The Lakers squeak past the Nuggets in Game 2
The Lakers defeat the Denver Nuggets
Game 1
Amazon plans 1,000 Warehouses in the US. Does that get Amazon 'there'?
Very soon, after doing all this, Amazon's 'trustability' as a partner will com into question.
At that time, the carcasses of their former partners would be animated, and asked to testify.
By then, even Walmart might be seen as a better partner, once the fill out their ecommerce offerings., what with their new yearly plan.
Remember also, that Walmart has over 4,700 locations, and a logistical operation with decades of experience.
Moreover, Walmart is quite profitable, and can absorb loses from a reduced vig from sellers over a longer period of time.
I would guess that it comes down to what company is less douchebaggish for either customers wanting to purchase stuff, or sellers needing an ecommerce partner.
Concern:
1) Walmart App and website are not up to par with Amazon.
2) Delivery lags Amazon.
These are both valid concerns.
I had thought Walmart would use the Jet website, which was better streamlined.
Even so, I believe that the Walmart app and website can be easily fixed.
As for fulfilment, the plethora of Sam's and Walmart locations means that Walmart has a shorter road to replicating or surpassing Amazon once local/hyperlocal deliveries are sorted. Because Walmart locations already have local deliveries.
However, it remains to be seen if Walmart has a regional or superregional warehousing system that helps their strength of number of locations.
Heck, it might even be a hindrance.
Original story here: Amazon Plans to put 1,000 warehouses in Suburban Neighborhoods.
© 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited
The Lakers send the Houston Rockets on a fishing holiday.
Fina Score: Lakers 119; Houston Rockets 96.
Just doing it
AKA inventing something, yet leaving all the $$$ on the table!
Earlier today, I read about this incredibly brilliant physicist, Rafael G. González-Acuña who is a doctoral student at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico.
After what must have been several hours of staring at a math puzzle known since 1949 as the Wasserman-Wolf Problem, Rafael solved it!
This problem certainly wasn’t a cakewalk, and Rafael’s solution now means that all lenses being manufactured going forward, by applying his solution to Wasserman-Wolf, would rid themselves of the optical annoyance known as ‘spherical aberration’.
This, without a doubt, is a good thing. As camera lenses, reading classes, and maybe even lenses on our deep space probes, would become almost perfect.
Yet, as the evening went on, I got more annoyed.
And I know the reason why.
People, Rafael G. González-Acuña will, no doubt, get accolades. For this great achievement. Forever.
However, the monetary rewards will bypass him, and accrue to the lens manufactures and camera OEMs who stand to profit from his brains.
That, offends me.
Think about it: when Irwin Jacobs came up with his discoveries in communications, he didn’t blab it to the world. When [My Favorite Hedonist] Larry Ellison realized something great about structured query languages databases, he started Oracle. When Henry Samueli and Henri Nicholas came up with their brilliant discoveries, they didn’t gift it to the world for free.
These cats have all gone on to live absolutely fabulous lives.
This is why my ongoing training of my kids includes several profound conversations around this issue.
They know, without a doubt, that if they do come up with anything, even in high school or less, their first priority is monetization.
Nothing less.
The altruism there, is the fact that their invention will be released to the world.
However, money first.
If not, someone else will make billions on their work.
Just ask the guy who invented the blue laser or LED or whatever.
Make sure your kids know this.
Original story here.
Mozilla Hates Microsoft Edge Chrome. I saw this in 2011
In December 2011 or thereabouts, Mozilla did a deal with Google where Google gave Mozilla $1 billion to be the default search engine for Firefox.
The deal was astonishing.
Because it showed that either Mozilla was being run by zealots, or they didn't realize that Google was out to make them irrelevant.
At that time, IIRC, Google was 3 years in with Chrome, their replacement for Firefox. And Mozilla knew it!
Yet, they did the ostrich thing, and went in bed with Google.
In the intervening years, Microsoft released Microsoft Edge, which, has gone nowhere.
A few months ago, Microsoft did the previously unfathomable deed: they opted to use Google's Chromium – instead of Chakra – as theJavaScript engine underlying their browsers going forward.
Incredulously, Mozilla had a problem with it!
Are you effin' kiddin' me?
Microsoft did the right thing, I believe.
The following screengrabs were my very prescient thoughts from 2011 on Mozilla's stupidity.
(I miss the MetroTwit Twitter app.)
FedEx to deliver 7 days a week
This was inevitable
Earlier this year, I had a brief Facebook conversation with a pal who was incensed by my update exhorting the Post Office to move to an all week delivery model.
My suggestion was brought about by my getting Amazon Prime deliveries on both Saturdays and Sundays.
His rationale was that it would roll back the gains labor unions achieved in getting weekends set aside for them.
My point was that some people prefer to work on weekends, and that USPS should take advantage of that to stave off the onslaught of Amazon.
In the past couple of weeks, there have been new developments.
Firstly, Amazon has moved to a 1-day delivery schedule for [mostly-] all Amazon Prime purchases.
Today, the other shoe dropped: FedEx will now start 7-day deliveries.
Again, no doubt because Amazon is looming in their rear-view mirror.
Additionally, it is pulling back the nearly 2 million daily deliveries handled for it by USPS.
Yes, you can imagine how painful the loss of over 600 million annual delivered packages would be to the Post Office.
I fully expect both UPS and USPS (the Post Office) to follow suit.
Story here.
© 2002 – 2019, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto
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The problem with social media platforms and their algorithms
Their vaunted algorithms?
It’s all horsecrap.
Period.
Over the years, we have all heard about Facebook’s Graph, or Google’s PageRank, or Twitter’s timeline algorithms.
Crap.
Nothing at all.
Completely useless.
What these social media platforms have are threefold.
Firstly, they possess the resources to purchase oodles of information on their users - outside their services! – and meld that with user activities inside their walled gardens, to produce a facsimile of smartness into the targeted ads they sell to their advertisers.
Secondly, they have the power to manipulate users by tweaking their timelines in order to create artificial pockets of “community” whereby even the slightest affinity, real or perceived, buttonholes the user into a pool where the noise is amplified.
Thirdly, they game their ad systems by presenting ads based on points #1 and #2 above, creating the semblance of great knowledge as a result of some super-smart algorithmic sorting.
Bullshit!
What they have done, is segment us for their ad dollars, and create these pools of political or social “oneness” whereby even the smallest thing that ‘unites’ them is force-multiplied by the network effects of said seeming oneness until it drowns out any reason.
Creating pockets of online “Fox Newers”, if you will.
Making matters worse, the tonedeaf creeps running these crapshows – Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Dorsey, et al, – are blind to the genocides their ‘babies’ are spawning in quite a few places, for which Rohingya comes to mind.
What these sanctimonious mofos have shown, is that they are completely amoral, and cannot be trusted.
So, they need to be reined in.
For the good of democracies everywhere, they need to be reined in.
For the lived that would be put in danger if they aren’t, they need to be reined in.
For their own good, they need to be reined in.
I believe that a good start would be forcing them to present an unaltered chronological/reverse-chronological/whatever timeline to users as the default. Users would have the option to add their stupid algorithmic feeds if that’s what a user wants, but at the same time making sure that the user reserves the right, and the option to revert to a so-called ‘naked’ feed.
Let them now present ads based on that. Let them do the heavy lift required to entice users with ads. Not manipulating users to fit the ads. Or the ad campaign.
Me, I am looking to wean myself off the most despicable of these services, Facebook.
I have 32 days to go.
© 2002 – 2019, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto
Seven years, but never forgotten
Seven years ago, I lost my Dad, who would have been 93 today.
Amazing Dad, fantastic teacher of life lessons, great provider, and a complete and total Christian.
I still miss him.
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Now comes the Palm Foleo, Mark II
On May 30, in the year of Our Lord 2007, Palm Inc introduced the Palm Foleo.
What was the Palm Foleo, you may ask?
Well, to nutshell it, the Palm Foleo was a subnotebook* form factor device that was, grok this: intended to be a “companion” to your laptop!
I jest not.
Palm, which basically gave humanity handheld devices, wanted those same humans to now go around with a clamshell device to go as a companion to any other clamshell devices those humans carry.
Or basically, carry two laptops!
The device’s Wikipedia page is here.
Strangely -haha, the device failed.
On Sept 6, 2007, I called last rites on that abomination is a blog post on NetworkWorld called Hawkins' Folly.
And a folly, it was.
As I explained there, it was as if Jeff Hawkins – the founder of Palm and Handspring, the forebears of modern mobile smartcomputing, were repudiating his prior innovations, and trying to say “Eff U” to the world for giving him any mind.
Palm was subsequently purchased by 3Com, which itself created the brain fart known as the Aubrey.
3Com itself meandered along until the networking parts were bought by HP, which proceeded to cast off the 3Com name, and those mobile assets, foisting them upon some yobs who decided to revive the Palm brand.
Evidently these new suckers guys, who have now changed their company name to Palm, want to resurrect that ‘brand’ because it was so great.
(One of these days, someone will resurrect the Gavilan!”
Additionally, this new Palm was going to crowdsource** product development. Running WebOS.
You with me so far?
Thanks.
To recap: Jeff Hawkins created Palm, the first smart mobile device, Handspring, then the Foleo, yada, yada, yada….crickets.
Until today.
Upon hearing me scream, “OMG!!! IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN!!!”, BOTH Wifey and #1 Son run into my office.
“Are you OK”, they ask in unison.
I hastened to assure them I was alright and tried to explain the reason for my outburst.
After about 9 minutes, my #1 Son – God Bless teenagers! – asked the best question: “Did a grownup come up with this product for other grownups?”
People of Terra: the new Palm product, get this: is a companion device for your smartphone!
Are you effin’ kiddin’ me?
Wha….wha….what year is this?
Haven’t we been here BEFORE? ELEVEN YEARS AGO?
The heck?
This, is it?
Okay, Palm cannot blame this on Hawkins, for I don’t see his name anywhere on their digital masthead.
This is all on them.
Ladies and gentlemen, this, is Palm Foleo II.
Not (no longer?) based on WebOS, and now running Android, this product defies describing. So, I shall not try.
It is, however, total merde!
I can’t remember the last time a company totally crapped the bed, and then decided to do a reboot of that crapover a decade or so later!
For those who need it, the device is exclusive to Verizon Wireless.
For the sake of my sanity, I will not post links to it!
*In those days, a basic notebook weighed more than a fully-loaded 17” laptop weighs today.
**That’s another buzzword checkbox unlocked.
© 2002 – 2018, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto
Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US workers
Amazon raises the minimum wages for US employees to $15 per hour IMMEDIATELY.
Not phased in over a decade or something.
Immediately!
This is yuuge!
Good companies are great listeners, and are outliers who try to lead the trend.
Pretty cool how #Amazon is no longer trailing the brand-killing negative connotation of "employee exploiter".
Furthermore, it has not only leapt ahead, but is now, brilliantly, going to "level" the playing field by lobbying Congress to raise the minimum wage.
Firstly, this 'levels' the field, in that getting Congress to raise the minimum wage puts extra pressure and hurt on competitors, especially those on already razor-thin margins or in dire straits financially.
Secondly, if Congress decides not to increase the minimum wage, which is a near certainty, Amazon gets to be able to tell Congress to STFU, however oh-so-nicely, whenever a Congresscritter gets all spun up, and tries to besmirch Amazon on wages.
Thirdly, it is a fantastic recruitment tool. Since it is more than what rivals are paying right now. Which should pay dividends as we get to the Christmas and holiday seasons, when workers, seasonal or full-time, are needed.
Fourthly, hourly workers on the lowest rung cannot now complain. As of today, they will be earning over 2x the national minimum wage. Short of videographic evidence where workers are being abhorrently abused, the general public won’t be sympathetic.
Lastly, they get Berners of their corporate back!
How cool is that?
Altogether brilliant.
Don’t forget that this
Bloomberg has an on-point article here.
© 2002 – 2018, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto