Powering Up!
A couple days ago,
announced the Minnow Power Up League initiative. I am already in 
’s Curation and Engagement Leagues (didn’t make it on to the recent list with being on vacation), so I thought, why not join this new league and track my progress to Dolphin status? It would likely be slow progress since I don’t post often, but I am trying to work on that aspect as well!
One other growth hindrance is that I don’t power up the STEEM portion of the Author’s reward. I prefer to use it for 
Now that I have a healthy collection of Steem Monsters cards, I will start powering up post earnings in order to track my journey to Dolphin-hood. Any extra STEEM in my account was purchased and is being saved for good Steem Monsters deals. :)
Increase in the Author Rewards Payout?
No need to read further, but feel free to do so!
Gentlemen, I hope you don't mind my using you both as examples!
Since my new goal is to power up, I thought I would try the 100% SP payout so I don’t have to remember to power up. In the past when rewards were paid in SBD/SP, there were reasons why it was preferable to choose the 50/50 payout. I don't believe the reasoning still holds true but I have no way of knowing until I try myself.
As luck has it, I came across 
So I took a peek at the reward structure on one of his payout to see if there is a difference with 100% SP (beauty of this Steem platform 😊).
Then discovered that recent Author Rewards payout is MORE than the post earnings!
As you can see, the Author Rewards payout is MORE than as stated on the post earning!
I decided to check with another author who also posts regularly and found 
Again, the Author Rewards payout is MORE than the post earning!
So then I checked a post with the 50/50 option that was recently paid.
Again, the Author Rewards payout is MORE than the post earning!
Here is the interview post my teammate, 
Author Rewards payout is LESS than the post earning!
HF 20 Related?
At first, I thought it might be related to Hardfork 20 but the given date for go live is September 25th. Additionally, 17/21 votes must be cast for the adoption, and at the time of this writing, only 12 witnesses are running the new version.
Per 
Witnesses should review the changes in the hardfork release. If they agree with the changes, they should run the new version of Steem at their earliest convenience. By running the new version of Steem, they are casting their vote for the changes. By choosing not to run the new version of Steem they are casting their vote not to hardfork.
Steemians should also review the changes in the hardfork release and vote for witnesses that agree on whether they accept or reject the hardfork. To see what version of steemd a witness is running, go to https://steemd.com/witnesses and vote for them at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. The hardfork vote of the top 20 witnesses determines whether the hardfork‒and the improvements included within it‒becomes active or not.
It appears that being sick is affecting my creative mind but not my curious nature 😁. Did I miss something important during my vacation? Please share!
It does appear that now is a good time to post!
Image Sources: Coins, Snippets from Steemit.