What is Ripple? - Bitcoin Magazine

There is a web of invisible slime that reaches out from the artificial traditions of psychological think tanks, like The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, whose roots trace back to the Vienna Psychology Club; a web that stretches across the entire world and inserts itself into your lives in intrusive, unethical and corrupt ways. Groups are deceiving you for a dollar, for a vote, for your personal information, for your labor; for your body and soul. This deception is carried out using every screen you look at, every song offered to you, every sign on a billboard, every popular book, magazine and newspaper.
If you want honest information; if you want to see past the slime, you are going to have to look hard for it. If you are just starting down your journey of being cognizant of the deception, the scope is difficult to believe but well borne out by the evidence. We all know the news is dishonest, but the common myth is that it is for the ratings and for the views. The ways in which the news is dishonest is what is really difficult for people to swallow and the “why” still very much in debate until you understand the framework by which they operate.
Systemic corruption is no exception to the march of modernization; more sophisticated than ever and more capable of staying hidden to the average person. Modern day slavers control the narrative and the reason it is a spiritual conflict between good and evil is because there are a very small group of people who believe that stealing your agency/free will/consciousness lends itself to their ability to become gods, in their own right.
Understanding that the elite have deep occult traditions is important, though often scoffed at. However, to advertise their power and influence, occult messages are constantly and publicly advertised back and forth between these groups. It is no theory that think tanks have studied and implemented cult behavior even going so far as to create artificial cults in which to entrap people.
Faceless, emotionless, unempathetic organizations that are merely constructed of words on paper are able to impose these cult tactics on you with impunity and in secrecy. This is the heart of the problem; when it comes to an organization, company, agency, church, etc., these abstract constructs are very much not human, at all. Their existence is alien and unknown to human instincts, who assign human attributes naturally and without conscious thought. These constructs take advantage of normal, honest, empathetic individuals by mimicking empathy, not by actually being empathetic.
There are more slaves, now, than ever in human history and the methods of enslaving are far more insidious than ever. Modern slavery networks and the corrupt political ecosystems that allow them to endure are the heart of mankind’s problems. If we, as a society, were able to address the corruption that keeps these networks alive, then we, as society, would solve a lot of problems surrounding organized crime, in general, not just the problem human trafficking.
How do we do that? It is very simple; “Zero Trust” policies in organizations and 100% government transparency. That’s it. A great deal of time, effort and money are spent making sure these issues never hit the ballot box and are never part of the platform of a candidate you are given the option to vote for. The movies you watch are constantly reminding you of dangers that allow a select group of idiots to maintain secrecy that is undeserved and clearly wielded for uses other than helping society.
Common sense solutions are not prioritized by the media and politicians. Don’t be a part of the destruction of common sense and common courtesy. Stop taking the bait. Stop taking the path of least resistance. We are all guilty, but pushing yourself to be better and do better has a ripple effect in the world around you. Being a terrible person also has a ripple effect. There are enough bad ripples.
The concept of an “epiphany” is an important one; where a person’s mind changes on a physical, neurochemical level to the extent that their world view changes. The moment a person is “red pilled” is an epiphany and it is very much the concern of media and Internet shills and their manipulative overlords because they do not want people to have the realization that the system is corrupt from top to bottom and that both sides of most narratives. But, if you do have that realization, there is a plan for you; to do nothing and sit idly by as corrupt forces continue their work. When you have an epiphany, the neurochemical storm actually is a moment where you are most suggestible and most ready to be manipulated.
If you manage to raise your level of awareness across multiple narratives, the system almost doesn’t need to care about you, anymore, as they have likely already moved you to inaction and made you unwilling to tell others the truth.
While there is a great deal of science that goes behind manipulating people, the tradition is as old as human history, itself; it’s origins, magical from the perspective of the ancients. Whether you call mass manipulation “hypnosis,” “psychology,” “magic” or “science,” the fact of the matter is that it is there in a more constant form than ever, impossible to avoid, and invisible to those who aren’t paying attention or willing to research and think for themselves.
Like the idea of dark matter, you cannot see it directly (at least, when done well), but should be able to test and compare data data in different circumstances to detect it. There are many confirmed real world examples of mass manipulation that people should be aware of, because it is very easy for people to believe that it is not happening to them.
Many say that is too big of a conspiracy to keep secret; though we already see how it works with a variety of leaks, court cases and plenty of proven real world examples. If you encounter this argument, you have probably encountered someone who is hypnotized into misunderstanding the word “conspiracy”, where a group of people work together to commit crimes.
One easy way to create a consensus across media organizations is to enter into “non disparagement agreements.” For example, HBO entered into a non-disparagement agreement with Michael Jackson’s attorneys. A recent court case established that the agreement remains in effect even after his death. This means, with the right law firm, someone can enter into many unknown non disparagement agreements with many companies.
It sounds weird, but this is like black magic. Occult literally means hidden. Secret words have been spelled out that the public is not aware of, but creates the illusion that there is a consensus about any given personality; like say a politician, a singer or an actor. A web of mutual non-disparagement agreements works as a form of forensic interruption, preventing people being held accountable for crimes.
Between non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements, there is a web of protected relationships where people, products and even governments are not allowed to be discussed in a negative light.
This has created an extortion racket by the media. If you don’t buy in, then you are fair game. Not only are you fair game, they will harass you until you buy in because they literally need something to do due to their lack of ability to speak negatively about their cohorts.
When you consider the nexus between government and media, the problem is compounded when you introduce the concept of keeping things secret for national security. Policy has created the circumstance that corporate and secret government interests are intertwined and they become aligned in keeping each other out of jail.
While a lot of this is managed at upper echelons, the system is merely taking advantage of human nature, which is why the government and media should be operating from a “zero trust” standpoint and not the other way around, like it currently is. There is and never has been any reason to trust the media or the government, and doubly so when their interests are aligned. There are many proven real world examples.
The first ingredient to modern mass hypnosis is saturation and repetition. Your first clue that the message is artificial is when many corporate, government and astroturfing battlegrounds all agree on the same thing.
Not only is a contrived message oft-repeated, it is generally very polarized; where, due to cognitive bias, it is designed for consumption by both sides with the ideal result of making one side feel schadenfreude and the other side feel outrage and injustice. Just being aware of this polarization tactic and allowing yourself to have more nuanced opinions that the black or white ones offered up to you, is incredibly effective at not taking the bait.
“Systems Psychodynamics” is the name of the psychological framework that is used to monitor and control people, primarily based on attacking and reforming “basic assumptions.” By controlling everyone’s basic assumptions using the repetitious push and pulling narratives, the levers of political and monetary behavior are controlled through “influencers.” This framework reads like it was written for social media, though, in reality, it is much older; social media merely enhances the effects.
One easy way to detect the agenda and the widespreadness of the corruption, without even knowing the finer points of mass persuasion techniques, is to see what is censored. Generally, the astroturfing campaigns seek to drown out good information that is contrary to their cause. However, when you find some information that is very damaging to their narrative, especially before they’ve scripted a response, it gets removed. Eventually, they will write up a standard response, but this takes time.
For this reason, I incubate a number of censorship experiments across multiple sites. While people easily get away with discussions about aliens and flat earth, conversations about modern slavery are shut down everywhere; particularly if you call people to action in reporting crimes. Sites that purport to be “free speech” will not allow you to openly hunt human traffickers and the “system” seems to hate vigilantes more than anything.
Most recently, the censorship around Covid “truth” is heaviest. Censorship of doctors has been swift and totalitarian. However, because I see generally what gets censored, first, I knew this was all a scam from Day One. The first SARS COV 2 tests, up until March, were merely SARS COV tests. Very literally. The SARS COV 2 tests hadn’t been invented, yet. Explaining that the body produces the CR3022 protein (what the antibody tests look for) for all human affecting coronaviruses was heavily censored. Even now, explaining this basic fact that exposes why a great deal of testing is fraudulent, is struck from both Right and Left astroturfing machines. If you really want a rabbit hole to dig through, search the coronavirus pandemic bonds that matured March 23, 2020.
Prior to that, the name “Eric Ciaramella” was one of the most censored things on the Internet. Censored, in that the information was deleted immediately. The motivations behind these multi-site censorship campaigns should have everyone concerned because it is consistently in support of Democrat and RINO narratives, politically, and always in favor of human traffickers.
However, even the Q Anon group will censor you with a variety of tactics if you speak of certain things in the wrong way or mention the possibility that they, themselves, are part of an astroturfing outfit. Fox News still won’t give a fair shake to the Uranium One/Skolkovo/Troika Laundromat evidence and it betrays them as controlled opposition/ a limited hangout, since it would destroy the Democrats.
Any “side” of politics you can be on, whether it’s fringe or mainstream or Right or Left, every group has limits to what truthful statements they will tolerate and the nexus where all the groups meet in alignment is when it comes to discussing modern day slavery and who is profiting from it.
Simply removing content is very overt and complaining about it to those who do it will usually earn you a mute or a ban. Running a “brand” across multiple platforms requires conformity to social media company ideologies, or you will be subjected to any and all means of censorship.
Covert means of censorship are also rampant. Upvotes.Club offers a service that not only promotes the content you want, but downvotes topics that run contrary to your marketing strategy. This is one of many astroturfing services. Shadow banning is another tactic that can be difficult to detect. “Deboosting” is common in social platforms, as well, where the number or type of viewers who see your content is limited. This breeds “echo chambers” across multiple Internet communities.
Out of frustration and curiosity, I began experimenting with different ways to engage with the shill communities. Very often, their own tactics work quite well against them. Years into this push and pull with these groups, my best strategy has evolved to monitor them as they often telegraph economic opportunity and subvert them from behind a layer of complexity a shill script can’t understand and is unable to deal with. When I noticed Bitcoin was being heavily shilled, I saw a signal to buy early. This was the catalyst for rethinking everything I was doing.
When I noticed that there was blatant fraud in the media about SARS COV 2, I noticed the exact same behavior I had seen before when I struck it rich with Bitcoin. I even went to my audience and said on a podcast, “the market will be back to normal levels in a month… six tops.” I bought the dip, knowing the numbers were fully overblown. My $TSLA experience has been quite enriching.
Every day, in the stock trading communities, shills are looking to pump and dump stocks and groups are spending money to illegally manipulate the stock market. However, you can use different ways to monitor social media to detect potential pumps and dumps. If you start seeing the same thing show up on different platforms, among different known shill groups, you know someone has paid for a pump and dump. So long as you have a set, small percentage to gain, you can avoid the pitfalls and get out early.
Right now, that is my “edge”, in trading. I don’t feel nearly as obligated to spread the truth to others, since I’ve realigned my priorities. These technological tools for being the first to news items, to new evidence, finding new ways of searching existing information; not only does it help you navigate past censorship, you can use it to make more “realistic” decisions about the world around you.
Politics and the stock market are inextricably linked. To be informed on one, is to be informed on the other. When you begin to pull in more intersecting information, like “systems psychodynamics” and overall agendas of differing groups, you are expanding your knowledge and your consciousness so that your intellect has more of a real world impact.
When you delve deep into ancient traditions, you will, eventually, learn of alchemy; usually the pursuit of endless wealth or the search for immortality. Day trading well is, essentially, modern day alchemy in that you are making money from thin air. Musicians transform what is in their mind into a product that can be sold. There are many forms of alchemy. Bitcoin is another great example of modern day alchemy. In my humble opinion, augmenting your own well-disciplined intellect with good computing practices can make you a modern day wizard; an alchemist.
Many people were saturated with pro-Nihilism marketing and ate it up with their Cheerio's while listening to Nirvana CDs. A couple of generations of nihilists later, combined with portable dopamine trap screens from waking moment 'til slumber, and people are literally having a hard time finding a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Being a successful trader heals a lot of the damage from that consumerist propaganda and forces people to interact with the natural causes of their decision making.
The Market is not racist. The only color you have to worry about is green. The market does not celebrate your success or mock your failures. The opinions of critics do not count.
The Market does not care about your feelings or anyone else's.
All people enter the Market equal and there are no participation awards. There is no busywork. Your test scores do not matter. All that matters are results and that type of black and white simplicity makes the Market the most sane aspect of society, right now.
Though most of the obvious stocks have since reached preCovid normality, it has been easy to make money by sorting every ticker by Feb 20 high, then subtract the current price, calculate potential gain when they return to their old price and pick ones that had a high probability of doubling or tripling your money the fastest.
I understand it seems tangential, the stock market angle, but when you are routinely called a “conspiracy theorist”, it helps to be as realistic as possible and there is no better way to prove your theories than by putting your money where your mouth is.
The stock market is a vessel from which normal people (”retail investors”) are scammed constantly, for the benefit of institutional investors. The Epsteins, the Soros’, all the political elite; they are playing in this realm and they graduated to using AI and machine learning to augment their schemes years ago. In order to understand the elite, you have to understand their playground.
In order to compete in the information age, you need to augment your intellect using technology. If nothing else, use it to be meticulously organized. If you get organized in only one aspect of your life, make it your finances.
The Democratic party uses the ADA AI, named from Ada Lovelace and a competitor, in 2016, Cambridge Analytica, was used by the Republicans. These AI’s are augmented with databases and metadatabases of everything that can be served up by a social media APIs. They know everything about you and they don’t spy on your microphones, cameras and screenshots to catch you at crimes; they are spying on you in order to better teach you how to vote and spend money.
Combined with an army of astroturfing accounts, these AIs are quite good at manipulating what shows up on your screen. This type of censorship is bad for stock traders, researchers and people who just want a few honest answers.
In order to compete a bit better, I have taken to making by own custom feeds and scrapers, so that I can database text of many sites and subjects, which then is far easier to search, but is also able to sort information so that I can find what I am looking for in a few minutes, as opposed to trawling the same channels or search engines everyday and learning relatively little. I am really on the hunt for stuff that is voted up or noticed organically and is in that stage before it catches on by a shill group. I incorporate a lot of OSINT tools and I like to collect leaked databases to be able to compare information. It is very helpful to use machine learning to detect what I need as quickly as possible and serve it up to me, first.
Applying my own knowledge of how the astroturfing system works, I have developed strategies to target influencers with new and original information and I can quickly and easily get it to them without influencers even knowing I am the source of the information. I just have to identify the correct group to get my message out, then make sure their leaders see the information, who will naturally post it on their own and their followers will naturally vote information up for free. I don’t do this with stocks (questionable legality), but I do feed good news to the right people and I exert a lot less effort to get ideas across all platforms than I used to.
No astroturfing groups are into anti-consumerist ideas. “Hydro Homies” and “No Fap” are two great examples that recommend people be anti-consumerist and avoid specific products. As a result, these movements, despite being healthy and productive, have a lot of trouble gaining traction. There is no mainstream push for a truly healthy agenda. All contrived movements must pay to astroturf and shill because, otherwise, embracing their products and ideas is contrary to your well being. No shill group is working to save you money or trying to convince you to make the right decision, for yourself.
There are certain messages almost no one will add social media velocity to; detailed instructions on how to report crimes or catch pedophiles, leaked information that hurts both sides of the political spectrum, anything a little too technical or complex.
There are already efforts to make hijack the anti-human trafficking crowd. They will be tricked into meaningless pursuits that have no real world consequence. Money will be raised and wasted. News article after news article will be pumped out detailing how everyone is supporting victims and raising awareness. Meanwhile; nobody of consequence is arrested. The mining industry will continue to use forced labor and the networks they use will also feed the sex slavery and domestic servitude and the systemic policies and corrupt politicians will continue on unimpeded.
Let’s hope that changes, but it will require a lot more people getting off their asses and getting involved. It will require a lot more people speaking up outside of their echo chambers.
Ready. Set. Go.

Period: 364.36 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	1000	166290
Rate (per day)	2.74	453.02
Unique Redditors	660	27058
Combined Score	792038	1162121

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 26553 points, 23 submissions: Kashpantz
   
   1. When you are a known scammer in the crypto space and get called out by one of your investors. Exciting times indeed. (2573 points, 239 comments)
   2. The Gloves Are Off. Ripple laying into J.P Morgan As They Enter The Crypto Space. (2087 points, 556 comments)
   3. The Scam That Is Volitility & Fees (2076 points, 322 comments)
   4. Pretty much this sums it up for crypto and politics. (1836 points, 118 comments)
   5. Don't look at ATHs, the story starts when you look at ATLs. (1777 points, 223 comments)
   6. Is this unjust? Where a bank can shut you down for investing in the cannabis industry even if it's legal in your country or state? A perfect use case for crypto where it is borderless and censorship resistant. No longer the banks are the gatekeepers of our own money. (1656 points, 280 comments)
   7. Some Simple Tips to Avoid Traps in the Crypto Sphere. (1565 points, 251 comments)
   8. Complaining about a bear market will get you nowhere. Step back and always look at the bigger picture of what is being built. Good tech takes time. (1470 points, 281 comments)
   9. What kind of money do you want? Permissioned or Controlled? We still have time to decide. (1405 points, 310 comments)
   10. Network Values. Who has raised the most are often not the most important. What's the point of all of this? (1241 points, 218 comments)
2. 17706 points, 3 submissions: mtimetraveller
   
   1. The true power of Bitcoin 🔥 (14644 points, 1280 comments)
   2. Microsoft Excel recognizes Bitcoin as a currency (2627 points, 164 comments)
   3. Anthony Pompliano is calling on all #cryptocurrency exchanges to delete #BitcoinSV on May 1, 2019, as a repudiation of the claims of #CraigWright and Calvin Ayre that #BSV is the “real Bitcoin.” (435 points, 130 comments)
3. 11600 points, 13 submissions: coinsmash1
   
   1. Andrew Yang wants to Employ Blockchain in voting. "It’s ridiculous that in 2020 we are still standing in line for hours to vote in antiquated voting booths. It is 100% technically possible to have fraud-proof voting on our mobile phone" (4351 points, 586 comments)
   2. Bitcoin vs Gold - $180 billion vs ~$7 trillion market cap... (1551 points, 285 comments)
   3. Number of confirmed Bitcoin transactions per day hits highest level since last bull run (1132 points, 270 comments)
   4. Litecoin hits $125 as mining hash rate reaches new all-time high (983 points, 325 comments)
   5. Bitcoin at $8,000 (759 points, 172 comments)
   6. Just checking I got this; you can now cryptographically audit the ‘locked’ holdings of $600 million worth of BTC, ETH and Dai—and it looks like this has been in a bull market since Oct 2017... (512 points, 58 comments)
   7. $100 million in Liquidations over the last 6 hours ($60m Shorts vs 40m Longs) (485 points, 150 comments)
   8. 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang talks Bitcoin and Blockchain (432 points, 269 comments)
   9. $79 million worth of shorts liquidated 🥺 (349 points, 58 comments)
   10. Ouch, $28 mil of shorts just got squeezed into liquidation (313 points, 64 comments)
4. 9313 points, 1 submission: flafel
   
   1. Ladies and gentlemen, $10,000 = 1 Bitcoin once again. (9313 points, 612 comments)
5. 8750 points, 6 submissions: 1Lost_King1
   
   1. This is just priceless! (3989 points, 299 comments)
   2. We'll he is kind right! (1977 points, 202 comments)
   3. Yellow vests, Paris! (1202 points, 80 comments)
   4. Coinbase now has more than 30 million users! (909 points, 132 comments)
   5. Crypto is the way! (364 points, 59 comments)
   6. Strong words! (309 points, 81 comments)
6. 8063 points, 8 submissions: jam-hay
   
   1. Facebook unveils ‘its most invasive and dangerous form of surveillance yet’ with launch of Libra cryptocurrency (2684 points, 369 comments)
   2. Apple CEO Tim Cook slams Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency as a power grab (1209 points, 145 comments)
   3. Truth be told, this isnt the best entry point for no-coiners new to the sub to start buying into crypto for the first time so please exercise caution. (1134 points, 268 comments)
   4. President Xi Says China Should ‘Seize Opportunity’ to Adopt Blockchain (1115 points, 206 comments)
   5. Booking.com becomes latest firm to drop out of Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency (874 points, 82 comments)
   6. Tomorrow it will be a DECADE since Satoshi created the genesis block and Bitcoin will be 10 years old! (574 points, 55 comments)
   7. This classic from former IMF, World Bank & Federal Reserve Economist that predicted the financial crisis of 2008 (244 points, 69 comments)
   8. Facebooks Libra runs into immediate opposition in Europe (229 points, 92 comments)
7. 7547 points, 5 submissions: hodlorcrypt
   
   1. Hope you guys have better plans for this evening than this (2952 points, 182 comments)
   2. Someone doesn't belong here... (1657 points, 321 comments)
   3. How it feels sometimes when reading the /CryptoCurrency Daily Discussion (1559 points, 297 comments)
   4. Happy Friday everyone. Hope you all have a green weekend! (1094 points, 98 comments)
   5. A lighthearted reminder not to spend more than you can afford (285 points, 41 comments)
8. 7112 points, 7 submissions: Fly115
   
   1. Elon Musk tweets 'Ethereum' (2908 points, 459 comments)
   2. Don't get poor slowly (1861 points, 302 comments)
   3. I made a Cryptocurrency tracking spreadsheet complete with live crypto price updates, moon math, and a full history of your Portfolio and trading performance (Updated). (1151 points, 133 comments)
   4. Jordan Peterson tweets - "Time magazine praises Bitcoin as a potential bastion of freedom" (468 points, 383 comments)
   5. Elon Musk: Dogecoin rulz (256 points, 26 comments)
   6. A single Bitcoin Cash address is responsible for nearly 50 percent of the networks transactions in the past month. (250 points, 87 comments)
   7. Trade volume on Bakkt is at new highs. (218 points, 87 comments)
9. 6814 points, 1 submission: dinono33
   
   1. This is why adoption and the US is so behind when it comes to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency. Have a look at this shocking video from Congress. (6814 points, 720 comments)
10. 6770 points, 1 submission: YoJoee
    
    1. Sarah nailed it. (6770 points, 397 comments)

Top Commenters

1. Toyake (10153 points, 709 comments)
2. throwawayLouisa (7600 points, 1241 comments)
3. martinkarolev (5838 points, 106 comments)
4. bortkasta (5216 points, 640 comments)
5. Qwahzi (4961 points, 476 comments)
6. bLbGoldeN (4535 points, 426 comments)
7. hungryforitalianfood (4148 points, 334 comments)
8. Trident1000 (3469 points, 309 comments)
9. 500239 (3372 points, 606 comments)
10. UpDown (3118 points, 346 comments)

Top Submissions

1. The true power of Bitcoin 🔥 by mtimetraveller (14644 points, 1280 comments)
2. Ladies and gentlemen, $10,000 = 1 Bitcoin once again. by flafel (9313 points, 612 comments)
3. This is why adoption and the US is so behind when it comes to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency. Have a look at this shocking video from Congress. by dinono33 (6814 points, 720 comments)
4. Sarah nailed it. by YoJoee (6770 points, 397 comments)
5. Trump: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.” by Tmfallon (6285 points, 1648 comments)
6. How I successfully converted $1200 into $340 with crypto! by warnakey (5012 points, 582 comments)
7. Andrew Yang wants to Employ Blockchain in voting. "It’s ridiculous that in 2020 we are still standing in line for hours to vote in antiquated voting booths. It is 100% technically possible to have fraud-proof voting on our mobile phone" by coinsmash1 (4351 points, 586 comments)
8. The inevitable by AceOrigins (4342 points, 364 comments)
9. Over last 3 years, Wells Fargo bank got caught. Paid gov’t $2.7 billion in total fines, penalties for ripoffs. Yet bank’s profit over same 3 years = $ 60 billion. Total fines, penalties = 4.7% of profits. Trivial. No wonder banks keep ripping us off. by skythe4 (4245 points, 215 comments)
10. $12,000 by Phitzdisco666 (4173 points, 641 comments)

Top Comments

1. 2212 points: absoluteknave's comment in Wife of Norwegian billionaire kidnapped – Ransom to be paid in monero ($10.3 million)
2. 1668 points: thekiyote's comment in When BTC reached $8k in 2017, it reached $18k within 20 days
3. 1655 points: Metalgear_ray's comment in BTC Dump: Pure Whale Manipulation
4. 1460 points: flunky_the_majestic's comment in Isn't it scary? What do you think of this?
5. 1272 points: Jobsternz's comment in How I successfully converted $1200 into $340 with crypto!
6. 1204 points: CarpetThorb's comment in 99% of you won't hold through the entirety of the next bull run
7. 1068 points: Brunswickstreet's comment in Justin Sun Not Giving the Tesla to The Winner they Announced First
8. 1024 points: Lard_of_Dorkness's comment in Elon Musk tweets 'Ethereum'
9. 1023 points: martinkarolev's comment in Still in its adolescence ...
10. 957 points: willzyx01's comment in 99% of you won't hold through the entirety of the next bull run

Generated with BBoe's Subreddit Stats

When it comes to producing Bitcoin, China is the pre-eminent power in the world. The People’s Republic boasts the largest mining companies, and dominates the manufacture of chips and other equipment used to mine Bitcoin. A U.S. startup wants to change all that with a bold plan to make Texas the global hub of Bitcoin mining.
On Tuesday, San Francisco-based Layer1 announced it has raised $50 million from billionaire Peter Thiel and others to move forward with its plan, which includes running its own power sub-station and purchasing solar and wind energy produced on the plains of West Texas.
According to co-founder Alex Liegl, Layer1’s facility will consist of dozens of acres that lie 150 miles west of Midland, Texas—”literally in the middle of nowhere”—and will rely on a proprietary new technology for cooling the chips used to mine Bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining, which consumes large amounts of electricity, typically takes place in colder areas where it is easier to prevent equipment from overheating. Layer1, however, believes its cooling technology will make Texas a viable location despite the heat. The state also offers additional benefits in the form of light regulation and cheap power.
One Bitcoin is currently worth around $8,300—well off its all time of nearly $20,000 in late 2017 but still much higher than 2016 when it traded as low as $300. Under Bitcoin’s mining system, miners compete to win an award distributed every ten minutes or so. Currently, the reward is 12.5 Bitcoins—a figure that will halve to 6.25 next May.
Liegl says Layer1 aspires to be the biggest Bitcoin miner in the world by controlling all aspects of the process—from chip manufacturing to electricity production to cooling. In the longer term, the company plans to use its mining facilities as a base layer for a larger cryptocurrency enterprise that will include financial services.
Layer1 launched in late 2018, with Liegl then describing it as an “activist fund for cryptocurrencies” that would invest in protocols, including a privacy focused project called Grin. At the time, the startup did not disclose mining aspirations, and raised a modest $2.1 million from Thiel, Digital Currency Group and the late investor Jeffrey Tarrant.
“From an ideological perspective, for Bitcoin to grow into its multi-trillion potential, it needs a U.S. company to lead,” says Liegl. “This ideology resonates with Peter [Thiel] and our other investors.”
Despite Layer1’s large ambitions, its backers—which also include Shasta Ventures and undisclosed wealthy cryptocurrency owners—are keeping a decidedly low-profile for the new investment, which gives Layer1 a valuation of $200 million. Thiel and other investors declined to be interviewed for this story.
Crypto mining in recent years has been a ferociously competitive business, but Layer 1 believes changes in the industry have provided an opening to wrest market power from China.

A new Bitcoin mining strategy

In the early years of Bitcoin, from 2009 to roughly 2013, it was viable to mine the cryptocurrency by using a home laptop, like Liegl did when he got his start mining Bitcoin in his Stanford University dorm room. The mining process involves solving random math problems that determine who will build the next block on Bitcoin’s blockchain—a tamper-proof ledger of transactions. The first to solve the math problem also receives a reward in the form of Bitcoins.
As the cryptocurrency caught on and prices soared, however, companies began designing special computers optimized to mine Bitcoin. This in turn led miners to join crypto mining pools—combining their computing power in order to share the proceeds whenever a member receives a Bitcoin reward.
China has dominated the Bitcoin mining industry—estimates say it accounts for around 60% of production—in large part because its government has provided miners with cheap access to electricity. The leading company has been Beijing-based Bitmain, which runs two massive mining pools and is also the leading seller of the specialized chips now needed to mine Bitcoin.
But Bitmain has stumbled in recent months. While the company’s 33-year-old CEO boasted in mid-2018 of grand plans to use artificial intelligence to further dominate the mining world, Bitmain has since suffered large losses and had to lay off half of its staff of 3,000.
Bitmain’s troubles weren’t the only factor revealing an opening in Bitcoin mining for Layer1. Liegl says the dynamic of mining has shifted. He thinks buying the latest custom chips previously gave miners an edge, but now the tech has become commoditized.
“From 2012-2019, it was mining 1.0 and a function of (capital expenditure) and who can get the newest chip first,” Liegl says. “Now, we’re in 2.0, where (operating expenses) matter most.”
Under this thesis, Layer1 believes its plans to develop “full-stack” operations in West Texas will let it capture market share—in part because it won’t be vulnerable to third party suppliers raising prices when the price of Bitcoin goes up.

An industry in flux

In moving into West Texas, Layer1 may have to tread cautiously given that the region has been burned by the cryptocurrency industry in the past. In July, _Wired_magazine ran a feature article describing how Bitmain promised the town of Rockland, Texas hundreds of good jobs operating mining pools, but then abruptly pulled out, despite a concerted good-will campaign by local officials.
Liegl, who says his colleagues at Layer1 include veterans of Apple, Google, and Goldman Sachs, plans to proceed much differently. He says the company will be respectful of government officials, and local sensibilities.
If Layer1 can successfully become a major force in the mining world, the company’s presence could shake up the geo-politics of Bitcoin. In recent years, there have been fears that China’s dominance could lead miners in that country to collude in order to manipulate records on the blockchain that records all Bitcoin transactions. If American companies can make major inroads into mining, Liegl says, Bitcoin will become more decentralized—a key tenet for the cryptocurrency’s supporters.
Layer1 isn’t the only North American company to plan a big move into crypto mining. Canada-based Blockstream, a consultancy with ties to many Bitcoin insiders, revealed it is building massive data centers for Bitcoin mining in the province of Quebec and in Adel, Georgia.
“There’s definitely an opportunity to take away market share from some of the other firms,” says Samson Mow, Blockstream’s chief strategy officer. “(Specialized chips) have started to reach their limits in terms of efficiency, so the playing field will continue to level off.”

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—Digital assets will ‘trickle, trickle, trickle—then flood,’ State Street exec says
—Credit Karma is launching a savings account, but ‘high yield’ is relative—IRS’s new cryptocurrency rules create ‘messy’ problems for industry
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By Katharine Brush Night Club PROMPTLY at quarter of ten P.M. Mrs. Brady descended the steps of the Elevated. She purchased from the newsdealer in the cubbyhole be- neath them a next month's magazine and an tomorrow morning's paper and, with these tucked under one plump arm, she walked. She walked two blocks north on Sixth Avenue; turned and went west. But not far west. Westward half a block only, to the place where the gay green awning marked "Club Français" paints a stripe of shade across the glimmer- ing sidewalk. Under the awning Mrs. Brady halted briefly, to remark to the six-foot doorman that it looked like rain and to await his perform- ance of his professional duty. When the small green door yawned open, she sighed deeply and plodded in. The foyer was a blackness, an air- less velvet blackness like the inside of a jeweler's box. Four drum-shaped lamps of golden silk suspended from the ceiling gave it light (a very little) and formed the jewels: gold signets, those, or cuff links for a giant. At the far end of the foyer there were black stair, faintly dusty, rippling upward toward an amber radiance. Mrs. Brady approached and ponderously mounted the stairs, clinging with one fist to the mangy velvet rope that railed their edge. From the top, Miss Lena Levin observed the ascent. Miss Levin was the checkroom girl. She had dark-at- the roots blonde hair and slender hips upon which, in moments of leisure, she wore her hands, like buckles of ivory loosely attached. This was a moment of leisure. Miss Levin waited behind her counter. Row upon row of hooks, empty as yet, and seeming to beckon——wee curved fingers of iron——waited be- hind her. "Late," said Miss Levin, "again." "Go wan!" said Mrs. Brady. "It's only ten to ten. Whew! Them stairs!" She leaned heavily, sideways, against Miss Levin's counter, and, applying one palm to the region of her heart, appeared at once to listen and to count. "Feel!" she cried then in a pleased voice. Miss Levin obediently felt. "Them stairs," continued Mrs. Brady darkly, "with my bad heart, will be the death of me. Whew! Well, dearie? What's the news?" "You got a paper," Miss Levin languidly reminded her. "Yeah!" agreed Mrs. Brady with sudden vehemence. "I got a paper!" She slapped it upon the counter. "An' a lot of time I'll get to read my paper, won't I now? On a Saturday night!" She moaned. "Other nights is bad enough, dear knows——but Saturday nights! How I dread 'em! Every Saturday night I say to my daughter, I say, 'Geraldine, I can't,' I say, 'I can't go through it again, an' that's all there is to it,' I say. 'I'll quit!' I say. An' I will, too!" added Mrs. Brady firmly, if indefinitely. Miss Levin, in defense of Saturday nights, mumbled some vague some- thing about tips. "Tips!" Mrs. Brady hissed it. She almost spat it. Plainly money was nothing, nothing at all, to this lady. "I just wish," said Mrs. Brady, and glared at Miss Levin, "I just wish you had to spend one Saturday night, just one in that dressing room! Bein' pushed an' stepped on and near knocked down by that gang of hussies, an' them orderin' an' bossin' you round like you was black, an' usin' your things an' then sayin' they're sorry, they got no change, they'll be back. Yeah! They never come back!" "There's Mr. Costello," whispered Miss Levin through lips that, like a ventriloquist's, scarcely stirred. "An' as I was sayin'," Mrs. Brady said at once brightly, "I got to leave you. Ten to ten, time I was on the job." She smirked at Miss Levin, nodded, and right-about-faced. There, indeed, Mr. Costello was. Mr. Billy Costello, manager, proprietor, monarch of all he surveyed. From the doorway of the big room where the little tables herded in a ring around the waxen floor, he surveyed Mrs. Brady, and in such a way that Mrs. Brady, momentarily forgetting her bad heart, walked fast, scurried faster, almost ran. The door of her domain was set politely in an alcove, beyond silken curtains looped up at the sides. Mrs. Brady reached it breathless, shoul- dered it open, and groped for the electric switch. Lights sprang up, a bright white blaze, intolerable for an instant to the eyes, like the sun on snow. Blinking, Mrs. Brady shut the door. The room was a spotless, white- tiled place, half beauty shop, half dressing room. Along one wall stood washstands, sturdy triplets in a row, balloons afloat above them. Against the opposite wall there was a couch. A third wall backed an elongated glass-topped dressing-table; and over the dressing-table and over the wash- stands long rectangular sheets of mirror reflected lights, doors, glossy tiles, lights multiplied. . . . Mrs. Brady moved across this glit- ter like a think dark cloud in a hurry. At the dressing table she came to a halt, and upon it she laid her news- paper, her magazine, and her purse ——a black purse worn gray with much clutching. She divested herself of a rusty black coat and a hat of the mushroom persuasion, and hung both up in a corner cupboard which she opened by means of one of a quite preposterous bunch of keys. From a nook in the cupboard she took down a lace-edged handkerchief with long streamers. She untied the streamers and tied them again around her chunky black alpaca waist. The handkerchief became an apron's baby cousin. Mrs. Brady relocked the cupboard door, fumbled her key ring over, and unlocked a capacious drawer of the dressing table. She spread a fresh towel on the plate-glass top, in the geometrical center, and upon the towel she arranged with care a pro- cession of things fished from the drawer. Things for the hair. Things for the complexion. Tings for the eyes, the lashes, the brows, the lips, and the fingernails. Things in boxes and things in jars and things in tubes and tins. Also an ash tray, matches pins, a tiny sewing kit, a pair of scissors. Last of all, a hand-printed sign, a nudging sort of sign: NOTICE! THESE ARTICLES, PLACED HERE FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE MAID. And directly beneath the sign, prop- ping it up against the looking glass, a china saucer, in which Mrs. Brady now slyly laid decoy money: two quarters and two dimes, in four- leaf-clover formation. Another drawer of the dressing table yielded a bottle of Bromo- seltzer, a bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia, a tin of sodium bicar- bonate, and a teaspoon. These were lined up on a shelf above the couch. Mrs. Brady was ready for anything. And (from the grim, thin pucker of her mouth) expecting it. Music came to her ears. Rather, the beat of music, muffled, rhythmic, remote. Umpa-um, umpa-um, umpa- um-umm——Mr. "Fiddle" Baer and his band, hard at work on the first fox- trot of the night. It was teasing, foot- tapping music; but the large solemn feet of Mrs. Brady were still. She sat on the couch and opened her newspaper; and for some moments she read uninterruptedly, with spe- cial attention to the murders, the divorces, the breaches of promise, the funnies. Then the door swung inward, ad- mitting a blast of Mt. Fiddle Baer's best, a whiff of perfume, and a girl. Mrs. Brady put her paper away. The girl was petite and darkly beautiful; wrapped in fur and mounted on tall jeweled heels. She entered humming the ragtime song the orchestra was playing, and while she stood near the dressing table, stripping off her gloves, she con- tinued to hum it softly to her self: Oh, I know my baby loves me, I can tell my baby loves me. Here the dark girl got the left glove off, and Mrs. Brady glimpsed a platinum wedding ring. 'Cause there ain't no maybe In my baby's Eyes. The right glove came off. The dark little girl sat down in one of the chairs that faced the dressing table. She doffed her wrap, casting it care- lessly over the chair back. It had a cloth-of--gold lining, and the name of a Paris house was embroidered in curlicues on the label. Mrs. Brady hovered solicitously near. The dark little girl, still humming looked over the articles. "placed here for your convenience," and picked up the scissors. Having cut off a very small hangnail with the air of one performing a perilous major oper- ation, she seized and used the mani- cure buffer, and after that the eye- brow pencil. Mrs. Brady's mind, hopefully calculating the tip, jumped and jumped again like a taxi meter. Oh, I know my baby loves me——— The dark little girl applied powder and lipstick belonging to herself. She examined the result searchingly in the mirror and sat back, satisfied. She cast some silver Klink! Klink! into Mrs. Brady's saucer, and half rose. Then remembering something, she settled down again. The ensuing thirty seconds were spent by her in pulling off her platinum wedding ring, tying it in a corner of a lace handkerchief, and tucking the handkerchief down the bodice of her tight white velvet gown. "There!" she said. She swooped up her wrap and trotted toward the door, jeweled heels merrily twinkling. 'Cause there ain't no maybe——— The door fell shut. Almost instantly it opened again, and another girl came in. A blonde, this. She was very pretty in a round-eyed, doll-like way; but Mrs. Brady, re- garding her, mentally grabbed the spirits of ammonia bottle. For she looked terribly ill. The round eyes were dull, the pretty silly little face was drawn. The thin hands, picking at the fastenings of a specious beaded bag, trembled and twitched. Mrs. Brady cleared her throat. "Can I do something for you, miss?" Evidently the blonde girl had be- lieved herself alone in the dressing room. She started violently and glanced up, panic in her eyes. Panic, and something else. Something very like murderous hate——but for an in- stant only, so that Mrs. Brady, whose perceptions were never quick, missed it altogether. "A glass of water?" suggested Mrs. Brady. "No," said the girl, "no." She had one hand in the beaded bag now. Mrs. Brady could see it moving, causing the bag to squirm like a live thing and the fringe to shiver. "Yes!" she cried abruptly. "A glass of water ——please——you get it for me." She dropped on to the couch. Mrs. Brady scurried to the water cooler in the corner, pressed the spigot with a determined thumb. Water trickled out thinly. Mrs. Brady pressed harder, and scowled, and thought, "Something's wrong with this thing. I mustn't forget, next time I see Mr. Costello———" When again she faced her patient, the patient was sitting erect. She was thrusting her clenched hand back into the beaded bag again. She took only a sip of the water, but it seemed to help her quite miraculously. Almost at once color came to her cheeks, life to her eyes. She grew young again——as young as she was. She smiled up at Mrs. Brady. "Well!" she exclaimed. "What do you know about that!" She shook her honey-colored head. "I can't imagine what came over me." "Are you better now?" inquired Mrs. Brady. Yes. Oh, yes, I'm better now. You see," said the blonde girl confiden- tially, "we were at the theater, my boy friend and I, and it was hot and stuffy——I guess that must have been the trouble." She paused, and the ghost of her recent distress crossed her face. God! I thought that last act never would end!" she said. While she attended to her hair and complexion, she chattered gaily to Mrs. Brady, chattering on with scarcely a stop for breath, and laughed much. She said, among other things, that she and her "boy friend" had not known one another very long, but that she was "ga-ga" about him. "He is about me, too," she con- fessed. "He thinks I'm grand." She fell silent then, and in the looking glass her eyes were shad- owed, haunted. But Mrs. Brady, from where she stood, could not see the looking glass; and half a minute later the blonde girl laughed and began again. When she went out she seemed to dance out on winged feet; and Mrs. Brady, sighing, thought it must be nice to be young . . . and happy like that. The next arrivals were two. A tall, extremely smart young woman in black chiffon entered first, and held the door open for her companion; and the instant the door was shut, she said, as though it had been on the tip of her tongue for hours, "Amy, what under the sun hap- pened?" Amy, who was brown-eyed, brown-bobbed-haired, and patently annoyed about something, crossed to the dressing table an flopped into a chair before she made a reply. "Nothing," she said wearily then. "That's nonsense!" snorted the other. "Tell me. Was it something she said? She's a tactless ass, of course. Always was." "No, not anything she said. It was———" Amy bit her lip. "All right! I'll tell you. Before we left your apartment I just happened to notice that Tom had disappeared. So I went to look for him——I wanted to ask him if he'd remembered to tell the maid where we were going—— Skippy's subject to croup, you know, and we always leave word. Well, so I went into the kitchen, thinking Tom might be there mixing cock- tails——and there he was——and there she was!" The full red mouth of the other young woman pursed itself slightly. Her arched brows lifted. "Well?" Her matter-of-factness appeared to infuriate Amy. "He was kissing her!" she flung out. "Well?" said the other again. She chuckled softly and patted Amy's shoulder, as if it were the shoulder of a child. "You're surely not going to let that spoil your whole evening? Any dear! Kissing may once have been serious and significant——but it isn't nowadays. Nowadays, it's like shaking hands. It means nothing." But Amy was not consoled. "I hate her!" she cried desperately. "Redheaded thing! Calling me 'darling' and 'honey,' and s-sending me handkerchiefs for C-Christmas—— and then sneaking off behind closed doors and k-kissing my h-h-hus- band———" At this point Amy broke down, but she recovered herself sufficiently to add with venom, "I'd like to slap her!" "Oh, oh, oh," smiled the tall young woman, "I wouldn't do that!" Amy wiped her eyes with what might well have been one of the Christmas handkerchiefs, and con- fronted her friend. "Well, what would you do, Vera? If you were I?" "I'd forget it," said Vera, "and have a good time. I'd kiss somebody myself. You've no idea how much better you'd feel!" I don't do———" Amy began in- dignantly; but as the door behind her opened a third young woman ——redheaded, ear-ringed, exquisite—— lilted in, she changed her tone. "Oh, hello!" she called sweetly, beaming at the newcomer via the mirror. "We were wondering what had become of you!" The redheaded girl, smiling easily back, dropped her cigarette on the floor and crushed it out wit a silver shod toe. "Tom and I were talking to Fiddle Baer," she explained. "He's going to play 'Clap Yo' Hands' next, because it's my favorite. Lend me a comb, will you?" "There's a comb there," said Vera, indicating Mrs. Brady's business comb. "But imagine using it!" murmured the redheaded girl. "Amy, darling, haven't you one?" Amy produced a tiny comb from her rhinestone purse. "Don't forget to bring it when you come," she said, and stood up. "I'm going on out, I want to tell Tom something." She went. The redheaded young woman and the tall black-chiffon one were alone, except for Mrs. Brady. The red- headed one beaded her incredible lashes. The tall one, the one called Vera, sat watching her." And Sylvia looked. Anybody, addressed in that tone, would have. "There is one thing," Vera went on quietly, holding the other's eyes "that I want understood. And that is, 'Hands off!' Do you hear me?" "I know what you mean." "You know what I mean!" The redheaded girl shrugged her shoulders. "Amy told you she saw us, I suppose." Precisely. And," went on Vera, gathering up her possessions and rising, "as I said before, you're to keep away." Her eyes blazed sudden white-hot rage. "Because, as you very well know, he belongs to me," she said, and departed, slamming the door. Between eleven o'clock and one Mrs. Brady was very busy indeed. Never for more than a moment during those two hours was the dressing room empty. Often it was jammed, full to overflowing with curled cropped heads, with ivory arms and shoulders, with silk and lace and chiffon, with legs. The door flapped in and back, in the back. The mirrors caught and held——and lost—— a hundred different faces. Powder veiled the dressing table with a thin white dust; cigarette stubs, scarlet at the tip, choked the ash receiver. Dimes and quarter clattered into Mrs. Brady's saucer——and were transferred to Mrs. Brady's purse. The original seventy cents remained. That much, and no more, would Mrs. Brady gamble on the integrity of womankind. She earned her money. She threaded needles and took stitches. She powdered the backs of necks. She supplied towels for soapy, drip- ping hands. She removed a speck from a teary blue eye and pounded the heel on a slipper. She curled the struggling ends of a black bob and a gray bob, pinned a velvet flower on a lithe round waist, mixed three doses of bicarbonate of soda, took charge of a shed pink-satin girdle, collected, on hands and knees, sev- eral dozen fake pearls that had wept from a broken string. She served chorus girls and school- girls, gay young matrons and gayer young mistresses, a lady who had divorced four husbands, and a lady who had poisoned one, the secret (more or less) sweetheart of a Most Distinguished Name, and the Brains of a bootleg gang. . . . She saw things. She saw a yellow check, with the ink hardly dry. She saw four tiny bruises, such as fingers might make, on an arm. She saw a girl strike another girl, not playfully. She saw a bundle of letter some man wished he had not written, safe and deep in a brocaded handbag. About midnight the door flew open and at once was pushed shut, and a gray-eyed, lovely child stood backed against it, her palms flattened on the panels at her sides, the dra- peries of her white chiffon gown settling lightly to rest around her. There were already five damsels of varying ages in the dressing room. The latest arrival marked their pres- ence with a flick of her eyes and, standing just where she was, she called peremptorily, "Maid!" Mrs. Brady, standing just where she was, said, "Yes, miss?" "Please come here," said the girl. Mrs. Brady, as slowly as she dared, did so. The girl lowered her voice to a tense half whisper. "Listen! Is there any way I can get out of here except through this door I came in?" Mrs. Brady stared at her stupidly. "Any window?" persisted the girl. "Or anything?" Here they were interrupted by the exodus of two of the damsels-of- varying-ages, Mrs. Brady opening the door for them——and in so doing caught a glimpse of the man who waited in the hall outside, a debonair, old-young man with a girl's furry wrap hung over his arm, and his hat in his hand. The door clicked. The gray-eyed girl moved out from the wall, against which she had flattened herself——for all the world like one eluding pursuit in a cinema. "What about the window?" she demanded, pointing. "That's all the farther it opens," said Mrs. Brady. "Oh! And it's the only one——isn't it?" "It is." "Damn," said the girl. "Then there's no way out?" "No way but the door," said Mrs. Brady testily. The girl looked at the door. She seemed to look through the door, and to despise and to fear what she saw. Then she looked at Mrs. Brady. "Well," she said, "then I s'pose the only thing for me to do is to stay in here." She stayed. Minutes ticked by. Jazz crooned distantly, stopped, struck up again. Other girls came and went. Still the gray-eyed girl sat on the couch, with her back to the wall and her shapely legs crossed smoking cigarettes, one from the stub of another. After a long while she said, "Maid!" "Yes, miss?" "Peek out that door, will you, and see if there's anyone standing there." Mrs. Brady peeked, and reported that there was. There was a gentle- man with a little bit of a black mustache standing there. The same gentleman, in fact, who was stand- ing there "just after you came in." "Oh, Lord," sighed the gray-eyed girl. "Well . . . I can't stay here all night, that's one sure thing." She slid off the couch, and went listlessly to the dressing table. There she occupied herself for a minute or two. Suddenly, without a word, she darted out. Thirty seconds later Mrs. Brady was elated to find two crumpled one- dollar bills lying in the saucer. Her joy, however, died a premature death. For she made an almost si- multaneous second discovery. A a sad- dening one. Above all, a puzzling one. "Now what for," marveled Mrs. Brady, "did she want to walk off with them scissors?" This at twelve-twenty-five. At twelve-thirty a quartet of ex- cited young things burst in, babbling madly. All of them had their evening wraps about them; all talked at once. One of them, a Dresden-china girl with a heart-shaped face, was the center of attraction. Around her the rest fluttered like monstrous butter- flies; to her they addressed their shrill exclamatory cries. "Babe," they called her. Mrs. Brady heard snatches: "Not in this state unless . . ." "Well, you can in Maryland, Jimmy says." "Oh, there must be some place nearer than . . ." "Isn't this marvelous?" "When did it happen, Babe? When did you decide?" "Just now," the girl with the heart- shaped face sang softly, "when we were dancing." The babble resumed, "But listen, Babe, what'll your mother and father . . . ?" "Oh, never mind, let's hurry." "Shall we be warm enough with just these thin wraps, do you think? Babe, will you be warm enough? Sure?" Powder flew and little pocket combs marched through bright mar- cels. Flushed cheeks were painted pinker still. "My pearls," said Babe, "are old. And my dress and my slippers are new. Now, let's see——what can I borrow?" A lace handkerchief, a diamond bar pin, a pair of earrings were proffered. She chose the bar pin, and its owner unpinned it proudly, gladly. "I've got blue garters!" exclaimed a shrill little girl in a silver dress. "Give me one, then," directed Babe. "I'll trade with you. . . . There! That fixes that." More babbling, "Hurry! Hurry up!" . . . "Listen are you sure we'll be warm enough? Because we can stop at my house, there's nobody home." "Give me that puff, Babe, I'll powder your back." "And just to think a week ago you;d never even met each other!" "Oh, hurry up, let's get started!" "I'm ready." "So'm I." "Ready, Babe? You look ador- able." "Come on, everybody." They were gone again, and then dressing room seemed twice as still and vacant as before. A minute of grace, during which Mrs. Brady wiped the spilled pow- der away with a damp gray rag. Then the door jumped open again. Two evening gowns appeared and made for the dressing table in a bee line. Slim tubular gowns they were, one green, one palest yellow. Yel- low hair went wit the green gown, brown hair with the yellow. The green-gowned, yellow-haired girl wore gardenias on her left shoulder, four of them, and a flashing bracelet on each fragile wrist. The other girl looked less prosperous; still, you would rather have looked at her. Both ignored Mrs. Brady's cos- metic display as utterly as they ignored Mrs. Brady, producing full field equipment of their own. "Well," said the girl with gar- denias, rouging energetically, "how do you like him?" "Oh-h——all right." "Meaning, 'Not any,' hmm? I sus- pected as much!" The girl with gardenians turned in her chair and scanned her companion's profile with disapproval. "See here, Marilee," she drawled, "are you going to be a damn fool all your life?" "He's fat," said Marilee dreamily. "Fat, and——greasy, sort of. I mean greasy in his mind. Don't you know what I mean?" "I know one thing," declared the other. "I know Who He Is! And if I were you, that's all I'd need to know. Under the circumstances." The last three words, stressed meaningly, affected the girl called Marilee curiously. She grew grave. Her lips and lashes drooped. For some seconds she sat frowning a little, breaking a black-sheathed lip- stick in two and fitting it together again. "She's worse," she said finally, low. "Worse?" Marilee nodded. "Well," said the girl with gar- denias, "there you are. It's the climate. She'll never be anything but worse, if she doesn't get away. Out West. Arizona or somewhere." "I know," murmured Marilee. The other girl opened a tin of eye shadow. "Of course," she said dryly, "suit yourself. She's not my sister." Marilee said nothing. Quiet she sat, breaking the lipstick, mending it, breaking it. "Oh, well," she breathed finally, wearily, and straightened up. She propped her elbows on the plate- glass dressing-table top and leaned toward the mirror, and with the lip- stick she began to make her coral- pink mouth very red and gay and reckless and alluring. Nightly at one o'clock Vane and Moreno dance for the Club Français. They dance a tango, they dance a waltz; then, by way of encore, they do a Black Bottom, and a trick of their own called the Wheel. They dance for twenty, thirty minutes. And while they dance you do not leave your table——for this is what you came to see. Vane and Moreno. The new New York thrill. The sole justifica- tion for the five-dollar couvert ex- torted by Billy Costello. From one until half-past, then, was Mrs. Brady's recess. She had been looking forward t it all the eve- ning long. When it began——when the opening chords of the tango music sounded stirringly from the room outside——Mrs. Brady brightened. With a right good will she sped the parting guests. Alone, she unlocked her cupboard and took out her magazine——the magazine she had bought three hours before. Heaving a great breath of relief and satisfaction, she plumped herself on the couch and fingered the pages. Immediately she was absorbed, her eyes drinking up the printed lines, her lips moving soundlessly. The magazine was Mrs. Brady's favorite. Its stories were true stories, taken from life (so the editor said); and to Mrs. Brady they were live, vivid threads in the dull, drab pat- tern of her night. 

From Harper's Bazaar of September, 1927. Copyright, 1927, by Katharine Brush. From A Treasury of Short Stories. Edited by Bernardine Kielty. Copyright, 1947, Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York; pp. 655—663.
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