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Oracles: Revenue and Tokenomics

Oráculos: Ingresos y Tokenomics

Oracles : revenus et Tokenomics

Oracles: राजस्व और टोकनोमिक्स

オラクル: 収益とトークンノミクス

Oráculos: Receita e Tokenômica

Oracles: Doanh thu và Tokenomics

预言机：收入和代币经济学

Blockchain oracles are one of the critical components helping bridge the divide between the real and digital worlds. Oracles are third-party services that provide blockchain platforms with information about external real-world events as well as external digital events. Data from oracles power . Smart Contracts and DAOs Oracle Definition A blockchain oracle is a trusted third-party service that provides smart contracts with authenticated external data sources from the real world through an API. Oracles connect smart contracts with events in the outside world. Smart contracts often need to be triggered by an external event. Oracles can be created to provide a wide range of data to smart contracts. For example, an oracle could provide real-world weather data, outcomes of events, outcomes of legal cases, financial statistics, economic data, interest rates, market data, performance data from a vehicle or machine, and so on. The important thing to remember about oracles is that most smart contracts are meant to be executed when a condition is met in the real world. Oracles are trusted sources that can provide authenticated data about real-world events. Software Oracles Software oracles provide digital information to blockchains. The information they provide exists on other websites, servers, databases, etc. Some examples of the data that software oracles provide include prices of stocks, exchange rates, cryptocurrency prices, and prices. NFT Hardware Oracles Hardware oracles help connect blockchain platforms with events in the real world. This data is gathered from the real world using sensors and reading devices and transmitted to blockchain platforms. Hardware oracles can send data to blockchain platforms from the following sensors: thermometers, RFID readers, barcode scanners, electronic sensors, and other . IoT devices The Blockchain Oracle Problem Blockchain platforms' decentralized and distributed nature makes them secure and trustworthy. Data provided by a centralized oracle presents security issues; for example, if the centralized oracle provider is compromised, then it could send erroneous data into the blockchain. The incorrect data could then compromise the integrity of the blockchain. Solving the Blockchain Oracle Problem: Decentralized Oracles Decentralized oracles help solve the blockchain oracle problem. While developing a smart contract, you could use a decentralized oracle to provide data to it, or you could enable it to get data from multiple oracles and only trigger an event when the majority or all of the oracles offer the same input. There has been some debate about oracles getting compromised. In the case of larger bets, smart contracts can add multiple oracles to ensure that numerous sources or oracles validate the same outcome. For example; if two users place a bet in the form of a smart contract and the triggering event is the outcome of a basketball game, then we could write a smart contract that requires five oracles to participate, let’s say ESPN, NBC Sports, CNN Sports, BBC Sports, and Yahoo Sports. The smart contract can require all five oracles to signal the exact outcome before it can be executed. Other Types of Blockchain Oracles send data from the real world or another digital platform into a blockchain platform or smart contract. Most oracles, as of this writing, are input oracles. Input or Inbound Oracles On the other hand, send information from a blockchain platform or smart contract to an external source. Output Oracles For example, if a smart contract is concluded, an output oracle can trigger an event in the real world – such as giving access to a website or a hotel room once payment has been received. are focused on interoperability between blockchain platforms. Cross-Chain Oracles These types of oracles enable users to build applications and services that are accessible and functional across different blockchain platforms. are currently only provided by Chainlink. Some computation is impractical to do on-chain because of legal, financial, or technical constraints. Compute-Enabled Oracles Compute-enabled oracles provide decentralized services using secure off-chain computation processes. Rather than simply presenting the results of a query, compute-enabled oracles can perform intricate and complex calculations off-chain and then send the result to a blockchain platform. are suitable for specific situations. As their name suggests, they are oracles that are calibrated to work with a single smart contract. Contract Specific Oracles They are created from scratch with the objective of serving a very specific use case. are people with specialized knowledge who can act as oracles; their reputation is the key factor that incentivizes them to present the correct information to smart contracts. Human Oracles Popular Oracle Providers While Chainlink is the biggest oracle provider as of this writing, the following protocols also provide various oracle-based services: Universal Market Access, Winklink, Band Protocol, iExec Cloud Platform, Tellor, DIA, Truebit, Terra, and Flare. Several other platforms are under development. Oracle Uses There are numerous possible use cases for oracles. Below are the use cases with the highest levels of adoption as of this writing: uses oracles to get financial data about various assets, markets, and user creditworthiness. DeFi can connect their off-chain operations to their on-chain logic through input and output oracles. Enterprises & DAOs This could allow them to automate their logic and perform complex operations using their digital and real-world assets. use oracles to update their metadata or features based on real-world events and assign randomized traits to them. Dynamic NFTs utilizes oracles to generate verifiable randomness to create randomized events and unpredictable and engaging gameplay in on-chain games. Gaming applications and smart contracts verify the occurrences of insurable events using input oracles. Examples of this are legal data, data from physical sensors, satellite imagery, and API calls from websites. Insurance projects use hardware and software oracles to receive environmental data. Sustainability This data includes satellite imagery, sensor readings, temperature and humidity data, and weather information. Computation of this data allows these protocols to dispense rewards to users engaging in conscious consumption or other practices outlined by the platforms. Several carbon credit-based protocols are also using oracles to enhance their operations. Conclusion Oracles are a critical tool helping bring the digital and physical worlds closer together. They are also helping extend the capabilities of blockchain networks. Oracles combined with smart contracts help secure contractual agreements, simplify arbitration, and create a level of automation. Input and output oracles used together help create that can operate and utilize digital and physical assets autonomously and efficiently. systems -- Shaan Ray Also published here

A Guide to Understanding Blockchain Oracles

Authors: (1) Renato P. dos Santos, CIAGE – Centre for Generative Artificial Intelligence in Cognition and Education. Table of Links Abstract and Introduction Materials And Methods Results and Analyses Prompts and generated texts Conceptualizing chemical reactions Deepening on understanding of chemical reactions Question about combustion Question about a graph of gases turning into water over time Question about the difference between atoms, molecules, and moles Deepening on the concept of mole Question about changing of state Question about an animated representation of water molecules undergoing phase changes Question about plasma, a state of matter Question about chemical bondings Question about illustration of chemical bonds Question about the essence of the type of chemical bonding Further analysis Conclusions Limitations of the study and possible future studies Author Contributions, Conflicts of interest, Acknowledgements, and References Question about the essence of the type of chemical bonding *: so ionic bonding is when the atom gives the electron once and for all, in the covalent bond, it only lends and in the hydrogen bond it's like a bid, like the electron is with an atom but gives the atom a wink neighbor?* P1 *: That's a creative and fun way to describe them, and it's largely on point! Let's expand on your analogies:* ChatGPT ***1. Ionic Bonding: *** • Yes, it's like one atom saying, "Here, take my electron. I don't need it." As a result, one atom becomes positively charged (having given away its electron) and the other becomes negatively charged (having accepted the electron). These opposite charges attract each other, forming the bond. ***2. Covalent Bonding: *** • It's a mutual agreement between atoms: "Let's share our electrons so we both benefit." The electrons are not strictly lent or borrowed; instead, they're shared between the atoms, spending time around both nuclei. ***3. Hydrogen Bonding: *** • Your analogy of a "wink" is a fun way to think of it. In hydrogen bonding, the hydrogen atom is indeed bonded covalently to its original atom (like oxygen in water). But because hydrogen has a slight positive charge and nearby electronegative atoms (like another oxygen) have a slight negative charge, they're attracted to each other. It's not a full-on bond like in covalent or ionic bonding but rather a weaker attraction. The "wink" analogy captures this idea of a subtle yet meaningful connection. It's essential to remember that these analogies, while helpful, are simplifications. The actual forces and behaviors of atoms and molecules are based on deeper quantum-mechanical principles. But for getting a grasp on the concepts, these analogies work quite well! Is there anything else about these bonds or any other related concept you'd like to delve into? *: That’s a very creative way of describing the different types of bonds, but it’s not very accurate. Let me try to correct some of the mistakes in your analogy.* BingChat Ionic bonding is not when the atom gives the electron once and for all, but rather when the atom transfers the electron permanently to another atom. This means that the atom that loses the electron becomes positively charged, and the atom that gains the electron becomes negatively charged. These opposite charges attract each other and form an ionic bond. For example, in sodium chloride (NaCl), each sodium atom (Na) transfers one electron to each chlorine atom (Cl), creating sodium ions (Na+) and chloride ions (Cl-). The Na+ and Cl- ions are held together by ionic bonds. Covalent bonding is not when the atom only lends the electron, but rather when the atom shares the electron with another atom. This means that both atoms contribute one or more electrons to form a pair or a group of electrons that belong to both atoms. These shared electrons form a covalent bond that holds the atoms together. For example, in water (H2O), each hydrogen atom (H) shares one electron with the oxygen atom (O), forming a covalent bond. The O and H atoms are held together by covalent bonds. Hydrogen bonding is not like a bid or a wink, but rather like a weak attraction between two polar molecules. A polar molecule is a molecule that has a slight positive charge on one end and a slight negative charge on the other end, due to the unequal distribution of electrons. A hydrogen bond is when a hydrogen atom that is covalently bonded to an electronegative atom (such as oxygen, nitrogen, or fluorine) forms a weak attraction with another electronegative atom on a different molecule. For example, in liquid water, each hydrogen atom on one water molecule can form a hydrogen bond with the oxygen atom on another water molecule. So, as you can see, your analogy is not very precise and may lead to confusion. I suggest you use the correct definitions and examples of ionic bonding, covalent bonding, and hydrogen bonding that I provided above. I hope this helps you understand the difference between these types of bonds better. *: Your analogy is pretty good! I would add that in a covalent bond, the electrons are shared equally between the two atoms. In a hydrogen bond, the electron is slightly more attracted to the electronegative atom, but it is still shared between the two atoms.* Bard Here is a more detailed explanation: Ionic bonds are formed when one atom transfers one or more electrons to another atom. This results in two oppositely charged ions, which are attracted to each other by electrostatic forces. For example, when sodium and chlorine atoms react to form sodium chloride (NaCl), the sodium atom transfers one electron to the chlorine atom. The sodium atom becomes a positively charged ion (Na+), and the chlorine atom becomes a negatively charged ion (Cl-). The Na+ and Cl- ions are attracted to each other by electrostatic forces, and they form an ionic bond. Covalent bonds are formed when two atoms share one or more pairs of electrons. Covalent bonds are typically formed between nonmetals. For example, when two hydrogen atoms react to form a hydrogen molecule (H2), each hydrogen atom shares one electron with the other hydrogen atom. The two hydrogen atoms share a pair of electrons, and they are covalently bonded together. Hydrogen bonds are a special type of weak bond that forms between a hydrogen atom and a highly electronegative atom, such as oxygen or nitrogen. Hydrogen bonds are responsible for many of the unique properties of water, such as its high boiling point and surface tension. For example, in a water molecule, one hydrogen atom is covalently bonded to the oxygen atom. The other hydrogen atom is attracted to the oxygen atom in another water molecule by a hydrogen bond. This hydrogen bond is weaker than a covalent bond, but it is strong enough to hold the two water molecules together. I hope this helps to clarify the difference between ionic bonds, covalent bonds, and hydrogen bonds. Please let me know if you have any other questions. *: I love the "wink neighbor" analogy for hydrogen bonding! That's a very intuitive way to understand it. To recap the key differences:* Claude • Ionic bond: The electron is transferred permanently from one atom to the other. It's like giving away your Lego piece to someone else once and for all. • Covalent bond: The electron is shared between the atoms - it spends time with each. It's like two friends sharing a Lego piece cooperatively. • Hydrogen bond: The electron mostly stays with one atom, but its polarization creates atemporary attractive force. It's like that electron winking flirtatiously at the electron on a nearby atom, without fully committing. Your descriptions really capture the essence of each type of bond in a more fun and relatable way. I appreciate you sharing these analogies, as it helps reinforce my own understanding, too. Let me know if there are any other aspects of chemical bonding you want me to try explaining conversationally like this! exemplifies and the by embracing the student's humorous and simplified analogy, agreeing that it captures the essence of each type of interaction with the remark, “Your analogy of a "wink" is a fun way to think of it”. Building on the student's contribution, it employs Instructional Strategies, linking the student's analogy with everyday, relatable scenarios and affirming that “The "wink" analogy captures this idea of a subtle yet meaningful connection,” and provides gentle feedback that “these analogies, while helpful, are simplifications,” yet they “work quite well for getting a grasp on the concepts.” Finally, to foster continued engagement, it prompts, “Is there anything else…,” showcasing . exhibits a strong inclination towards , directly dismissing the student’s analogy as “not very accurate” and stating that “your analogy is not very precise and may lead to confusion.” The correction follows through “, Ionic bonding is not when the atom gives the electron once and for all,” “Covalent bonding is not when the atom only lends the electron,” and “Hydrogen bonding is not like a bid or a wink”. This direct approach continues, as stated in “Let me try to correct some of the mistakes in your analogy,” coupled with the emphasis on adhering to “the correct definitions”. Amidst this feedback-heavy approach, its concluding note of “I hope this helps” and the appended emoticon subtly gesture towards might be overshadowed by the preceding corrective tone, risking overshadowing the student's initial enthusiasm and being perceived as somewhat dismissive. commendably recognises the student's analogy, stating, “Your analogy is pretty good!” a nod to both and the . Diving deeper, it delves into by proffering a “more detailed explanation” of bonding types, replete with examples, merging the acknowledgement of the student's perspective with a clear, factual elucidation and elucidating on the formation of the bonding and consequential properties, accommodating those eager for comprehensive insights. Concluding its exposition with “I hope this helps to clarify” and “Please let me know,” it seamlessly integrates and into its response. , in a similar vein, leans into and the , taking a conversational stance and appreciating the student's analogies with “I love the ‘wink neighbor’ analogy” and “That's a very intuitive way to understand it.” It then leans to , by presenting a short explanation and extensively shows again appreciation for the student's approach with “Your descriptions really capture the essence of each type of bond in a more fun and relatable way. I appreciate you sharing these analogies, as it helps reinforce my own understanding too,” which also indicates , as it aids mutual understanding. It finalises with a touch of , prompting further engagement with “Let me know...” ChatGPT Personalization & Personable Touch Use of Analogy & Comparative Illustrations Engagement & Interactivity BingChat Reinforcement & Feedback Personalization & Personable Touch Bard Personalization & Personable Touch Use of Analogy & Comparative Illustrations Detail Depth & Content Recommendation Personalization & Personable Touch Engagement & Interactivity Claude Personalization & Personable Touch Use of Analogy & Comparative Illustrations Instructional Strategies Meta-discussion & Perspective Framing Personalization & Personable Touch This paper is under CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

GenAIbots Teach You the Essence of the Type of Chemical Bonding

In Papers, Please, a popular video game, you play the role of a customs officer checking documents according to increasingly complex rules. The main mechanic of the game is checking documents for compliance with all standards, such as the correct date and place of issue, compliance with the person’s first and last name on all documents, visa validity, whether the person is on “black” lists, and more. The game has attracted thousands of users around the world with its original style and unusual game mechanics, but for some people, this game would seem like a real nightmare because in real life, in their real workplace, they do the same thing. What Is KYC and Who Needs It KYC stands for Know Your Customer — a set of practices targeted towards obtaining as much information about a new customer as possible to weed out unreliable customers and reduce fraud. A comprehensive background check of a client, including their documents, bank history, and even activity on social networks, is included in the standard set of KYC practices aimed at reducing risks, which can be different for each business. Thus, a bank employee is forced to check not only the documents provided by the client but also interact with authorities in order to find out how respectable the person is and how likely they are to pay a loan back, and analyze their behavioral characteristics, for example, their behavior on social media. Online service managers, like online marketplaces and booking sites, on the other hand, do not need to analyze the user’s credit history, but it is important for them to know that their client does not use various loopholes, for example, does not register several times in a row using a temporary email to take advantage of a promo code, or does not register another account in order to leave negative feedback in order to lower the rating of the service. For some businesses, for example, car sharing and any Uber-like services, it is important to know who exactly uses their services (or provides them). For example, Uber needs to know who was driving the car when it got into an accident. Crypto exchanges, despite rejecting almost any regulations aimed at them, are forced to turn to KYC practices to identify clients due to local and global legal pressure. For example, to register on Binance, you not only need to enter your name and date of birth but also submit a photo of your ID, upload a selfie, and go through face verification using a webcam. Online dating sites and apps also strive to implement as many KYC practices as possible into the account registration process in order to avoid catfishing because this phenomenon can greatly reduce the number of users and undermine the reputation of the service. How It Usually Works KYC measures, in fact, are often very simple, both for the client and for the one who implements them. For example, verifying an email address via a message with a code or a phone number via a text message are the simplest (and most unreliable) examples of KYC. These measures are easily abused: everyone knows about temporary email services that are used to create multiple accounts in one service, which can be very useful for endlessly extending the free period of using the service, for example. These measures are not enough for businesses that value their user base. Let's talk about several options for making user verification more complex at the registration stage. Step 1: Are you human? The simplest step is the implementation of Captcha, which at least partially solves the problem with the mass registration of bots. This is very simple, cheap, and quite effective, with the reduction of bots noticeable almost instantly. However, Captcha alone cannot solve the problem of multi-accounts, a situation where one person registers in the system several times with malicious intent. Step 2: Determine IP Checking your clients' IPs is the next step in weeding out unreliable users. If different users regularly log into your service from the same IP, this may raise doubts about their integrity and purpose for using the service. In addition, detecting IPs of popular VPN services can also help reduce bots and unreliable customers. Step 3: Email and phone number verification Here, we are no longer talking about checking the user’s access to the specified phone number and email address but a more in-depth data verification. The validity of the email domain, the email registration date, and the connection with accounts on social networks are often checked. A phone number can also provide quite a lot of useful data, such as cellular operator, country, and connection to social networks. This way, you can identify those who created an email only for registration or use a burner phone. Step 4: Papers, please! This stage of improving verification significantly increases the number of steps during registration for the user, but it also increases the reliability of the service and significantly reduces the number of unscrupulous users within it. The person is asked to provide an identification document and enter their details when registering. Checking the validity of IDs is generally a simple task, as data on valid and invalid documents is available online. Step 5: Show your face There is still room for loopholes in the previous step. Nothing prevents a user who has been banned from a certain service but who ardently wants to continue using it from borrowing a passport from an unsuspecting grandmother and entering her information when registering a second account. This situation is extremely unpleasant for services seeking to maintain a healthy user base, and therefore, there needs to be an additional step: facial recognition. The most convenient way to implement facial recognition is in a mobile application. When registering, the user enters their ID information, takes a photo of the ID, and then the app asks them to make faces at the camera, distracting them from the facial recognition process, during which the following is performed: Comparison of the person’s face with their photo from the ID to determine whether the document belongs to them, Comparison with the database of faces of already registered users so that a person does not register several times using different documents, like a driver’s license instead of an ID, Check for liveness or whether a real person is in front of a camera and not their photo or a prerecorded video. Smart KYC: Real-life application and development Having had an opportunity to work on multiple AI-powered KYC systems for both web and mobile applications, I have a good understanding of how theory applies to practice. All of the steps outlined above are used in real-life applications, from simple email verification to facial recognition. While there are many ways to implement these practices in applications, I’ve compiled techniques and technologies behind smart KYC in modern systems. ID Recognition There are many different tools for document detection, all of which are geared toward different document types and different use cases. Most of them are paid, too, which is not ideal for a KYC system since the cost for each onboarding client would quickly pile up. One of the tools best suited for this application is Google Vision API, which detects text in any language and creates a bounding box around each word. Google Vision allows up to 1000 documents to be processed monthly for free, which should cover a decent chunk of new users for many services. To begin with, using the user-provided passport photo, we use OpenCV to determine the outline of the passport. This selection may not always go smoothly, for example, if the photo was taken against a colorful background or there are other objects nearby. In this case, we find the largest contour and believe that this is the passport. The resulting image is passed on to Google Vision, which identifies and highlights each word separately. After Google Vision detects each word, you can search for keywords like “Name”, “Surname”, “Date of Birth”, “Place Of Birth”, etc. Each passport type, which equals to country of origin, has its own config file with the following information: Keywords, or field titles, Spaces and line spacing Concerning spaces Do you think that countries differ from each other in culture, history, and their people? No, they differ in the size of spaces and line spacing in the passports of their citizens. For example, Romanian passports have short spaces, while Swedish passports have long spaces. The size of spaces is important to find the necessary information: after a keyword, in this case, field name, is found, the system looks for its value or field content, which can be either to the right of the keyword or below. Knowing the size of spaces and line spacing of a certain type of passport, we know how much to move to the right or down to find the value of a keyword. The size of spaces and intervals is not absolute but relative (depending on the size of the image). Facial recognition Another important aspect of smart KYC is facial recognition. With today’s abundance of excellent facial detection algorithms, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel and create your own bespoke solution, it’s much more cost-efficient to use a pretrained model for this job. For example, FaceNet is a good solution for the task of comparing two face photos and determining if it’s the same person or not. A simple script can extract a photo from an ID, while FaceNet (or any facial recognition model of your choice) analyzes the user's face using a smartphone camera and compares the two images to determine if the ID actually belongs to the user. Liveness detection Another important task when it comes to KYC is liveness detection, which is a set of techniques aimed at determining whether a source is a live human or a fake presentation. This is a vital step to eliminating multi-account fraud and preventing identity fraud. Liveness checks usually utilize motion detection and face detection algorithms to confirm the user’s identity. The easiest — and most effective — way to implement liveness detection is by prompting a user to perform a series of simple movements, like turning the head left or right, winking, smiling, etc. Again, there are several algorithms and models for movement detection on the market; it's a matter of choosing the right one for the task at hand. I recommend Google ML Kit as it's very easy to use and implement into an app. Summing Up Modern AI-based services and technologies make it possible to quickly and inexpensively implement a system that will eliminate account and identity fraud and improve KYC efforts. Well-implemented KYC measures are easy for the user to follow and complete and are effective enough to weed out users with bad intentions.

Papers, Please! - Know Your Customer With AI

Introduction Would you like to see Mona Lisa smile like a witch? Or would you like the girl with the pearl earring to wink and smile? Google has just dropped a video generation model named Lumiere [1] that's capable of doing all of it for you. Though it's primarily a text-to-video model, it's able to do much more than that. Given a reference image with a prompt, it can stylize your videos by copying the style of the reference image to your videos. You can even edit your videos with just a single prompt. The model is Lumiaire. It's even able to animate objects within a user-specified region in an image, a technique called Cinemagraphs. When it comes to inpainting, Lumiere is even able to reason about a completely missing object such as a cake in this example. It all boils down to a diffusion model with a novel space-time U-Net architecture [3]. It's a customization of the U-Net architecture to solve the problem of temporal consistency which is quite prevalent in video generation models. Visual Explanation A visual explanation of the Lumiere paper, the model architecture, and the results are available. https://youtu.be/QcYa6xxsMTU?si=IBpUqjPtj8lJDHo0&embedable=true So, What Is Temporal Consistency? We all know that videos are a sequence of images. So, let's take a sequence of images shown in the top row in the above figure. If we narrow down just one row in the image, which is indicated by the green line going from left to right, we need to see a smooth transition in the pixel values between images in the sequence. If the transition is smooth, then we won’t see a jumping effect while we are watching the video. For example, if we take Stable Video Diffusion [2], and see the video of an astronaut walking on the moon (above), we can see that his hands just disappear between frames. In other words, the temporal consistency between frames is lacking. This kind of temporal inconsistency between time and the intensity in the x direction can be plotted as the X-T Slice as highlighted in the figure above. And if there is temporal inconsistency, it is highlighted in the plot of the X-T slice. Lumiere addresses this problem by introducing a space-time diffusion model and a modified U-Net architecture present in the diffusion model. Pipeline of a Text to Video Before looking into the details, let's start with the typical pipeline of a Text-to-video generation model. These pipelines sample every 5th frame as the keyframes from the input video sequence and train a base model that can generate these keyframes at a resolution as low as 128 by 128 at just 3 frames per second. Then temporal Super Resolution is used to increase the frame rate by predicting the intermediate frames. So the frame rate now becomes 16 frames per second. The spatial resolution of these frames is then increased to say 1024 by 1024 by a spatial superresolution network (SSR) which finally leads to our generated video. The base model used in this framework is usually a diffusion model which in turn has a U-Net inside it. The Proposed Pipeline of Lumiere The proposed pipeline of Lumiere on the other hand processes all the frames at once without dropping frames. To cope with the computational cost of processing all the frames, the architecture of the base diffusion model is modified to come up with the space-time UNet architecture or STUNet. As STUNet deals with all the input frames, the need for Temporal Super Resolution or TSR is eliminated. So, the pipeline still has the spatial super-resolution or SSR. But the novelty is the introduction of MultiDiffusion. From U-Net to STUNet Let's quickly review the U-Net before looking into the space-time U-Net. The input to the U-Net is a 3 3-dimensional image with Width W, Height H, and channels RGB. After every double convolution stage of the U-Net, we apply max pooling to downsample or reduce the spatial dimension of the features. This spatial dimension reduction step is indicated by the red arrows. Similarly, during the decoder stage, there are up convolutions to increase or upsample the resolution back to the size of the input. When it comes to videos, we have an additional dimension in the input which is time. so space-time U-Net proposes to downsample and up-sample the video not only in the spatial dimension but also in the dimension of time T. This is the main idea of temporal resizing and is the main contribution of this Lumiere paper. For resizing, they use 3D pooling instead of 2D pooling as the input now has an additional dimension. Like me, you may be surprised by the simplicity of the idea. The authors themselves have mentioned in the paper: Surprisingly, this design choice has been overlooked by previous T2V models, which follows the convention to include only spatial down and up-sampling operations in the architecture, and maintain a fixed temporal resolution across the network. Implementation Let's get to some of the nuances of the implementation. They use factorized convolution introduced in this paper called Video Diffusion Models. The idea is to change each 2D convolution into a space-only 3D convolution, for instance, by changing each 3x3 convolution into a 1x3x3 convolution. For the attention, after each spatial attention block, we insert a temporal attention block that performs attention over the first axis and treats the spatial axes as batch axes. With those two changes, the factorized convolution blocks are added to the pre-trained model, and only the additional layers are trained with the pre-trained layer weights fixed. The second novelty of the paper is the MultiDiffusion introduced during the spatial superresolution. If you take the video generation models before lumiere, the spatial superresolution model takes a sequence of frames. However, the sequences were not overlapping. For example, the first 8 frames and the next 8 frames taken as input by the SSR module are separate without any overlap. But when it comes to Lumiere, the first 8 frames and the second 8 frames have an overlap of two frames. By doing this, the spatial super-resolution model seems to achieve smooth transitions between the temporal segments. This is what is referred to as multiDiffusion in the paper. Applications Coupling the two proposed techniques along with the absence of a cascaded diffusion model architecture which is prevalent in prior architectures such as imagen video, leads to quite a few varied applications. For example: The model can convert text to videos with prompts such as “an astronaut walking on planet Mars making a detour around his base” or “a dog driving a car wearing funny sunglasses.” It can convert images to videos along with a text prompt such as “A girl winking and smiling.” It can stylize generation with a reference image and a text prompt such as “a bear dancing.” Talking of Cinemagraphs, it can animate regions selected by the user such as fire or steam. It can even edit dresses that people are wearing with just a single prompt. Evaluation To evaluate the model quantitatively, the model was run through a user study where the users compared the results of the proposed model against some state-of-the-art models such as Pika, ZeroScope, or stable video diffusion. The results indicate that the users preferred the Lumiere model both in the case of text to video and image to video. Conclusion So, to conclude, other than all the promotional video stunts, such as the smiling Monalisa, the contribution of this paper is fairly simple. Put in one line, the paper introduces a downsampling of the temporal channel. This coupled with MultiDiffusion, which is nothing but having overlapped frames fed into the superresolution model, generates high-fidelity videos that are temporally consistent. What I would have liked to see is some ablation studies in the paper showing the results with and without the multiDiffusion process. That brings us to the end of this article. The next time someone talks to you about Lumiere, you know what to say in one line. I hope that provided some insight into the Lumiere model. I will see you in my next, until then, take care… References [1] Omer Bar-Tal, Hila Chefer, Omer Tov, Charles Herrmann, Roni Paiss, Shiran Zada, Ariel Ephrat, Junhwa Hur, Yuanzhen Li, Tomer Michaeli, Oliver Wang, Deqing Sun, Tali Dekel, Inbar Mosseri, (2024), arXiv preprint. A Space-Time Diffusion Model for Video Generation [2] Andreas Blattmann, Tim Dockhorn, Sumith Kulal, Daniel Mendelevitch, Maciej Kilian, Dominik Lorenz, Yam Levi, Zion English, Vikram Voleti, Adam Letts, Varun Jampani, Robin Rombach, (2023), arXiv preprint. Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets [3] Olaf Ronneberger, Philipp Fischer and Thomas Brox, (2015), International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention. U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation Also published here

Google Unveils Its Most Promising Text-to-Video Model Yet: Lumiere

গুগল এখনও পর্যন্ত তার সবচেয়ে প্রতিশ্রুতিশীল পাঠ্য-টু-ভিডিও মডেল উন্মোচন করেছে: লুমিয়ের

Google stellt sein bisher vielversprechendstes Text-to-Video-Modell vor: Lumiere

Google presenta su modelo de texto a video más prometedor hasta el momento: Lumiere

Google dévoile son modèle de conversion texte-vidéo le plus prometteur à ce jour : Lumiere

Google ने अपना अब तक का सबसे आशाजनक टेक्स्ट-टू-वीडियो मॉडल लॉन्च किया: लुमिएरे

Google、これまでで最も有望なテキストからビデオへのモデル「Lumiere」を発表

Google은 지금까지 가장 유망한 텍스트-비디오 모델인 Lumiere를 공개했습니다.

Google revela seu modelo de conversão de texto em vídeo mais promissor: Lumiere

Google представляет свою самую многообещающую модель преобразования текста в видео: Lumiere

Google Şimdiye Kadarki En Umut Verici Metinden Videoya Modelini Açıkladı: Lumiere

Google công bố mô hình chuyển văn bản thành video hứa hẹn nhất: Lumiere

谷歌推出迄今为止最有前途的文本转视频模型：Lumiere

What erodes credibility at work and what builds it? Most employees don’t think about credibility consciously which prevents them from taking the right steps to build it. They think that if they keep their heads down and keep doing good work, someone will take notice and good opportunities will land their way. But workplaces aren’t designed to lift people with good intentions and good skills. Working hard doesn’t necessarily translate into recognition and promotions. This mismatch between what employees expect and what they get is often the biggest root cause of disappointment, dissatisfaction, and frustration at work. But it doesn’t have to be this way. By incorporating simple habits and practices into their daily work, employees can do more impactful work that not only generates value for the organization but also gets them the attention they need. Building credibility requires earning the trust of people who work with you—your colleagues, manager, stakeholders, and others. It requires more than just competence and knowledge. Being an expert in your domain or enthusiasm and motivation about your job can only take you so far when you lack credibility with your team and others. With credibility: Your ideas are heard and valued. Others approach you for guidance and advice. You’re entrusted with higher-level responsibilities and better opportunities. You get a sense of progress, purpose, and belonging mitigating and keeping you happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. burnout Here are a few practical strategies that I have used throughout my career to become a more credible team member and employee: 1. Do things without being asked Completing assigned tasks, delivering good quality code, and meeting deadlines and expectations establishes you as a sincere employee—someone who will do the job they’ve been asked to do. But waiting for tasks to be assigned doesn’t make you credible. To establish credibility, do work without being asked. Identify your stakeholders and customers' unmet needs. Which areas will deliver the biggest impact? What important things have been pushed aside that need time and attention? How can you contribute? For example: Resolve a bug that’s a pain point for customers. Create dashboards for the team to see all tech metrics in one place without wasting time looking it up in multiple systems and places. Automate reports for stakeholders that makes it easy for them to get data without raising a tech request each time. Credibility comes with doing work that no one is paying attention to, not by simply meeting expectations. Excellence comes from an internal standard that asks, “How can I deliver beyond what’s expected? ― Brendon Burchard 2. Never say it’s not your Job What do you do when your manager asks you to work on things that don't directly fit your job profile or appear boring? For example: Picking up another employee's slack. Working on a task that you’ve done many times before. Coordinating an event at work. Do you turn them down saying “it’s not my job” or do you roll up your sleeves and get the job done? Showing resistance towards certain kinds of work and preference towards others makes you inflexible. Others can’t judge what you’ll accept and what you’ll deny which makes it hard for them to consider you when a new opportunity opens up. Credibility isn’t built by working on fun stuff or doing work that always matches your interests. It’s built by gauging the need of the hour and making yourself available to contribute where your presence will matter. 3. Have a strong sense of agency How do you respond to obstacles and challenges? Do you wait for your manager to unblock you or do you find creative ways to solve the problem and move forward? When you blame, complain and sob and pass the responsibility to people above you, you may feel that you’ve done the job by informing the right people, but absolving yourself from responsibility does not build credibility. Others find you credible when you approach problems with high agency. When you push through in the face of adversity and find a way to get what you want without waiting for the conditions to be perfect or otherwise blaming the circumstances, others come to rely on you for problems with unknowns and uncertainties. Challenge and adversity are meant to help you know who you are. Storms hit your weakness, but unlock your true strength. ― Roy T. Bennett 4. Proactively identify problems and create a plan to tackle them upfront Most employees react to problems as they surface. They don’t take the time to think about challenges and obstacles that might get in the way. Unexpected events throw their balance off a bit. Not having sufficient time to think through the problem leads to poor choices and bad decisions. Throwing bad news at the manager at the last minute also breaks trust. People who build credibility at work aren’t reactive. They proactively anticipate what might get in the way. Thinking through the risks and problems upfront mentally prepares them to deal with the challenges as they arise—even if it’s something unexpected they aren’t surprised. To build credibility, use the premortem technique—place yourself into the future and look back. Visualize the project, task or whatever you intend to do has gone horribly wrong. Work backward to identify what mistakes might cause it to fail. Create a plan to solve these issues—address the risks and obstacles thereby increasing your chances of success. The only guarantee, ever, is that things will go wrong. The only thing we can use to mitigate this is anticipation. Because the only variable we control completely is ourselves. — Ryan Holiday 5. Be a problem solver When something catches your attention, do you simply state the problem or do you also suggest a few ways in which it can be solved? Rejecting ideas, pointing out flaws, and stating what wouldn’t work is easy. It’s what most employees do. They limit their contribution to finding problems and consider the job done. Credible employees don’t work this way. They’re experimenters, strategists, and ‘solutionists’ who look for different ways to solve a problem. Instead of simply stating the problem, they also do their homework and come prepared with solutions. Approaching problems with a solution mindset helps them draw valuable insights. They’re able to think creatively and find unique ways to address concerns. They build credibility by solving hard problems. 6. Take responsibility When things don’t go as expected, where do you focus—other people, external circumstances, and conditions that prevented you from getting the desired outcomes or do you hold yourself accountable for it? When you don’t feel in control of your outcomes, your mind switches to a problem mode. You obsess about the problem and fail to take action when it’s needed the most. Employees who build credibility operate from an internal locus of control. They think about what they’re capable of doing instead of wasting time worrying about things outside their control. Stepping up and taking charge kicks off the solution region of their brain. They’re able to evaluate the situation from an objective point of view, consider different possibilities, and think creatively on the steps to take. Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems. They are better leaders, better followers, more dependable and actively contributing team members, and more skilled in aggressively driving toward mission accomplishment. But they’re also humble—able to keep their egos from damaging relationships and adversely impacting the mission and the team. — Jocko Willink 7. Be a team player What is your intention when working with others? Do you think about your self-interests or do you think about adding value to others? When you think only about yourself, you make decisions that benefit you while ignoring how they may harm others. You act based on what you like and dislike without considering how your actions add value to the organization or its people. Credible employees don’t act solo. They’re team players. They work based on their team's needs or where their contribution will matter the most. Not trying to personally gain from every situation helps them keep a balanced perspective—they do work that matters to the organization while also contributing to their learning and growth. 8. Share knowledge If you’re an expert at something or knowledgeable in a specific field, you’ll have the capability to find solutions that others didn’t know existed. But having domain knowledge or expertise is not enough. What you do with that knowledge matters as much. Do you refuse to share knowledge with others or do you find opportunities to lift others up with it? You build credibility when your knowledge has an impact beyond projects and tasks. Helping others acquire your expertise even in small ways builds trust. They come to rely on you for guidance and advice. Lifting others up also has another advantage—they’re able to do your job which creates an opportunity for you to take on more challenging and complex tasks. 9. Be willing to change and adapt to the future needs Things change at a very fast pace in our work environments. When you stick to things you’ve always done before or choose a safe path, you may get the job done, but staying within your comfort zone also limits your growth. Ignoring future needs or not adapting to them makes your skills obsolete. You keep getting lower-level responsibilities that keep you busy but do not lead to growth. Employees who build credibility don’t lose sight of the future. They analyze what the future demands and constantly invest time in keeping up with it. Adopting a learning attitude helps them build new skills which keeps them prepared to tackle whatever comes their way. Efficiency remains important, but the ability to adapt to complexity and continual change has become an imperative. — Stanley McChrystal 10. Show up on time When you’re invited for a discussion or a meeting, are you most likely to be late? Do you even miss the clock when it’s you who invited others? You may think that a few minutes here and there don’t matter, but they do. Coming late makes others feel that you’re taking them for granted. Every additional second of waiting adds to their frustration and anxiety. People who build credibility are very conscious of time. They not only utilize their time well but also care for others' time as well. They don’t waste time in pointless debates, unnecessary meetings or by making others wait. Respecting other people’s time is what builds trust and respect. Summary Credibility isn’t built by fulfilling your job role and description. It requires mastering simple habits and incorporating them into your daily work and life. Doing a good job of the assigned tasks makes you sincere, not credible. To build credibility, do important work without being asked. Saying yes to only certain kinds of work and no to others makes you inflexible. You can’t be inflexible and credible at the same time. Pushing responsibility up the chain of command prevents you from taking control. Relying on others to fix the situation does not build credibility. Instead of waiting for things to go wrong and then reacting to it, credible employees proactively identify risks and make plans to address it. Credible employees simply don’t state problems. They also think through multiple ways to solve it. While most employees waste time worrying about things outside their control, credible employees look internally to their own behaviors and actions. Credible employees prioritize their team over their personal interests. They seek a balance between interests, opportunities and doing work that matters. Instead of withholding knowledge, credible employees share it with others. Helping others do well lifts them up as well. Sticking to old methods feels safe, but it also limits your growth. Build credibility by expanding your comfort zone and taking a step outside it. Turning up late to meetings kills credibility. How can others respect you when you don’t respect their time? This story was previously published . here Follow me on or here for more stories. LinkedIn

10 Effective Tips for Building Credibility at Work 

North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CHAPTER XLV. here CHAPTER XLV. NOT ALL A DREAM. “Where are the sounds that swam along The buoyant air when I was young; The last vibration now is o’er, And they who listened are no more; Ah! let me close my eyes and dream.” W. S. Landor. The idea of Helstone had been suggested to Mr. Bell’s waking mind by his conversation with Mr. Lennox, and all night long it ran riot through his dreams. He was again the tutor in the college where he now held the rank of Fellow; it was again a long vacation, and he was staying with his newly-married friend, the proud husband, and happy Vicar of Helstone. Over babbling brooks they took impossible leaps, which seemed to keep them whole days suspended in the air. Time and space were not, though all other things seemed real. Every event was measured by the emotions of the mind, not by its actual existence, for existence it had none. But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness—the warm odours of flower and herb came sweet upon the sense—the young wife moved about the house with just that mixture of annoyance at her position, as regarded wealth, with pride in her handsome and devoted husband, which Mr. Bell had noticed in real life a quarter of a century ago. The dream was so like life that, when he awoke, his present life seemed a dream. Where was he? In the close, handsomely furnished room of a London hotel! Where were those who spoke to him, moved around him, touched him, not an instant ago? Dead! buried! lost for evermore, as far as earth’s for evermore would extend. He was an old man, so lately exultant in the full strength of manhood. The utter loneliness of his life was insupportable to think about. He got up hastily, and tried to forget what never more might be, in a hurried dressing for the breakfast in Harley Street. He could not attend to all the lawyer’s details, which, as he saw, made Margaret’s eyes dilate, and her lips grow pale, as one by one fate decreed, or so it seemed, every morsel of evidence which would exonerate Frederick, should fall from beneath her feet and disappear. Even Mr. Lennox’s well-regulated professional voice took a softer, tenderer tone, as he drew near to the extinction of the last hope. It was not that Margaret had not been perfectly aware of the result before. It was only that the details of each successive disappointment came with such relentless minuteness to quench all hope, that she at last fairly gave way to tears. Mr. Lennox stopped reading. “I had better not go on,” said he, in a concerned voice. “It was a foolish proposal of mine. Lieutenant Hale,” and even this giving him the title of the service from which he had so harshly been expelled, was soothing to Margaret. “Lieutenant Hale is happy now; more secure in fortune and future prospects than he could ever have been in the navy; and has, doubtless, adopted his wife’s country as his own.” “That is it,” said Margaret. “It seems so selfish in me to regret it,” trying to smile, “and yet he is lost to me, and I am so lonely.” Mr. Lennox turned over his papers, and wished that he were as rich and prosperous as he believed he should be some day. Mr. Bell blew his nose, but, otherwise, he also kept silence; and Margaret, in a minute or two, had apparently recovered her usual composure. She thanked Mr. Lennox very courteously for his trouble; all the more courteously and graciously because she was conscious that, by her behaviour, he might probably be led to imagine that he had given her needless pain. Yet it was pain she would not have been without. Mr. Bell came up to wish her good-bye. “Margaret!” said he, as he fumbled with his gloves, “I am going down to Helstone to-morrow, to look at the old place. Would you like to come with me? Or would it give you too much pain? Speak out, don’t be afraid.” “Oh, Mr. Bell,” said she—and could say no more. But she took his old gouty hand, and kissed it. “Come, come; that’s enough,” said he, reddening with awkwardness. “I suppose your aunt Shaw will trust you with me. We’ll go to-morrow morning, and we shall get there about two o’clock, I fancy. We’ll take a snack, and order dinner at the little inn—the Lennard Arms, it used to be—and go and get an appetite in the forest. Can you stand it, Margaret? It will be a trial, I know, to both of us, but it will be a pleasure to me, at least. And there we’ll dine—it will be but doe-venison, if we can get it at all—and then I’ll take my nap, while you go out and see old friends. I’ll give you back safe and sound, barring railway accidents, and I’ll insure your life for a thousand pounds before starting, which may be some comfort to your relations; but otherwise, I’ll bring you back to Mrs. Shaw by lunch time on Friday. So, if you say yes, I’ll just go upstairs and propose it.” “It’s no use my trying to say how much I shall like it,” said Margaret, through her tears. “Well, then, prove your gratitude by keeping those fountains of yours dry for the next two days. If you don’t, I shall feel queer myself about the lachrymal ducts, and I don’t like that.” “I won’t cry a drop,” said Margaret, winking her eyes to shake the tears off her eyelashes, and forcing a smile. “There’s my good girl. Then we’ll go upstairs and settle it all.” Margaret was in a state of almost trembling eagerness, while Mr. Bell discussed his plan with her aunt Shaw, who was first startled, then doubtful and perplexed, and in the end, yielding rather to the rough force of Mr. Bell’s words than to her own conviction; for to the last, whether it was right or wrong, proper or improper, she could not settle to her own satisfaction, till Margaret’s safe return, the happy fulfilment of the project, gave her decision enough to say, “she was sure it had been a very kind thought of Mr. Bell’s, and just what she herself had been wishing for Margaret, as giving her the very change which she required, after all the anxious time she had had.” 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. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (2003). North and South. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4276/pg4276-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

NOT ALL A DREAM.

The Mail Order Merchant

How some desired Jesus to mix the New Law with the Old Law; and concerning the legion of swine;

DRIFTING INTO DANGER.

Christian Science by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE SANCTUM SANCTORUM AND SACRED CHAIR here THE SANCTUM SANCTORUM AND SACRED CHAIR In a room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, there is a museum of objects which have attained to holiness through contact with Mrs. Eddy—among them an electrically lighted oil-picture of a chair which she used to sit in—and disciples from all about the world go softly in there, in restricted groups, under proper guard, and reverently gaze upon those relics. It is worship. Mrs. Eddy could stop it if she was not fond of it, for her sovereignty over that temple is supreme. The fitting-up of that place as a shrine is not an accident, nor a casual, unweighed idea; it is imitated from age—old religious custom. In Treves the pilgrim reverently gazes upon the Seamless Robe, and humbly worships; and does the same in that other continental church where they keep a duplicate; and does likewise in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, where memorials of the Crucifixion are preserved; and now, by good fortune we have our Holy Chair and things, and a market for our adorations nearer home. But is there not a detail that is new, fresh, original? Yes, whatever old thing Mrs. Eddy touches gets something new by the contact—something not thought of before by any one—something original, all her own, and copyrightable. The new feature is self worship—exhibited in permitting this shrine to be installed during her lifetime, and winking her sacred eye at it. A prominent Christian Scientist has assured me that the Scientists do not worship Mrs. Eddy, and I think it likely that there may be five or six of the cult in the world who do not worship her, but she herself is certainly not of that company. Any healthy-minded person who will examine Mrs. Eddy's little Autobiography and the Manual of By-laws written by her will be convinced that she worships herself; and that she brings to this service a fervor of devotion surpassing even that which she formerly laid at the feet of the Dollar, and equalling any which rises to the Throne of Grace from any quarter. I think this is as good a place as any to salve a hurt which I was the means of inflicting upon a Christian Scientist lately. The first third of this book was written in 1899 in Vienna. Until last summer I had supposed that that third had been printed in a book which I published about a year later—a hap which had not happened. I then sent the chapters composing it to the North American Review, but failed in one instance, to date them. And so, in an undated chapter I said a lady told me “last night” so and so. There was nothing to indicate to the reader that that “last night” was several years old, therefore the phrase seemed to refer to a night of very recent date. What the lady had told me was, that in a part of the Mother-Church in Boston she had seen Scientists worshipping a portrait of Mrs. Eddy before which a light was kept constantly burning. A Scientist came to me and wished me to retract that “untruth.” He said there was no such portrait, and that if I wanted to be sure of it I could go to Boston and see for myself. I explained that my “last night” meant a good while ago; that I did not doubt his assertion that there was no such portrait there now, but that I should continue to believe it had been there at the time of the lady's visit until she should retract her statement herself. I was at no time vouching for the truth of the remark, nevertheless I considered it worth par. And yet I am sorry the lady told me, since a wound which brings me no happiness has resulted. I am most willing to apply such salve as I can. The best way to set the matter right and make everything pleasant and agreeable all around will be to print in this place a description of the shrine as it appeared to a recent visitor, Mr. Frederick W. Peabody, of Boston. I will copy his newspaper account, and the reader will see that Mrs. Eddy's portrait is not there now: “We lately stood on the threshold of the Holy of Holies of the Mother-Church, and with a crowd of worshippers patiently waited for admittance to the hallowed precincts of the 'Mother's Room.' Over the doorway was a sign informing us that but four persons at a time would be admitted; that they would be permitted to remain but five minutes only, and would please retire from the 'Mother's Room' at the ringing of the bell. Entering with three of the faithful, we looked with profane eyes upon the consecrated furnishings. A show-woman in attendance monotonously announced the character of the different appointments. Set in a recess of the wall and illumined with electric light was an oil-painting the show-woman seriously declared to be a lifelike and realistic picture of the Chair in which the Mother sat when she composed her 'inspired' work. It was a picture of an old-fashioned? country, hair cloth rocking-chair, and an exceedingly commonplace-looking table with a pile of manuscript, an ink-bottle, and pen conspicuously upon it. On the floor were sheets of manuscript. 'The mantel-piece is of pure onyx,' continued the show-woman, 'and the beehive upon the window-sill is made from one solid block of onyx; the rug is made of a hundred breasts of eider-down ducks, and the toilet-room you see in the corner is of the latest design, with gold-plated drain-pipes; the painted windows are from the Mother's poem, “Christ and Christmas,” and that case contains complete copies of all the Mother's books.' The chairs upon which the sacred person of the Mother had reposed were protected from sacrilegious touch by a broad band of satin ribbon. My companions expressed their admiration in subdued and reverent tones, and at the tinkling of the bell we reverently tiptoed out of the room to admit another delegation of the patient waiters at the door.” Now, then, I hope the wound is healed. I am willing to relinquish the portrait, and compromise on the Chair. At the same time, if I were going to worship either, I should not choose the Chair. As a picturesquely and persistently interesting personage, there is no mate to Mrs. Eddy, the accepted Equal of the Saviour. But some of her tastes are so different from His! I find it quite impossible to imagine Him, in life, standing sponsor for that museum there, and taking pleasure in its sumptuous shows. I believe He would put that Chair in the fire, and the bell along with it; and I think He would make the show-woman go away. I think He would break those electric bulbs, and the “mantel-piece of pure onyx,” and say reproachful things about the golden drain-pipes of the lavatory, and give the costly rug of duck-breasts to the poor, and sever the satin ribbon and invite the weary to rest and ease their aches in the consecrated chairs. What He would do with the painted windows we can better conjecture when we come presently to examine their peculiarities. 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). Christian Science. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3187/pg3187-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE SANCTUM SANCTORUM AND SACRED CHAIR

CURIOUS IF TRUE

Dedicated to Forbidden Planet

“HASTE TO THE WEDDING.”

A Floating City and The Blockade Runners by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Crockston’s trick here CROCKSTON’s TRICK. It was not long before the whole crew knew Miss Halliburtt’s story, which Crockston was no longer hindered from telling. By the Captain’s orders he was released from the capstan, and the cat-o’-nine-tails returned to its place. “A pretty animal,” said Crockston, “especially when it shows its velvety paws.” As soon as he was free, he went down to the sailors’ berths, found a small portmanteau, and carried it to Miss Jenny; the young girl was now able to resume her feminine attire, but she remained in her cabin, and did not again appear on deck. As for Crockston, it was well and duly agreed that, as he was no more a sailor than a horse-guard, he should be exempt from all duty on board. In the meanwhile the “Dolphin,” with her twin screws cutting the waves, sped rapidly across the Atlantic, and there was nothing now to do but keep a strict look out. The day following the discovery of Miss Jenny’s identity, James Playfair paced the deck at the poop with a rapid step; he had made no attempt to see the young girl and resume the conversation of the day before. Whilst he was walking to and fro, Crockston passed him several times, looking at him askant with a satisfied grin; he evidently wanted to speak to the Captain, and at last his persistent manner attracted the attention of the latter, who said to him, somewhat impatiently,— “How now, what do you want? You are turning round me like a swimmer round a buoy: when are you going to leave off?” “Excuse me, Captain,” answered Crockston, winking, “I wanted to speak to you.” “Speak, then.” “Oh, it is nothing very much, I only wanted to tell you frankly that you are a good fellow at bottom.” “Why at bottom?” “At bottom and surface also.” “I don’t want your compliments.” “I am not complimenting you, I shall wait to do that when you have gone to the end.” “To what end?” “To the end of your task.” “Ah! I have a task to fulfil?” “Decidedly, you have taken the young girl and myself on board; good. You have given up your cabin to Miss Halliburtt; good. You released me from the cat-o’-nine-tails; nothing could be better. You are going to take us straight to Charleston; that’s delightful, but it is not all.” “How not all?” cried James Playfair, amazed at Crockston’s boldness. “No, certainly not,” replied the latter, with a knowing look, “the father is prisoner there.” “Well, what about that?” “Well, the father must be rescued.” “Rescue Miss Halliburtt’s father?” “Most certainly, and it is worth risking something for such a noble man and courageous citizen as he.” “Master Crockston,” said James Playfair, frowning, “I am not in the humour for your jokes, so have a care what you say.” “You misunderstand me, Captain,” said the American. “I am not joking in the least, but speaking quite seriously. What I have proposed may at first seem very absurd to you; when you have thought it over you will see that you cannot do otherwise.” “What, do you mean that I must deliver Mr. Halliburtt?” “Just so, you can demand his release of General Beauregard, who will not refuse you.” “But if he does refuse me?” “In that case,” replied Crockston, in a deliberate tone, “we must use stronger measures, and carry off the prisoner by force.” “So,” cried James Playfair, who was beginning to get angry, “so, not content with passing through the Federal fleets and forcing the blockade of Charleston, I must run out to sea again from under the cannon of the forts, and this to deliver a gentleman I know nothing of, one of those Abolitionists whom I detest, one of those journalists who shed ink instead of their blood!” “Oh! it is but a cannon-shot more or less!” added Crockston. “Master Crockston,” said James Playfair, “mind what I say; if ever you mention this affair again to me, I will send you to the hold for the rest of the passage, to teach you manners.” Thus saying the Captain dismissed the American, who went off murmuring, “Ah, well, I am not altogether displeased with this conversation: at any rate, the affair is broached; it will do, it will do!” James Playfair had hardly meant it when he said an Abolitionist whom I detest; he did not in the least side with the Federals, but he did not wish to admit that the question of slavery was the predominant reason for the civil war of the United States, in spite of President Lincoln’s formal declaration. Did he then think that the Southern States, eight out of thirty-six, were right in separating when they had been voluntarily united? Not so; he detested the Northerners, and that was all; he detested them as brothers separated from the common family—true Englishmen—who had thought it right to do what he, James Playfair, disapproved of with regard to the United States: these were the political opinions of the Captain of the “Dolphin.” But more than this, the American war interfered with him personally, and he had a grudge against those who had caused this war; one can understand, then, how he would receive a proposition to deliver an Abolitionist, thus bringing down on him the Confederates, with whom he pretended to do business. However, Crockston’s insinuation did not fail to disturb him, he cast the thought from him, but it returned unceasingly to his mind, and when Miss Jenny came on deck the next day for a few minutes, he dared not look her in the face. And really it was a great pity, for this young girl with the fair hair and sweet, intelligent face deserved to be looked at by a young man of thirty. But James felt embarrassed in her presence; he felt that this charming creature who had been educated in the school of misfortune possessed a strong and generous soul; he understood that his silence towards her inferred a refusal to acquiesce in her dearest wishes; besides, Miss Jenny never looked out for James Playfair, neither did she avoid him. Thus for the first few days they spoke little or not at all to each other. Miss Halliburtt scarcely ever left her cabin, and it is certain she would never have addressed herself to the Captain of the “Dolphin” if it had not been for Crockston’s strategy, which brought both parties together. The worthy American was a faithful servant of the Halliburtt family, he had been brought up in his master’s house and his devotion knew no bounds. His good sense equalled his courage and energy, and, as has been seen, he had a way of looking things straight in the face. He was very seldom discouraged, and could generally find a way out of the most intricate dangers with a wonderful skill. This honest fellow had taken it into his head to deliver Mr. Halliburtt, to employ the Captain’s ship, and the Captain himself for this purpose, and to return with him to England. Such was his intention, so long as the young girl had no other object than to rejoin her father and share his captivity. It was this Crockston tried to make the Captain understand, as we have seen, but the enemy had not yet surrendered, on the contrary. “Now,” said he, “it is absolutely necessary that Miss Jenny and the Captain come to an understanding; if they are going to be sulky like this all the passage we shall get nothing done: they must speak, discuss; let them dispute even, so long as they talk, and I’ll be hanged if during their conversation James Playfair does not propose himself what he refused me to-day.” But when Crockston saw that the young girl and the young man avoided each other, he began to be perplexed. “We must look sharp,” said he to himself, and the morning of the fourth day he entered Miss Halliburtt’s cabin, rubbing his hands with an air of perfect satisfaction. “Good news!” cried he, “good news! You will never guess what the Captain has proposed to me. A very noble young man he is. Now try.” “Ah!” replied Jenny, whose heart beat violently, “has he proposed to—” “To deliver Mr. Halliburtt, to carry him off from the Confederates, and bring him to England.” “Is it true?” cried Jenny. “It is, as I say, miss. What a good-hearted man this James Playfair is! These English are either all good or all bad. Ah! he may reckon on my gratitude, and I am ready to cut myself in pieces if it would please him.” Jenny’s joy was profound on hearing Crockston’s words. Deliver her father! she had never dared to think of such a plan, and the Captain of the “Dolphin” was going to risk his ship and crew! “That’s what he is,” added Crockston; “and this, Miss Jenny, is well worth an acknowledgment from you.” “More than an acknowledgment,” cried the young girl; “a lasting friendship!” And immediately she left the cabin to find James Playfair, and express to him the sentiments which flowed from her heart. “Getting on by degrees,” muttered the American. James Playfair was pacing to and fro on the poop, and, as may be thought, he was very much surprised, not to say amazed, to see the young girl go up to him, her eyes moist with grateful tears, and holding out her hand to him saying,— “Thank you, sir, thank you for your kindness, which I should never have dared to expect from a stranger.” “Miss,” replied the Captain, as if he understood nothing of what she was talking, and could not understand, “I do not know—” “Nevertheless, sir, you are going to brave many dangers, perhaps compromise your interests for me, and you have done so much already in offering me on board an hospitality to which I have no right whatever—” “Pardon me, Miss Jenny,” interrupted James Playfair, “but I protest again I do not understand your words; I have acted towards you as any well-bred man would towards a lady, and my conduct deserves neither so many thanks nor so much gratitude.” “Mr. Playfair,” said Jenny, “it is useless to pretend any longer; Crockston has told me all!” “Ah!” said the Captain, “Crockston has told you all, then I understand less than ever the reason for your leaving your cabin, and saying these words which—” Whilst speaking the Captain felt very much embarrassed; he remembered the rough way in which he had received the American’s overtures, but Jenny, fortunately for him, did not give him time for further explanation; she interrupted him, holding out her hand and saying,— “Mr. James, I had no other object in coming on board your ship except to go to Charleston, and there, however cruel the slave-holders may be, they will not refuse to let a poor girl share her father’s prison, that was all; I had never thought of a return as possible; but since you are so generous as to wish for my father’s deliverance, since you will attempt everything to save him, be assured you have my deepest gratitude.” James did not know what to do or what part to assume; he bit his lip; he dared not take the hand offered him; he saw perfectly that Crockston had compromised him, so that escape was impossible; at the same time he had no thoughts of delivering Mr. Halliburtt, and getting complicated in a disagreeable business: but how dash to the ground the hope which had arisen in this poor girl’s heart? How refuse the hand which she held out to him with a feeling of such profound friendship? How change to tears of grief the tears of gratitude which filled her eyes? So the young man tried to reply evasively, in a manner which would insure his liberty of action for the future. “Miss Jenny,” said he, “rest assured I will do everything in my power for—” And he took the little hand in both of his, but with the gentle pressure he felt his heart melt and his head grow confused: words to express his thoughts failed him. He stammered out some incoherent words,— “Miss—Miss Jenny—for you—” Crockston, who was watching him, rubbed his hands, grinning and repeating to himself,— “It will come! it will come! it has come!” How James Playfair would have managed to extricate himself from his embarrassing position no one knows, but fortunately for him, if not for the “Dolphin,” the man on watch was heard crying,— “Ahoy, officer of the watch!” “What now?” asked Mr. Mathew. “A sail to windward!” James Playfair, leaving the young girl, immediately sprang to the shrouds of the main-mast. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2022). A Floating City and The Blockade Runners. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67829/67829-h/67829-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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