What's up guys we're back with another epic opening today. We're doing something really cool. We have a speed duel wait. Don't turn off 6 speed duel Tournament pack one. Yeah, if you guys haven't heard of this, this is really cool This set contains blue eyes white dragon dark magician girl and other classic cards that are really popular So they were released as basically a tournament pack kind of like OTS or TP one from the early days And so they're actually pretty tough to get we have an entire 50 pack box here So the cards are actually worth quite a bit before that. We have a really awesome giveaway. I'm giving away all Six master collection promos. So every promo you get from master collection one You guys have a chance to win. All you have to do is like this video be subscribed Let me know your favorite card that we pull out of this set. I have no idea what the pull rates are for this All right, here we go. Let's open this up. There's 50 packs. This should probably be kept sealed to be honest Because they're probably pretty tough to find. I think this came out like a couple of years ago Right around when speed dual started, you know, there's I think there's been at least two tournament packs probably more At this point, okay, so let's try not to damage it. Okay So this is a pretty cool. This is gonna be pretty cool opening also next Saturday We're opening up that cybernetic revolution hobby box. It's gonna be crazy. Make sure you guys subscribe for that It's gonna be really really awesome Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna move this up. Let's just get the packs out All right guys, we finally got it out of that box and now we can start opening Let me move these over a little bit. There's kind of a lot Okay, I think there's like three cards per pack or two. Actually, I think it's two actually Because speed dual has like four normally All right, so I don't know where the foil is it might be at the front might be at the back Let's see. Okay. This is backwards to perfect There's supers and ultras. Is that it? I don't even think there's rares. Oh, there it is super rare gear free the iron night Oh, that's right. They're all super rares or more or better So I don't remember exactly so we have super rare gear freed and wonder one I'm not gonna sleeve all of them up because I'm not sure what the values of everything is I'll see about the big boys slash girls if we get dark magician girl Second pack. This is pretty pretty cool. Hopefully we can get the blue eyes It's worth like three hundred dollars. I think the food is summoning dragon and black illusion ritual and then of course dark Magician girl is in here. I think it's a super though. I think dark magician girls are super All right next pack. We have tons of these packs. So Lord of D Harpy lady one. Okay. That's cool. If you see this is speed dual So it has the speed dual imprint on it And I believe you can use these these speed dual cards in regular duals But you can't use regular cards and speed duals because they might have not released those cards yet or whatever They might be broken the speed dual. Oh, there it is the dark magician girl and the wonder wand check that out That is a good pull. I'm not sure what the value on this is, but I think it's pretty good Anything dark magician girl you guys know is it's pretty valuable. So check that out Very good pull. That's a very good start. All right. I don't know what the ultras are besides blue eyes I know there's I think dark magicians in here trying to think what else But I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not surely sure maybe I'll grade some of these time wizard. That's cool Another one dark magician. How many with these are we gonna get? Okay, that's nice. I didn't realize it was a super So it's actually me a lot easier to pull than I thought for this one The thing is these are just pretty tough to come by Okay Tune table contents. That's a good one and Lord of D Okay, we got the tune table of contents. All right. Super rare. Very nice. We'll take that. That's probably a good one I'm guessing that that's worth a bit And because they're like tournament pack hollows and pretty tough to get I bet a lot of these do not come in Supers in speed duel until now another dark magician girl We're gonna take as many of those as we can get we get like 10 of them That'd be crazy because I think they're worth like I mean, I know that I know they're worth over 20 bucks So that's pretty solid All right next pack Here we go. This is a little bit of a different opening more of a TP opening and speaking of that Maybe just maybe we might have an epic TP opening coming soon I'll let you guys know, but I'm pretty excited for potentially an epic TP opening All right time wizard Another dart. This is crazy. This is crazy the value Darden magician girl No ultra so far though, okay, let's see if there's a ratio on here. Is there a ratio hiding under there? Nope, no ratio. Okay, we're just gonna have to make we're gonna figure out our own ratio So far the ratio is super rare every time is a super Great if you were steel Fluid of summoning dragon. All right I'm guessing you get I mean you got to get at least one ultra. I'm guessing it's more than that, right? That would be kind of weird. It's all supers in one ultra great. He was Prizes. Have we even seen that yet? I think that's the first time. I wonder what the size of this set is See what we can find the highest number on here Harpy lady number one time wizard again. That's number eight. That's number 14. Okay I'm guessing so maybe a 20-card set Let me know have any you guys open this do any of you guys play speed duel I mean, I don't I don't know too many people that play in general So I don't really know anybody that plays it, but it's kind of like dual links with cards pretty cool To table of contents is that only our second one we pulled like seven dark magician girls full of two tune table of contents Super rare Very nice All right. All right. All right. All right Where's the blue eyes white dragon? Come on. I think red eyes. Maybe isn't here. Oh a dark magician There's our first ultra rare. They do use the DV1R, which a lot of people don't like but Very cool ultra rare card. Oh Yeah, we got an ultra rare. That is a good one I don't know what the value is on dark magician off the check It's definitely under blue eyes because it always is but Blue eyes was the top card at 300 something dollars. I think time wizard. Okay, nice So I'm interested to see if we pull one of the old bike of each of the ultras I'm guessing we won't but maybe we will Elegant ego test. All right Next pack. I haven't seen a DMG in a while. We pulled all of them at the very beginning dark time wizard grave he was peace Pristis peace this Okay, next back Harpy lady one. Come on blue eyes. These are all worked. They're a little bit worse. They're not bad But they're all our work all our worked. I'm struggling to speak right now. Okay, a flute of summoning dragon a dragon All right. All right speed duel speeding through these packs like speed duel because there's only two cards per pack Lord of the the Lord of dragons Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Let's pull something big right here dark I mean blue eyes not darby. Oh nice. That'll work. We will take tune table of contents. I'm assuming this is a valuable card I Figure it's good in duels or it's or fate, you know, not fake duels real duels. I should say it's like the opposite of fate Okay To table of contents now we're starting to get all of them. Okay Very nice alrighty, alrighty tp1 s SD tp1 here we go another one Alright another to table of contents. I would like to go back to the dark magician girl pulls, please Can we get 40 more pulls up? And can we get the blue eyes white dragon? Can we get the red eyes black dragon? What are the other ultras? It might just be those three Darn magician girl. She's back right at right on request. So very nice very nice. How many is that now? One two three four five five of them so far. That's very good. That's very good. Okay You're free. Oh lord of D. There's still so many packs left I feel like we open a ton of packs. Was there 15 or was like a hundred I'm pretty sure it said 50 though tune table and elegant It'd be great if we pulled a tune table and a dark magician girl or a tune table and a ultra rare dark magician girl and ultra rare Can you get double ultra rare? Is that possible? That'd be pretty crazy Put so many dragon Come on. Give us another ultra. I'm guessing the ultras are like one in maybe like one in 20 It's like a dark magician girl nice dark magician girl I don't know if anybody's ever has anybody ever opened one of these on YouTube I don't know. I didn't I showed it looked it up, but it's not that old though So it's definitely possible or D. I think it's like two years old or three years old at this point When did speed drill come out? Maybe it was two years ago I can't remember anymore. It's all running together one or one time wizard time magic The time of magic It is time For blue eyes white dragon Oh This is an ultra rare grave keepers oracle Come on No, no, I'm getting worried that we that we might not get a blue eyes. It's definitely possible. We don't get one Come on blue eyes. We got a grave keepers oracle. How exciting. Okay. Wonder one Okay Okay Reviews pieces harpy lady one Where's the blue eyes? Because we might only have like one more ultra tune table of contents that is nice What are the contents of these packs? Do they contain a blue eyes? the question that I have That we are wondering is will the blue eyes white dragon reveal itself next pack I like an ego tis flute assignment. We have seen that pack so many times the same exact two cards. Okay Okay harpy wonder one wonder one. I feel like we've pulled so many times These packs are also super slick. They just slide off. It's crazy Oh dark magician girl. Okay. Oh, it's hoping for the dark magician girl tune table dream pack All right, we'll take that though. That's like seven of those at least Yeah Come on blue eyes. Come on blue eyes time wizard. Oh my goodness. I'm getting nervous. We've only pulled two It might only be two ultras per box No, we did get dark magician, which is cool. So we can't complain about that But grave keepers oracle Come on. Come on brah Gear freed. Yeah, I love how your Frida in here 1800 is probably a beast at the beginning of uh speed duel grave keepers steel Is it steel that I pronounce that Not totally sure Tune table. Oh, not the dream pack. Not the dream pack, but we'll take it tune tablai of contents What that's not how you say Tablai Like an ego test. All right audio cut out. Hopefully this doesn't have something crazy. Okay. Yeah, good. All right four more packs. Come on Come on. Let's do this Believe in the heart of the cards Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun It had another ultra heartbeat lady sisters Why is that an ultra? Come on If that's an ultra dark magician girl should be an ultra. That's really strange No, no blue eyes. Dark magician girl. We'll take that that is good Very good. Very good Come on. No blue eyes. Are you kidding me? What? We have two more packs. We have to believe. Here we go. Believe believe believe Before ultra spur box. Come on gear freed. Okay final pack We need the luck guys like button for luck. Here we go Hope you guys have enjoyed this speed duel opening. It's been pretty fun tournament pack Lord of D Come on Gear freed the iron knight Okay, that's all right. Let's go over what we did get. All right from this full speed duel tournament pack one box We got one two three four five six seven eight tune table of contents one two three four five six seven eight eight dark magician girls very even Gravekeepers oracle ultra rare harby lady sisters and the big pull Dark magician himself. So these two ultra is not great. We did get a really awesome one So I hope you guys enjoyed this little bit of a different video It was pretty fun to open some really awesome cards actually and it looks like it's actually pretty tough to pull those ultra rare So those values are actually pretty legit I guess because you can't really find the packs and you don't pull them every single box Which is really cool. So if you enjoyed the video like it be subscribed Look forward to that cybernetic revolution hobby box next Saturday. It's going to be crazy And that's it for this video. See you guys later Peace


Well, my name is Ashish Ray. I am a creative designer at Cat's Themes. And the topic of my presentation is a vertical rhythm and its efficiency in WordPress themes layout and how it may help to create a better typography in our WordPress themes and websites. So at this day and age, internet has become an integral part of our daily life. We are connected to internet by various means, like to find some information or listen to music, watch movies and videos, play online games, and various others. And that's where the website comes along and simplifies our journey during our web surfing. And WordPress has been bridging the gap between the website and its users since the past 19 years by providing themes and plugins for free of cost as well as some paid versions and not to forget a very popular content management system, also known as CMS in short form. So a very basic website consists of images and text, right?  And if we exclude its images, then we are just left with text, right? So my presentation will cover how to make those basic things look appealing, visually appealing, in multiple cross devices like computers, mobile phones, tablets, and various others. OK, so let's get started. I'll be covering what is a vertical rhythm and what defines a good vertical rhythm. And then I'll also be sharing some idea out of which, you know, where I'll talk about body text, paragraphs, and headings. And I'll also be sharing some tools out of which we can create our vertical rhythm. And then I will come to a conclusion. OK, so what comes to our mind when we think about the term rhythm? Anyone? Music? Yeah, exactly. Even if we search, if we Google the term rhythm, it says a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound, OK? When we are listening to music, a good rhythm sounds tight and professional, right? While the bad rhythms, things might look awkward, which is why I don't really play drums, OK? As it might sound very much terrifying, so I'm not into that part. Just like any rules, OK? The rhythm does not have to be very much rigid. And just like any rules, it can be abandoned, broken, OK? So we can dive into music theory later. But for now, let's focus on typography. So a vertical rhythm simply means, like you know, when our body text is evenly aligned with our horizontal spaces of our layout, OK? For example, you can see here, this is 2022 theme by WordPress. And you can see how evenly there's a space in between the horizontal lines, right? And for this next example, this is CATS-FSC. I've designed for CATS themes. And you can even see here how evenly there's a, how the spaces are even in between the horizontal lines. And even Dustin Tadlock from WP Travel have coded, like, you know, typography, have made a better reading experience, OK? So a vertical rhythm simply means, like I said, I can know when our body text is evenly aligned with our horizontal spaces of our layout. For example, you can see here on the left, on the left, on our right side, it's bad vertical rhythm. And on the left side, you can see it's a good vertical rhythm, OK? If we just set our base font size and nothing else, like, you know, things might look pretty OK, but by the time it reached the fourth line, it's already in between the line, right? So which gives us a bad example of, which gives us an example of a bad vertical rhythm. But at the same time, if you look at our left side, you can see how the spaces are evenly distributed among the lines.  Like, you know, there used to be lines and how, like, you know, the spaces used to be distributed evenly, making it more cohesive and easier to read. So that's what we will be achieving today out of this presentation. So how do we establish a good rhythm? First thing first, we need a proper font size and its line height along with its margin and padding, OK? We need to calculate these three things and put it in our casketing style sheet, also known as a CSS in short form. We have to calculate these three things, OK? So first thing first, what we need is our base font size. And for this example, I have chosen 20 pixels and a baseline height of 1.5 AM is usually right on target. And like, you know, it's according to my experience, OK? So what we need to do is, in our CSS file, we have to set our body font size to 20 pixels and a line height of 1.5 AM and a margin bottom of 1.5 AM in our P tag. In a body tag, we have to set our margins to 0, OK? Out of which we get something like this, like, you know, in our design. We'll get something like this in our design, OK? So we have, this is our base, like, you know, since we have set our base font size, we will calculate our rhythm out of this, OK? So what about headings? As like, you know, headings are usually much larger than our body text, right? So like, you know, if we don't focus on headings, like in our rhythm, we'll be completely out of track, OK? So we do have to include headings as well. So how do we do that? Like, you know, how do we calculate headings? That's where our good friend, a modular scale, will come in hand, OK? Like, you know, this is a very good website. I really used to play around with this website a lot. During my early days, like, you know, you can also check it out yourself. Well, there are other websites as well, like, you know, there are many others you can Google yourself. But for this example, I have chosen a modular scale, OK? And I have also chosen a perfect fourth ratio out of which, from our baseline height of base font size, I got the heading size of 2.369 AM, OK? We do not have to remove all the decimals because, like, you know, computers are very much happy while working with decimals, OK? So our baseline height was 1.5 AM, right? But if we use that in our headings, like, you know, it might be much larger, right? As, like, you know, heading itself is much bigger. So if we use our baseline height, which was 1.5, then, like, you know, things might not look even, OK? So what we need to do here is we have to divide our baseline height, which was 1.5 by our generated heading size, which is 2.369 AM, out of which we get a line height of 0.633 AM. And also we need to set a margin bottom of 0.663 AM in our CSS file. For example, you can see here, OK?      And overall, like, you know, our design will be very well balanced and, like, you know, so that's what this particular thing is all about. Well, my name is Ashish Ray.  And, like, you know, I usually write about designs and, you know, I usually post about designs and all.  I do write about those as well. But for this presentation, I have only covered very basics, okay? So if you want to reach out to me and then, like, you know, you can simply visit my website. There is my social medias and everything there, okay? So, okay, that's it. So thank you. Okay, any questions? Or, like, you can simply, you know, meet me in person and if there is any questions, okay? All right, thank you.


We are trying to understand how the body defends itself against infections. And more specifically, we work on neutrophils. Neutrophils are the most abundant cells in circulation, the first cells to go to a site of infection, and people that don't have function in neutrophils or don't have the right amount of neutrophils suffer a lot from infections. Neutrophils have different mechanisms to detect and kill microbes, and we are interested in the production of nets. Nets is an acronym that stands for neutrophil extracellular traps that we described a few years ago. So it turns out that when a neutrophil sees a micro, then it can modify its own chromatin and expel it into the milieu or the tissue where the microbes are. Nets can have different functions. One of them is to kill and prevent the dissemination of the micro, and another one is to alert the rest of the immune system that there is an infection. My interest is to understand now how these nets are formed and what is their relevance, not only in infectious diseases, but also in other diseases. So the neutrophil is a cell that is difficult to work with because there is no cell line that mimics the activity of the cell. That is, most of the experiments we do has to be a cell that came from the circulation either of a patient or a healthy donor or an animal. Now, the purification of these cells is relatively simple, but then comes the challenge of what can we do with them. And we divide our work in several fields. We use a lot of microscopy of different kinds to try to observe how the nets are made. We use biochemistry to try to isolate the components that are required for net formation. And we use cell biology sometimes to try to reconstruct a cell biological process in vitro to understand how nets are made. Technologically, we can do this in animals and we do it sometimes in mice. We are setting up a way to do it in fish which are transparent and we can observe the neutrophils work in vivo. And many times we collaborate with clinicians so we can obtain samples from patients that have a specific defect in neutrophils and we can understand the disease and therefore understand how nets are made. When we described the nets, it was a surprise that neutrophils could die and expose their own chromatin to defend the body against infections. And the challenge then was to try to understand the mechanism of net formation to validate the relevance and also to see in which kind of diseases were the nets relevant. We are still analyzing the activity of net formation, how nets are formed. We know now it has a series of biochemical steps that include the formation of reactive oxygen species, the activation of proteases that cut proteins to allow the expansion of the nets and a pore-forming protein called gastermin that allows the explosion of the cell. There are still many questions that we don't understand because this is a unique form, a unique pathway in cell biology. We have also, as many other labs have done, work on the relevance of nets. It's a very interesting literature showing that nets are relevant not only in the defense of our infection but also in a series of other diseases like autoimmunity, cancer, and very interestingly also in cardiovascular diseases. When we identify the nets, we realize that it would be an important target to try to control diseases. My lab and many other labs have shown that nets are important in defending against infections, in which case it would be interesting to make patients have more nets, but they are deleterious in other forms of infections, of other forms of diseases, in which case it would be important to get rid of them. By trying to understand the basic mechanism of how nets are made, we could identify targets that then my lab or other labs, the scientific community, could try to exploit in order to prevent net formation and then ameliorate diseases. For example, lupus, which is an autoimmune disease where there is very good evidence that nets are very deleterious. So if we could stop the formation of nets in lupus, that might be beneficial for patients. So we are biochemists and cell biologists and we want to understand net formation at the biochemical level. There are still many outstanding questions in the formation of nets. For example, what is the function of reactive oxygen species? How reactive oxygen species, which are very short-lived, how do they modify other proteins in order to allow the formation of nets? For example, we are also interested in how proteases work. Why do they cleave? Why do they break? That allow the expansion of chromatin. Another example would be once the nets are made, do they have a specific structure or they are just a mess of different proteins stuck to chromatin? We want to understand whether this specific distribution of proteins in the nets are actually relevant in their function.


Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Dean Perine, coming to you from ITW 2021. And joining me today is my old friend, Mr. Mike Presico. Mike is the CEO and founder of ANOVA Financial Networks. Mike, it is always a pleasure to have you on JSA TV. How are you doing? Well, thanks for having me, Dean. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Even if we can't see one or not, even if we're really only go about 25 miles away from one another, we can't really see one another as much as we used to. It is always great to see you even virtually. But Mike, let's get right into it. 2021 has been a pretty darn good year for you guys so far. But for our viewers that don't already know, why don't you tell them a little bit about ANOVA? Yeah. So the elevator pitch is we're a carrier, right? But it goes so much further than that. We're a wireless carrier, similar to AT&T or Verizon, except we build networks not for someone to use on their cell phone, but we build networks to connect financial liquidity centers. So we connect Nasdaq to 9Z. We connect TME to the Japanese Stock Exchange. And so we build some of the fastest, most reliable wireless networks to connect exchanges. Got it. And a great segue for me, actually, because earlier this summer, I understand you launched a 10 gigabit wireless service in Sikakus in the New Jersey Triangle. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that new service? Sure. It's interesting because when people think about the New York Stock Exchange, or NASDAQ, the big board at NASDAQ, those are in their corporate offices in Manhattan, but where the trading occurs, that's in New Jersey. And there's this 70 kilometer triangle where three of the largest U.S. equity exchanges are located. It's called the equity triangle. It's a very clever naming convention. So it's important for prices to be disseminated between these equity exchanges. You can look for inefficiencies and it keeps the market really tight in regards to spread and health liquidity. So two of the larger exchanges, one is located in Sikakus and one is located in Carterette. So you have the BATS exchange and you have the NASDAQ exchange. And we built a 10 gig network there. Now, why is that interesting? It's interesting because from a wireless perspective, this is the most bandwidth that's ever been put into service in the history of network deployment, wireless network deployment. What does more bandwidth give? It lets us send a wider set of symbols and it lets us account for what I would call a fast market. And so basically we're getting closer to what fiber can do over a wireless network. I love it. And apparently other people do too because there's a lot of recognition that you guys are getting. Specifically, congratulations are in order for you and for your company. You're a winner of Trading Tech Insight Awards for Best Low Latency Data Feed Direct. And I believe that is a large part because of your zero-gap solution. So congratulations on that. But why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about what that zero-gap solution is? That award is a real mouthful. It really is. A good 15 seconds to get through all the descriptors. But right, zero-gap was a product that was predicated on the 10 gig network. And as I mentioned, you have this capacity which offsets fast markets. When you have fast markets, you get more data. When you get more data, it really we're talking about microsecond level. Microbursts is what they're called. Microbursts are where traditional wireless networks have fallen over. And when you get too much data onto a limited capacity line, the line says, I don't know what to do with this. I'm going to throw it all away. And so that's what's called a gap. And when people get gaps in their fees, in their price fees, they miss where the market is at. And so that can be mistreating opportunities or it could jumble their order book because they don't know where the last price or price is work. And so our network, as the name indicates, is zero-gap. Because we have so much capacity to put towards these price feeds, you don't, they don't get overwhelmed in the a fast market or a microburst. The other thing that we did is that, look, these are wireless networks, they can go down. And because they're point to point, it's not like if you go into a cellular area with not a lot of towers or, let's just say a tower went out, you lose half a bar. You lose a bar on your signal. When we lose a site, the entire network goes down. Or if the rain affects the site or the network, it goes down. But we built in something called self-healing, which is there's a fiber backup. And if you miss one packet of information, 64 bytes, you miss as little as that. We pause the wireless feed, we backfill it with fiber, and voila, your data is there. It won't be a little slower, but you still have it. Your order book doesn't get jumbled, you know where the market's at. So the confluence of those two things together means you have zero gaps. Well done. And obviously, like I said, much of the industry is taking note of that. But let's think ahead. Let's look six months, 12 months, you know, two years ahead. What can we expect to see out of ANOVA? So the platform that we use for zero gap is our LTS. It's a laser transport system. And which is a better term, it's a more accessible term than FSO, which is free space optics, right?  You know, and people identify with it. And so there's a little bit of marketing cheekiness there. But I think it describes what it does more aptly. But the point is, is that that's a platform that's proprietary to us. And so we want to continue to develop on that platform. There's already plans and testing in place to put 25 gigabit per second on these lines. And so now you can get multiple 10 gig services. You could give private users full one gigs between these equity triangle locations. And so, you know, we see the evolution of this platform to almost be limitless. 25 gig is the first step. Then we would want to move to 50. Then we would want to go to 100. I mean, that's fiber like capacity. And so that's always been the goal, is to replicate as much of fiber connectivity with the latency benefit of wireless that you can. So how can you make it more available? How can you make it have more capacity? And that's what we're working towards. And it's a, you know, we've got an R&D facility out in California.  We're constantly on the bleeding edge and bringing these products into production. And it makes the job really rewarding. Outstanding. Mike, it is always a pleasure seeing you. It sounds like you've got a lot of things that you're working on as you kind of push your platform forward. So let's do this again in like six months or so. How do you, what do you think? Sounds good. Outstanding. So thanks again, Mike. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Dean. You got it. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts. Happy networking.


XIII. King Olaf and Earl Sigveld. On the grey sea sands King Olaf stands. Northward and seaward he points with his hands. With eddy and whirl the sea tides curl, washing the sandals of Sigveld, the Earl. The mariners shout, the ships swing about, the yards are all hoisted, the sails flutter out, the warhorns are played, the anchors are weighed, like moths in the distance, the sails flit and fade. The sea is like lead, the harbour lies dead, as a course on the seashore whose spirit has fled. On that fatal day the histories say, seventy vessels sailed out of the bay, but soon scattered wide o'er the billows they ride, while Sigveld and Olaf sail side by side. Cried the Earl, I, your pilot, will be, for I know all the channels where flows the deep sea. So into the strait where his foes lie in wait, gallant King Olaf sails to his fate, then the sea-fog fails, the ships and their sails. Queen Sigrid, the haughty, thy vengeance prevails. Section 19 King Olaf's War-Horns Strike the sails, King Olaf said, Never shall men of mine take flight, never away from battle I fled, never away from my foes, let God's dispose of my life in the fight. Sound the horns, said Olaf the King, and suddenly through the drifting broom the Blair of the horns began to ring, like the terrible trumpet-shock of Ragnarok on the day of doom. Louder and louder the war-horns sang over the level floor of the flood, all the sails came down with a clang, and there in the mist overhead the sun hung red as a drop of blood. Drifting down on the Danish fleet, three together the ships were lashed, so that neither should turn and retreat. In the midst but in front of the rest the burnished crest of the serpent flashed. King Olaf stood on the quarter-deck with bow of ash and arrows of oak. His gilded shield was without a fleck, his helmet inlaid with gold, and in many a fold hung his crimson cloak. On the forecastle, Ulf the Red, watched the lashing of the ships. If the serpent lie so far ahead, we shall have hard work of it here," said he with a sneer on his bearded lips. King Olaf laid an arrow on string. Have I a coward on board? said he. Shoot it another way, oh King! sullenly answered, Ulf, the old sea-wolf, you have need of me. In front came Sven the King of the Danes, sweeping down with his fifty rowers, to the right the Swedish King with his thanes, and on board of the iron beard Earl Eric steered on the left with his oars. These soft Danes and Swedes, said the King, at home with their wives had better stay than come within reach of my serpent's sting. But where Eric the Norseman leads, heroic deeds will be done today. Then as together the vessels crashed, Eric severed the cables of hide, with which King Olaf's ships were lashed, and left them to drive and drift with the currents swift of the outward tide. Louder the war-horns growl and snarl, sharper the dragons bite and sting. Eric the son of Hakon Jal, a death-drink, salt as the sea pledges to the Olaf the King. Section 20. Einar Tambaskelver It was Einar Tambaskelver stood beside the mast. From his yubo tipped with silver flew the arrows fast, aimed at Eric unavailing as he sat concealed, half behind the quarter railing, half behind his shield. First an arrow struck the tiller, just above his head. Sing, O Avyn's galda-spiller, then Earl Eric said. Sing the song of Hakon dying, sing his funeral wail, and another arrow flying grazed his coat of mail. Turning to a lapland yeoman, as the arrow passed, said Earl Eric, shoot that bowman standing by the mast. Sooner than the word was spoken flew the yeoman's shaft. Einar's bow in twain was broken. Einar only laughed. What was that? said Olaf, standing on the quarter-deck. Something heard I like the stranding of a shattered wreck. Einar then, the arrow taking from the loosened string, answered, That was Norway, breaking from thy hand, O King. Thou art but a poor diviner, straight away, Olaf said. Take my bow, and swifter, Einar, let thy shafts be sped. Of his bows the fairest choosing, reached he from above. Einar saw the blood drops oozing through his iron glove. But the bow was thin and narrow. At the first assay, ear its head, he drew the arrow, flung the bow away. Said, with hot and angry temper, flushing in his cheek, Olaf, for so great a camper, are thy bows too weak. Then, with smile of joy defiant on his beardless lip, scaled he, light and self-reliant, Eric's dragon-ship. Loose his golden locks were flowing, bright his armour gleamed. Like Saint Michael overthrowing Lucifer, he seemed. Section 21. King Olaf's death-drink. All day has the battle raged. All day have the ships engaged. But not yet is assuaged the vengeance of Eric the Earl. The decks with blood are red. The arrows of death are sped. The ships are filled with the dead, and the spears, the champion's hurl. They drift as wrecks on the tide. The grappling-iron's applied. The borders climb up the side. The shouts are feeble and few. Ah, never shall Norway again see her sailors come back or the main. They all lie wounded or slain, or asleep in the billows blue. On the deck stands Olaf the king. Around him whistle and sing the spears that the foam in fling, and the stones they hurl with their hands. In the midst of the stones and the spears, cold beyond the marshall appears, his shield in the air he up rears. By the side of King Olaf he stands. O'er the slippery wreck of the long serpent's deck, sweeps Eric with hardly a check, his lips with anger are pale. He hues with his axe at the mast till it falls with the sail's overcast, like a snow-covered pine in the vast, dim forests of Orcadale. Seeking King Olaf then, he rushes aft with his men, as a hunter into the den of the bear when he stands at bay. Remember Carl Hackon, he cries, when low on his wandering eyes two kingly figures arise, two Olaf's in warlike array. Then Colbjorn speaks in the ear of King Olaf a word of cheer, in a whisper that none may hear, with a smile on his tremulous lips. Two shields raised high in the air, two flashes of golden hair, two scarlet meteors glare, and both have leapt from the ship. Earl Eric's men in the boats seize Colbjorn's shield as it floats, and cry from their hairy throats, See it is Olaf the king! While far on the opposite side floats another shield on the tide, like a jewel set in the wide sea-current's eddying ring. There is told a wonderful tale how the king stripped off his mail, like leaves of the brown sea-cale, as he swam beneath the main. But the young grew old and grey, and never by night or by day, in his kingdom of Norway, was King Olaf seen again. In the Convent of Drontheim alone in her chamber, Nelt Astrid the Abess at midnight, adoring, beseeching, entreating the Virgin and Mother. She heard in the silence the voice of one speaking, without, in the darkness, in gusts of the night wind, now louder, now nearer, now lost in the distance. The voice of a stranger it seemed as she listened, of someone who answered, beseeching, imploring, a cry from afar off she could not distinguish. The voice of Saint John, the beloved disciple, who wandered and waited the master's appearance, alone in the darkness, unsheltered and friendless. It is accepted, the angry defiance, the challenge of battle. It is accepted, but not with the weapons of war that thou wieldest. Cross against coarselit, love against hatred. Peace cry for war cry. Patience is powerful. He that o'er cometh hath power o'er the nations. As torrents in summer half dried in their channels, suddenly rise though the sky is still cloudless, for rain has been falling far off at their fountains. So hearts that are fainting grow full to o'er flowing, and they that behold it marvel and know not that God at their fountains far off has been reigning. Stronger than steel is the sword of the spirit, swifter than arrows the light of the truth is, greater than anger is love and subdueth. Thou art a phantom, a shape of the sea mist, a shape of the brumel rain and the darkness, fearful and formless, daydawns and thou art not. The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless. Love is eternal. God is still God, and his faith shall not fail us. Christ is eternal. Interlude A strain of music closed the tale, a low monotonous funeral wail, that with its cadence wild and sweet made the long saga more complete. Thank God, the theologian said, the rain of violence is dead, or dying surely from the world, while love triumphant rains instead, and in a brighter sky o'erhead his blessed banners are unfurled. And most of all thank God for this, the war and waste of clashing creeds, now end in words, and not in deeds, and no one suffers loss or bleeds for thoughts that men call heresies. I stand without here in the porch, I hear the bells melodious din, I hear the organ peel within, I hear the prayer with words that scorch like sparks from an inverted torch, I hear the sermon upon sin with threatenings of the last account, and all translated in the air, reach me but as our dear Lord's prayer, and as the sermon on the mount. Must it be Calvin and not Christ? Must it be Athanasian creeds, or holy water, books and beads? Must struggling souls remain content with councils and decrees of Trent? And can it be enough for these the Christian church, the year in Balms with evergreens and boughs of palms, and fills the air with litanies?  Not to one church alone, but seven, the voice prophetic spake from heaven, and under each the promise came diversified, but still the same, for him that over cometh are the new name written on the stone, the raiment white, the crown, the throne, and I will give him the morning star. Ah, to how many faith has been no evidence of things unseen, but a dim shadow that recasts the creed of the fantasiasts, for whom no man of sorrows died, for whom the tragedy divine was but a symbol and a sign, and Christ a phantom crucified. For others a diviner creed is living in the life they lead. The passing of their beautiful feet blesses the pavement of the street, and all their looks and words repeat old fullers saying, wise and sweet, not as a vulture, but a dove the holy ghost came from above. And this brings back to me a tale so sad the hero well may quail, and question if such things can be. Yet in the chronicles of Spain, down the dark pages runs this stain, and nought can wash them white again, so fearful is the tragedy. In the heroic days when Ferdinand and Isabella ruled the Spanish land, and Torquimada with his subtle brain ruled them, as a grand inquisitor of Spain, in a great castle near Valadolid, moted and high and by fair woodlands hid, there dwelt, as from the chronicles we learn, an old Hidalgo, proud and taciturn, whose name has perished with his towers of stone, and all his actions save this one alone. This one so terrible perhaps, to a best if it too were forgotten with the rest, unless perchance our eyes can see therein the martyrdom triumphant, or the sin, a double picture with its gloom and glow, the splendour overhead, the death below. This somber man counted each day as lost, on which his feet no sacred threshold crossed, and when he chanced the passing host to meet, he knelt and prayed devoutly in the street. Oft he confessed, and with each mutinous thought, as with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought. In deep contrition scourged himself in lent, walked in processions with his head downbent, at plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, and on Palm Sunday bore his bow of green. His only pastime was to hunt the bore through tangled thickets of the forest-hall, or with his jingling mules to hurry down to some grand bullfight in the neighbouring town, or in the crowd with lighted taper-stand, when Jews were burned or banished from the land. Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy, the demon whose delight it is to destroy, shook him, and shouted with a trumpet-tone, Kill, kill, and let the Lord find out his own. And now, in that old castle in the wood, his daughters in the dawn of womanhood, returning from their convent school had made resplendent with their bloom the forest shade, reminding him of their dead mother's face, when first she came into that gloomy place, a memory in his heart as dim and sweet as moonlight in a solitary street, where the same rays that lift the sea are thrown lovely but powerless upon walls of stone. These two fair daughters of a mother dead were all the dream had left him as it fled, a joy at first and then a growing care, as if a voice within him cried, Beware!  Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame, a spy upon his daughters he became, with velvet slippers noiseless on the floors, he glided softly through half-open doors, now in the room and now upon the stair, he stood beside them ere they were aware, he listened in the passage when they talked, he watched them from the casement when they walked, he saw the gypsy haunt the river's side, he saw the monk among the cork-tree's glide, and, tortured by the mystery and the doubt of some dark secret, past his finding out, baffled he paused, then reassured again pursued the flying phantom of his brain, he watched them even when they knelt in church, and then, descending lower in his search, questioned the servants, and with eager eyes listened incredulous to their replies, the gypsy none had seen her in the wood, the monk a mendicant in search of food. At length the awful revelation came, crushing at once his pride of birth and name, the hopes his yearning bosom forward cast, and the ancestral glories of the past all fell together, crumbling in disgrace, a turret rent from battlement to base, his daughters talking in the dead of night in their own chamber, and without a light, listening as he was won't, he overheard and learned the dreadful secret, word by word, and hurrying from his castle with a cry, he raised his hands to the unpitting sky, repeating one dread word, till bush and tree caught it, and shuddering answered, heresy! Wrapped in his cloak, his hat drawn over his face, now hurrying forward, now with lingering pace, he walked all night the alleys of his park, with one unseen companion in the dark, the demon who within him lay in wait, and by his presence turned his love to hate, forever muttering in an undertone, kill, kill, and let the Lord find out his own. Upon the morrow, after early mass, while yet the dew was glistening on the grass, and all the woods were musical with birds, the old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words, walked homeward with the priest, and in his room summoned his trembling daughters to their doom. When questioned, with brief answers they replied, nor when accused, evaded or denied, expostulations, passionate appeals, all that the human heart most fears or feels, in vain the priest with earnest voice essayed, in vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed, until at last he said with haughty mean, the holy offices, then, must intervene. And now the grand inquisitor of Spain, with all the fifty horsemen of his train, his awful name resounding, like the blast of funeral trumpets as he onward passed, came to Valar de Lid, and there began to harry the rich Jews with fire and ban. To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate demanded audience on affairs of state, and in a secret chamber, stood before a venerable gray beard of forescore, dressed in the hood and habit of a friar.  He heard in silence the Hidalgo's tale, then answered in a voice that made him quail. Son of the church, when Abraham of old, to sacrifice his only son was told, he did not pause to parley nor protest, but hastened to obey the Lord's behest. In him it was a counted righteousness. The holy church expects of thee no less. A sacred frenzy seized the father's brain, and mercy from that hour implored in vain. Ah, who will ere believe the words I say? His daughters he accused, and the same day they both were cast into the dungeon's gloom. That dismal anti-chamber of the tomb, arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the flame, the secret torture, and the public shame. Then to the grand inquisitor once more the Hidalgo went, more eager than before, and said, When Abraham offered up his son, he clave the wood wherewith it might be done. By his example taught, let me too bring wood from the forest for my offering. And the deep voice, without a pause, replied, Son of the church, by faith now justified, complete thy sacrifice, even as thou wilt. The church absolves thy conscience from all guilt. Then this most wretched father went his way into the woods that round his castle they, where once his daughters in their childhood played with their young mother in the sun and shade. Now all the leaves had fallen, the branches bare made a perpetual moaning in the air, and screaming from their eerie's overhead, the ravens sailed, a thwart the sky of lead. With his own hands he lopped the boughs, and bound faggots that crackled with foreboding sound, and on his mules, comparison'd and gay with bells and tassels, sent them on their way. Then with his mind on one dark purpose bent, again to the inquisitor he went, and said, Behold, the faggots I have brought, and now lest my atonement be as nought, grant me one more request, one last desire, with my own hand to light the funeral-fire? And Torkimada answered from his seat, Son of the church, thine offering is complete, her servants through all ages shall not cease to magnify thy deed, depart in peace. Upon the marketplace, builded of stone, a scaffold rose, whereon death claimed his own. At the four corners in stern attitude, four statues of the Hebrew prophets stood, gazing with calm indifference in their eyes, upon this place of human sacrifice. Round which was gathered fast the eager crowd with clamour of voices dissonant and loud, and every roof and window was alive with restless gazers swarming like a hive. The church bells tolled. The chant of monks drew near. Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear. A line of torches smoked along the street. There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet, and with its banners floating in the air, slowly the long procession crossed the square. And to the statues of the prophets bound, the victims stood with faggots piled around. Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook, and louder sang the monks with bell and book, and the Hidalgo, lofty, stern and proud, lifted his torch, and bursting through the crowd lighted in haste the faggots, and then fled, lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead. Oh pitiless skies! Why did your clouds retain for peasants' fields their floods of hoarded rain? Oh pitiless earth! Why opened no abyss to bury in its chasm a crime like this? That night a mingled column of fire and smoke from the dark thickets of the forest broke, and glaring o'er the landscape leaks away, made all the fields and hamlets bright as day. Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed, and as the villagers interrogased they saw the figure of that cruel night lean from a window in the turret's height, his ghastly face illumined with the glare, his hands upraised above his head in prayer till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell down the black hollow of that burning well. Three centuries and more above his bones have piled the oblivious years like funeral stones. His name has perished with him, and no trace remains on earth of his afflicted race. But Torkumarder's name, with clouds o'er cast, looms in the distant landscape of the past, like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath, lit by the fires of burning woods beneath. Interlude. Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom, that cast upon each listener's face its shadow, and for some brief space unbroken silence filled the room. The Jew was thoughtful and distressed. Upon his memory thronged and pressed the persecution of his race, dear wrongs and sufferings and disgrace, his head was sunk upon his breast, and from his eyes alternate came flashes of wroth and tears of shame. The student, first the silence broke, as one who long has lain in wait with purpose to retaliate, and thus he dealt the avenging stroke. In such a company as this a tale so tragic seems amiss, that by its terrible control O'er masters and drags down the soul into a fathomless abyss. The Italian tales that you disdain, some merry night of strapper-roll, or Machiavelli's bell-figure would cheer us and delight us more, give greater pleasure and less pain than your grim tragedies of Spain. And here the poet raised his hand. With such entreaty and command it stopped discussion at its birth, and said, The story I shall tell has meaning in it, if not mirth. Listen, and hear what once befell the merry birds of Killingworth. End of Section 8. It was the season when through all the land the Merle and Mavis build, and building sing those lovely lyrics written by his hand, whom Saxon Kydman calls the Blythe-Harped King, when on the boughs the purple buds expand, the banners of the vanguard of the spring, and rivulets rejoicing rush and leap, and wave their fluttering signals from the steep. The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee, the sparrows chirped, as if they still were proud their race in holy writ should mention to be, and hungry crows assembled in a crowd clamoured their piteous prayer incessantly, knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said, Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread. Across the sound the birds of passage sailed, speaking some unknown language, strange and sweet, of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed the village with the cheers of all their fleet, or quarrelling together, laughed and railed like foreign sailors landed in the street of Seaport Town, and without landish noise of oaths and gibberish, frightening girls and boys. Thus came the jocund spring in Killingworth, in fabulous days some hundred years ago, and thrifty farmers as they tilled the earth, heard with alarm the coring of the crow, that mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe. They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words, to swift destruction the whole race of birds, and a town meeting was convened straight way to set a price upon the guilty heads of these marauders, who in lieu of pay levied blackmail upon the garden beds and cornfields, and beheld without dismay the awful scarecrow with his fluttering shreds, the skeleton that waited at their feast, whereby their sinful pleasure was increased. Then from his house, a temple painted white, with fluted columns and a roof of red, the squire came forth, august and splendid sight, slowly descending with majestic tread, three flights of steps, nor looking left, nor right, down the long street he walked, as one who said, a town that boasts inhabitants like me can have no lack of good society. The parson, too, appeared, a man or steer, the instinct of whose nature was to kill, the wrath of God he preached from year to year, and read with fervour Edwards on the will. His favourite pastime was to slay the deer in summer on some Adirondack hill, year now, while walking down the rural lane, he lopped the wayside lilies with his cane. From the academy, whose belfry crowned the hill of science with its vein of brass, came the preceptor, gazing idly round, now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, and all absorbed in reveries profound of fair Almira in the upper class, who was, as in a sonnet he had said, as pure as water, and as good as bread. And next the deacon issued from his door in his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow, a suit of sable bombazine he wore, his form was ponderous, and his step was slow, there never was so wise a man before, he seemed the incarnate, well, I told you so, and to perpetuate his great renown there was a street named after him in town. These came together in the new town hall, with sundry farmers from the region round, the squire presided, dignified, and tall, his air impressive, and his reasoning sound, ill-fared it with the birds both great and small, hardly a friend in all that crowd they found, but enemies enough, who every one charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun. When they had ended, from his place apart rose the preceptor to redress the wrong, and trembling like a steed before the start looked round bewildered on the expectant throng, then thought of fair Almira, and took heart to speak out what was in him clear and strong, alike regardless of their smile or frown, and quite determined not to be laughed down. Plato, anticipating the reviewers from his republic banished without pity the poets, in this little town of yours you put to death by means of a committee, the ballad singers, and the troubadours, the street musicians of the heavenly city, the birds who make sweet music for us all in our dark hours, as David did for Saul, the thrush that carols at the dawn of day, from the green steeples of the piney wood, the oriole in the elm, the noisy jay, jargonning like a foreigner at his food, the bluebird balanced on some topmost spray, flooding with melody the neighborhood, linnet and meadowlark, and all the throng that dwell in nests, and have the gift of song. You slay them all, and wherefore, for the gain of a scant handful more or less of wheat, or rye, or barley, or some other grain, scratched up at random by industrious feet, searching for worm or weevil after rain, or a few cherries that are not so sweet as are the songs these uninvited guests sing at their feast with comfortable breasts, do you near think what wondrous beings these? Do you near think who made them, and who taught the dialect they speak, where melodies alone are the interpreters of thought, whose household words are songs in many keys, sweeter than instrument of man air court, whose habitations in the tree tops even are halfway houses on the road to heaven? Think every morning when the sun peeps through the dim leaf-lattice-windows of the grove, how jubilant the happy birds renew their old melodious madrigals of love, and when you think of this remember toot is always morning somewhere, and above the awakening continents from shore to shore, somewhere the birds are singing evermore. Think of your woods and orchards without birds, of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams, as in an idiot's brain remembered words hang empty mid the cobwebs of his dreams. Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds make up for the lost music when your teams drag home the stingy harvest, and no more the feathered gleamers follow to your door? What would you rather see the incessant stir of insects in the windrows of the hay, and hear the locusts and the grasshopper their melancholy hurdy-gurdy's play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whir of meadowlark and its sweet roundelay, or Twitter of little field fares, as you take your nooning in the shade of bush and break?  Even the blackest of them all, the crow, renders good service as your man at arms, crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, and crying havoc on the slug and snail. How can I teach your children gentleness and mercy to the weak, and reverence for life, which in its weakness or excess is still a gleam of God's omnipotence? Or death, which seeming darkness, is no less the self-same light, although averted hence, when by your laws, your actions, and your speech, you contradict the very things I teach? With this he closed, and through the audience went a murmur like the rustle of dead leaves. The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent their yellow heads together like their sheaves. Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment, who put their trust in bullocks and in beaves. The birds were doomed, and as the record shows, a bounty offered for the heads of crows. There was another audience out of reach, who had no voice nor vote in making laws, but in the papers read his little speech, and crowned his modest temples with applause. They made him conscious, each one more than each. He still was victor, vanquished in their cause, sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, O' fair Almira at the academy. And so the dreadful massacre began, O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests, the ceaseless fusillade of terror ran. Dead fell the birds with bloodstains on their breasts, or wounded crept away from sight of man, while the young died of famine in their nests. A slaughter to be told in groans, not words, the very st. Bartholomew of birds. The summer came, and all the birds were dead. The days were like hot coals. The very ground was burned to ashes. In the orchards fed myriads of caterpillars, and around the cultivated fields and garden beds, hosts of devouring insects crawled and found no foe to check their march, till they had made the land a desert without leaf or shade. Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town. Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly slaughtered the innocents.  They were the terror of each favourite walk, the endless theme of all the village talk. The farmers grew impatient, but a few confessed their error, and would not complain, for after all the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain. Then they repealed the law, although they knew it would not call the dead to life again, as schoolboys finding their mistake too late draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. That year in Killingworth the autumn came without the light of his majestic look, the wonder of the falling tongues of flame, the illumined pages of his doomsday book. A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame, and drowned themselves despairing in the brook, while the wild wind went moaning everywhere, lamenting the dead children of the air. But the next spring a stranger sight was seen, a sight that never yet by bard was sung, as great a wonder as it would have been if some dumb animal had found a tongue, a wagon overarched with evergreen, upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung, all full of singing birds came down the street, filling the air with music, wild and sweet. From all the country round these birds were brought, by order of the town, with anxious quest, and loosened from their wicker prisons, sought in woods and fields the places they loved best, singing loud canticles which many thought were satires to the authorities addressed, while others listening in green lanes averred such lovely music never had been heard. But blither still and louder caralled they upon the morrow, for they seemed to know it was the fair Elmira's wedding day, and everywhere, around, above, below. When the preceptor bore his bride away, their songs burst forth in joyous overflow, and a new heaven bent over a new earth amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. Finale, the hour was late, the fire burned low, the landlord's eyes were closed in sleep, and near the story's end a deep, sonorous sound at times was heard, as when the distant bagpipes blow. At this all laughed the landlord stirred as one awaking from a swound, and gazing anxiously around protested that he had not slept, but only shut his eyes and kept his ears attentive to each word. Then all arose and said, Good-night. Alone remained the drowsy squire to rake the embers of the fire, and quenched the waning parlor light, while from the windows here and there the scattered lamps a moment gleamed, and the illumined hostel seemed the constellation of the bear downward a thought the misty air, sinking and setting toward the sun far off the village clock struck one. Between the dark and the daylight when the night is beginning to lower comes a pause in the day's occupations that is known as the children's hour. I hear in the chamber above me the patter of little feet, the sound of a door that is opened, and voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamp-light descending the broad hall stair, grave Alice and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair. A whisper, and then a silence. Yet I know by their merry eyes they are plotting and planning together, to take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, a sudden raid from the hall, by three doors left unguarded they enter my castle wall. They climb up into my turret door, the arms and back of my chair. If I try to escape they surround me. They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, their arms about me entwine. Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen in his mouse-tower on the Rhine.  I have you fast in my fortress, and will not let you depart, but put you down into the dungeon, in the round tower of my heart. And there will I keep you for ever, yes, for ever, and a day, till the walls shall crumble to ruin, and moulder in dust away. Enkeledus, under Mount Etna, he lies. It is slumber, it is not death, for he struggles at times to arise, and above him the lurid skies are hot with his fiery breath. The crags are piled on his breast, the earth is heaped on his head, but the groans of his wild unrest, though smothered and half suppressed, are heard, and he is not dead. And the nations far away are watching with eager eyes. They talk together and say, Tomorrow, perhaps today, Enkeledus will arise. And the old gods, the austere oppressors in their strength, stand aghast, and white with fear, at the ominous sounds they hear, and tremble and mutter at length. Ah me, for the land that is sown with the harvest of despair, where the burning cinders blown from the lips of the overthrown Enkeledus fill the air, where ashes are heaped in drifts over vineyard and field and town, whenever he starts and lifts his head through the blackened drifts of the crags that keep him down. See, see, the red light shines. It is the glare of his awful eyes, and the storm wind shouts through the pines of Alps and of Apennines. Enkeledus, arise! The Cumberland, at anchor in Hampton roads we lay, on board of the Cumberland, sloop of war, and at times from the fortress across the bay the alarm of drums swept past, or a bugle passed from the camp on the shore, then far away to the south up rose a little feather of snow-white smoke, and we knew that the iron ship of our foes was steadily steering its course to try the force of our ribs of oak. Down upon us heavily runs silent and sullen the floating fort, then comes a puff of smoke from her guns and leaps the terrible death with fiery breath from each open port. We are not idle, but send her straight defiance back in a full broadside as hail rebounds from a roof of slate rebounds our heavier hail from each iron scale of the monster's hide.  Never, our gallant Morris replies, it is better to sink than to yield, and the whole air peeled with the cheers of our men. Then, like a kraken, huge and black, she crushed our ribs in her iron grasp. Down went the cumberland, all a rack, with a sudden shudder of death, and the cannon's breath for her dying gasp. Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, still floated our flag at the main-mast head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air was a whisper of prayer, or a dirge for the dead. Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas, you are at peace in the troubled stream. Ho! brave land with hearts like these, thy flag that is rent intoane shall be won again, and without a seam. Snowflakes Out of the bosom of the air, out of the cloudfolds of her garments shaken, over the woodlands brown and bare, over the harvest fields forsaken, silent and soft and slow descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take suddenly shape in some divine expression, even as the troubled heart doth make in the white countenance confession, the troubled sky reveals the grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, slowly in silent syllables recorded. This is the secret of despair, long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, now whispered and revealed to wood and field. A Day of Sunshine O gift of God, O perfect day, whereon shall no man work but play, whereon it is enough for me not to be doing, but to be. Through every fibre of my brain, through every nerve, through every vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch of life that seems almost too much. I hear the wind among the trees playing celestial symphonies. I see the branches downward bent like keys of some great instrument, and over me unrolls on high the splendid scenery of the sky, where through a sapphire sea the sun sails like a golden galleon towards Yonder Cloudland in the west, towards Yonder Islands of the Blessed, whose steep seerah far uplifts its cruggy summits, white with drifts. Blow winds and waft through all the rooms the snowflakes of the cherry blooms. Blow winds and bend within my reach the fiery blossoms of the peach. O life and love, O happy throng of thoughts whose only speech is song, O heart of man, canst thou not be blithe as the air is, and as free? 1860 Something left undone, labour with what zeal we will, something still remains undone, something uncompleted still waits the rising of the sun. By the bedside on the stair at the threshold near the gates, with its menace or its prayer like a mendicant it waits, waits and will not go away, waits and will not be gainsaid, by the cares of yesterday each to-day is heavier made. Till at length the burden seems greater than our strength can bear, heavy as the weight of dreams pressing on us everywhere, and we stand from day to day like the dwarfs of times gone by, who, as the northern legends say, on their shoulders held the sky. Weariness, O little feet, that such long years must wonder on through hopes and fears, must ache and bleed beneath your load, high, nearer to the wayside inn where toil shall cease, and rest begin, and weary, thinking of your road. O little hands, that weak or strong have still to serve, or rule so long, have still so long to give or ask, I, who so much with book and pen have toiled among my fellow men, am weary, thinking of your task. O little hearts, that throb and beat with such impatient feverish heat, such limitless and strong desires, mine, that so long has glowed and burned, with passions into ashes turned, now covers and conceals its fires. O little souls, as pure and white and crystalline as rays of light direct from heaven, their source divine, refracted through the mist of years, how red my setting sun appears, how lurid looks this soul of mine. The end, the end of Section 10 and the end of Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Welcome back everyone. Today we're going to be talking about how to secure a Windows system. And this is just really an introduction, some giving you some things to think about about how you might want to secure your Windows computer. It's definitely not going to be very comprehensive because there's a lot of things you could do to make yourself much more secure. A lot of it has to deal with what you choose to do with your computer or what you tell your computer to do, basically. A lot of attacks happen because the user of the computer actually clicks on something they shouldn't click on or opens up files they shouldn't open up. So I'm just going to show you some basics and talk about these basics, why you might want to do these things on your computer. So first off, I have a Windows 10, a computer running Windows 10 or a virtual box actually running Windows 10 in front of us and that's what I'll be using. If you're using Windows 7 now, which is actually still very, very common, if you're using Windows 7, it's out of our end of support, end of life. So you should be updating basically to Windows 10. Go ahead and skip eight and just go to 10 directly. Yeah, so basically, if you're not using Windows 10 right now, one of the best things you could possibly do I think is really update to the newest version of Windows. If you're using Windows 7 and definitely if you're using Windows XP, just consider yourself insecure basically no matter what you do. So first recommendation, upgrade to the newest version of Windows, which right now is Windows 10. Next, whenever you actually set up your computer, check for a couple of things. So go to the start menu down the corner and then there's this gear, settings gear. Whenever you open that up, one thing that you should do relatively often, often, I would say at least every week you might want to manually check it is go to update and security. And in update and security, you really want to check for updates. So you can configure your computer to check for updates daily. But I usually go in and manually check at least once a week to make sure I have the most most up to date patches. Now, why am I updating so often? Like, do we really need to update very often? Well, sometimes, sometimes Windows pushes down a patch for different types of vulnerabilities that your computer would be vulnerable to if you didn't update that software. So you never really know what's what's going to happen. And if you saw the video about kind of how hackers do what what they do, how the tools that they use, those tools are usually working on older systems or unpatched systems. But those tools don't usually work as well, or at least hopefully they don't work as well on patched systems. So if you have your system up to date, that will stop a lot of different types of attack. Of course, it won't stop everything. But just keeping your system up to date will stop a large number of the attacks that are happening online. Okay, now the next thing we want to do is right under Windows Update, there's this Windows Defender. And if you're not using Windows Defender, you really should at least at least turn on basic protection. So if you have an antivirus installed, some sort of third party antivirus, maybe from I don't know, Trend Micro or Avast or something like that, then this third party antivirus basically Windows will detect it and say, Yeah, you have an antivirus. Good job. Okay, but you can also run Windows Defender alongside a third party antivirus and Windows Defender will kind of act like background protection. It has a mode where it works well with other antiviruses. So one thing you need to turn on is real time protection. And I've turned it off because I was doing some testing with malware. And even though I don't have a third party antivirus installed right now in this virtual system, Windows Defender kept finding malware that I was intentionally trying to install on this computer. So anyway, turn on real time protection for Windows Defender. Make sure you have I mean, it depends on your privacy concerns, but I would turn on cloud based protection as well. So if Windows Defender finds anything potentially, potentially malicious, then it can send it up to Microsoft's cloud and analyze it. Automatic sample submission, again, it's up to your privacy preferences. I mean, this isn't my main system. So I would just turn them on, just in case this virtual machine gets hacked. Okay. Yeah, so then, yeah, we can open up Windows Defender and you actually get the interface for it. Windows, if you have this enabled, it will tell you every week, couple weeks, if you need to update Windows Defender definitions, and it will usually update it automatically. So just like, just like going to Windows Update and checking for updates, we also want to make sure that Windows Defender is up to date as well. So again, making sure that you have the newest Windows software, the patches are applied, will go a very long way in preventing malware, running something like Windows Defender or a third party antivirus and Windows Defender together can also help you a lot in reducing your risk if you happen to run a malicious program. Again, both of them aren't going to protect against everything, but they will protect against a lot. The next thing you need to do is backup. You can use Windows built in backup, you can see that I don't have, I don't use Windows built in backup. But you need to have some sort of backup plan. Actually, I'll show you what I use is something called crash plan. So I've been using crash plan, if it looks up, so it's crashplan.com. I've been using that for a long time. And go away. And it works really well on Linux, OS X and the servers that I'm running. So I use crash plan, because it's relatively easy, but it also works on a lot of different types of systems. You don't necessarily have to pay, you can have a free option if you have a bunch of hard drives laying around, you can use crash plan to backup and encrypt backup and encrypt your data, if you want to use it like that. But minimum, you need to have some sort of backup device. So for example, if I added a drive, if I have an extra hard drive, and I want to backup all of my Windows data, then I would add a drive here, select the drive that's available, but I haven't plugged anything in. And then it backs up the files automatically. Now, why would I want to do that? Well, lots of different reasons. I might actually accidentally delete files that are important to me, and I need to recover them somehow. Or what's happening very, very often now on Windows systems is crypto lockers. So getting a virus that encrypts all of your data, and then basically asks for money. And if you pay them the money, then they claim that they'll give your data back. But usually they don't.  So the easiest way around a crypto locker is having a backup. If you've backed up all of your data, then if the data is encrypted, well, you don't really lose anything, you can just recover it after you remove the crypto locker, then you can recover your data. And that's it, you don't have to pay anything. And you don't lose anything. So the first things you need to do whenever you're working on a Windows system, first off, make sure that the operating system is as new as possible. At least in this case, Windows 10. And then do Windows update, make sure you check for updates, you know, weekly set the system to automatically update, turn on Windows Defender real time protection, make sure you have some sort of backup plan in place. You can either use Windows built in backup or a third party backup tool like crash plan. Okay. Yeah, so the next thing I want to do is, where was it? I would go through, I usually go through privacy settings. So I have a tablet actually that has Windows 10 on it. And I essentially go through the privacy settings and see what I'm comfortable with. I tend to turn everything off in terms of privacy, especially things like location, yeah, location radios, all sorts of different things. So I usually go through and remove as many things that I'm not comfortable with like privacy being privacy issues being shared. The next thing you need to do is go into apps. And every so often, I wouldn't say weekly, but maybe every, you know, six months or something like that go into apps and features. And just check and see if there's any applications that are installed that you either don't know what they are, or you don't need them anymore. If you don't need them anymore, you're not going to use them, or you don't know what they are, you can probably remove them. Now, that's not always the case, removing some applications could potentially break another application. So for example, I have some forensic software, but it also installed Microsoft Server speech platform. So if I remove the speech platform, then the forensic software won't work like it like it should basically. So I usually go through and I remove everything that I know I can remove. And if I don't recognize something, I look up what it's for.  And then the last thing I'll talk about now is under network and internet, make sure you go into connections and under in this case, it's under ethernet related settings, go to Windows firewall. So Windows firewall, what does this do? It stops connections from basically coming in. Right now, if you don't have a firewall on, then any applications that are running on your computer, people from the outside can potentially connect into your computer, you know, regardless of what you want, essentially. So what you should do is you can use recommended settings. I'll just click that. And whenever you go into this, let's see. Oh yeah. So if we go over to turn Windows firewall on or off, make sure that Windows firewall is turned on. And we can block all incoming connections, including those from list of allowed apps that will block everything. And you'll probably, some of your applications will probably stop working. Use this if you know how to actually configure your firewall. Notify me when Windows firewall blocks a new app, keep that on so that way if a virus or something happens to get installed on your computer and tries to run, then you can have an indicator whether that application is new or not. So make sure that turn firewall is on for both public and private networks, unless you know how to configure the firewall to allow different types of exceptions. So yeah, there's a lot of different types of security and maintenance, but those are really the big things. Turn on a firewall so that way not everything can connect into your computer. And then under update and security, make sure that you keep your version of Windows up to date. Make sure you turn on Windows Defender or have a third party antivirus with Windows Defender. And then make sure that you have some sort of backup plan in place, at least for your critical files, the main files that you don't want to lose. If you do that, if you can keep your system up to date, if you have a firewall on and you're using Windows Defender and have some sort of backup, then the chance of getting a virus, as long as you're not downloading and running all sorts of random programs, the chance of getting a virus is much less, I'd say.  So for example, I don't go to random websites and download everything I can and I block a lot of different types of access to my browser. So a lot of plugins for browsers, I block them. A lot of unknown code, I block it. So whenever I'm browsing, the risk of some sort of random malicious code is relatively low. I don't go to really strange unknown websites, download tools and install those tools. So your behavior will definitely dictate how much risk you have. But if you can do these things in Windows, you'll definitely reduce your risk of some, let's say older virus or older exploit working against you. And if something does happen, then you'll have a backup of all of your data just in case. So yeah, that's it for very basics, very introduction to securing a Windows system. Thank you very much.


Yeah, I would like to talk about a proposal that is actually at least one year old. The first time I heard about it was at DevCon 4, and it's about replacing, well, not replacing actually, including more precompiles written in Wazen. So what is a precompile? Well, it's some kind of specific contract that is present in every client.  So there are four main goals about this proposal. Three of them are ETH1 related, and the last one is ETH2 related. The first one of them is to speed up feature adoption. So when people want to add more features, it's the problem of every open source project, probably even other open source projects. Everybody wants to offload maintenance of their code to the open source community. It happens in the Linux kernel, it happens everywhere. So you want to do that, but of course there's a lot of pushback because the client maintainers are the ones who will have to do the work if something goes wrong. They are the ones staying up late to try to fix the problems. So there's some kind of pushback and that's pretty healthy actually. What you want to do is try to go against this phenomenon by making sure that when you create a new feature, you provide one template that you just dropped into your client. You don't have to rewrite it in every single language. So that's what the right once run everywhere joke was about. You heard that before, I'm sure. It doesn't work as well as in the marketing campaign, but it's still pretty useful if you can get closer to that. The goal is to reduce the work for client maintainers because if you have one bug, it's in the program, you can fix it once and for all. So it's everybody's participating. It's not like you have to fix it on every client. So hopefully it's going to help with that. The state growth is the biggest problem in Ethereum at the moment. Like the last test I made, I found that the state was 15 gigabytes. And that's not including all the overhead to access the data. It's just the pure state. You have big winners, like the guest of the Tokyo Kiris. They're huge. And if one contract is over 800 megabytes, you can't store that on a mobile phone. So that means already half the people on this planet are cut off from running a node. That's the problem if you want this community and this ecosystem to be accessible to everybody and you want everybody to be able to validate. So the end goal of this approach is to help with moving as much state as possible out of the chain itself. Just save enough that you can keep the guarantees of blockchain or the safe aspects of blockchain without getting the big problem of having to sink a huge amount of data. So this is also the question of gas cost. If you have a very complex operation, so actually I'm not really happy all of a sudden with the fact that I chose S-Tor because S-Tor is not a big problem. But you have one instruction in EPM that looks simple when you compile the program, but actually behind it you have a lot of execution. So the gas cost that has been chosen for S-Tor is somewhat arbitrary. And the idea is that if you manage to break it down into some instruction that are lower level, a closer match to what is actually executed, you can meter this contract, this new piece of code and hopefully it will be more accurate. And the last step is indeed to make it look a bit more like ETH2. So in ETH2 it's a lot of execution environment stuff. ETH2 is about getting, it's like line-based. So you only store the root of an execution environment, what's called an execution environment on the chain. And the rest is all done offline, sorry, off-chain, offline. There's one plan to take ETH1 and to bring it into one of the charts in ETH2. So the less data you have at some point when you fork, you want to manage as little data as possible. So this transition would really be much easier if the size of the data was reduced. So the requirements to perform this change, this switch, would be to have a wasm interpreter in each client. It's actually not that hard, wasm has been pretty trendy recently, so everybody wrote like an interpreter for their own language. There's actually multiple in-go, there's at least one in Rust, there's one in C++ of course. So you could do this, you could just just include it into your client. And then you're done, almost. There's of course a lot of details, like the details in the details. So there are a couple of challenges that I want to address, at least a couple of questions. One of them is, is that going to be slow if you're going to use pre-compiles? So if you're going to use wasm for pre-compiles. So yeah, there's no question, we don't want to replace current pre-compiles that are currently written in the native language of each client with wasm, that wouldn't make any sense. There's nothing preventing you from rewriting the code, once the pre-compile has been accepted, you can perfectly rewrite it into your own client's language. But the advantage here is that first you can include it immediately, so it will run. And then you can take your time to rewrite and exclude it. And then you also have a reference to comparative, so you can first use your implementation against the wasm or the wasm pre-compile and see if everything you did was correct. As it turns out, interpreter performance is not so bad. There was a talk about this yesterday, that you were in a team and we talked about it, so if you're interested, you should check the video for that. And yeah, there are plenty of tricks that we can still use to improve performance, so you can use them. You can compile the wasm, it's actually not going to provide so much of an improvement after all. But you can also use what's called the host function, so you have your wasm interpretation, but you call into an ATV implementation. One of the things that is slowing down execution is how U256 are implemented, so you could provide a service of host functions that are implemented natively. And there's a proposal by Paul from the wasm team to provide some kind of assembly register, so you provide some indication of how the compiler should compile your code so that it produces an output that makes sense in the context. Yeah, so the other risk is the pre-copilot explosion. Like I was saying at the beginning, you have a lot of people that just want to upload their code to the community to have the community maintain. It happens everywhere, it happens at Phoenix Kernel. And yeah, thankfully there's a lot of healthy push-backs from the client maintainers because we don't want to, yeah, we want to make sure that this thing is actually useful. And so there's a couple, at least I proposed a couple of acceptance criteria that are just common sense really. If you want pre-compiled to be added to the list of pre-compiled, well, you have to provide tests, obviously. You have to demonstrate the willingness to keep maintaining the pre-compiled once it's integrated because once again we don't want to be the only ones staying up going to fix the function problem. And there's the last two things that are a bit more imprecise, but the focus would be to, like I said, focus on state management that we don't want to pre-compile for everything. It would be with a focus on taking as much data off-chain as possible. And of course, it's not about just getting your code, of course. We have to understand that when you have a pre-compiled running, usually the gas cost is going to be cheaper than if you were actually running it, like running the EVM version of it. So effectively the network is subsidizing the pre-compiled. It's not about getting everybody to run a cheaper version of their code. It's really, it has to be, like, there has to be a proof case that pre-compiled serves more than one purpose, one application. Okay, I'm beginning a bit late, so I'm going to skip over this one. But, yeah, basically, why not EVM?  That's the short thing. So, I wanted to cover a couple examples that are in the works. So, yeah, how would you implement such a use case, and what would you need to put the parts? So, yeah, in each do, you have what's called a relayer. So, instead of sending your transaction directly to a validator equivalent of a liner, what you do is you send them to some kind of full node, and the full node takes all your transaction, like gathers all the transactions, pack them into, let's say, a mega transaction, or at least it summarizes them, and then sends them to the validator or the miner in that diagram. And that gets included in the block. So, what you would do is to create a contract whose state is only three things, the root of the account tree, the total token supply that is not necessary, but it's better. For example, when you go to EtherScan, they tell you you have this token, this is the total supply, you don't want to be unpacking a tree, or you don't want to necessarily be running your entire a full node for each token. So, just having an access to the supply would be useful. And of course, there's a nonth to make sure that you don't replay it as and things like that. And you use the pre-compile to check the tree. So, let me show you actually. Oh, right, I have the first slide to compare the difference. And I realize there's a big mistake in that slide. So, here it should be 64, not 32. So, normally if you write your ERC 20 token, you've got like a map between your address, which is 32 bytes, and the value, which is also U256. Here, and I also forgot the nonth. So, if you compare it to the stateless version, you just have the tree root, you have the total supply, you have the nonth, and so that's 96 bytes against 32 times the number of entries. So, 64 times the number of entries. So, if you have a transaction format, you just give the proof of the root tree before and after execution. You give the address, and of the sender and the receiver, you give how much token you want to transfer. And of course, you sign the thing. And the overall algorithm in the contract is you just impact the transaction. I hope you can read it back. You check the signature of the transaction. Then you validate that the tree, that the root you are given is the correct one. You validate that the new root is the correct one also. You check the balance and you update the new root in the contract state. And the three blocks in green are actually, can be performed by pre-compiled. The signature check is definitely one that is already present. So, you can factor this thing and if you do that, you can support a full, like a host of year C20. So, there's clearly a new space for something repetitive. So, yeah, the advantage is that you need less storage space. You don't need to refrite the year C20 code every time. There's a small optimization that you can have. If there's that difference between what you send and what you receive, that's taken as a reward to the relayer. So, this is how you would incentivize relayers to do this work for you. The problem, of course, is you have currently a lot of states. That needs to be clarified. How do you extract the state and more importantly, how do you extract the funds? Like if you look at crypto kitty, you could always burn your kitties somehow, but to agree to a different model. But the money that is stored in that contract, that is a problem that is still open and needs to be fixed. Yeah, so then I don't have a better name so far, so I call that e-ception. You can enhance the model I provided before with the possibility to add storage and contract in your off-chain tree. The thing is, it's going to be a bit more expensive complex to do the validation, but that also provides you the ability to change the storage model. So right now the state is stored in a big tree, like a miracle patricio tree. What if you want to use a linear storage? Maybe it makes sense, maybe it's going to make things faster. So that's a nice way to upgrade the storage model without changing much in the main chain. But yeah, once again validation is going to make things a bit more costly and complicated. So it's really interesting if execution rarely happens. Yeah, so that was an illustration of what I was talking about. You can have your off-chain storage, sorry, two bytes. Then you keep the parts you're interested, the parts of the tree you're really interested, so you can prove that you knew the pre-route. Then you have your own storage, so you can just keep the parts that you need. And if you want, so it's the same thing, except you can change the storage model, you just get a simple list of key values. Yeah, so then out of this, I had a conversation with Yuichi Hinari, who's unfortunately not in a second, but yeah, curious to him. He came up with an idea, he came up with an idea to rewrite Radar in a way that you just create reimbursement contracts. You also, because it's contracts, you get state channel support, so it's not just tokens, but also more complex execution out of the box. And so when you want to open a channel, you create those two contracts in a tree that is kept offline. And all you need to do is, well, you sign the proof that the other transaction, sorry, the other update to the tree is correct. And in the end, when you want to close the channel, you just send the proof with the update, the execution happens only once. And yeah, so you basically have Radar without actually using too much storage. Yeah, so I'm going to finish on this. The mandatory test net announce, of course, I would like to try to run a test net before the end of the year with an initial list of recompiles. By the end of next, sorry, to start next year, I would like to have a fully specified year C20, a stateless version of year C20. And hopefully by May next year, so in March next year, there will be some proper discussions about this on all core dev calls. That would be nice. Yes, so that was pretty much it in the nutshell. Please, if you're interested in that topic, if you're interested to help, if you want to discuss, if you just want to bring it here as well, contact me. I'm available here. This is my guide from the github slash githab endo. And yeah, thank you for your time.