Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and Mrs. Reagan. Well, Nancy and I are always delighted to see all of you from Citizens for the Republic. And first of all, I know I'll get a chance to see Lynn Knopfziger and find out what I'm doing wrong. There he is. Actually, Lynn never lectures me. Well, almost never. But he's a dear friend and one of my longest-standing political associates. That came home painfully just around the corner one day when Lynn and I and a few others were crowded in the little elevator that Harry Truman installed here in the mansion. And Lynn was talking about something that happened long ago in California days and I couldn't resist saying, she just think, Lynn, I knew you when you were young. And without missing a beat, he said, sorry, but I can't say the same. And you know, I pride myself on rejoiners to Lynn. Believe me, it's the Lord's work. But all I could do was wince and say after that last one it hurt. But it is wonderful to see so many old friends like Lynn and of course Wendy Borcher your executive vice chairman and most of you know that Citizens for the Republic was founded back in 1977 right after our presidential campaign. And the idea at that time, just as it is now, was to demonstrate that the things we believe in have a life of their own. They don't end with one presidential campaign or even one president. A few of you can remember that not many people back then rated our prospects for success very high and it's been a long struggle. Yet so much of what we could only dream about in the old days has now been achieved. Freedom is on the march and conservatism is in vogue. Our economy is moving or booming again. Our defenses have been rebuilt and our international prestige and power restored. Even now we think we're on the verge of another historic legislative victory. A tax reform bill that can permanently alter the economic climate and bolster our economic growth for many years to come. Now it's true that on some issues there's work left to do. We haven't quite gotten over the top yet on the contra aid. And yes we're worried about the budget. Those defense figures are too low and the spending cuts that we've asked for haven't been made. But these are issues we can take to the American people and win. And that brings me to my point today. When things have gone well for a while there's always a perfectly human tendency to get comfortable. To take success for granted to forget the feel of hard work and the long road that brought us to where we are today. So yes while the long-term picture is encouraging and the historical trends are moving in our direction let me tell you candidly that I'm worried about the short-term picture. I'm worried that our movement might grow soft with victory and in a moment of dreadful folly throw away all we've gained. And then believe me it's back to ground zero, back to picking up the pieces and starting if not from scratch at least from a position of weakness. I'm talking of course about the upcoming elections and the importance of not only holding on to but increasing our conservative majority in the Senate and then constructing a new conservative majority in the House of Representatives. Believe me this year the Liberals know its breakpoint that if they don't do well it's very likely that conservative candidates will start to dominate not just the Republic but the Democratic Party as well and that everyone running for president in 88 will be sounding conservative themes and then the liberal hour will be over and their power gone for good. So the Liberals are pulling out all the stops this year. They're going to try to reverse all that you and I and CFTR have worked so hard to accomplish. They know how close we are. One push and maybe just maybe we're over the top. Think about it. CFTR has a remarkable record. You've done an enormous amount to elect senators and congressmen who want to move forward with our agenda. You were cited by the Federal Election Commission as the multi-candidate political action committee that contributes the highest percentage of its dollars to campaigns. And as this record of success I'm asking you to build on especially this year not only to win in the Congress but to pick up gubernatorial seats too and to make permanent that trend we're seeing of 18 to 24 year olds voting Republican for a fellow who's burned in effigy on every campus in California. I want to tell you it's a big thrill to go in front of them today and see all those young people on our side. I don't know whether I've ever told you or not but when I reached enough maturity to quit being a Democrat and joined the Republican Party and started doing Republican fundraisers and so forth I went home to Nancy one night and I said told her about all the young people that were there at the meetings. No I didn't. I was remembering the young people I used to see at the Democratic meetings and I went home to her and said I'll get it straight yet and said the only young people there looked like they couldn't join anything else. But not anymore.  So let's all of us work and struggle and pull together as strongly as we did back in the old days. I guess I'm hoping we can revive our spirit of 76. I've vowed that historians will not write that these last few years were characteristic of take it easy or caretaker presidency and I think that's your aim too. So with your help we're going to keep it going we're going to win the crucial victories in the next few months and years and we're going to end this decade with a new birth of freedom bringing us close to bringing true mankind's age old dream for freedom and peace among all the peoples of the world. And now I'm going to quit talking because Nancy and I are going to go over here in the blue room and we're going to looking forward to getting a chance to see each one of you separately and shake your hand. But again thank you all for what you're doing and remember way back when we talked about prairie fire starting in California and sweeping well we've got it. Thank you.


Chapter 30 of The Scarlet Pimpernel This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by E. Lee. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orzi. Chapter 30 The Schooner Marguerite's aching heart stood still. She felt more than she heard the men on the watch preparing for the fight. Her senses told her that each, with sword in hand, was crouching, ready for the spring. The voice came nearer and nearer. In the vast immensity of these lonely cliffs, with the loud murmur of the sea below, it was impossible to say how near or how far, nor yet from which direction came that cheerful singer who sang to God to save his king, whilst he himself was in such deadly danger. Faint at first, the voice grew louder and louder. From time to time, a small pebble detached itself apparently from beneath the firm tread of the singer and went rolling down the rocky cliffs to the beach below. Mom, to reign over us, God save the king. Marguerite, as she heard, felt that her very life was slipping away as if when that voice drew nearer, when that singer became entrapped, she distinctly heard the click of Degas' gun close to her. No, no, no, no, oh God in heaven, this cannot be.  Let her be branded as his murderer. Let even he whom she loved despise and loathe her for this. But God, oh God, save him at any cost. With a wild shriek she sprang to her feet and darted around the rock against which she had been cowering. She saw the little red gleam through the chinks of the hut. She ran up to it and fell against its wooden walls which she began to hammer with clenched fists in an almost maniacal frenzy while she shouted, Armand, Armand for God's sake, fire, your leader is near. He is coming, he is betrayed. Armand, Armand, fire in heaven's name. She was seized and thrown to the ground. She lay there moaning, bruised, not caring, but still half sobbing, half shrieking. Percy, my husband, for God's sake, fly. Armand, Armand, why don't you fire? One of you stop that woman screaming. His shovel-on who hardly could refrain from striking her. Something was thrown over her face. She could not breathe and perforce she was silent. The bold singer too had become silent, warned no doubt of his impending danger by Marguerite's frantic shrieks. The men had sprung to their feet. There was no need for further silence on their part. The very cliffs echoed the poor, heartbroken woman's screams. She'll belong with a muttered oath, which boated no good to her who had dared to upset his most cherished plans. Had hastily shouted the word of command, Into it my men and let no one escape from that utter live. The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds. The darkness on the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant, silvery light. Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough wooden door of the hut, whilst one of them kept guard over Marguerite. The door was partially open. One of the soldiers pushed it further, but within all was darkness. The charcoal fire only lighting with the dim red light, the furthest corner of the hut. The soldiers paused automatically at the door, like machines waiting for further orders. Chauvalan, who was prepared for a violent onslaught from within, and for a vigorous resistance from the four fugitives under cover of the darkness, was for the moment paralysed with astonishment when he saw the soldiers standing there at attention, like centuries on guard, who's not a sound proceeded from the hut, filled with a strange, anxious foreboding. He too went to the door of the hut, and peering into the gloom he asked quickly, what is the meaning of this? I think, Citoyenne, that there is no one there now. Replied one of the soldiers, impoturably. You have not let those four men go? Thundered Chauvalan menacingly. I ordered you to let no man escape alive, quick after them all of you, quick in every direction. The men, obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline towards the beach, some going off to right and left, as fast as their feet could carry them. You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder, Citoyenne Sergeant. Thundered Chauvalan viciously to the sergeant who had been in charge of the men. And you too, Citoyenne. He added, turning with a snarl to Dika, thought disobeying my orders. You ordered us to wait, Citoyenne, until the tall Englishmen arrived, and joined the four men in the hut. No one came. Suddenly. But I ordered you just now when the woman screamed at the rushing and let no one escape. But Citoyenne, the four men who were there before, had been gone some time, I think. Your think? You? Thundered Chauvalan almost choking with fury. And you let them go? You ordered us to wait, Citoyenne. Protested the sergeant? And to implicitly obey your commands on pain of death. We waited. I heard the men creep out of the hut, not many minutes after we took cover, long before the woman screamed. He added, as Chauvalan seemed still quite speechless with rage. Hark! said Dika suddenly. In the distance, the sound of repeated firing was heard. Chauvalan tried to peer along the beach below, but as luck would have it the fitful moon once more hid her light behind a bank of clouds, and he could see nothing. When are you going to the hut and strike a light? He stammered at last. Stolledly the sergeant obeyed. He went up to the charcoal fire and lit the small lantern he carried in his belt. It was evident that the hut was quite empty. Which way did they go? asked Chauvalan. I could not tell, Citoyenne. said the sergeant. They went straight down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders. Hush! What was that? All three men listened attentively. In the far, very far distance could be heard faintly echoing and already dying away. The quick, sharp splash of half a dozen oars. Chauvalan took out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. His boat! was all he gasped. Evidently, Armand St. Joust and his three companions had managed to creep along the sides of the cliff, whilst the men, like true soldiers of the well-drilled Republican army, had with blind obedience and in fear of their own lives implicitly obeyed Chauvalan's orders to wait for the tall Englishman who was the important capture. They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out to sea on this coast at intervals. Behind this, the boat of the daydream must have been on the lookout for them, and they were by now safely onboard the British schooner. As if to confirm this last opposition, the dull boom of a gun was heard from out at sea. The schooner, Citoyenne, said to God quietly, It needed all Chauvalan's nerve and presence of mind not to give away to a useless and undignified access of rage. There was no doubt now that once again that accursed British head had completely outwitted him. How he had contrived to reach the hut without being seen by one of the 30 soldiers who guarded the spot was more than Chauvalan could conceive. That he had done so before the 30 men had arrived on the cliff was, of course, fairly clear. But how he had come over in Ruben Goldstein's cart all the way from Calais without being sighted by the various patrols on duty was impossible of explanation. It really seemed as if some potent fate watched over that daring scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy almost felt a superstitious shutter pass through him as he looked around at the towering cliffs and the loneliness of this outlying coast. But surely this was reality and the year of Grace 1792. There were no fairies and hubgoblins about.  By that time the four fugitives must have reached the creek and got into the boat and the nearest creek was more than a mile from the hut. Where had that daring singer got to? Unless Satan himself had lent him wings he could not have covered that mile on a rocky cliff in a space of two minutes and only two minutes had elapsed between his song and the sound of the boat's oars away at sea. He must have remained behind and was even now hiding somewhere about the cliffs. The patrol were still about. He would still be sighted no doubt. Chauvalan felt hopeful once again. One or two of the men who had run after the fugitives were now slowly working their way up the cliff. One of them reached Chauvalan's side at the very moment that this hope arose in the astute diplomatist's heart. We were too late, Citoyen, the soldier said. We reached the beach just before the moon was hidden by that bank of clouds. The boat had undoubtedly been on the lookout to find that first creek, a mile off, but she had shoved off some time ago when we got to the beach and was already some way out to sea. We fired after her, but of course it was no good. She was making straight and quickly for the schooner. We saw her very clearly in the moonlight. Yes, said Chauvalan with eager impatience.  Yes, Citoyen, I ran all the way straight to the beach, though I guessed the boat would have waited somewhere near the creek the earliest. The boat must have shoved off some minutes before the woman began to scream. Bring the lightning ear. He commanded eagerly as he once more entered the hut. The sergeant brought his lantern and together the two men explored the little place. With the rapid glance, Chauvalan noted its contents. The cauldron placed close under an aperture in the wall and containing the last few dying embers of burned charcoal. A couple of stools overturned as if in the haste of sudden departure. Then the fisherman's tools and his nets lying in one corner and beside them something small and white. Pick that up. Said Chauvalan to the sergeant, pointing to this white scrap. And bring it to me. It was a crumpled piece of paper evidently forgotten there by the fugitives in their hurry to get away. The sergeant, much odd by the Citoyen's obvious rage and impatience, picked the paper up and handed it respectfully to Chauvalan. Read it, sergeant. Said the latter curtly. It is almost illegible, Citoyen. A fearful scrawl. I ordered you to read it. Repeated Chauvalan viciously. The sergeant by the light of his lantern began deciphering the few hastily scrawled words. I cannot quite reach you without risking your lives and endangering the success of your rescue. When you receive this, wait two minutes, then creep out of the hut one by one, turn to your left sharply, and creep cautiously down the cliff. Keep to the left all the time till you reach the first rock, which you see jutting far out to sea. Behind it in the creek the boat is on the lookout for you. Give a long, sharp whistle. She will come up, get into her. My men will row you to the schooner and thence to England and safety. Once on board the daydream, send the boat back for me. Tell my men that I shall be at the creek, which is in a direct line opposite the Chategrie near Calais. They know it. I shall be there as soon as possible. They must wait for me at a safe distance out at sea till they hear the usual signal. Do not delay and obey these instructions implicitly. Then there is the signature, Citroën. Added the sergeant as he handed the paper back to Chauvelin. The latter had not waited an instant. One phrase of the momentous scrawl had caught his ear. I shall be at the creek, which is in a direct line opposite the Chategrie near Calais. That phrase might yet mean victory for him. Which of you knows this, Castwell? He shouted to his men, who now one by one all returned from their fruitless run and were all assembled once more round the hut. I do, Citroën. Said one of them. I was born in Calais and I know every stone of these cliffs. There is a creek in a direct line from the Chategrie. There is Citroën. I know it well. The Englishman is hoping to reach that creek. He does not know every stone of these cliffs. He may go there by the longest way round and in any case he will proceed cautiously for fear of the patrols. At any rate, there is a chance to get him yet. A thousand francs to each man who gets to that creek before that long leg at Englishman. I know of a shortcut across the cliffs. Said the soldier, and with an enthusiastic shout he rushed forward, followed closely by his comrades. Within a few minutes their running footsteps had died away in the distance. Chauvelin listened to them for a moment. The promise of the reward was lending spurs to their soldiers of the Republic. The gleam of hate and anticipated triumph was once more apparent on his face. Close to him, they guys still stood mutant and passive waiting for further orders. Those two soldiers were kneeling beside the prostrate form of Marguerite. Chauvelin gave his secretary a vicious look. His well-laid plan had failed. Its sequel was problematical. There was still a great chance now that the scarlet Pimpernel might yet escape and Chauvelin, with that unreasoning fury which sometimes assails a strong nature was longing to vent his rage on somebody. The soldiers were holding Marguerite Pinion to the ground, though she, poor soul, was not making the faintest struggle. Overwrought nature had at last preemptorily asserted herself and she lay there in a deep swoon, her eyes circled by deep purple lines that told of long sleepless nights, her hair matted and damp around her forehead, her lips parted in a sharp curve that spoke of physical pain. The cleverest woman in Europe, the elegant and fashionable Lady Blakeney who had dazzled London society with her beauty, her wit and her extravagances presented a very pathetic picture of tired-out, suffering womanhood which would have appealed to any but the hard, vengeful heart of her baffled enemy. There is no use mounting guard over a woman who is half-dead. He said spitefully to the soldiers. You have allowed five men who were very much alive to escape. Obediently, the soldiers rose to their feet. You'd better try to find that footpath again for me and that broken-down cart we left on the road. Then suddenly, a bright idea seemed to strike him. Ah, by the boy, where is the Jew? Close by here, Sir Troyan. I gagged him and tied his legs together, as you commanded. From the immediate vicinity a plaintive moan reached Chauvalan's ears. He followed his secretary who led the way to the other side of the hut, where, fallen into an absolute heap of dejection with his legs tightly pinioned together and his mouth gagged, lay the unfortunate descendant of Israel. His face in the silvery light of the moon looked positively ghastly with terror. His eyes were wide open and almost glassy and his whole body was trembling as if with ague the piteous whale escaped his bloodless lips. The rope which had originally been wound round his shoulders and arms had evidently given way, for it lay in a tangle about his body, but he seemed quite unconscious of this, for he had not made the slightest attempt to move from the place where the gahed originally put him, like a terrified chicken, which looks upon a line of white chalk drawn on a table, as on a string which paralyzes its movements. Bring the cowardly brute ear. Commander Chauvelin. He certainly felt exceedingly vicious, and since he had no reasonable grounds for venting his ill-humour on the soldiers, who had but to punctually obeyed his orders, he felt that the son of the despised race would prove an excellent but. With true French contempt of the Jew, which has survived the lapse of centuries even to this day, he would not go too near him, but said with biting sarcasm, as the wretched old man was brought in full light of the moon by the two soldiers. I suppose now that being a Jew, you have a good memory for bargains? Answer. He again commanded, as the Jew with trembling lips seemed too frightened to speak. Yes, Your Honor. Stammered the poor wretch. You remember, then, the one that you and I met together in Calais when you undertook to overtake Rubin Goldstein, his nag and my friend, the tall stranger. Huh? B-b-but, Your Honor. There is no but, I said, do you remember? Y-yes, Your Honor. What was the bargain? There was dead silence. The unfortunate man looked round at the great cliffs, the moon above, the stolid faces of the soldiers, and even at the poor, prostrate inanimate woman close by, but said nothing. Will you speak? Thunder Chauvelin menacingly. He did try, poor wretch, but obviously he could not. There was no doubt, however, that he knew what to expect from the stern man before him. Your Honor. He ventured imploringly. Since your terror seems to have paralyzed your tongue, said Chauvelin sarcastically, I must need to refresh your memory. I read between us that if we overtook my friend, the tall stranger, before he reached this place, you ought to have ten pieces of gold. A low moan escaped from the Jew's trembling lips. But, added Chauvelin with slow emphasis, if you deceived me in your promise, you ought to have a sound-pating one that would teach you not to tell lies. I did not, Your Honor. I swear it by Abraham. And by all the other patriarchs I know. Unfortunately, they are still in eddies. I believe, according to your creed, and cannot much help you in your present trouble. Now, you did not fulfill your share of the bargain, but I am ready to fulfill mine. Here. He added, turning to the soldiers. The buckle end of your two belts to this confounded Jew. As the soldiers obediently unbuckled their heavy leather belts, the Jews that abba howl that surely would have been enough to bring all the patriarchs out of Hades and elsewhere to defend their descendant from the brutality of this French official. I think I can rely on you, Citoyen soldiers. Laugh Chauvelin maliciously to give this old liar the best and soundest beating he has ever experienced. But don't kill him. We will obey, Citoyen. replied the soldiers as imperturbably as ever. He did not wait to see his orders carried out. He knew that he could trust these soldiers who were still smarting under his rebuke, not to mince matters when given a free hand to belabor a third party. When that lamboring coward has had his punishment, he said to Degas, the men can guide us as far as the cart and one of them can drive us in it back to Calais. The Jew and the woman can look after each other. He added roughly, until we send somebody for them in the morning. We can run away very far in that present condition and we cannot be troubled with them just now. Chauvelin had not given up all hope. His men, he knew, were spurred on by the hope of the reward. That enigmatic and audacious Scarlet Pimpernel, alone and with thirty men at his heels, could not reasonably be expected to escape a second time. But he felt less sure now. The Englishman's audacity had baffled him once.  If Marguerite had not taken up his time, if the soldiers had had a grain of intelligence, if it was a long if. And Chauvelin stood for a moment quite still and enrolled thirty odd people in one long overwhelming anathema. Nature, poetic, silent, balmy. The bright moon, the calm silvery sea, spoke of beauty and of rest. And Chauvelin cursed nature, cursed man and woman. And above all, he cursed all long-legged, meddlesome British enigmas with one gigantic curse. The house of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment, sent a bomb through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful malice. He smiled. It eased his mind to think that some human being, at least, was like himself, not altogether at peace with mankind. He turned and took a last look at the lonely bit of coast, where stood the wooden hut now bathed in moonlight, seen of the greatest discomforture ever experienced by a leading member of the Committee of Public Safety. Against a rock, on a hard bed of stone, lay the unconscious figure of Marguerite Blakeney. While some few paces further on, the unfortunate Jew was receiving on his broad back the blows of two stout leather belts wielded by the stolid arms of two sturdy soldiers of the Republic. The howls of Benjamin Rosenbaum were fit to make the dead rise from their graves. They must have wakened all the gulls from sleep and made them look down with great interest at the doings of the Lords of Creation. That will do, commanded Chauvelin, as the Jew's moans became more feeble and the poor wretch seemed to have fainted away. We don't want to kill him. Obediently, the soldiers buckled on their belts, one of them viciously kicking the Jew to one side. I'll leave him there, said Chauvelin, and leave the way now quickly to the cart. I'll follow. He walked up to where Marguerite lay and looked down into her face. She had evidently recovered consciousness and was making feeble efforts to raise herself. Her large blue eyes were looking at the moonlit scene round her with a scared and terrified look. They rested with a mixture of horror and pity on the Jew whose luckless fate and wild howls had been the first signs that struck her with her returning senses. Then she had caught sight of Chauvelin in his neat dark clothes, which seemed hardly crumpled after the stirring events of the last few hours. He was smiling sarcastically, and his pale eyes peered down at her with a look of intense malice. With mock gallantry he stooped and raised her icy cold hand to his lips, which sent a thrill of indescribable loathing through Marguerite's weary frame. I must regret, fair lady. He said, in his most suave tones, that circumstances over which I have no control compel me to leave you here for the moment. But I go away secure in the knowledge that I do not leave you unprotected. Our friend Benjamin here, through a trifle the worst for wear at the present moment will prove a gallant defender of your fair person, I have no doubt. Adorn, I will send an escort for you. Until then I feel sure that you will find him devoted, although perhaps a trifle slow. Marguerite only had this strength to turn her head away. Her heart was broken with cruel anguish when awful thought had returned to her mind together with gathering consciousness. What had become of Percy? What of Armand? She knew nothing of what had happened after she heard the cheerful song God Save the King, which she believed to be the signal of death. I myself, concluded Chauvelin, of you. Au revoir, fair lady. We meet, I hope, soon in London. Shall I see you at the Prince of Wales garden party? No? Ah well. Au revoir. Remember me, I pray, to this party, black and me. And with a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed her hand and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the soldiers and followed by the imperturbable Degas. End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 of the Scarlet Pimpernel This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Ortsy. Chapter 31 The Escape Margaret listened, half dazed as she was, fast retreating, firm footsteps of the four men. All nature was so still that she, lying with her ear close to the ground, could distinctly trace the sound of their tread, as they ultimately turned into the road, and presently the faint echo of the old cartwheels, the halting gate to the lean nag, told her that her enemy was a quart of a league away. How long she lay there she knew not. She had lost count of time. Dreamily she looked up at the moonlit sky and listened to the monotonous roll of the waves. The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied body. The immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike. Her brain only remained conscious of its ceaselessness, its intolerable torture of uncertainty. She did not know. She did not know whether Percy was even now, at this moment, in the hands of the soldiers of the Republic, enduring as she had done herself, the jibes and jeers of his malicious enemy. She did not know, on the other hand, whether Armand's lifeless body did not lie there in the hut whilst Percy had escaped, to hear that his wife's hands had guided the human bloodhounds to the murder of Armand and his friends. The physical pain of utter weariness was so great that she hoped confidently her tired body could rest here forever. After all the turmoil, the passion, and the intrigues of the last few days, here, beneath that clear sky, within sound of the sea, and with this balmy autumn breeze whispering to her a last lullaby. All was so solitary, so silent, like onto dreamland. Even the last faint echo of the distant cart long ago died away, afar. Suddenly, a sound, the strangest, undoubtedly, that these lonely cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent solemnity of the shore. So strange a sound was it that the gentle breeze ceased to murmur, the tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline. So strange that Marguerite, wearied, overrotted as she was, thought that the beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her half-sleeping sense as a weird and elusive trick. It was the sound of a good, solid, absolutely British, dumb. The seagulls in their nests awoke and looked round in astonishment. A distant and solitary owl set up a midnight hoot. The tall cliffs frowned down majestically at the strange unheard of sacrilege. Marguerite did not trust her ears. Half-raising herself on her hands, she strained every sense to see or hear to know the meaning of this very earthly sound. All was still again for the space of a few seconds. The same silence once more fell upon the great and lonely vastness. Then Marguerite, who had listened as in a trance, who felt she must be dreaming with that cool magnetic moonlight overhead, heard again, and this time her heart stood still, her eyes large and dilated, looked round her, not daring to trust her other sense. Odd's life! But I wish those dim fellows had not hit me quite so hard. This time it was quite unmistakable. Only one particular pair of essentially British lips could have uttered those words in sleepy, drawly, affected tones. Dumb! Repeated those same British lips emphatically. Zounds, but I'm as weak as a rat. In a moment Marguerite was on her feet. Was she dreaming? Were those great stony cliffs the gates of paradise? Was the fragrant breath of the breeze suddenly caused by the flutter of angels' wings, bringing tidings of unnervaously joys to her after all her sufferings, or faint and ill, was she the prey of delirium? She listened again, and once again she heard the same very earthy sounds of good, honest British language, not the least akin to whispering from paradise or flutter of angels' wings. She looked round eagerly at the tall cliffs, the lonely hut, the great stretch of rocky beach, somewhere there, above or below her, behind a boulder or inside a crevice, but still hidden from her longing feverish eyes, must be the owner of that voice, which once used to irritate her, but now would make her the happiest woman in Europe if only she could locate it. Percy! Percy! She streaked hysterically, tortured between doubt and hope. I am here. Come to me. Where are you, Percy? Percy? It is all very well calling me, my dear, said the same sleepy, drawly voice. But odd's life I cannot come to you. Those damned frog eaters have trust me like a goose on a spit, and I am weak as a mouse. I cannot get away. And still Marguerite did not understand. She did not realise for at least another ten seconds whence came that voice so drawly, so dear, but alas, with a strange accent of weakness and of suffering. There was no one within sight except by that rock. Great God! The Jew! Was she mad or dreaming? His back was against the pale moonlight. He was half-crouching, trying vainly to raise himself with his arms tightly pinioned. Marguerite ran up to him, took his head in both her hands, and looked straight into a pair of blue eyes, good-natured, even a trifle amused, shining out of the weird and distorted mask of the Jew. Percy! Percy! My husband! She gasped, faint with the fullness of her joy. Thank God! Thank God! La, my dear! He rejoined good-humourly. We will both do that and not, and you think you can loosen these damned ropes to release me from my inelegant attitude. She had no knife, her fingers were numb and weak, but she worked away with her teeth, while great welcome tears poured from her eyes onto those poor, pinioned hands. Odd's life! He said, when at last, after frantic efforts on her part, the rope seemed at last to be giving way. But I marvel whether it has ever happened before, that an English gentleman allowed himself to be licked by a damned foreigner, and made no attempt to give as good as he got. It was very obvious that he was exhausted from sheer physical pain, and when at last the rope gave way, he fell in a heap against the rock. Marguerite looked helplessly round her. Oh, for a drop of water on this awful beach! She cried in agony, seeing that he was ready to faint again. Nay, my dear! He murmured with his good-humoured smile. Personally, I should prefer a drop of good French brandy. And you'll dive in the pocket of this dirty old garment, you'll find my flask. I am damned if I can move. When he had drunk some brandy, he forced Marguerite to do likewise. La, that's better now, eh, little woman? He said with a sigh of satisfaction. Hey, ho! But this is a queer rig up for Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet, to be found in by his lady, and no mistake, begad! He added, passing his hand over his chin, I haven't been shaved for nearly twenty hours. I must look a disgusting object, as for these curls. And laughingly he took off the disfiguring wig and curls, and stretched out his long limbs, which were cramped for many hours stooping. Then he bent forward and looked long and searchingly into his wife's blue eyes. Percy! She whispered, while a deep blush suffused her delicate cheeks and neck. If you only knew. I do know, dear, everything. He said with infinite gentleness. And can you ever forgive? I have not to forgive, sweetheart. Your heroism, your devotion, which I, alas, so little deserved, have more than atoned for that unfortunate episode at the ball. Then you knew? She whispered. All the time? Yes. He replied tenderly. I knew. All the time.  And you would not have had to undergo the terrible sufferings of the past few hours, in order to run after a husband who has done so much that needs forgiveness.  She certainly now deserved the name of the happiest woman in Europe. It is a case of the blind leading the lame, sweetheart, is it not?   But Amal! She said with sudden terror and remorse, as in the midst of her happiness the image of the beloved brother, for whose sake she had so deeply sinned, rose now before her mind. Oh, have no fear for Armand, sweetheart! He said tenderly, Did I not pledge you my word that he would be safe? He, with de Tourne and the others, are even now on board the daydream. But how? She gasped. I do not understand. Yet it is simple enough, my dear. He said with that funny, half-shy, half-nane laugh of his. You see, when I found that the brute Chauvelin meant to stick to me like a leech, I thought the best thing I could do, as I could not shake him off, was to take him along with me. I had to get to Armand and the others somehow, and all the roads were patrolled, and everyone on the lookout for your humble servant. I knew that when I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers of the chagry that he would lie and wait for me here, whichever way I took. I wanted to keep an eye on him and his doings, and a British head is as good as a French one any day. Indeed, it had proved to be infinitely better, and Marguerite's heart was filled with joy and marvel, as he continued to recount to her the daring manner in which he had snatched the fugitives away, right from under Chauvelin's very nose. Dressed as the dirty old dew— He said, gaily— I knew I should not be recognised. I had met Ruben Goldstein in Calais earlier in the evening. A few gold pieces he supplied me with his regout, and undertook to bury himself out of sight of everybody, whilst he lent me his cart and nag. But if Chauvelin had discovered you— She gasped excitedly. Your disguise was good, but he is so sharp. Odds fish. He rejoined quietly. Then certainly the gain would have been up. I could but take the risk. I know human nature pretty well by now. He added with a note of sadness in his cheery young voice. And I know these Frenchmen out and out. They so loathe a Jew that they never come nearer than a couple of yards of him, and begad. I fancy that I contrived to make myself look about as loathsome an object as it is possible to conceive. Yes, and so? She asked eagerly. Zooks! Then I carried out my little plan. That is to say, at first I only determined to leave everything to chance, and I heard Chauvelin giving his orders to the soldiers. I thought that fate and I were going to work together after all. I reckoned on the blind obedience of the soldiers. Chauvelin had ordered them on pain of death, not to stir until a tall Englishman came. Degas had thrown me down in a heap quite close to the hut. The soldiers took no notice of the Jew who had driven Citoyenne Chauvelin to this spot. I managed to free my hands from the ropes with which the Brutes had trust me. I always carry a pencil and paper with me wherever I go, and I hastily scroll the few important instructions on a scrap of paper. Then I looked about me. I crawled up to the hut, under the very noses of the soldiers, who lay under cover without stirring, just as Chauvelin had ordered them to do. Then I dropped my little note into the hut through a chink in the wall and waited. In this note I told the fugitives to walk noiselessly out of the hut, creep down the cliffs, keep to the left until they came to the first creek. To give a certain signal when the boat of the Daydream, which lay in wait not far out to sea, would pick them up. They obeyed implicitly, fortunately for them, and for me. The soldiers who saw them were equally obedient to Chauvelin's orders. They did not stir. I waited for nearly half an hour. When I knew that the fugitives were safe, they gave the signal which caused so much stir. And that was the whole story. It seemed so simple, and Marguerite could be marvel at the wonderful ingenuity, the boundless pluck and audacity which had evolved and helped to carry out the staring plan. That's as brute struck you! She gasped in horror at the bare recollection of the fearful indignity. Well, that could not be helped. He said gently, whilst my little wife's fate was so uncertain, I had to remain here by her side. Odd's life! He added merrily, Never fear! Chauvelin will lose nothing by waiting, I warrant. Wait till I get him back to England. La! he shall pay for the thrashing he gave me with compound interest, I promise you. Marguerite laughed. It was so good to be beside him, to hear his cheery voice, to watch that good humor twinkle in his blue eyes as he stretched out his strong arms in longing for that foe and anticipation of his well-deserved punishment. Suddenly, however, she started, the heavy blush left her cheeks. The light of joy died out of her eyes. She had heard a salty foot fall overhead and a stone had rolled down from the top of the cliffs right down to the beach below. What's that? She whispered in horror and alarm. Nothing, my dear! Only a trifle you happen to have forgotten. My friend, Fulks. Sir Andrew! She gasped. Indeed, she had wholly forgotten the devoted friend and companion and stood by her during all these hours of anxiety and suffering. She remembered him now, tardily, and with the pain of remorse.  Said Sir Percy Merrily. Fortunately, I met him not far from the char gris before I had that interesting supper-party with my friend Chauvelin. Odd's life, but I have a score to settle with that young reprobate. But in the meanwhile, I told him of a very long, very circuitous road and would never suspect. Just about the time when we are ready for him. A little woman. And he obeyed. As Marguerite in utter astonishment. Without word or question. See, here he comes. He was not in the way when I did not want him. And now he arrives in the nick of time. Ah, he will make pretty little Suzanne a most admirable and methodical husband. In the meanwhile, Sir Andrew Fulks had cautiously worked his way down the cliffs. He stopped once or twice, pausing to listen for whispered words which would guide him to Blakeney's hiding place. Blakeney. He ventured to say it last cautiously. Blakeney, are you there? The next moment he rounded the rock against which Sir Percy and Marguerite were leaning. And seeing the weird figure still clad in the Jews long gabardain, he paused and suddenly complete bewilderment. But already Blakeney had struggled to his feet. Here I am, friend.  All alive. Though I do look a big-gad scarecrow in these damned things. Look. Ejaculated Sir Andrew in boundless astonishment as he recognized his leader. Of all the— The young man had seen Marguerite and happily checked the forcible language that rose to his lips at the sight of the exquisite Sir Percy in this weird and dirty garb. Yes. Said Blakeney calmly. I will ask you what you were doing in France when I ordered you to remain in London. In subordination? What? Wait till my shoulders are less sore and by gad see the punishment you'll get. Odds fish. Old Barrett.  Said Sir Andrew with a merry laugh. Seeing that you were alive to give it. Would you have had me allow Lady Blakeney to do the journey alone? But in the name of heaven-man where did you get these extraordinary clothes? Love they are a bit quaint, are they? Laugh Sir Percy Jovially. But Odds fish. He added with sudden earnestness and authority. Now you are here, folks. We must lose no more time. That brute Shovla may send someone to look after us. Marguerite was so happy she could have stayed here forever, hearing his voice, asking a hundred questions. But at the mention of Shovla's name she started in quick alarm, afraid for the dear life she would have died to save. But how can we get back? She gasped. The roads are full of soldiers between here and Calais. And... We are not going back to Calais, sweetheart. He said? But just the other side of Greenay, not half a league from here. The boat of the daydream will meet us there. The boat of the daydream? Yes. He said with a merry laugh. Another little trick of mine. I remember that when I slipped that note into the hut, I also added another for Armand, which I directed him to leave behind, and which has sent Shovla and his men running full tilt back to the chagrie after me. But the first little note contained my real instructions, including those to Old Briggs. He had my orders to go out further to sea and then towards the west. When well out of sight of Calais he will send the galley to a little creek he and I know of, just beyond Greenay. The men will look out for me. We have a pre-concerted signal and we will all be safely aboard, whilst Shovla and his men solemnly sit and watch the creek, which is just opposite the chagrie. The other side of Greenay, but I... I cannot walk, Percy. She moaned helplessly as, trying to struggle to her tired feet, she found herself unable even to stand. I will carry you, dear. He said simply? Leaving the lame, you know. Sir Andrew was ready, too, to help with the precious burden, but Sir Percy would not trust his beloved to any arms but his own. When you and she are both safely on board the daydream, he said to his young comrade, and I feel that Mamoiselle Susanne's eyes will not greet me in England with reproachful looks. Then it will be my turn to rest. And his arms still vigorous in spite of fatigue and suffering on Marguerite's poor, weary body, and lifted her as gently as if she had been a feather. Then, as Sir Andrew discreetly kept out of earshot, there were many things said or rather whispered which even the autumn breeze did not catch for it had gone to rest. All his fatigue was forgotten. His shoulders must have been very sore for the soldiers had hit hard, but the man's muscles seemed made of steel and his energy was almost supernatural. It was a weary tramp, half a leg along the stony side of the cliffs, and the guard give way or his muscles yield to fatigue. On he trapped with firm footstep his vigorous arms encircling the precious burden and, no doubt, as she lay, quiet and happy, at times lulled to momentary drowsiness and others watching through the slowly gathering morning light, the pleasant face with the lazy, drooping blue eyes, ever cheerful, ever illuminated with a good, humored smile, she whispered many things which helped to shorten the weary road to the news. The many-hewed light of dawn was breaking in the east when at last they reached the creek beyond the Green Nez. The galley lay in wait in answer to a signal from Sir Percy she drew near, and two sturdy British sailors had the honour of carrying my lady into the boat. Half an hour later they were on board the day-tream. The crew, who of necessity were in their master's secrets and who were devoted to him heart and soul were not surprised to see him arriving in so extraordinary a disguise. Our Monson Jews and the other fugitives were eagerly awaiting the advent of their brave rescuer. He would not stay to hear the expressions of their gratitude, but found the way to his private cabin as quickly as he could, leaving Marguerite quite happy in the arms of her brother. Everything on board the day-tream was fitted with that exquisite luxury, so dear to Sir Percy Blakeney's heart, and by the time they all landed at Dover he had found time to get into some of the sumptuous clothes which he loved, and of which he always kept a supply on board his yacht. The difficulty was to provide Marguerite with a pair of shoes, and great was the little Mitty's joy when my lady found that she could put foot on English shore in his best pair. The rest is silence, silence and joy for those who had endured so much suffering, yet found at last a great and lasting happiness. But it is on record that at the brilliant wedding of Sir Andrew Fawkes-Barnet with Madame Waselle Suzanne de Tornay de Basservet, a function at which his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and all the elite of fashionable society were present, the most beautiful woman there was unquestionably Lady Blakeney, whilst the clothes of Sir Percy Blakeney wore with the talk of the gennueur duree of London for many days. It is also a fact that Mont-jeu Chavon, the accredited agent of the French Republican government, was not present at that or any other social function in London after that memorable evening at Lord Grenville's Ball. End of Chapter 31 End of The Scarlet Pimpernel


Hello invisible internet friends. Today I'm going to do a very quick video. We are going to set up a photograph so that everything is perfect and ready for the art resin. And here's the art resin. This is the 32 ounce kit. I'll be using that in the follow-up video. Okay let's go. Black acrylic paint. Acrylic dries really fast as opposed to oil. I like using acrylic for everything. Rebecca likes to use oil because she finds she can blend better. So it's really a preference but for the edges I just want something that dries really fast and the method that I'm using we're going to be covering the edges with a bit of art resin anyways. It's going to look awesome with the resin over top of the edges. So I was putting it on thick. I'll just do one coat and yes I'm working very very fast. We have a new baby at home. Been a bit crazy and if you get any on the top doesn't matter. The photograph is going to be glued down there anyways. All right and that'll probably be dry in 10 minutes. Let me grab the photo. So this is the painting I've been working on for about a year and actually I just got to print it at Walmart. One hour just costs five bucks. You don't got to be too fancy here. Let's see how it looks okay. All right so here we are. I'm just going to go over the tool as quick while the edges are drying. I always used to just use glue sticks for this. That's fine. The odd time you get some chunks. If it's not perfect this day don't worry. Just do the art resin coat over top and that'll hide all the imperfections of your mail. So what I do now this is what is taught by my friend Ron Smith. A photographer who does a lot of this stuff. 3M Super 77. It's a spray adhesive and you can get it at the hardware store. Two clamps just with some clean plastic top just to clamp the picture on when it's in place. You'll see. Brayer. You can get it in the in the print making section of art stores. We'll sell these on artresons.com soon. It's an extra piece of paper and you'll see why. That's bigger than your the size of your print and then an exacto knife just to trim the edges after it's done. Okay so let me go get that. So here's our canvas. Here's our print. Printed to the size of the canvas. Perfect so here's the little trick. You get the print exactly where you'd like it then you just lamp it in place. Doesn't have to be too hard. It looks like you should wear a respirator with this. I'm gonna hold my breath. With art resin you don't need a respirator anymore. It's super safe. I got an OVOC. I've worked for three years to find a safe epoxy resin that is clearer than anything that I've ever seen. So we're just gonna spray. Plenty. This is where this paper comes in hand. Put it over top and this way when you brayer out all the bubbles sometimes when you go along the edge you pick up a little line of glue and then you'd end up putting that all over everything. So there's that side done so just release these and then lift up that side. Spray and push out. Simple eh? Perfect. Also the edges get a bit sticky in the spray. That's fine the art resin will cover it. Just gonna flip it upside down for a really sharp exacto knife. There's just a tiny bit of overhang so I'm just cutting the paper. So there it is. This one is ready. Once I resin it is gonna be on Dragon's Den. It's gonna be one of the props that we actually use. Now we're ready to apply the art resin. To end this video we'll just kind of go over some supplies so that you can get them ready.  You want to level.  Nitrile gloves. Nitrile is important for using resins. We sell these on the site. Probably go through three of these. Take them off truck them.  And you can reuse them just by wiping them with paper towel after and letting the epoxy just curate to it. Same with the spreaders and the stir sticks. Flombate torch. It's not necessary but lots of professionals are using it. It makes 100% sure that every single bubble comes out. Now the bubbles will pop on their own. Now another way is as you see the bubbles you can just blow on top of it and the bubbles will go away. Use a straw. I suggest the torch but not necessary. And then last but not least your art resin. Two-party boxy resin. All the instructions are online art resin.com. We have a big FAQ. We have lots of other sample videos and then email us if you have any questions. Every month we'll be picking someone who uses the hashtag art resin on anything that they put art resin on. So just post it to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever you like to use and we have some software that will randomly pick one person a month. They will be sent a free one gallon studio kit. So anyways that's going on forever. So as you do stuff, yeah hashtag art resin and I'm going to come back and I'll show you how to pour resin on top of your Mona Lisa or whatever you're doing. Cool. Thanks for watching. Thanks for all the nice people out there who say nice things. I love talking to and meeting artists and seeing what everyone's doing because there's so much creativity out there and it's what the world needs. More artists. Okay. Love you guys. Bye-bye.


Life on the Red Horse Ranch. When we left Red Horse Ranch, Alabama and the boys had just discovered that Dewey Dawson was missing. And they're sure it was the work of the Outlaws who were once members of Trigger Dawson's gang. Dawson, now dead, was supposed to be Dewey's father. While the boys write out to find Dewey, they leave Arizona and text to watch things at the ranch. Where did you find the dog, Arizona? I didn't find him. He just wanted in. I hadn't seen nothing to do with it. There's just something behind all this. It's a sure thing. It's the work of those Outlaws. But doesn't it seem strange that men like that would want to get a hold of the boy? What could their reason be, Dad? Well, we ought to hear something from Alabama and the boys. I know. They've been out looking for Dewey all afternoon. Oh, Dad, look. The boys are coming back. I see them. Here. That's him, all right. He's Dewey with them. Well, I can't tell yet, but surely they found out something about him. Stop your horses, boys, up here. But Dewey is... I wish I knew, Rose. We've looked everywhere we can think of around here. Oh, the poor boy. Yes, and if I ever get my sights lined on the farmants that made off with them, they'll be eating hot lead. Come on up on the veranda, boys, and rest yourself a spell. Oh, Bob, have you still got that locket of Dewey's we found over there on the trees? Yeah. Looks like there was a little scuffle. Must have accidentally pulled it off his neck. Well, I'll take care of it, Bob. Dewey thought an awful lot of that locket. All right, Rose.  Well, a song wouldn't hurt at all, boys. Go ahead with one. Yeah. We've sat here long enough. How do we strike out for next, boys? Alabama, I think our next step is to ride over to Roaring River and see if we can find the outlaw gang's hideout. Well, it won't hurt none to find out. Come on, boys. Let's do some more riding. Oh, good luck, Alabama. You've got to find him. Hey. Wait a minute. Who's that riding up? Well... Yes, I live and breathe. It's Steve Bradford. Steve Bradford. Now, what do you suppose that rat's doing over here? I thought I told him to stay off of this ranch. Hold on a minute. Idaho. There's somebody with him. Why... But that couldn't be... It is. It's Stewart. What do you reckon Bradford's doing with the kid? Oh, I don't know. Howdy, fellas. I thought you might be looking for this youngster. Dury. Come here, boy. Hey, look at him. He brought me back. Oh, there's a man. Oh, it's Dury. Where have you been? You can start explaining now. Now, don't get excited, Mr. Carter. Go ahead. I thought you'd be mighty glad to get the boy home. We'll listen to your story, Bradford. Go ahead. All right. I found this boy wandering around over on my bar-dee. Is that all you can think of to say, Bradford? Well, you can ask the boy. He'll tell you. Well, what about it, Dury? You can tell us what happened. That's right, Alibam. I was looking for Elizabeth and I thought I heard him bark down there in the trees. So I went down there and a couple of fellas grabbed me and made me get up on the horses. Then what? They crossed the hill in the bar-dee and let me go. And then Bradford came and found me. Well, Alibam, is that enough? There's something funny about this. No, Alibam. He's right. Right. Well, I'm sorry for what I said, Bradford. We are grateful for your helping us find the boy. That's all right. Better not count on folks around here taking care of you after this young fella. Well, I'll see you later, fellas. Well, can you beat that? Come on, fellas. Let's show Dury we're glad he's home again. Start us off, money. Yeah! Let's go! Texas cowboy, borrow two coal for me and the withers are too long. Before the roundups do begin on money.  High, I've worked up in the sandhills and down upon lots of country. Nebraska's hills of sand, now to the Indian nation.  The cowboys are all tender feet and the doggies are too lean. But listen, don't you know why those outlaws tried to take you away? Well, no. Only they asked me where it was my locket. Your locket? Yes. They said it was going to take it away from me. And I looked and it was gone. I lost it. Why, Dewey, I have your locket. The boys found it down there by the trees. Oh, give it to me.  But what could they want with a little locket like this? Rose, I figure that when we find that out, we're going to know what this whole thing's about. It looks as though Dewey is going to be the center of interest for quite a while. Let's be sure to stay tuned to Red Horse Ranch.


We live in a world where the moral code in the culture is, to be moral, to be good, you must give to others and not expect anything in return. Real nobility, real virtue, saints, help other people and don't expect anything in return. They suffer for other people. They'll die for other people. They'll give to other people. And if they don't do it because it makes them happy and don't do it because it makes them feel good, they do it because that's what they're supposed to do. That is supposed to be morality. Why? Why should I give you anything without expecting anything in return?  Why is your life more important than mine? To me, to you, your life is more important. But to me, my life is most important. And this is Rand's revolution, right? I mean, Rand tells us, no, your life is the standard. Your happiness is what you should strive towards. So when you give somebody something, expect something in return, absolutely.


Welcome to KubeCon 2021 North America SIG autoscaling presentation. My name is Joseph Burnett. I'm a contributor working on horizontal pod autoscaling, and I'm going to walk you through a few basics of Kubernetes autoscaling today. I want to tell you a little bit about the SIG as well. I'll give you an example of what Kubernetes autoscaling does, so you can understand some of the terminology and how to use it. And I'm going to talk a few minutes about some upcoming features, and I'll save some time at the end for questions. So who are we? SIG autoscaling has the scope of horizontal and vertical pod autoscaling. This is changing the size of pods vertically, or making more or fewer of them horizontally. Cluster proportional system component autoscaling is just a very simple autoscaler that adjusts the number of pods in a deployment based on the size of the cluster. So for example, Kube DNS uses this. Also SIG autoscaling is responsible for cluster autoscaler, which actually sizes up and down the cluster itself. So I'll talk a little bit about how those interact with each other in a few minutes. The chairs of SIG autoscaling are Guy Templeton, who works at Skyscanner, and Marcin Navigles, who works at Google. And here's a link here to the community page, which should be linkable from the PDF uploaded with this presentation. This will tell you all about the SIG meetings and all the information about this special interest group. Okay, so let me start with a quick overview of the autoscaling space in Kubernetes. There is two dimensions here to consider, horizontal and vertical, and they're separated by two layers, pods and nodes, or workload and cluster. So HPA scales in and out. I mentioned already, it makes more or fewer pods based on metrics that you pre-define. You can scale on more than one metric if you want. For example, CPU utilization, maybe some pubs of Q-length or something. Vertical pod autoscaling is for those workloads which don't necessarily scale horizontally as well, or maybe you would prefer to give more or fewer resources to a pod to adjust for usage, or maybe you just don't know what to request. VPA can actually give you recommendations in a read-only mode, or you can tell it to just go full automatic and resize your pods for you. Cluster autoscaler has the same kinds of autoscaling in and out, making more or fewer nodes in any of the node pools that are configured. Vertical autoscaling in cluster autoscaler is more about selecting the right node pool. So it says you have a pod, where do I want to put that? It knows not to scale out a small VM size, it needs to scale out one that's big enough for the pod. So there's an aspect of vertical autoscaling in cluster autoscaler. So I'm going to walk you through kind of a quick example cluster, what it might look like when you have these autoscaling systems engaged. So there's two workloads here. One of them is blue workload, which is configured to scale horizontally. And there's a purple workload, which is also configured to scale horizontally and vertically, maybe vertically on memory, horizontally on CPU, or something like that. Side note, it's not a good idea to scale horizontally and vertically on the same metric, because you'll have two systems trying to optimize the same value. And it's just they can have undefined behavior. I'm also going to show you how cluster autoscaler sort of adds capacity and brings it back in, which is actually a really important part. So let's suppose that you get some extra traffic for this blue service. So the HPAC is that you are consuming slightly above the target average, maybe like, you know, you were shooting for 60% and you're up at 75, 80% CPU. So it figures out how many more pods you would need it in order to bring that back down to your target, assuming that all the pods pretty much do the same thing. And so it turns around and increases the desired replicas. The way that it actuates this is by updating the scale sub resource of the target. So you can point HPA actually to anything that implements the scale sub resource, which includes, of course, deployments and replica sets. But you can even point it at custom resource definitions, CRDs. As long as you implement the scale sub resource, HPA can scale it. There are some conventions you should follow like give the correct label selector to the pods that you create. But it's pretty flexible in that respect. So anyway, HPA doesn't create the pods itself, but it does tell the underlying system to create more. So the blue service scales out, deployment scales up, replica scales up, pods are created. They get scheduled on those node that has capacity. Pretty normal. So suppose that the purple service also gets some traffic and it scales up too. As you can see, there's not enough room for that purple pod on that third node there. So it actually gets created unschedulable. And this is this first signal that Cluster Autoscaler responds to. Cluster Autoscaler is going to see this unschedulable pod, and it's actually going to create a new node to put it there. So you can see it's just got this flat node pool here. It just made another node like the others just by scaling up the underlying resource, the VM management system. And this pod immediately gets scheduled. That's great. Everything's happy. Now, let's say that VPA kicks in. Now, VPA is a little bit slower running than HPA. It spends its time looking at the usage over time and building a histogram, and it picks a conservative place of what it thinks you probably need based on historical usage. VPA has decided that the purple service is way over provisioned on memory. So it is recommending a much smaller size. So the VPA is actually divided into three different systems. One is the recommender, which is just responsible for this observation and recording its recommendation. Then there's an updater system. The updater is actually an active process that just looks for pods that are not matching their recommended resource consumption. And the updater is responsible for going through and deleting those pods. So one of the most important aspects of the VPA updater is it doesn't delete them all at once. It's very careful to delete them and try to respect some reasonable limits. So it deletes a pod, not all, just one of them, with the expectation that it will get recreated, which is how Kubernetes works. And when it gets recreated, there's another system. The third system is an admission controller that actually rewrites the pod resource request for that purple pod to make it smaller. And so it gets scheduled at the correct size. And that is basically how VPA actuation works. So the same thing is going to happen to the other one. The updater is just going to kind of keep moving along. It gets deleted, boom, rescheduled. It actually fits really nicely inside this second node here. So you notice we ended up with an unused node, which is great, actually, because the cluster autoscaling will then periodically scan the cluster. It'll see that this is node is empty, and it'll be like, delete it, and then our cluster scales in. All right, suppose that now the day is over, traffic is going to go down, blue service gets less traffic. HPA notices that this target utilization is lower than the target. So we're not using as much CPU as we would like to on average. So it will, again, figure out how many pods it's going to need to hit the target and adjust accordingly. It's scaled down by three pods. And then the underlying deployment or replica set leads three pods. So there they go. And you're back on target. Yeah, so that leaves, that lecture leaves them one pod on this node. And you can see it's pretty obvious to you that as a human that you can see this room on that third node there. So cluster autoscaling is actually going to kick in after a while and do some consolidation, defragging. And it's going to delete the pod that's its first thing it does is it actually tanks this node that it wants to get rid of to make sure nothing shows up, nothing new shows up there. And then it evicts the pod, it deletes the pod, pod gets goes away and comes back as usual, it gets rescheduled where it can, which is on that third node. So now again, we have this node that is empty, and cluster autoscaler can delete it.  So you can kind of see how both of these systems scale in and out. I didn't show you multiple node pools, but cluster autoscaler is capable of selecting from different sizes of nodes. And you can kind of see how they interact with each other. Cluster autoscaler only responds to unscheduled pods. It's not concerning itself with utilization and all the metrics, all the custom things you could do for HPA or the histogram of usage like VPA. It's just thinking about putting, giving every pod a home and defragging and removing unused nodes. So that's essentially Kubernetes autoscaling in a nutshell. Now, if there was a cluster proportional autoscaler here, it would be creating more pods when there are more nodes and fewer pods when there are fewer nodes, just very, very simple arguments used for system components because it is so simple. It's sort of a baseline. Okay, so let me take a few minutes and talk a little bit about some upcoming features. So HPA has actually been around for a long time. It's the first version of HPA, HPA v1 autoscale only on CPU utilization, which is what most people use. It's the easiest thing to use. It changes quickly. It's compressible. You know already what you're, how much you have. So it's easy to configure, right? You could just give it a percentage or a utilization target. And you already know what the capacity is because you know what your resource request is. So it's a really great choice, but it's not sufficient to cover every use case. So HPA v2 started with v2 beta 1 and there is a v2 beta 2 with slightly different structure. Both of them are roughly equivalent. That was created in order to provide multiple metrics and custom metrics. So the structure of the HPA changed a little bit. Inside spec in the HPA object, there's a metrics field. And the metrics is a list. And it's a list of all the metrics you want autoscale on. And the algorithm will actually, the HPA algorithm will compute a recommendation for each one of those metrics completely independently. Okay, so CPU says probably we need seven. Your custom metric says we need three. And your other custom metric or memory or whatever says you probably need 10. And then it will select the maximum from those. It's sort of optimized for safety to give you enough capacity. It selects the maximum, which would be that 10. Recommendation. And then it goes into a phase where it actually applies some limitations. So it limits you to a min and a max. You can configure a min and max in the HPA. And you can also configure now how long you want to wait to scale up or scale down. And also what rate limit you want to apply. So let me give you an example. HPA v1 has an algorithm called scale down stabilization. And you want HPA to be responsive, right? Like traffic comes in, CPU goes up. You really want to give it capacity as quickly as possible. It's sort of optimized for services. Not necessarily for patch. And I'll get to that in just a minute. So you want to be able to scale up right away. So you want to react quickly.  But you also don't want to flap because the metrics, they kind of go up and down. You don't want to keep creating and deleting pods because it creates a lot of churn. So in order to prevent that churn, there's a stabilization period during which the maximum recommendation for a period is selected. So you have to wait and be sure that you want to scale down. The default is five minutes. So for example, if I sort of go up and I kind of wiggle around and then come back down again, I'm not going to, the HPA is not going to scale down until five minutes afterwards. It'll just sort of look over the last five minutes and select the maximum recommendation for that period of time. So this is really actually a really great algorithm for most use cases. But again, it's not sufficient for all. So in HPA v2, there's a new feature added called behavior. So also in spec, there is a behavior field. And in behavior, you can configure symmetrically scale up and scale it down configurations. That includes the stabilization period. The default, of course, is scaled down five minutes. The default limits for scaling up is actually a rate, which is the maximum of either four pods or two times. So if there's a real quick spike in the metrics, it wants to be sure not to overreact. So it has some defaults that were previously hard coded in the HPA. Well, you could configure those now. Likewise, you can actually configure a scale up delay if you want. An example use case might be if you're processing batch work off of a pub sub queue.  You might want to actually just in order to make sure you make good use of your resources, you might actually want to wait and see how many of those pods that you have can get through before you scale up. This was sort of the canonical use case used for that cap. And so maybe your pod, two pods can handle all hundred of those messages, even though you like are wanting, if you're sort of at a higher rate, maybe you know that they need to be having fewer per pod. So scale up stabilization is a good thing to be able to configure. And scale down rate also. I mean, scale up rate is kind of obvious because you don't want to like overreact.  Maybe you want to try to smooth out the spikes or maybe you want to make sure your capacity is not going to be needed again. Or maybe you just simply have limitations on how fast you can get rid of pods. Maybe you have a database connection you don't want to like overwhelm it with something. I don't know, whatever. So anyway, HPA v2, it's been around for a long time in beta and we need to graduate it to stable. So we've been working on this for a little while, mostly just through just community contributions, a bunch of people have chipped in to create the cap, to create and end tests for the new features, to fix a few bugs, and to create the new API, which is really exciting. It's getting along there and I think it's like almost ready to commit. There's just a few more comments left on it. And I think that'll be the first v2 API for Kubernetes, which is cool as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, so HPA v2, v1 will stick around for a while. I mean, it's GA. V2 is going to be there with the next release of Kubernetes. And then we're going to start duplicating the v2 beta versions. The structure is pretty much the same. There's only a few small tweaks that were really necessary. For example, you can configure multiple policies for scale limits. And in order to, like for example, an absolute member of pods or a relative member of pods, like a percent or a count. And in order to choose which one should be controlling, there's a select policy enumerator. And the values are min or max. So if you're scaling up, it's going to select the max of four or two times. But if you're scaling down, it's actually going to choose max which is the smallest number because it's actually the max change or the min change. So we've changed the value of the enumeration because early users of this feature were confused by it. But that I think is the most significant change. So it's mostly the same as the beta API. And that should be coming soon. There's another feature coming up which is in the VPA space, support for multiple recommenders. So just in the same way that HPA need to be made more flexible to support multiple use cases. This was HPA was mostly extended through metrics. VPA is actually going to be extended largely through the actual recommender engine. And because, you know, I mentioned already, VPA creates the histogram and chooses a conservative place. But a lot of those depend on a workload. There's a lot of edge cases there that might be different defaults. And so VPA is just going to have a discriminator, a new field which is actually struck where you provide the name of the recommender that you want to handle this. This is a common pattern for when you have multiple controllers for a single object. You pick a field, the sum discriminator, and then there'll be the default implementation will handle empty values or zero values. Same thing, VPA, the VPA recommender will handle when this field is not present. But if you want to add a custom VPA recommender, you create a controller that handles those. It just ignores anything that doesn't have its name on it. And then you can create a VPA object with that discriminator and target that recommender. And then the rest of the pipeline will be the same. The updater will see that the pod doesn't match the recommendation. API is the same, so it doesn't matter what recommender produced it. And then the admission controller will actually apply those updates when the pods were created. So it's a really nice extension. I have a link here to the cap and a couple of pull requests that are implementing it. And that is also nearing completion, so it should be committed soon and available in the next next release of Kubernetes. So those are two interesting upcoming features that you can plan to take a look at. And that concludes most of my content. I wanted to give you a few pointers to, like, how to get involved in the auto scaling community. We have a slack channel, Sig Auto Scaling, where you can just drop in and ask general questions. How do I use this? Why is this thing doing that? I have an idea. What do you think? We're really quite friendly. People are asking questions all the time on there, and there's always somebody that jumps in and answers questions. So it's a great place to come and just get plugged in. There's another slack channel, Sig Auto Scaling API. It was created partly to coordinate the HPA v2 changes, because there's just a lot of different contributors, and I wanted to have a long-running thread for it. So API-related auto scaling stuff, the topic is currently v2 GA or stable HPA. So come check that out, too. And of course, it's always nice to just talk face-to-face or virtually and just kind of bounce ideas, see people. So there's a regular weekly meeting. It's at 4 o'clock, 1600, CET time zone, and there's a link there to the Zoom meeting and to the agenda. So if you want to talk about something at the meeting, just go to the Google doc there linked under agenda and just put your name there and say, hey, here's something I want to talk to. And then usually in the SIG meeting, we just go in order from top to bottom. And there's usually plenty of time to ask additional questions, too. So come see us. We're friendly. We're interested in new ideas, and we're interested to see how you're using these new features. And yeah, it's a great community. So that is it for my presentation. I hope you enjoyed a quick overview of auto scaling and some upcoming features. And I hope to see you online. Bye.


The learner centric MOOC model consists of learning dialogues, learning by doing, learning extension trajectories, learner experience interactions, all of which are connected through appropriated orchestration between the course team and the learners, we will now discuss about learning dialogues. Broadly speaking, learning dialogue consists of content which may be a video explanation of the topic interspersed with one or more reflection spots. Reflection spot is a point where the content is paused and the learner is required to answer a question. What exactly is the content? The content could typically be a short video explanation or it could be some text which the instructor wants the learner to read or it could be animation. So any concept that the instructor wants the learner to acquire could be captured as the content. Is it sufficient to only capture the content like many of us have seen videos which go on and on. So even if the videos are short, we many of us do not see the videos beyond a certain point. So what a learning dialogue does is something more than simply provide the content. The learning dialogue has a reflection spot conceptually a reflection spot is a question that makes the learner pause, reflect on the preceding content, express their thinking. Reflection spot allows the learner to micro practice or simply apply the concept that they have learned immediately. Operationally a reflection spot may be implemented as a multiple choice question or as a fill-in of blanks or even as a short answer question. Reflection spot is followed by content once again this content may be a summary of what were the expected answers in the reflection spot or it may be continuing further from the reflection spot. The key idea here is to have the reflection spot question in such a way that it is connected to the content that is immediately preceding it as well as to the content that is immediately following it. The goal of a learning dialogue is to provide this conceptual knowledge along with explicit spots for learners to express their conceptions, do micro practice and reflect on what they have learned. How does an instructor do that? Instructor does that by creating a learning dialogue which has content and reflection spots which are related to each other, the learners access the content, carry out the action recommended in the reflection spot, they respond to questions, they express their thinking and then they access the content that follows the reflection spot. Now you will see a screen which has a question. This is a reflection spot. The reflection spot question is what is one advantage of a learning dialogue over a content delivery video? You have to think about the content delivery videos that you have seen all the way from one hour lectures, write down to short interesting engaging videos and think of what is the way in which a learning dialogue is different from them and write down one advantage of using the learning dialogue over a content delivery video. Once you have completed the activity, you can press resume to continue with the video. Some of you may have written a reason like a learning dialogue is short while other videos may be long. Others may have said that the learning dialogue is about the topic, it is focused. All of these are valid reasons. However, one important benefit of the learning dialogue is the reflection spot. The reflection spot has many benefits, some of which are that the learner is engaged with the content since the learner has to do something. The learner is not simply passively watching the instructor go on lecturing, but the flow of the video is interrupted and there is some dialogue that happens and the learner has to express their ideas either via a poll or an MCQ or write something. The second big advantage of the reflection spot is that it is connected to the immediately preceding content. So it gives opportunity for the learner to immediately apply their learning or express their thinking and since the content that follows the reflection spot attempts to capture various learner responses, a learner can get feedback on their own responses. One point to keep in mind is that although a reflection spot is a question, it is not meant as an assessment. We are not grading learners by asking this question. The purpose of the reflection spot is to ensure that learners are engaged. Some learners look forward to expressing their opinion or answering the question and they know that it is not being graded and two, the content in the reflection spot is connected to the concept that is being discussed in the learning dialogue. So essentially, a learning dialogue promotes concept acquisition through learner interaction. It is not simply a one-way transmission of concepts.


Thank you for coming. I forget how many of these we've done so far. Does anyone not enough too many? So it's been really good watching the community evolve over the years and people getting together and sharing ideas and learning from each other. I would like to call attention to the GNU Radio Conference in Charlotte in September of this year. Charlotte, North Carolina in the US. Charlotte is a major airport. You should be able to get direct flights from London and Frankfurt at least and a couple other places. It's always a very good conference. We have the European GNU Radio Days, which I would love to go to except you've scheduled it on top of the embedded Linux conference in the US. Come on in. We're just doing the procedures. We have stickers. Please take stickers. The guys don't want to carry them home. We have a speaker gift of Pluto. Thanks Robin. We will also be able to give some out to people who ask very good questions. So during the talk, think of good questions to ask, and if the jury awards you a Pluto, that's what will happen. With that, is there anything else? We'll stick to the schedule. We have to stick to the schedule because the video recordings are done by time slices. So if you end early, your next talk will start on time, and your talks cannot run over, and we'll do like a five-minute gap in between to change the room. The room will probably fill up and it will get very crowded and very hot, and there will probably be a line. So if you haven't been before, getting in and out can be a problem. If you need food, we can probably send a runner for one occasionally, and if you need mate, we can do the same. So last week, we had a hack fest at Easteck in the Netherlands outside of Leiden, organized by Andre here, and that was a very nice experience and a very nice facility, and there was a wonderful cat. With that, we'll let Andre explain what we got done. All right, thanks, Philip. Yeah, as Philip said, my name is Andre. I'm an ESA employee by day and a radio officer by night, and I had the wonderful pleasure of inviting people to my workplace three days before forced them to have a little hack fest, sit together and hack on radio and related projects, and, right, oh, wait, that's the wrong slides. I have to go here. Right, so the slides are also already online. You can visit this link, and actually if I switch the slides here, it will also switch on your laptop then, so it's kind of convenient for you. I had other slides before already assembled at the hack fest, but then I left my laptop at home, so I had to, yesterday at night, I reassembled everything I could remember. Ah, yeah, 2 a.m., something like that. So sorry if I forgot anything we did at the hack fest. We have a lot of people that were there, so correct me if I'm wrong somewhere. All right, some facts. So it was three days. We had meeting rooms from the 28th until the 30th. We had food and convenient traveling from the next big city. In total, we had 14 participants, including me, and six of those were actually radio officers, so that was a good turnout, I think, from the radio project folks. And we also had a space cat onsite, which helped improve the productivity of everyone attending. And also, at this point, I want to thank my section and my division at ESA Aztec for letting me invite everyone and book the meeting rooms and have this wonderful event. So basically, this is how a hack fest looks like. It's a bit blurry, but yeah, we don't need much. We just need a meeting room. We just need convenient support for food and drinks and then basically some reason to go to a place, for example, like FOSDEM. So if you live or if you have something in Brussels for next year, I think we will be happy to arrange something, right? There's the space cat that we visited and had some quality time with it. And it's actually a real staff, so it has a badge and it can go in and out of the facilities, so no problem there. So what kind of topics were we working on? So we had one group that was basically dedicated three days working on the scheduler in the runtime and it had some high-profile members, so Marcus Müller was there, Bastian Glössl and some other Grenoadio core developers who actually started from scratch and made some progress on that. Then we had a group dedicated to Grenoadio 38 out of three module porting and also coming up with a way how to create a binary package feed for out-of-t modules because right now we have pi-bombs and you have to compile everything from source and it's not super convenient for every end user we currently have out there. And then we also at the last day we had some smaller group that looked at CIG-MF and how to improve the ecosystem in regard to CIG-MF. So the schedule and runtime, so the first day the group had a brainstorming session and basically assembled a two-page document, something like that with thoughts and basically all the collected lessons learned, everything how to write it correctly. And the second and third day they basically spent implementing a first proof of concept and it's actually already a public Git repo which can be accessed at this URL. Right, then for the Grenoadio 38 out of three module porting, we had some features that were implemented for CIG, I don't know, this was, wait, yep. So Zach had some effort actually implementing the QT GUI in OsmoCom FFT, so I don't know, I think a lot of you know OsmoCom FFT and it previously used the WX GUI I think in Grenoadio 37 and now it will hopefully soon after the pull request patches get merged, support QT and so with that also Grenoadio 38 which is a nice effort. So some more plots from OsmoCom FFT, how it looks with Qt. Also Nicholas made an effort to actually have one extra column in C-Gren which displays the supported versions. So if you have an out of three module you can write in your manifest file which versions you support and we will automatically display this in C-Gren now. And also if you have a logo and we click on one of the pages here you can have your logo shown there so that's some small fixes but it's a quality of life improvement for the packages. So also if someone wants to port some modules from 37 to 38 you can just look at the list and pick one of your favorite modules that are not yet ported. Yeah and for the automatic package feed for the out of three modules I was basically looking at that with several other people how to do it the most efficient way and the most efficient way will be probably to add more metadata to the pi-bombs recipes then have a automatic let's say templating script which then templates my Ubuntu or Debian source package files and then we can feed it through some CI pipeline. Which I spent a bit writing the templates and there's also Git repo which is already public but I forgot to put a link here. And hopefully soon I will be able to progress on this in an efficient manner. Right and then on CIG-MF tooling yeah we want to implement and support as many external tools around the Negron Radio ecosystem with CIG-MF and yeah one part of that is for example to have one library or header only library for C++ which has a good packaging in downstream packages so I looked at that and posted the pull request to the DeepSig LipSig-MF repo which improves the CMake and hopefully I get some reviews and get this code merged after the hack fest. Yeah also Schneider did some effort to actually implement CIG-MF in or look at his old code to implement CIG-MF in spectrum so if you have a CIG-MF annotated file you can load it in a spectrum and then have like these annotations displayed inside of your spectrum. Yeah right. Also at hack fest we do fun activities and being at the European Space Research and Technology Center it has some upsides so we can for example watch 3D CGI and real footage of the ISS so basically a nice image movie of us floating through the ISS and also learning a lot about microgravity and why we actually do some space research and also visiting the concurrent design facility at Aztec and learning on about how to actually do spacecraft design in the early stages to get something into space. So conclusions. We have some real progress actual code of generated runtime and scheduler thanks to the folks working hard and not for three days. We have some packages. I actually forgot some packages that got three eight updates because the slides were done tonight. And some more interest in CIG-MF and maybe we get some more tooling done soon. There's an idea to actually have a GSOC also working on that maybe some student in this room or from outside this room wants to work on that as well. And yeah, thanks for your attention and just joined the next hack fest and I don't know when we will have the next hack fest so we are very welcome to suggestions and also if there's some conference or some other event in proximity and there's like three days before that we can have a meeting room for 20 people or 10 depending on the location. Just come up chat with us and we might be able to have another one. Yeah, that's about all I have right now. Yeah.


Wow, yeah, swear to God I'm with it. I don't see nobody in my lane It's quite go get it like me. Alright you guys, welcome back to another video. No, that's not how we do it. Alright you guys, what is going on? Welcome back to another video. In today's video we're going to be looking at number 61 on the top 100 NFL's greatest players of 2019 list. His name's Jalen Smith, he's a middle linebacker which means, well it means he's basically trying to be the next Ray Lewis, I assume. He's the captain of the defense in the middle. He's going to be talking to his defensive lineman. He's going to be talking to his two outside linebackers. He might be talking to his fellow middle linebacker if they're doing a 3-4 defense. And just he's in the middle guys. He's going to be talking to his safeties, his corners, everyone. He knows what's up. And with that being said, let's get into it. Jalen Smith is a tough player, playing two times a year. Oh see Barclay, Barclay's going to get the ball. He's going to get through. And he's going to get smashed by the middle linebacker, isn't he? Can you imagine what he's thinking? Sitting there as a middle linebacker, just waiting, waiting, waiting, seeing that player, seeing that running back, come up, come up, come up, and just, it's at those times when hurdles work a charm. Because that defender is waiting, waiting, waiting, he's going to put all his effort into it. And you know, all you need to do is get over that first shoulder and you've cleared him. He's done it. In fact, it's quite funny looking at defenders who do get hurtled because they're thinking that they're ready to take a massive contact and next minute it just goes straight over their head. So it's quite funny to watch really. He's always a tough match up to it. Well, as a middle linebacker, let's see your speed and your size. Six foot two, 115 kgs. When in the second round of 2016 draft, he's been at the Cowboys the whole time, he was the PFF's breakout player of the year last year. He played three years at college for three different colleges. Oh, no, sorry. This is freshman, sophomore and junior with the Notre Dame fighting Irish. 2018, 16 games played, 16 games started, 121 total tackles with 82 solo, four sacks, two pass deflections, two force fumbles, one fumble recovery and one touchdown. One touchdown, really? Let's get into it. What was it? What was the injury? A knee? Don't tell me he did his ACL or MCL. Oh, look at that. During the Fiesta Bowl game against Ohio State, Smith suffered a knee injury in the first quarter and left the game. It was confirmed that the knee was diagnosed with tears to the ACL and LCL. He underwent successful knee surgery on both ligaments on January 7th, 2016. On January 11th, he announced he would forego his remaining eligibility, his remaining year, and enter the 2016 NFL Draft after three years in college and with a knee injury. Smith entered the scouting combine in Indianapolis but was only able to meet with teams due to his injury. On April 14th, 2016, he was one of multiple prospects to undergo extensive medical evaluations. As multiple teams were worried about the possibility of nerve damage due to his knee, he received tests to objectively measure his nerve function. He attended a pre-draft visit with the 49ers at the conclusion of the pre-draft process. Experts and scouts projected Smith to be selected as early as the second round to as late as the sixth round. He was ranked the 10th best outside linebacker prospect by draftscout.com and was ranked the 11th best linebacker by NFL analyst Mike Maycock. Wow, that was a tongue twister. Alright, come back from injury. After missing his rookie season, he played every game in 2017 but lacked his previous explosiveness. In 2018, Smith's game lacked nothing. He got 100 and something tackles. Good speed. Good cover. Oh, that's amazing. That's an amazing play. That's just, oh, look at him go. Fuck, he reminds me of DK Metcalf, just powering down the field. I love that. That's awesome. Oh! Peterson can beat him. Nice hit. So someone already must have been on the running back, just in case. So if that running back gets the ball, 38's coming across and number 80 is following through to get him. That's exactly what's happening. But he doesn't get the ball. Wentz keeps it and 54 stays on him. Oh, nearly got past him, though. Fuck, he's just everywhere on defense, isn't he? He's running, alright? That's gotta be the highlight for the year. See, man?  It's all completely forgotten when it's done and that is the way that professional sport and a great sport like football and rugby should be played. And with that being said, we've got Larry Fitzgerald next. Do we need to say more? The Cardinals, do I have a... I don't, I always get confused between the redskins and the Cardinals. Just for the hell of it, we're gonna put my redskins top on and I'll see you back here shortly to watch Larry Fitzgerald. We're nearly halfway through. It's easy! See you soon, guys. If you liked it, hit the like button.


It is the NeoKey 2 Feather Wing and it is a feather wing for adding two mechanical key switches to a feather project and it has underlit NeoPixels. I've got this feather. This is the RP2040. Then I have a feather OLED. See here is when I press these, I am triggering a different illustration over here of this little bongo cat. This works as kind of a neat little macro key camera switcher right there and I get my little bongo cat to bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing. That is my product pick of the week. It is the NeoKey 2 Feather Wing. It is a mechanical key switch feather wing with underlit NeoPixels.