#i think python is able to do some order of operations?

[zipquips]

growing up and learning how to do math with normal, regular calculators that aren't programmed to do order of operations has made me the worst programmer ever. i add an obnoxious amount of parentheses bc i refuse to trust anything other than myself to get the order of operations correct

[douchebagbrainwaves]

APPARENTLY OUR SITUATION WAS NOT UNUSUAL

Enjoy it while it lasts, and get as much done as you can, because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. Sites of this type will get their attention. The fact that there's no conventional number. Don't fix Windows, because the remaining. And what drives them both is the number of new shares to the angel; if there were 1000 shares before the deal, this means 200 additional shares. This is not as selfish as it sounds. For the average startup fails. It spread from Fortran into Algol and then to depend on it happening. Seeing the system in use by real users—people they don't know—gives them lots of new ideas is practically virgin territory.

Auto-retrieving spam filters would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous. When someone's working on a problem where their success can be measured, you win. I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. However, the easiest and cheapest way for them to do it gets you halfway there. No one uses pen as a verb in spoken English. We'd ask why we even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. Conditionals. Poetry is as much music as text, so you start to doubt yourself. Between them, these two facts are literally a recipe for exponential growth. In languages, as in any really bold undertaking, merely deciding to do it. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense something is going on.

It's easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they're trying to ignore you out of existence. Google. Long words for the first time should be the ideas expressed there. If a link is just an empty rant, editors will sometimes kill it even if it's on topic in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can bear the risk of failure. I'm less American than I seem. The distinction between expressions and statements. So perhaps the best solution is to add a few more checks on public companies. Let me repeat that recipe: finding the problem intolerable and feeling it must be true that only 1.

Well, I said a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind—to work on a Python project than you could to work on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to bite off some subset of the problem. A company that needed to build a factory or hire 50 people obviously needed to raise a large round and risk losing the investors you already have if you can't raise the full amount. And isn't popularity to some extent its own justification? I realize I might seem to be any less committed to the business. Surely that's mere prudence? The measurement of performance will tend to push even the organizations issuing credentials into line. Number 6 is starting to have a piratical gleam in their eye. About a year after we started Y Combinator that the most important skills founders need to learn. When the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and demand that it take immediate action to cure any past violations of securities laws. Within a few decades old, and rapidly evolving. I didn't say so, but I'm British by birth. Investors tend to resist committing except to the extent you can.

I'm talking to companies we fund? But if we can decide in 20 minutes, should it take anyone longer than a couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, the more demanding the application, the more demanding the application, the more extroverted of the two founders did most of the holes are. We funded them because we liked the founders so much. And such random factors will increasingly be able to brag that he was an investor. You'd feel like an idiot using pen instead of write in a different language than they'd use if they were expressed that way. The safest plan for him personally is to stick close to the margin of failure, and the time preparing for it beforehand and thinking about it afterward. The theory is that minor forms of bad behavior encourage worse ones: that a neighborhood with lots of graffiti and broken windows becomes one where robberies occur. S s: n. Bootstrapping Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors at all, it means you don't need them.

It's not just that you can't judge ideas till you're an expert in a field. And the way to do it gets you halfway there. Angels who only invest occasionally may not themselves know what terms they want. But the raison d'etre of all these institutions has been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period. If someone pays $20,000 from their friend's rich uncle, who they give 5% of the company they take is artificially low. But because seed firms operate in an earlier phase, they need to spend a lot on marketing, or build some kind of announcer. There are millions of small businesses in America, but only a little; they were both meeting someone they had a lot in common with. We present to him what has to be treated as a threat to a company's survival. S i; return s;; This falls short of the spec because it only works for integers. He said their business model was crap.

I was a philosophy major. Programs often have to work actively to prevent your company growing into a weed tree, dependent on this source of easy but low-margin money. And I was a philosophy major. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley is watching them. I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. As many people have noted, one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard to predict, till you try, how long it will take to become profitable. Raising money is the better choice, because new technology is usually more valuable now than later. The purpose of the committee is presumably to ensure that is to create a successful company?

One recently told me that he did as a theoretical exercise—an effort to define a more convenient alternative to the Turing Machine. This is actually less common than it seems: many have to claim they thought of the idea after quitting because otherwise their former employer would own it. If you look at these languages in order, Java, and Visual Basic—it is not so frivolous as it sounds, however. VCs they have introductions to. VCs ask, just point out that you're inexperienced at fundraising—which is always a safe card to play—and you feel obliged to do the same for any firm you talk to. The lower your costs, the more demanding the application, the more important it is to sell something to you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you have. What happens in that shower?

Thanks to Dan Bloomberg, Trevor Blackwell, Garry Tan, Nikhil Pandit, Reid Hoffman, Geoff Ralston, Slava Akhmechet, Paul Buchheit, Ben Horowitz, and Greg McAdoo for the lulz.

[system76]

Massimo Pascale and his Lemur Pro Explore Dark Matter Substructure with the Sunburst Arc

Unleash Your Potential Program winner Massimo Pascale is a graduate student studying astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. Using his Lemur Pro, he’s studying early galaxies and dark matter in the sunburst arc, a distant galaxy magnified through a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Read the whole interview for more details on the project and his experience with the Lemur Pro!

Give readers a rundown on what your project entails.

A galaxy cluster is a conglomeration of many galaxies that ends up weighing 10^14 solar masses. It’s incomprehensibly massive. Mass is not only able to gravitationally attract objects, but it’s also able to deflect the path of light, and the more massive it is the more it can deflect that light. This is what’s called gravitational lensing. When you have a massive galaxy cluster, and somewhere behind that galaxy cluster is another galaxy, the light from that galaxy can get deflected due to the mass of that galaxy cluster. Gravity causes the light to get stretched, sheared, and even magnified because of the way that it retains surface brightness, so these objects end up being a lot brighter than they would ever be if we didn’t have this galaxy cluster in front of it.

We’re using an arc of light called the sunburst arc. If we take our telescope and look at that galaxy cluster, we actually see that background galaxy all stretched out, and it appears as if it’s in the foreground. So truly we’re using this galaxy cluster as a natural telescope in the sky. And there’s many, many scientific impacts that we get from that.

If you want to see some of the earliest galaxies in the universe—we can say the most distant galaxies are the earliest galaxies because it takes time for that light to travel to us—this might be a good opportunity because you have this natural telescope of this massive galaxy cluster.

When we look at these beautiful arcs of light, these beautiful stretched out background galaxies in the galaxy cluster, we can actually use that as evidence to reverse engineer the mass distribution of the galaxy cluster itself. You can think of it as looking at a footprint in the sand and reconstructing what the shape and weight of that foot must’ve been to make that footprint.

Something I’m personally very interested in is how we can probe dark matter in this galaxy cluster. Visible matter interacts with light, and that’s why we can see it. The light bounces off and goes to our eyes, and that tells our eyes, “okay, there’s an object there.” Dark matter doesn’t interact with light in that way. It still does gravitationally, still deflects that light. But we can’t see what that dark matter is, and that makes it one of the most mysterious things in the universe to us.

So I’m very interested in exploring that dark matter, and specifically the substructure of that dark matter. We’re using the evidence of the sunburst arc to try and discover not only what the mass distribution of the overall galaxy cluster is, but also to get a greater insight into the dark matter itself that makes up that galaxy cluster, and dark matter as a whole.

Where did the idea to do this come from?

I’ll have to admit that it’s not my original idea entirely. I work with an advisor here at UC Berkeley where I’m attending as a graduate student, Professor Liang Dai, who previously was looking at the effects of microlensing in this galaxy cluster. He’s an expert when it comes to doing a lot of these microlensing statistics. And I had previously had work on doing cluster scale modeling on a number of previous clusters as part of my undergraduate work. So it was a really nice pairing when we had found this common interest, and that we can both use our expertise to solve the problems in this cluster, specifically the sunburst arc.

What kind of information are you drawing from?

Very generally, in astronomy we are lucky to be funded usually through various governments as well as various philanthropists to build these great telescopes. If you have a cluster or any object in the sky that you’re very interested in, there’s usually some formal channel that you can write a proposal, and you will propose your project. Luckily for us, these objects had already been observed before by Hubble Space Telescope. The big benefit with Hubble is that it doesn’t have to worry about the atmosphere messing up the observations.

Because a lot of these telescopes are publicly funded, we want to make sure this information gets to the public. Usually when you observe you get a few months where that’s only your data—that way no one else can steal your project—but then after that it goes up into an archive. So all of this data that we’re using is publicly available, and we’re able to reference other astronomers that studied it in their previous works, and see what information we’re able to glean from the data and build off of that. What’s so great about astronomy is you’re always building off of the shoulders of others, and that’s how we come to such great discoveries.

That sounds very similar to our mission here.

Yeah exactly. I see a lot of parallels between System76 and the open source community as a whole, and how we operate here in astronomy and the rest of the sciences as well.

How do you determine the age of origin based on this information?

We can estimate the general age of the object based off the object’s light profile. We do something called spectroscopy and we look at the spectrum of the object through a slit. Have you ever taken a prism and held it outside, and seen the rainbow that’s shown on the ground through the light of the sun? We do that, but with this very distant object.

Based off of the light profile, we can figure out how far away it is, because the universe is ever-expanding and things that are further away from us are expanding away faster. The object effectively gets red-shifted by the Doppler effect, so the light gets made more red. By looking at how reddened it’s become, we can figure out the distance of the object. We usually refer to it by its red-shift. You can do this with any object, really.

Based off of the distance from the lensed object, which we find through spectroscopy, and the objects in the cluster, which we also find through spectroscopy, we can then figure out what the mass distribution of the cluster must be. Those are two important variables for us to know in order to do our science.

How do you divide the work between the Lemur Pro and the department’s supercomputer?

A lot of what I do is MCMC, or Markov-chain monte carlo work, so usually I’m trying to explore some sort of parameter space. The models that I make might have anywhere from six to two dozen parameters that I’m trying to fit for at once that all represent different parts of this galaxy cluster. The parameters can be something like the orientation of a specific galaxy, things like that. This can end up being a lot of parameters, so I do a lot of shorter runs first on the Lemur Pro, which Lemur Pro is a great workhorse for, and then I ssh into a supercomputer and I use what I got from those shorter runs to do one really long run to get an accurate estimate.

We’re basically throwing darts at a massive board that represents the different combinations of parameters, where every dart lands on a specific set of parameters, and we’re testing how those parameters work via a formula which determines what the likelihood of their accuracy is. It can be up to 10-plus runs just to test out a single idea or a single new constraint. so it’s easier to do short runs where I test out different ranges. After that, I move to the supercomputer. If I’ve done my job well, it’s just one really long run where I throw lots of darts, but in a very concentrated area. It doesn’t always end up that way since sometimes I have to go back to the drawing board and repeat them.

What software are you using for this project?

Almost all of what I do is in Python, and I am using an MCMC package called Emcee that’s written by another astronomer. It’s seen great success even outside of the field of astronomy, but it’s a really great program and it’s completely open source and available to the public. Most of the other stuff is code that I’ve written myself. Every once in a while I’ll dabble in using C if I need something to be faster, but for the most part I’m programming in Python, and I’m using packages made by other astronomers.

How has your experience been with the Lemur Pro overall?

It’s been really fantastic. I knew going in that it was going to be a decently powerful machine, but I’m surprised by how powerful it is. The ability to get the job done is the highest priority, and it knocked it out of the park with that.

Mobility is really important to me. It’s so light and so small, I can really take it wherever I need to go. It’s just really easy to put in my bag until I get to the department. And being a graduate student, I’m constantly working from home, or working from the office, or sometimes I like to go work at the coffee shop, and I might have to go to a conference. These are all things you can expect that the average astronomer will be doing, especially one that’s a graduate student like me.

I’ve had to travel on a plane twice since I’ve had it, and it was actually a delight to be able to do. Usually I hate working on planes because it’s so bulky, and you open the laptop and it starts to hit the seat in front of you, you don’t know if you can really put it on the tray table, maybe your elbows start pushing up against the person next to you because the computer’s so big, but this was the most comfortable experience I’ve had working on a plane.

What will findings on dark matter and early galaxies tell us about our universe?

First let’s think about the galaxy that’s getting magnified. This is a background galaxy behind the cluster, and the mass from the cluster is stretching out its light and magnifying it so that it appears as an arc to us. Through my MCMC I figure out what the mass distribution of the galaxy cluster is. And using that, I can reconstruct the arc into what it really looked like before it was stretched and sheared out, because I know now how it was stretched and sheared.

A lot of people are interested in looking at the first galaxies. How did the first galaxies form? What were the first galaxies like? Looking at these galaxies gives us insight into the early parts of the universe, because the more distant a galaxy is, the earlier in the universe it’s from. We’re seeing back in time, effectively.

Secondarily, we don’t know much about dark matter. By getting an idea of dark matter substructure by looking at these arcs, we can get insight and test different theories of dark matter. and what its makeup might be. If you learned that 80 percent of all mass in your universe was something that you couldn’t see, and you understood nothing about, I’m sure you would want to figure out something about it too, right? It’s one of the greatest mysteries not just of our generation, but of any generation. I think it will continue to be one of the greatest mysteries of all time.

The third prong of this project is that we can also figure out more about the galaxy cluster itself. The idea of how galaxy clusters form. We can get the mass distribution of this cluster, and by comparing it to things like the brightness of the galaxies in the cluster or their speed, we can get an idea for where the cluster is in its evolution. Clusters weren’t always clusters, it’s the mass that caused them to merge together in these violent collisions to become clusters. If you know the mass distribution which we get by this gravitational lensing, as well as a couple of other things about the galaxies, you can figure out how far along the cluster is in this process.

There’s a big impact morally on humanity by doing this sort of thing, because everybody can get behind it. When everybody looks up and they see that we came up with the first image of a black hole, I think that brings everybody together, and that’s something that everybody can be very interested and want to explore.

Stay tuned for further updates from Massimo Pascale’s exploration of dark matter and the sunburst arc, as well as cool projects from our other UYPP winners!

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Suspended Diplomacy.”

Its all coming together. I hope you guys like, has a lot of cool action :)

The stone wall rose up, and cut past him on either side as he blasted through the tight opening body rigid like an arrow. The cool darkness of the building’s interior was blasted back by warm rays of sunlight, which warmed his back as wind whipped past his clothing.

Below him there was nothing but mist and the plunging sides of the pillars cutting down into nothing.

His momentum carried him only so far before he began to plunge downward, though his freefall was cut short as he re-engaged the jetpack cutting upwards in a backwards spiral that sent him looping over the top of the city spires. Off in the distance he could see more than a dozen pairs of dogfighting individual no more than black dots on the horizon.

He cut left quickly and rose up to take the high position wind whipping past his face and roaring inside his ears. His maneuver caught two of their attackers by surprise shooting the out of the sky as he descended from above. He caught another one as it was reaching out for one of the marines, grabbing it by the wing and spinning it around to color with another of it’s companions.

Tangled around each other they fell like a stone into the mist below.”

Ramirez cut down on his left, and another marine on his right, and together they flew in a tight triangular formation. It reminded him a lot of his training drills at the flight academy, though unfortunately for him, while the marines could operate a jetpack, they weren’t trained in aviation, and so couldn't follow his more complex maneuver.

And together, they still flanked a couple of warring Krree taking them out before they could overpower their voiced counterparts.

He spotted T’lau by way of her colorful clothing, which practically glowed like a beacon against the grey blue sky, and what he saw didn’t look good. Two Kree soldiers harried her from behind flicking at her with their razor wire, attempting to cut off a wing as she churned and dived frantically trying to avoid severe bodily injury.

It was clear she was going to lose.

Commander Vir, pushed the engine on his jetpack rocking forward and  away fro his formation of marines. The two Kree had hardly any time to turn towards him as they heard the roaring of his engine. He caught them both around the middle, the edge of their razor wire scraping off the edge of the Iron-eye suit.

He only just had time to pull up as they careened towards an outer line of trees that had been set up along the side of the city. The little blue spheres that hung from the canopy exploded on contact drenching him in blue juice that stung slightly upon contact with his skin.

The impact slowed the enough that, when he cut the engine, hitting the ground was only mostly painful. Though he was bruised, he had managed to slip one of the Kree under him, using its feathery body to break his fall.

He heard something crunch and the kree lay still.

The other Kree, not as dazed or injured from the fall pounced on his back, and the two of them went rolling across the floor as the Kree attempted to slip the razor wire around his throat like a garotte. He ducked his head as the wire sliced across his cheek, drawing blood. The blue tree juice oozed into the wound and he roared with agony as it felt like his face was on fire.

WIth a jolt of energy and adrenaline, he flipped around in place and grabbed the kree around the middle again. The creature kicked and bucked against him, but he held tight. It was all he could do to keep holding on as the creature was surprisingly wriggly. If it had not been for that, he might have been able to overpower the creature, but as it was he kept losing his grip taking all his energy just to keep the creature in place.

His frustration mounted as the kree nearly slipped away.

And with his anger came the whirring of the machine.

The iron eye suit whirred to life with a hungry hiss, and the hydraulics that augmented his body’s power began to slowly compress. He felt his muscles contract like a constricting python around the creature as it struggled. HE was squeezing so tight, that his muscles shook, and when he could do no more, that is when the machine too over. 

The whirring grew louder and louder. His arms and legs clamped down like a steel vice.

The kree screamed, then choked off as it’s air was cut short.

And then a horrendous symphony of crunching noises, and a final snap as the creature’s spine broke in two and it went still.

The iron eye suit disengaged and his ucles failed causing him to flop backwards onto the floor, hands out to either side next to the two kree corpses. 

Overhead, engines roared as the two marine shuttles descended from orbit.

The battle had lasted less than seven minutes, and the marine’s time from orbit to landing was faster than most ambulance response times back on earth. One shuttle landed not so far away, while another circled around back of the palace.

From this distance, he could see groups of marines spilling out the back jetpacks already engaged.

Below the shuttle two twinned guns fired intermittently towards the Kree.

The marines on foot fanned out in a quick semi-circle ordering each other by their hand signals before fanning into two fire teams, which cut to explore the city.

Their response was fast, and he was soon to see why.

Sunny was the last to appear from the shuttle. In her two lower hands she held held a spear, maybe three to four feet long tipped with the deadly black head, and in her upper arms she carried the marine standard issue automatic carbine with red dot site, which she used to great effectiveness on a passing Kree.

Her aim was uncanny for someone who hadn’t been using human weapons for very long.

He could hear her ordering the marines about over the comms, her voice sharp and clipped, her orders precise and irrefutable. The marines did as they were told washing over the city and taking out all targets with great efficiency.

Not to be left out, a number of Drev had been dropped on the other side of the city, and were cleaning up the remnants of their attackers on that side with great glee. Ironically, their response time had been faster than that of th Kree defence team in itself, who finally dared to show up in their colorful armor and belatedly wielding their weaponry.

The marines cut across the open space in those first few moments two taking covering positions as a third knelt next to him on the marble, “Commander secured!” He announced over his radio.

The little red cross on his sleeve denied him as a field medic.

It was a relatively good sign considering that krill had forced all military medical personally through a rigorous training course that made them some of the top field medics/ and occasionally field surgeons/ in the galaxy.

The man grabbed his wrist to check a pulse as he looked over the cut on his face.

“Are you injured, commander.” He asked even as he was busy looking him over.

“No, no just winded, I think I’ll be alright.”

He finished his examination and called out for another group of men who cut across the space from the shuttle and knelt to cover the commander as the others moved off.

“What happened?” One of them asked relaying the information to sunny in quick-time as the commander gave it.

“The colorful kree are friendlies called the voiced. The ones without funny robes are the voiceless. They attacked us as I was speaking with their leader. She should be somewhere around here. We don’t really know more than that?”

“And their leader had nothing to do with this?”

“Not as far as I know.” He said slowly crawling to his feet, muscles aching from the iron eye intervention.

The ache brought back a sudden stabbing memory of pain and agony, but he shoved it back down engaging his comms, “Sunny report!” he ordered.

“Three dead, two wounded. The dead are the voiced and the two wounded are our marines. One of them is minor, the other is serious calling for medivac now. We have the voiced leader secured and one captured one of the voiceless for questioning.”

As soon asher comm line went dead, another one popped up.

“Commander this is harbinger, we are receiving some unusual radar readings. Can see nothing yet but whatever it is it is big and it’s coming in fast.”

Shit, he thought hauling himself up to his final standing position, “Call in immediate GA backup from Irus. Get Capain Koslov and Captain Ho on the line as fast as you can and order them in for a short warp be ready to cover them as they come in. Order all units to battle stations immediately.”

Just then, Commander Vir turned to see Sunny escorting T’lau over the open floor. She was limping pretty badly to go along with her already uneven gate on the ground. Her feathers were ruffled, her robes torn and she looked ore than halfway to panic.

“Commander, commander you must understand. We did not orchestrate this attack. We had no idea they were here, and they have never been so bold as to attack the city before.”

He held up a hand, “I understand, do the voiced have space ships.”

“What?”

“Answer the question.”

“No… well not really. They have small ships, no more than cruisers, and none of those have functioning weaponry as far as we are aware.” “Has your species made any deals with any other entities?”

“I… well not the voiced but….oh…”

“You want to tell me what that is all about?’

She turned to look at him, her large-dark eyes very wide, “The Burg.”

“THE WHAT!”

“The burg.” she was close to full panic now, “THey are the first species that we met, some of the voicless insisted on trading with them though we refused. We did not think an alliance would have stretch any further than that.”

He cursed turning away from her and ordering over the line to the harbinger, “Be advised possible burg short cruisers incoming. Alert the GA and the UNSC tell them that we may be under attack. I repeat we may be under attack by burg short cruisers allied with a terroristic Kree faction.” 

He shouldered his weapon and ordered the marines on him joining to meet up with Sunny as the other marines retreated back toward the shuttles from cleaning up the rest of the burg attack.

“You alright.” Sunny asked, ordering a contingent of arines onto the first shuttle which was quickly pulled into orbit medivacing the marine who had broken a leg and an arm during he fight.

“As good as can be expected.” he turned to look at the Kree T’lau, “If i find out you were in on this….”He let his threat hang in the air as he and sunny retreated back onto the shuttle after the marines. He could see the shamed look on her aes as the shuttle door closed before turning towards the front of the shuttle allowing command to the second pilot as he opened the comms to speak with sunny and the rest of the command team.

“All diplomatic missions are suspended until further notice.”

“Commander GA ships are arriving. They brought a Celzex imperial frigate.”

He felt himself relax a little, “Thank Lord Celex.” He muttered under his breath

“See if we can’t get a Rundi ship to cover for the Celzex. They are the best firepower, but I know their shields have been known to short out. Take a position behind and below the Celzex and afford them cover fire if you have to. When Captain Kozlov and Ho get here order them to cover the rear high and low. Prep evac shuttles, we should be there in ten.”

He let the com go dead listening to the chatter over the line and popping in to give orders on occasion.

Across the shuttle from him, Sunny rocked slightly in her seat as the ship rattled upwards through the atmosphere.

He kept one ear open to the comms, though he was compelled to speak knowing that this might be his last chance.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the iron eye suit, or the jetpacks.”

He had to raise his voice to be heard over the roaring of the engines.

Her eyes were cold, and she didn’t say anything, “Look, I knew you wouldn’t trust my judgement, and I get that but sometimes I know what I am doing.”

Sunny’s eyes blaed, “It’s not your judgement I dont trust, Adam.”

“Than what is it?”

“I hate the fact that you don’t trust me, that you feel like you have to hide this sort of thing.”

He frowned, “The last time I used a jetpack you nearly grounded me for a month.”

“Thats because you weren’t being careful, you weren't thinking things through, but this time you are and you did. I need you to trust me to know how to behave when the situation calls for it.”

He went silent in his seat, “Alright… I was wrong and I’m sorry, but I need you to trust me to know what I can and can’t handle. I know it may be hard and I havent always proven that, but I can’t command my ship if I’m being second guessed.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” 

They were silent for a moment as he listened to the chatter over the comms.

“Sunny.”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for showing up.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise.” 

[howtofightwrite]

Q&A: Raising a Militia

What do you think of the plot that goes the bad guys announce they’ll come back to fight soon but the majority of the good guys have no clue how to fight and it’s up to a couple of people to train everyone asap?

I’m not wild about villains who announce their presence, and then wander off and give people time to get ready. I’m fully aware there are legitimate, character, and story reasons a villain might do this, it’s just something I just have a hard time buying that structure. The reasoning being, if your villain announces their intentions, someone will try to stop them. So, either they should keep their mouth shut until their ready to act, or they should act to suppress any resistance before they can finally enact their grand plan.

Should this matter to you? Probably not. This is just my personal taste. There’s certainly room for Saturday Morning Cartoon villainy that requires someone to announce their intentions. There’s even real world examples of this. Monty Python taught us that, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” However, as it turns out, that was a lie, the Spanish Inquisition would file notice a month in advance, to give the accused the opportunity to secure testimony and other exculpatory evidence, (or put their affairs in order.)

So, it’s fine, just not to my taste. That doesn’t reflect on you, and shouldn’t impact your decision to write it.

The good news is, if you have a few characters with similar training backgrounds and a willingness to work together, you have everything you need to set up a combat training class. What, exactly, this will look like depends on the technology involved, and the combat doctrine the characters are following. They’ll need improvised training weapons, and (somewhat obviously) live weapons. (From a logistical standpoint, if your characters are using firearms, they’ll need at least roughly one thousand rounds per weapon to train the recruits, and then equip them. This is a factor that a lot of people overlook when trying to equip untrained militias.)

For melee weapons, you can begin walking the recruits through basic techniques, then moving to group drills. For some techniques, you’ll need to pair trainees against one another. In these cases having assistants who’ve already undergone training can work wonders for making sure that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to. For melee combat, the purpose is to drill the movements until they become rote. This means if someone is training incorrectly, they’ll be committing those errors to muscle memory. Assistants can be invaluable for finding and assisting recruits before these mistakes become ingrained. At this stage, the use of training weapons is preferable.

If you’re dealing with ranged weapons, then you’re going to need to commit time to training them on those weapons, in order to be able to operate them under the stress of combat. To a certain degree, some of this is the same. You’re getting them to commit acts like aiming, firing, and reloading to muscle memory. That said, they also need to learn how to fire accurately.

Beyond basic combat training, you’ll need to instruct them in basic battlefield tactics. This includes things like how to move through an area safely without exposing themselves to enemy attack. This will look radically different depending on the technology in use.

Your militia will need a coherent chain of command. This is really important when things start going sideways. The priority will probably be a simple structure where the most experienced combatants are spread out and can direct the recruits.

Parallel to this, the experienced combatants need to identify useful skills in the local population. This includes things like medical training, hunters, engineers, and someone can manufacture weapons and armor. Skills that can be useful. If a specific role isn’t available, the next best thing may have to suffice. For example, if you don’t have access to a doctor or nurse, a veterinarian can do the job in an emergency.

Specialists are useful for a number of specific functions. Some are self-explanatory (you’ll need medics to help treat the wounded), you’ll need builders to help fortify their location (aided by whatever materials are nearby, which may also involve miners or lumberjacks), you’ll need hunters as skirmishers, for reconnaissance, and possibly as trappers. Just because the villain said they’d come back doesn’t mean you should hold them to their word, stay vigilant and prepare. A smith can be useful for aiding in the fortifications, or assisting in arming the militia.

While having a well trained force is important for winning a battle, taking control of the battlefield, restricting how, and where, your opponent can attack, and using every resource at your disposal to undermine them is vital to victory. How your characters do that will depend on their ability to tilt the odds in their favor.

Your villain said he’d come back. That doesn’t mean your characters should just sit around waiting for the inevitable. They have time to prepare, dig in, and make sure that by the time the villain arrives he never had a chance.

-Starke

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Q&A: Raising a Militia was originally published on How to Fight Write.

[kiitsu-ne]

Hríd appreciation post

Since Intsys has definitly given up on him, we're the only one who stay with him and can give him love.

(Do not tell me that Hríd is the oldest from the siblings, Intsys made Fjorm saying that he was the second oldest after Gunnthrà and so I stay with this opinion.)

First of all, I find his position as an older and little brother very interessting. He cares about his sisters and will do all he can to protect them. We saw how gentleman he was with his sisters in the comics, so I can only imagine how destroyed he was after learning Gunnthrà's death, after his mother. That leaves him the throne responsability. How freaking pressured he found himself, getting suddenly the throne, with a kingdom half destroyed to protect and still two of his sister to watch over? Plus the sensation that he failed protecting his big sister and the Queen? He could have given up, but he didn't. He decided to go alone, alone in Muspell to kill Surtr by his own hands. And he failed. Even with that, he stood up, counting on Fjorm to bring back some help (aka the Order of Heroes) and escaped by his own, badly injuried, he survived until the Order found him. A real good book 2 ending would have been him, with Fjorm, killing Surtr because they were the first concerned.

Second, let's now stay on his nature. He clearly is a calm and serious man, always ready to help and repay his debt. Repaying debts is really a Niflian obsession thing. I love this and find this even funny. But since Askr literally helped them free themselves from Surtr, it's perfectly understandable. He is a blessing on the battlefield (reminder, he literally survived on a freaking suicide operation by fighting HIMSELF the muspellian army with Surtr) but is not violent at all, and I really love this contrast. No matter what, he stays calm. He probably keeps his problems for himself because of all his responsabilities and I find this sad. I'd love to help him, because his situation is not the easiest one. He is a sweet polar bear that is overprotective with his siblings, and doesn't deserve to lose half of his family in like. 1 week. Oh, and I headcanon perfectly that he was like Ylgr when he was the youngest from his family. A kinda gremlin, always ready to fight anyone and make bad things to have fun, but radically changed when Fjorm was born. Sweetie bear.

Finally, let's speak about his possible roles in the other books. Speaking about Nifl in the book 3 could be hard, but again, I think that Hel have not only Askr to destroy. If Nifl asked Askr to the rescue with Surtr, why Askr didn't asked help in return? Hríd could have payed his debts. But intsys wanted to focus on Askr sibling's chara developement and that's valid. But book 4? It's been almost 1 year book 2 is over and the only Nifl interaction we're getting is Fjorm in the Forging Bond wanting to either be a disney princess with Mordecai or a gangster with Python. Where are Hríd and Ylgr? Fjorm was supposed to be suffering... Sighs, book 4 is about dreams. And Nifl has the Rite of Dreams. We saw in the Nifl Forging Bond that each of them were able to travel in dreams, not only Gunnthrà even if she was the main owner of the power. That is where I am kinda upset. We could give Hríd a small role in this book. Him trying to search the missing summoner through the Rite of Dreams... Or him already knowing the two dream and nightmare world, since he seems to be more concerned than Askr by the dreams... But again after all, we're still unsure about the book 4's future. Maybe Intsys will wake up in the middle of night sweating and being like "wait. we have. already. dreams concerned characters." and make the things interessting for them.

In conclusion, I love mr Hríd fireemblem plz love him too

This is a huge post lmao, no one will read it but I really wanted to show Hríd some appreciation since everyone seems to definitly forget him with Bruno's comeback :')

[balladofthesadcat]

Back From The Dead

Pairing: AC’s Clay Kaczmarek x f!reader

Summary and explanations: Screw canon, Clay deserved better so here we go, angst and pain and troubles, but he is brought back to life and gets his happy ending with reader. (Y/N) means Your Name. There is a part where he briefly sings, that short line is from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (fun fact :3).

Warnings: some swearing, angst, mentions of violence and a whole lot of tears.

Word count: 10.941 words

Author’s note: HAPPY CLAYDAY2019!!!! I am late but... Let’s give this man the love he deserves! Dedicated to @ass-sass-sin-o who thought up this beautiful occasion. Also tagging @marshmallow--3 who was also really supportive. Everybody: PLEASE ENJOY! LET’S LOVE CLAY KACZMAREK! <3333333

-

You sat there, staring at the computer screen, your blood pressure reaching another peak of the recent times, just like on many other occasions during these last few weeks. Actually, it had been going on for a little over a month now. You’d find new and new pieces of evidence, traces, digital footprints and outright records of them, their exchanges, and… The remains.

It started out as just another curious vigilante exploration. You knew Abstergo was plain filth, that was old news. There were times when you had bumped into something shady which you then traced back to them and then intervened, operating from the shadows, making good use of your hacking skills, stirring up a nice little storm for them that was just enough to cut that branch off. On some other occasions, you’d even venture to sneak in to some places where, let’s say, no regular person was supposed to. You’d steal, destroy or just tamper with something to make the whole thing useless for them. So, to put it simply, you had been a thorn in their side for a long-long time now. You were the Faceless, you went by that name. If ever you appeared somewhere physically, you’d take extreme care to protect your identity, hiding your face from view, leaving no fingerprints either. If ever you contacted the Assassins, despite being on their side, you’d never reveal yourself. And even in your hacking you’d be neat and someone would have to be your exact image inside-out to be able to trace it back to you and find you at the root of all chaos to the Templars. All in all, in whatever you did, you were neat and precise. Oh, you loved dealing out a series of good beatings and you’d gotten used to killing sprees as well, but even the way you executed that was like a piece of art, a performance which only you could manage. Naturally, both sides attempted to make a deal with you and recruit you, but you would never join the Templars for you could never share their views and as for the Assassins, you felt that you could be most helpful if you remained faceless even for them, always keeping in touch, always appearing in the right moments, but remaining a myth, sort of. You were like an element in an equation that wouldn’t reveal its full potential until the final showdown, the solution, which no one knew when was to come. And this was working – you easily mended your secret life to fit next to the one on the surface. In the beginning, it was a hobby which then became a purpose, but you had the freedom to be your own boss in both, which was convenient. You could make use of your skills and the handsome money you earned when you needed them as the Faceless, providing yourself with the physical requirements - both bodily and the tools. You didn’t keep track of every Assassin, but whenever you came in contact with one or more of them, you’d gather some intel just to know what and how to say and what to expect.

When the Animus project was only starting out and they had sent him in, you weren’t as involved in this whole ordeal back then as you were now and things between you and Clay had been over for quite a while. Honestly, given what happened, you didn’t even want to get involved so that pushed you away from delving into this mission of his. Your reaction was like when seeing an unpleasant acquaintance in a café – you turned right around and closed the doors behind you, not spending a moment there. You weren’t mad anymore, you were just… Sad, plainly put. You felt a tightening in your chest and an unpleasant acid presence in your throat when seeing him or thinking about him so you just did what you had to to put an end to this – cut him off, turned right away from his direction.

You were emotionally unprepared when you met him. He was intense, always, and he was so vivid and complex and sure that it was a lot for you. That was what drew you in too. It used to be comforting, because he saw right into you and he knew just what to do to reel you in. But it wasn’t like a hunt, he just let you rely on him, allow yourself that relief, and he made you see that you could trust him, he would help you trust him, and he would show you what it meant to be in a relationship, to be – loved and wanted. You were a tough nut to crack, but he told you that he was willing, that he was able, and you wanted just that. It never reached a peak, however. What used to be comforting, turned into the source of worry and anger. You got scared of his confidence? Perhaps. Maybe you were right? You didn’t know. But you began questioning and he wasn’t responding well, he seemed distant and when he actually had to spend less and less time with you because he got seriously involved in the fight against Abstergo, you accused him and you ran. You disappeared before he did, not knowing. You buried yourself in training, earning your way, making a career, entertaining people. Fame and the picture you painted protected you, at least no one would suspect later what you did when you weren’t putting on a show. Really, you were lucky and you even laughed at it, amused by how so in the face of everyone you were, yet also hidden. Perhaps one day it would cause your downfall and you would go down in flames, but it would only be fitting for your romantic nature.

Sometimes you wondered what would’ve happened had you stayed, what could have been… But you would never know. You had your chance to at least send him a message to talk it over, but you wasted it by not acting. And then he was no more. Subject 16, Clay Kaczmarek. On some cozy and lonely nights after coming back from a trip to your home, unpacking your suitcases, looking at all the things you had bought during one of your many travels as (Y/N), as someone normal, someone the masses thought of as an entertainer, who had an image, your thoughts drifted to him, briefly playing with the idea that maybe he was your origin story all along. How tragically comical.

You then began your study of the whole Animus project, backtracking others’s steps and learning all about the machines, the goals, Clay’s sacrifice, Lucy’s betrayal and Desmond’s fateful end. At first it was very emotionally exhausting, but then you went at it with a more surgical approach, distancing yourself, knowing that you had to bear the weight in order to acquire the knowledge. So you dug deeper, deeper, even when sometimes it seemed that there was no more. You’d sneak into Abstergo’s labs to find the currently unused Animus machines and venture into the deep ocean of information stored inside it to see for yourself what Clay and Desmond left behind. It was a difficult task to accomplish, but once understanding the science of the machine as if it was your mother tongue, you unlocked more levels and planes than what you thought was possible, knowing that this was the only place that did not let you leave without a trace and you paid the price, accepting that you could only cover your steps, gritting teeth to continue this for as long as possible so none in the opposition would discover who you were. At this time, you didn’t really have a goal with this, but somehow you just kept going forward, or more like inward. There was a night when you completely missed out on sleep because of your Animus session and had to flee the scene in the morning and it was the most heartbreaking of it all. You found imprints deep inside the Animus which when molded together, showed you the exchanges between Clay and Desmond, like visions, replaying for you as many times as you wanted them to, but without the option to interact. You learned that Clay, at the very end, tried to momentarily cling to something, anything, hoping that maybe he could still come back, somehow. But he couldn’t, he was left trapped inside the machine’s depth, providing Desmond with his way out so he could leave it completely, although reaching his own end soon after in a similar heroic sacrifice. The day after was when you sent a message to Shaun, Rebecca and William, simply saying that you were truly sorry for their loss. A message out of the blue, emotional, irrational, uncontrolled, but it gave you some inner relief. No one comforted you when you mourned Clay, even if late, because no one knew, but at least… At least you could comfort them.

After that you stopped visiting the Animus, only diving into the information you took on memory cards and hacking, in the safety of your own home. But it seemed that you weren’t allowed to settle down. There was always something that caught your attention and you had to look into it. There was always more to discover about what Clay did. Even after you thought you had seen every last trace of him, there was always more. And it wasn’t comforting, because oftentimes it contradicted what you thought you had learned – the Animus deleted the last remains of his conscience, so how was this possible? There was data that suggested the opposite. You were determined not to accept it, not wanting to give yourself or any of the Assassins false hope by contacting them and then having to tell them that it was a false alarm. But you wanted to get to the bottom of this, so as much as you wanted to escape this, you couldn’t so… Back into another Animus you went, diving deeper than ever before. If Clay was still somehow alive in there, you had to find out, not for yourself, but for him. The reason did not matter, the how or why, but the fact did, so you went with a purpose.

You found the island where he and Desmond met and saw the broken remains of the gateway which no longer functioned, the loose black pieces floated around in the air in a lazy manner. You frowned, turning away, taking a good look around yourself for the umpteenth time. It seemed endless, like a void. There were islands in the distance, like the one you were on, but they did not call to you. You took slow, unsure strides forward until the very end of your feet hung slightly over the edge and your body instinctively stopped. You felt an immense force trying to stop you from what you were trying to do then and it was then that you felt the raw hostility of the Animus. It was terrifying to realize that it was trying to hold you back and sabotage the simple act of you looking down. You even panted when you finally managed, as if you were under actual physical restraints. And it dawned on you that this – this you had never experienced before because the thought never even occurred to you. Below you you saw the endless, impenetrable darkness that somehow still seemed to froth. It was alien, it was wrong, it was screaming at you to go back. Perhaps you should’ve, maybe this was to be your final gateway to madness.

- Clay. – you uttered, voice trembling, but still loud, and then you jumped, hood slipping from your head and your body falling into the darkness, tearing at your invisible restraints, penetrating into the matterless mass that wanted to push you – no, throw you back, but you cut right through it.

What was time? What was light? Such concepts did not exist here. You realized that you could see, you could move, but your brain could not comprehend the means, threatening you with splitting your head if you probed at it any further, barely able to comprehend the fact that it just happened. Were you still falling or were you floating or were you standing? There was no answer. You didn’t even know if your eyes were open or not.

- No living being should be here. – a voice spoke, seemingly close to you. You took a deep breath – or did you? – and you tried to get to the source, feeling that if you could just reach out, you could do that and…

- You are alive. – the voice spoke again in your ear and a hand touched – no, something, something felt as if it vibrated against your shoulder, or what was supposed to be that. You then suddenly felt like you were briefly spinning and then a figure, a shape, a body began separating from the darkness before you, not materializing, more like trying to tear itself away from the endlessness. It never fully formed, no colours or matter were really present and it seemed to be constantly in motion as it was trying to gain – regain? – shape, but the more you looked at it, the more it felt like it was looking back at you, until…

- (Y/N)?! – he exclaimed, terrified, and then his form found shape and colour at once. A scream sprang from your throat in response and seemed to echo all around you until being sucked into the void.

You knew. It was him. He was there right before you. Clay. His face was contorted from not knowing how, what, why this was, only knowing that somehow you were there before him.

- Clay. – you whispered his name. – Where… Where are we? – you asked, but immediately realized that you shouldn’t have because as bodiless as you were, you somehow still felt an inexplicable but enormous pain beyond all bearing, somewhere in your head, causing you to bellow like a thousand hounds, all being beaten at once. Clay’s form appeared even closer to you in an instant and he raised his hands to your head, holding your temples, making you feel the same vibrations again, registering as they snuffed out the pain, leaving your head with a dull throbbing which was, compared to the previous feeling, even pleasurable.

- You are alive and therefore you shouldn’t ask such questions, not here, because in here the Animus will tear you apart for it. You shouldn’t even be here! – his voice gradually got angrier, but it was an exhausted kind of anger which only made your heart hurt.

- How do you know? – you whispered, looking into the depths of his eyes from up close. Perhaps, if you had been outside, up there in the world of matter, you could’ve felt his breath on your lips and he yours, on his. But this place was something else.

- I no longer ask nor look for explanations. I don’t think I can, either. Life is the place for that and I have no right or way to be there anymore. But you… - the colours began fading away from him, draining from his face until he was yet again a frothing shape, getting sucked back into the darkness. Terror and pain were stabbing your heart and you were trying to grab at him, in vain. – Go. – he finished simply, and suddenly he was nowhere.

But the vibrating feeling in your head remained, growing in intensity and it felt as if you were snatched up, pulled with inhuman force and at the same time pushed, but in one direction. You felt your back hit the ground of the same island from which you jumped, but then it disappeared from under you and suddenly your eyes snapped open and you woke with a sharp inhale, sitting right up in the Animus. You looked around in fear, but nothing has changed and you were still all alone in the dim room. You hoped you didn’t scream. Your next instinct was to look at your watch then to check the time, noting that no matter how timeless your experience was, here in the outside world you were still good on that front. You palmed your chest over your heart, focusing on your breathing and trying to control yourself and calm down, your other hand pulling your hood over your eyes again, shielding your identity once again. You would delete all footage of this visit again, naturally, but still, it felt good to conceal yourself again while gathering the energy to get up, clean up and leave.

It was around 3 am by the time you got home and locked your door behind yourself. You took off your shoes and trembled your way towards your bathroom, finally able to allow yourself to shake and lose focus, not having to concentrate on stealth. You turned on the light and looked in the mirror, not even flinching at the sight. Thin trails of dry blood ran from your right ear and your nose. Perhaps you had subconsciously licked it from your lips while making your way back, but you couldn’t recall that bit. You concluded that it could only be the result of when you asked your first question from Clay and felt that horrible pain. You sighed, for now content with only hoping that you did not suffer any serious internal physical damage. From then on the rest of the night was a blur – cleaning yourself and then surrendering to a joyless slumber in your bed. But now you knew one thing: Clay’s conscience was still alive. And you were going to bring him back.

The next few days you couldn’t act yet, being snowed under with your current work project, but at least it was good for a rest. But you already began thinking of your next step. In order to bring Clay back, you needed to find him a body, which was no easy task so at first you were completely devastated, not really knowing what your options were, if you even had any. You weren’t just going to rob a morgue for one and steal someone’s son away, you would need someone whom…  Well… No one missed or no one knew where to search for. So once again you began snooping around in Abstergo’s database, trying to see if there were any unfortunate imprisoned souls somewhere, stolen from the world, who perhaps were crushed under the organisation’s weight and whose body you could… Maybe… Hopefully… Use for your quest. You figured that if you could get the body and you’d put it in an Animus, linked another to it to create a joined session and went in, you could drag Clay’s conscience back out and he’d find the body and anchor himself in it. You could program the device so that in the right moment it would overload for a snap and give him an electric shock to kick-start the heart. And maybe, just maybe, all that together would be enough to… Bring him back to life. You were no surgeon, no medically versed person but even if you were, you would have strong doubts. This was madness and quite impossible. But with all that happened, Pieces of Eden existing and all that wonder, all that magic, all that danger, you thought that if you didn’t give it a shot, you would be no better than the Templars. You heard him yourself, he wanted to come back. And he was a good Assassin too, he deserved to. So, not for yourself, but for him, you were going to try.

You released a long sigh from your lungs, not knowing you were holding one in. It was a beautiful, warm day and you were currently buried deep in one of Abstergo’s many servers, looking for your unknown target. What you ended up discovering though, you really weren’t prepared for.

„Clay Kaczmarek, former Subject 16 of the Animus Project - REUSED”, the title read on your screen.

- Reused…? What the… How the… What? – you mumbled, shaking your head, blinking erratically. But the text did not change. You gulped and moved your cursor over it, clicking after a moment of hesitation. You immersed yourself in the detailed report, reading everything carefully, even though most of what was there you had already known, it was basically his story written down. But at the end there was an update. Your heart almost skipped a beat. Reused. They recovered his corpse they had previously dumped. Using a Piece of Eden combined with a device – the operation of which you skipped reading about for now – they reversed the process of decay it was naturally going through and were now harnessing it for further genetic memory. They wanted to use his knowledge about the Assassins against them and incorporate the techniques into their own training. The body was now kept in Berlin in another one of their secret labs. Location, condition, everything was there.

Reused.

You spun your chair around and stood up, walking extremely slowly into the kitchen. You opened your fridge and took out a tiny jar of your homemade yogurt, ready to be consumed as a treat, finding the cinnamon as well and sprinkling some of it on it. You stirred it with a spoon, licked that, then poured the whole thing into the sink and ran back to your computer. Your skin felt like it was on fire and your brain was basically frying in its place but you never felt more alive. With this information, you hadn’t another moment to waste and you wanted to act as soon as possible. You didn’t even think it through, you just did what your instincts were telling you to do.

You worked furiously to locate Rebecca and her team and Lady Luck seemed to be on your side still, because you found them in Europe. You contacted them in a message, telling the necessary details about your recent discoveries and your plan. The events then followed each other in a rapid pace. Their response came quickly and you engaged in a serious conversation and by the end of the day you had your and their trip organized and covered to Berlin. The plan was to meet up there and infiltrate the lab, follow your mad speculation of resurrecting him through, steal the Piece of Eden, blow up the lab as a parting gift and get the hell out of there. Simple. Easy. Madness.

You cleaned up the yogurt incident in your kitchen with a pounding head, struggling to believe that all of this was happening. Of course, going through with this would mean revealing your identity to the team and thus, the Assassins, by getting into the Animus – no way they would just stand and wait while you were out cold and not lift the hood from your eyes to see who you were. But this didn’t bother you as much as you expected. You came to the conclusion that it had to happen at one point for whatever reason and that seemed to be now, with this. But you needed the help, this wasn’t something you could do alone and if you succeeded… You did not want to be left alone with Clay, you realized. You did not want to be the one to explain it all to him and then sit through the awkwardness that would surely follow, maybe even have your past brought up. You wanted to hand him back to the Assassins and disappear, returning to your role as the Faceless, allowing them to know you but still keeping your distance, functioning as a ghost to the Templars and as an ally to the Assassins, just doing your own thing, leading your life the same way as before until it came to a close, no matter how violent that may actually turn out to be.

You made sure nothing and nobody would bother you until you conducted this brave venture. And soon enough, the fateful day to meet the others finally came. You arrived to the hotel late in the afternoon and claimed your room key, booked under a fake name. The agreement with the others was that your rooms were to be booked right beside each other and you would meet once you were all settled. You didn’t bring too much and you didn’t bother to really unpack, not needing to. You finished that energy bar you were munching on on your way there and then walked out to the balcony, noting the walls dividing each room. You leaned on the railing and looked out over the city, breathing in. You were somewhat tired, and anxious, but you still wanted to follow this through. Thoughts about what was lying ahead and memories flooded your mind and you allowed them to consume you, taking you through pleasant and unpleasant times, only resurfacing when you heard soft chatter from your right. Leaning a bit further out you looked in that direction, spotting the familiar trio. Nodding to yourself, you returned to your room and then left it with the same drive, stopping at the neighbouring door and knocking. There was a light murmuring inside and some shuffling and then the door opened, revealing a slightly uptight-seeming Shaun Hastings who looked quite surprised.

- May I help you, miss? – he asked.

- I don’t suppose you have an espresso machine in your room, do you? – you asked. By your agreement this was to be your code to help them know it was really you. Wordlessly, he stepped aside to let you in. There was the natural surprise and some questions about if and how you knew Clay but you brushed those aside, stating that you would not talk about the two of you. Your eyes betrayed you and displayed exactly how much sadness was churning inside you. But you all had to keep going, you weren’t there to relax. So you sat down and discussed your approach, every step. Infiltrating the underground lab at night would be easy and you decided that destroying that one level where you were to conduct your experiment would be enough, it would destroy all evidence and throw Abstergo off your possible trail. Deciding on whipping up an electric fire, you have discussed everything and got ready.

From then, it all turned into a crazy dream. You wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but it was quite strange nonetheless. Your heart was definitely not beating as it usually did, the closer you got to your ultimate target. And when you were standing in front of the capsule-like object which housed Clay’s body, you realized that you were terrified, the fright was clawing at your tissues from the inside. But you didn’t fear failure, you were actually prepared for that. You feared success, you feared facing him, even if for a minute until you would have to get going and get out of there. Your heart, after all this time, was not ready. You did not want to analyze what you were feeling nor face it, at all. You forcefully pushed on and helped the others set up the connection between the machine and an Animus in which you were supposed to go. Shaun and Rebecca were absolute geniuses and you experienced a short relief while you marveled at how quickly and seamlessly they familiarized themselves with the strange device, discovering how they could produce that overload in the right moment that was to serve as the defibrillator and how they could remove the Piece of Eden after it was all done – successful or not. Now that Piece of Eden, it was a strange artifact, really. It was made of the same material as the Apple, but it was shaped like… It really reminded you of a traditional Japanese teacup. It was thin, but the „cup” walls weren’t that high so it could barely hold any liquid if used in such a way. It emanated a strange sensation and an unearthly, soft but unsettling sort of light and when you gazed at it for a bit longer, you felt a familiar buzzing inside your head. It was situated behind Clay’s head in the device and with a bit of tinkering it could easily be removed as you could see.

Clay… His body was in excellent condition, the river’s toll taken on it nonexistent. He looked like as if he was only sleeping – he just wasn’t breathing and his heart wasn’t beating. He was as beautiful as ever, you thought with fondness, but you violently tore yourself away from that and turned your back to him, settling in the simplified Animus device beside him. It wasn’t made to be comfortable, you noted, but it was the easiest to transport and it would serve the purpose. Once everthing was ready, the others settled down and you went in.

Snooping outside the regular planes inside was now your forte, you could say, and finding that desolate island was easy. You floated and treaded with purpose and even though you could sense the resistance of the system – trying to push you back from reaching the place where you weren’t logically supposed to be because it was actually trying to protect you, even if aggressively –, you slowly but surely made your way to the edge once again. You peered down into the impenetrable depth and knew that you were attempting the impossible again. How could it be impossible if you had already done it once before? But it was, it really was, because you knew that this time you might not be so lucky and come back. Or you would, but without Clay’s conscience. But whatever awaited you, you did not care, you had to go, you had to jump, you had to cut through, you had to reach, you had to find

- Clay. – you said his name, Clay, Clay, Clay, Clay---

You did not even notice when you began your intrusive descent against and into the womb of hostility, but suddenly you just knew that you were doing it. You couldn’t tell when you arrived, if ever, but you just had to trust your gut that you were, somehow, there – wherever that was. There was silence, but it was a peculiar statement to make because what really was there was the nothingness. You still had to try, somehow, to find him. You had to. He must still be there. But unlike the first time, he did not come. In an instant, you were panicking and you had to mentally pressure yourself to snap out of it and stay focused, to not get lost.

- No living being should be here. – you whispered, just like he did the last time. What were you hoping for by this? You honestly had no idea, you just made an attempt so that maybe, just maybe…

- I am no longer alive. – his voice, exhausted, dismal, called somewhere near you. You tried to turn in his direction, wherever that was.

- Maybe not at the moment. – you said and swallowed a huge lump in your throat. You began hearing the loud beating and throbbing of your own blood in your ears. In that moment, you suddenly knew, just knew that you had to be swift now, there was no room for fooling around. You could hardly make out the frothing shape of a body, the image of a man who once was.

- What do you mean, (Y/N)? – he asked you, and then you lunged forward – you hoped you did, but this place wouldn’t let you be able to tell. Your mind, however, was dead set on executing these actions. You looked in front of you, at the unreal figure and extended your arms, wrapping them around him, not knowing if you were actually feeling him or not, but you prayed to all deities that were and were not that you did.

- You are coming back, Clay, you are coming back with me and you are going to return to your body and you are going to live, you are going to live, you hear me?! – you screamed, voice shaking with the tears that never escaped when you parted those many years ago but threatened you now.

The Animus attacked you then. You were attempting to leave and take something with you that you were not supposed to and the system didn’t want you to do that. You felt winds of cold and dark stab and tear at you, attempting to pull you apart, but in response you just dug your nail into the mass of Clay’s conscience you were enveloping. Invisible and unreal electrical charges shot through you, but you just pushed closer, focusing on only one thought: returning to the world. Everything was loud and silent, you felt sensations that were impossible to describe and nothing at all, extremities held you that could not be and you could not tell what actually was and what was not. You could only hope that you were actually moving, somehow escaping, but you also felt lost and you had no way of telling.

In the room, Rebecca, Shaun and William were watching over the two of you. Five minutes had passed, ten, fifteen, twenty… Frustrated sighs left each throat, one after the other. They felt like it was all in vain and they should try to pull you out before you were lost.

But then your vital signs changed abruptly. Your heart was beating twice the speed of what was natural and acceptable in your tense state, your blood pressure was at the same time extremely low and your fingers were twitching, although the rest of your body wasn’t jerking. It was alarming and they all jumped to their feet, but before they could forcefully end the session, the Piece of Eden activated itself as well, the alien light that was softly coming from it quadrupled in power and filled the whole room, coating everything, causing the glass of Clay’s case to crack an then completely shatter, covering him in the softest layer of glass shards – all so quickly that they barely had enough time to register it. But it was obvious that they had to act now. They launched the overload and Clay’s body convulsed from the shock, continuing to twitch wildly, the alien glow making it seem like a lucid dream.

Then, with no warning, you sat up, sucking in air as if you were a second away from drowning and this was your last and unexpected chance to save yourself from suffocating. At the exact same moment, Clay’s body stopped twitching and he himself also raised into a sitting position in one swift movement. Just as you both raised and your eyes were trying to refocus and regain sense, the Piece of Eden’s light died down. For a few seconds you were debating whether you were dreaming, dead, or if this was real and you were back out, alive. You bit the insides of your cheeks and when you felt the familiar unpleasantness, you nodded, accepting the fact that you were alive. You slowly, timidly, turned your head in the direction of the other device to see whatever you had to see there. As if on cue, mirroring your movement not a millisecond late, Clay also turned his head and then your gazes met. Time really felt like it had stopped then, only the beating of your hearts was heard, a thousand tiny needles picking at you inside your veins. You were in a trance, but you desperately wanted to break out, so you began fighting yourself, mentally beating yourself, all in the matter of seconds, to make yourself snap out of it and…

- Come on, let’s pack up. Shaun, help Clay up and William… - you heard Rebecca speak and that was your salvation. You sprung to your feet and frantically pulled your hood over your head. From then on it was another crazy blur, but one thing you could constantly feel – Clay’s eyes upon you. You thanked the fact that he was still too weak to speak to you – or whatever the reason was, really, you were just glad as you were already at the end of what you were able to handle without shutting down. You gathered your tools, Shaun safely removed and wrapped up the Piece of Eden to take it away for further discovery, all footages of your presence were erased and you successfully started up the fire, making sure that it would destroy everything behind you and cover your escape. Shaun and Rebecca took Clay with them in the van while you and Miles senior took a different route, the five of you meeting once again back at the hotel, careful about your re-entry, not to cause a stir and seem suspicious.

You told Mr. Miles to go forward and you went to your own room first. Since you hadn’t unpacked, you only had to wash up and fix your attire and you were ready to leave. You grabbed your bag and entered the other room from the balcony. You walked over to the team, your breathing measured. Clay was sitting on the bed, seemingly fine and Shaun and William were explaining the details of the time leading up to this day to him. When they noticed you, Rebecca greeted you with a tired but warm smile and stood to step towards you but stopped, seeing your bag hanging on your shoulder.

- Don’t. Please. I just want to be short about it now. – you got the start of any protest, taking in one shaky breath before continuing, straightening your posture. - So, everything is as we discussed, you have your contacts here and disappearing once you are ready should be easy. I hope I have provided you with enough financial support. Please, treat yourselves well with however much is left – I hope it’s a lot, I really didn’t play it shmuck. Yeah, all that and… Take care, see you around sometime. Let’s continue to stick it to the Templars. – you finished, striding to the door with only one intention – to leave.

- (Y/N). – Clay called out to you with such a tender voice that you almost choked on your own breath and that halted your hurried movements. It was the first time in years that you heard his actual living voice and it nearly made you collapse, they could see your legs bump together, making you stumble.

- I beg of you! – you struggled out with trembling lips and wildly shook your head, not looking back. – Guys, I am really not proud of what I am about to do and I will forever try to atone for it, but… This is all I can bear now. I must return to what I was. You know who I am now anyway. I… I cannot do this, Clay. – you breathed out the last sentence and then dashed towards the door like a wild animal escaping confinement.

And with that, you were gone.

You then began your longest hitchhiking of your life and made it across the border. That much caution was excessive, but you needed the therapeutic effect it held. Sleeping in cheap motels, not speaking to anyone besides giving the directions and saying a polite thank you when paying for your food. You had time to start burying this whole experience in yourself and build your walls right back up, protecting your heart, mind and soul.

After the last bit of traveling, you resumed your life back home under your real name, continued working and took some time off from being the Faceless once you have made sure that Clay, Rebecca, Shaun and William were all fine as well, but without contacting them of course. After a month of this, you knew though that you were prepared to open up that part of your life again. You caught up with what was happening at Abstergo and happily noted that they still, even after a bloody month, had no clue what the hell happened in Berlin. It was a serious blow to them which threw them back a great deal.

Life was relatively normal for you and even though you were prepared to be bombarded by the Assassins, in thought you mutely thanked the guys for – you guessed – spreading the message that you preferred to continue operating as an ally, solo. Wherever you went, you knew that when a stare was too long and too strange, it was from these hidden ones, but you were thankful for them respecting your silent wishes. You had your hands deliciously full, so to say, because you were never bored, you always found something to deal with, a way to stir up some trouble for the Templars.

Your heart returned to its dormant state that was oh so familiar from the previous years and you thought that it would now stay that way forever. But on a cold, autumn day, you felt your breath stolen from you once again. Of course, you couldn’t expect to never see him again, but not like this… You were sitting at a table in front of a café, almost empty paper cup of melange in hand and book in the other when a figure took the seat next to you.

- Hi. – a curious male voice greeted you and you looked up at him, blood draining from your face then. It was Clay, Clay Kaczmarek, sitting right there beside you, looking as alive as ever, looking… Looking beautiful, healthy, everything he deserved to be, a brown leather jacket over a hoodie with a pair of dark jeans and boots keeping him warm and simply stylish. His eyes were stormy, however, but you didn’t stop to wonder about the reason behind that.

- Is it something concerning Abstergo? – you whispered after a few moments of trying to compose yourself. You saw him shake his head.

- No, nothing of the sort. I wanted to talk to you about… - he began, but you dropped your coffee and book after his first word. You ran, once again, forgetting your book there, only caring about escaping him. You did everything, tot he best of your abilities, to lose him, arriving home quite a while later. Your legs gave out once you closed the door behind yourself and you fell to the floor. You were breathing heavily, loudly, fighting for every inhale, trying not to pass out. It took quite a while for you to calm down and then you shakily took off your shoes, still lying on the floor. You trembled, almost collapsing when trying to stand up, but with enough patience and determination you managed to stay up and get out of your coat, now just staying in your pants and cozy turtleneck. You took a few steps towards the kitchen when you heard the soft creaking noise of your door as it opened and then closed and your keys were turned in the lock. You were frozen in your spot, one arm raised halfway in front of you as you wanted to thread your fingers through your hair but stopped before you could due to these sudden noises. You couldn’t move so you just waited. A few steps and then the intruder was right behind you. A hand slowly rested on your shoulder – strange, it wasn’t menacing at all and it was oddly familiar.

- (Y/N), please take deep breaths. I do not want you to panic. I locked the door just to be safe, but not to trap you. You can still send me away if you wish. But if you don’t, I will keep my distance, but please, give us a moment to sit down so I can talk to you. And just… Just listen, please. That is all I ask of you. – Clay spoke slowly, clearly, careful not to startle you even further or cause you to react in a way that you would harm yourself. You followed his request and consciously took deep breaths, keeping a steady rhythm. You then slowly moved away from his touch and walked into the kitchen, sitting on the first chair beside the table you saw. Clay, after quickly getting rid of his shoes to be polite, followed you and carefully took a seat in front of you on another chair, keeping a respectful distance between the two of you.

- Alright, I’ll… I’ll listen. – you mumbled, chancing a quick glance into his eyes but feeling a sharp pain in your heart so you immediately averted your gaze. There was no escaping now, it was going to happen.

- So… - Clay began, trying to choose his words carefully. – I… Won’t ask why you did it, but I… I still want to thank you. – He hummed, scanning your face, your form for any sort of reaction. – Yeah. And I… Actually, you know, I am just so damn thrilled because even though I still remember everything, the visions no longer haunt me and I haven’t slept better than since you brought me back. – his sudden enthusiasm seemed to die down here and he looked down at his hands. – Although something’s still missing and… Damn it, (Y/N), I want to talk about you and me, pick up the problem from where we left off, you know? – he confessed, looking right at you again.

And that’s when it happened.

- I ca-, I-hi-I, I ca-, I can’t! – you struggled to spit it out through a series of wild, tearful hiccups, feeling a sudden shortage of breath. The barrier finally broke and the tears you forced down your throat all those years ago after running away from him, in addition to all the frustration and exhausted pain you gathered since then in connection to him, now finally escaped your prison. You wept, hollering in pain as your suffering felt too much to bear and there was no other way for it all to escape. It felt like you were going to explode if you tried to keep it in any longer. Your body hunched forward, your forehead on your knees, your hands clinging to the sides of your thighs, surely bruising your own skin under the pants. Every nerve in your brain and every cell of your body was on fire, was hurting, and you had nowhere to run from this feeling. The tears kept coming like a monsoon’s downpour, completely soaking your face and your clothes. Clay was in fact afraid of such a heavy reaction from you, but he didn’t expect this volume. He debated whether touching you in this state would make it even worse for you but when he saw you slipping towards the floor from your chair, he dropped to his knees and caught you, locking you in his arms. You barely even registered, but you wanted to fight him, to escape his hold. This pointless struggle caused your weeping to increase and you had serious trouble breathing now, threatening you with passing out if you couldn’t calm down.

- (Y/N), listen to me! Focus on my voice! – he said loudly and sternly, hoping to drag you back from your helpless frenzy. – You must reign this in! Step by step, okay? But you must, you have to calm down, for your own sake! – he released a frustrated sigh, his defined brows knitting in the moment of desperation. – Please, I do not want you to hurt yourself even more!

He held your body even tighter to himself, elbows pressing your arms to your sides as his hands he then paced on your temples, making you angle your head so he could get a good look at your face. It was a mess of tears and some mascara, a troubled land in the midst of a war.

- Breathe with me now. Just come back. I am here. Find me, (Y/N). – he attempted to bring you back again. You had your eyes shut tightly and sounds of struggle and hurt were still spilling from you the same way as your tears were, but at least, slowly, you were regaining control over your breathing and as heavy as it was, you were no longer in danger of passing out from the lack of air. Clay held you through it and continued murmuring soft and sound phrases to you, helping you find your anchor back in reality. He was devastated that he could not prevent this, but at least calmness born out of weariness was still better than more turmoil, he thought.

Slowly, you rain out of tears and when you did, your first real thought appeared again – you wondered if that was even possible, but it seemed so. You turned your head, facing away from him and, as if on cue, he stood with you, helping you sit back on your chair. He walked over to the sink and you heard the water running, still not looking in that direction. Soon he was back in front of you, gently dabbing your face with a wet cloth, cleaning as well as refreshing it. You flinched at the first touch but then relaxed, the gentle treatment actually making you feel better. When he was done, he handed you a glass of water and waited for you to drink it all before taking it and the cloth back to the sink.

- I bet you have your answers now, whatever your questions were. – you said dryly. Clay looked at you with a confused expression but you still refused to meet his gaze.

- What do you mean?

- I’m embarrassed, Clay! Just look at what just went down. I’m practically mad so whatever you wanted, I’m sure you don’t want it now. – you sighed in frustration.

- Oh, for fuck’s sake, (Y/N), you should’ve seen me when the bleeding effect got worse and I was acting under the effect. That was madness and fucking ugly. Now this… - he sat down in his chair in front of you again. – This is all me and this is ugly, but not for the reason you think. – his voice softened by the end and he leaned closer to you.

- I want to sit back on the floor though. – you said flatly, already sliding back down to the kitchen tiles. This small act of yours made Clay smile genuinely, it was so undeniably cute even in such a problematic situation as the one you were in at the moment. But he loved your little quirk nonetheless.

- You always liked that. – he noted, joining you, one knee almost up to his chest and his other leg stretched out.

- Yeah.

- I remember it well.

- Aha…

- You often behaved like a cat. This, too, made me think of that.

- I guess.

- It’s cute. – he said, eyes searching your face. You didn’t respond with words, but you folded your hands in your lap. He moved his into your field of vision, aimed at the floor, showing you his palms as a sign that he had no vile intent. When you didn’t retreat, he closed the distance and placed his hands on top of yours. – So… Let me talk to you? – he tilted his head and your bottom lip twitched, but you nodded. – Okay. – he took a deep breath. – I just realized that I probably fucked this up greatly but… I know you probably don’t want to say too much yourself and I did want to let you rest but I do have questions… But anyway. – he chuckled awkwardly, shaking his head. It was a cute gesture and you looked up at him shyly, trying your hardest not to look away again when he locked his eyes with yours.

Whatever he was going to say, ask, you wanted not only to hear but also see that he was honest in it. You often forgot to blink when you were doing this, when you were so deliberately looking for this proof and he remembered that, noticing how your pupils changed in size, registering all your tiniest signs and understanding their meaning.

- I started doubting you. – you suddenly said before he could speak up, surprising both him and yourself. – You were always so confident, so sure, you had everything in you and you were the whole goddamn package and more – did you even realize that? – your lips trembled momentarily, but he stayed silent, wanting to hear you finish this, knowing how important it was. – You were – you are – handsome, smart, strong, but you also had a personality and when I learned that you even knew what suffering meant, how difficult it was to… To rise above a messed-up family background, I felt more connected to you than ever. To know that you would understand me changed everything! And you even said it when I voiced my concerns, you said that it was – that it was okay, you would help me see that and get through and over it and… And I wanted that, I thought that finally, finally someone… But, but then you… - your hands stiffened under his. – You began becoming distant and… And I wondered – he has been through hell and he came out victorious, why the hell would he ever want to do it again with me, suffer through the same by being with me? He didn’t need that trouble, did he? So I… I couldn’t understand anymore why you would ever… And you were even behaving differently so I… I just left because I… I didn’t want to be left. And even if your change in behaviour was caused by your blossoming involvement with the Assassins, I… Even today with a name to myself and success carved by my own hands, I would do the same. Because… Why would you ever… You need someone who’s not loaded with a problematic background and I don’t want to be… Left… But making it work with me is way too crazy so… - you shrugged, losing your energy and not knowing how to finish it so you just stopped. He’d think whatever he wanted to. Sure, you were horrible for saying all of this. But at least he got his explanation he could never ask for. Surely that was the only thing he came for. And even if now he thought you were a real bastard for thinking so horribly of him, it would be… Just okay. You were drained, ready to just accept it.

- So you lost your faith in me? – Clay asked carefully, his voice not giving away anything.

- Sort of, I guess… – you nodded, finally blinking and having to keep your eyes closed for a good minute as they watered painfully. – It was nice to toy with the idea, but you and me together wouldn’t be a heaven-made match, I think. And even if I’ve grown, I’m still the girl with trust issues and a strangely rising and lowering self-confidence inside. And even if I understand the lives we live now and I’d know you were coming and going because of it, the same with I, I just… I couldn’t do it. I’d run, because I’ve always did and… I’m a distrustful coward and I cannot expect you to fix that. Because you shouldn’t. That’s my job and probably a certified and trained therapist’s.

- You’re right about some things but you’re astonishingly wrong about others, (Y/N). – he said, laughing quietly.

- What…? – you tilted your head.

- Sure it’s not my job to fix everything for you but when we met, I didn’t say what I did just to get into your pants. I knew what I was in for, just as always, like with Abstergo. – he spoke clearly and unwaveringly, keeping you focused and unable to look away from him. – And I was ready to be your support, your crutches if you will. Even your home therapist if you wanted. I was willing to cut myself if it meant I could patch you up. Because I knew that you were someone who wouldn’t keep it one-sided. You were always giving and fair so I was never afraid of getting too deep. I wanted to go there. So when I said trust me, let me, allow me – I meant it all. All of it, (Y/N). – he sneakily slipped his hands around yours, fingers intertwined, and gave them a firm squeeze. – Healthy or not, I don’t give one single shit. I never did, I don’t. Because I knew, I know, that the reward was you and me, us. We’re definitely not a heaven-made match but don’t you remember? I’m a hell-hound. – he winked at you, bringing back old memories which you couldn’t fight and you… You blushed furiously, cheeks so red that he had a hard time resisting the urge to kiss them endlessly right then and there. He smirked, but it was not predatory nor scary in any way, it was hopefully confident even if he knew that he was still walking a tightrope with all of this. – Life’s a piece of shit when you look at it… - he half-sang that one line and it made you laugh, so suddenly and freely that it felt like the first deep inhale of fresh air after leaving a smoke-filled house. The sound was beautiful to Clay’s ears and he raised your hands to his lips, kissing each before noticing your gasp ending the laughter. – It really is, but there are some good things in it. We still haven’t lost the big fight, we still have our free will, coffee smells good, tigers and lions are just as silly as tiny housecats but like equipped with murder mittens, you are one kick-ass woman and now that I have another chance, no way in this damn world I’m wasting it. – he pulled you closer to him and you let him. – Can I say something? – he asked and it didn’t really seem to make sense, but you wanted to understand so you nodded, though frowning slightly.

- Sure.

- I’ll tell you what I think you should do. What I want you to do. – he began. – But you have your options, I just want you to trust me on this. I know that it will work if you give it another go.

You breathed in sharply.

- I won’t disappear again, not without you. I’m changing the game because I’m fed up after how it went down last time. We either go together or we go nowhere at all. I want you back with me and I want you to take me back, (Y/N). I will face whatever insecurities stir up some trouble for us and I will weed out every last one of them. You’ll be so sure of everything that you won’t ever feel that horrible pain here… - he released one of your hands to touch the side of your head gently - … or here. – his touch now rested over your heart for an extended moment before retreating but still hovering in front of you. – Just like I said all those years ago, I’m still standing by it today. I don’t care if it takes years, I’m willing and able to do it all. So you should just… Just dive right in. Trust me on this. You’ll see that I’m right, because I have it in me and you have it in you too and… If we just put that together, you’ll be in the best love you could ever find. I bet you couldn’t even write up such a story where it would surpass this.

- Clay. – you breathed his name.

- Nobody else could ever make me feel this weak by saying my name… - he admitted with a smile, the hint of shyness in it, grabbing your chin with his free hand, the other still holding yours. – I want to write my story, I want to tell a different tale and I want you to be and stay in it. I want… - his own composure was breaking now and he just started listing everything that he so missed. – I want you to say I’m yours and I want to say the same, and that you are mine, and I want to punch every bastard who looks at you wrong. And then I want you to scold me for it but feel it in your embrace afterwards that you love it when I get possessive. Then I want to talk it out and agree that I don’t have to go that far, only in extreme cases. I want to go on missions with you and kiss the damn breath out of you after you shoot a bad guy in the head because I’m so amazed and proud and I bet you are incredibly sexy when you do that. – his hands were suddenly all over your arms, rubbing them up and down and groping with growing fever, but still restrained from venturing to the rest of your body. – And I want to argue with you and then fix things because I know we can. And I want to watch you work and be your greatest fan. And I bet we’d almost get kicked out of a cinema because we’d laugh at the most inappropriate moments again during a horror movie. And I want to go to bed with you, I want to watch you shower and see you almost slip when you notice me so I can catch you and keep you safe and unharmed, I want to make a show of me undressing for you, and I want to be anything and everything you want me to be because you already are for me and I want you to know that if you just take that leap of faith… With me… We’d love each other so much that it would be so fucking good… - his hands stopped at your shoulders, gripping you there. Now, it seemed, it was his turn to cry. His sigh was so heavy, it held the weight of a whole world and his tears were even hot, matching his heated skin.

You couldn’t really speak while he talked. It was a lot to take in. But the more he went on, the more you felt different… Better. Hope somehow opened its eyes inside you and Clay’s momentum took you with him and soon you were drinking in his words like a desert’s wanderer the first source of water after the longest walk. And now that he was done, just watching you with silent tears and still holding you, you made your choice.

- Can I call you mine? – you asked timidly. His reaction was everything. He threw his head back in glorious, liberated, joyful laughter and pulled you into his arms. He leaned back against one of the table’s sturdy legs, keeping you tight against him.

- Yes, baby, I’m all yours and only yours and you can announce it to the whole world.

You were still unsure so only after he gave you his answer did you sneak your own arms around his waist as well. – Mine. – you stated, lips slowly stretching into a genuine, loving smile.

- Tell me if I’m wrong but… Mine, so mine that you’re nobody else’s. – Clay said, rubbing slow circles on your back and waist. You just nodded, confirming his claim. – I love you, (Y/N). – he confessed, nudging you so you would look up at him again.

- I—

- No rushing, babe, no need. We’re together now. – he cut you off.

- Never interrupt your woman, you uncultured possum. – you teased him, earning yourself a grin from him, which you easily mirrored.

- A’ight, ma’am.

- I love you too, Clay. – you finished, and in that moment, you felt better than ever.

- And now I’m going to kiss the life back into you because that’s what you get for loving me. I just need to do this in a more… - he suddenly stood, gathering you in his arms and making you wrap your legs around his waist - … comfortable setting, there we go. You’re really in for it now. – he said in that darling rascal of a tone of his, drawing a bubbly, easy laughter from you as you held onto him.

He took you through your house, doing an unintentional, quick discovery until he found your bedroom and after turning the lights on, he gently but playfully threw you on the bed, climbing in with and then over you.

- I bet your couch is nice too but I figured this would be much better for it. And then a nap, which we both undoubtedly need. And whatever else you agree on. – he winked down at you, caressing your cheek and your throat with unmatched tenderness. – If, of course, you don’t mind me staying over…?

- Please. – you said, wrapping him in a firm hug, keeping him close, enjoying his weight on you. It was reassuring, it spoke of comfort and safety and uninterrupted time without words.

- Good. Now… Let’s get this eternal love going. – he announced and his lips finally crashed down on yours.

That night, after you fell asleep in each other’s arms, you were still together even in your dreams. You met on the same unearthly plane of minds and knew that this time… This time it would stay this way.

[thequeenofcronuts]

Justify My Love - Chapter 7 - Best Day of My Life

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

American Authors- Best Day of My Life

Book: The Royal Romance Word Count: 5,070 - ish Long, But HAPPY Pairing: Maxwell x MC (Kristina Hampshire), Hana, Drake, OCs Warnings - Language

A/N In this TRR Series (Where books 2 and 3 are thrown to the wind): Kristina (MC) decides she cannot stay in Cordonia after the events of the Coronation Ball. Not so much caring about her own reputation, but caring for the life of the man she has been falling for, which is not the prince. She returns to New York and is faced with her heartbreak and regret while Maxwell is left in Cordonia struggling to understand the truth behind his feelings. Will they let each other go?

**All characters and named places are owned by Pixelberry Studios. Rights to the songs lyrics and  titles in this series belong to:

Justify My Love (Madonna) - Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Reach Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management

Best Night of My Life (American Authors) - Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Round Hill Music Big Loud Songs

Series Tags @littleblossom357 @alj4890 @cosigottahavefaith

——————————

  - Maxwells POV -

Hana, Drake, and Maxwell land in the late afternoon at JFK. After settling into their rooms they're on their to the corner coffee shop. “You know, Hana and Drake, I love this city. Why I’m sure you're asking yourselves. The reason to that question is simple, my friends. It's fueled by caffeine, is crazy fun, doesn't sleep, and it too holds Kristina Hampshire in its heart. New York is the perfect personification of me, Maxwell Percival Beaumont!” Maxwell's voice raises, “Hana and Drake, I raise my cup of this Cafė Americana with a double shot of expresso in a toast to Kristina!” Beaming Hana clinks her mocha latte with Maxwell's cup. They both stare at Drake. He picks up his overly expensive black coffee and joins in the toast.

Maxwell takes a long sip of his beverage then asks, “So, what is our plan for the rest of today? Oh wait! I have a super idea. We sho-” “Maxwell, I’m jet lagged, exhausted, and-“ “I’ll finish that for you Drake, and grumpy.” Maxwell tosses a sugar packet hitting Drake with a smack on the nose. “Anywho, I think we coordinate a flash mob. You know people can't miss seeing those. Awesome way to grab attention which could lead us clues on Kristina's whereabouts, while showing the city our dancing prowess.” Hana speaks up. “Ohhhh, what's a flash mob Maxwell?” Maxwell looks at Hana eyes wide in horror. “Oh my dear, sweet, sheltered friend, this is a flash mob.” He searches on his phone and shows her one of his favorites. “Oh, those look so fun!” She continues to giggle as Maxwell goes to the next video.

“Yeah, as fun as this has been, I’m going to take a nap. In my quiet hotel room. My very empty and quiet hotel room.” Hana and Maxwell with their noses stuck to the screen hardly notice Drake getting up. “Oh see you later Drake. Remember Hana and I will meet up with you later to discuss NYC: Operation Find Kristina.” Maxwell looks up and salutes. Turning back,  Hana asks, “I’ve never been here before, would you show me around?” Maxwell looks stunned. “You want me, ‘sense of no direction Beaumont, purveyor of almost certain non-safe antics, and fly by the seat of your pants activities to lead you around New York City?” “Well Kristina trusted you all over Cordonia, so I feel confident.” Maxwell grabs Hana’s hand and begins to pull her up behind him as he begins to jog from the table. She almost misses dunking their empty coffee cups in the trash. “Hey! Maxwell, slow down. Where's the fire?” “In the soul, Hana. Maxwell Percival Beaumont takes shopping and entertainment seriously. Now come on! You're too slow!!”

A long tour later they make it back to the hotel. Hana goes to her room for a bath and a quick nap, while Maxwell messages Drake about meeting up to discuss their plans for tomorrow. As soon as he steps on the elevator his phone pings. Drake suggests to meet at seven that night in Hana’s room. Maxwell quickly types, ‘Ah, yes. Her room has been command central. Seven is perfect.’ He makes it to his room and plops down on the bed staring at the ceiling. After a while he's up staring out the window finding shapes in the clouds and starts thinking about what he should say when he is finally face to face with Kristina. He heads into the ensuite to take a shower and relax before meeting with Hana and Drake.

——————————

- Kristina's POV -

The drive back from Atlantic City was uneventful. When they’re back Lisa cancels her and Stephen’s hotel room. Lisa stays with Kristina that night while Stephen stays with Daniel. The guys do some research on the country they just found out last night existed. While there is more information they thought they'd find, news was mainly about the King and the woman he chose for his queen. They did see the disgusting tabloid and news articles about the Tariq scandal which had them seeing red. Anyone who knew Kristina would be able to tell it was a set up.

Meanwhile Lisa decides on a night with one rule; no boy talk. But one filled with junk food, wine, and binge watching classic comedies like ‘Robin Hood Men in Tights’ and ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’. Kristina hadn't had girl time since hanging out with Hana. “Kris, I haven't heard you laugh like this until tonight.” “Well Lisa, a good amount of alcohol, junk food and movies can do that to you.” They both chuckle, but suddenly Kristina turns sullen. “Kris, you aren't breaking our only rule for tonight, are you?” “Not really, I just have to go back to the real world tomorrow.” “I get that Kris but we'll make sure it's better!” Kristina hugs Lisa tightly. “Kris, it was a long weekend and you do work tomorrow. I declare you need rest since you're taking a lunch shift instead of your normal dinner shift.” Kristina rolls her eyes. “Yes mom. Let me help you clean up at least.” Lisa looks at her exasperatedly. “Fine, you win.” She hugs Lisa again and heads to take a shower.

——————————

- Maxwell's POV -

Maxwell wakes with the sun. The night before the trio decided to take the morning and afternoon to themselves then meet up in the evening to head to the familiar dive bar. Maxwell goes out to grab a coffee and muffin. Sitting in coffee shop he decides to message Savannah. With the time difference it's a decent hour.

After the quick chat with Savannah, and finishing his caffeine, he decides to try anything to keep his nervous excitement under control. So he messages Drake.

Find something to do. I really don't want to be alone but it gives me more time to think. He decides Time Square sounds like a good place and calls a car. Soon he is lost in the mass sea of people. Perfect, tons of people around but still alone with my thoughts. He spots a bench and sits down watching the bustling area. I do not want to screw this up, I can't lose her before I even have her, and my words always get disconnected between my brain and mouth. Finally he gets the message from Drake.

——————————

- Kristina's POV -

Coffee, check. Hostessing approved outfit, check. Leaving on time because of Lisa, double check. “Lisa, are you two still hanging out with Daniel until leaves for his shift?” “That's the plan. Then Stephen and I are going to have a date night. You know you could get out of this apartment and hit the bar with Daniel while he works.” “Yeah, that's a hard no.” Lisa opens her mouth to say something but Kristina cuts her off. “Hard no, Lisa.” “You win, Kris. Have a good day at work.”

Lisa and Stephen hang with Daniel following the futile rabbit hole that is the internet. Other than seeing how charming Cordonia is, and why it's a great vacation destination, there's just normal news. They agree to continue later, with Daniel leaving for work.

——————————

- Maxwell’s POV -

Drake calls up a car while Hana inquiries, “So, what is the protocol for a dive bar exactly?” Drake and Maxwell answer simultaneously, “None.” Then Drake adds, “ Well, avoid bar fights. Hana just stick with Maxwell and me, and you’ll be fine.” She looks at Maxwell. “How are you holding up?” “Right now Hana, I feel excited, nervous, happy, scared, hopeful, and I want to dance. You know the feeling?” Drake looks at him and answers with a deadpan expression, “No Maxwell that is the oddest string of adjectives ever.” “Well, buddy, that's how you know it's me.” He says proudly while slapping Drake on the shoulder. The car stops in front of the bar, and Hana’s small voice is almost a whisper. “This, is really it? Kristina worked here?” Drake sees her horrified eyes. “Yes Hana.” Hana gulps, “Okay…this is a little different than the bar Western bar in Cordonia.”

The three walk in and Drake directs them to the bar. Pulling up bar stools the guys sit on either side of Hana while the bartender asks them what their having. “A whiskey neat for me.” Hana leans over to Maxwell, “What was that inappropriately named drink you mentioned when we played truth or dare?” Maxwell tells the bartender, “We’ll both have a Sex on the Beach.” Hana blushes at the name, but then pipes up, “So how long have you worked here?” The bartender shrugs as he works on their drinks “A little over three months. But don't worry, I know my stuff. Here, one whiskey neat for you sir, one Sex on the beach for you sir, and one for you pretty lady.” He winks as he hands her the drink. Hana takes a polite sip. “Wow, but a good wow. Thank you, uh…” “Sam. The name is Sam.” Just opening the kitchen door a waiter stiffness as he looks to the bar.

——————————

- Daniel’s POV -

Daniel continues out of the kitchen to go take an order. Walking by the bar he notices two olive skinned gentlemen and a small lady with brunette hair. Reaching his booth, he welcomes the customers and takes their drink order. While he answers some questions he hears an accent coming from the bar that he has never heard before. While at the bar giving the table’s drink order he takes a quick glance at the three people. He heads into the kitchen, taking one longer glance before he quickly runs to the back door and immediately gets out his phone. Oh my god. If that's them. No it can't be. But Kris hadn't deleted all her photos when she got the new one. Damn they look so familiar. Well, if anyone should get this lucky it should be Kris. Daniel takes a deep breath and messages Kris.

Daniel’s phone immediately rings. “Kris!” ..… “No I am not shitting you!” ….. “Of course I can tell they are the same people, with the accent, and good looks.” ….. “Yeah, a the third guy has whiskey. Gotta be Drake, right?!” ….. “You can't let them leave!” ….. “No, I won't let you mess this up for yourself, you will see them! They flew half way across the world, obviously they do CARE!”….. “Come on Kris, say something, anything. Listen, how about I get just Hana’s number and she can message you or something.” ….. “Not that excuse again. I am NOT letting them walk out this door, so it's my easy way, or we find Stephen.” ….. “Oh, thank god you’ve come to your senses.” …… “You sure you want me to give her your number? I think it's a great idea, personally. Just ANSWER HER CALL!!!” ….. “Love you too.”

Daniel ends the call and runs back to the bar. Still here. Thank god. “Daniel are you okay there man?” “Perfect, Sam” Daniel’s breath slows. “Ok, now that you can breathe, these really nice people were asking about a girl that use to work here nam-“ Daniel speaks before Sam gets another syllable out. “Kris? Well, I mean Kristina, right?” He sees three sets of eyes go wide. Daniel turns his gaze to the lady. “Hana, right?” “Yes, but how do-“ Maxwell interjects, “You know Kristina? Where is she? How do we find her?” Daniel sees Maxwell's eyes go from disbelief, to shock, to excitement in a good point two seconds. Man, he does have it bad for her. “Calm down Maxwell.” Daniel says to him. Drake laughs, “Good luck. He doesn't have a calm mode.” “So you’ve gotta be Drake.” Drake’s eyes narrow. “How do you know us?” “Look, I don't a lot of time before my asshole manager sees me talking and not working. Kris or I will explain later.” Daniel takes a napkin and writes down Kristina's number sliding it to Hana. “Hana, she wants to talk to YOU. She's waiting for your call.” Daniel leaves, all three slack-jawed.

——————————

- Hana POV -

Drake shakes his head like it will make his brain process faster. “What the hell just happened Hana?” “Ummm, well, it looks like we found Kristina. I should call her, now.” Hana gets off her bar stool, Maxwell right behind her, “Sorry Maxwell, but I better make this call alone. It seems that's what she wants.” Maxwell nods and sits again. Hana takes a booth with her back to the guys, takes a deep excited but slightly nervous breath and dials the number. “Kristina?”

——————————

- Kristina's POV -

Kristina paces with her phone in her shaking hands. This is what she wants, but now that she has the chance, she's scared as hell. She sits on the couch and then stands and paces again. Finally her phone rings, the Caller ID shows an international phone number. This is it. Crap, this is it. Breathe. “…..” “Hi Hana, yep it's me!” …… She has to pull the phone away from her ear so Hana's high pitched squeal doesn't deafen her for life. “I’ve missed you too Hana. I really have. I’ve missed you all. You are you all really here?” …… “You found Tariq?!?!” ….. “My name is cleared? Long story I bet is right.” ….. “Oh my god. It's hard to believe! So, you're still at the bar?” …… “Well. I desperately want to see you too!” ….. “ Really? Daniel would be the only one to even remember me. Ha.” …… “Yeah, he knows all about you guys. Liam, Olivia, the others too. He's been my best friend here for a long time, and now I can't believe my best friend from Cordonia is here!” ….. “I know, I was so nervous talk to you, after I just vanished.” ….. “Yeah we can talk all about that. How long are you here for?” …… “Really! No timeframe? I cannot wait to hug you!” ….. “Yeah so, Drake and Maxwell are with you?” ….. “Of course I’m excited to see Drake!” ….. “Oh, yeah Maxwell. Ummmm that's a little more-“ ….. “Yes, complicated would be a good word.” ….. “He really wants to see me? You're sure?” …… “His only reason for being here? Really?” ….. “Well, yeah I am in disbelief. Confusion too. I’m sure he told you about what happened at the airport that night. Does he want to meet with me because he's still mad at me?” ….. “I get it. You can't say anything, this is between me and him. I’m terrified Hana. Like nauseous terrified.” ….. “Hana, I won't question how you knew I was in love with him. Hindsight is twenty/twenty. You are my best friend. Of course you could see it back then.” …..  “No you're right. I do owe it to him.” ….. “Yes, and myself. Ok, I guess yes, I’ll see him.” ….. “Now? It's getting late.” …… “No I don't have a bed time. Ha. Ha.” ….. “Well, I guess ripping off the bandaid approach is the best.” …… “Oh I believe that Hana!” Kristina laughs. “I get it. He’ll be unbearable for you and Drake until we talk. Will you and Drake at least be there with us at first?” ….. “Thanks. And then we are going to spend time catching up in the next few days? With Drake and Maxwell too. Well, with Maxwell if all goes well tonight” ….. “How about Central Park. We can technically be there until one am.” …..  “Good, we’ll message between us to figure out where to meet up.” ….. “I love you too Hana! I’ll get changed and be on my way.”

Oh my god. Kristina stands at her closet shaking. I guess my life changes, yet again, tonight.

——————————

- Maxwell's POV -

Hana ends the call and skips back to bar, pulling the two into a tight hug. “So, Hana…. is Kristina…” Drake jumps in. “Are we really meeting Hampshire…” Hana jumps up and clapping. “Yes!! All four of us will meet for a short time tonight at Central Park, then…” Maxwell gulps. “Then what Hana?” “Well,…Drake and I leave and you two have the rest of the night to talk.” Maxwell's countenance turns from excitement to amazement. “R..r…really?” “Yes, Maxwell. Then we'll all spend the following days together.” Drake smiles, “And prove to Hampshire why she should come home.” Hana and Drake turn to see Maxwell on his phone already calling a car and heading out of the bar.

—————————— The Night in Central Park ——————————

- Kristina’s POV - Central Park with Maxwell

Kristina throws on a pair of jeans, a blue sleeveless blouse that matches her eyes and heads out the door before she can change her mind. Reaching the park she lets Hana know she's at the Cherry Hill Fountain. She wrings her hands, with her stomach turning from nausea to fluttering and back. After a bit she looks up and sees three faces come into focus. Any nerves are gone in a second as she runs and pulls the three of her fiends into a long group hug.

- Maxwell's POV -  Central Park with Kristina

As the car is close to Central Park Hana hears from Kristina where to meet and pulls up a map of the park on her phone.  They get out of the car and start on their way. This is happening. Oh my god, this is happening, in just a couple minutes. Drake looks over to Maxwell and places a hand on his shoulder. “Don't overthink this. Just….well hell….just be you. For whatever reason that works for you and Hampshire.” Maxwell gets a bit of a spring in his step as he sees a lone figure that's like no other come into view. She looks up and runs to them immediately pulling them all into a hug.

- Kristina's POV - Central Park with Maxwell

Kristina steps backs with tears in her eyes and pulls Hana into another hug, immediately turns to Drake and gives him a hug too. She looks at Maxwell who is in front of her and sees his blue eyes moist with tears. That smile is more handsome than I remember and I’ve missed how it makes me light up. I’ve missed him so, oh god I love him. His infectious smile has her lips pulling up involuntary. She takes a step forward and feels his arms tightly around her. It's heaven. She takes a step forward and he wraps his arms around her.

- Maxwell's POV - Central Park with with Kristina

Maxwell watches Kristina pull back from the group hug. She was always beautiful, I always saw it, but now, she is the most gorgeous and important person to me. I’ve missed that smile, those eyes radiate with kindness and understanding. I can't believe how much I’ve missed her. Oh god, I love her. She takes a step forward him and he wraps his arms around her. I am never letting her go. Ever again.

- Kristina's POV - Central Park with Maxwell

The embrace feels like forever and yet is over too quickly. Her eyes don't leave his as he takes her hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. She feels Hana's hand on her back and Drake’s hand lays a hand on her shoulder. “Drake and I will see you tomorrow.” “Yeah Hampshire, we plan on spending a lot of time together.” She gives a nod smiling. “I love you both. See you tomorrow.” Maxwell entwines his fingers with hers as they find a place to sit.

- Maxwell's POV -  Central Park with Kristina

I don't want this hug to end. I smell her Jasmine and Lavender shampoo. Her subtle perfume. She smells like home. He keeps his eyes locked oh hers and takes her hand giving it a gentle squeeze. He sees Hana and Drake say their goodbyes for the night. I won't let go of her hand. It's too soft, too familiar, too…perfect. He entwines his fingers with hers as they find a place to sit.

 - Central Park - Explanations and Declarations

Maxwell breaks the silence first. “Hey little blossom.” She squeezes his hand. “Hey yourself, Max.” In unison, almost as if they had practiced “I’m so sorry.” They both let out little nervous giggles. “Max, I never should have walked away. I-“ “Kristina, I should have never let you go.” “But you couldn't reach me, Max, you were being held back by the guards.” He looks down, “That night, yes. But they're wasn't anyone holding me back from coming to find you.” “I understand why you wouldn't Maxwell. There was no way I could help anymore with the scandal. I brought shame to you and Bertrand.” Kristina can't meet his eyes.

“Hey, now, look at me.” He takes his free hand and tilts her head so their eyes meet again. “You didn't do anything wrong. Drake let us know about that night at Applewood. No one worth anything ever believed it. Hana and Drake successfully found him. He's back in Cordonia with his statement, including Liam's own statement, coming out soon if it hasn't already. Your reputation is all cleared. That is never going to hang it's ugly head over you again. I’m so happy for you. But….I’m still wondering why you couldn't trust me to help you through it. Bertrand and I wanted you back. We and everyone else wanted to help you in clearing your reputation and bring you back to court.” He squeezes her hand tightly while she notices a few tears falling from his eyes. “I just wish you would have trusted me. And, …had stayed with me.”

Kristina places her other hand over their linked hands. “Max, you were and are the one person I trust the most. It wasn't about a lack of trust at all. I know you would have fought with me, fought for me.” Maxwell looks at her in such confusion. “Why then, Kristina? If you trusted me, why not stay. I wanted you to stay. I yelled for you to stay.” Kristina takes a deep breath. “Maxwell, look how long it's taken to find Tariq and get his statement. The scandal wasn't just hanging over me, it was hanging over you too, because of your association with me. While I was there, it would continue to. I couldn't let that happen. I just couldn't hurt you more in anyway. I knew Liam would be fine. He would pick his queen, and all would be well for him. Max, I didn't love Liam. I was never going to be his queen, chosen or not. So,I knew not only was I going to fail you by not being queen, and then I was going to be nothing but another problem for you and Bertrand because of Tariq. I cared,” she takes a shaky breath, “I care about you, Maxwell, too much to do that to you and your reputation.”

Maxwell lets out a bewildered laugh. “What Max?” She couldn't hold any tears back. “Why are you laughing.” He runs the thumb of his free hand across her cheek wiping away tears. “Well, you left so you wouldn't hurt me, and I didn't follow you because I thought I wasn't good enough for you.” Kristina lets out a soft gasp. “What do you mean Maxwell? Why would I ever think that you weren't good enough?” Maxwell looks deep into her eyes. “Because I’m a screwup. There were so many times during the Social Season I messed up. I’d forget to let you know about events, not have you in the right places and more. Heh. I’m sure Bertrand has a list written down somewhere and he could show you every mistake. I figured with all that, and the look you gave me when you,” tears falling down his cheek, “when you turned from me to get on that plane… I figured I messed up yet again. This time, though, it was you Kristina I failed, and you're the only person on earth that I would never want to fail.”

Now Kristina laughs as she shakes her head. Taking her one hand off of their still entwined fingers to brush away his tears. “Max, when I turned and got on that plane it was the most painful thing I’ve ever done in my whole life. I had myself convinced I would hurt you if I stayed, so I decided that I would be the one to shoulder the hurt. I never wanted to leave you.” She sees a tiny glimpse of hope in his eyes. “You really didn't want to leave me Kristina?” She squeezes their linked hands. “Not for a second. Remember when we were on the trail ride at Applewood and I tried to tell you I was falling for someone else.” There is a look of recognition on his face. “Max, I should have made sure I finished what I was telling you. But even then I didn't want to do anything that would damage what I was there to do for you and your house. Pursue Liam. So I didn't force the conversation, and that will be one of the greatest regrets of my life. That day, and everyday since, I have been foolishly making choices for two people. I should have never decided I knew what was best for you.”

Maxwell sits stunned. “Are you saying. Uh, you can't be saying…why would it be? Why would you ever….” “Ever what Maxwell, fall for you? Be so stupid in love with you that I made a horrible life decision for two people? Is that so hard to believe?” Maxwell’s mouth sits open for what felt like forever. “Honestly Kristina? Yes that's so hard for me to believe then, and now.  But it's funny how I did pretty much the same thing.” Kristina's eyebrows knit together in bewilderment. “What on earth are you talking about, Max?” He smiles. “I successfully made myself believe you couldn't ever care for me, that it was a crazy dream which could never come true. And so I buried how I felt about you. I convinced myself that we just would never be, and convinced myself not to follow you. So I locked myself away from anything outside of our estate. Friends and everything. I guess it was my version of your walking onto the plane.”

“Max,” Kristina looks deep into his eyes, “so you didn't think I could care for you, while I thought you hated me.” They look at each other for a long moment then laugh until their tears were no longer from sadness or pain, but of joy. Once able to speak Kristina cups Maxwell's cheek. “Maxwell, are you really saying you care for me?” He looks at her thinking. Do I tell the full truth? What if it ruins this…but if she runs from me is it really any different? At least she knows. Do it now, or it's never. “No Kristina I don't are for you, I love you.” Maxwell takes both her hands and holds them to his chest. Kristina beams. “Maxwell, I love you too. So much.” His eyes grow wide. “Wait, you really mean more than friends right? Or did I missunder-“ Kristina cuts him off with a sweet, soft, tender kiss. “That should answer that.” She puts her arms around his neck.

“Kristina it's just so hard for me to believe. You are amazing. You're incredibly smart, and so kind. You're graceful, and yet bold all at once. You care about everyone before yourself. And you are the most gorgeous woman in the world. There is no one woman who is just as sparkling on the inside as she is on the outside.” He kisses her check. “Maxwell, I’m the most blessed out of the two of us. You are sweet and kind. You are always the first to stop and get someone out of any funk, making them smile. You make sure you leave everyone you meet happier than when you met them. You see people. You see what they need and when they need it. You never give up on anyone. And those big dreams you have, you are always reaching for them, and always reaching hard. You have no clue how that affects and helps those around you.” She smirks. “Do I even have to mention your dancing aptitude and always being the life of the party.” Looking deep into his blue eyes. “Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention your infectious smile and your smoking hot looks. You're my dream, Maxwell Percival Beaumont.”

Maxwell feigns looking around them as if looking for another person. “There has to be another Maxwell Percival Beaumont around here. Because you just described anyone but me.” He grins. “Max, for someone who is so perceptive of others, we really need to work on your perception of yourself.” She laughs. “You think your funny, Kristina?” Maxwell tickles her mercilessly. “I do believe the is the pot is calling the kettle black.” “Ok, ok. I call for mercy. Mercy!” Maxwell stops the tickles and pulls Kristina up on his lap, “So you really love me, little blossom?” He kisses her. “I really love you, my human alarm clock.” She grabs Maxwell by the collar of his shirt pulling him into another kiss. His arms go tightly around her as he deepens the kiss until they pull back breathless. He gives her one more quick kiss and she feels his smile against her lips. “And why are you smiling, Lord Maxwell?” He gives her another quick kiss. I could kiss her forever. “Well Lady Kristina, it’s not everyday the woman you thought was completely unattainable confesses she loves you, and it isn't a misunderstanding or a joke.” She chuckles. “Fair enough. I just hope you realize you're stuck with me as your partner in crime now.” Maxwell rests his forehead against hers whispering, “I can't imagine a more perfect partner ever.” He kisses her forehead. “Maxwell, I love you.” He pulls her into a tight embrace saying into her ear, “I love you. I will never tire of telling you, or hearing you say it.”

It takes effort, but Kristina pulls back and gets out her phone to look at the time. “It's almost one in the morning. Can't be in the park much longer.” Maxwell gives her a sweet kiss on the cheek and helps her stand up from his lap. “So Kristina, what now?” “I guess we go tell Hana and Drake?” He rubs his chin as if deep in thought. “True. But what I meant was what now?” Kristina looks at him quizzically. “What do mean, Maxw-“ Maxwell taps her on the shoulder. “You're it Kristina!” He’s off before Kristina can process what he is doing. She laughs as she runs after him.

Stay tuned for the upcoming epilogue.

[supersecure-blog]

Something awesome: progress update

Feeling sleepy...

From the time of my last blogpost, till now (11:15pm) I’ve been working on writing the first chapter of my how-to-guide which mainly covers an introduction to programming for beginner students. I’ve also included the writeups to picoCTF challenges which I have previously completed for the appropriate module

I’ve written about 1.5k words, which for those who are interested can be read below. 

Before we begin…

Introduction to programming

A key skill to learn before we dive head-first into the other concepts covered in this guide, we should probably first learn about our environment!

For those who think ‘airport’ when they hear the word terminal or ‘snail’ when they hear the word shell, you should definitely read this part before getting started with any of the other modules. For those who are already quite confident with navigating their way through the Linux environment, feel free to skip ahead!

Let’s start with a quick summary of some of the key things you should know:

What is a terminal?

The terminal is the main way that we, as users, interact with the computer. It normally looks like a black screen with white font. To uss the terminal, you type in specific commands which the computer interprets in order to run certain operations. 

Of course, in order to use the terminal you have to know the commands!

Some basic terminal commands:

I like to compare using the terminal like using a normal file explorer. We double-click 

folders (also called directories) to enter them, and double-clicking files opens them. We can create new folders, new files by right-clicking then pressing the appropriate button. All of this can be done through the terminal - you just have to know the right commands.

cd - stands for ‘change directory’. This command is used like ‘cd <name-of-directory>’ in order to change into the specified directory

If you just type in cd or ‘cd ~’ you should change to your home directory

You can use ‘cd ..’ to change into the previous directory you were in

pwd - stands for ‘print working directory’

ls - used to list all the files in your current directory. 

mkdir - stands for ‘make directory’. Basically is the equivalent of the ‘new folder’ button in a normal file explorer. You can use it like ‘mkdir <name-of-directory>’ to make a folder with the specified name.

./ - this little ‘./’ is very powerful! If we have executable files or files that we can’t normally open, we can run them by doing ‘./<name-of-executable>’ 

man - stands for ‘manual’. Think about this as your help guide for any command you want to learn more about. Use it by typing in ‘man <name-of-command>’.

Other useful commands:

rm - stands for ‘remove’. Used like ‘rm <name-of-file-to-be-removed>’

whoami - displays information about the user

cat - one of cat’s applications is to view the contents of a file without actually having to open it. Use it like ‘cat <name-of-file>’ to have the contents of the specified file be displayed in the terminal

strings - strings basically finds printable strings or sentences in an object, or other binary files. Use it like ‘strings <name-of-file>’.

grep - grep is a way for us to find the existence of certain patterns or words in a file. You can use it like ‘grep <word/pattern> <name-of-file>’ to return every instance of the word/pattern in the specified file

nc - nc or netcat is a tool that can help you read or write data over the internet. It has a lot of uses, but for the context of picoCTF we’ll mainly be using to access the challenges. Use it like ‘nc <destination> <port>’. An example of how we could use it for picoCTF is detailed below

ssh - basically a way for us to safely access remote servers. Use it like ‘ssh <user>@<host>’, where <user> refers to the account you want to access and <host> is the domain or IP address of the computer you are trying to access.

You can find more info about SSH here: https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/ssh-tutorial-how-does-ssh-work

A more comprehensive guide containing explanations about a wider variety of commands can be found here.

What is a programming language?

So sure, we’ve learnt how to make our way through a terminal, but what about code? How do we write and run it? In terms of writing code, there are many varied programming languages, each with their own rules and different features that we can use. For readers who’ve never coded before in their life, now would be a fantastic time to learn one!

A lot of the concepts are common in programming languages, so it doesn’t particularly matter which one you start with. However, I would definitely recommend Python, as it is quite user-friendly. This is a great place to start learning.

What is a text editor?

To summarise quickly, basically we write programs saved in a certain type of file based on what language they are written. These files can be changed and edited using what are called text editors. There are many different ones- some are inherent to your terminal like ‘vim’ or ‘nano’ and are quite simplistic. Others you can download online and include cool features like autocompleting variable names and structuring your code for you.

Whatever text editor you choose to use is completely based on your preferences! Use whatever is comfortable for you and supports your writing of code

How do we run code?

Now that you’ve written your first program in a text editor, in your chosen programming language what do we actually do with it? Some programming languages like C or Java need to have their files be ‘compiled’ before we can actually run them. This basically means translating the code we write into a form that the computer can interpret. Other languages like Python don’t require this extra step, and can be run easily.

picoCTF writeups - Hideout:

This chapter’s challenges can all be found under the ‘hideout’ module in the 2018 picoCTF. The below examples detail some of the ways we can apply what has been described above.

net cat 

Using netcat (nc) will be a necessity throughout your adventure. Can you connect to 2018shell.picoctf.com at port 49387 to get the flag?

As we described above, we can use nc like ‘nc <destination> <port>’. Hence, we simply do ‘nc 2018shell.pico.ctf.com 49387’ to connect to the remote service. The flag should be displayed on your terminal which is: picoCTF{NEtcat_iS_a_NEcESSiTy_8b6a1fbc}

grep 1

Can you find the flag in file [1] ? This would be really obnoxious to look through by hand, see if you can find a faster way. You can also find the file in /problems/grep-1_4_0431431e36a950543a85426d0299343e on the shell server.

Although you could just look the whole file to manually find the flag, we can use one of the handy commands we learnt about earlier! As described in the above guide, we can use grep like ‘grep <word/pattern> <name-of-file>’. We can utilise the fact that every flag inpicoCTF is formatted in the same way, by doing ‘grep picoCTF file’ to retrieve our flag which is: picoCTF{grep_and_you_will_find_cdf2e7c2}

sshkeyz

As nice as it is to use our webshell, sometimes its helpful to connect directly to our machine. To do so, please add your own public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, using the webshell. The flag is in the ssh banner which will be displayed when you login remotely with ssh to  with your username.

You can connect to the picoCTF server by doing ‘ssh <username>@2018shell1.picoctf.com’ in your terminal. The output should look somewhat similar to below:

$ ssh jeremyyf@2018shell1.picoctf.com

The authenticity of host '2018shell1.picoctf.com (18.223.208.176)' can't be established.

ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:zCX5ip3tx1RMbsJBc70jEazd+gAFzlbC1Q2iDI8LA/k.

Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

Warning: Permanently added '2018shell1.picoctf.com,18.223.208.176' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.

picoCTF{who_n33ds_p4ssw0rds_38dj21}

Thus we can see our flag, which is: picoCTF{who_n33ds_p4ssw0rds_38dj21}

strings 

Can you find the flag in this file [1]  without actually running it? You can also find the file in /problems/strings_0_bf57524acf558aca2081eb97ece8e2ee on the shell server.

As we detailed above, we can use string like ‘strings <name-of-file>’. To get all the printable lines in the ‘strings’ file we can use the strings command, together with grep to get the flag! By doing ‘strings strings | grep picoCTF’ we retrieve our flag which is: picoCTF{sTrIngS_sAVeS_Time_3f712a28}

what base is this

To be successful on your mission, you must be able to read data represented in different ways, such as hexadecimal or binary. Can you get the flag from this program to prove you are ready? Connect with nc 2018shell.picoctf.com 15853.

Basically this challenge wants us to convert between different bases of numbers. It requires you to:

Convert from binary to ASCII

Convert from hex to ASCII

Convert from octal to ASCII

I used the following tools to complete the challenge:

https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/binary-to-ascii.html

https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/ascii-hex-bin-dec-converter.html

http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/octal/

[tonkitk]

Numpy random permute

#Numpy random permute full

Returns outndarray Permuted sequence or array range. axisint, optional The axis which x is shuffled along. If x is an array, make a copy and shuffle the elements randomly. Parameters xint or arraylike If x is an integer, randomly permute np.arange (x). To permute both rows and columns I think you either have to run it twice, or pull some ugly shenanigans with numpy.unravel_index that hurts my head to think about. Randomly permute a sequence, or return a permuted range. PVec0, pVec1 = calcMyPermutationVectors()Īrr.take(pVec0, axis=0, out=arr, mode="clip")Īrr.take(pVec1, axis=1, out=arr, mode="clip") Numba supports top-level functions from the numpy.random module. So in total you call should look something like the following: #Inplace Rearrange On a final note, take seems to be a array method, so instead of np.take(i, rr, axis=0) If x is an integer, randomly permute np.arange (x). If x is a multi-dimensional array, it is only shuffled along its first index. If you don't set the mode it will make a copy to restore the array state on a Python exception (see here). Randomly permute a sequence, or return a permuted range. To do it in-place, all you need to do is specify the "out" parameter to be the same as the input array AND you have to set the mode="clip" or mode="wrap". Here is an example of doing a random permutation of an identity matrix's rows: import numpy as npĪrray(, We are using Excel’s RANDBETWEEN functions for Column B here. axisint, optional Slices of x in this axis are shuffled. Parameters xarraylike, at least one-dimensional Array to be shuffled. Unlike shuffle, each slice along the given axis is shuffled independently of the others. The trick here is we pre- generate the random m’s. method (x, axisNone, outNone) Randomly permute x along axis axis. You can do this in-place with numpy's take() function, but it requires a bit of hoop jumping. For simplicity, we assume N 5, but this methodology works with any N (as long as Excel can hold it) First, you need to set up k’s and m’s.

#Numpy random permute full

Warning: The below example works properly, but using the full set of parameters suggested at the post end exposes a bug, or at least an "undocumented feature" in the numpy.take() function. I currently copy matrices this large unnecessarily, but I would hope this could be easily avoided for permutation. Actually I would like to use matrices as large as possible, but I don't want to deal with the inconvenience of not being able to hold them in RAM, and I do O(N^3) LAPACK operations on the matrix which would also limit the practical matrix size. The matrix is small enough to fit into desktop RAM but big enough that I do not want to copy it thoughtlessly. shuffle: the order of the sub-arrays along the first axis, but the content remains the same, which is equivalent to. Or they mean counting or enumerating all possible permutations. Sometimes when people talk about permutations, they only mean the sampling of random permutations, for example as part of a procedure to obtain p-values in statistics. Also for some simple situations it may be sufficient to just separately track an index permutation, but this is not convenient in my case. Something like this might be possible with numpy's "advanced indexing" but my understanding is that such a solution would not be in-place. Maybe I am just failing at searching the internet. Now, let x be a permutation of the elements of x. Right now I am manually swapping rows and columns, but I would have expected numpy to have a nice function f(M, v) where M has n rows and columns, and v has n entries, so that f(M, v) updates M according to the index permutation v. Write a Python program to print all permutations of a given string (including. Given a 2D array, I would like to permute this array row-wise. Mathematically this corresponds to pre-multiplying the matrix by the permutation matrix P and post-multiplying it by P^-1 = P^T, but this is not a computationally reasonable solution. Efficiently permute array in row wise using Numpy. np.ed is a function, which you need to call, not assign to it. Julia sample without replacement.I want to modify a dense square transition matrix in-place by changing the order of several of its rows and columns, using python's numpy library.

[tomasorban]

Alchemical initiation: transforming the self

When discussing alchemy, the first thing you must understand is that in relation to modern chemistry, alchemy is relevant only in terms of history. Moreover, the value of the alchemists philosophical system has nothing to do with the literal interpretation of alchemical operations; but rather the message is hidden behind allegories, symbols and formulas. So the essence of alchemy is not the transformation of metals, but rather the transformation of the self.

Alchemists tell us the story of the matter passing through four main states: nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo. In nigredo, the matter is full of impurities, “unpolished”, so that in the albedo to be “cleaned” divided into two opposing principles. Citrinitas represent the transmutation of silver into gold, or the stage of “wise old man” – according to Carl.G.Jung‘s analytical psychology. Finally, in the state of rubedo the two opposing principles come together (coniunctio), giving birth to the two-headed eagle (Atahnor logo ), which symbolizes the discovery of the authentic self, the last stage of consciousness.

A similar initiatic journey we can find in tarot, as Oswald Wirth notes, where the story begins with the fool, which in French is called Le Fou, resembling Le Feu (Fire), thus referring to the alchemical process of transforming lead into gold. Perhaps the word game may lead us to the principle always reminded by alchemist Theophrastus noted Ph. Paracelsus, who urges alchemists to pass their theories through the fire, i.e. to test, experiment. Fire also symbolizes the active principle, or libido – described by Jung as the  [psychic] energy of the individual. Moreover, if we interpret fire as the potency or the will to transform of the individual, we conclude that the fire that burns in Athanor (the furnace of alchemists) is the necessary will that “burns impurities” – the fuel that turns lead into gold. Moreover, even Gaston Bachelard in “Psychoanalysis of Fire” talks about the Prometheus complex, wich is explained to be: “Oedipus complex in intellectual life“  – so fire is engine that makes us want to know more. Paracelsus said that no operation can be done without this fire.

 It is reasonable to consider both alchemy and tarot philosophical systems expressed through allegory, which focuses on the hidden potential in every individual (i.e. nigredo, the fool), which with labor and continuous “polishing” is able to discover his authentic self:

„nigredo is the revelation of the incompleteness of substance, that needs processing to become gold. This is why the matter  is crying for the help of a man, which, by knowing and understanding, will save its soul from the netherworld.”

Nigredo also symbolizes the shadow of self, or the self [unconsciously] confronting its shadow. In the state of albedo we become aware of the shadow of the self, and impurities (unnecessary, harmful concepts) are removed. Also, we become aware of the opposite concepts anima and animus, that will be joined togheter in an alchemical process in rubedo : the Sun (gold, male) and the Moon (silver, female) come together; thus this operation is also symbolizing the union of conscious and unconscious – the consciousness in its fullness. In this respect some Gnostics, and some psychoanalysts and historians of religions have concluded that The Great Art means combining masculine (Sulphur) and feminine (Mercury) – a process more or less sexual. Mircea Eliade, great historian of religions noticed:

„European alchemy defines the Great Art  as the <secret> to combine the <Masculine> with the <feminine>.”

Another thing that Paracelsus and other alchemists repeated was that to fulfill the alchemic operation, each step needs to be done perfectly, in perfect order. This reminds us that we must be diligent, not to deviate from the path, otherwise we will not obtain the rubedo state. The alchemist is somebody that makes order out of chaos (ordo ab chao), and in a sense, I believe that two-headed eagle symbol is representative of the whole process of acceptance, integration and transformation of the shadow in the entire being. The two-headed eagle is anima and animus fusioned, it’s the man aware of its shadow – unconscious becoming conscious.

Oswald Wirth notes that these ancient mystical symbols and allegories used to be a bridge between the conscious mind, and the collective unconscious. As I mentioned above, nigredo can also symbolize shadow or [collective] unconscious – the source of archetypes and symbols. So the moment we get out of the darkness (nigredo) – that miserable state of ignorance and unawarness -, is the moment we become aware of our shadow, when we distinguish subject from the object in the process of shadow projection.

Anyway, the alchemists have used different formulas to write their “alchemical recipes” to keep the knowledge away from the profane. A thing that was pretty common between alchemists was to associate different metals and different stages of processing (e.g. rotting) with various mythological names, thereby converting an alchemical recipe into a story or a myth – or vice versa. For example, Apollo (Sun) corresponded to gold. Jean Marie Ragon goes further and states that in the Greek myth of Apollo killing the snake Python hides an alchemical process, a meeting between coarse material and the philosophical fire. Moreover, many psychoanalysts (e.g. Jung) were concerned with the interpretation of myths in a rather metaphorical way, believing there are hidden meanings behind metaphors, myths and alchemical works (see C.Jung’s interpretation of the text “Consurgens Aurora“) . I wanted to mention this because most people are skeptical about alchemy (I am one of them), but I think that in many cases, the skepticism is due the literally interpretation of alchemical texts/ myths. And it seems clear that D’Espagnets alchemical recipe that included a red dragon and seven or nine clean eagles that turns into a swan, doesn’t ask us to get a red dragon itself (nor claimed it will turn into a swan). And regarding Count Saint-Germain’s The Most Holy Trinosophia, it would be really foolish to think that that fantastic  trip really took place (in the physical world).

A conclusion, and also a review could be that alchemy is a complex philosophical system, well-built, revealed in stages. Behind the seemingly chemical formulas or mythological character, there are beautiful teachings hiding, and the ultimate knowledge is reserved to the one with a sharp mind, escaping from the labyrinths built by alchemists. I think that Mircea Eliade concluded very nice his work “Cosmogony and babylonian alchemy“, reminding us that everyone has the potential to become gold, to transform his flaws and troublesome self (lead) into gold:

„Transmutation of metals, which at one point becomes the basic idea of alchemy, has its justification in the belief that any metal can perfect itself to the ultimate stage of matter, turning into Gold.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

A WAY TO START A SILICON VALLEY

The right tools can help us avoid this danger. And Jessica is the main reason why. So you shouldn't start a startup, or start a real startup and not be a student? Other times nothing seems interesting. And curiously enough, taking rejection less personally may help you to get rejected less often. Talking to reporters makes her nervous. I tried the statistical approach.

Your program is supposed to do x. There probably are other fields where relentlessly resourceful is how you get there. It occurs mostly in unsubscribe instructions, but here is used in a completely different world from, say, important. A hacker working on some programming language or operating system might likewise be able to solve part of the traditional education of painters to copy the works of the great art of the past is the work of a painter in chronological order, you'll find that each painting builds on things that have been learned in previous ones. The reason credentials have such prestige is that for so long. The main character is an assassin who is hired to kill the president of France. Not only does a society get the best man for the job, but parents' ambitions are diverted from direct methods to indirect ones—to actually trying to raise their kids well. If founders' instincts already gave them the right answers, they wouldn't need us.

In the unlikely case that you're 20 and one of your side projects takes off like Facebook did, you'll face a choice of several languages, it is probably not a coincidence: you have probably discovered a useful new abstraction. Having one is the best way to do it by changing the world. You learn to paint mostly by doing it, but by doing labs and problem sets. And in fact my joking description is not just something you can leave running as a background process. The way to succeed in a startup. In the general case, if n is the fraction of the company. We're dealing with one of the first she did, the reporter brushed aside her insights about startups and turned it into a sensationalistic story about how some guy had tried to chat her up as she was waiting outside the bar where they had arranged to meet. But buying something from a company, for example. The source code of the Viaweb editor was probably about 20-25% of the code in this program is doing things that you can't stand programming in clumsy languages. And that's why less popular languages, like Jane Austen's novels, continue to survive at all. But by publicly saying that, they're saying they're willing to be held to a standard that, say, Python?

Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. We had a demo day for potential investors ten weeks in, and seven of the eight startups we funded will make it. In the middle you have people who are really mathematicians, but call what they're doing computer science so they can get DARPA grants. No one was leaking news of their features to us. On the Internet there's no reason to believe there is any limit on the number of characters in a program, but this is not what you need to know. You can do things in your early 20s that you can't stand programming in clumsy languages. Not only does a society get the best man for the job, but parents' ambitions are diverted from direct methods to indirect ones—to actually trying to do, like a knife that doesn't cut well, or printing that's illegible.

Good software designers are no more likely to work in the way that works best. It doesn't make a product. This was no accident. But the next step after rent a cool office and hire a bunch of companies, most of which fail, and one that would have happened anyway. Comparison The first person to write about how to make this work. What does it feel like to program in the same direction, subject to differences of opinion about tactics. Are some people just a lot more independent than others, or would everyone be this way if they were allowed to? So you will not, as some people seem to think, any economic upper bound on the size of a motorcycle when you wanted to go. Companies sending spam often give you a way to unsubscribe, or ask you to go to their site and change your account preferences if you want to discover the image as you make it—as you have to take these cycles into account, because they're more confident. When Google stuck Kleiner and Sequoia with a $75 million premoney valuation, their reaction was probably Ouch! I'm going to tell you. Measuring what hackers are actually trying to raise their kids well.

In a sense, though, my filters do themselves embody a kind of whitelist and blacklist because they are easy to apply, and there will be a lot of people could have been having this idea at the same time as the idea. But I don't think there was a name for it: playing house. Software is a very competitive business, prone to natural monopolies. You're asking for trouble if you try to decide what to do, so here is another place where startups have an advantage. When a startup does return to working on the product after a funding round finally closes, it's as if they were in college, the summer founders learned a lot from one another—maybe more than they learned from us. After four years of trying to save it VCs may just sell it at a low price to another of their portfolio companies. Suppose further that he's going to cost $60k a year in salary and overhead into stock you should multiply the annual rate by about 1. Much of what's most novel about YC is due to Jessica Livingston.

And indeed, probably also the best way to do this. If you want to know whether to recruit someone as a cofounder, ask if they are the actual registrar for it. At one end you have people working on something great. A few VCs have joked about that characterization, but none of their software could compete with ours. Fortunately there's a better way of preventing it than the credentials the left are forced to fall back on number 2, what other investors think, then the measure of the power of a programming language called Lisp. 05214485 i'm 0. It would set off alarms. These qualities might seem incompatible, but they're not. The first thing I would do, after checking to see if it makes sense. I'm talking about filtering my mail based on the spam and nonspam mail he receives.

Why spend twenty years climbing the corporate ladder when you can get rewarded directly by the market. The other side may even break the deal; if they do that, they'll usually seize on some technicality or claim you misled them, rather than individual words. And I were a couple is a big opportunity here for a new kind of venture fund that invests smaller amounts at lower valuations, but promises to either close or say no very quickly. Twenty years ago we used to hear that the problem with that description is not merely a process of filling in. 047225013 standardization 0. I worry it's not merely unnecessary to learn in great detail about the mechanics of startups, but to reassure people already interested in using Lisp—people who know that Lisp is a powerful language, but worry because it isn't widely understood. No one likes the transmission of power between the networks and the people would be dispersed. What this means is that most VCs didn't get technology. History is full of examples of young people who have till now always been under the thumb of some kind of authority. A probability can of course be mistaken, but because the goal is to judge you correctly, there's usually some kind of competitive game with the spammers.

Thanks to Robert Morris, Paul Buchheit, Eric Raymond, Patrick Collison, Jessica Livingston, and Garry Tan for smelling so good.

[superspectsuniverse]

What is MEARN Stack Development?

Just knowing basic net technologies isn’t enough to be an expert net developer. MEARN represent MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, React JS and Node JS wherever within the entire stack – front, face and info all are running within the JavaScript.

MongoDB : information in MongoDB is keep in key-value pairs in JSON format known as documents, that are roughly like rows in RDBMS. Multiple documents are keep in what’s known as a set in MongoDB.

AngularJS : Angular is one in every of the foremost powerful and performance-efficient JavaScript frameworks to make single-page applications for each net and mobile. The powerful options of Angular enable North American nation to form advanced, customizable, modern, responsive and easy net applications.

ReactJS : React JS may be a JavaScript library for making user interfaces, creating development of UI parts simple and standard. React JS library helps North American nation to make the computer program of such massive applications.

Node.js : Node.js may be a JavaScript runtime to make quick climbable network applications. Node.js helps North American nation to use JavaScript within the server aspect secret writing.

ExpressJS : categorical is that the hottest framework for making net applications in Node.js. categorical are often outlined as quick, minimalist, unopinionated net framework for Node.js.

LAMP Stack net Development

LAMP represent UNIX operating system, Apache, MySQL, PHP. LAMP Stack net Development is associate open supply net development platform that uses UNIX operating system because the software system, Apache is employed as an online server, MySQL is employed as an on-line database management system and PHP is employed as Object-oriented scripting language. Rather than PHP, we will conjointly use Perl and Python.

Linux : UNIX operating system may be a multi-user, multitasking and open supply software system. UNIX operating system acts as associate interface between the appliance software system and hardware. You’ll be able to realize UNIX operating system software system principally in servers, and conjointly in several areas like smartphones, cars, home appliances etc.

Apache : Apache net server is a free and ASCII text file software system developed and maintained by the Apache software system Foundation. Apache protocol Server is written in C, XML. It’s wont to processes requests and serves up net assets via protocol, in order that the appliance is accessible to any or all United Nations agency are accessing the general public domain on a straightforward net uniform resource locator.

MySQL : MySQL may be a widespread Open supply {relational info|electronic database|on-line database|computer database|electronic information service} Management System (RDBMS) that helps in developing database for any application in a very made-to-order manner.

PHP : PHP stands for machine-readable text preprocessing is employed to style and develop dynamic and interactive websites. PHP is server aspect scripting language – PHP scripts are run at server. PHP is Interpreter primarily based – Scripts are processed on every occasion it’s run. There’s no compiled output.

Comparison

Now as we all know what each stack consists, we will compare.

Database

LAMP stack uses MySQL, a really widespread enterprise level {relational info|electronic database|on-line database computer database|electronic information service} whereas MEARN uses MongoDB conjointly a really widespread NoSQL database that uses JSON-like JavaScript Object Notation) syntax.

Server Language

A very fascinating one! LAMP stack uses PHP to speak to its server that is Apache whereas in MEARN we tend to use NodeJS that is Runtime JS to speak to NodeJS Server). I do know you’ll be thinking, what in the world will he mean? Few years back we tend to were solely able to run JavaScript on consumer aspect i.e. browser which means it had been solely able to manage information in frontend.

So NodeJS in MEARN equals to PHP & Apache in LAMP

Backend Framework

A server-side language may be a blessing, however, a server-side framework may be a heaven. This can be the purpose wherever the stacks goes bit off, PHP has framework Laravel, Symphony, etc.) and it is similar case for NodeJS however the distinction is that the framework for NodeJS is a component of MEARN stack i.e. ExpressJS. This implies we’d want additional things for LAMP stack to realize similar result.

The bitter truth behind backend framework is we tend to don’t want it, for e.g. NodeJS doesn’t need ExpressJS to form protocol server and same goes for Apache doesn’t want Laravel. Thus, essentially ExpressJS in MEARN and Laravel in LAMP simplifies the creation and development of servers.

Frontend Framework

This is the foremost awkward one in every of all as a result of we tend to don’t have Frontend Framework for LAMP stack. This can be as a result of the LAMP stack style design is additional server primarily based instead of consumer base, whereas MEARN has ReactJS or AngularJS for Frontend/Client aspect.

This sums up the comparison of all 3 stacks in regard to Frontend, Backend Frameworks, Server Language and info.

But the ultimate question still remains that stack ought to I choose?

Well there’s no correct answer to the current question, however MEARN Stack covers all the net application parts whereas LAMP lacks in some areas. Hence, with the Best MEARN Stack Training in Kochi mastering would be typically be easy. A new issue to note is MEARN Stack is build with JavaScript which suggests you merely ought to recognize one programing language rather three.

MEARN is unquestionably the much-needed technology of the long run. MEARNSTACK is one among the trending programs that each developer wishes to master. MEARN Stack courses in Kochi by real operating professionals is an additional edges to take up MEARN Stack developer as a well-known job profile.

[drakeramoraythedoctor]

trading options vs stocks South Carolina Stories such as how some people lose their whole account within a few days and even stories of options traders going bankrupt in express time.

trading options vs stocks South Carolina The first of these is that some options traders trade options just like they trade stocks; buying call options with their whole account on that one "hot stock. "Yes, this is the number reason why most options beginners lose their shirt. Most beginners to options trading do with call options exactly what they do with stocks when they have a "hot tip"; throwing their whole account into that single "hot" trade. Now, this isn't that big a problem in stock trading because if the stock didn't move as expected, the trader could simply continue to hold the position until it does, sometimes for years. However, when you buy call options on stocks that didn't eventually move up as expected, the call options can expire worthless by expiration, taking your WHOLE account with it if you bought those call options with all the money you had! This problem is made even more pronounced by the fact that options have a definite expiration date that goes from a few months to a year for some stocks but never forever. This means that you do not have the luxury of holding on to bad trades forever, hoping they will come back in a few years time.

As long as you do not have to physically execute the stop loss. Physically executed stop losses are stop losses that rarely gets executed. Remember that. Buying options with your whole account and trading unlimited loss potential options positions without stop loss points are the two main reasons most options beginners lose their shirt. Take heed of my advice here and you would go through your initial options trading years in much more safety. How to Learn Options TradingMost people think they can learn options trading the very same way they learnt stock trading, which is just buying an options on stocks they think will do well. It's just that simple isn't it? Well, the simplicity ends when they discover that there are not one kind of option but two and each kind of option has countless strike prices and expiration dates! That's right! They suddenly realize that there is much much more to options trading than stock trading. Yes, stock options are a totally different ball game from stock trading even through they are used for the very same purpose of profiting from moves that stocks make. Yes, the fact that you are presented with so many different strike prices and expiration dates instantly tells you that there is no way to just pick on and profit. Much less trying to learn by trial and error. Yes, trial and error is very expensive in options trading as you cannot hold on to a mistake like in stock trading forever hoping for a come back. basic options trading course udemy kal South Carolina These stories have no doubt cast a shadow over options trading and there are even people who now tout that options trading is as risky as futures trading. Well, strange thing is, after more than 15 years of trading options, I have never experienced losing all my money within a few days nor going bankrupt. This led me to wonder why these things happen to some options traders. After some investigation, I conclude that it is not options trading that breaks accounts but specific things some options traders tend to do, especially beginners, that opens the door to such financial disasters. I narrowed these reasons down to two main ones. The first of these is that some options traders trade options just like they trade stocks; buying call options with their whole account on that one "hot stock. "Yes, this is the number reason why most options beginners lose their shirt. Most beginners to options trading do with call options exactly what they do with stocks when they have a "hot tip"; throwing their whole account into that single "hot" trade. Now, this isn't that big a problem in stock trading because if the stock didn't move as expected, the trader could simply continue to hold the position until it does, sometimes for years. However, when you buy call options on stocks that didn't eventually move up as expected, the call options can expire worthless by expiration, taking your WHOLE account with it if you bought those call options with all the money you had! This problem is made even more pronounced by the fact that options have a definite expiration date that goes from a few months to a year for some stocks but never forever. This means that you do not have the luxury of holding on to bad trades forever, hoping they will come back in a few years time. Professional options traders like me only enter a single position with money we can afford to lose. If I intend to lose no more than 10% of my account on any one trade, I do not use more than 10% of my account in a single trade. That's right, you NEVER buy a single options position or options contract with all the money you have! Although that would have made sense in stock trading, it is pure suicide and gamble in options trading. The other reason is trading credit spreads or naked option writing without using stop loss. Many options beginners were taken in by the apparent "free money" phenomena of writing naked options positions unaware that most of these credit strategies have unlimited loss potential. For instance, if you wrote call options (shorting call options), you would make a fixed premium in profit if the stock went downwards or sideways. Some "gurus" call this "playing bookmaker". Well, they are right that you are playing bookmaker to gamblers by selling options to them but they forgot to mention the fact that sometimes, gamblers win big too. When you write call options, your position will make an incrementally bigger loss as the stock price rises! It will continue to make bigger and bigger loss as long as the stock continues to rise. This is what is known as an unlimited loss position. This loss is often, or always, much bigger than the premium you received from selling the options. Before you know it, your entire account is wiped out on this one trade because the stock refused to go down as you expected it to. Does that mean we should not trade credit spreads or naked writes ever again? Not really. These are excellent options strategies but only if you trade them using a specific and definite stop loss point. Yes, most options trading beginners trade such unlimited loss potential credit spreads with stop loss points but most of them give in to emotion when it's time to stop loss and hold their positions beyond their stop loss points in hope that things will turn around, which most often, they never do. Professional options traders always trade unlimited loss potential positions with an AUTOMATED stop loss point. That's right, automated stop loss that works without human involvement. This can be in the form of a stop limit, contingent order or trailing stop loss order. As long as you do not have to physically execute the stop loss. Physically executed stop losses are stop losses that rarely gets executed.

investopedia options trading South Carolina

If I intend to lose no more than 10% of my account on any one trade, I do not use more than 10% of my account in a single trade.

python options trading South Carolina Those that are able to follow through with such steps may be limited in number. No, that is not said as a means of undermining anyone's motivation, morale, or desire. Rather, it is meant as a way of properly forecasting the management of your venture and assessing the risk of getting involved with options trading. You also need a plan for when the market goes against your strategy, so that you don't make decisions because you're panicking. Yes, trading in options needs to be looked from the perspective of managing a small business. When operating a small business, you need to assess the risk associated with a venture.

best options trading software South Carolina After you have learnt all of the above can you start placing some simple options trades and know exactly what you are doing.

learning stock options trading South Carolina I narrowed these reasons down to two main ones. The first of these is that some options traders trade options just like they trade stocks; buying call options with their whole account on that one "hot stock. "Yes, this is the number reason why most options beginners lose their shirt. Most beginners to options trading do with call options exactly what they do with stocks when they have a "hot tip"; throwing their whole account into that single "hot" trade. Now, this isn't that big a problem in stock trading because if the stock didn't move as expected, the trader could simply continue to hold the position until it does, sometimes for years. However, when you buy call options on stocks that didn't eventually move up as expected, the call options can expire worthless by expiration, taking your WHOLE account with it if you bought those call options with all the money you had! This problem is made even more pronounced by the fact that options have a definite expiration date that goes from a few months to a year for some stocks but never forever. This means that you do not have the luxury of holding on to bad trades forever, hoping they will come back in a few years time. Professional options traders like me only enter a single position with money we can afford to lose. If I intend to lose no more than 10% of my account on any one trade, I do not use more than 10% of my account in a single trade. That's right, you NEVER buy a single options position or options contract with all the money you have! Although that would have made sense in stock trading, it is pure suicide and gamble in options trading. The other reason is trading credit spreads or naked option writing without using stop loss.

Putting different options both long and short together produces strategies that go beyond simply profiting when a stock goes up or down. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of options strategies and some are so complex that a single position consists of 4 to 8 different trades utilizing a complex combination of the different order types you learnt above. In fact, each option strategy is a study on its own that requires long period of learning and trading to master. After you have learnt all of the above can you start placing some simple options trades and know exactly what you are doing. See how much learning it takes to place your first options trade? Yes, options trading require investment knowledge that goes beyond merely buying and selling and is as much a science as it is an art. Follow the above steps, do your due diligence and you will be all set for your first options trade.

[crookedtreepoetry]

Data Science Programs

You can enroll and complete the course to earn a shareable certificate, or you'll be able to audit it to view the course materials at no cost. When you subscribe to a course that's a part of a Certificate, you’re automatically subscribed to the total Certificate. Here, we’ll familiarise you with the basics of Data Science, MS Excel and other relevant ideas. We additionally offer a complimentary Python Programming Bootcamp and a profession important gentle expertise program with this course. Our course’s ultimate section introduces you to superior knowledge science concepts and covers topics similar to business intelligence, natural language processing, information engineering, and so forth.

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Students are properly prepared for getting recruited by the top corporations and work efficiently with different job profiles in Data Science. Subjects such as Analytics and Data Science have emerged as the most important needs of every company everywhere in the world. For every exercise that a business performs must be later analysed by information science professionals to extract valuable info. Jain University Entrance Test– This widespread entrance examination is carried out by Jain University, Bangalore to confess students who're excited about pursuing a bachelor’s diploma in information science. Data Science could be outlined as a mixture of implementing varied scientific activities corresponding to mathematics, calculus, graphs, charts, algorithms, computer packages, and much more.

Data science is a "concept to unify statistics, information analysis, informatics, and their associated methods" in order to "understand and analyze actual phenomena" with knowledge. It uses strategies and theories drawn from many fields within the context of mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science, and area knowledge. However, data science is totally different from pc science and data science. Our Master of Science in Data Science is the one on-line MSc program in information science.

Take this course when you’re uncomfortable with the linear algebra and calculus required for machine studying, and also you’ll save some time over other, extra generic math programs. Created by Andrew Ng, maker of the famous Stanford Machine Learning course, this is likely one of the highest rated knowledge science courses on the internet. Python is used in this course, and there’s many lectures going by way of the intricacies of the various knowledge science libraries to work through real-world, attention-grabbing issues. This is likely one of the solely knowledge science programs around that really touches on every a part of the info science process.

You will get job alternatives as soon as they're posted, recommendations to apply matched on to your skills and pursuits, and tips and tips that will help you stand other than the group. Each course sometimes incorporates 3-6 modules with a mean effort of 2 to four hours per module. If learning part-time (e.g. 1 module per week), it might take 6 to 12 months to finish the complete certificate. If learning full-time (e.g. 1 module per day) the certificates could be accomplished in 2 to 3 months. This Specialization is for software engineers, college students, and researchers from any subject, who are excited about machine learning and need to understand how GANs work.

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With the expansion of the economic system of India and the growth of the enterprise sector, knowledge science has a fantastic scope in India. The college students must have accomplished their post-commencement in science with related specialisations corresponding to B.Sc. Statistics, B.Sc. Mathematics, B.Sc. Computer Science, or any other equal diploma from a recognised board or college.

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It’s okay to complete just one course — you can pause your learning or end your subscription at any time. Visit your learner dashboard to track your course enrollments and your progress. This course offers an introduction to information science with no coding involved. In this non-technical course, you’ll be launched to every little thing you had been ever too afraid to ask about this quick-rising and thrilling area, while not having to put in writing a single line of code. In this course, you’ll learn to use the information, how to put together the information so as to perform operations on it. You’ll perceive the whole course of to extract important info from the pile of knowledge.

Besides this, corporations are able to pay good salaries to data analysts. This course is intended for Junior-stage Data Science students, and can allow them to establish, define, and explore numerous potential issues and initiatives, for comply with-up in the capstone course sequence. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate promoting program designed to supply a way for sites to earn promoting charges by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

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I found courses, books, and papers that taught the things I wished to know, and then I utilized them to my project as I was learning. I discovered so much in a such short time period that it looks like an improbable feat if laid out as a curriculum. When becoming a member of any of those courses you need to make the same commitment to studying as you would in direction of a college course.

Yes, 360digitmg is sweet for brief courses that present sufficient info in a short period of time. 360digitmg is an Inexpensive, simple-to-use platform and has extra particular courses on information science. This Machine Learning Training will also assist you to understand the ideas of Statistics, Time Series, and totally different lessons of machine learning algorithms like supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement algorithms. Throughout the Machine Learning Training, you’ll be fixing actual-life case studies on Media, Healthcare, Social Media, Aviation, HR. Self-guided (but structured!) studying paths fully empower your solo research sessions day after day, but there's no purpose to do itall alone.

This is an entry-degree course so don’t count on to get detailed information about the topic. This is the basic step that you need to take so as to lead a successful data analyst profession. You will also know what areas are essential in Data Science and therefore could make informed selections on what areas to concentrate on learning. You can be a part of a couple of these programs to be taught Data Science from scratch and add an in-demand skill to your resume.

Since the primary course in this collection doesn’t spend any time instructing primary Python ideas, you must already be comfy with programming. Spending a while going via a platform like Treehouse would in all probability get you in control for the primary course. An extremely extremely rated course — 4.9/5 on SwichUp and four.8/5 on CourseReport — which is taught live by a knowledge scientist from a prime company.

Python being some of the broadly used languages is the brand new mantra for success. It is the primary tool for analytical professionals and is likely one of the high programming languages within the year 2019. Our purpose is to make the students get acquainted with python and become proficient in the most well-liked programming language.

It is likely one of the greatest options for science graduate students to go for pursuing a Master’s in Data Science after finishing their commencement. Data Science is a subject of study that offers the gathering, analysis, and processing of numerous information or info to extract options. It offers the understanding of many structured and unstructured data with specialised information to get the required insights.

By completing the assignments and lectures, you'll earn the certification of completion, which could be showcased in job purposes. If you’re extra involved within the machine studying aspect of information science, take a look at the Top 5 Machine Learning Courses for 2020 as a complement to this text. When I first began studying information science and machine learning, I began by making an attempt to predict stocks.

If you plan on taking this course it would be a good idea to pair it with a separate statistics and likelihood course as well. With an excellent mixture of theory and software, this course from Harvard is one of the finest for getting began as a newbie. It’s not on an interactive platform, like Coursera or edX, and doesn’t supply any type of certification, however it positively prices your time and it’s totally free. The one downside of this MicroMaster’s, and lots of courses on 360digitmg , is that they aren’t offered as incessantly as different platforms.

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Cassandra Demo

In this second blog post, I am going to show everyone how to create your very own 3 node Cassandra cluster. You will have to have some items set up beforehand. The first item that will need to be created are three different virtual machines, each with a working operation system. In this exercise, I have created three different VM using the VMware Work Station; each with a working Linux Ubuntu OS. (Why Linux Ubuntu? No real reason, I just like that OS. Beware that for different OS, there will be different commands that I might not cover).

The second item that will need to be set up is a two-parter. Both the Java Development Kit and the Python Software Development Kit need to be functional in each VM, for Cassandra to be able to execute properly. In this exercise, I have installed the most current stable version the JDK available. The only thing I will mention, in case anyone is following along with the blog, do remember to include the following line of code in your .bashrc user profile file:

#$ export PATH=$PATH:~/Documents/jdk1.8.0_202/bin

It is the only way Cassandra will recognize that the JDK is running on your OS.

As for the Python SDK, that is a whole another animal all together. The following commands (2 commands) need to be entered on command line, within the Python directory:

#$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local

#$ make

Once this is done, the source code for Python itself has been compiled. You will also need to download PIP, which lets you manage libraries, directories and drivers for Python. Now with the way Python works, you can have several versions of Python present on the same OS. You need to make sure the version you are working with is Python 2.7 (Documentation does say that it supports 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8). The last item you will download for the SDK is the Cassandra-driver, which lets the python interpreter talk to the ./cqlsh program (more on that later).

#$ pip install cassandra-driver.

Why both Java and Python? Cause nothing in programming in ever truly easy. Java is what your Cassandra node uses to execute its programming, because Cassandra itself was written in Java. Now, the CQL Shell or cqlsh for short is the command line shell use to interact with your Cassandra nodes. Python is the native protocol driver for this shell. There is indication when I read the cqlsh documentation, that other languages can be used for talking to the cqlsh; but for the purposes of this blog I will be using Python. I did not go into further research about that particular topic.

The last item you need to research before we can further and start the set up of our Cassandra nodes, is probably the most complicated one of them all. You need to find out the IP address for each of the VM. A simple ip addr, will do the trick. The three ip address for my VM are the following:

Cassandra Node 1 – 192.168.8.135

Cassandra Node 2 – 192.168.8.136

Cassandra Node 3 – 192.168.8.137

Once, the VMs are setup (each with a working OS, JDK, SDK and the IP address are recorded) Cassandra can finally be downloaded. I am working with the latest stable version of Cassandra 3.11.10. Once unzip, the configuration file cassandra.yaml is the only thing that needs to be modified and/or touched.

Just a quick intro before we move on. YAML (or YAML Ain’t Markup Language) is a human-readable data-serialization language, commonly used for configuration files where data is being sorted or transmitted. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that bit of information; there is a lot more to YAML.

With that out of the way, we are going to start setting up our first Cassandra Node, or cass1. There are several things that can to be configured, but there are only two decision that have to be made in this YAML file (When looking from the perspective of this test cluster, in industry a lot more settings would be considered). The first decision is naming the cluster; for the cluster to work, all of the cluster nodes must have a shared name between them. Its how they first recognize themselves within the cluster ring. In my case, I used the cluster name ‘INTP – 362’.

Cluster Name

It is important that you make the name simple and easy to reproduce. My first test cluster had a more complicated name in the intent to be funny, and two of my nodes would not “gossip” to one another (more on gossiping later). And I used copy and paste, which sometimes does not work.

Once the cluster name is decided on. The next decision are the seed nodes and non-seed nodes. A seed node serves two functions:

When a new node joins the cluster, it will learn about the topology of the cluster or ring by contacting a seed node.

 They are also what assist other nodes in gossip convergence.

A seed node is still not a single point of failure; if a seed node “dies”, a cluster can survive without. I choose cass1 and cass2 to be my seed nodes. It is industry standard to at least have 3 seed nodes per cluster; the typical small sized cluster is around 5 nodes. Since, I only have 3 nodes, I decide to just do 2 seed nodes to demonstrate what they do. To set up the seed nodes, the IP address for each of the selected nodes are to be place, in between the double quotes; separate by commas but with no spaces in between (see image below).

Seed Nodes

With the seeds nodes and the cluster name taken care of, the basic decision-making process to get this cluster running is done. I do want to point out that there are many other settings and configurations that can be made through this YAML file. Everything from how many concurrent read or write can be done at a time, which ports each node will use to communicate thought TCP/UDP (Ports 7000, 9042), what is a cache size for different types of operations; so many different settings I am not getting into because really there is no time. But I will speak about to two particular settings that gave a lot of problems for several days. Those are Listen Address and RPC Address.

Just to expand out knowledge base, RPC is a framework or set of tools that allow programmer to call a piece of code in a remote process. Again, there is a lot more to this framework; but that is the bare minimum just to understand why this address is important.

As a default, Listen Address and RPC Address come with the value ‘Localhost’; which should work since they do use the localhost to work. They even suggest just leaving it blank, since that will activate:

InetAddress.getLocalHost()

A protocol that will find the local IP address of the machine and retrieve for use. Except its not reliable, it even mentioned in the configuration file that it might not work. The documentation for both Cassandra and the YAML configuration file does not, to my knowledge, ever mention how to deal with this.  Why do I mention this? Because in this case, the nodes will not actually wake up (at least in my experience). The actual best thing to do, is to actually use the IP Address number itself. My lesson learned here is that sometimes hardcoding an important value is necessary.

What is going on in the background is that the nodes can’t gossip. What is gossip? It’s the protocol that Cassandra uses to communicate between nodes. It’s a peer-to-peer system, that periodically exchanges state information about themselves and about other nodes in the ring. Basically, Cassandra nodes are just gossiping all the time, about how they are doing.

The gossiping protocol is very similar to the TCP three-way handshake; so much so that in the Cassandra server start up process, it is called a handshake. In the image below, you can the different Cassandra nodes handshaking each other.

Handshake

I think that is enough for now about the YAML configuration file; there is a lot more to it, entire Wikipedia pages just dedicated to explaining each one of the different settings. We are moving to yet another program that needs to be install for Cassandra to run. Why didn’t I mention this one before? Because its not mentioned anywhere (Note: I am not bitter about this).

iptables is this cool linux utility that lets you block or allow traffic, it’s a neat firewall. Cassandra needs it install and running to be able to gossip to other nodes. In iptables, there are policy chains, which are:

Input - this is for incoming connections.

Forward - incoming connections not being delivered locally, think a router.

Output - this is for outgoing connections.

Now, I only had so much time to actually research iptables and all its useful commands. Due to time constraints I concentrated on understanding the command I needed to run my Cassandra nodes. The command is:

#$ sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 192.168.8.135 -m multiport --dports 7000,9042 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

A – Type of policy

p – Type of connection the protocol uses

s – Is the IP address to listen for

m multiport – is when there are multiple ports

dport – The ports to listen for

m state – The state of the connection (The only states I know of are NEW and ESTABLISHED)

j – Is the command for the response policy (Accept, Drop or Reject)

This command must be done on each node, with the other nodes IP address (so the command must be entered twice in each node). Finally, Cassandra will be run. There is an order to these things. Seed nodes must be woken up first before non-seed nodes, it is the only caveat to waking up Cassandra nodes to start gossiping.

To confirm that the nodes are running and gossiping, Cassandra comes with application called nodetool. The application will take different commands, the only one we care about at the moment is the status command.

Nodetool program

The UN means Up and Normal, which is really the piece of information we care about. This means each node on the rack is running. Since we have confirmed all the Cassandra nodes are up and running. The CQL shell program can be started. In the bin directory, the following commands needs to be typed:

#$ ./cqlsh 192.168.8.135

The IP address at the end of the command must be the IP address of the node you want to access. As you can see from the image below, I am still in Cassandra node 1. But I am able to access another Cassandra node though its IP address.

Accessing different nodes

With the CQL shell running, we can finally explore the CQL language. It is very similar to SQL, super similar. It is basically the same thing (at least syntax-wise it does not behave the same way), with some key exception. All the relational part of SQL is non-existent in CQL. That means no JOINS, no FOREIGN KEYS, none of that stuff. But the following commands, are all permissible (and again Syntax is the same, but the behavior of the command might be different):

Alter

Create

Delete

Insert

Select

Update

Where

There are more commands, I am just showcasing the classic ones. Let’s start with the creation of a KEYSPACE (Database in the SQL world). The command is the following:

#$ CREATE KEYSPACE test WITH replication = {‘class’:’SimpleStrategy’, ‘replication_factor’ : 3};

Finally, replication at work. There are two replication classes. The SimpleStrategy class, which will assign the same replication factor to the entire cluster. This is used for evaluation purposes, single data center test (Like what I am doing in this blog), and development environments. In industry they use the second class, called ‘NetworkTopologyStrategy’. This strategy is for assigning the replication factor to each data center in a comma separated list, giving you more flexibility and control. The Data center names must match the snitches data center name. In a real data center, there are snitch nodes; in basic terms the snitch determines which data centers and racks nodes belong to. The snitch allows network topology to be discovered, thus making routing more efficient.

A note about replication factor for both strategies, the number does not have match the number of nodes present in your cluster. It is not a requirement for the command to run. There can be a KEYSPACE with a replication factor of 2, in a 5 nodes cluster. It is documented that it is recommended that your replication factor does not exceed the number of nodes present in your cluster (But again this will not cause any immediate problems). The following command is not recommended, with my current cluster set up:

#$ CREATE KEYSPACE test WITH replication = {‘class’:’SimpleStrategy’, ‘replication_factor’ : 4};

But it is permissible. Why? The idea of scaling. I could start setting up KEYSPACEs with replication factor of 4 in my cluster right now, and add a new node (cass4) in the future.

Now that we have our KEYSPACE set up. We can now proceed to create a table and inserting some data.

#$ CREATE TABLE student (name text PRIMARY KEY, id int, age int);

#$ INSERT INTO student(name,id,age) VALUES (‘alex’,105,32);

With everything set up correctly, we can see the replication happening. I used cass1 to insert my data. And the KEYSPACE, TABLE and data was replicated into the other nodes.

Cassandra Node 1 – test data

Cassandra Node 2 – test data

Cassandra Node 3 – test data

As observed in all three different nodes, the student table is present.

The last cool thing I am going to show you, is how UPDATEs are a bit different in CQL vs SQL. In SQL an UPDATE command is both a read and a write; and this is important to note, because it first reads the tablespace and if the WHERE clause is not present the UPDATE will not happen. In CQL, the UPDATE command is only a write. This means that if the WHERE clause of an UPDATE command is based on a primary key (see example below), the UPDATE will happen as an INSERT if the row does not exist. I will showcase this in action, in the demo video.

UPDATE command in CQL

I hope this blog brought to light some of the lessons I learned while trying to navigate my way through Cassandra. Lessons like the value of documentation, but that ultimately there might be vital information missing; further research into some unexpected places might be need; and even some trial and error might be a possible avenue. I also hope I help shed some light on the world of NOSQL, and the cool application (cool to me at least) that is Cassandra.

Thank you so much for reading my blog

Here is the Demo Video.