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Showing posts from July, 2017

The Most Successful Bot Company You've Never Heard Of - TOPBOTS

The Most Successful Bot Company You've Never Heard Of - TOPBOTS : The first Xiaoi chatbot debuted in 2004 over MSN’s messaging platform. Prior to this milestone, only human beings were able to chat on the channel, according to a China Today interview with Pinpin Zhu. As the chatbot’s pool of users accumulated to more than 20 million, Pinpin Zhu thought of ways to monetize the interactions. ���
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You Can Get Your Whole Genome Sequenced. But Should You? | WIRED

You Can Get Your Whole Genome Sequenced. But Should You? | WIRED : To find out, primary care doc Jason Vassy recruited a handful of colleagues from around Boston to sequence the full genomes of 50 patients—the first randomized trial of whole genome sequencing in primary care. They expected to find maybe one person with a marker for one of those rare, monogenic diseases. Instead, they found 11. “That’s a shockingly high number,” says Vassy. “If you look at the list of the conditions we found, most primary care physicians have never heard of them. It would would be crazy to think that 20 percent of people have a disease like that.”
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In Prison Interview, Madoff Says Banks ‘Had to Know’ - The New York Times

In Prison Interview, Madoff Says Banks ‘Had to Know’ - The New York Times : “They had to know,” Mr. Madoff said. “But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.’�” While he acknowledged his guilt in the interview and said nothing could excuse his crimes, he focused his comments laserlike on the big investors and giant institutions he dealt with, not on the financial pain he caused thousands of his more modest investors. In an e-mail written on Jan. 13, he observed that many long-term clients made more in legitimate profits from him in the years before the fraud than they could have elsewhere. “I would have loved for them to not lose anything, but that was a risk they were well aware of by investing in the market,” he wrote. Mr. Madoff said he was startled to learn about some of the e-mails and messages raising doubts about his results — now emerging in lawsuits — that bankers were passing around before his scheme collapsed. “I’m reading mor
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Bernie Madoff is cornering the prison market on Swiss Miss hot chocolate - MarketWatch

Bernie Madoff is cornering the prison market on Swiss Miss hot chocolate - MarketWatch : Speaking about the banks, investors and feeder funds that gave money to Madoff’s crooked operations, Fishman said, “He refused to give anyone any details about his operations, and they were OK with that. Either these powerful and prestigious financial institutions were incompetent at doing due diligence, or they were looking the other way because of the profits.”
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Bernie Madoff photos offer rare glimpse of convicted fraudster in prison | Business | The Guardian

Bernie Madoff photos offer rare glimpse of convicted fraudster in prison | Business | The Guardian : He has his hands outstretched as though in animated conversation. In the second image he smiles broadly, enjoying a moment of levity that may irritate some of his many financial victims still left reeling by the vast deception.
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Apple Music’s Trent Reznor says ‘music economics aren’t what they should be’ in new interview | 9to5Mac

Apple Music’s Trent Reznor says ‘music economics aren’t what they should be’ in new interview | 9to5Mac : He went on to suggest that people tend to value albums more when they pay for them, but at the same time he sees the benefits of accessing the more obscure stuff: A lot of the music I ended up really loving was because I spent nine bucks on an album and that meant I�had�to listen to it and figure it out. I’m not saying there aren’t a million great things about streaming music. Being able to have access to every obscure�Frank Zappa�album is good; but�I don’t think I’m being a crank if I suggest that maybe there’s some drawbacks to the all-access, all-free world we’re living in.
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Apple’s Next Move? It’s Obvious. But We’re Missing It.

Apple’s Next Move? It’s Obvious. But We’re Missing It. : “Rumelt: Steve, this turnaround at Apple has been impressive. But everything we know about the PC business says that Apple cannot really push beyond a small niche position. The network effects are just too strong to upset the Wintel standard. So what are you trying to do in the longer term? What is the strategy?” Jobs: “I am going to wait for the next big thing.”
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Feed - Quora

Feed - Quora : Basque. Generally regarded as one of the most difficult languages in the world, since it is not even remotely related to anything else. Georgian. Agglutinative (everything is expressed by hanging endings on the main word in the phrase, so you can end up with one long word that needs a dozen words in English), a different language family so it’s not related to any language you already speak, and an alphabet like nothing you’ve seen before. Sami, in particular the Ume variety. It is spoken by about 30 people, so in addition to the same convoluted, near-agglutinative structure as Finnish, you are hard put to find anyone to practice on. Also, some 40 words for different types of snow, and 100 for reindeer. Hungarian. Not really close to any other language (yes, it’s related to Finnish, just like English is related to Greek), and you can’t even trust normally safe bets like “restaurant” which tend to be very similar in many languages (in Hungarian, it’s “ettendre”). Gaeli
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Twitter: 27 British clubs in the Top 100 clubs with the most followers (July 2017)

Twitter: 27 British clubs in the Top 100 clubs with the most followers (July 2017) Clubs - Paris - Monday, July 10 2017 - Highlights #97570 With 27 clubs represented, including 9 from the Sky Bet Championship, England (plus Welsh club Swansea City AFC) is the country most represented in the Top 100 list of most followed clubs on Twitter, according to data compiled by News Tank Football on 05/07/2017. Spain is 2 nd with 18 clubs represented, including 4 from the second division LaLiga 1|2|3. The data used by News Tank Football in the Twitter Top 100 include followers to a club's primary Twitter account, but also followers to additional accounts in other languages. For example, FC Barcelona (LaLiga Santander) totals fewer followers on its primary Spanish language account than Real Madrid CF, ranked second overall, but the Catalan club is
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