The World Economic Forum expects automation and robots will eliminate 5.1 million jobs within the next five years. That’s a scary thought, especially if you have one of these jobs that could theoretically be done more efficiently (and for less cost) with an automated machine.
Source: The Jobs Most Likely to Be Taken Over by Robots In the Near Future
A nice list! It turns out to run from around $1000 to $3000 depending on how many followers you have.
Source: Here’s How Much Celebrities Make in the Instagram Product Placement Machine
And Google paid Apple $1bn to put its search into iPhones
An Oracle lawyer has blurted out in court how much money Google has made from Android – figures that the web giant has fiercely fought to keep secret.
And those numbers are: US$31bn in revenue, and US$22bn in profit, since 2008, when Android was launched. This money comes from Google’s cut from sales made via the Google Play store and adverts shown in apps.
Source: Oracle blurts Google’s Android secrets in court: You made $22bn using Java, punk
Dan Price decided to pay all 120 employees at least $70,000. Grown men cried. Profits soared. Then things got really crazy.
Source: Here’s What Really Happened at That Company That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage
Bitcoin transactions will be exempt from Value Added Tax (VAT), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.
Source: Bitcoin is Exempt from VAT, Rules European Court of Justice
A fascinating economic look at how drugs are sold and bought on the dark web and what their growth potential is.
Source: The safe, user-friendly way to be a little drug lord: economic secrets of the dark web
Washington State just received federal funds to study a totally unique toll bridge concept, one made out of decommissioned US Navy Super Carriers. The bridge would consist of two or three carriers and would link Bremerton and Port Orchard, Washington, spanning the Sinclair Inlet.
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-washington-state-could-turn-aircraft-carriers-into-1696976267
apparently they are fighting an uphill battle but what an awesome idea!
SA 838 is a budgetary amendment which backs support for and funding of state efforts to take over federal land. It was part of a larger debate over the 2016 fiscal year federal budget.
While yes, its language does note that it’s impossible to sell National Parks, National Monuments and National Preserves (which enjoy extraordinary legal protection), it leaves the door open to sell National Forests, Wildlife Refuges and Wildernesses. That’s some of you and I’s most beautiful lands on which we’re currently able to camp, hunt, hang out with our dogs and on which a large portion of wild animals rely for their habitat.
aside from it not being theirs to sell, don’t they get that these are resources you can only sell once?
Since 2002, Congress has set aside $104 billion specifically to rebuild Afghanistan. Of that, $66 billion went to the Pentagon.
Recently, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction asked the military to account for all that spending. It couldn’t. According to a new report from SIGAR, the Pentagon only knows how it spent a third of its reconstruction budget.
That’s $45 billion dollars the military can’t track and the reason is … ridiculous. According to SIGAR, the Pentagon didn’t check a box on an electronic form when it filed the information in government databases.
via How the Pentagon Lost Track of $45 Billion — War Is Boring — Medium.
Toyota is opening the door to the hydrogen future, making available thousands of hydrogen fuel cell patents royalty free. Announced today at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, this Toyota initiative will spur development and introduction of innovative fuel cell technologies around the world.
Toyota will invite royalty-free use of approximately 5,680 fuel cell related patents held globally, including critical technologies developed for the new Toyota Mirai. The list includes approximately 1,970 patents related to fuel cell stacks, 290 associated with high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 related to fuel cell system software control and 70 patents related to hydrogen production and supply.
“At Toyota, we believe that when good ideas are shared, great things can happen,”
via Toyota Opens the Door and Invites the Industry to the Hydrogen Future | Corporate.
Skiplagged.com found out that you can buy a cheaper ticket from A – B if you buy a ticket to C where B is a stop on the way (A – B – C) and then just get off at B.
For example, a customer buying a ticket from New York to Los Angeles, where competition is high, could get a lower rate than a flight to Chicago, but could simply get off the plane during a stop in Chicago and avoid a higher fare.
United and Orbitz are going all ballistic on Aktarer Zaman’s (Skiplagged.com) arse because of not liking a) their own stupidity exposed and b) not liking competition.
Airline, travel site sue over 'hacked' airfares.
Skiplagged is taking contributions to his legal defence, he probably needs it.
Company marketed specialized computers designed to produce the cryptocurrency but delivered useless machines, according to an FTC complaint.
via Bitcoin-mining company Butterfly Labs shut down by FTC – CNET.
Airpooler – an Uber for plane rides – fucked up private pilots in the US flying people to destinations for the price of fuel (and so to get their hours) by asking the FAA for clarification of a 1964 rule.
The FAA clarification not only extends to ride sharing services, but also to the old fashion word of mouth / paper board note that has been in use pretty universally.
The FAA states that this kind of flying is commercial and for that you need to spend huge amounts of money on a commercial pilots license.
FAA Bans Planesharing Startups | TechCrunch.
Interestingly, recruiters spend only 6 seconds reviewing an individual resume!
They spend that time looking at:
Name
Current title / company
Previous title / company
Previous position start and end dates
Current position start and end dates
Education
If you add a picture, they spend 19% of that time looking at the picture, not the information.
Professionally re-written resumes score 60% better on “usability” – they are easier to read.
Professional resumes had less data, were evenly formatted and
were described as “clearer.” They scored 40% better than before a re-write.
Note that the study is commissioned by TheLadders, a professional CV writing company, so the results are clearly interpreted in their favor, but the above points remain valid.
TheLadders-EyeTracking-StudyC2.pdf.
This time, 36% of people tested still do not realise that Google Adwords are ads.
Furthermore, about a quarter of people don’t know that Google had any advertising at all. And this despite the yellow text box proclaiming ‘ads’.
via 36% of people still don't realise that Google Adwords are ads | Econsultancy.
In November 2013:
There have been local reports of a mini helicopter drone dropping 250 grams worth of what is thought to be cocaine onto a Brazilian prison. According to Brazilian news source Globo, the prison, Centro de Detenção Provisória 1 is 60 miles north of São José dos Campos and currently holds 1,605 prisoners.
São Paulo’s secretary of Corrections claims that at 10am on 7th March, the drone dropped the package onto the prison yard. The prisoners are said to have crowded around the parcel making it impossible for prison officers to gain access to the mysterious load until later that day when a search of each individual cell had to be carried out.
Drone drops supposed cocaine package into São Paulo Prison | euronews, world news.
Now, May 2014:
A Lithuanian self-made drone detained in Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad region last week was used for smuggling cigarettes into Russia, Oleg Dzhurayev, the press service chief of the Kaliningrad border department of the Russian Federal Security service, told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.
A Russian-Lithuanian criminal group used the self-made drone aircraft for illegally smuggling cigarettes across the Lithuanian border into Russia. Dzhurayev said huge boxes with cigarettes had been found inside the drone when the border guards detained the aircraft on Lithuania’s border with Russia. He did not rule out the drone could have been used for other purposes, including unlawful actions in Russia’s territory.
Lithuanian drone detained in Russia last week was used for cigarette smuggling
This is an incredible story: The Silk Road 2.0 decided not to fold and has been repaying customers that lost their BTC by randomly assigning service costs BTC to duped customers instead of paying it out to staff.
How Silk Road Bounced Back from Its Multimillion-Dollar Hack | Motherboard.
This will probably cost the copyright owners millions, because the current system won’t work any more. Considering studies keep showing that freely shared content sells better than DRM content, copyright will shoot itself further in the foot. Well done on furthering shortsighted, US business interests, EU.
The Netherlands Must Outlaw Downloading, EU Court Rules (Update) | TorrentFreak.
China’s central bank has ruled that all banks and payment service providers in the country must cease dealing in Bitcoin.
The ruling, effective from April 15th, basically shutters all Bitcoin trading sites in the Middle Kingdom and means cash purchases will soon be the only way to buy into the virtual currency.
via Bitcoin bloodbath as China shutters all trading sites • The Register.
OKCoin has grown rapidly over the past few weeks and is now the biggest Chinese exchange, according to its CEO Star Xu. He claims the exchange’s current daily trade volume is approximately 50,000 bitcoins per day.
Interestingly, on top of that, the exchange allegedly trades 5 million litecoins per day. The company claims that at its peak it reached over 300,000 bitcoin and 13 million litecoin trades.
OKCoin Raises $10 Million to Become China’s ‘Largest Exchange’.
The city-state says the regulations for transacting digital currencies will be similar to those currently imposed on money changers and remittance businesses that undertake cash transactions.
BBC News – Singapore to regulate virtual currency exchanges.
After having lost court case after court case, NORMA has won in the highest courts, saying that it should get money for each form of media – hard disk, ipod, SD Card, basically anything that allows digital content copied to it – in order to ‘pay the artists’ that could, potentially have their music copied to this media. Not only will the artists not see any of this money, but there is no way of determining who should get how much! Do Dutch judges not understand digital thingamies? Are they still locked into a battle with paper and pen whilst the rest of the world has advanced into a tablet and pc world?
Hoge Raad: bevriezing thuiskopieheffing illegaal – Webwereld.
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