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books, nick-nax and a human colony on the moon...
The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos briefly overtook Microsoft’s Bill Gates to become the world’s richest person. Bezos leapfrogged Gates, who has been the richest man on the planet since 2013, after a rise in the share price of Amazon ahead of its latest results due Thursday night. According to a real-time billionaires index compiled by Forbes, the rise pushed the value of Bezos’s fortune to $91bn (£69bn) – compared with Gates’ wealth of $90bn. Their riches are calculated on the share prices of their respective companies and at the current values Bezos’s stake is twice as big as carmaker Ford. But the Amazon share price fell back leaving Gates on top, but with less than $1bn separating them. Bezos – born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1964 – keeps a relatively low profile, but has used some of the wealth he has amassed to buy the Washington Post and invest in space travel through Blue Origin, a company he founded in 2000. He began Amazon in 1994 when he sold books from his garage in Seattle before expanding into a huge range of other products and capturing the global rush to online shopping. Amazon now accounts for 43% of everything sold online in the US and 64 million people have signed up for its Prime service – which gives access to free deliveries and video streaming. Amazon shares have soared this year – making the company worth more than $500bn. read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/27/amazon-founder-jeff-bez...
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moonraker...
The billionaire revealed more about his ambitious plan to settle on the moon during a Q&A with kids at the Seattle Museum of Flight’s Apollo exhibit Saturday.
Answering a question about the impact of AI on space exploration, Bezos said: “I think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon. It’s time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay.”
Super fun morning talking rockets with a very cool group of students. Great questions. Thx to all the students and to@museumofflight! https://t.co/adXbn3bdon
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) May 20, 2017READ MORE: Amazon boss wants to start delivery service to the Moon
Bezos has previously spoken about Blue Origin’s plan to send cargo shipments to the moon to deliver equipment necessary for building a human colony.
Writing in an internal company report earlier this year, Bezos said: “A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.”
read more:
https://www.rt.com/viral/389475-jeff-bezos-moon-colonization/
Moonraker... Moonraker (1979) is the eleventh spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Cléry, and Richard Kiel. Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, and the Amazon rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race.[2][3]
Here we can see similarity with Jeff Bezos' moon program except he does not have to plan the destruction of humanity since we can do a good job at this ourselves. In order to be eligible to travel to space one needs to be fit, healthy and somewhat very intelligent (though a bit mad to wish to go there). Thus the moon human colony would eliminate lazy bums, idiots and blue blooded animals.
the rich beautiful people wear valentino...
If you were casting a Bravo reality series about superficial, luxury-brand-obsessed Washington women, you wouldn’t have to look much farther than Louise Linton, the wife of the US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. (Oh, but wait, such a reality series – Real Housewives of DC – already aired, cancelled in 2010.)
On Monday, Linton exhibited her talent for playing true to type by posting an Instagram picture of herself disembarking from a US Air Force jet with her husband – in Fort Knox, no less, site of the nation’s gold reserves. The post was replete with hashtags announcing the designer brands she was rocking on her day trip to the poverty-stricken state of Kentucky: #rolandmouret, #hermesscarf, #tomford and #valentino.
When a Portland mother of three, Jenni Miller, derided the post – “Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable” – Linton went on an Instagram rant of Trumpian proportions, mocking Miller for being “adorably out of touch” in her presumed ignorance of the “sacrifices” rich persons such as herself make in the service to their country – not to mention the taxes they pay! (Taxes which Donald Trump has promised to slash.)
Linton’s post, and Linton herself, were promptly dragged across social media and excoriated in obligatory hot takes in the media. Linton then took down the post, apologized for her “inappropriate” behavior, and set her Instagram account to private.
Was Linton’s post “deplorable”? Sure. But then the culture of social media is deplorable. For her post wasn’t really so different from millions of others that appear on social platforms every day, perhaps every minute.
It was standard-issue social media braggadocio, designed to cause fomo (fear of missing out). Look at my life – isn’t my life amazing? Look at my clothes – look at me. This is what we do, on social media, isn’t it? Show off?
As she is the wife of a government official, Linton’s tone-deaf crowing indeed may have been “inappropriate”, but her post was in keeping with endless other posts by the famous and obscure alike, from the Kardashians to middle school girls who proudly display their “hauls” from the cosmetic aisles at Walgreen’s – to parents who post about their own children as a way of bragging about their wonderful families.
The problem is that this culture seems to be causing not just fomo, but some serious dysfunction. Anxiety, depression, even suicide, are on the rise among kids, especially girls, and some researchers have connected this to the effects of social media.
For children and teenagers, the pressure to constantly present an image of an awesome, perfect life can be overwhelming. The inordinate emphasis these image-based platforms place on physical appearance is also an issue. “You find a really pretty girl on Instagram and you’re like, ‘Goals,’” a girl named Sophia in Montclair, New Jersey, told me when I was reporting my book American Girls. “Goals to have my eyebrows like hers, goals to have my lips like hers … If you’re beautiful, everyone will love you.”
The interchange which followed Linton’s Instagram post was representative of another troubling aspect of social media culture, particularly as it relates to kids.
read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/23/social-media-backl...
one does not make money should one sell a dud...
One-star reviews of Hillary Clinton’s postmortem of the 2016 presidential election enigmatically disappeared from the page after the former presidential candidate’s book had just a three-star rating overall - the average mark has since jumped to 4.9 out of 5 stars.
As of 6 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, 19 of 645 reviews gave Clinton’s book one star (3 percent), 6 reviews gave two stars (1 percent), zero gave three stars, 12 rated four stars (2 percent) and 606 reviews marked five stars (94 percent).
The reviews haven’t always been so positive, the Washington Times reports. According to Zero Hedge, on Wednesday afternoon there were an equal number of five-star and one-star reviews. Clearly that is no longer the case based on the latest distribution of scores, which are heavily concentrated around five-star reviews.,“They delete negative reviews that don’t agree with their political affiliation,” Riddy J says in a comment on the top critical review, adding “I regret EVERY dollar I ever gave to you and Jeff Bezos. Absolutely disgusting.”
An Amazon spokesperson said in comments to the Washington Times that the company strives to maintain the integrity of reviews. “In the case of a memoir, the subject of the book is the author and their views. It’s not our role to decide what a customer would view as helpful or unhelpful in making their decision,” the Amazon spokesperson explained.
read more:
https://sputniknews.com/us/201709151057408825-bad-clinton-reviews-myster...
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rich and poor...
Jeff Bezos' $13b day makes him world's richest man, overtaking Bill Gates
A post-earnings surge in Amazon shares on Friday pushed Jeff Bezos to the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time, vaulting him ahead of Bill Gates who had held the top spot as the richest person on earth for more than four years.
The founder and chief executive officer of the retail juggernaut added $US10.4 billion ($13.1 billion) to his net worth as Amazon shares jumped 13 per cent, the most in 2 1/2 years
read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/jeff-bezos-13b-day-makes-h...
Meanwhile at Slave Central:
While Anju was working long hours at a clothes factory in Bangladesh, one of her young daughters was bitten by a dog.
So Anju and her husband, a rickshaw driver, sent their children far away to live a safer life with their grandparents, and the young couple only see their girls twice a year.
The 25-year-old sews jumpers sold in Australian shops including Katies and Rivers, earning 37¢ an hour, a wage that does not cover even basic costs like accommodation and food.
Her story is one of many included in aid organisation Oxfam's new report, What She Makes: Power and Poverty in the Fashion Industry, which estimates 4 per cent of the price of a garment sold in major Australian retailers is paid to the factory worker who made it.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/oxfam-report-calls-on-au...
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the CIA, bezos' cloud and profits...
Moving to the cloud is how the CIA sees itself as running more like a business. "We want to be like commercial companies, not the government. [Cloud] is the most innovative thing we've done, and it's having a material impact on the CIA and the IC," Edwards said in June, adding that reaching a deal with Amazon for AWS was the "best decision we ever made."
If it weren't for AWS, Amazon would probably not be profitable. AWS was the only business segment in the company to improve operating profit in the third quarter of 2017. While the company's operating income fell 40 percent on a year-over-year basis to $347 million in Q3 as ecommerce lines suffered, the company's bottom line was buoyed by $1 billion in operating profits from the AWS line. In each quarter of 2017, AWS revenues have jumped at least 40 percent.
read more:
https://sputniknews.com/military/201711201059275617-bezos-amazon-secret-...
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, has completed construction of a secret region on Amazon’s cloud computing software to host data from all 17 US intelligence agencies, according to a new report.
"Today we mark an important milestone as we launch the AWS [Amazon Web Services] Secret Region," Theresa Carlson, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector, said Monday, according to NextGov.
$100 billion billionaire...
With the founder of Amazon.com Inc. having added $2.4 billion to his fortune, which now stands at a whopping $100.3 billion, many wonder if the world’s richest man will follow the example of fellow moguls Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who have donated billions to charity, Bloomberg wrote.
The world’s number one online retailer’s shares spiked more than 2 percent based on the company’s prospects for the holiday shopping season, with daily online purchases rising 18.4 percent over last year.
read more:
https://sputniknews.com/us/201711251059421733-bezos-amazon-fortune/
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connected vessels...
The United States Postal Service is deep in the red, with a dwindling list of options available to stop the bleeding. USPS officials and Congress have continually neglected to employ sound financial management, which has resulted in $15 billion in debt and more than $100 billion in unfunded liabilities for the Postal Service. Despite inept leadership, anyone bringing attention to these issues is bound to be repeatedly attacked as a corporate shill trying to harm the USPS.
Over the past week, however, feathers have been particularly ruffled by President Trump, who has criticized Amazon’s agreements with the USPS as costly and unproductive. These accusations have elicited a mountain of commentary, mostly by “fact-checkers” critical of the president’s Twitter blasts. But contrary to defenders of the status-quo, agreements in place do, in fact, bolster Amazon at the expense of customers and taxpayers. These crony carve-outs are just one of many issues plaguing Postal Service finances. But citizens should be especially leery of special arrangements that tilt the playing field in favor of a massive corporate leviathan that has been squeezing out market competition on every level imaginable.
Special arrangements created by the Postal Service ensure that Amazon will get a much larger piece of the action than competing e-commerce companies. A deal carved out in 2013, for instance, commits the Postal Service to delivering Amazon packages on Sundays. This has undoubtedly been a major boon to the e-commerce giant’s bottom line, making two-day Prime delivery a possibility even on weekends. But competitors like Walmart can’t tap into this same advantage, and must wait until the holiday season to take advantage of Sunday delivery by the Postal Service.
Read more:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-postal-service-amazo...
Of course, Amazon very much depends on the Postal Service to take their packages the last mile to their destination. By one estimate, about 40 percent of Amazon’s orders are delivered by the agency, with the rest handled by U.P.S., FedEx and a hodgepodge of other carriers.
Companies that do a lot of shipping, like Amazon, often negotiate deals with the Postal Service to pay less than an ordinary person would to send goods. It is essentially a discount for buying in bulk.
That is where the president seems to be focused, and partly why Amazon’s stock has fallen sharply in the last week. Its shares are down more than 20 points — nearly 1.5 percent — since March 28.
But the Postal Service says all such deals it makes are profitable — and must be by law.
An independent body, the Postal Regulatory Commission, oversees the rates that the Postal Service charges for its products. By law, the agreements it cuts with corporate customers like Amazon must cover their “attributable costs” that directly result from their use of the postal network.
Amazon helps lower those costs by organizing the packages it takes to the Post Office by destination ZIP code in over 35 sorting centers around the country, leaving less work that must be done by postal workers. The company relies on the Postal Service strictly for last-mile delivery to customers, short trips that further limit the cost of delivering each package.
But in one of his tweet attacks, Mr. Trump seemed to dispute whether Amazon was covering the Postal Service’s costs, saying that “it is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon.”
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