British Columbians impacted by the Metro Vancouver transit strike are demanding buses be made an essential service.

Can bus service be an essential service in B.C.? - Vancouver Is Awesome

An Indigenous-led group's proposal to build a mixed-use development on the Jericho Lands in Vancouver's West Point Grey neighbourhood passed its latest hurdle after a policy statement was approved by city council Wednesday.

Vancouver council approves policy statement for Indigenous-led Jericho Lands housing proposal | CBC News

The Metro Vancouver, BC forecast includes a potent atmospheric river that could arrive this weekend, Jan. 24 and mean heavy rainfall and dangerous roads.

Vancouver weather: Strong atmospheric river headed to region - Vancouver Is Awesome

The document lays out directions for development of the 90-acre site, a former military installation across 4th Avenue from Jericho Beach Park.

Jericho Lands proposal inches forward as Vancouver council approves guiding vision - BC | Globalnews.ca

Vancouver City Council has approved the policy statement for the Jericho Lands, which will introduce new housing density to West Point Grey.

Indigenous-owned Jericho Lands project approved by Vancouver City Council | Urbanized

CUPE 4500 says it welcomes a special mediator but adds if a tentative deal isn't reached by Feb. 3, a full transit shutdown is possible.

Metro Van transit strike: CUPE warns of possible escalation | CityNews Vancouver

If an agreement can’t be reached, non-binding recommendations will be made and both sides will have five days to either accept or reject the proposal · Author of the article:

Union warns of 72-hour Metro Vancouver strike if deal isn’t reached | Vancouver Sun

Vancouver Park Board announced it approved Blueprint and Live Nation Canada's application to host the massive concert at New Brighton Park.

Vancouver Park Board gives thumbs up to huge EDM waterfront concert | Listed

VANCOUVER — The union representing transit supervisors for Coast Mountain Bus Company says it will launch a new 72-hour strike stopping Metro Vancouver buses from operating if a tentative deal isn't reached by next week.

CP NewsAlert: Union warns of 72-hour Metro Vancouver bus strike if deal isn't reached - Burnaby Now

Pioneering work that helped blaze the way for the Vancouver Mural Festival is now lost to time,

Goldsmith mural on Vancouver's Randall Building has been replaced by a blank wall | Georgia Straight Vancouver’s source for arts, culture, and events

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Here's Why You Should Stop Over-Apologizing at Work

Kunatsa irnaqäwin jan sinti perdón mayisiñamaxa, akax akawa

Вось чаму вы павінны спыніць празмерныя прабачэнні на працы

Esta es la razón por la que deberías dejar de disculparte demasiado en el trabajo

Tässä on miksi sinun pitäisi lopettaa liiallinen anteeksipyyntö töissä

הנה למה אתה צריך להפסיק להתנצל יותר מדי בעבודה

職場で過剰な謝罪をやめるべき理由

Tala Pourquoi Osengeli Kotika Kosenga Pardon Koleka Na Mosala

Та яагаад ажил дээрээ хэт уучлалт гуйхаа болих хэрэгтэйг эндээс харж болно

Dit is waarom u moet stoppen met u te vaak te verontschuldigen op het werk

Tu je dôvod, prečo by ste sa v práci mali prestať príliš ospravedlňovať

Waa tan sababta ay tahay inaad u joojiso raaligelinta xad dhaafka ah ee shaqada

Ево зашто би требало да престанете да се превише извињавате на послу

Gamified Learning With An AI Board Game Tournament: Course Design

In the world of audio devices, wireless earbuds are a relatively recent invention. Thankfully, they’re not so recent that you can’t find them for a low price today. There are some great wireless options out there for a price no greater than $50 USD. Unfortunately, this cheap price point comes with caveats. Poorly made earbuds and off-brand trash are all sadly common when trying to find the cheapest buds out there. There’s still a good number of buds that are actually pretty good, meaning it isn’t impossible for enthusiasts to easily check out 8 of the best wireless earbuds under $50. List of the 8 Best Wireless Earbuds Under $50 1. TREBLAB WX8 The TREBLAB WX8 wireless earbuds are a perfect start to this list. These earbuds feature up to 28 hours of battery life alongside a USB-C charging case and Bluetooth 5.1 connection. The audio quality is pretty great as well, with only a few users being disappointed in it. For those with an active lifestyle, the buds even come with IPX8 water resistance, allowing them to withstand very harsh conditions. These earbuds fall short when it comes to the finicky touch controls, and some users noted issues with effective charging. There also aren’t many options for comfort, though they do come with a few extra silicone ear tips. With a sale price of $39.97, these are still a great pair of earbuds for those that want to experience true wireless listening firsthand. Buy now on or Amazon TREBLAB 2. Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 The Life Dot 2 earbuds from Anker and soundcore are perfect for people that travel often. Thanks to its own USB-C charging case, these buds have an effective lifespan of around 100 hours. They have numerous accessories as well, allowing users to more closely customize their fit and comfort. This would be enough to warrant their $49.88 price point, but the buds go above and beyond with even more features like fast charging and a single earbud mode. It should be noted that some users had issues with the sound quality, but the manufacturers have made efforts to replace faulty earbuds. The case might be a little big as well, so you won’t have much luck carrying them around in skinny jeans. If you have the space for them and end up pleased with the sound quality, the Life Dot 2 earbuds are worth every penny. Buy now on or Amazon soundcore 3. JLab Go Air The Go Air earbuds from JLab are perhaps the cheapest true wireless earbuds you’ll find. These make some compromises as a result: the integrated charging cable looks useful but runs the risk of making these buds useless if it fails, and the battery life is only 20 hours with the case included. Some users have reported issues with the fit and reliability of these buds as well, making them a hard sell at any higher price point. With these issues in mind, the Go Air earbuds are still a pretty great bargain at just $14.99 on sale. They also feature customizable sound profiles and a compact design, making them easy to carry around. You might take a risk when trying these buds for yourself, but the risk is well worth the price. Buy now on or Amazon JLab 4. ZIUTY Waterproof Earphones ZIUTY’s true wireless earbuds available exclusively from Amazon are impressively feature-rich. From a 50-hour battery life included with the case to LED battery displays, you’re unlikely to find yourself caught off guard by these earbuds dying on you. It also features new Bluetooth 5.3 technology alongside light waterproofing, making these some of the most stable earbuds you’ll find. The downside to these buds is technically the price. While they’re currently listed on Amazon at just $19.99, this is a sale price of a whopping 85% off. If you’re unlucky enough to go after these earbuds without an available sale, you’ll be paying upwards of $129.99. It might be worth checking them out ASAP to see how well its features hold up, but if you end up missing their discount, you’re better off looking at more budget-oriented options. Buy now on Amazon 5. Skullcandy Ink’d+ Active Wireless Skullcandy’s Ink’d+ Active earbuds technically aren’t “true” wireless, as they feature an over-neck strap. This leads to a dated design, low comparable battery life, and an unimpressive feature set. To make up for all this, the Ink’d+ Active buds offer great reliability and fantastic sound quality. There are a few extras you get with the Ink’d+ Active earbuds, such as alternate ear tips, but where they shine is how they compare to true wireless offerings. Because they still connect wirelessly, they offer comparable performance with a more stable fit. The flexible strap these buds are attached to also makes them easy to carry around, whether you keep them in your pocket or around your neck. At a sale price of $39.95, it’s hard to go wrong with a pair of Ink’d+ Active wireless earbuds. Sadly, you can’t get them on the official site anymore, but they’re still available from other retailers! Buy now on or Amazon B&H 6. QCY T13 The T13 earbuds from QCY are a decent option for a decent price. Equipped with around 40 hours of battery life with the USB-C case and decent ear tip options, the T13 buds are pretty comparable to others at this price point. Where they truly make their mark is in their feature set, with ENC noise cancellation, Bluetooth 5.1, and even a customized app. You’re unlikely to find any earbuds with as many rich features as these, especially at a price of just $29.99. Unfortunately, some users note that the T13 earbuds have issues with reliability. These issues range from the earbuds cutting out during listening to problems with the custom app, which is sadly to be expected from any custom software. These are still worth a closer look, but you’re better off returning the T13 earbuds if you’re unable to get them working. Buy now on or Amazon QCY 7. Truefree F1 Sports Earphones Truefree brings about another strong contender for “false wireless” with the F1 earbuds available exclusively from Amazon. Unlike most earbuds, these offer an open-ear design while still staying secure on your head. This makes them perfect for when you need to be aware of your surroundings. They also offer decent battery life for this earbud type at 11 hours, and they even feature ultra-stable Bluetooth 5.3 connection. Like with any “untrue” wireless earbuds, the F1 earphones lack an expansive feature set outside of what’s physically there. The open ear design might also not be your thing, especially if you’re looking for something focused purely on sound quality. The $39.99 price point can make or break these buds for you, but they’re still a fine choice for those that need some extra awareness while listening to their favorite beats. Buy now on Amazon 8. Kimwood Bone Conduction Headphones If you’re looking for something truly unique, the Bone Conduction Headphones from Kimwood are a fantastic choice. These are unlike any earbuds on this list, as they provide audio through bone conduction. You won’t even need to cover up your ears to use these; just place them on your head and you’re good to go! They even come with USB-C charging, a waterproof design, and a built-in microphone for those that want basic features found in other earbuds. The battery life is unimpressive at 8 hours, and the sound quality is a bit more of a miss when compared to other earbuds. But bone conduction offers versatility and function found nowhere else. They can be a bit pricey depending on the brand, but Kimwood’s offering comes in at just $31.99. If you at least want to try out something you’ve never tried before, you’ll likely not go wrong with these. Buy now on or Amazon Newegg What to Consider for the Best Wireless Earbuds Under $50 At this price point, you’ll find true wireless earbuds alongside Bluetooth earbuds with wires built in. While the latter buds feature more dated designs, they can be a bit more secure and well-designed than cheap true wireless earbuds. Additionally, you’ll have to be careful of numerous off-brand buds; there are even some companies that might try to pay you off to leave a good review. Even if you find a pair of earbuds on this list that you love, do your due diligence and make sure they’re truly worth their price — even if it is just $50!

8 Best Wireless Earbuds Under $50

Utopian Economics

Have you been pondering lately, "Why does my desk chair keep sinking?" whenever you use it for sitting? What is going on with the chair, and why is it happening? It's not only you who is thinking about it. This can happen to your chair after a few years of regular use, like many others. The piston that lets air in and out controls the valve of your seat height level. When your , this means that a pipe that is also called a chair cylinder is no longer working. In order to fix this problem, you will either have to change the piston or buy a new chair. Replacement of the piston of your office chair can be challenging as well as sometimes not possible too. The cylinder of the chair is not a very sensitive thing that stops working after a few years, but lack of proper maintenance and oiling issues cause cylinder leakage. chair keeps sinking However, after the use of many years, the cylinder may become damaged. This period will depend on the class of the chair itself. Anyway, the point is that the cylinder will need repair at some point. Most desk-chair cylinders flop because of faulty seals. They become too defective to sustain the required pressure. As such, you need a way to repair their functionality. Desk Chair sinking reasons: If your desk chair keeps on sinking whenever you sit or get off the chair, it could happen due to many reasons. It would help if you found them so that you can know how to fix them. The common could be a loosely adjusted cylinder. For this, you need to change it to a suitable height. For this purpose, trace the lever under the chair. You can find it around the right front corner. Another issue of the sinking has to do with the adjusting valve. If it is fixed incorrectly, it fails to control airflow due to which air gets into the cylinder and makes the spring behave irregularly. For a quick fix you can watch below videos to fix your sinking chair. 1. Use of the Oil - video 2. Jubilee Clip method - video Use of PVC or Vacuum Extension Wand Lift the seat yourself to the height you find most relaxed. This may be the fully extended position of the chair. Raise the chair and its seat post out from the bottom and its casters. Now, lay the chair flat on the floor of your workspace. Cut off with a tool any decorative collars around the seat post. Place the base back on the seat post momentarily, so it seats fully, and spot the top of the bottom on the seat post. Now cut to fit the length between your marks a piece of white PVC pipe, such as a new wet-dry vacuum extension wand, which has the benefit of being black and less visible. In the end, place the cylinder on the seat post and move the seat post back onto the base. For step by step guide you can . watch this video Use Shim kit You can also buy ready-made kits to fix your office chair. Raise the chair to its maximum position and raise the cylinder skirt to attach the plastic, C-shaped spacers. You can put one spacer at a time and press one by one the rod until the spacers grip the seat at your knee level when standing. Sit down on the seat to start the bond between the spacers. Fix your Desk Chair using A Hose Clamp In this method, you can start by removing its plastic skirt so that you can measure the cylinder. To do this, you can put the chair to lie on its back. If the plastic skirt is still in the way, you can remove it all. Put the chair on its back; remove the wheels, and then the skirt. This should give you more room to work in. For a video guide on how to replace the cylinder of a chair you can . click here Raise your chair according to your desired height. This method will give you fixed permanent results. As such, you won't be able to alter the height after repair. This means that you need to get this stage right. Ensure that the height you settle on is comfortable enough even when you'll be sitting for long periods. Loosen the hose clamp so that you can wrap it around the metal cylinder. Ensure that the clamp fits well before you tighten. Once you are sure about its position, tighten it as much as you can around the cylinder. Remember, the tighter it is, the better will be the result. Then, clean the cylinder of any dirt or oil, then wrap it with duct tape. Drill screws for fixing Set your chair to your preferred height. Flip it on its back, so the wheels are facing your feet. Remove any cover if the chair has. Once you've done this complete process, it will be hard to change the height in the future. Make sure that it is still the correct height for you before you continue, and you might want to put a mark in that spot with a marker to make it easier. Use a drill for making a hole in the middle of the shaft right where it meets the base of the chair, but don't forget to use a drill bit that is the exact size for the screw you will be using. Don't strip the screw if you plan to alter the height in the future. Now, insert the screw into the hole you just drilled out and tighten it as much as you can. If you do this correctly, the chair will no longer sink and can be used again as a new chair. Conclusion To get the most excellent results, stick to the instructions given above. In this way, you won't experience much trouble when you need to fix your sinking desk chair. This will help you preserve your environment. Also, it will enable you to continue using that office chair that you like so much. So say goodbye to that irritating chair that keeps sinking by following these methods. The tools used for fixing a sinking chair cost very low and are easy to find. So, whenever you are pondering why my desk chair keep sinks, you know correctly what to do.

How to Stop Your Office Chair from Constantly Sinking, Much Like This Year

By Javier Valez, Ph.D. Overview We’re excited to announce that will be starting a new series of posts on here at the blog. The series will explore quite a few aspects, including: Veracity Forge.AI Machine learning models for veracity Moral and ethical aspects of modeling veracity Experimental design and processes for creating machine learning models System design Validation This series is being written in tandem with the development of our system and models at Forge.AI and, as such, it is more of a journey than a destination. I will explore the rationale behind our choices and structure in order to illuminate hidden assumptions that may be baked into our models. We will also include my thoughts on being a (as opposed to other viewpoints and stances one can take when designing, building, or using machine learning). Modeler Why Veracity? At Forge.AI we consume many types of textual data as input including, but not limited to: news articles, research and analytical reports, tweets, marketing materials, shareholder presentations, SEC filings, transcripts, etc. At Forge.AI we are working to turn this “soup” of data into coherent, succinct, and salient nuggets we call Events. These Events are consumed by our customers to make decisions, take actions, and reason about concepts relevant to their business. Before we can transform our input data into such Events we need to consider one of the most fundamental principles of computational system, including machine learning systems: the concept of . This principle is most succinctly represented as: . any input quality Garbage In, Garbage Out Well, easy enough. We just won’t give our systems bad inputs! Done. End-of-Post. Yet this post is still going… So, what did we miss? To continue our metaphor, what people sometimes leave out is that . Whether so-called bad inputs should be ignored or treated as informative is a matter of perspective and use-case. This is especially true for us at Forge.AI since we do not, and can not, know every single use-case for every single possible consumer of our Events. Knowing the quality of the input is key to being able to decide what to do with the it — whether to not even use the input or to treat it as highly informative and useful in a particular system. one man’s trash is another man’s treasure One such quality of textual data that is often of interest is whether the meaning of the text is actually true or not. For numerical data we might measure quality with a but textual data quality is not as easily quantified. So, we turn to in hopes of being able to understand and reason about the quality of textual input. signal-to-noise ratio, veracity In addition to our own machine learning algorithms here at Forge.AI, we must also be cognizant of our customer’s machine learning systems. Do our customer’s systems handle “bad” quality data well? Is it useful for consumers of our Events data to know about things that are perhaps low-veracity? Some algorithms can leverage low-veracity Events such a tabloid hearsay or campaigns, for others ignorance is bliss. Our Events are designed to be inputs to machine learning systems far and wide; systems which themselves have to reason about their input data quality. Veracity is not just of interest to our internal machine learning algorithms, it is paramount for all consumers of our Events. Our models of data quality not only allow us to reason about *our* machine learning systems, they allow our consumers to reason about *their* machine learning systems. FUD A Definition Our initial definition for veracity comes from the the Merriam-Webster dictionary: . Even though this definition uses only five words we can already see the complexity of trying to model veracity. To start, we have a choice in how to interpret : is this a boolean property or are there gradations of conformity? We are a client-facing company therefore the results of our model of veracity — and our chosen definition of veracity — will be used by our clients to reason about their very own machine learning systems. At Forge.AI we pursue simplicity when building machine learning models in order to improve our own reasoning and because the users of our model results can reason about whether and how to use the results more efficiently. For these reasons we will treat conformity as being all-or-nothing. conformity with truth or fact conformity Rewriting the definition, we now have: Veracity = “Does [a blob of text] fully conform to truth or facts? [ Yes | No ].” Notice that I have now made veracity a boolean property and I have further focused our models to work on blobs of text. It is important to narrow the scope of the model early on so that we can: Construct a valid and useful problem statement Create hypotheses and design experiments Gather relevant data Let’s tackle the last two salient words: and . Wow. These words are loaded with potential meanings, nuances, politics, and philosophical pitfalls — entire fields are devoted to these two words. We need a base definition that is widely adopted from a trusted source, so we turn to one of the most reputable dictionaries of the english language: The Oxford English Dictionary. From the Oxford English Dictionary: truth fact Truth: That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality Fact: The truth about events as opposed to interpretation Seems clear enough — even with the circular definition; is a boolean property that represents whether a blob of text contains things, or Events, that are true according to reality. This definition is scoped to what the Event(s) represents. For example, one can have a “true” Event that asserts “Javier *said* I cannot write” and a second, false, Event that incorrectly asserted “Javier cannot write”. veracity Knowledge, Infinities, and Truth We now have a definition of what we want to model, but no model yet. How do we begin to model veracity, as defined in the previous section?, It seems like any model will have to ascertain whether something, call it X, is true. How many things can be true? How do we represent facts? How do we query something, call it Y, for whether X is true or not? There will never be a Y that can store “all true things”, or, at least, practically never. We can have local regions of knowledge stored in , and such objects would allow us to query for whether X was true or not according to the Knowledge Base, but having a global, sufficient Knowledge Base seems like an impossible task. It is not even clear whether the number of truths or facts is finite or infinite. Additionally, what is known changes over time: non-stationarity will get you every time! Knowledge Bases Of course, we can always certain things about truth. We could assume that truth is finite, or we could go down the non-parametric Bayesian route and assume truth is infinite but only a finite representation is needed at any point in time. We can also assume that truth and facts change slowly over time, perhaps not at all, in order to ignore the non-stationarity or make the growth rate manageable. How far do these assumption take us? We can reduce the problem of veracity down to the following: given a blob of text representing X, is X contained in our Knowledge Base Y? Unreservedly glossing over we get X from the blob of text (where X is something we can then query our Knowledge Base Y about), we have now turned our model of veracity into a query of a Knowledge Base. The caveats: assume how Our Knowledge Base must contain all (finite, current, pertinent) truths Our Knowledge Base contains no falsehoods So, even with two very strong assumptions regarding finiteness of truth and stationarity, we have to somehow construct a Knowledge Base that contains truths and nothing but the truth. A back of the envelope calculation is enough to see the sheer magnitude, and impracticality, of storing all possible facts: There are 7.6 billion people on earth (source: ) and each makes at least one decision daily which gives rise to at least one fact … and this does not include facts about things that are not people! still all worldometers This line of thought has given me pause. Let us say, for now, that we will have a Knowledge Base big enough to contain all truth. Can we, perhaps, only apply veracity towards subjects that we care about? How then, do we define what we care about? Is it based on some form of utility function, perhaps applied to a future state? However we define it, we try to build a knowledge base whose facts and truth cover a certain region or domain of knowledge well. We can quantify what means, as well as . In fact, this ideas of how one builds a knowledge base is . not can well cover already being discussed here at Forge.AI There will invariably come a time, though, when we must apply a model of veracity to something which is not in our Knowledge Base; either because it is a brand new thing or because our Knowledge Base is just incomplete. What recourse, then? Do we throw up our hands and say that anything not in our Knowledge Base is, by construction and definition, unreasonable (unable-to-be-reasoned-about)? What then of consumers who are on the bleeding edge, whose needs require reasoning over new and unexplored regimes? The real question, then, is can we make a model of veracity that does not depend on our, or any, Knowledge Base? *1 Veracity Devoid of Fact Eschewing a Knowledge Base, what is left? Let us consider we want a model for veracity in the first place. I can come up with the following reasons: why We want to know when someone or something is lying in order to “count lies”. It does not matter what the lie is about, or why, just that we see a lie We want to know if we can something trust We want to know if someone or something is lying (or not) because we want to know they are lying (or telling the truth): was it simply a mistake, or is there some other game afoot? why Option #1 seems like we really do need a Knowledge Base. This option is all about whether the text is truthful or not and is a direct application of our definition of veracity. I can see, for example, academics wanting to study the statistics of lies, or the dynamics of lies, being interested in this option. I do not see a way to create a model of veracity for option #1; it is a valid problem but not one we will consider from now on. Option #2 is all about . Now, trust certainly has a similar feel to facts and truth, but it is not exactly the same thing. You may be able to trust the content of a blob of text by trusting the of that text. In fact, it is very reasonable to know the truth behind a piece of text and to trust the source and therefore learn what the text says as a fact. Here I see several ways that we can try to model a quantity much like veracity but whose goal is actually trust: trust source not Reputation Expertise (global) Expertise (specific) Community Membership/”Points” Multiple Sources and Corroboration Past Experience Intention of Source Option #3 is all about the of the source for the target audience. Notice that the last bullet point for the previous option also has the intention of the source. Coincidence? I think not! intention Intention: An Aim or Plan The section heading comes straight out of the definition of from the Oxford English Dictionary. Intention is all about the aim or the goal of a particular piece of text. Is the textual piece trying to persuade? Is the piece trying to inform as objectively as possible? Is the piece trying to get itself re-syndicated somehow (sensational writing and/or headlines)? Are there, possibly hidden, agendas for the textual information? If so, what are the agendas? Are there utility feedback loops in the environment which can inform the intention of a piece of writing, for example: intention clickbait Web ads + click revenue = clickbait Academic publication + grant likelihood = doomed to succeed One striking property of the examples on intention above is that none of them revolve around . In fact, they are all relevant and interesting questions irregardless of the factual content (or lack thereof) of a piece of text. This looks like a promising direction since intention, it seems, does not require a Knowledge Base. truth Stepping Back and Stepping Forward: The Modeler’s Dance Okay, let’s step back and see where we have arrived. We started with the idea of and a solid and clear definition: conformity to truth or facts. However, when we began digging for a model of veracity we stumbled upon Knowledge Bases and the seemingly impossible task of ever having “the right Knowledge Base containing all truth and nothing but the truth”. So, what does a modeler do? We started dissecting the reasons why we would want a model of veracity. It turns out that for two of the three reasons we quickly came up with, the idea of was paramount. And intention has nothing to do with truth, or Knowledge Bases, so we can sidestep that whole mess altogether. veracity intention Such back-and-forth reasoning I call the because it is an unavoidable process when creating models. Modelers are not, strictly, scientists in the sense of a search for truth; a model may be an approximation of reality, or it may be a useful tool to compute something. As such, modelers are not explicitly tied to the truth of the universe but sometimes are like engineers and create tools that are useful for specific functions. modeler’s dance Now, you may think that modeling anything but truth will always be worse than if you modeled truth itself. If that thought crossed your mind, I ask you this: have you ever found a self-deception to be useful, perhaps even necessary, during some part of your life (e.g. when dealing with fears or anxieties self-deception is a useful )? We do not have the freedom to wait until we have fully understood reality to live in it (we are alive right now!). Similarly, a modeler cannot fail to consider that the model needs to be used, the questions need to be asked and answered, even if the truth of the matter is as yet unknown to all of humanity (or even just to the modeler). There is always a part of a modeling process where we need to determine both what we believe to be truth, and what we believe we need to model; the two are not always the same thing: ego defense Dance of the Modeler 1: Intention and Syntax Our journey so far has taken us to a new goal: creating a model of . We want this model to explicitly distance itself from Knowledge Bases, facts, and truth. Further, we would like this model to apply as generally as possible to pieces of text. How do we do this? We turn to the somewhat contentious ideas, authored by James E. Pennebaker in , that the use and structure of language carries information about the emotions and self-concepts of the author of said language. As an example, people who obsess about the past use high rates of past-tense verbs. Pennebaker’s ideas are alluring because they tie together language and creator of that language so that analyzing the language reveals something about the creator — such as their intentions. In order to be general to types of text, is there something in the syntax that can help infer the intention of the piece of text? According to Pennebaker: Yes. “Functional word” (pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs) usage may give insight into the speaker, the audience, or both. We will go a step further and try to use the syntax structures themselves (not the actual word choice) as features with which to build a model of intention. An example and teaser of how syntax differs by intention is the following: the average number of adverbs used in survey questions (designed by statisticians to be unbiased) differs from that in reading comprehension questions (where presumably statisticians were not employed to create unbiased questions). intention “The Secret Life Of Pronouns” *2 While syntax seems to align with intention, we must be extremely cautious not to end up creating a model for . Voice, sometimes erroneously referred to as the writing style of a piece, is not fully understood. Different communities and cultures may have norms determining the voice that is “proper” or “good” for a particular piece of text. Human readers are often swayed by the voice of a piece of text, especially if the voice goes against the norms of the reader’s community. While voice may be an interesting part of a piece of text, it is not the intention of the text. Our wish is for a model of intention, irregardless of voice. Why? Because as modelers, we are responsible for the decisions, actions, and possible misuses of our models. We want to be very careful to make a model that unfairly biases towards/against: voice not Race Gender Age Culture For us, we will use the following definition: voice is all stylistics elements that are and are to the speaker/writer; voice encompasses intrinsic properties of the speaker/writer devoid of intention. Style, on the other hand, is a made by a writer and has an inherent intentionality behind it; I may choose to write in a persuasive style, or an analytical style. For those further interested in voice, Dell Hymes’ is an interesting read. based on the individual speaker/writer inherent choice “Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality: Toward an Understanding of Voice” Now that we have a traded one seemingly impossible modeling task (veracity) for another just as seemingly impossible modeling task (intention), look forward to the next step towards a model of intention using syntax on a future post. Cooldown I started this post talking about the importance of knowing the “quality” (by which I meant veracity) of data being given to machine learning algorithms — not just here at Forge.AI but also any consumers of our Events data stream. We danced, we’ve thought, and we have even shifted our original goal from a purely truth-based veracity model to one whose use-case of trust is explicit form the start: a model of intention. We begin by using , the underlying structure of language itself, as a way to generalize our model into one useful over many types of texts. But there are dangers that we must explicitly guard against; dangers of bias against culture or race, voice or gender. In this way, a Modeler is always willing to create the future, reality be damned! As always, my hope is that our models perform better than a human audience. Is this an attainable goal? Perhaps; but it is our goal nonetheless. syntax Footnotes: Going into this exercise, I had a strong leaning towards one particular outcome. However, it’s important to understand when your feelings are tied to your intuition. It is even more important to understand that intuition is sometimes wrong. The process of creating a machine learning model is sometimes touted as an or a . That may be true for some but, in my view, models are rational and the process for creating a machine learning model should also be rational. The best place to live is right at the edge of intuition, and a little beyond! art creative process In case you were wondering, I just throw in the concept of intention without any real definition. As it turns out, , and one which deserves it’s own post (or two or three as we progress down our journey). For now, let us say that intention boils down to one of a small set of future changes to the reader a writer may have hoped for, including staples such as: deception, persuasion, information transfer, objective query-and-response, and emotional modification. did intention is a confusing concept Note: This post was originally published on our blog: https://www.forge.ai/blog/veracity-models-methods-and-morals

Veracity: Models, Methods, and Morals

Man-in-the-middle marketplaces like UpWork, Freelancer, and Fiverr aren’t the only places you can use to find work. There are other ways to find good remote projects. They get posted all the time in places like Reddit, Slack Groups, social media sites, multiple job boards, and forums too. remote freelance In this post, I’m going to share with you how to find the best remote projects that are posted on Reddit and how to apply so that you land the project. 1) Search the right subreddits. There are many subreddits that people post on when they want to hire someone for a job or project. One of my favorites to search is . The posts that you want to focus on are usually labeled with . /r/forhire [HIRING] Here are a few other subreddits that you can also check: /r/railsjobs /r/gameDevClassifieds /r/DesignJobs /r/Jobopenings Many programming languages have their own subreddits as well. Depending on the rules of the board, jobs and projects specific to those languages get posted on there frequently. 2) Skip commenting on the thread. Send a private message. Many times, hiring threads are monitored by bots that automatically remove your comment if you don’t meet a quota of karma points or account age. The best thing to do is skip commenting altogether and send a private message directly to the poster instead. This lets you put together a good cover letter and share more personal details about your work experience (with links) that will help you land the project. 3) Do your research before sending the message. Clients get a lot of applications from people who didn’t do any research at all. Applicants will only link out to a PDF resume without any cover letter. Don’t be one of those applicants. Clients will ignore you. That’s why you can easily stand out with an extra 10–15 minutes of focused research on the client and their project along with a good cover letter. A lot of times though, Reddit posts don’t have a lot of context. Click through on the poster’s account and go through their older posts and comments and see if you can learn anything more about their project. Mention it in the message that you send. 4) Leave a value-packed message with links to your best projects. The goal is to send a private message to the poster with a well-written cover letter that shows the client how you can help them with their project specifically. to learn more about how to write cover letters that win you remote freelance clients. Click here 6) Your karma doesn’t matter. I need to mention this. Your reddit karma doesn’t have any effect on whether you land a job or not. The bots might remove you if you leave a comment, but the human that will hire you is worried about one thing: If you can help them do the job. 7) It’s a numbers game You won’t get every client that you contact. Many people won’t even respond to you. That’s a part of the process. Ultimately, it’s all about how many people you reach out to on a consistent basis. Reddit is an open platform so you’ll also get a lot of people responding to the same lead you respond to, but if you follow the tips laid out above you can stand out from 95% of the people who reply with your professionalism. Avoid all of the searching and get projects sent directly to your email with RemoteLeads You can avoid all of those hours of searching for leads by subscribing to RemoteLeads. . It’s a good way to make sure you have a steady stream of potential leads coming in. You can subscribe . We find the best leads, vet them, and send them to you via email here Reddit can be a good alternative source for finding remote freelance projects. All it takes is searching for them and then reaching out to clients in the right way. The professionalism of the private message you send out to the client, along with linking to your portfolio, go a long way to helping you land more projects. All of the advice of presenting yourself professionally doesn’t get thrown out the window just because it’s Reddit. Thank you for reading and good luck on landing your next project!

How to find your next remote web development freelance project on Reddit (Step-by-Step Guide)

The Four Fists

At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A CHANGE OF MASTERS A CHANGE OF MASTERS WE MUST HAVE TRAVELED SEVERAL MILES THROUGH the dark and dismal wood when we came suddenly upon a dense village built high among the branches of the trees. As we approached it my escort broke into wild shouting which was immediately answered from within, and a moment later a swarm of creatures of the same strange race as those who had captured me poured out to meet us. Again I was the center of a wildly chattering horde. I was pulled this way and that. Pinched, pounded, and thumped until I was black and blue, yet I do not think that their treatment was dictated by either cruelty or malice—I was a curiosity, a freak, a new plaything, and their childish minds required the added evidence of all their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes. Presently they dragged me within the village, which consisted of several hundred rude shelters of boughs and leaves supported upon the branches of the trees. Between the huts, which sometimes formed crooked streets, were dead branches and the trunks of small trees which connected the huts upon one tree to those within adjoining trees; the whole network of huts and pathways forming an almost solid flooring a good fifty feet above the ground. I wondered why these agile creatures required connecting bridges between the trees, but later when I saw the motley aggregation of half-savage beasts which they kept within their village I realized the necessity for the pathways. There were a number of the same vicious wolf-dogs which we had left worrying the dyryth, and many goatlike animals whose distended udders explained the reasons for their presence. My guard halted before one of the huts into which I was pushed; then two of the creatures squatted down before the entrance—to prevent my escape, doubtless. Though where I should have escaped to I certainly had not the remotest conception. I had no more than entered the dark shadows of the interior than there fell upon my ears the tones of a familiar voice, in prayer. "Perry!" I cried. "Dear old Perry! Thank the Lord you are safe." "David! Can it be possible that you escaped?" And the old man stumbled toward me and threw his arms about me. He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had been seized by a number of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops to their village. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his strange clothing as had mine, with the same result. As we looked at each other we could not help but laugh. "With a tail, David," remarked Perry, "you would make a very handsome ape." "Maybe we can borrow a couple," I rejoined. "They seem to be quite the thing this season. I wonder what the creatures intend doing with us, Perry. They don't seem really savage. What do you suppose they can be? You were about to tell me where we are when that great hairy frigate bore down upon us—have you really any idea at all?" "Yes, David," he replied, "I know precisely where we are. We have made a magnificent discovery, my boy! We have proved that the earth is hollow. We have passed entirely through its crust to the inner world." "Perry, you are mad!" "Not at all, David. For two hundred and fifty miles our prospector bore us through the crust beneath our outer world. At that point it reached the center of gravity of the five-hundred-mile-thick crust. Up to that point we had been descending—direction is, of course, merely relative. Then at the moment that our seats revolved—the thing that made you believe that we had turned about and were speeding upward—we passed the center of gravity and, though we did not alter the direction of our progress, yet we were in reality moving upward—toward the surface of the inner world. Does not the strange fauna and flora which we have seen convince you that you are not in the world of your birth? And the horizon—could it present the strange aspects which we both noted unless we were indeed standing upon the inside surface of a sphere?" "But the sun, Perry!" I urged. "How in the world can the sun shine through five hundred miles of solid crust?" "It is not the sun of the outer world that we see here. It is another sun—an entirely different sun—that casts its eternal noonday effulgence upon the face of the inner world. Look at it now, David—if you can see it from the doorway of this hut—and you will see that it is still in the exact center of the heavens. We have been here for many hours—yet it is still noon. "And withal it is very simple, David. The earth was once a nebulous mass. It cooled, and as it cooled it shrank. At length a thin crust of solid matter formed upon its outer surface—a sort of shell; but within it was partially molten matter and highly expanded gases. As it continued to cool, what happened? Centrifugal force hurled the particles of the nebulous center toward the crust as rapidly as they approached a solid state. You have seen the same principle practically applied in the modern cream separator. Presently there was only a small super-heated core of gaseous matter remaining within a huge vacant interior left by the contraction of the cooling gases. The equal attraction of the solid crust from all directions maintained this luminous core in the exact center of the hollow globe. What remains of it is the sun you saw today—a relatively tiny thing at the exact center of the earth. Equally to every part of this inner world it diffuses its perpetual noonday light and torrid heat. "This inner world must have cooled sufficiently to support animal life long ages after life appeared upon the outer crust, but that the same agencies were at work here is evident from the similar forms of both animal and vegetable creation which we have already seen. Take the great beast which attacked us, for example. Unquestionably a counterpart of the Megatherium of the post-Pliocene period of the outer crust, whose fossilized skeleton has been found in South America." "But the grotesque inhabitants of this forest?" I urged. "Surely they have no counterpart in the earth's history." "Who can tell?" he rejoined. "They may constitute the link between ape and man, all traces of which have been swallowed by the countless convulsions which have racked the outer crust, or they may be merely the result of evolution along slightly different lines—either is quite possible." Further speculation was interrupted by the appearance of several of our captors before the entrance of the hut. Two of them entered and dragged us forth. The perilous pathways and the surrounding trees were filled with the black ape-men, their females, and their young. There was not an ornament, a weapon, or a garment among the lot. "Quite low in the scale of creation," commented Perry. "Quite high enough to play the deuce with us, though," I replied. "Now what do you suppose they intend doing with us?" We were not long in learning. As on the occasion of our trip to the village we were seized by a couple of the powerful creatures and whirled away through the tree tops, while about us and in our wake raced a chattering, jabbering, grinning horde of sleek, black ape-things. Twice my bearers missed their footing, and my heart ceased beating as we plunged toward instant death among the tangled deadwood beneath. But on both occasions those lithe, powerful tails reached out and found sustaining branches, nor did either of the creatures loosen their grasp upon me. In fact, it seemed that the incidents were of no greater moment to them than would be the stubbing of one's toe at a street crossing in the outer world—they but laughed uproariously and sped on with me. For some time they continued through the forest—how long I could not guess for I was learning, what was later borne very forcefully to my mind, that time ceases to be a factor the moment means for measuring it cease to exist. Our watches were gone, and we were living beneath a stationary sun. Already I was puzzled to compute the period of time which had elapsed since we broke through the crust of the inner world. It might be hours, or it might be days—who in the world could tell where it was always noon! By the sun, no time had elapsed—but my judgment told me that we must have been several hours in this strange world. Presently the forest terminated, and we came out upon a level plain. A short distance before us rose a few low, rocky hills. Toward these our captors urged us, and after a short time led us through a narrow pass into a tiny, circular valley. Here they got down to work, and we were soon convinced that if we were not to die to make a Roman holiday, we were to die for some other purpose. The attitude of our captors altered immediately as they entered the natural arena within the rocky hills. Their laughter ceased. Grim ferocity marked their bestial faces—bared fangs menaced us. We were placed in the center of the amphitheater—the thousand creatures forming a great ring about us. Then a wolf-dog was brought—HYAENODON Perry called it—and turned loose with us inside the circle. The thing's body was as large as that of a full-grown mastiff, its legs were short and powerful, and its jaws broad and strong. Dark, shaggy hair covered its back and sides, while its breast and belly were quite white. As it slunk toward us it presented a most formidable aspect with its upcurled lips baring its mighty fangs. Perry was on his knees, praying. I stooped and picked up a small stone. At my movement the beast veered off a bit and commenced circling us. Evidently it had been a target for stones before. The ape-things were dancing up and down urging the brute on with savage cries, until at last, seeing that I did not throw, he charged us. At Andover, and later at Yale, I had pitched on winning ball teams. My speed and control must both have been above the ordinary, for I made such a record during my senior year at college that overtures were made to me in behalf of one of the great major-league teams; but in the tightest pitch that ever had confronted me in the past I had never been in such need for control as now. As I wound up for the delivery, I held my nerves and muscles under absolute command, though the grinning jaws were hurtling toward me at terrific speed. And then I let go, with every ounce of my weight and muscle and science in back of that throw. The stone caught the hyaenodon full upon the end of the nose, and sent him bowling over upon his back. At the same instant a chorus of shrieks and howls arose from the circle of spectators, so that for a moment I thought that the upsetting of their champion was the cause; but in this I soon saw that I was mistaken. As I looked, the ape-things broke in all directions toward the surrounding hills, and then I distinguished the real cause of their perturbation. Behind them, streaming through the pass which leads into the valley, came a swarm of hairy men—gorilla-like creatures armed with spears and hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields. Like demons they set upon the ape-things, and before them the hyaenodon, which had now regained its senses and its feet, fled howling with fright. Past us swept the pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord us more than a passing glance until the arena had been emptied of its former occupants. Then they returned to us, and one who seemed to have authority among them directed that we be brought with them. When we had passed out of the amphitheater onto the great plain we saw a caravan of men and women—human beings like ourselves—and for the first time hope and relief filled my heart, until I could have cried out in the exuberance of my happiness. It is true that they were a half-naked, wild-appearing aggregation; but they at least were fashioned along the same lines as ourselves—there was nothing grotesque or horrible about them as about the other creatures in this strange, weird world. But as we came closer, our hearts sank once more, for we discovered that the poor wretches were chained neck to neck in a long line, and that the gorilla-men were their guards. With little ceremony Perry and I were chained at the end of the line, and without further ado the interrupted march was resumed. Up to this time the excitement had kept us both up; but now the tiresome monotony of the long march across the sun-baked plain brought on all the agonies consequent to a long-denied sleep. On and on we stumbled beneath that hateful noonday sun. If we fell we were prodded with a sharp point. Our companions in chains did not stumble. They strode along proudly erect. Occasionally they would exchange words with one another in a monosyllabic language. They were a noble-appearing race with well-formed heads and perfect physiques. The men were heavily bearded, tall and muscular; the women, smaller and more gracefully molded, with great masses of raven hair caught into loose knots upon their heads. The features of both sexes were well proportioned—there was not a face among them that would have been called even plain if judged by earthly standards. They wore no ornaments; but this I later learned was due to the fact that their captors had stripped them of everything of value. As garmenture the women possessed a single robe of some light-colored, spotted hide, rather similar in appearance to a leopard's skin. This they wore either supported entirely about the waist by a leathern thong, so that it hung partially below the knee on one side, or possibly looped gracefully across one shoulder. Their feet were shod with skin sandals. The men wore loin cloths of the hide of some shaggy beast, long ends of which depended before and behind nearly to the ground. In some instances these ends were finished with the strong talons of the beast from which the hides had been taken. Our guards, whom I already have described as gorilla-like men, were rather lighter in build than a gorilla, but even so they were indeed mighty creatures. Their arms and legs were proportioned more in conformity with human standards, but their entire bodies were covered with shaggy, brown hair, and their faces were quite as brutal as those of the few stuffed specimens of the gorilla which I had seen in the museums at home. Their only redeeming feature lay in the development of the head above and back of the ears. In this respect they were not one whit less human than we. They were clothed in a sort of tunic of light cloth which reached to the knees. Beneath this they wore only a loin cloth of the same material, while their feet were shod with thick hide of some mammoth creature of this inner world. Their arms and necks were encircled by many ornaments of metal—silver predominating—and on their tunics were sewn the heads of tiny reptiles in odd and rather artistic designs. They talked among themselves as they marched along on either side of us, but in a language which I perceived differed from that employed by our fellow prisoners. When they addressed the latter they used what appeared to be a third language, and which I later learned is a mongrel tongue rather analogous to the Pidgin-English of the Chinese coolie. How far we marched I have no conception, nor has Perry. Both of us were asleep much of the time for hours before a halt was called—then we dropped in our tracks. I say "for hours," but how may one measure time where time does not exist! When our march commenced the sun stood at zenith. When we halted our shadows still pointed toward nadir. Whether an instant or an eternity of earthly time elapsed who may say. That march may have occupied nine years and eleven months of the ten years that I spent in the inner world, or it may have been accomplished in the fraction of a second—I cannot tell. But this I do know that since you have told me that ten years have elapsed since I departed from this earth I have lost all respect for time—I am commencing to doubt that such a thing exists other than in the weak, finite mind of man. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1994). At the Earth's Core. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/123/pg123-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

A CHANGE OF MASTERS

At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES I WAS BORN IN CONNECTICUT ABOUT THIRTY YEARS ago. My name is David Innes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen he died. All his property was to be mine when I had attained my majority—provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in close application to the great business I was to inherit. I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent—not because of the inheritance, but because I loved and honored my father. For six months I toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, for I wished to know every minute detail of the business. Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow who had devoted the better part of a long life to the perfection of a mechanical subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studied paleontology. I looked over his plans, listened to his arguments, inspected his working model—and then, convinced, I advanced the funds necessary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector. I shall not go into the details of its construction—it lies out there in the desert now—about two miles from here. Tomorrow you may care to ride out and see it. Roughly, it is a steel cylinder a hundred feet long, and jointed so that it may turn and twist through solid rock if need be. At one end is a mighty revolving drill operated by an engine which Perry said generated more power to the cubic inch than any other engine did to the cubic foot. I remember that he used to claim that that invention alone would make us fabulously wealthy—we were going to make the whole thing public after the successful issue of our first secret trial—but Perry never returned from that trial trip, and I only after ten years. I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous occasion upon which we were to test the practicality of that wondrous invention. It was near midnight when we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perry had constructed his "iron mole" as he was wont to call the thing. The great nose rested upon the bare earth of the floor. We passed through the doors into the outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on into the cabin, which contained the controlling mechanism within the inner tube, switched on the electric lights. Perry looked to his generator; to the great tanks that held the life-giving chemicals with which he was to manufacture fresh air to replace that which we consumed in breathing; to his instruments for recording temperatures, speed, distance, and for examining the materials through which we were to pass. He tested the steering device, and overlooked the mighty cogs which transmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at the nose of his strange craft. Our seats, into which we strapped ourselves, were so arranged upon transverse bars that we would be upright whether the craft were ploughing her way downward into the bowels of the earth, or running horizontally along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically toward the surface again. At length all was ready. Perry bowed his head in prayer. For a moment we were silent, and then the old man's hand grasped the starting lever. There was a frightful roaring beneath us—the giant frame trembled and vibrated—there was a rush of sound as the loose earth passed up through the hollow space between the inner and outer jackets to be deposited in our wake. We were off! The noise was deafening. The sensation was frightful. For a full minute neither of us could do aught but cling with the proverbial desperation of the drowning man to the handrails of our swinging seats. Then Perry glanced at the thermometer. "Gad!" he cried, "it cannot be possible—quick! What does the distance meter read?" That and the speedometer were both on my side of the cabin, and as I turned to take a reading from the former I could see Perry muttering. "Ten degrees rise—it cannot be possible!" and then I saw him tug frantically upon the steering wheel. As I finally found the tiny needle in the dim light I translated Perry's evident excitement, and my heart sank within me. But when I spoke I hid the fear which haunted me. "It will be seven hundred feet, Perry," I said, "by the time you can turn her into the horizontal." "You'd better lend me a hand then, my boy," he replied, "for I cannot budge her out of the vertical alone. God give that our combined strength may be equal to the task, for else we are lost." I wormed my way to the old man's side with never a doubt but that the great wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young and vigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had my physique been the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that very reason it had waxed even greater than nature had intended, since my natural pride in my great strength had led me to care for and develop my body and my muscles by every means within my power. What with boxing, football, and baseball, I had been in training since childhood. And so it was with the utmost confidence that I laid hold of the huge iron rim; but though I threw every ounce of my strength into it, my best effort was as unavailing as Perry's had been—the thing would not budge—the grim, insensate, horrible thing that was holding us upon the straight road to death! At length I gave up the useless struggle, and without a word returned to my seat. There was no need for words—at least none that I could imagine, unless Perry desired to pray. And I was quite sure that he would, for he never left an opportunity neglected where he might sandwich in a prayer. He prayed when he arose in the morning, he prayed before he ate, he prayed when he had finished eating, and before he went to bed at night he prayed again. In between he often found excuses to pray even when the provocation seemed far-fetched to my worldly eyes—now that he was about to die I felt positive that I should witness a perfect orgy of prayer—if one may allude with such a simile to so solemn an act. But to my astonishment I discovered that with death staring him in the face Abner Perry was transformed into a new being. From his lips there flowed—not prayer—but a clear and limpid stream of undiluted profanity, and it was all directed at that quietly stubborn piece of unyielding mechanism. "I should think, Perry," I chided, "that a man of your professed religiousness would rather be at his prayers than cursing in the presence of imminent death." "Death!" he cried. "Death is it that appalls you? That is nothing by comparison with the loss the world must suffer. Why, David within this iron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities that science has scarce dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with it animated a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand men. That two lives will be snuffed out is nothing to the world calamity that entombs in the bowels of the earth the discoveries that I have made and proved in the successful construction of the thing that is now carrying us farther and farther toward the eternal central fires." I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more concerned with our own immediate future than with any problematic loss which the world might be about to suffer. The world was at least ignorant of its bereavement, while to me it was a real and terrible actuality. "What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the mask of a low and level voice. "We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our atmosphere tanks are empty," replied Perry, "or we may continue on with the slight hope that we may later sufficiently deflect the prospector from the vertical to carry us along the arc of a great circle which must eventually return us to the surface. If we succeed in so doing before we reach the higher internal temperature we may even yet survive. There would seem to me to be about one chance in several million that we shall succeed—otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of a slow and horrible death." I glanced at the thermometer. It registered 110 degrees. While we were talking the mighty iron mole had bored its way over a mile into the rock of the earth's crust. "Let us continue on, then," I replied. "It should soon be over at this rate. You never intimated that the speed of this thing would be so high, Perry. Didn't you know it?" "No," he answered. "I could not figure the speed exactly, for I had no instrument for measuring the mighty power of my generator. I reasoned, however, that we should make about five hundred yards an hour." "And we are making seven miles an hour," I concluded for him, as I sat with my eyes upon the distance meter. "How thick is the Earth's crust, Perry?" I asked. "There are almost as many conjectures as to that as there are geologists," was his answer. "One estimates it thirty miles, because the internal heat, increasing at the rate of about one degree to each sixty to seventy feet depth, would be sufficient to fuse the most refractory substances at that distance beneath the surface. Another finds that the phenomena of precession and nutation require that the earth, if not entirely solid, must at least have a shell not less than eight hundred to a thousand miles in thickness. So there you are. You may take your choice." "And if it should prove solid?" I asked. "It will be all the same to us in the end, David," replied Perry. "At the best our fuel will suffice to carry us but three or four days, while our atmosphere cannot last to exceed three. Neither, then, is sufficient to bear us in safety through eight thousand miles of rock to the antipodes." "If the crust is of sufficient thickness we shall come to a final stop between six and seven hundred miles beneath the earth's surface; but during the last hundred and fifty miles of our journey we shall be corpses. Am I correct?" I asked. "Quite correct, David. Are you frightened?" "I do not know. It all has come so suddenly that I scarce believe that either of us realizes the real terrors of our position. I feel that I should be reduced to panic; but yet I am not. I imagine that the shock has been so great as to partially stun our sensibilities." Again I turned to the thermometer. The mercury was rising with less rapidity. It was now but 140 degrees, although we had penetrated to a depth of nearly four miles. I told Perry, and he smiled. "We have shattered one theory at least," was his only comment, and then he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the steering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's masterful and scientific imprecations. Once more I tried my hand at the wheel, but I might as well have essayed to swing the earth itself. At my suggestion Perry stopped the generator, and as we came to rest I again threw all my strength into a supreme effort to move the thing even a hair's breadth—but the results were as barren as when we had been traveling at top speed. I shook my head sadly, and motioned to the starting lever. Perry pulled it toward him, and once again we were plunging downward toward eternity at the rate of seven miles an hour. I sat with my eyes glued to the thermometer and the distance meter. The mercury was rising very slowly now, though even at 145 degrees it was almost unbearable within the narrow confines of our metal prison. About noon, or twelve hours after our start upon this unfortunate journey, we had bored to a depth of eighty-four miles, at which point the mercury registered 153 degrees F. Perry was becoming more hopeful, although upon what meager food he sustained his optimism I could not conjecture. From cursing he had turned to singing—I felt that the strain had at last affected his mind. For several hours we had not spoken except as he asked me for the readings of the instruments from time to time, and I announced them. My thoughts were filled with vain regrets. I recalled numerous acts of my past life which I should have been glad to have had a few more years to live down. There was the affair in the Latin Commons at Andover when Calhoun and I had put gunpowder in the stove—and nearly killed one of the masters. And then—but what was the use, I was about to die and atone for all these things and several more. Already the heat was sufficient to give me a foretaste of the hereafter. A few more degrees and I felt that I should lose consciousness. "What are the readings now, David?" Perry's voice broke in upon my somber reflections. "Ninety miles and 153 degrees," I replied. "Gad, but we've knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory into a cocked hat!" he cried gleefully. "Precious lot of good it will do us," I growled back. "But my boy," he continued, "doesn't that temperature reading mean anything to you? Why it hasn't gone up in six miles. Think of it, son!" "Yes, I'm thinking of it," I answered; "but what difference will it make when our air supply is exhausted whether the temperature is 153 degrees or 153,000? We'll be just as dead, and no one will know the difference, anyhow." But I must admit that for some unaccountable reason the stationary temperature did renew my waning hope. What I hoped for I could not have explained, nor did I try. The very fact, as Perry took pains to explain, of the blasting of several very exact and learned scientific hypotheses made it apparent that we could not know what lay before us within the bowels of the earth, and so we might continue to hope for the best, at least until we were dead—when hope would no longer be essential to our happiness. It was very good, and logical reasoning, and so I embraced it. At one hundred miles the temperature had DROPPED TO 152 1/2 DEGREES! When I announced it Perry reached over and hugged me. From then on until noon of the second day, it continued to drop until it became as uncomfortably cold as it had been unbearably hot before. At the depth of two hundred and forty miles our nostrils were assailed by almost overpowering ammonia fumes, and the temperature had dropped to TEN BELOW ZERO! We suffered nearly two hours of this intense and bitter cold, until at about two hundred and forty-five miles from the surface of the earth we entered a stratum of solid ice, when the mercury quickly rose to 32 degrees. During the next three hours we passed through ten miles of ice, eventually emerging into another series of ammonia-impregnated strata, where the mercury again fell to ten degrees below zero. Slowly it rose once more until we were convinced that at last we were nearing the molten interior of the earth. At four hundred miles the temperature had reached 153 degrees. Feverishly I watched the thermometer. Slowly it rose. Perry had ceased singing and was at last praying. Our hopes had received such a deathblow that the gradually increasing heat seemed to our distorted imaginations much greater than it really was. For another hour I saw that pitiless column of mercury rise and rise until at four hundred and ten miles it stood at 153 degrees. Now it was that we began to hang upon those readings in almost breathless anxiety. One hundred and fifty-three degrees had been the maximum temperature above the ice stratum. Would it stop at this point again, or would it continue its merciless climb? We knew that there was no hope, and yet with the persistence of life itself we continued to hope against practical certainty. Already the air tanks were at low ebb—there was barely enough of the precious gases to sustain us for another twelve hours. But would we be alive to know or care? It seemed incredible. At four hundred and twenty miles I took another reading. "Perry!" I shouted. "Perry, man! She's going down! She's going down! She's 152 degrees again." "Gad!" he cried. "What can it mean? Can the earth be cold at the center?" "I do not know, Perry," I answered; "but thank God, if I am to die it shall not be by fire—that is all that I have feared. I can face the thought of any death but that." Down, down went the mercury until it stood as low as it had seven miles from the surface of the earth, and then of a sudden the realization broke upon us that death was very near. Perry was the first to discover it. I saw him fussing with the valves that regulate the air supply. And at the same time I experienced difficulty in breathing. My head felt dizzy—my limbs heavy. I saw Perry crumple in his seat. He gave himself a shake and sat erect again. Then he turned toward me. "Good-bye, David," he said. "I guess this is the end," and then he smiled and closed his eyes. "Good-bye, Perry, and good luck to you," I answered, smiling back at him. But I fought off that awful lethargy. I was very young—I did not want to die. For an hour I battled against the cruelly enveloping death that surrounded me upon all sides. At first I found that by climbing high into the framework above me I could find more of the precious life-giving elements, and for a while these sustained me. It must have been an hour after Perry had succumbed that I at last came to the realization that I could no longer carry on this unequal struggle against the inevitable. With my last flickering ray of consciousness I turned mechanically toward the distance meter. It stood at exactly five hundred miles from the earth's surface—and then of a sudden the huge thing that bore us came to a stop. The rattle of hurtling rock through the hollow jacket ceased. The wild racing of the giant drill betokened that it was running loose in AIR—and then another truth flashed upon me. The point of the prospector was ABOVE us. Slowly it dawned on me that since passing through the ice strata it had been above. We had turned in the ice and sped upward toward the earth's crust. Thank God! We were safe! I put my nose to the intake pipe through which samples were to have been taken during the passage of the prospector through the earth, and my fondest hopes were realized—a flood of fresh air was pouring into the iron cabin. The reaction left me in a state of collapse, and I lost consciousness. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1994). At the Earth's Core. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/123/pg123-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

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