved – from a simple event promotion task-management tool to a comprehensive resource that could help new artists learn how to book, manage, and promote live events. I soft-launched Gigpromoter in 2022 – and between ongoing work on music and a few performances, I continued with my education in software development. Continuing my Education Because I was still curious about the experience of attending an in-person coding boot camp, I continued to go back and read the syllabi from different programs to see what they were teaching – except now I found that I knew a lot of the material I was seeing, so I decided I would keep taking online courses to learn more about some of those topics I hadn’t covered yet. As I had done previously with web development and JavaScript courses, in 2022, I bought several ReactJS courses on Udemy, then found two that I liked the most and worked through those for the next several months. I did some traveling around the western US in late 2022 to take stock of where my life was and where I was going. During that time, I decided that I would go all-in with my coding education and committed to learning the remaining material listed on those bootcamp syllabi that I had not yet studied – namely, connecting the pieces of the MERN stack, learning about automated testing and data structures & algorithms; and studying development paradigms & methodologies like Agile, Scrum & Kanban, and OOP design patterns & principles – as well as continue to develop my programming fundamentals on platforms like Leetcode and Codewars. I also found that I was seeing Typescript being talked about in a lot of the same places as JavaScript and web development, so I took a course on that as well. Being a Self-Taught Developer A quick search online will reveal that there are many ways to define what it is to be a self-taught developer, but also that many of those definitions have a few things in common – i.e., that someone has engaged in online courses, tutorials, and self-study, and gained practical experience by using what they learned online to build applications. I neither received a degree in computer science nor attended an in-person coding boot camp, but over the last four years, I took a lot of classes online, watched a ton of instructional videos at Udemy and on YouTube, took hundreds of pages of notes, worked through countless code-along exercises, and read a lot of tutorials and blogs about coding, JavaScript, and web development. Additionally, I supplemented my online study with a lot of books that really helped me out, such as A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript, The Imposter’s Handbook, and The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide. I also found that tech podcasts can be an invaluable source of knowledge, and I have learned a great deal from listening to podcasts such as JavaScript Jabber, Syntax, Coding Blocks, and CodeNewbie. I’ve learned that the disadvantages of taking courses online – mainly, not having access to a live instructor in a more formal boot camp setting or the peer network and other opportunities I’d likely gain in such an environment – have emerged as advantages in the sense that if I don’t know or understand something, then I have to rely on my own research skills and initiative to identify exactly what it is that I need to learn, and then figure out how to learn it – because as I’ve also come to understand, that’s a lot of what a developer does every day. Lessons Learned I’ve often said that if someone is going to be an artist, then nothing and no one can stop them or stand in their way – if they’re going to do it, they’ll find a way to make it happen. I’ve learned that the same can be said about becoming a software developer. Especially during this time, there are so many different ways to learn how to code and such an abundance of resources online that if someone wants to learn those skills, they have the opportunity to try many different learning paths until they find the right one. It’s taken some time to get to where I am now, but I’m happy with the path I chose – because as much as I’d still like to have the experience of doing an in-person coding bootcamp [and I still might, who knows], I can see now that the path I took gave me the space to understand all that I’ve learned on a deeper level, and that the path I chose was the best path for me. My journey in software development began several years ago after a conversation with a friend. He had recently hired a small development company to help him build an app for his commercial real estate business. As we spoke more about it, I thought about my own ideas for apps and wondered if that was something I could do. I had learned some basic HTML & CSS and built a couple of simple websites in the past, but I had no experience with anything more complex than that and started thinking about what I might need to learn to build apps myself. It was around then that I decided I was going to learn how to code. I began asking people I knew who worked in tech what programming language I should learn. One friend suggested learning JavaScript at an in-person coding boot camp in NYC, so I looked into that program, and others liked it. I noticed that a lot of them were teaching a similar web development stack – JavaScript, Node, Express, Mongo, and so on. I liked the idea of enrolling in a coding boot camp, but I thought maybe before I committed to an expensive in-person program, I should try something online – to be sure that it was not only something I could do but would be something that I’d want to continue to pursue. could Coding Bootcamps After exploring a number of different online learning platforms, in the fall of 2019, I enrolled in The Web Developer Bootcamp at Udemy and devoted much of the next several months to learning the material covered in that course. The Web Developer Bootcamp Udemy I quickly found that one of the great things about online platforms like Udemy is that it can be very affordable if you time things right – because courses are frequently offered at a generous discount – so I could buy several classes on the same subject, then concentrate on the one or two that I liked the most. Udemy I bought a few more coding boot camps and JavaScript courses so I could cherry-pick through them for a fresh perspective when I was having difficulty understanding certain material – like some of the more advanced JavaScript topics. In the meantime, I worked through The Web Developer Bootcamp from start to finish, and as I got closer to completing it, I began to apply some of what I’d learned to build various front and back-end elements – e.g., forms & UI’s, RESTful routing & Express middleware, and database schemas & CRUD operations. The Web Developer Bootcamp Touring and COVID I’ve been playing music professionally for some time and had several performances scheduled around the northeast US in March 2020, so in late February of that year, I stepped away from coding to begin practicing for my shows and preparing to be on the road for a few weeks. It was around that time that reports about a new “coronavirus” that was slowly spreading around the US began appearing on the news more frequently. I was touring with another guitarist, and we played several shows between Minneapolis and Washington DC before driving to NYC for the final show on March 15th. That morning, the venue called and said they were closing down temporarily because of COVID – which, as we all learned in the coming weeks, was what was about to happen everywhere. It was tough timing for me because I was getting to a place in my music career where I was being invited to perform more frequently, and I was accumulating more bookings on the horizon than I’d had in the past – then COVID threw a wrench in the whole thing, and I found myself right back in Massachusetts in front of my computer again for the next 18 months. Building My First App Building My First App During that time, I continued to apply what I’d been learning to build what would eventually become my first full-scale Node/Express/Mongo production web app, Gigpromoter . Gigpromoter From initial concept through deployment and maintenance, I learned about every stage of building and deploying a production web application through the experience of doing it – including the development of application language and content, user interface design and layout, back-end architecture, testing, and cybersecurity implementation, and site optimization & web performance. While I was building it, I also saw how much my original concept changed and evolved – from a simple event promotion task-management tool to a comprehensive resource that could help new artists learn how to book, manage, and promote live events. I soft-launched Gigpromoter in 2022 – and between ongoing work on music and a few performances, I continued with my education in software development. Gigpromoter Continuing my Education Continuing my Education Because I was still curious about the experience of attending an in-person coding boot camp, I continued to go back and read the syllabi from different programs to see what they were teaching – except now I found that I knew a lot of the material I was seeing, so I decided I would keep taking online courses to learn more about some of those topics I hadn’t covered yet. As I had done previously with web development and JavaScript courses, in 2022, I bought several ReactJS courses on Udemy , then found two that I liked the most and worked through those for the next several months. Udemy I did some traveling around the western US in late 2022 to take stock of where my life was and where I was going. During that time, I decided that I would go all-in with my coding education and committed to learning the remaining material listed on those bootcamp syllabi that I had not yet studied – namely, connecting the pieces of the MERN stack, learning about automated testing and data structures & algorithms; and studying development paradigms & methodologies like Agile, Scrum & Kanban, and OOP design patterns & principles – as well as continue to develop my programming fundamentals on platforms like Leetcode and Codewars . Leetcode Codewars I also found that I was seeing Typescript being talked about in a lot of the same places as JavaScript and web development, so I took a course on that as well. Being a Self-Taught Developer Being a Self-Taught Developer A quick search online will reveal that there are many ways to define what it is to be a self-taught developer, but also that many of those definitions have a few things in common – i.e., that someone has engaged in online courses, tutorials, and self-study, and gained practical experience by using what they learned online to build applications. I neither received a degree in computer science nor attended an in-person coding boot camp, but over the last four years, I took a lot of classes online, watched a ton of instructional videos at Udemy and on YouTube , took hundreds of pages of notes, worked through countless code-along exercises, and read a lot of tutorials and blogs about coding, JavaScript, and web development. Udemy YouTube Additionally, I supplemented my online study with a lot of books that really helped me out, such as A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript , The Imposter’s Handbook , and The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide . A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript The Imposter’s Handbook The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide I also found that tech podcasts can be an invaluable source of knowledge, and I have learned a great deal from listening to podcasts such as JavaScript Jabber , Syntax , Coding Blocks , and CodeNewbie . JavaScript Jabber Syntax Coding Blocks CodeNewbie I’ve learned that the disadvantages of taking courses online – mainly, not having access to a live instructor in a more formal boot camp setting or the peer network and other opportunities I’d likely gain in such an environment – have emerged as advantages in the sense that if I don’t know or understand something, then I have to rely on my own research skills and initiative to identify exactly what it is that I need to learn, and then figure out how to learn it – because as I’ve also come to understand, that’s a lot of what a developer does every day. Lessons Learned Lessons Learned I’ve often said that if someone is going to be an artist, then nothing and no one can stop them or stand in their way – if they’re going to do it, they’ll find a way to make it happen. I’ve learned that the same can be said about becoming a software developer. Especially during this time, there are so many different ways to learn how to code and such an abundance of resources online that if someone wants to learn those skills, they have the opportunity to try many different learning paths until they find the right one. It’s taken some time to get to where I am now, but I’m happy with the path I chose – because as much as I’d still like to have the experience of doing an in-person coding bootcamp [and I still might, who knows], I can see now that the path I took gave me the space to understand all that I’ve learned on a deeper level, and that the path I chose was the best path for me.

How I Found My Path as a Self-Taught Developer, and You Could Do the Same

Salespersons and copywriters know that the key to conversions is emotions. People make an and then rationally justify their decision. emotionally-based decision at first It is almost never the other way around. So, if you want to drive higher conversions like more email signups, more social media followers, or more sales, creating an emotional impact is key. And images are one of the most powerful ways to achieve this. When you use the right imagery in the right way, you can improve conversion rates and grow your faster. business In this post, I’ll cover some of the top ways you can leverage visuals to convert. Let’s go. Add Human Faces Think of the last time you downloaded a game or clicked on an ad because they included a person in the thumbnail. You’ve likely done it more times than you care to admit. Adding people’s faces to your home page, social media post, or some other area is certain to drive up engagement as well as conversions. Here’s what you should know about what makes faces and people so appealing to our psychology. (The following points are referenced from a post by .) Highbrow Smiles Eye Contact POV In general, images of people smiling have higher conversion rates than pictures with neutral expressions. Likewise, photos where the subject looks directly at the viewer will connect more. Finally, POV or Point of View has to do with the angle at which the viewer sees the image, i.e., an image of a person looking upwards at the viewer will create different impressions than one of an image where a person is looking away or downwards at the viewer. What you should know is that the type of expression, face, and image you choose should depend on your goal and audience. Do you want to convey professionalism? Then, a sterner expression and folded arms might be suitable. But if you want to invite people to visit your site, a smile would work better. As we’ll point out later, you need to test which images work best to drive the best results. Leverage Color There are many theories on the impact of color and while it is clear that color does make an impact on buying psychology - there’s no consistent information about what works in every scenario. Much depends on the purpose for which you use a color and where you apply it. In branding (which is related to conversions but also different), there are clear links between color and brand image. For example, browns and greens convey calmness and are often associated with greenery, energy, sustainability, and related concepts. Black is associated with professionalism and seriousness. in terms of driving leads. Red is said to have the best performance However, this doesn’t mean that if you use the color green in your content, it won’t convert. More than relying on a specific hue to get people to buy, you need to look at context and placement. For example, as long as your call to action button stands out and has a complementary color on a website, it will draw the eye and entice people to click on buy, sign up, or some other conversion metric. judge a business based on its web design - so you want to ensure that you’re leveraging how your site looks and feels to keep a steady stream of customers. 75% of people Here are some factors to consider when using color to ensure higher conversion rates: Contrast: Make sure that areas where you want the most attention have contrasting colors. Consistency: While colors are powerful, using more than 3-5 in any asset is a surefire way to lose customers. Stick a fixed number of specific colors and apply them consistently on all marketing assets. Cultural associations: Be mindful of how different cultures perceive colors. White may imply purity in some places but mourning in others. Do your research before you use a color in any geographical location. Complementarity: Never pick out colors randomly. Make sure that your palette of colors complements each other. Fortunately, there are free online tools where you can add colors you like, and the tool will automatically generate suitable colors that complement them. With these principles in mind, you’ll be better able to apply colors well in your assets to boost conversions. Think of Typography We’ve all played with changing fonts on documents as kids. We’ve used elaborate, unreadable, cursive fonts for stories. Or we played around with Comic Sans to convey fun and play. We have an intuitive understanding of the role that typography plays in conveying emotions and messages. Typography is the art and science of arranging letters to make them appealing and impactful. You should look at words and letters as visual ornaments and not just for the semantic meaning they convey. There are many ways typography can support conversions: Your choice of font will support your brand and the values consumers hold - leading to a higher likelihood of conversions Good typography creates a better user experience since it removes dissonance and ensures customers navigate an app or website easily. The choice of typography can attract a user’s attention to specific words and areas, which in turn can guide people to join an email list, buy, or take some other action. These are a few ways that typography can support higher conversions. They are visual mediums and must be leveraged to the fullest to create an impact on your audience. Use Icons and Symbols If you want to understand the power of icons and symbols, think of the emoji. It’s a standard part of modern communication where we rely heavily on text, and without emojis, we’d experience significant miscommunication and ruptured relationships. Today, icons and symbols play a big role in website and app design and they’re a powerful visual asset that can drive conversions. For example, research institute found that a ‘made-up’ symbol like a padlock icon or security badge created a greater sense of security. Baymard So, if you want to improve your payment checkout conversions, consider adding the little padlock symbol to your form in the right place. (Another interesting finding from Baymard is making the checkout process ‘robust’ by adding an outline or a line to contain the checkout form. This simple visual tactic contains the payment form and implies greater security during checkout.) In this way, make sure you use a carefully designed set of icons and symbols to make navigating your site easier and to convey ease and security on your products. Whitespace A user’s visual journey is not just influenced by the number of images on your site or app but also by the whitespace or the empty space around elements on your platform. Whitespace allows your content and features to breathe and keep users from getting overwhelmed. And when used correctly, it can draw attention to important parts of your site. So, don’t neglect to use whitespace as wisely as you do the other elements mentioned here. Carry out A/B Testing to Verify Your Design Choices No matter how experienced a UX/UI designer is, you must always test your design choices through user testing. This means presenting important visual content to your target audience base and asking for feedback. A good methodology to try is split testing or A/B testing. Give users a choice between two designs, A and B. And the one that wins the majority vote should be your design choice or improved and tested further. Only through testing can you figure out if your visual assets are impactful and create the right impression on your audience. Over to You There you have it: a breakdown of how to make your visual elements have a greater impact. Try to implement these aspects into your design, product development, and more. You’re certain to see a rise in conversions, which will lead to overall business success.

Visual Mastery: How to Create Impactful Marketing That Drives Engagement

Imagine a future where your digital assets are not just a static investment but a living, breathing entity that works for you around the clock. Jonny Huxtable, a visionary in the blockchain space, takes us on a journey through the intricate world of Stake.link, where he's redefining what it means to 'stake' in the ecosystem of Chainlink. From his early days mining BTC to his pivotal role in liquid staking, Jonny's story is not just about the ascent of LinkPool but also the potential of decentralized finance to empower the individual. As we unpack the mechanics behind stake.link and its mission to infuse liquidity with security, we stand on the cusp of a new chapter in blockchain's narrative—a chapter where every participant holds the power to shape the network. Unlocking Chainlink's Potential: Stake.link's Strategic Vision for a Liquid Future Hi Jonny, great to have you here for our "Behind the Startup" series. Please tell us about your background? Ishan Pandey: Great to speak. For me, I got into the space like most people would do. I had some BTC in 2014/2015, but I really got into things before the 2017 cycle, and I became interested in Chainlink as the token offering took place in 2017. I joined the Chainlink slack channel, started speaking to everyone about the project, and I came to understand the premise of the project. I saw promise in Chainlink. It was that promise that made me want to get more hands-on in the space, and that’s when I started LinkPool. Jonny Huxtable: LinkPool began as sort of a bedroom project I worked on the side of my full-time job. It was one of the first third parties to build on top of Chainlink, run infrastructure, and carry it on from there. LinkPool was one of the first three node operators that went live on Ethereum mainnet in the Summer of 2019, and we’ve played a significant role in not just breaking down the barriers to participation in the Chainlink Ecosystem, but also developing the tools and the infrastructure for node operators on the network. Stake.link: The First-Mover Liquid Staking Protocol in the Chainlink Ecosystem Stake.link is described as the "first-mover liquid staking protocol in the Chainlink Ecosystem." What motivated the creation of stake.link, and what unique value does it offer to users? Ishan Pandey: To answer this question, it was the original vision and drive of a pooling system for Chainlink in 2017 that drove the vision to build stake.link but on a much grander scale. With the explosion of LSTs with the rise of Ethereum staking protocols, it became clear that with the launch of Chainlink Staking it would also greatly benefit from a liquid staking protocol that has a cohort of the very best Node Operators that participate in the Chainlink network. That’s what stake.link is, the premier staking protocol for Chainlink backed by the very best. Jonny Huxtable: The Concept of Liquid Staking and Stake.link Protocol Could you explain the concept of liquid staking and how it works within the stake.link protocol? Ishan Pandey: Liquid staking is a concept that allows users to stake their tokens in a way that they remain liquid and tradable, rather than being locked up in a staking contract. Jonny Huxtable: Traditional staking typically involves locking up tokens in a network's smart contract to support its operations and earn rewards. These tokens are usually illiquid and can't be readily traded or used elsewhere. Liquid staking, on the other hand, enables users to stake their tokens while still having the freedom to trade or utilize them for other purposes. It's made possible through liquid staking tokens, LSTs, representing the staked assets' value, which can be traded or used in DeFi applications. These are very visible in the Ethereum network, and we’re working to make it just as visible for the Chainlink Ecosystem. This is currently the case with General Access Staking in the Chainlink Community Staking Pool, and the stake.link protocol addresses the issue of locked staked tokens. At the core of this is the withdrawal capability feature. This feature provides a liquidity buffer in the protocol, allowing users to withdraw their staked LINK from the protocol by depositing their receipt tokens that they are given after they’ve staked LINK: this is the stLINK which represents the staked amount of LINK. User Journey on Stake.link Could you elaborate on the user journey on stake.link, from connecting a Web3 wallet to earning rewards and withdrawing assets? Ishan Pandey: Sure thing. The protocol is built to be as seamless as possible even for people who haven’t been involved in DeFi or moved their tokens off of exchanges in the past. Jonny Huxtable: Right now, Chainlink is at the end of its version 0.1 of Staking and all space is taken up. Chainlink Labs who builds the infrastructure for the entire Ecosystem has announced that Staking v0.2 is coming in Q4 2023, so between now and the end of the year. This version of staking entails an increase to the amount of tokens that can be staked from 25M in v0.1 to 45M in v0.2. To start the user journey on stake.link, a user would first need to connect their Web3 wallet containing LINK tokens to the platform, and deposit LINK tokens in the “holding zone” that we call the Priority Pool. Once Staking v0.2 arrives and General Access opens to the public, the LINK deposited in the Priority Pool will be staked in the General Access Community Pool using Chainlink Automation contracts. That means we’ve crafted smart contracts that recognize down to the second when the General Access Pool opens up to the public, and they will immediately begin auto staking Priority Pool LINK so that the users don’t have to. Once a user’s LINK is staked, they’re then able to claim their staked LINK receipt token, stLINK to their wallet and decide for themselves what they’d like to do with it. Users will then earn rewards for staking their LINK tokens. Node operators, who provide services in the Chainlink Ecosystem, earn rewards in the form of a delegation fee through stake.link’s native SDL token. Community stakers, who supply LINK collateral to secure the network and act as alerters if they notice the ETH/USD price feed has not updated within a set time frame, receive rewards after delegation and core contributor fees to the protocol. The rewards earned depend on the staking strategy and the capacity of the staked pool. At launch, stake.link enabled a "Node Operator" strategy pool, and in 2023, the pool capacity will be increasing for node operators. We’re excited to bring liquid staking to a portion of the Community Pool. The combination of these two strategies results in a blended reward rate. Engaging with the Stake.link User Community How does stake.link engage with its user community, and what channels do you primarily use for client outreach? Ishan Pandey: Our community includes LINK holders encompassing retail users to institutional, banking users, and everyone in between seeking seamless access to staking the LINK token. Client outreach primarily takes place on LinkedIn, Twitter across the profiles of stake.link node operators, multiple Telegram channels, and a dedicated Discord for the stake.link protocol. Jonny Huxtable: One of the core reasons we’re able to deliver for the community is because of open dialogue and constructive feedback that they provide in our Telegram and Discord channels, and this is certainly the case on Twitter. We listen to that feedback every day and actively incorporate it into the protocol to make for a better overall staking experience. Key Challenges and Opportunities in Liquid Staking In your view, what are the key challenges and opportunities in the liquid staking space, and how does stake.link plan to address them? Ishan Pandey: Two of the big things that stand out in the Liquid Staking space are security and centralisation. Jonny Huxtable: Stake.link consists of 15 Chainlink node operators. 15 different teams, different companies, different people that are some of the most experienced and professional teams not just in the Chainlink Ecosystem, but across all of Web3, and this consortium directly addresses the dilemma of centralisation vs decentralisation. As for security, this is something everyone in the industry can relate to and we see it like clockwork: protocols, dApps, bridges being exploited for tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s a serious problem because not only are people losing their money, but that money is now in the hands of bad actors who can do real harm with that capital. That’s why we take rigorous security measures and work with some of the most prominent smart contract auditors in Web3. Our ethos is straightforward: audit, audit, audit, and then audit again, as well as work closely with our smart contract auditing firms to address every vulnerability – no matter how severe or seemingly insignificant. AI-Driven Analytics and Data Insights AI-driven analytics and data insights are becoming crucial for decision-making in the crypto and blockchain space. How does stake.link plan to incorporate data-driven insights for its users? Ishan Pandey: It’s amazing to see the explosion of adoption and real-world use of AI technology in the last 11 months. Jonny Huxtable: In September 2023, we launched our first major protocol upgrade that included the rollout of our Chainlink-inspired chatbot called SergAI – named in honor of the Co-Founder and CEO of Chainlink Labs, Sergey Nazarov. You can think of SergAI as a massive repository of all things Chainlink Staking and stake.link. Everyone has lives outside of the industry. They can’t be online 24/7. That’s why SergAI is important: people are able to ask questions and get straightforward answers. We view SergAI as a significant step forward and a net positive for our overall user experience, and without revealing too much, it’s just the beginning of the direction we want to take in incorporating AI technology into the platform. Stake.link's Role in DeFi and NFT : With the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), how does stake.link envision its role in supporting these emerging ecosystems within the broader Web3 framework? Ishan Pandey : We’re excited for the future of onchain finance and we’re proud to have played a part in its success in even basic form as we saw in Summer 2020. Enabling decentralised applications to get accurate, up-to-date, precise reference data changed the game and enabled the sector to flourish as it did in DeFi Summer when applications were dealing with flash loan attacks due to the use of centralised price feeds. Jonny Huxtable The work that Chainlink node operators played providing reliable reference data in DeFi Summer can be considered as a sort of proof of concept for what can be done in the future for DeFi. Chainlink has rolled out, and the node operators have scaled the use of other Web3 services such as smart contract automation, Verifiable Randomness (VRF), and recently Data Streams where applications no longer have large deviation thresholds for price feeds – price feeds can now be updated at a hyperfast rate compared to the previous 0.5% deviation threshold as was the standard up until recently and in DeFi Summer. Data Feeds has immense potential and was needed in order to cater to larger players in the broader financial industry that require hyperfast, reliable reference data with little to no deviation threshold in order to operate properly onchain. This will only grow and enable further adoption. NFTs are another sector of Web3 ripe for adoption, and much like DeFi, can benefit immensely from Chainlink Web3 services. VRF is a critical one, ensuring that NFT mints are verifiably random and fair for all participating users – regardless if a user is retail, enterprise, or anything in between. We also see a lot of potential in dynamic NFTs (dNFT) too. These are NFTs with encoded smart contract logic that enables them to automatically change its metadata, characteristics based on external conditions and events. The market has already spoken in that it wants NFTs that update based on external events. The simplest form of this is a basketball card, for example. If someone owns a tokenized basketball player’s card (NFT), their statistics will change over time as the player continues their career. NFTs need the ability to update their characteristics, and node operators as those in stake.link enable just that. Going beyond the very basic use-cases of something like a basketball card, though, is something like tokenized real estate – An NFT representing a property that could reflect numerous factors such as maintenance history, age, market value, and more. Tokenizing these everchanging assets requires NFTs that have the ability to update with changing metadata. We enable that and can provide that reference from the offchain world, and bring it onchain. Regarding both NFTs and onchain finance / DeFi, it’s still very early for both sectors of the Web3 economy. These categories are going to play a significant role in how humans, businesses, industries conduct commerce, exchange data and value, and above all instill a layer of confidence in the capital markets industry. Don’t forget to like and share the story! : Vested Interest Disclosure This author is an independent contributor publishing via our . Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR brand-as-author program

Chainlink’s Liquid Leap: Stake.link Charts the Course for DeFi's New Horizon

Chainlink’s Liquid Leap: Stake.link DeFi-এর নতুন দিগন্তের জন্য কোর্স চার্ট করে

Chainlinks Liquid Leap: Stake.link legt den Kurs für den neuen Horizont von DeFi fest

El salto líquido de Chainlink: Stake.link traza el rumbo para el nuevo horizonte de DeFi

Liquid Leap de Chainlink : Stake.link trace la voie vers le nouvel horizon de DeFi

चेनलिंक की लिक्विड लीप: स्टेक.लिंक डेफी के न्यू होराइजन के लिए पाठ्यक्रम को चार्ट करता है

Chainlink の液体躍進: Stake.link が DeFi の新たな地平線を描く

Chainlink의 Liquid Leap: Stake.link는 DeFi의 새로운 지평을 위한 과정을 차트로 표시합니다.

Liquid Leap da Chainlink: Stake.link traça o curso para o novo horizonte do DeFi

Ликвидный скачок Chainlink: Stake.link прокладывает путь к новым горизонтам DeFi

Chainlink'in Sıvı Sıçrayışı: Stake.link, DeFi'nin Yeni Ufku İçin Rotayı Çiziyor

Bước nhảy vọt về chất lỏng của Chainlink: Stake.link vạch ra lộ trình cho chân trời mới của DeFi

Chainlink 的流动性飞跃：Stake.link 为 DeFi 新视野描绘了路线

Dedicated to Vancouver's multilingual Sophia Books

The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CHAPTER III here CHAPTER III It was such a charming home!—my new one; a fine great house, with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden—oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not give me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it me—Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name. Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dog said—no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at all. Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room and slept, she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was a caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well tousled and made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs; other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs—for there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister. The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier dog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for myself, for it is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor my mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had come to me, as best I could. By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth and soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me so proud to see how the children and their mother adored it, and fondled it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to— Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery. That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the crib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff that you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the baby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling! Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a second was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother's farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again., I reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the waist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud, when the master's voice shouted: “Begone you cursed beast!” and I jumped to save myself; but he was furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his cane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never descended, for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, “The nursery's on fire!” and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other bones were saved. The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end of the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a garret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say, and where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet still I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though it would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the pain, you know. But I could lick my leg, and that did some good. For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than pains—oh, much worse. Then came a sound that froze me. They were calling me—calling me by name—hunting for me! It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther and farther away—then back, and all about the house again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago been blotted out by black darkness. Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away, and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on my journey when night came; my journey to—well, anywhere where they would not know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy! That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must say where I was; stay, and wait, and take what might come—it was not my affair; that was what life is—my mother had said it. Then—well, then the calling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the master will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could not understand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful. They called and called—days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful fright—it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice, and she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her say: “Come back to us—oh, come back to us, and forgive—it is all so sad without our—” I broke in with a grateful little yelp, and the next moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and shouting for the family to hear, “She's found, she's found!” such The days that followed—well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie and the servants—why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn't seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they couldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were out of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism—that was the name they called it by, and it means agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and explaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I risked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had burns to prove it, and then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were going to cry. And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a whole twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory, and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, “It's far above instinct; it's , and many a man, privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish”; and then he laughed, and said: “Why, look at me—I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the beast's intelligence—it's , I tell you!—the child would have perished!” reason reason They disputed and disputed, and was the very center of subject of it all, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to me; it would have made her proud. I Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by; and next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the summer Sadie and I had planted seeds—I helped her dig the holes, you know—and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I could talk—I would have told those people about it and shown then how much I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn't care for the optics; it was dull, and when they came back to it again it bored me, and I went to sleep. Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went away on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't any company for us, but we played together and had good times, and the servants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and counted the days and waited for the family. And one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and shouted: “There, I've won—confess it! He's a blind as a bat!” And they all said: “It's so—you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a great debt from henceforth,” and they crowded around him, and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him. But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood, and it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its mother's touch, though it could not see me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not move any more. Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman, and said, “Bury it in the far corner of the garden,” and then went on with the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it was asleep. We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: “Poor little doggie, you saved child!” his I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, “Poor doggie—do give it up and come home; break our hearts!” and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand, but they carried something cold to my heart. don't “Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: 'The humble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.'” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/142/pg142-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

It was such a charming home!—my new one; a fine great house

Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS here EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS The children of the Educational Alliance gave a performance of
          “The Prince and the Pauper” on the afternoon of April 14, 1907,
          in the theatre of the Alliance Building in East Broadway.  The
          audience was composed of nearly one thousand children of the
          neighborhood.  Mr. Clemens, Mr. Howells, and Mr. Daniel Frohman
          were among the invited guests. I have not enjoyed a play so much, so heartily, and so thoroughly since I played Miles Hendon twenty-two years ago. I used to play in this piece (“The Prince and the Pauper”) with my children, who, twenty-two years ago, were little youngsters. One of my daughters was the Prince, and a neighbor’s daughter was the Pauper, and the children of other neighbors played other parts. But we never gave such a performance as we have seen here to-day. It would have been beyond us. My late wife was the dramatist and stage-manager. Our coachman was the stage-manager, second in command. We used to play it in this simple way, and the one who used to bring in the crown on a cushion—he was a little fellow then—is now a clergyman way up high—six or seven feet high—and growing higher all the time. We played it well, but not as well as you see it here, for you see it done by practically trained professionals. I was especially interested in the scene which we have just had, for Miles Hendon was my part. I did it as well as a person could who never remembered his part. The children all knew their parts. They did not mind if I did not know mine. I could thread a needle nearly as well as the player did whom you saw to-day. The words of my part I could supply on the spot. The words of the song that Miles Hendon sang here I did not catch. But I was great in that song. [Then Mr. Clemens hummed a bit of doggerel that the reporter
          made out as this:

                   “There was a woman in her town,
                    She loved her husband well,
                    But another man just twice as well.”

          “How is that?” demanded Mr. Clemens.  Then resuming] It was so fresh and enjoyable to make up a new set of words each time that I played the part. If I had a thousand citizens in front of me, I would like to give them information, but you children already know all that I have found out about the Educational Alliance. It’s like a man living within thirty miles of Vesuvius and never knowing about a volcano. It’s like living for a lifetime in Buffalo, eighteen miles from Niagara, and never going to see the Falls. So I had lived in New York and knew nothing about the Educational Alliance. This theatre is a part of the work, and furnishes pure and clean plays. This theatre is an influence. Everything in the world is accomplished by influences which train and educate. When you get to be seventy-one and a half, as I am, you may think that your education is over, but it isn’t. If we had forty theatres of this kind in this city of four millions, how they would educate and elevate! We should have a body of educated theatre-goers. It would make better citizens, honest citizens. One of the best gifts a millionaire could make would be a theatre here and a theatre there. It would make of you a real Republic, and bring about an educational level. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). Mark Twain's Speeches. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3188/pg3188-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS

Healthcare has become a tough market: With healthcare costs expected to rise professionals are struggling to stay afloat. What provides a remedy for the increasing pressure on revenue is to attract new patients and retain existing ones – putting marketing front and center. 7% next year, The good news is that new, generative AI-driven platforms are helping to tighten the marketing screw and reach more patients with less effort. Platforms like Google and can generate content at lightning speed, helping to bond with patients and enhance an established professional’s reputation. Bard ChatGPT But while the opportunities are endless, health information is sensitive, and misinformation can have serious consequences. AI-generated content can be biased and even provide unscientific information, meaning that caution is the key to successfully using these new technologies. Let's look at three ways AI can boost healthcare marketing – and how to use AI tools effectively and ethically. Chatbots & AI Assistants for Handling Immediate Patient Communication Many patients currently call a practice if they want to make appointments, get answers to pressuring questions, or look for more information about services. But because of busy lines and high call volume, they often face long waits on the phone and call demolition as a result. About are unwilling to wait in line, and 27.6% wait no more than a minute. So, what if there was a solution that works around the clock and relieves the strain on phone lines? one-third of patients There is one: AI chatbots and voice assistants integrated into websites and landing pages. These chatbots can do various things like onboarding new customers, addressing their queries, and providing relevant information about services and co. Implementing AI-driven chatbots allows automating of patient inquiries, streamlining administrative tasks such as patient registration and scheduling, and ultimately improves patient engagement. But that’s by far not all. More advanced AI bots that can work with text, voice, images, and so on are revolutionizing the field by offering conversational AI capabilities and enabling personalized and on-point interactions. Voice technology further aids in assisting patients and healthcare workers with special needs, for example, those unable to utilize keyboards. However, offering live chat transfers or on-demand calls is still critical in addition to chatbots. Patients in urgent situations, with specific questions or critical health concerns, should be able to connect with a human. This way, medical professionals can minimize frustration and also build trust with patients. The trick is to intercept the large volume of normal and frequent patient requests, sort them out via AI Chatbots, and forward only the urgent or complex requests to dedicated staff. Faster Content Creation for Sparking Patient Loyalty Since ChatGPT debuted in January 2023, AI has been transforming the entire content marketing space – and healthcare is no exception. Savvy marketers know the importance of compelling content to convert prospects and improve search engine rankings. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can aid in content generation by composing engaging follow-up messages to patients, building email campaigns with educational health information or news, and writing or improving written website and blog content. This way, the technology streamlines content creation processes, making them faster and more efficient than ever before. The key to using this technology successfully is giving very clear and specific prompts. Nuances like telling the bot to use a specific tone of voice, giving some bullet points of must-haves, or highlighting the goal of this content will improve the quality of the outcome. We’ve played a little around with Steer’s integrated AI-driven Content Generator. The prompt: “Write an email about a general health checkup, once in an educational and once in a caring tone of voice”. These are the two results: I wanted to remind you that it's time for your next general health checkup. Taking care of your health is important, and regular checkups are a great way to ensure you stay healthy. If you haven't already scheduled an appointment, I'd be happy to help you find a doctor or clinic that can provide the care you need. I'm here for you if you need anything. Take care, Version 2 Dear [Name], We hope you are doing well and staying healthy! It's been a while since your last general health check-up, and we wanted to remind you that it's time to schedule your next one. Regular checkups are important for maintaining your health and catching any potential issues early. We understand that it can be difficult to find the time to make an appointment, but it's worth it to make sure you're in the best health possible. If you need help finding a time that works for you, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're here to help you stay healthy and happy. Sincerely, [Your Name] Powerful, isn’t it? Be aware that the rise of AI-generated content has sparked discussions regarding , particularly plagiarism and misinformation. To mitigate some of these risks, it is crucial to review AI-generated text for bias, factual accuracy, and misinformation. Inputting factual content into the AI platform and leveraging its rewriting capabilities is another way to enhance adherence to facts. ethical concerns Additionally, it is advisable to double-check content and reference official sources like the or the before giving clinical recommendations. Mayo Clinic U.S. government Effective Social Media Marketing for Community Engagement Currently, there is no more powerful tool for attracting new customers and expanding your current market than social media platforms. With more than using social media for health research and education, it is vital for doctors and clinics to leverage these platforms as much as possible. As daunting as it might seem to keep up with these trends, AI is here to help. 75% of Americans Generative AI technology reduces the time and effort required for social media content creation. AI tools can aid in ideation, copywriting, and image creation across various media formats, including imagery, video, music, and text. Furthermore, AI is pivotal to analyzing social media engagement data and coming up with trending content ideas that can increase reach and visibility. While AI can significantly enhance social media marketing, it is crucial to maintain a balance and focus on varied content. Instead of inundating platforms with excessive AI-generated posts, a mix of patient stories, healthcare advice, business insights, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the practice should be shared. Including real-world images and videos fosters patient trust and loyalty, attracting attention and increasing engagement. The good news is that AI can be very useful here, too: It can create a content plan or post ideas based on which you can add photos, texts, or videos from your team. As Generative AI Is Becoming Better, Its Role in Healthcare Marketing Will Only Grow As Generative AI continues to advance, its applications in healthcare marketing are set to grow significantly. From content creation and personalization to predictive modeling and data-driven insights, using this technology will help you enhance communication and engagement and, ultimately, improve your patient outcomes. Staying ahead of the curve is crucial in the ever-evolving healthcare industry landscape. If you embrace Generative AI in your healthcare marketing efforts from now on, you will equip your healthcare organization to navigate the complex healthcare landscape more efficiently and effectively – and guarantee future growth.

Exploring Three Use Cases of Generative AI in the Healthcare Industry

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

Angelique-Louise De Guerchi

Living Epistles

The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . ON THE EDGE OF LIGHT AND DARK CHAPTER XXXI. ON THE EDGE OF LIGHT AND DARK We celebrated the November day when Peter was permitted to rejoin us by a picnic in the orchard. Sara Ray was also allowed to come, under protest; and her joy over being among us once more was almost pathetic. She and Cecily cried in one another’s arms as if they had been parted for years. We had a beautiful day for our picnic. November dreamed that it was May. The air was soft and mellow, with pale, aerial mists in the valleys and over the leafless beeches on the western hill. The sere stubble fields brooded in glamour, and the sky was pearly blue. The leaves were still thick on the apple trees, though they were russet hued, and the after-growth of grass was richly green, unharmed as yet by the nipping frosts of previous nights. The wind made a sweet, drowsy murmur in the boughs, as of bees among apple blossoms. “It’s just like spring, isn’t it?” asked Felicity. The Story Girl shook her head. “No, not quite. It looks like spring, but it isn’t spring. It’s as if everything was resting—getting ready to sleep. In spring they’re getting ready to grow. Can’t you FEEL the difference?” “I think it’s just like spring,” insisted Felicity. In the sun-sweet place before the Pulpit Stone we boys had put up a board table. Aunt Janet allowed us to cover it with an old tablecloth, the worn places in which the girls artfully concealed with frost-whitened ferns. We had the kitchen dishes, and the table was gaily decorated with Cecily’s three scarlet geraniums and maple leaves in the cherry vase. As for the viands, they were fit for the gods on high Olympus. Felicity had spent the whole previous day and the forenoon of the picnic day in concocting them. Her crowning achievement was a rich little plum cake, on the white frosting of which the words “Welcome Back” were lettered in pink candies. This was put before Peter’s place, and almost overcame him. “To think that you’d go to so much trouble for me!” he said, with a glance of adoring gratitude at Felicity. Felicity got all the gratitude, although the Story Girl had originated the idea and seeded the raisins and beaten the eggs, while Cecily had trudged all the way to Mrs. Jameson’s little shop below the church to buy the pink candies. But that is the way of the world. “We ought to have grace,” said Felicity, as we sat down at the festal board. “Will any one say it?” She looked at me, but I blushed to the roots of my hair and shook my head sheepishly. An awkward pause ensued; it looked as if we would have to proceed without grace, when Felix suddenly shut his eyes, bent his head, and said a very good grace without any appearance of embarrassment. We looked at him when it was over with an increase of respect. “Where on earth did you learn that, Felix?” I asked. “It’s the grace Uncle Alec says at every meal,” answered Felix. We felt rather ashamed of ourselves. Was it possible that we had paid so little attention to Uncle Alec’s grace that we did not recognize it when we heard it on other lips? “Now,” said Felicity jubilantly, “let’s eat everything up.” In truth, it was a merry little feast. We had gone without our dinners, in order to “save our appetites,” and we did ample justice to Felicity’s good things. Paddy sat on the Pulpit Stone and watched us with great yellow eyes, knowing that tidbits would come his way later on. Many witty things were said—or at least we thought them witty—and uproarious was the laughter. Never had the old King orchard known a blither merrymaking or lighter hearts. The picnic over, we played games until the early falling dusk, and then we went with Uncle Alec to the back field to burn the potato stalks—the crowning delight of the day. The stalks were in heaps all over the field, and we were allowed the privilege of setting fire to them. ‘Twas glorious! In a few minutes the field was alight with blazing bonfires, over which rolled great, pungent clouds of smoke. From pile to pile we ran, shrieking with delight, to poke each up with a long stick and watch the gush of rose-red sparks stream off into the night. In what a whirl of smoke and firelight and wild, fantastic, hurtling shadows we were! When we grew tired of our sport we went to the windward side of the field and perched ourselves on the high pole fence that skirted a dark spruce wood, full of strange, furtive sounds. Over us was a great, dark sky, blossoming with silver stars, and all around lay dusky, mysterious reaches of meadow and wood in the soft, empurpled night. Away to the east a shimmering silveryness beneath a palace of aerial cloud foretokened moonrise. But directly before us the potato field, with its wreathing smoke and sullen flames, the gigantic shadow of Uncle Alec crossing and recrossing it, reminded us of Peter’s famous description of the bad place, and probably suggested the Story Girl’s remark. “I know a story,” she said, infusing just the right shade of weirdness into her voice, “about a man who saw the devil. Now, what’s the matter, Felicity?” “I can never get used to the way you mention the—the—that name,” complained Felicity. “To hear you speak of the Old Scratch any one would think he was just a common person.” “Never mind. Tell us the story,” I said curiously. “It is about Mrs. John Martin’s uncle at Markdale,” said the Story Girl. “I heard Uncle Roger telling it the other night. He didn’t know I was sitting on the cellar hatch outside the window, or I don’t suppose he would have told it. Mrs. Martin’s uncle’s name was William Cowan, and he has been dead for twenty years; but sixty years ago he was a young man, and a very wild, wicked young man. He did everything bad he could think of, and never went to church, and he laughed at everything religious, even the devil. He didn’t believe there was a devil at all. One beautiful summer Sunday evening his mother pleaded with him to go to church with her, but he would not. He told her that he was going fishing instead, and when church time came he swaggered past the church, with his fishing rod over his shoulder, singing a godless song. Half way between the church and the harbour there was a thick spruce wood, and the path ran through it. When William Cowan was half way through it SOMETHING came out of the wood and walked beside him.” I have never heard anything more horribly suggestive than that innocent word “something,” as enunciated by the Story Girl. I felt Cecily’s hand, icy cold, clutching mine. “What—what—was IT like?” whispered Felix, curiosity getting the better of his terror. “IT was tall, and black, and hairy,” said the Story Girl, her eyes glowing with uncanny intensity in the red glare of the fires, “and IT lifted one great, hairy hand, with claws on the end of it, and clapped William Cowan, first on one shoulder and then on the other, and said, ‘Good sport to you, brother.’ William Cowan gave a horrible scream and fell on his face right there in the wood. Some of the men around the church door heard the scream, and they rushed down to the wood. They saw nothing but William Cowan, lying like a dead man on the path. They took him up and carried him home; and when they undressed him to put him to bed, there, on each shoulder, was the mark of a big hand, BURNED INTO THE FLESH. It was weeks before the burns healed, and the scars never went away. Always, as long as William Cowan lived, he carried on his shoulders the prints of the devil’s hand.” I really do not know how we should ever have got home, had we been left to our own devices. We were cold with fright. How could we turn our backs on the eerie spruce wood, out of which SOMETHING might pop at any moment? How cross those long, shadowy fields between us and our rooftree? How venture through the darkly mysterious bracken hollow? Fortunately, Uncle Alec came along at this crisis and said he thought we’d better come home now, since the fires were nearly out. We slid down from the fence and started, taking care to keep close together and in front of Uncle Alec. “I don’t believe a word of that yarn,” said Dan, trying to speak with his usual incredulity. “I don’t see how you can help believing it,” said Cecily. “It isn’t as if it was something we’d read of, or that happened far away. It happened just down at Markdale, and I’ve seen that very spruce wood myself.” “Oh, I suppose William Cowan got a fright of some kind,” conceded Dan, “but I don’t believe he saw the devil.” “Old Mr. Morrison at Lower Markdale was one of the men who undressed him, and he remembers seeing the marks,” said the Story Girl triumphantly. “How did William Cowan behave afterwards?” I asked. “He was a changed man,” said the Story Girl solemnly. “Too much changed. He never was known to laugh again, or even smile. He became a very religious man, which was a good thing, but he was dreadfully gloomy and thought everything pleasant sinful. He wouldn’t even eat any more than was actually necessary to keep him alive. Uncle Roger says that if he had been a Roman Catholic he would have become a monk, but, as he was a Presbyterian, all he could do was to turn into a crank.” “Yes, but your Uncle Roger was never clapped on the shoulder and called brother by the devil,” said Peter. “If he had, he mightn’t have been so precious jolly afterwards himself.” “I do wish to goodness,” said Felicity in exasperation, “that you’d stop talking of the—the—of such subjects in the dark. I’m so scared now that I keep thinking father’s steps behind us are SOMETHING’S. Just think, my own father!” The Story Girl slipped her arm through Felicity’s. “Never mind,” she said soothingly. “I’ll tell you another story—such a beautiful story that you’ll forget all about the devil.” She told us one of Hans Andersen’s most exquisite tales; and the magic of her voice charmed away all our fear, so that when we reached the bracken hollow, a lake of shadow surrounded by the silver shore of moonlit fields, we all went through it without a thought of His Satanic Majesty at all. And beyond us, on the hill, the homelight was glowing from the farmhouse window like a beacon of old loves. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2004). The Story Girl. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5342/pg5342-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

ON THE EDGE OF LIGHT AND DARK

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

Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A Golden Picnic Chapter XIII - A Golden Picnic Anne, on her way to Orchard Slope, met Diana, bound for Green Gables, just where the mossy old log bridge spanned the brook below the Haunted Wood, and they sat down by the margin of the Dryad’s Bubble, where tiny ferns were unrolling like curly-headed green pixy folk wakening up from a nap. “I was just on my way over to invite you to help me celebrate my birthday on Saturday,” said Anne. “Your birthday? But your birthday was in March!” “That wasn’t my fault,” laughed Anne. “If my parents had consulted me it would never have happened then. I should have chosen to be born in spring, of course. It must be delightful to come into the world with the mayflowers and violets. You would always feel that you were their foster sister. But since I didn’t, the next best thing is to celebrate my birthday in the spring. Priscilla is coming over Saturday and Jane will be home. We’ll all four start off to the woods and spend a golden day making the acquaintance of the spring. We none of us really know her yet, but we’ll meet her back there as we never can anywhere else. I want to explore all those fields and lonely places anyhow. I have a conviction that there are scores of beautiful nooks there that have never really been seen although they may have been looked at. We’ll make friends with wind and sky and sun, and bring home the spring in our hearts.” “It sounds awfully nice,” said Diana, with some inward distrust of Anne’s magic of words. “But won’t it be very damp in some places yet?” “Oh, we’ll wear rubbers,” was Anne’s concession to practicalities. “And I want you to come over early Saturday morning and help me prepare lunch. I’m going to have the daintiest things possible . . . things that will match the spring, you understand . . . little jelly tarts and lady fingers, and drop cookies frosted with pink and yellow icing, and buttercup cake. And we must have sandwiches too, though they’re not very poetical.” Saturday proved an ideal day for a picnic . . . a day of breeze and blue, warm, sunny, with a little rollicking wind blowing across meadow and orchard. Over every sunlit upland and field was a delicate, flower-starred green. Mr. Harrison, harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of the spring witch-work even in his sober, middle-aged blood, saw four girls, basket laden, tripping across the end of his field where it joined a fringing woodland of birch and fir. Their blithe voices and laughter echoed down to him. “It’s so easy to be happy on a day like this, isn’t it?” Anne was saying, with true Anneish philosophy. “Let’s try to make this a really golden day, girls, a day to which we can always look back with delight. We’re to seek for beauty and refuse to see anything else. ‘Begone, dull care!’ Jane, you are thinking of something that went wrong in school yesterday.” “How do you know?” gasped Jane, amazed. “Oh, I know the expression . . . I’ve felt it often enough on my own face. But put it out of your mind, there’s a dear. It will keep till Monday . . . or if it doesn’t so much the better. Oh, girls, girls, see that patch of violets! There’s something for memory’s picture gallery. When I’m eighty years old . . . if I ever am . . . I shall shut my eyes and see those violets just as I see them now. That’s the first good gift our day has given us.” “If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet,” said Priscilla. Anne glowed. “I’m so glad you spoke that thought, Priscilla, instead of just thinking it and keeping it to yourself. This world would be a much more interesting place . . . although it is very interesting anyhow . . . if people spoke out their real thoughts.” “It would be too hot to hold some folks,” quoted Jane sagely. “I suppose it might be, but that would be their own faults for thinking nasty things. Anyhow, we can tell all our thoughts today because we are going to have nothing but beautiful thoughts. Everybody can say just what comes into her head. That is conversation. Here’s a little path I never saw before. Let’s explore it.” The path was a winding one, so narrow that the girls walked in single file and even then the fir boughs brushed their faces. Under the firs were velvety cushions of moss, and further on, where the trees were smaller and fewer, the ground was rich in a variety of green growing things. “What a lot of elephant’s ears,” exclaimed Diana. “I’m going to pick a big bunch, they’re so pretty.” “How did such graceful feathery things ever come to have such a dreadful name?” asked Priscilla. “Because the person who first named them either had no imagination at all or else far too much,” said Anne, “Oh, girls, look at that!” “That” was a shallow woodland pool in the center of a little open glade where the path ended. Later on in the season it would be dried up and its place filled with a rank growth of ferns; but now it was a glimmering placid sheet, round as a saucer and clear as crystal. A ring of slender young birches encircled it and little ferns fringed its margin. “How sweet!” said Jane. “Let us dance around it like wood-nymphs,” cried Anne, dropping her basket and extending her hands. But the dance was not a success for the ground was boggy and Jane’s rubbers came off. “You can’t be a wood-nymph if you have to wear rubbers,” was her decision. “Well, we must name this place before we leave it,” said Anne, yielding to the indisputable logic of facts. “Everybody suggest a name and we’ll draw lots. Diana?” “Birch Pool,” suggested Diana promptly. “Crystal Lake,” said Jane. Anne, standing behind them, implored Priscilla with her eyes not to perpetrate another such name and Priscilla rose to the occasion with “Glimmer-glass.” Anne’s selection was “The Fairies’ Mirror.” The names were written on strips of birch bark with a pencil Schoolma’am Jane produced from her pocket, and placed in Anne’s hat. Then Priscilla shut her eyes and drew one. “Crystal Lake,” read Jane triumphantly. Crystal Lake it was, and if Anne thought that chance had played the pool a shabby trick she did not say so. Pushing through the undergrowth beyond, the girls came out to the young green seclusion of Mr. Silas Sloane’s back pasture. Across it they found the entrance to a lane striking up through the woods and voted to explore it also. It rewarded their quest with a succession of pretty surprises. First, skirting Mr. Sloane’s pasture, came an archway of wild cherry trees all in bloom. The girls swung their hats on their arms and wreathed their hair with the creamy, fluffy blossoms. Then the lane turned at right angles and plunged into a spruce wood so thick and dark that they walked in a gloom as of twilight, with not a glimpse of sky or sunlight to be seen. “This is where the bad wood elves dwell,” whispered Anne. “They are impish and malicious but they can’t harm us, because they are not allowed to do evil in the spring. There was one peeping at us around that old twisted fir; and didn’t you see a group of them on that big freckly toadstool we just passed? The good fairies always dwell in the sunshiny places.” “I wish there really were fairies,” said Jane. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have three wishes granted you . . . or even only one? What would you wish for, girls, if you could have a wish granted? I’d wish to be rich and beautiful and clever.” “I’d wish to be tall and slender,” said Diana. “I would wish to be famous,” said Priscilla. Anne thought of her hair and then dismissed the thought as unworthy. “I’d wish it might be spring all the time and in everybody’s heart and all our lives,” she said. “But that,” said Priscilla, “would be just wishing this world were like heaven.” “Only like a part of heaven. In the other parts there would be summer and autumn . . . yes, and a bit of winter, too. I think I want glittering snowy fields and white frosts in heaven sometimes. Don’t you, Jane?” “I . . . I don’t know,” said Jane uncomfortably. Jane was a good girl, a member of the church, who tried conscientiously to live up to her profession and believed everything she had been taught. But she never thought about heaven any more than she could help, for all that. “Minnie May asked me the other day if we would wear our best dresses every day in heaven,” laughed Diana. “And didn’t you tell her we would?” asked Anne. “Mercy, no! I told her we wouldn’t be thinking of dresses at all there.” “Oh, I think we will . . . a little,” said Anne earnestly. “There’ll be plenty of time in all eternity for it without neglecting more important things. I believe we’ll all wear beautiful dresses . . . or I suppose raiment would be a more suitable way of speaking. I shall want to wear pink for a few centuries at first . . . it would take me that long to get tired of it, I feel sure. I do love pink so and I can never wear it in this world.” Past the spruces the lane dipped down into a sunny little open where a log bridge spanned a brook; and then came the glory of a sunlit beechwood where the air was like transparent golden wine, and the leaves fresh and green, and the wood floor a mosaic of tremulous sunshine. Then more wild cherries, and a little valley of lissome firs, and then a hill so steep that the girls lost their breath climbing it; but when they reached the top and came out into the open the prettiest surprise of all awaited them. Beyond were the “back fields” of the farms that ran out to the upper Carmody road. Just before them, hemmed in by beeches and firs but open to the south, was a little corner and in it a garden . . . or what had once been a garden. A tumbledown stone dyke, overgrown with mosses and grass, surrounded it. Along the eastern side ran a row of garden cherry trees, white as a snowdrift. There were traces of old paths still and a double line of rosebushes through the middle; but all the rest of the space was a sheet of yellow and white narcissi, in their airiest, most lavish, wind-swayed bloom above the lush green grasses. “Oh, how perfectly lovely!” three of the girls cried. Anne only gazed in eloquent silence. “How in the world does it happen that there ever was a garden back here?” said Priscilla in amazement. “It must be Hester Gray’s garden,” said Diana. “I’ve heard mother speak of it but I never saw it before, and I wouldn’t have supposed that it could be in existence still. You’ve heard the story, Anne?” “No, but the name seems familiar to me.” “Oh, you’ve seen it in the graveyard. She is buried down there in the poplar corner. You know the little brown stone with the opening gates carved on it and ‘Sacred to the memory of Hester Gray, aged twenty-two.’ Jordan Gray is buried right beside her but there’s no stone to him. It’s a wonder Marilla never told you about it, Anne. To be sure, it happened thirty years ago and everybody has forgotten.” “Well, if there’s a story we must have it,” said Anne. “Let’s sit right down here among the narcissi and Diana will tell it. Why, girls, there are hundreds of them . . . they’ve spread over everything. It looks as if the garden were carpeted with moonshine and sunshine combined. This is a discovery worth making. To think that I’ve lived within a mile of this place for six years and have never seen it before! Now, Diana.” “Long ago,” began Diana, “this farm belonged to old Mr. David Gray. He didn’t live on it . . . he lived where Silas Sloane lives now. He had one son, Jordan, and he went up to Boston one winter to work and while he was there he fell in love with a girl named Hester Murray. She was working in a store and she hated it. She’d been brought up in the country and she always wanted to get back. When Jordan asked her to marry him she said she would if he’d take her away to some quiet spot where she’d see nothing but fields and trees. So he brought her to Avonlea. Mrs. Lynde said he was taking a fearful risk in marrying a Yankee, and it’s certain that Hester was very delicate and a very poor housekeeper; but mother says she was very pretty and sweet and Jordan just worshipped the ground she walked on. Well, Mr. Gray gave Jordan this farm and he built a little house back here and Jordan and Hester lived in it for four years. She never went out much and hardly anybody went to see her except mother and Mrs. Lynde. Jordan made her this garden and she was crazy about it and spent most of her time in it. She wasn’t much of a housekeeper but she had a knack with flowers. And then she got sick. Mother says she thinks she was in consumption before she ever came here. She never really laid up but just grew weaker and weaker all the time. Jordan wouldn’t have anybody to wait on her. He did it all himself and mother says he was as tender and gentle as a woman. Every day he’d wrap her in a shawl and carry her out to the garden and she’d lie there on a bench quite happy. They say she used to make Jordan kneel down by her every night and morning and pray with her that she might die out in the garden when the time came. And her prayer was answered. One day Jordan carried her out to the bench and then he picked all the roses that were out and heaped them over her; and she just smiled up at him . . . and closed her eyes . . . and that,” concluded Diana softly, “was the end.” “Oh, what a dear story,” sighed Anne, wiping away her tears. “What became of Jordan?” asked Priscilla. “He sold the farm after Hester died and went back to Boston. Mr. Jabez Sloane bought the farm and hauled the little house out to the road. Jordan died about ten years after and he was brought home and buried beside Hester.” “I can’t understand how she could have wanted to live back here, away from everything,” said Jane. “Oh, I can easily understand that,” said Anne thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t want it myself for a steady thing, because, although I love the fields and woods, I love people too. But I can understand it in Hester. She was tired to death of the noise of the big city and the crowds of people always coming and going and caring nothing for her. She just wanted to escape from it all to some still, green, friendly place where she could rest. And she got just what she wanted, which is something very few people do, I believe. She had four beautiful years before she died. . . four years of perfect happiness, so I think she was to be envied more than pitied. And then to shut your eyes and fall asleep among roses, with the one you loved best on earth smiling down at you . . . oh, I think it was beautiful!” “She set out those cherry trees over there,” said Diana. “She told mother she’d never live to eat their fruit, but she wanted to think that something she had planted would go on living and helping to make the world beautiful after she was dead.” “I’m so glad we came this way,” said Anne, the shining-eyed. “This is my adopted birthday, you know, and this garden and its story is the birthday gift it has given me. Did your mother ever tell you what Hester Gray looked like, Diana?” “No . . . only just that she was pretty.” “I’m rather glad of that, because I can imagine what she looked like, without being hampered by facts. I think she was very slight and small, with softly curling dark hair and big, sweet, timid brown eyes, and a little wistful, pale face.” The girls left their baskets in Hester’s garden and spent the rest of the afternoon rambling in the woods and fields surrounding it, discovering many pretty nooks and lanes. When they got hungry they had lunch in the prettiest spot of all . . . on the steep bank of a gurgling brook where white birches shot up out of long feathery grasses. The girls sat down by the roots and did full justice to Anne’s dainties, even the unpoetical sandwiches being greatly appreciated by hearty, unspoiled appetites sharpened by all the fresh air and exercise they had enjoyed. Anne had brought glasses and lemonade for her guests, but for her own part drank cold brook water from a cup fashioned out of birch bark. The cup leaked, and the water tasted of earth, as brook water is apt to do in spring; but Anne thought it more appropriate to the occasion than lemonade. “Look do you see that poem?” she said suddenly, pointing. “Where?” Jane and Diana stared, as if expecting to see Runic rhymes on the birch trees. “There . . . down in the brook . . . that old green, mossy log with the water flowing over it in those smooth ripples that look as if they’d been combed, and that single shaft of sunshine falling right athwart it, far down into the pool. Oh, it’s the most beautiful poem I ever saw.” “I should rather call it a picture,” said Jane. “A poem is lines and verses.” “Oh dear me, no.” Anne shook her head with its fluffy wild cherry coronal positively. “The lines and verses are only the outward garments of the poem and are no more really it than your ruffles and flounces are you, Jane. The real poem is the soul within them . . . and that beautiful bit is the soul of an unwritten poem. It is not every day one sees a soul . . . even of a poem.” “I wonder what a soul . . . a person’s soul . . . would look like,” said Priscilla dreamily. “Like that, I should think,” answered Anne, pointing to a radiance of sifted sunlight streaming through a birch tree. “Only with shape and features of course. I like to fancy souls as being made of light. And some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers . . . and some have a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea . . . and some are pale and transparent like mist at dawn.” “I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers,” said Priscilla. “Then your soul is a golden narcissus,” said Anne, “and Diana’s is like a red, red rose. Jane’s is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome and sweet.” “And your own is a white violet, with purple streaks in its heart,” finished Priscilla. Jane whispered to Diana that she really could not understand what they were talking about. Could she? The girls went home by the light of a calm golden sunset, their baskets filled with narcissus blossoms from Hester’s garden, some of which Anne carried to the cemetery next day and laid upon Hester’s grave. Minstrel robins were whistling in the firs and the frogs were singing in the marshes. All the basins among the hills were brimmed with topaz and emerald light. “Well, we have had a lovely time after all,” said Diana, as if she had hardly expected to have it when she set out. “It has been a truly golden day,” said Priscilla. “I’m really awfully fond of the woods myself,” said Jane. Anne said nothing. She was looking afar into the western sky and thinking of little Hester Gray. 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 (2022). Anne of Avonlea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47/pg47-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 lead image was generated using HackerNoon's Stable Disffusion Al Image Generator feature, via the prompt "Anne of Avonlea".

A Golden Picnic

The Story-book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . CLOUDS CHAPTER XLI. CLOUDS TO finish his talk on lightning, the next morning Uncle Paul told them about clouds. The occasion, moreover, was very favorable. In one part of the sky great white clouds like mountains of cotton were piled up. The eye was delighted with the soft outlines of that celestial wadding. “You remember,” he began, “all those fogs that on damp autumn and winter mornings cover the earth with a veil of gray smoke, hide the sun, and prevent our seeing a few steps in front of us!” “Looking into the air, you could see something like fine dust of water floating,” said Claire; and Jules added: “We played hide and seek with Emile in that kind of damp smoke. We could not see each other a few steps away.” “Well,” resumed Uncle Paul, “clouds and fog are the same thing; only fog spreads about us and shows for what it is, gray, damp, cold; while clouds keep more or less above us and take on, with distance, a rich appearance. There are some of dazzling whiteness, like those you see over there; others of a red color, or golden-hued, or like fire; still others of the color of ashes, and others that are black. The color changes, too, from moment to moment. At sunset you will see a cloud begin with being white, then turn scarlet, then shine like a pile of embers, or like a lake of melted gold, and finally become dull and turn gray or black, according as the sun’s rays strike it less and less. All that is a matter of illumination by the sun. In reality, clouds, however splendid in appearance, are formed of a damp vapor like that of fog. We can assure ourselves of this by a near approach.” “People can then mount as high as the clouds, Uncle?” Emile asked. “Certainly. All one needs is a pair of legs stout enough to climb to the top of a mountain. Often then clouds are under one’s feet.” “And you have seen clouds underneath you?” “Sometimes.” “That must be a very beautiful sight.” “So beautiful that words cannot express it. But it is not exactly a pleasure if the clouds mount and envelop you. You can be very much embarrassed by the obscurity of the fog alone. You lose your way; you become confused, without suspecting any danger in the most dangerous places, at the risk of falling into some abyss; you lose sight of the guides, who alone know the way and could save you from a false step. No, all is not roses up among the clouds. You will perhaps learn that some day to your cost. Meanwhile let us transport ourselves in imagination to the top of a cloud-capped mountain. If circumstances are favorable, here is what we shall see: “Above our heads the sky, perfectly clear, presents no unusual appearance; the sun shines there in all its brilliancy. Down there at our feet, almost in the plains, white clouds spread themselves out. The wind sweeps them before it and drives them toward the summit. There they are, rolling and mounting up the side of the mountain. One would think they were immense flocks of cotton pushed up the slope by some invisible hand. Now and then a ray of sunlight penetrates their depths and gives them the brilliancy of gold and fire. The beautiful clouds behind which the sun disappears at its setting are not richer. What brilliant tints, what soft suppleness! They mount higher and higher. Now they roll up like a shining white band around the top of the mountain, and hide the view of the plain from us. Only the point where we are projects above the cloud-curtain, like an islet above the sea. At last this point is invaded, we are in the bosom of the clouds. Warm tints, soft outlines, striking views—all have disappeared. It is now only a dark fog that saturates with moisture and makes us feel depressed. Ah, if some breath of wind would make haste and sweep away these disagreeable clouds! “That, my little friends, is what one does not fail to wish when one is in the clouds, which, so beautiful at a distance, are nothing but gloomy fog when close at hand. The spectacle of the clouds should be seen from afar. When in our curiosity we wish to examine certain appearances too closely, we sometimes find them deceptive; but we also find that, under a secondary brilliancy, which serves to adorn the earth, they hide realities of the first importance. The marvels of the clouds are only an appearance, an illusion of light; but under this illusion are concealed the reservoirs of rain, source of the earth’s fecundity. God, by whom the smallest details of creation have been ordered, willed that the most common but also most necessary substances should serve as an ornament to the earth in spite of their really humble aspect; and he clothes them with a prestige dependent on the distance from which we are to contemplate them. The gray vapor of the clouds gives us rain. That is its chief utility. The sun illuminates it, and that suffices to transform it into a celestial tapestry in which the astonished eye finds the splendor of purple, gold and fire. That is its ornamental function. Cirrus “The height maintained by clouds is very variable and is generally less than you might suppose. There are clouds that lazily trail along the ground; they are the fogs. There are others that cling to the sides of moderately high mountains, and still others that crown the summits. The region where they are commonly found is at a height varying from 500 to 1500 meters. In some rather rare instances they rise to nearly four leagues. Beyond that eternal serenity reigns; clouds never mount there, thunder never rumbles, and snow, hail, and rain never form. “Those clouds are called ‘cirrus’ that look sometimes like light flocks of curly wool, sometimes like drawn-out-filaments of dazzling whiteness, sharply contrasting with the deep blue of the sky. They are the highest of all the clouds. They are often a league high. When cirrus clouds are small and rounded and closely grouped in large numbers, so as to look like the backs of a flock of sheep, the sky thus covered is said to be dappled. It is usually a sign that the weather is going to change. Cumulus “The name ‘cumulus’ is given to those large white clouds with round outlines which pile up, during the heat of summer, like immense mountains of cotton-wool. Their appearance presages a storm.” “Then the clouds we see over there next to the mountains,” queried Jules, “are cumulus? They look like piles of cotton. Will they bring us a storm?” “I think not. The wind is driving them in another direction. The storm always takes place in their neighborhood. There! Hear that!” A sudden light had just flashed through the flocks of the cumulus. After rather a long wait the noise of the thunder reached them, but greatly weakened by distance. Questions came quickly from Jules’s and Emile’s lips: “Why does it rain over there, and not here? Why does the noise of the thunder come after the lightning? Why—” “We are going to talk about all that,” said Uncle Paul; “but first let us learn the other forms of clouds. ‘Stratus’ is applied to clouds disposed in irregular bands placed in tiers on the horizon at sunrise or sunset. They are clouds that, in the fading daylight, especially in autumn, take the glowing tints of melted metals and of flame. The red stratus of the morning are followed by rain or wind. Stratus “Finally, we give the name ‘nimbus’ to a mass of dark clouds of a uniform gray, so crowded together that it is impossible to distinguish one cloud from another. These clouds generally dissolve into rain. Seen from a distance, they often look like broad stripes extending in a straight line from heaven to earth. They are trails of rain. “Now Emile may ask his questions.” 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. Jean-Henri Fabre (2018). The Story-book of Science. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56795/pg56795-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.

Uncle Paul told them about clouds

Hunger is My Name

COMPANIONSHIP

GM. It's Crypto Player One, the first and only daily newsletter on crypto gaming that's as funny as Spongebob Squarepants and as insightful as Tim Ferriss. This Tuesday comes with: Daily Trivia. Our experience playing Honeyland. In Other News. Daily Trivia What's the name of the game in which players compete in soccer using cars? Scroll down to find out the answer. Our Experience Playing Honeyland Today we played Honeyland, a mobile-based blockchain game in open alpha. Here's a little info about the game: It's built on the Solana blockchain. Players send their Bees on harvesting and hunting missions to earn HONEY. Honeyland is meant to give a start to an entire gaming ecosystem. So what did we do in the game? As we said, the game is in open alpha, so there are only a few things to do: 1/ We sent some Solana on devnet to the game to get some Honey tokens. On devnet means that these were test tokens, not actual Solana. These devnet SOL tokens allowed us to get some Honey. 2/ We then used the Honey tokens to hatch our Bee NFTs, creating our first bees. We got these for free as part of the alpha. 3/ We then put these bad boys to work. We deployed them on a few harvesting missions. 4/ We earned some Honey! After a few hours, the missions were completed, and we received Honey tokens. 5/ We send more Bees to harvest and hunt on the map. So we can earn some more HONEY! So what's our overall experience? The game is still in alpha, so there aren't a lot of things to do. But the things you can do are fun and engaging. Looking forward to seeing how this game develops over time. Of course, we will keep you up to date on all cool things Honeyland. In Other News Drivetime, a company focused on creating games for playing in the car, rebrands to Blockstars, becoming a web3 game. Mysten Labs raises $15 million from the South Korean gaming company NCSoft to build infrastructure for web3 games. Answer Rocket League Want to Stay On Top of All Things Crypto Gaming and NFTs? Sign up for the daily newsletter - it’s free!

🎮 Our Experience Trying a Web3 Game in Open Alpha

Seven and a half years ago, the day after Labor Day, I started a new job. Production assistant for a new TV Network that had yet to air a single hour of programming. Along with just over 20 others, we were to launch a 24-hour network within 30 days. Our first day live was to be October 1st, 2014. I was paid absolutely minimum wage for what was a full-time job at the time. The lowest amount that they could legally pay me. If not for the law, they would have paid me less. And then just a couple of years later I was making $75,000 a year. Same company. Why? How? HUH? you might be asking. Google Sheets. Yep that's the answer. This is what happened… Traffic Jam Production Assistant, or "PA", was the lowliest job available. In Los Angeles it is the absolute bottom of the barrel – You’re a lackey – you do grunt work. You do whatever it is that everybody else doesn't want to do. I loved it. Less than 2 years before I had been working on cruise ships, for much less than California minimum wage.  Moved to L.A. to work in film and tv. And work in film and TV is exactly what I did. But the L.A. traffic was horrendous. When my prior commute was a 30 second walk from my cabin to my office for 6 months at a time, spending 2+ hours a day in L.A. traffic was a goddamn nightmare. But there was another traffic jam.  For promotion opportunities. When working as a P.A. you don't have time to try out for any other job. It's a lot of hours and a lot of work. I used my hatred of L.A. traffic jams to force myself to stay an extra hour after everyone else and I beat the traffic by leaving my apartment an hour early. Thus I decreased my traffic time and increased my work hours. In those hours... I worked on a google sheet. Why? Because this office ran on google sheets. like nearly every office. The spreadsheets we used were really really hard to maintain. Took up most of our work hours. In the two hours before and after work I googled for answers. I searched for a better way to do what we were doing, piece by piece. I fixed some broken conditional formatting. I wrote my first google script. Actually, I copy-pasted my first google script. I didn't write anything original in the first two weeks.  I smushed together pieces of Google Script and tried it out. It worked! Two Weeks Later I made a new google sheet that worked exactly like the old one, but had a script that once you did something... magic would happen. Rows would move from one sheet to another. It worked, consistently. I tested it a lot! I showed my boss's boss, and my boss. I was scared. But immediately they loved it. "Put it into use right now." “OMG, really?” “Yes really, we need this.” Everyone spends so much time on google sheets, You're saving a company of 20+ people a couple of hours a day. That means we save a full-time job's worth of people's time. Two Months Later The CEO of the company walked me, a lowly PA, outside. He said I was doing a good job on the sheets and "you should do more of that". And thus I was promoted out of being a P.A. and became... What title do I get? He literally said, "tell me your title so we can make the switch in our HR software." I was gobsmacked. and naive. I should have said "CEO" but of course, I didn't. I think I said, "Data Manager" or something like that. Two Years Later The day-to-day job consisted of literally improving the google sheets the entire company used. In the span of two years, I made a CRM to manage reaching out to 15,000 youtube channels, and ultimately signing 2,500 licenses. I also created google sheets that helped log our video shoots. And Managed over 100,000 videos we had rights access to use on our channel. Also I used google sheets to figure out how many times we played individual videos across a TV channel that played 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Yes, I did this all in google sheets. A $250,000 Test A new VP was hired and quickly he learned that I did "the google sheets around here." He was impressed and needed some help. Part-time I would spend with him working on a google sheet to calculate influencer marketing spending. He had the calculations in his head and would do them by hand then enter them in... a google sheet. I figured out the nitty-gritty details. I figured out how to display them properly. And... we were working on a $250,000 influencer campaign from the start. I had to figure out how to create a sheet where a client could see some, but not all, information. We didn't want to share our internal calculations of course. I discovered the power of ImportRange that day, my friends. The job went smoothly. We clinked our whiskey glasses at the end of the campaign. Another year went by and we were rocking and rolling. I ultimately got a corner office, a cubicle. But then went traveling and working digitally. And eventually found myself making $75k a year doing google sheets. I had crafted my own role and the company rewarded me. I became "Digital Operations Director". A title I really really liked for a lot of reasons. But it also hid the fact that I was working 100% of my time in Google Sheets. I had started as a PA who worked in google sheets most of the time and ultimately became the google sheet guy in the office, and that propelled me to a huge job! Google Sheets Changed My Life Quite literally learning google sheets changed my life. And I think it could change yours as well. There are 2 billion people on this earth that use Google Sheets. You're definitely one of them if you've somehow stumbled upon me... Now almost 8 years later, I'm not a guru, I'm not a master. I'm a goddamn Wizard. I used google sheets to keep track of my newsletter which ended up making me $1,000 a month. I managed the sponsors in a Google Sheet. I managed the content in a google sheet. I mapped the industry in a google sheet. Ultimately sold the newsletter for 5 figures in 2020. Wizards Aren't Born, They're Taught Just like Merlin before me, every wizard starts as an apprentice. Every wizard is a young naive fool. Trying and testing the boundaries of possibilities. You probably already discovered where google scripts are stored in a sheet. You might already use Conditional Formatting A LOT! (and your sheets are slowing down) Come join me and learn the ways of the wizards that came before you. I launched Better Sheets 2 years ago, at the very start of the pandemic. I built Better Sheets to suit anyone who needed help. You may need help anytime and I didn't want to make it a subscription. Money was tight, it’s still tight. Maybe tighter now. (Recession, eh?) So the cost of buying Better Sheets is a single payment. You never have to pay again. And right now it’s under $100. It's available via Appsumo for $99. Pay once, access tutorials, templates, & tools, FOREVER. Better Sheets gets better all the time. I just launched by Better Sheets. Members got to use it first, and get it for free. Atomic Sheets Where Wizards Work This isn't Hogwarts, we don't have alumni as famous as Harry Potter. What we do have is a long list of happy people doing their work faster, and better, and giving themselves time to work on their business, not only in google sheets. Over 3,000 members now. Here are a few stories. Ben in Thailand has built an English language school, all admin is done in Google Sheets. Ian is managing his fledgling North Carolina tomato farm in Google Sheets. Chris runs an info product that makes over $100k a year from google sheets. Oh and he travels with a family of four. They've been to Kenya on safari. Don't worry you won't be a slave to google sheets any more. Zoe, a designer, launched a for Instagram. Hashtag Organizing System Anna created an in Google Sheets that complements her consulting work. Energy Workflow system Jaan grew his newsletter by the hundreds when he launched a . free google sheet to track EV stocks I launched , and it got to #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt in 2020. a google sheet that looks like a Mall AtomicSheets.com got to this year. #3 Product of the Day on Product Hunt Oh and also got to #3 Product of the Day in 2021. OnlySheets Lifetime members gets Atomic Sheets Pro and OnlySheets for free. Join us. I'd love to be a part of changing your life with Google Sheets. Purchase Better Sheets LTD on AppSumo Or join for $19 / month to instantly access 200+ Video Tutorials at https://BetterSheets.co And once you join, I will help you build better google sheets, then you will tell me your story.

From Minimum Wage to $75k a Year: Making Google Sheets

Del salario mínimo a $ 75k al año: hacer hojas de cálculo de Google

Du salaire minimum à 75 000 $ par an : créer des feuilles de calcul Google

न्यूनतम वेतन से $75k प्रति वर्ष: Google पत्रक बनाना

最低賃金から年収 75,000 ドルへ: Google スプレッドシートの作成

Do salário mínimo a US$ 75 mil por ano: criando planilhas do Google

Từ mức lương tối thiểu đến $ 75k một năm: Tạo Google Trang tính

从最低工资到每年 75,000 美元：制作 Google 表格

Such things as missed tournaments disrupted training sessions and the constant threat of shelling are integral elements of the new reality for Ukrainian esports players. In an interview for UA.NEWS, the captain of the Ukrainian LeoGaming esports team in CS:GO Sergey "muR" Gres told about the ways that full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation affected the condition of the players and the success of the team. He also told many interesting things about the support of the international esports community, the replacement of Russian players, and the plans of the team for 2022. First of all, esports always positioned itself outside politics, but a new round of Russian aggression against Ukraine has changed everything. Already today, the organizers of international tournaments are suspending Russian teams and terminating all cooperation agreements with the entities from the Russian Federation. How did LeoGaming survive the beginning of a full-scale war? How did it affect the psychological state of the players and the success of the team? "First of all, every Ukrainian member of our team experienced a lot of psychological issues at the beginning of the war. Since February 24, our team members have not played the game for about a month. They had a lot of other things to do. Every person was busy with their own tasks and issues while trying to figure out what would happen tomorrow. Do not forget that when you just watch the news with all those scary videos of missile strikes, you are already frightened and scared. You open the news feed in just three days to read about missile attacks in Obolon'. And you can only think about what will happen next. Therefore, it was difficult to focus on anything, there was some kind of confusion. Sergey Gres, We have received enormous support from our foreign colleagues. Amir [ ] from Russia, supported us. He also condemned Russian aggression. Fenny from Estonia [ ] shares the very same opinion.” Amir Abdulmejidov, ex-member of the LeoGaming team Adrian Korolev from LeoGaming How did the international esports community perceive the war in Ukraine? "The entire world condemned the actions of the Russian Federation. I would like to express my utmost respect to our Polish brothers. They always post a lot of information about the situation in Ukraine, support us, raise funds for Ukrainian refugees, organize housing, and help with meals. Sergey Gres, There were many examples of dedicated support in the esports community. For example, the Kinguin organization from Poland has placed Iska [ ] on its esports base in Poland. He is a Ukrainian player who previously played for the British team Into the Breach. They provided him with a computer, housing, and a place to play. I want to thank the people of Poland for such hospitality and help in challenging times.” Yaroslav Isakov from Ukraine Intense shelling, frequent air alerts, as well as power and communication outages take place in many cities of the country. How did such an unstable situation affect the technical side of the team? What has changed in the training and preparation of the team for the competition? , "It has become more difficult to organize training sessions. Many players suffer from the lack of power or Internet. Whenever it happens, it means that the Russians have damaged something again. We just lose one day of training because of the shelling. It happens because they cannot be patient and solve everything in a humane way.” Sergey Gres Did LeoGaming have to refuse to participate in any tournaments? , "Before the outbreak of a full-scale war, we played in the ESEA League Advanced, but due to the hostilities, we were unable to complete this tournament. We also had no chance to show our real level in the Phonex League competitions. We were not really able to play, so we barely managed to take the second place. No doubt, our team could have refused to join this tournament, but we decided not to lose this opportunity at the very first stage. Sergey Gres LeoGaming also missed many different qualifiers, including Major qualifiers because of the war. But we still have another six months to train and prepare for the next tournaments.” joined In March, the LeoGaming team decided to update its roster and eliminated all Russian players. Mikhail "Malkiss" Shulga and Igor "fobeN" Dotsenko the team while replacing Amir "eightz999" Abdulmedzhidov and Alexey "Maha" Makhinich. How did such substitutions affect the team? How is the adaptation of inexperienced players going? , "We have known Misha and Igor for an exceptionally long time. It was not so difficult for us to play, because we often played together at different Ukrainian tournaments before. We played together at the Ukrainian Championship and reached the finals with them. Therefore, the adaptation is going well, the atmosphere is combative, and we are ready to show what Ukraine is capable of.” Sergey Gres How did the substitution affect the style of play and tactics of the team? "Misha Malkiss is a sniper in our team. This is always a significant role in the global component of the game. We have to change several moments for him so that he is comfortable. Igor "fobeN" was playing as an entry, so, we decided to save his role in LeoGaming.” Sergey Gres, second place beating LeoGaming has already had a number of successful performances with the new line-up, taking in the European Phoenix League tournament and the Polish HONORIS team in the new ESEA League season. Even though, this team has such strong Counter-Strike legends as Neo and Taz. Does this indicate that the team has already managed to find a proper way to play together? , "I won't be too optimistic and say that we have already found it because there are quite a few points that should be corrected. Sergey Gres Talking about the victory over HONORIS. Such legends of the CS as Neo and Taz are convenient rivals for us. I would say that they are playing a slightly outdated version of Counter-Strike. Two matches were enough for me to understand how they play, prepare for the confrontation, and draft a game plan. Even though the HONORIS team is a simple opponent in terms of the game, they have experienced players who make decisions in given situations much better than we do. However, we are the winners in the end.” The LeoGaming team finished the 40th season in the ESEA League (Advanced) tournament in the 80th position. What do you expect from the 41st season of the ESEA League? , "Keeping in mind that we have two inexperienced players (40% of the team has changed), we need to build a completely new structure of the game, and an understanding of how things should happen. Our newcomers have to understand the logic of the captain, and the captain has to understand the logic of the players. We have to come to a consensus within the game. Sergey Gres At the moment we are focused on the quality of our game, and not on a specific place in a particular tournament. Of course, we want to improve our results. In addition, we plan to hold within the season, gain experience against strong teams, correct mistakes for this season and demonstrate fully prepared material on six maps next year.” What other tournaments does LeoGaming plan to participate in this year? , "Keeping in mind that we don't have enough time to get used to the maps, and to learn different positions in such a brief period of time, we simply can't talk about reaching the playoffs of the ESEA League, not to mention reaching the top league.” Sergey Gres

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