A Large Regular: Amazon

- Adult Swim cuts ties with Justin Roiland after charges of domestic abuse. Rick and Morty set to continue with the voices of Roiland (both Rick and Morty) to be recast. The show will never be the same.

- Tesla announces $3.6 billion investment in Nevada. New power cell and Tesla Semi Gigafactories to employ 3,000 additional workers.

- Interesting - partnership between Stripe and Amazon increases. Basically Stripe becomes Amazon's defacto payments platform for the US, Europe and Asia while Stripe will expand its usage of Amazon's web services for all of Stripes cloud needs.

- Cool - DARPA to create X-Plane with no exterior moving parts. The cynic in me asks, "Doesn't that basically explain how a paper airplane works?"

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Amazon's $1 Billion Thursday Night Football Deal Is Off To Good Start

Interesting look at how Amazon's 11-year $11 billion Thursday Night Football deal is paying off.

Amazon says the first TNF game resulted in more Prime membership signups during a 3-hour period than any time in the company's history, including Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

The revenue from commercials during the broadcast go a long way for paying the $1 billion per year pricetag but the $139 yearly Prime subscription fees and the fact that Prime members spend on average $1,400 per year on Amazon is the real cherry on top.

I've long advocated that Amazon make a similar deal with Notre Dame once the Fighting Irish's contract is up with NBC. They would have similar success for similar reasons if they inked that deal.

Friday, September 23, 2022

Child Predators Use Twitch to Systematically Track Kids Livestreaming

You should not allow your children to use Twitch (or TikTok). Disturbing.

The fact that Bloomberg and a researcher could uncover so many predatory accounts shows that Amazon and Twitch are not making child safety a priority.

Meanwhile this is the type of account they are apparently cracking down on. Guess that messaging is not OK but "spicy" children is to Jeff Bezos.

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Ex-Amazon Cloud Worker Found Guilty in Capital One Hack

The huge hack affected more than 100 million US customers.

Paige Thompson was found guilty and faces up to 20-years in prison at her September 15th sentencing. 20-years, in my opinion, is not adequate punishment. If each affected US citizen had to spend just one hour checking to see if they lost any money, changing passwords, etc. - it would take those affected over 11,000 years to undo the damage.

HT Stephen Landry

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Elon Musk Buys Twitter But Jeff Bezos is Not Complaining

EDIT: Or maybe Bezos is complaining

Saturday, April 16, 2022

Heh Heh

Via

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Reacher

Watched the Amazon series Reacher over the weekend and I enjoyed it very much. I've read a few of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books and I enjoy them for what they are - brain candy. This series was true to the books and true to the aim of the books - simple entertainment. If you are looking for more than that then this may not be the series for you.

The first season (the show has been renewed for a second season) was based on the book The Killing Floor which was also the first Jack Reacher book and one of those that I'd read. The plot of the series stayed true to that of the book so there wasn't any surprise twists for me which, again, I didn't mind. The characters were also true to the book which means Reacher was a 6'5" monster of a man (played by Alan Ritchson) although I don't recall Reacher being blonde.

I didn't mind Tom Cruise as Reacher and enjoyed his first movie in the role very much (did not see the second movie). However, Alan Ritchson pretty much embodies the way Reacher was written on the page and how most people probably imagined the character.

I'll probably read another Reacher book or two this summer at the beach - where brain candy books are best enjoyed. Looking forward to Season Two.

Thursday, April 07, 2022

Amazon's Project Kuiper

Have a new post up on Substack looking at Amazon's planned Project Kuiper satellite broadband service.

Will be putting my longer essays up on Substack, no matter the subject, and I'd appreciate your support in Subscribing (it's free).

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- These are the US servicemen killed in the Kabul airport attack.

- Amazon urges FCC to deny SpaceX's plan for second generation Starlink. While the overall impression is Elon Musk is getting things done while Jeff Bezos just protests and cries foul - in this case Amazon may have a point.

- Libertarians correctly predicted the Afghanistan fiasco. (HT Stephen Landry)

- Sirhan Sirhan parole board approved his release. Let's hope the Governor rejects the recommendation. People forget but Sirhan was the original Islamic terrorist in this country - killing "Bobby" over Israel's victory in the Six Days War and America's support of Israel.

- Because that's all they seem to care about.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Don't blame Cam Newton for not being vaccinated. He had COVID last season so should have anti-bodies. If you had the flu - would it make sense for you to get a flu booster vaccine to protect you from getting that same flu again? They're both viruses... Dr. Gay Hitler, son of George Washington Hitler... Do you recall when comments on posts and message boards were relatively new and some people made a big deal about being the first to post a comment? "Firsties" should have been a warning sign of how stupid a place the Internet can be. Thank God public shaming eventually put an end to that practice... Nothing could usher crypto currency in faster than Amazon accepting Bitcoin or Etherium as payment methods. Could you imagine the impact that could have?... Disney fires back at Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow lawsuit... One way to stay sane yet also stay informed is in your head add the words, "In accordance to the prophesies" in front of any newspaper headline you read. So for example, "In accordance to the prophesies Disney fires back at Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow lawsuit." See how fun that can be?..

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

If I were a billionaire I'd hire the actor from Game of Thrones to follow Nancy Pelosi around at all public appearances, ringing her bell and saying, "Shame! Shame!"... I may be an awful person but I thought this was hilarious... Have you ever noticed that the same people who say they would never step foot in a Walmart because of how Walmart treats their employees, "the people of Walmart" or what Walmart did to small businesses in small towns also seem to be the same ones who get almost daily deliveries from Amazon Prime? Some serious cognitive dissonance... Sacred Drunkenness would be a good name for a band (or a new religion)... Here's a business idea for Big Pharma - why not just combine the COVID vaccines with heroin? Really get people addicted to "booster shots." Imagine what that would do for the bottom line... Random admission from a middle-aged guy: all my FaceTime calls from my iPhone are either butt dials or calls with tech support... BTW I have nothing against either Walmart or Amazon - just not a fan of hypocrisy

Monday, July 19, 2021

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Two and a half months after vaccinating every citizen Gibraltar has the third-highest COVID infection rate per capita in the world and 80% of the cases are from vaccinated people.

- Umberto Eco: The Narrative Structure in Ian Fleming

- Heh Heh (Via)

- Amazon is getting hauled into court for not handling recalls the right way. Two things; first Amazon is clearly a distributor and should be classified as such under the law. Second - I couldn't help but wonder how many of those dangerous products were made in China.