Assalamu alaikum rahmatullah. It's an honor and privilege to be in this beautiful company and it's a madean of muhabba. It's an arena of love and so the the hearts are warmed and it's really you know we we ask Allah to include us in the prophetic description of such gatherings of His remembrance that the Sikina descends tranquility and the angelic presence is there the angels are present and the mercy of Allah Ta'ala envelops us and that Allah Ta'ala himself remembers us in his the Malil Aala. Our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was a prophet of hope and optimism and it's difficult to read the seerah the blessed life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam except that one is filled with the sense of awe at the at the hope of of our blessed Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in his Lord. He said Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that I can just hold it maybe. He said Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in the hadith that's related in the musnad of Imam Ahmad. He said Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that there's no such thing as superstition or bad omens bad luck these kind of things they have no they have no reality but I love optimism and optimism is a goodly pure word or pure statements good speech and the scholars clarify that if one is trying to fulfill a need and in that process Allah Ta'ala takes them such that they encounter a person of righteousness such that you know the a place or a time in which it occurs is there's something of barakah then it is from the sunnah to actually intuit from that positivity that Allah Ta'ala is helping that person and that Allah Allah will deliver them from whatever you know difficulty that they're in and another principle that is from the prophetic way is rajah which is hope in the divine and Imam Qashayli he says that rajah is qurb al qalb min mulatafat al rabb it is for the heart to be near to the subtle grace of the divine in other words to intuit the omnipresent subtle mercy and grace of Allah Ta'ala that imbues this cosmos and my mercy encompasses every single thing and so no matter how difficult a situation might appear to be it is not divorced from the divine mercy the divine mercy is ever present if we are open if we have that hope that optimism to intuit it to recognize it to embrace it and you know the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam his optimism was grounded in his perception of divine beauty and he was the most perceptive of divine beauty he was the most cognizant the one who recognized the most the beauty of Allah Ta'ala sallallahu alayhi sallam and thus whatever challenges and difficulties he faced as we read in the seerah he was never you know unsettled sallallahu alayhi sallam and in as much as he's he was the most perceptive of the divine beauty sallallahu alayhi sallam he was also the most reflective of the divine beauty such that the people who are blessed to be around him as believers the companions Allah be pleased with them they could intuit that sublime reflection of Allah's Nur in his blessed person so his luminosity his radiance there are over 40 companions and contemporaries of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam that described him as luminous and you know the Al-Bara' ibn Azib one of the companions as is related in Bukhari and Muslim that he said I never saw anything more beautiful than God's Messenger and they would even perceive it from his blessed speech sallallahu alayhi sallam so Ibn Abbas relates a hadith that's in the Shamail that in the Shamail of Imam Tirmidhi radhullah wa anhumah that kana Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam aflaj athaniyatain that the blessed Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam had a small gap between his middle teeth and this is something the Arabs considered very handsome a signifying beauty and he said that when the Prophet would speak sallallahu alayhi sallam that it would be seen as light emanating from between those blessed teeth sallallahu alayhi sallam and Abu Huraira radhullah anhu in the hadith of Tirmidhi that Tirmidhi also relates radhullah anhu that he said I never saw anything more beautiful than God's Messenger sallallahu alayhi sallam and he said it was as if the sun itself were flowing in his blessed face sallallahu alayhi sallam and the great companion Jabir Ibn Samura also in the Shamail of Imam Tirmidhi radhullah that he said in Sahih Muslim he said kana wajhuhu sallallahu alayhi sallam مثل الشمس والقمر he said that the blessed face of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was like the sun and the moon was like the sun and the moon and the same companion Jabir Ibn Samura radhullah anhu in the Shamail of Imam Tirmidhi he says that on one night he says radhullah sallallahu alayhi sallam he says one night I saw the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and it was a it was a night that was moonlit from the beginning to the end of the night idhayyan means imam jasuh says it's it the the moon was bright from the beginning to the end of the night and he says and he was wearing a red garment and he says and so I started looking at him sallallahu alayhi sallam and at the full bright luminous moon back and forth back and forth and he says radhullah anhu the lamb is for on earth it's like saying by Allah he sallallahu alayhi sallam in my estimate in my opinion in my view was far more beautiful than the moon and the ulama clarified that when he says it's not as if it was only his opinion but he's taking sharaf tasharruf it's like this is this is in me it with me is his is that he is better than the moon sallallahu alayhi sallam and some of the ulama say that these comparisons to the sun and the moon that the tamfil is actually reversed it's an inverted comparison so so in the wording is that he is like the sun sallallahu alayhi sallam he is like the moon but in reality the ulama say some of the scholars say that the sun and the moon were like him right because which one is higher in luminosity which one is higher in radiance and this is why the there's a poet imam salihi in his subul al-huda wa rasha the 12 volume book of seerah beautiful book of seerah he cites one of the great poets he says that wa lima la yudi'u bika al wujudu wa layluhu wa fihi sabahun min jamalika musfiru wa bi shamsi husnika kullu yawmin mushrikun wa bi badri wa bi badri wajhika kullu laylin mukmiru sallallahu alayhi sallam that he says he says why is it not the case why would it not be the case that the entire cosmos it's day and its night is lit up through you because every morning it's from your jamal it's from your beauty that the that the day gives its light and he says and so it's from the sun the shams the sun of your beauty that every day gives light and it's from the full moon of your blessed face that the night has a moon that night sallallahu alayhi sallam so he is the usul and every beauty in the world is a refraction a reflection of his usul is of his light sallallahu alayhi sallam and uh sheikh abduhaki murad i think he has a contention that i don't fully understand but it's around it hovers around this meaning that uh every perception of beauty every perception of beauty is a prayer upon the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and so when we witness beauty in the world we are capturing something we are recognizing something of that supreme usul sallallahu alayhi sallam and so how could he and his companions not be anything but hopeful sallallahu alayhi sallam and so then we reflect on the seerah and we see that with all that luminosity sallallahu alayhi sallam with all that radiance sallallahu alayhi sallam that time and time again whatever negativity whatever darkness that he that he encountered in the world it did not it did not affect him it did not move him away from his connection with his lord from his trust in his lord sallallahu alayhi sallam and so for example that the uh when the early in the in the muckin period when the qureish in their in their vehemence in their vileness they started writing poetry against him sallallahu alayhi sallam and they they were so it's so much calamity so much slander against him that they even changed his blessed name so his blessed name is muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam which linguistic means the one that is praised so much the one that is receiving so much praise so they switched it and they made it you know safr aladim mudhammam which is the opposite meaning and so then they were spreading this horrible poetry and using that false name instead of his true name and so he's sitting with the companion sallallahu alayhi sallam as is related an authentic hadith that musnad ibn ahmad that he says sallallahu alayhi sallam afala ta'jabun sallallahu alayhi sallam he says isn't it amazing that it's an optimism look at the look at the positivity sallallahu alayhi sallam he said isn't it amazing how Allah ta'ala diverted the the slander and the and the and the you know the the calamity of qureish away from me because they're directing all of that stuff against someone named mudhamma mudhammam but that's not my name my name is muhammad subhanallah like he he sees all that radiance so he could only see the noor he could only see the light of Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam later in the seerah then the muckin period for 10 years every in the mawasim every haj season he would go and make dawah sallallahu alayhi sallam inviting all of these big tribes up to a dozen or more tribes and clans of tribes that were visiting from around arabia and he was making inviting them to islam preaching the oneness of Allah ta'ala and then asking them if they would support him because of all the persecution in makkah sallallahu alayhi sallam and in the tabaqat of ibn sa'ad he says he relates that abul lahab would be following him wherever he goes and then he would be slandering him right afterwards so he so that the the you know his attempt to make dawah would be affected so people would say well if that's his own family so they would get hesitancy and then he said sallallahu alayhi sallam the dua he says Allahumma lo shittah lam yakunu haqadah subhanallah he his you know he is he is always with his lord sallallahu alayhi sallam so he says oh Allah if you willed they would not have been like this referring to abul lahab and and whoever reacted in a negative way oh Allah had you willed they would not have been like this because Allah ta'ala is in his dominion is the cosmos which includes the heart of every every human being if there's any person that is causing us problems we have to recall this sunnah of recognizing that Allah ta'ala is in full control of that person's heart and this is why one of some of the one of the inheritors of our prophet sallallahu sallallahu alayhi sallam abubakir alwarraq a great imam from balkh he died 240 after hijrah rahimullah ta'ala a man once came to him and said i'm afraid of so and so and he said la takhaf min hu fa inna kulla kalbi fa inna kulla kalbi mantakhafuhu biyadi mantarjuhu that he says that do not be afraid of him because the heart of every individual that you fear is in the grasp of the one that you hope in the heart of every individual that you fear is in the control of the one that you have hope in and another inheritor of our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and when we learn from the inheritors we're learning from the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam because as umam busiri one of my blessed teachers he passed away last year sheikh Ahmad jamal rahimullah ta'ala he taught us when we asked him about different imams taking from different imams he said so the line from the burda that all of them are taking a scoop from the ocean of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam or a sip from his continuous rain so the great imams and the and the ulama and the oli of our tradition they are reflecting that light the light of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam his his hidaya and so another inheritor of our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam qasim al khasasi he's a great moroccan one of the salliheen of morocco he died 1083 after hijrah and he's one of the six shadulis that are buried together in fez rahimullah ta'ala he once taught his student a student came to him with a similar problem he said he says never become overly preoccupied with someone who is harming you someone who is causing you problems rather be preoccupied with Allah and the sunnah the sunnah as we take the means we we we don't become you know a punching bag for people trying to harm us so we take the means of protection but what occupies our mind what occupies our heart so the great imam is saying do not let your heart and mind be overwhelmed preoccupied with the one who is showing animosity to you rather be preoccupied with Allah ta'ala and if you are preoccupied with Allah Allah will divert that person away from you because Allah is the one originally who stirred that person incited that person against you to test your claim to be sincere to test your claim of sincerity and so we have to always return to Allah ta'ala whatever child this is a beautiful sunnah and the one of the essential principles of optimism of of our blessed prophet a prophet of hope and so that the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam we know the stories of the hijrah and that when abu bakr urdu anu they were in the cave in jabb al thawr and abu bakr says that yara sullallah if they just look down they were above them if they just look down they're going to see us and what does the prophet say sallallahu alayhi sallam he's with Allah ta'ala his preoccupation is he he's the what is occupying his blessed heart sallallahu alayhi sallam in a time where anyone else would be you know completely filled and replete with anxiety he says oh abu bakr what do you think of two Allah is their third and as imam tahir Allah preserve him cited earlier from surah to toba this is the this is the essential foundation of optimism and prophetic hope and the other hadith of dur thur later in the madinah period when he went out once on an expedition sallallahu alayhi sallam against one of the clans of ghatafan and he rested under a tree and hung his blessed sword and the head of that clan dur thur in some narrations dur thur in others gharath there's discrepancy what his name was ibn al hadith al muharibi he came and he grabbed the sword and he pointed it at the blessed sallallahu alayhi sallam and the prophet opens his eyes sallallahu alayhi sallam and the man says man yam na'uka minni who's gonna who's gonna protect you from me now and in the hadith authentic hadith in riyadh sallahin and bukhari muslim he says allah sallallahu alayhi sallam and in one narration three times allah allah allah ibn allan the commentator of riyadh sallahin says he said it three times out of joy in enjoying the the remembrance of allah like subhan allah and we don't really know our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam we we just have like subhan allah may allah give us more knowledge of allah and his messenger sallallahu alayhi sallam with his lot of his pannu ta'ala so so it's and and and then the sword drops and the prophet raises it and says man yam na'uka minni who's gonna stop you from me and the man says kuna khaira akhid you know be be graceful and and you know spare me and said the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam the man agrees to stop fighting the man agrees to stop fighting the muslims and the prophet says you can go the man goes back sallallahu alayhi sallam he just attempted to take his blessed life the man goes back he says to his people jid tukum bin indi khairin nas i have come to you from the best of people sallallahu alayhi sallam this is this luminosity look at his optimism because he is so grounded in the remembrance of allah ta'ala and it's the remembrance of allah ta'ala that he emphasized so much that the campaign companions so he said once on the way back they passed the mountain this hadith in sahi muslim sallallahu alayhi sallam and he said sabaq al-mufarridun you know those people who isolate themselves regularly for the for devotion those people who isolate themselves regularly for devotion and the remembrance of god they have outstripped everyone and the companions this term they weren't sure what it meant they said what is the description of these people oh god's messenger sallallahu alayhi sallam he said man and women that make plentiful and sincere remembrance of allah ta'ala and in the riewaya of imam tirmidi he said he said the people that are immersed in the remembrance of allah such that the the remembrance of allah lifts for them their burdens right it lifts for them their burdens the burdens of sin that weigh us down such that they arrive on the day of judgment light and easy such that they arrive on the day of judgment light and easy and he said sallallahu alayhi sallam in the hadith of ibn maja that hadith qutsi he cited his lord sallallahu alayhi sallam says i'm with my servant when he makes remembrance of me and his two lips move with my with my vikr i'm with my servant when he makes remembrance of me and his two lips move with my with me with my remembrance and in the version of sahih al-bukhari it's connected to a good opinion of allah that allah ta'ala says according to the hadith i'm in the opinion of my servant of me and i am with him when he makes remembrance of me so the good opinion of allah which is the foundation of optimism is conjoined to the remembrance of allah so we have to be people who regularly invoke the divine in in in in beyond the obligations the obligations are the foundation and then beyond that to cultivate a consistent habits of remembrance of god this opens the heart illuminates the heart such that the prophetic optimism can can can transpire and so hosna dan billah having a good opinion of allah ta'ala malik ibn dinar one of the tabi'in he was seen in a dream after his death and they said the man in the dream he said asked him what did allah do with you he says qadim tu ala rabbi dhunub kathira he says i i arrived to my lord with many many sins but they were all erased because of my good opinion of him they were all erased because of my good opinion of him and the prophet ta'ala sallallahu alayhi sallam in sahih muslim la yamu tanna let none of you die we all know people that passed away this last year he said sallallahu alayhi sallam let none of you die except having the best having a beautiful opinion of of allah ta'ala let none of you die except this is a command let none of you die except while having a beautiful opinion of allah ta'ala and in some the rivayat he said this three days before he passed away sallallahu alayhi sallam and the sheikh al akbar he says that this is proof that we should have a good opinion in each of our breaths we should have a beautiful opinion of allah with every breath that we take because we don't know which breath will be our last and so it's impossible to fulfill this hadith to get to be guaranteed to fulfill this hadith unless one is always having a good opinion of allah ta'ala so we ask allah ta'ala to make us prophetic in our optimism in our lord in our hope of allah in allah ta'ala we ask allah ta'ala to illuminate our hearts with his remembrance and with love of allah and his messenger sallallahu alayhi sallam and that translates to beautiful service of his creation we ask allah ta'ala to make his people who adorn our hearts with the beautiful opinion of him such that we are those that our prophet is pleased with


It's not like you guys at Johnny come lately on Amazon Web Services. Can you just quickly give some color on the relationship with AWS and what it means with respect to HANA Enterprise Cloud? Absolutely, and I think there is part on here. I think the relationship between SAP and Amazon Web Services dates quite some years back. All the way to Amazon Web Services being participant, especially with their teams, their architects sitting side by side with SAP in Maldon to conduct a lot of these validations, to conduct a lot of these certifications that took place. So I think that that level of collaboration is basically almost coming to a fruition, if you may. When you look at some of these offerings that come out there, I think also the way that you see instance sizes developing, whether it's compute, otherwise, that's been built specifically for those kind of HANA workloads, that clearly will happen only if these two companies are working extremely closely together, but not just from a go-to-market perspective and more importantly from an engineering and from a development perspective. And having that voice in within the HANA Development Organization ensures that we are actually representing the voice of the customer around consumption patterns that we know for a fact are going to take place only in the 12th. And congratulations on that Amazon relationship. So it's good to know, it's not a one-truth, and just to clarify, I want to get to see if you can just verify my, as a source, since I have you on the phone here and you're Senior Vice President, is it true? I've heard, I just want to confirm with you, I've heard that the Amazon relationship has always been there for four years, but a lot of the stuff that's come out of the announcement that you announced this week was already going on independently with customers and third parties. You guys are now formalizing that with official teams and joint development. Is that correct? So I think the, like I mentioned, the engineering relationship between SAP and Amazon is based back for quite some time now. I think we would not have made decisions. In fact, I mean, even before the HANA Enterprise Cloud managed services offering on AWS was offered, based on these certified workloads, based on these certified instance sites, there was an option for customers to go and deploy some of their SAP systems, not just testing development, but also product assistance directly in the Amazon Web Services Cloud. What the HANA Enterprise Service, what the HEC offering on Managed Public offers is, it's now SAP putting some of these workloads directly in the AWS environment and helping the customers manage all of this from an end-to-end perspective. So that's the key. So the difference, if I get this right, is before it wasn't fully end-to-end because you didn't have your piece there, but you were there anyway with the engineers. So is that, and that might get in that right, because it seems like you've always been there with the engineering, but now there's so much more formal relationships. And that should ease things up. Is that correct? Yeah, so I think the difference in the past, John, was it was pretty much up to the customer to manage the entire transition, whether it goes around provisioning, whether it goes around administration, whether it was around patching, whether it was around upgrades, all of that stuff was pretty much entirely done in the domain of the customer. The customer was responsible for doing that themselves. With this offering, what SAP is doing, is SAP is selling the customers, we are going to stand up these environments for you in AWS and we are going to manage it end-to-end for you. And that includes the entire slew of managed services that goes around managing a HANA-based system. And we obviously, as SAP, as a native vendor of these products, have a very specific point of view on what constitutes or what makes a best run HANA application. And just to close the loop on that, and just to close the loop on that, what you just said is what you call managed public cloud model. That's the offering. Okay, great. Well, thanks for clarifying that. I wanted to make sure I got that on the record. I think that's kind of what, I thought you said it the best. I'll just plagiarize what you just said and put that in my write-up on that. So appreciate, I'll source you on that, of course. Final question, what's the vibe of the show? Every year I come out of SAP, this is our first year we haven't been there in seven years, it's usually a theme pops up. You mentioned convergence. Is that the top-level theme? And the second part of the question is, Hasso always kind of has a great motivating, relevant speech, but he also kind of connects the dots, or puts the dots out there to be connected. He kind of teases next year in his vision. He always has his point of view, which a lot of people watching the industry as kind of a bellwether for next year. So what's the theme this year and what's the bellwether vibe that Hasso's telling you? I think you recognized a couple of things that stood out for me. And I think, by the way, it was one of the most brilliant or most inspiring keynotes that I heard personally from Hasso. I think the one thing that stood out for me is the amount of time or the amount of effort and the way that we actually build user interfaces. I think there is absolutely a radically different approach type thing that we need to take. We need to be spending far, far more time building out those user interfaces and making it a lot more intuitive and absolutely seismic-straight simple. I think that's where we need to focus on number one. The other key item that he did touch upon was the topic of integration. And I think the new reality is the one of a multi-cloud solution, the hybrid reality. And I think for all of these things to come together in a sensible fashion, integration becomes more and more key. And I think he even quoted something to the extent saying almost about 40% of our development folks are now working directly on some of these integration topics, which is, I think, a testament to the scale and the value that integration is going to play, especially when it talks about both SAP and non-SAP applications going forward. So I think these are kind of one or two items that stood out for me. And of course, the big announcement specifically around SAP Leonardo and the tool sets, obviously the story around the big data and analytics. I think these were the key standouts, especially for me, as part of the keynote. Sanjay, thank you for spending the time this morning here on the West Coast, but also early in the early morning for you guys, or late morning for you guys in Orlando. Thanks for sharing the insight from on the ground in Orlando at SAP. Sapphire are now Sanjay Kulkarni, who's the global head of architecture and advisory for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. Congratulations on the Amazon announcement that adds to your portfolio of cloud. And congratulations on the CenturyLink Cisco Alliance as well, we covered that as well. Thanks so much for spending the time. This is the CUBE coverage of SAP HANA Day 3 from Palo Alto and Orlando. We'll be back with more coverage after this short break. Stay with us.


Knocking off the king is no small feat and that is exactly what near protocol is done So today we're gonna do is take a look at some on-chain metrics or take a look at unique active wallets daily transactions Of course the fees to see how a crypto that is barely in the top 40 was able to knock off the two big players in the game Bitcoin and Ethereum before I jump into that. I want to just share with you a little quick story about Stocker store Ronaldo looks like he's in being court based on a lawsuit over Binance promotion. The reason for this is two-fold The first reason is because some people like to sue people It is how it is quick money. The second reason is people don't take responsibility for their actions So on this channel, I can't give you financial advice. Not a financial advisor I'm not even your dad So you can do whatever you want to do But just remember take responsibility do as much research as you possibly can because this is your hard earned money So having said all that near This is a pretty great Great piece and this is put together by the defiant and I'll link this in the descriptions You can read the actual the whole story But before I move on I want you to tell you that I am super biased on this project because I own this project But I'm going to be comparing this against some of my other bags Which would be bitcoin and ethereum and solana and cardano. So if you think that rob is biased Yes, rob is biased because he owns near and I don't talk about things unless I actually own them on this channel But I'm comparing them against all my different bags that are out there So let's jump into it near protocol overtakes ethereum and bitcoin in key activity metrics So here's what we have activity on near a spike since september overtaking bitcoin ethereum both in terms of daily transactions And active addresses near has this pretty big 838,000 daily active addresses daily the most out of any major layer one chains after tron tying with bmb chain bitcoin solana and ethereum coming next Nears daily transactions of 1.7 million beat out ethereum bitcoin navalanche while still trailing solana tron and bnb chain That's for daily transactions. Some people ask me this like well. How can how can near beat out bitcoin? That's the biggest big daddy of them all right, but remember this is daily active addresses me personally I don't use my bitcoin address except for maybe once a week when I transfer all the different bitcoin daily Cost average that I've done on coinbase and transfer them into my Bitcoin wallet a lot of people aren't using their bitcoin wallet to buy coffee A lot of people are storing their bitcoin in their wallet and not touching it So as far as active addresses, I can definitely see where this is coming from and then to move forward We'll talk about small machine metrics. So Why is this happening? Well, it comes out of games and payments these are fueling the growth with K canal I think it's how you say it a shopping app which is more prevalent in southeast asia It leads the way in terms of active wallets and also fitness app sweat coin one of my other favorite ones Drove the spike in september when it launched in the us and today sweat coin reached 1 million on chain active users for the first time I knew it would be a big project It just all depends on what's going to happen with the actual token price and we'll see how that works out Near as a native token is trailing though behind bitcoin and eth as far as price near as only gained 42 Year-to-date can pair with eth's 73 increase and bitcoins 130 rally again. This is all speculation So if we're just going by daily active addresses, it wouldn't even be close, but that's not what people invest into So to get into kk and swat K kai ching is the native stable coin of the k canal shopping apps K canal recently partnered with shopping behemoth cosmos AI which uses artificial intelligence to power Better shopping experiences. I've never personally used it, but I hear it's very good And I thought it was interesting about Web three overtaking the old garden web two the integration with cosmos which announced in april Which meant the cosmos ai ditched stripe They chose to go with kkai and we don't know what stripe is stripe is a payment processor I personally use this for a couple of my different websites And the fees are pretty that means 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per every single transaction So with stripe and of course it's different across the world with stripe They said, you know what you're too expensive and maybe you're too slow. We're going to go with the other one I think that's what you're going to see happen more and more more as we see blockchain technology and krypton just last That's take over and then to finish up kai kai and sweat Currently comprised really roughly 90 of all transactions on near again Two enormous apps and that's what's driving the daily active users So there is that piece and then this is a great piece But she always want to you know back it up and see is that true and take a look at some different metrics There's a couple different websites I actually posted this today and I looked at dap radar and I said I'll be damned, you know It looks like uh as far as like daily unique active wallets. It's true kai ching coming number one atomic acids I've never heard of this one atomic acids now number two pixels a huge game Uh from the creators of axi now in ronin is number three and then sweat economy gamify rareable And if we go over to dapper you can do this yourself you can go to dapperadar.com links in the description And if you click on unique active wallets and the first one is just an ad there's always an ad there It's quite annoying actually and if you click on this you can go to you know The highest the lowest and we can separate them and there they are kai ching 645 thousand Unique that's a lot unique active wallets atomic acids are eight nine and pixels number three hundred fifteen thousand That's daily and sweat economy hundred fourteen thousand. That's daily. That's pretty amazing and of course with uh I've been talking about us quite a bit last I don't know 10 12 months or so about how I believe that You know gaming is going to be the next narrative as far as like the next bull run But of course, I have to give props to keggy. He's the one that told me all about Pixels and he's the one that's really been talking about this one up and he's been right so far about this one You can follow keggy link in the description, but again If we want to take a look at the daily transactions like we just took a look at look at near This is a very new chain and if you are Under the belief that in the next bull run the new chains will outplay the old chains Then there's maybe something to actually look into now near was around in 2021 But it really wasn't doing too much. This is in april and you can see that the daily transaction the total transaction count was only 11,000 total transactions Wasn't even ranked that high and of course as we moved into the bear market Then all of a sudden they built in the bear so they can crush it in the bull And now you see these big big spikes. This might have been sweat when they actually launched it over in the u.s I'm not sure But you can see over here that daily transaction as of uh looks like monday, november 27th, even though today's Wednesday You're looking at 1.8 million one million eight hundred forty two eight hundred forty eight thousand So we'll just round up roughly around two million. So how does that compare to say like a polygon a polygon? Was actually sitting it around as far as like uh daily transactions around two Like two million two and a half million somewhere around there. We can see this just kind of coming across here You know, you got 2.1 million 2.3 2.2 and all of a sudden there's this huge spike So the first of all that spike was not because people started to use it like crazy I mean it kind of was what it really came down to was there was a minting of ordinals like tokens Which is that you can do an inscription service and a few and stuff like that Just like what they have with bitcoin Which causes a big surge in polygon transaction fees now it's come down You know after the after the big hype But what I found interesting about this is that uh with near protocol near is a layer one solution And they're doing all these transactions. I don't need a layer too. So I thought that was pretty pretty amazing And then also as far as like with ordinals today near Is uh partnering up and it looks like they're actually going for ordinals First inscription standard launches on near that bit today. So maybe we'll see a jump in transactions per day We'll see how it goes But what about solana because that would be the big question Well, solana and this you can find this It's kind of difficult sometimes to find the the solana metrics unless you know how to work This is uh soul scan.io links in the description and we're going to see here that uh, look over here Successful vote versus non-vote transactions. Look at these transactions on november 28th vote transactions 297 million 885,175 that's a lot of transactions, but those are just votes those are just uh Different node operators voting and doing different things But not like the non-vote transactions, which are just like the transactions that you would do for like Like orca like jupiter like they're different dexes or like transferring solana and doing those things That will be the non-vote transaction. But look at those numbers. That's pretty amazing You've got transactions again. You can you can mirror it over here in this teal color Transactions are 20 million per day 20 million 645 thousand. Remember Solana is also layer one solution does not need a layer two the only thing with uh, solana I know this is one of the big knocks is that you see up here and you can find this on sun Soul scan as well. This purple bar says success rate pretty successful 99.9 999 whatever it else it is over the last seven days, but what if you back that up to like three months? so that was going on here and Again, I own solana. I own a lot of solana So it would not behoove me to point this stuff out but it's a truth successful rate seems to be in flux And uh, there was a big knock against solanas. There was something they're going down last year And uh being able to start up and then people said it was a very not decentralized We can see the success rate 90 89 percent. This wasn't last year. This was september 18 2023 And we keep going down now. Let's take a look at let's max out all time You can see there has been some problems. However Things look to be doing pretty well And it's up to you to decide if that's something for you to do. I just give you the information This is right from soul scan. You can do with whatever you want with it. And then lastly, what about cardano? Cardano also one of my big picks And uh, you can see that transactions here not so much transactions. We can see like on november 23rd 50,000 46,000 50 that now there was a little uptick last Two weeks 78,000, but you have to remember There's a little bit difference in how you do with transactions because they have the unspent transaction output eutxl kind of like what bitcoin uses So with within each transaction that's done there are there are other transactions that are being done You can see this right here with eutxl.org And so this would be one transactions But you have nfts in there you have cardano you have much different things And if you toggle and what's also interesting about this if you toggle the show spend unspent utxos You can see what our intro wallet transactions are unspent Or transfer to foreign addresses. You can see why this one And not that many so again, don't shoot the messenger This is just the information that you have and this is right from eutxo.org The last thing you always want to look at and I have always said this before is transactions are cute That's adorable. Who's paying for this? So there's a great website called crypto fees dot info and of course Ethereum has been on top for quite some time bitcoin was actually on top a couple weeks ago with the ordinals It was crushing bitcoin or excuse me ethereum In the transaction fees and you might have seen that as you were transferring bitcoin last week or so You're like what the heck happened ordinals happen But as far as like average fees you can see that Yeah, they're in bitcoin are pretty high. So we know they don't have the daily transaction amount They still charge and that's how it is. But if we come down here polygon As far as like a one day 36,000. So they're getting paid dogecoin cardano Is seven thousand and again, not that many transactions. I'll be honest with you And then near we just took a look at all the transactions. It's only 4,300 bucks So what does that tell you it tells you that even though? polygon Has a rough a little bit more as far as daily transactions Near has Not really about the same maybe like You know between two and 1.8 million to 2.3 million But you can see the price difference and how much it is You know, that's quite a bit And then If you take a look at that and we can we can verify that also on near blocks.io as far as transaction fee charts For the daily you got 3075. So yeah, somewhere around there. I can see but what about solana What about the daily fees and you can find this again on soul scan? You can click on fees right here. You've got total fees and green total administration fees soul Or total additional fees in this gold color We're looking at the total fees right here for november 26, which is the last one they have over here It just looks like it's not complete Daily transactions or deli fees for narrow 26 was 673 Solana solana today is roughly 60 dollars So if you take 60 dollars times 673 total fees You're looking at roughly around 40 thousand dollars for the fees And again, they have roughly 20 million Different transactions. So even though near is less than that They're kind of in there or less than than what actually solana it actually has So that's all the data and I got to tell you it looks pretty positive For a couple of chains. I'll let you decide which ones those are But that will conclude that piece and lastly I just want to finish up with the macro because this is all well and good when we talk about On-chain metrics and what's going on? But you have to be aware of what's going on and they are surroundings and that would be these macro events so I don't know where things are going. I don't know if there's a recession I don't know if it's going to be another black swan event. I have no idea But one thing I can count on is that conflicting information And you're going to be inundated with so much information late Over the next couple of months. Is there a recession? Is there not? Is there going to be an etf? Is there not? Is gary going to do what he's supposed to do? Are we going to branch out into the rest of the world? Whatever it else it is and one of these things is going to be big as far as the macro But I just want you to remind you that For the things that come out Look on the other side because this is I'm going to show you an example This is business insider and they state that the stock market could plunge as much as 27% when the economy finally tips into recession Investment research firm says and in the same website on the same day They had stock market bulls are growing bolder now. Deutsche Bank predicts the s&p 500 will hit a record 55124 So just real quick the reason for this They say it's because the u.s economy remains on track and a recession is high interest rates Take a toll and there's a bunch of different information about why they think it is That's for the negative and then for the positive over here They say well strategists the bank of Deutsche Bank said money They expect the benchmark share index to trade a 5100 and bank of america goldman sacks rbc capital and bmo capital Other well-known wall street firms also predict an upbeat up b 2024 for us equities and the reason for that Deutsche bank's bullish outlook is based off a view that the u.s is nearing a soft landing economic scenario with inflation cooling while quarterly gdp growth Remains strong and to piggyback off that if you didn't know Looks like the gdp was actually revised a little bit higher just in time for a presidential election The u.s economy grew at a 5.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter The figure was revised up from an initial estimate of 4.9 So maybe there was a soft landing at least in what the actual data shows and approved my point even more So if you go to uh, Dave lin's channel Who used to be from kitko news start his own channel and just go down there and just watch any of his videos Just pick two you'll see all the experts one will say it's going to be a crash and one will say No, no, no, it's going to be awesome. It's going to explode. It's going to be fantastic. No, it's a bear rally No, it's going to be great. No, it's going to so again These are the experts that you're listening to and some days. I just want to tell you sometimes just best to tune out And uh, that is it for today Tomorrow if you're so interested we'll be doing nfa live over on ben's channel I knew the cryptiverse i'll be joined by guy as always point bureau And maybe we'll make some sense of the things that are going on, but that's it for today So look like today's video give it a thumbs up consider subscribing or let me talk about is time sensitive There's so much information is going to come out. I don't care who you subscribe to just get your information from somebody Keep abreast the situation and move forward, but that's it for today. Thanks so much everybody for stopping by I do appreciate it and i'll see you on the next one


We're talking to Gordon Foss and what is a very flash and a very nicely liveried M3 and a relatively new one by the look of it mate. Yeah thank you very much yeah we only just got the car on the road about one day before target and we actually hadn't driven the car on the road at all before we started this event so there's been a learning curve for us and to get the car you know keep it going and working out what it's going to do and not do so. So you've done the event before in minis you say right and so you chose an M3 what was that choice based on you like them or you thought it would be a good car? Wife said she was sick of waiting for us to be at the end of the event she wanted us to come home a bit earlier so I said we need more power for that and she said yeah buy something a bit more grumpy then. You're having fun what's what's the appeal of this? It's a real challenge I mean for us we like to come and have a giggle and you know just have a good time and you know it's a real challenge for us to get to the end for you know two old blokes so it is you know it's a real real challenge to get there and that's what we aim for.


This research study has demonstrated the potential of artificial intelligence, AI, models such as artificial neural networks, ANS, and fuzzy logic systems, FLSs, to improve construction scheduling accuracy. The AI models were able to accurately predict the project's progress based on historical data, site-specific conditions, and other variables that traditional scheduling methods may not consider. These models can be used to optimize project performance and reduce costs. This article was authored by Jude Ilaobucio Bienio, Richard Chinini Udila, and George Uwadigu Aleneen.


Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Twins are said to share a bond that can defy scientific explanation. Some say that the connection forged in the womb allows twins to feel another's pain or even communicate via ESP. For Ursula and Sabina Erickson, their bond took them on a bizarre trip, one that involved attempted suicide, superhuman strength, reality television, and even murder. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode. In 1761 a young Frenchman died violently. This tragedy would lead to what is still one of the country's most famous cases of judicial injustice. Assuming of course that it truly was an injustice at all. Most know them as the hidden folk, the elusive and magical residents of Iceland who live inside rocks and sometimes play games with unsuspecting passers-by. Are they real? That's a complicated question if you ask Icelanders. As two boys were walking back to the house on their farm, a small stone rolled past them. Then a second one. They immediately thought some other boys were hiding in the scrub and throwing stones for a joke. They couldn't have been more wrong. Belganus lured numerous suitors to her Indiana farm. Not to entertain them or to be courted by them, she simply wanted to kill them in cold blood and dump their bodies in her hog pen. Were people ever really tortured in Iron Maidens? They're going to steal your organs screamed Sabina Ericsson before running toward oncoming traffic on the M6 highway, having already been hit head on by a Volkswagen. Her twin sister Ursula, legs crushed by the truck that had just run her over, was spitting and screaming at paramedics on the side of the road. Now, many years after these events, we're still no closer to understanding the chaos that occurred over two days in 2008 involving the psychotic twin sisters on a UK highway. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter and her contests. Connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.  The Swedish Ericsson twins made headlines in 2008 after a series of strange events took place in the United Kingdom. The truly bizarre story and its aftermath has left authorities and physicians puzzled. What exactly happened that caused the twins to snap? Did they really experience a shared psychosis? Ultimately, the only people who can know what happened to the Ericsson sisters are the sisters themselves, Ursula and Sabina, but their strange case is darkly fascinating all the same. The Ericsson sisters' strange trip began in May of 2008 when Ursula, who'd been living in the US at the time, decided to visit her twin sister Sabina in County Cork, Ireland. Within 24 hours of her arrival, the two took a ferry to Liverpool. Upon arriving in the English port city, the twins made a visit to the St. Anne Street police station to report concerns over Sabina's children, whom she had left with her partner back in Ireland. From there, the Ericsson sisters boarded a National Express coach to London where their behavior would take a more erratic turn. Not long after the twins boarded the coach to London, Ursula and Sabina began acting strangely. Reportedly, the twins had refused to check their bags and became enraged when the bus staff attempted to take them from them. The bus stopped at a service station on the M6 in Staffordshire and the driver, who had been perturbed by their behavior, kicked the twins off. Sabina and Ursula now stranded, started walking the M6 motorway. The road is not designed for pedestrians and concerned motorists began to notify the police. After receiving calls about two women disrupting traffic and causing chaos in the M6, local authorities went to investigate. The particular group of police that responded had a film crew in tow who were shooting a reality television show called Motorway Cops and with cameras in hand, they captured the bizarre events that unfolded. Expecting to arrive at a scene of multiple fatalities, police were surprised to see the two women unharmed. As officers tried to calm the twins, Ursula suddenly darted into traffic, where she was struck by a large truck. Her sister Sabina followed her and she was hit by a speeding sedan, somersalting over the hood and windshield before landing in the third lane of traffic. Both women suffered multiple injuries. As the Ericsson sisters lay on the asphalt of the M6, severely wounded from being struck by vehicles, police and paramedics scrambled to their aid. Ursula's legs were crushed, leaving her immobilized and Sabina was unconscious for 15 minutes. But as the emergency responders attempted to help the twins, they became resistant. Sabina began screaming, they are going to steal your organs and telling paramedics, I recognize you, I know you are not real. Sabina suddenly displayed almost superhuman strength, rose to her feet and punched a female patrol officer who attempted to restrain her. She then ran back into the middle of the motorway. Though it took several police officers and paramedics, Sabina was subdued shortly after. The term foliadua is used to describe a shared psychological disorder wherein two people, typically related, experience a shared delusion. It is an extremely rare clinical disorder and it is thought to be what may have occurred to the Ericsson sisters that day on the M6. The twins were hospitalized in a mental facility following their apprehension, though doctors were unable to pinpoint the delusion or the reason Ursula and Sabina continually leapt in front of traffic. Ursula would spend three months in the psychiatric facility while Sabina would be released back into society after a short stay, a decision that proved catastrophically shortsighted. Days after her arrest on May 17, 2008, Sabina was released by authorities. As she wandered the streets of Stoke-on-Trent, she encountered two men walking a dog and asked where she might find a bed and breakfast. Glenn Hollingshead, a 54-year-old licensed paramedic, invited Sabina into his home for the evening. Back at Mr. Hollingshead's home, where his friend Peter Malloy was also visiting, Ericsson's behavior became increasingly bizarre. She offered the men cigarettes but quickly snatched them from their mouths, claiming they were poisoned, and she routinely peered out the window as though on the lookout for someone. Malloy left his friend and his guest late that evening. The next day, Sabina in a fit of unexplained rage stabbed Hollingshead five times with a butcher knife, killing him. After murdering Glenn Hollingshead, Sabina fled the scene. She had taken a hammer from her victim's home and was spotted on a road nearby, repeatedly hitting herself over the head with it. Joshua Graddage, a passing motorist, stopped in an effort to help the clearly troubled woman.  Paramedics soon got involved and gave chase to the fugitive Sabina who attempted to flee by jumping off a 40-foot bridge onto the A-50 motorway. Though she suffered numerous fractures, Ericsson survived and was arrested and charged with murder. Sabina Ericsson was charged with the murder of Glenn Hollingshead on September 11, 2008. Her trial began September 1, 2009. It was stalled due to difficulty obtaining her medical records from Sweden. Ericsson pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. She never explained her actions and only responded to police questions with no comment. Sabina's defense team argued that she'd suffered from polyadu, or a shared psychosis with her twin sister Ursula, causing her to have intense delusions during her committal of her crimes. The judge determined that she had low culpability for her crimes due to her diminished state and she was sentenced to five years in prison. The family of Glenn Hollingshead was unhappy with the outcome of Sabina Ericsson's trial. Why they wondered had the woman been released from psychiatric care just two days after apparently attempting to kill herself on the M6? Ursula reportedly went back to the United States after the incident while Sabina was released on parole in 2011. It's believed she returned to Europe, however her whereabouts are currently unknown. As for exactly what happened that set off the bizarre chain of events for the twin Ericsson sisters, that remains a mystery. When asked for a possible explanation, Detective Superintendent Dave Garrett had this to say. The reasons for the two events may never be truly known or understood, but the taking of Glenn's life was a violent and senseless act. When Weird Darkness returns, we'll look at the mysterious and violent death in 1761 of Mark Antoine Callis. We still don't know what killed him. And why do some people in Iceland still believe in elves? These stories are up next. Weird Darkness is celebrating its eighth birthday this month and our way of celebrating is to raise money for organizations that help people who struggle with depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide and self-harm. It's called Overcoming the Darkness and you can make a donation right now at WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. A gift of any amount will bring us that much closer to our goal and your donation helps that many more people who are affected by depression, so no gift is too small. Our goal is to raise at least $5,000 this month. If you've not donated yet, or if you'd like to give again, or maybe you'd like to grab the link and share the fundraiser on your own social media and challenge others to give, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. The fundraiser ends on Halloween, so please give right now while you're thinking about it. WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. In 1761, a young Frenchman died violently. This tragedy would lead to what is still one of that country's most famous cases of judicial injustice. Assuming, of course, that it truly was an injustice at all. The grim chain of events began on October 13, when the body of 28-year-old Mark Antoine Callis was found dead in his family home in Toulouse. The Callis family initially stated that he had undoubtedly died of an apoplexy. However, the doctor who examined the corpse found rope marks around his neck and bruising behind the ears, leading him to conclude Mark Antoine had died of strangulation. When confronted with this evidence, the family changed their story. His father Jean told authorities that he'd found Mark Antoine hanging from a rope balanced between two open doors in a storehouse on the family's property, quite dead. Anxious to avoid the scandal of a family suicide, they cut the body down, hoping the untimely death could be attributed to natural causes. The young man had wished to become a Roman Catholic, a move that went against the grain of his strongly Protestant family. Mark Antoine was known to be a moody, depressed sort, a state of mind that was strongly exacerbated by his recent spiritual conflicts, not to mention a pile of gambling debts that he'd accumulated. All in all, it did not seem unlikely that he had resorted to killing himself. Most of France believed otherwise. Onlookers interpreted this evidence as pointing to murder, not suicide. France was still a strongly Catholic country which led them to look upon the Hugeno Callis family with deep suspicion and regard the dead would be convert as a martyr. In short, popular opinion had it that Mark Antoine's father murdered him over their religious conflicts with his family's approbation. It was conveniently ignored that another son, Louis, had turned Catholic while still remaining in the family's good graces. Jean Callis was arrested and subjected to a trial that was clearly unabashedly set against him. To the surprise of no one, he was convicted and sentenced to a particularly hideous fate, which was seen as fitting for the particularly hideous crime of genocide. He was broken on the wheel and then strangled. To the end, he insisted that he was innocent. The punitive measures did not end there. The Callis daughters were forced into a convent and the mother and surviving sons exiled.  Despite the verdict, the case was still enigmatic enough to attract the attention of Voltaire. After a bit of amateur detective work, he concluded that Mark Antoine had indeed committed suicide. He learned that the young man had, on the day of his death, lost a lot of money playing cards and that he greatly feared facing his father with the news. Voltaire also pointed out that Mark Antoine had been the biggest man in his family, towering over his 62-year-old father. He found it highly unlikely that Jean Callis, even with the help of the rest of the family, could have overpowered his son sufficiently to hang him. He believed the family had been unjustly persecuted because of their unpopular religious beliefs. Voltaire used his reputation as one of Europe's greatest intellectuals, his contacts in high places, and his brilliant powers of oratory to launch a rehabilitation campaign, albeit one rather late in the day for Jean Callis. He published A Treatise on Tolerance, pleading with his countrymen to not hate one another, let us not destroy one another in the midst of peace. His campaign worked. In March of 1764, a royal council met to study the matter. A panel of judges was appointed to re-hear the case. The upshot was that a year later they ruled that there had been a terrible miscarriage of justice. Although they could do nothing for a poor old Jean, his family was allowed to return from their exile and their property was restored. Voltaire did a bit of pardonable self-congratulation by proclaiming that France had seen the finest fifth act the theater can give us. Was this a finest ending or merely a bitterly ironic twist? In 1929, an author named Marc Chassain published Laetheur Callis, which contained the fruits of his own investigation of the case. He offered the theory that Marc Antoine's death was not due either to suicide or filicide. He suggested that the young man was attacked and strangled from someone who had followed him into his house, possibly someone from his gaming club. The murderer then slipped out of the house. Chassain noted that servants in the household had overheard a man's cries of murder not long before the body was discovered. Experiments proved to his satisfaction that it was virtually impossible for anyone to hang himself in the way described by the Callis family. Although he acknowledged the brilliance of Voltaire's defense, Chassain believed the great philosopher was motivated largely by his anti-Catholic sentiments rather than an objective desire for justice. Even in the midst of his campaign to clear Jean Callis' name, Voltaire had privately admitted that the case was a puzzling mystery. Chassain proposed that the Callis family was guilty of ineptly stage managing the discovery of the body, although it is hard to explain why they would cover up their son's murder, especially when they wound up paying such a dear price for their silence. In the end, Chassain clearly left open the possibility that the family truly was responsible for the murder after all. So, how did Mark and Tuan Callis die? We'll never know for sure. Houlavoc, the hidden folk, the elusive and magical residents of Iceland who live inside rocks and sometimes play games with unsuspecting passersby. Are they real? That's a complicated question if you ask Icelanders. Also sometimes known as Alfar, Icelandic for elves, though many believe Alfar and Houlavoc are actually two distinct groups, these mysterious people are not quick to make their presence known.  Sometimes these encounters end well, with good luck. Other times, not so much. In many stories, the Houlavoc will visit people in their dreams. Elves are most active during the holidays according to legend, and during Christmas and New Years or Yule, they are said to venture out to find new homes. They also partake in wild parties which could be quite dangerous to any humans who get caught in their way. Just make sure you don't throw any rocks lest you might hit an elf by accident, or so goes an old superstition. Many polls and surveys have claimed that over half of Icelanders believe in the existence of these elves and Houlavoc, or more accurately, they won't deny the possibility that they exist. In 2017, one such poll by the Erechivik grapevine showed that 67% of Icelanders believed in elves, or wouldn't outright deny their existence. A previous poll way back in 2007 claimed the number to be at least 54%. The magazine suggests, jokingly, that all these polls are skewed heavily by the hidden folk themselves. But do Icelanders really believe in them? It's a kind of Pascal's wager for elves in many ways. It might as well allow for the possibility that hidden folk exist. Otherwise, you might leave yourself open to all sorts of elvish mischief. On the other hand, many Icelanders believe in elves in the same way others believe in Santa Claus. It's a way of keeping their culture alive and something fun to think about. And yet, there are also those who truly believe the alfar and houlavoc exist. According to local folklore, the houlavoc live in a world parallel to our own. They dress in old-fashioned clothing and are only seen when they want to be seen. They inhabit trees and boulders and venture into our world through certain areas and hills and mountains and other natural formations. Many claim to have had personal experiences with elves or at least know someone who has. The elves' capital is said to be located in Haftarforjór, Iceland, where, according to National Geographic, visitors can venture out on an elf walk to learn about their history. The elf king and queen live at a cliff there called Hemeron. It's all part of Icelandic culture and folklore. The country even has its very own elf school where students learn about the houlavoc and other mythological creatures. Anyone can sign up. The school is led by headmaster Magnus Skarfeddonson and it even has an official website. Quote, the elf school is open all year round in Reysevik. The school is 32 years old this year. What students in the elf school gain and learn is everything that's known about elves and hidden people, as well as gnomes, dwarfs, fairies, trolls, mountain spirits, as well as other nature spirits and mythical beings in Iceland and in other countries. Quote, In 2018 Max Mosher of the Globe and Mail visited Iceland's elf school and shared his experience. Classes typically last a few hours and primarily focus on the retelling of tales involving houlavoc encounters and folklore. They also apparently end with buttered bread and pancakes with whipped cream. Sign me up. Magnus Skarfeddonson is also notably the leader of the Paranormal Foundation of Iceland. One of the major elf-related headlines over the past several years was the incident involving a boulder that had to be moved before the construction of a new road through the Galgaran lava field. The large stone was thought by some to be an elf church. Peter Mathiason, head of communication with the Icelandic Road Administration, told BBC ideas that they agreed to move the rock not necessarily because they truly believe elves congregate there but because they see it as part of their cultural inheritance. Protecting these stones and other areas said to be claimed by elves is perhaps a way of preserving Iceland's culture and natural wonder. In that case, I suppose it doesn't hurt to believe in elves. Iceland is a pretty amazing place after all. As two boys were walking back to the house on their farm, a small stone rolled past them. Then a second one. They immediately thought some other boys were hiding in the scrub and throwing stones for a joke. They couldn't have been more wrong. Plus, Belganis lured numerous suitors to her Indiana farm. Not to entertain them or to be courted by them, she simply wanted to kill them in cold blood and dump their bodies in her hogpen. Central Massachusetts is a land of oddities and apparitions. Stories of the strange and paranormal have been passed down from generation to generation and only the local populace has any idea of just how vast and deep their superstitions run. The world around you is much more than you can touch, taste, smell, see and hear. Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, but all of them give you a taste of what it's like to be from the oddest part of the United States. You can't have a region of the country that has been settled for centuries without getting a few odd tales out of it. Open up a whole new world of fact and fiction that'll leave you with a deep appreciation for the strange and bizarre ghosts and heroes await, and the only thing they need to live on is you. Slightly Odd Fitchburg by Ed Sweeney. Now available on Kindle, paperback and audiobook versions on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. The haunting fascination of a spook or spirit story drives my imagination into realms of wildest fantasies. But I could not resist the invitation to listen to an uncanny mystery which happened years ago in the Molly Wilderness along the River Murray. The descriptions of the weird workings of recent Gawler spirits were jingling in my brain as I sat before Mr. Henry Hayward on Tuesday. The old man, he was 78 last January, came into the register office to tell me a tale of the Molly, and I expected to hear how a ghostly monster had terrified the people in the lonely scrub. But when he began, I knew he meant to deal in spirits and not in ghosts. Mr. Hayward now lives in retirement at William Street, Norwood.  My nearest neighbor was Mr. Fred Towell, who now lives in Kenttown. One night my eldest son Edward, who was then about 23 years old and my youngest son Tom, about 12 years of age, went out to feed the horses. It was a clear moonlight night. As they were walking back to the house from the stables, they were being rolled past them. At first the boys took no notice, but when a second something came by, they stopped to see what it was. They found a small stone. They came back to the house thinking that the other boys were hiding in the scrub and throwing stones for a joke. But when they found their brothers in bed, they told me about the affair. Of course I said someone had been playing at Lark. Next night I went up to the stables alone. I got into the yard and was looking into the manger when a stone as big as an egg fell right against my legs. There were mally bushes close by and I jumped over the rails and sent a few stones into the clump. I thought that someone was behind it throwing stones at me. But there was no one about. I then began to wonder what it all could mean. Next day my wife and daughter were washing outside of the house when a large stone came over the building and fell close to them. Another missile followed a couple of seconds later. They could see no one near the place and were sure the stones had come from the other side of the house. Everybody in the district heard of the strange happenings at my place and sometimes parties of twenty people came and watched the pebbles falling and they all went away mystified.  On the third night I went over to a neighbor named Hutchinson and asked him to come with me to the horse yard.  I looked over the stable shed but again there was no one in sight nor could I hear anything. If anyone had been moving about in the scrub, which was thick near my house, I could easily have heard them because the night was still. As we went down to the house, stones kept descending around us and others rolled past our feet. I'll never forget poor old Duncan Odea and the scare he got the night he came to see the stones, went on Mr. Hayward and chuckled to himself as he recalled the incident. Duncan Odea came with about 13 or 14 others one bright moonlit night. I took them to the horse yard and as we were leaning against the rails a big stone fell between Duncan's feet. He swore that he saw it rise out of the ground. He stooped and felt to see whether it was warm but it was quite cool. Just after this two young chaps from Adelaide visited my place in great style to explain the mystery. They were staying in the district and on hearing of the occurrence at my farm they put on airs and told everyone that they would soon tell what caused the trouble. So they came one night, the stones pelted down around them and they went away as wise as they came about the cause of the trouble as they called it. Bill Roth who is now in Western Australia preceded Mr. Hayward, was a neighbor of mine at this time. He did not believe in ghosts of any kind and when he heard of my experience he laughed and said, all rot. Anyhow, Bill was not afraid to come and have a look at what was going on. He had not been on the farm ten minutes before he saw what he had heard so much about. A short distance from the house was a pine tree and on this night the stones seemed to be striking the tree. Bill listened for a while then a stone struck the ground near to where he was standing. He looked at me and said, don't you think we'd better get out of this? I could see the Bill's idea of ghosts had changed. As we walked away from the yard he turned to me and said, I have never believed in ghosts. I have often heard old men tell stories about them but I thought it was all rot but I am satisfied now. The stones had been falling night and day for almost a fortnight. At last people were afraid to come near my farm. I too was beginning to fear that someone might be seriously injured by the missiles. On several nights the boys had gone out with guns and blazed away in the direction from which the stones seemed to come but they still arrived. I was sure the trouble was not the work of a human being but still things were getting unsafe. I said to my wife one day, I'll go into Manum and tell the police trooper, his name was Gibbons, if I remember alright, and ask him to come out. We decided that we would not tell even the children that we were going to bring the police out. I wrote to Gibbons and on the very day the letter was sent the stoning stopped. It happened that the police officer was absent from home for several days after the letter arrived and he did not get it until he returned. He did not come out but I saw him some time later and told him all that had happened and how the thing had ended so soon as the letter was written. Another strange thing about the affair was that during the whole of the time the stones were falling, no one was hit by any of them. In 1908 in La Porte, Indiana authorities were busy digging up a hogpen but it wasn't hogs they were looking for, it was bodies and they found more than a dozen. All signs pointed to Belle Gunness as the killer behind the mass grave. She was a Norwegian immigrant and nowhere to be found. Belle was an exception to the serial killer model. While the vast majority are men, she was a woman. Moreover her motives were different. While most serial killers are driven by pure sadistic pleasure, Belle was mainly motivated by insatiable greed. Born in Selva, Norway in 1859, much of Belle's early life remains a mystery. She was raised in poverty and worked tirelessly for a profitable farm for three years in order to fund her trip to the United States. In 1881 she crossed the ocean, changed her name and settled in the Midwest, abandoning her old life forever. Belle married a man named Mads Ditley Anton Sorensen in 1884 and the couple soon opened a candy shop in Chicago. The store never amounted to much and within a year it mysteriously burned down. The couple collected the insurance money which they used to buy a new home. According to a census the couple had four children, two of the children allegedly died of acute colitis, a malady with symptoms that closely resemble poisoning. Then Mads died on July 30th, 1900, the only day on which both of his life insurance policies overlapped. His cause of death was ruled a heart failure and Belle claimed that she had given him medicinal powders to ease his suffering.  Mads' family was suspicious of murder but Belle fled. She bought a farm just outside La Porte, Indiana and rediscovered an old friend named Peter Gunness, also a widower. The two married in 1902. Soon thereafter Peter's infant daughter died while under Belle's care. Months later Peter also died of strange circumstances. Belle claimed that he was scalded with brine while reaching over the stove. Once more Belle's pockets brimmed with insurance money, but her lucrative personal tragedies were getting suspicious, so she placed personal ads in major Midwestern newspapers stating that she was a comely widow. Trifilers, she said, need not apply. Men Arrived There was John Doe from Minnesota who came with money to pay off Belle's mortgage and disappeared a week later. There was George Anderson from Missouri who also brought money for the mortgage but woke to find Belle's sinister face staring down at him in the dark. He fled as fast as he could and never looked back. Belle's house became her citadel.  She spent nights shoveling in the hog pen and often placed large orders for trunks to be delivered to her home. Gentleman suitors never ceased to show up and all were never seen again. Belle's final victim was Andrew Helgellian from South Dakota. After many letter exchanges Andrew finally decided to take the leap and meet Belle in person. The words that persuaded him, My heart beats in wild rapture for you, my Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever. Andrew arrived on the farm like the lonely hearts before him and like those doomed suitors he too vanished without a trace. Throughout it all stood one man, Ray Lampier, Belle's farmhand. He did anything Belle asked of him and seethe with jealousy whenever a new suitor arrived at Belle's door. Eventually Belle realized Ray's instability was a risk to her livelihood. When she fired him in 1908, the man went mad. Helgellian's brother meanwhile had grown suspicious of his missing brother Andrew. Belle tried to shake him off with vague stories about Andrew's disappearance but it was clear her excuses weren't cutting it. With the walls closing in on her, she drafted up a new will and left her entire estate to her children. Then on the morning of April 28, 1908, Belle's home burst into flames. Her newly hired farmhand, Joe Maxon, awoke to thick smoke filling his room. He leapt out of his second floor window, dying from the fall. Belle's children, unable to escape, were found dead among the ruins once the smoke cleared. Belle, however, was nowhere to be found. Belle had previously reported Ray to the police as a threat to her family. When news of the fire broke, authorities arrested him and charged him with murder and arson. But one mystery remained. The charge remains of a headless woman uncovered in the rubble. Belle's large stature, she stood six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds, didn't seem to match up with the diminutive corpse. Yet a set of real teeth had been found in the debris. Belle's dentist claimed they contained gold plating work that he had performed on her. No one knew what to believe. The fire was found guilty of arson, but was struck ill soon after his conviction. Shortly before passing, he confessed everything to a priest. He said he'd been an accomplice to many of Belle's murders. He revealed that Belle typically drugged the coffee of her victims before caving in their heads with a meat shopper and dismembering the bodies in the basement. The remains were then dumped into the hogpen. Lamphere claimed that on the day of the fire, Belle beheaded her new maid, dressed the body in her own clothes, set her home ablaze, and never looked back. Belle, Ray said, was still alive. She was still out there, somewhere. It's believed that Belle Gunness murdered between 25 and 40 people, though only 12 could be verified from excavations in a hogpen. Prior to the fire, Belle had withdrawn all of her money from the bank. In 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles after poisoning a Norwegian-American man for her money. Some people who knew Belle claimed that they recognized Esther as her. But she died while waiting to go to trial. Up next, were people ever really tortured in the Iron Maiden? We'll find out. They say you are what you eat, and if that's true, I'm soon going to be looking like Pumpkin Head from that horror movie because I just received my limited release box of Pumpkin Cookie Chunk from Bilt Bar. This is a seasonal flavor, so I have to stock up on it when it comes out. Bilt bars are not candy bars, they're protein bars. The Pumpkin Cookie Chunk bar has 19 grams of protein, plus it's low sugar, low carbs, and low calories. But you'd never know it's a protein bar if you just taste it. Bilt bars have become my go-to guilt-free solution for dessert late afternoon or even late-night snacks, and often I just grab a Bilt Bar as a full meal because they're pretty filling.  Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Bilt and look in the limited release section for Pumpkin Cookie Chunk. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Bilt, and use the promo code WeirdDarkness all one word to get 10% off your entire purchase. The people of the Middle Ages have a reputation for wanton brutality, and, as supposed evidence of this, countless instruments of torture sit in museums around the world, arguably the most famous of which being the Iron Maiden. This hellish contraption supposedly caused unthinkable pain and anguish for those unlucky enough to be sentenced to suffer its merciless sting, condemning them to a slow and agonizing death. Or at least that's what the stories say, because as far as anyone can tell the Iron Maiden didn't exist as a real-world object until the 19th century, and for reference here the so-called medieval times are generally considered to have ended around the end of the 15th century. So who invented the Iron Maiden and why?  And has anyone actually ever been killed in one? As for historical examples, there are a couple references to similar devices in history, with the oldest being a device known today as the Iron Apega, supposedly made about 2200 years ago. Described by a Greek historian, Polybius, the device was an automaton replica of the wife of 2nd and 3rd century BC Spartan leader Nabus, with the woman in question named, you guessed it, Apega. The automaton was apparently lavishly dressed up in one of Apega's outfits, with Polybius then stating of those who were made to meet the wife replica, when the man offered her his hand he made the woman rise from her chair and taking her in his arms drew her gradually to his bosom. Both her arms and hands as well as her breasts were covered with iron nails, so that when Nabus rested his hands on her back, and then by means of certain springs drew his victim toward her, he made the man thus embraced say anything and everything. Indeed, by this means he killed a considerable number of those who denied him money. So in a nutshell of the whole story, anyone who refused to pay their taxes would be made to give this mechanical version of his wife a hug, with at any point them being able to make the hug of death stop if they agreed to pay. If they did not, the hug continued until they died. Whether this device actually existed or not, or was just an allusion to Apega's supposedly ruthless nature to match the reported cruelty of her husband, isn't known. Moving on from there, we have an account from one of the earliest Christian authors and the so-called father of Latin Christianity, Tertullian, who lived in the second and third century A.D. In his work, To the Martyrs, he states of the death of Roman general and consul, Marcus Attilius Regulus. It would take me too long to enumerate one by one the men who at their own self-impulse have put an end to themselves. Regulus, a Roman general who had been taken prisoner by the Cathaginians, declined to be exchanged for a large number of Cathaginian captives, choosing rather to give back to the enemy. He was crammed into a sort of chest and everywhere pierced by nails, driven from the outside, he endured so many crucifixions. A follow-up account by Augustine of Hippo in his fifth century City of God elaborates on the tale of Regulus' death. Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Roman general was a prisoner in the hands of the Cathaginians, but they, being more anxious to exchange their prisoners with the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a special envoy with their own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange, but bound him first with an oath that if he failed to accomplish their wish, he would return to Carthage. He went and persuaded the Senate to the opposite course because he believed it was not for the advantage of the Roman Republic to make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus exerted his influence, the Romans did not compel him to return to the enemy, but what he had sworn he voluntarily performed. But the Carthaginians put him to death with refined, elaborate and horrible tortures. They shut him up in a narrow box in which he was compelled to stand and in which finely sharpened nails were fixed all around about him so that he could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain, and so they killed him by depriving him of sleep. That said, whether any of that actually happened or not is up for debate as 1st century BC Greek historian Diodorus claims Regulus died of natural causes, with no mention of such a torture device involved. Moving on from there are old European fairy tales of unknown dating and origin in which certain individuals were killed by being placed inside casks that had nails driven in. The cask would then apparently be rolled down a steep hill, sometimes into water, which, if we're being honest, almost sounds worse than the actual Iron Maiden. Sort of the spiked version of death by a thousand paper cuts, and then as a reward at the end, terrifying slow drowning as you writhe an agony from all the little holes in your body, no doubt also trying to reflexively break the cask to get out once it starts to fill with water, creating some more holes in the process. We suppose at least this one's a bit quicker if a lot more dramatic. Other than that, there are no references to such an Iron Maiden-like device until just before the 19th century. This first reference comes from German philosopher, linguist, archaeologist, and professor at the University of Altdorf, Johann Philippe Sabinkis, in 1793. According to Sabinkis, on August 14, 1515 a coin forger was sentenced to die in a casket that had metal spikes driven into various parts lined up with particularly sensitive bits of the forger's anatomy.  Of course, if this was a real method of execution used, each such cask would have had to have been custom spiked for each new victim in order to line everything up perfectly, given people come in all shapes and sizes. This creates something of a logistical problem that many other means of torturing and killing somebody wouldn't have. Nevertheless, Sabinkis claimed it happened, at least this once. So did it? Well, given the complete lack of evidence or even reference to any other such Iron Maiden-like device used elsewhere in the era, nor who this forger was or any such pertinent details other than the oddly specific date, most historians think he made it up, or that this was an exaggerated tale of the use of a device that we do know existed in Europe. So what was this real instrument of torture? Sometimes called the Shant mantle, or coat of shame, the drunkard's cloak or the Spanish mantle, this was essentially a wooden cask someone who was being punished for some crime would be made to wear about town. Sort of a mobile version of stocks with similar purpose, mocking someone publicly and having people throw random things at them, in this case as they trudged along. Consider this account from Ralph Gargier's 17th century England's grievance discovered. Men drove up and down the streets with a great tub or barrel opened in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through their heads and to cover their shoulders and bodies down to the small of their legs and then close the same, called the new-fashioned cloak and so make them march to the view of all beholders and this is their punishment for drunkards or the like. Jumping across the pond to the land of the free, at least some soldiers were not always so free, as noted in an article titled, A Look at the Federal Army. Published in 1862 where the author states, I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been removed, and the poor fellow loafed about in the most disconsolid manner, looking for all the world like a half-hatched chicken. In another account by one John Howard in 1784, in his The State of Prisons in England and Wales, he writes, Denmark, some of the lower sort, as watchmen, coachmen, etc., are punished by being led through the city in what's called the Spanish mantle. This is a kind of heavy vest, something like a tub, with an aperture for the head and irons to enclose the neck. I measured one at Berlin, 1 foot 8 inches in diameter at the top, 2 feet 11 inches at the bottom, and 2 feet 11 inches high. This mode of punishment is particularly dreaded and is one cause that night robberies are never heard of in Copenhagen. Of course, much like the Iron Maiden, as you'll note from the dates mentioned here, most detailed contemporary accounts of these devices of humiliation and sometimes torture seem to indicate they weren't really a medieval thing, despite sometimes claiming to go back to the 13th century in Germany. In any event, whether Saibenke's much more elaborate cask with spikes put in was really just a tail he picked up that was exaggerating these coats of shame, he made it up completely, or whether some inventive executioner thought to add the addition of spikes to such a cask and a forger really was executed in this way in the 16th century isn't known, with most leaning towards Saibenke's making it up. Even if it did really happen, however, this still is post-medieval times by most people's reckoning. Whatever the case, a handful of years after Saibenke's account, the first known actual Iron Maiden appeared in Nuremberg Museum in 1802, not far away from Saibenke's home in Aldorf. This device was supposedly discovered in a German castle in the late 18th century. Not just a cask, this killing machine was roughly human-shaped, made of iron, and even had a face, supposedly based on the face of the Virgin Mary, hence the torture instrument's name, the Iron Maiden. This probably first real Iron Maiden was sadly destroyed during World War II by Allied bombers, but a copy created as decoration for the Gothic Hall of a patrician palace in Milan in 1828 survived and currently resides in the Rothenberg Das Criminal Museum, Museum of Crime. From this copy we can see that the device was certainly designed to cause unimaginable agony in its victims.  This copy did a lot to help popularize the idea of the Iron Maiden as a real thing thanks to its prominent display at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 in Chicago and subsequent tour across the United States to much fanfare. Incidentally, this was the same world's fair that gave us the name Ferris Wheel, for a device previously called a Pleasure Wheel with George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.'s iconic version being rather massive compared to anything that had come before, holding an astounding 2,160 people at a time. This was also the same fair that saw famed serial killer H.H. Holmes taking advantage of the extra people in town looking for a place to stay, keeping business booming at his so-called House of Horrors Hotel. Going back to the Iron Maiden, beyond the tour of one of the originals and extra exposure at the World's Fair, another man largely credited with popularizing the idea of the Iron Maiden was 19th century art collector Matthew Peacock. Among other things, he managed to collect a wide variety of historic torture devices to, as he put it, show the dark spirit of the Middle Ages in contrast to the progress of humanity. You see, at the time it was in vogue to not just act like people from medieval times were all scientific rubes, which is where the myth that people in medieval times thought that the world was flat came from, despite all evidence to the contrary, but also that they were extremely barbaric, with the Iron Maiden creating a rather nice illustration of this supposed fact. Naturally, unable to find the real McCoy, Peacock cobbled together an Iron Maiden, apparently partially from real artifacts of other means of torture, and then donated it to a museum to be displayed as a symbolic representation of the former era's cruelty. The public ate all of this up, and the idea of the Iron Maiden slowly permeated throughout society to the point that most today assume it was a real thing used to kill people in a slow and very painful way during medieval times. This all brings us to the question of whether anyone has ever actually been tortured or killed in one. The answer, surprisingly, is possibly, but not in medieval times, nor even apparently in historic ones, unless you consider a couple decades ago historic. Enter Uday Hussein, the oldest son of Saddam, started his murderous rampage apparently by bludgeoning to death one Camel Gageo, who was at the time Saddam's bodyguard, valet and food taster. This murder was done in front of a host of party guests in 1988. The party in question was in Egypt, in honor of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's wife, Suzanne. As to what Gageo did to incite Uday's rage, he apparently hooked Saddam up with a woman, Samira Shabandar. Samira was married when Saddam met her, but that was quickly taken care of, freeing him up to take her as one of his mistresses and later as his second wife.  Saddam did sentence his son to death for this murder, but a few months later switched to exiling him to Switzerland, with the Swiss government allowing the well-known recent murderer to enter the country for some bizarre reason. However, after frequent run-ins with the law there, the Swiss finally gave him the boot and he returned to Iraq without apparent consequence.  This all brings us back to the Iron Maiden and Uday's eventual appointment as the chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the Iraq Football Association. In those positions, accusations were rampant that Uday occasionally had various athletes tortured when they were thought to have either underperformed or otherwise screwed up in some way in competition.  Allegedly, after a 4-1 loss to Japan in the Asian Cup in 2000, he also had three of the players deemed responsible for the defeat beaten repeatedly for a few days. As for the Iron Maiden, after Uday's death and the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, a mere 20 or so meters away from the Iraqi Football Association headquarters in Iron Maiden was found on the ground. Time magazine's Bobby Gosh states of this find, the one found in Baghdad was clearly worn from use, its nails having lost some of their sharpness. It lay on its side within view of Uday's first floor offices in the soccer association. Ironically, the torture device was brought to time's attention by a group of looters who had been stripping the compound of anything of value. They had left behind the Iron Maiden, believing it to be worthless. Despite this report, there is no actual hard evidence the Iron Maiden was used, nor blood found on the device or the like. But given all the rumors of Uday's penchant for torturing people and some of the confirmed things he did do, as well as the device's location, at the least he is presumed to have used it as a method of terrorizing people, as was more the norm even in medieval times with actual real-world torture devices rather than frequently using them. All that said, given his proclivities for murdering people who upset him, it is further speculated by many that he might have actually followed through and killed someone with it at some point. But again, despite reports, so far there has never been any concrete evidence of this, so it is still not wholly clear if anyone was ever actually killed by an Iron Maiden or not. Thanks for listening and be sure to stick around for the bloopers at the end. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show. Find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I've narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host, including Church of the Undead, visit the store for Weird Darkness merchandise and more. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories on Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes. The Disturbing Case of the Ericson Twins is by Harrison Tenpas for Graveyard Shift. The mysterious death of Mark Antoine Callis is from Strange Company. The Elves of Iceland is by Rob Schwartz for Stranger Dimensions. Stone-throwing spirits is from the Forty-an. Bellagunas, the Black Widow of the Midwest is by Stephen Casal for the lineup. And the Iron Maiden was written by Carl Smallwood for Today I Found Out. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. Copyright Weird Darkness. Now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light.  Surely, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. What a final thought. God's plan is always more beautiful than our desire. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me. In the Weird Darkness. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftanjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftanjurjur. Haftanjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftanjur... Haftnar... Haftnar Forjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftnar Forjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftnar Forjur, Iceland. Hey Weirdos, be sure to click the like button and subscribe to this channel and click the notification bell so you don't miss future videos. I post videos seven days a week and while you're at it, spread the darkness by sharing this video with someone you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com.