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☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he's confident he can get costs under control in shareholder letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +38 min

Further, as machine learning adoption has continued to accelerate, customers have yearned for lower-cost GPUs (the chips most commonly used for machine learning). While some areas of the economy have struggled over the past few years, Amazon Business has thrived. Some people have never heard of Amazon Business, but, our business customers love it. For years, Amazon customers had asked us when we'd offer them an online pharmacy as their frustrations mounted with current providers. More recently, a newer form of machine learning, called Generative AI, has burst onto the scene and promises to significantly accelerate machine learning adoption.

☆ This former Trump White House official says Republicans are 'such nerds' for pushing a 'ridiculous' ban on TikTok
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But John McEntee, a former Trump White House official, thinks that's "ridiculous." But John McEntee, who worked as a top White House staffer when former President Donald Trump attempted to ban the app via executive order, says he's unabashedly "pro-TikTok" and insists the push from the right to ban the Chinese-owned app is "ridiculous." "I think Republicans are such nerds for even doing this," McEntee, the one-time Director of the Official of Presidential Personnel, told Insider in an interview on Thursday. In that job, he reportedly scrutinized White House staffers for their perceived loyalty and played a significant role in the effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results on January 6, 2021. In one widely-viewed TikTok, McEntee dances to Demi Lovato's "La La Land" while riffing on liberals attending their first protest, making hand-horns as Lovato sings the phrase "converse with my dress."

☆ Chris Rock unleashes on Will Smith and wife Jada a year after Oscars slap
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Lisa Richwine | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

In March 2022, Smith walked on to the Oscars stage and slapped Rock's face after the comedian made a joke about the appearance of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Pinkett Smith said she was protesting the fact that Will Smith and other Black actors were not nominated. Rock, who also is Black, joked about Pinkett Smith at the Oscars that year and again last year. Pinkett Smith admitted to an affair that she called an "entanglement" in 2020. Netflix agreed to pay $40 million for two Rock comedy specials under a deal reached in 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter.

☆ Bright lights and snazzy mannequins: Walmart rolls out sleek new store designs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Melissa Repko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

In company surveys, he said nearly every shopper said the store's displays and mannequins encouraged them to browse longer. Walmart's new store design includes displays that show off how a customer could decorate a nursery or kitchen. Melissa Repko | CNBCWashington declined to share data about Walmart's store traffic and sales at its Springdale store and other flagships that have opened in recent months. Visits to its Walmart store in Springdale, Ark. Victor Millan, of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, makes weekly shopping trips to the Walmart in Teterboro for groceries and other items.

☆ A TikToker said he won an award for being the first to Google an obscure phrase. The elaborate hoax reached millions and sparked a copycat trend.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Andrew Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A TikToker went viral after he claimed to win an award from Google after searching a unique phrase. The next day, Justin shared a follow-up video that was viewed 3 million times, with the on-screen caption "I got another!!" Not everyone believed Justin, but his videos sparked a trend regardlessCombined, the videos received over 2,500 comments, many of which speculated whether the award was authentic. Soon after, multiple TikTok users started documenting their attempts to win an award from Google for a unique search. A spokesperson for Google confirmed to Insider the award "does not currently exist" and said 15% of the searches they see every day are new.

A jury on Monday convicted four members of the extremist group the Oath Keepers of seditious conspiracy. The trial, which started Dec. 12, included testimony from Brian Ulrich, a member of the Oath Keepers’ Georgia chapter who had pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding. ... I’m not afraid and I’m ready to f---ing go.”The four defendants were charged as part of the same seditious conspiracy case involving Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes that went to trial in October. Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, the leader of the group’s Florida chapter, were convicted of seditious conspiracy in November. The maximum sentence for seditious conspiracy — a rarely used Civil War era statute — is 20 years in federal prison.

☆ The hottest holiday gift is a massive, half pound Fruit Loop
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Zoe Sottile | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Just in time for the holidays, artist collective MSCHF is releasing its newest playful art piece: a giant, 930-calorie, $19.99 fruit loop. The unauthorized massive fruit loop is the group’s latest lighthearted experiment with consumerism. Each one weighs “almost half a pound,” according to MSCHF’s website for the product. In an emailed statement, Kellogg spokesperson Kris Bahner told CNN that the “Big Fruit Loop” constitutes copyright infringement. “Kellogg Company does not have a relationship with MSCHF and we were not involved in the creation of the Big Fruit Loop.

☆ They’re Taking Jigsaws to Infinity and Beyond
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Siobhan Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There was a fine line, however, between psychedelic finery and “letting the color stretch and warp too far,” Ms. Ghassaei said. The journal Science featured their 3D-printed organ research with Jordan Miller, a bioengineer at Rice University. The route from one project to the next is marked with mathematical concepts like Laplacian growth, Voronoi structures and the Turing pattern. These concepts, which loosely speaking govern how shapes and forms emerge and evolve in nature, “cultivate the algorithms,” Ms. Rosenkrantz has written. The same algorithms can be applied to very different media, from the twisty maze pieces to the intricate components of 3D-printed organs.

☆ I'm Conan O'Brien's assistant of 13 years. I nap on the job, expense things I shouldn't, and talk back — and I'll probably work for him forever.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Eboni Boykin-Patterson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Sona Movsesian was an NBC page and landed her assistant job through an internal recommendation. But at times, I really don't act like it. I'm working with, in my opinion, the funniest person on television, and I'm working on a show that I'm proud of. I think I will be Conan's assistant until he dies — I'm going to ride this wave for as long as I can. Most people don't think of an assistant job in entertainment as a forever-job.

☆ While Elon Musk said 'comedy is now legal' following his acquisition of Twitter, jokes about the new owner and criticism over his takeover are getting users blocked and suspended
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The day after he purchased Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk posted "comedy is now legal" on the platform. In the days since, parody accounts impersonating Musk and joking about the acquisition have been removed. Musk tweeted on Sunday that unlabeled parody accounts will be "permanently suspended" without warning. The day after he purchased Twitter, Musk posted a tweet saying "comedy is now legal" on the platform, but in the days since his takeover, parody accounts impersonating Musk have cropped up across the site, riffing about the new owner, and getting banned in the process. Musk added that going forward, any change in name at all from a verified account would result in a "temporary loss of verified checkmark."

The hottest blonde ever.” This was the infamous script description given for Margot Robbie’s character in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), directed by Martin Scorsese. Widely credited as Robbie’s breakthrough, the role instantly helped establish her as one of the biggest movie stars. Yet Robbie—Australian born and then still relatively new to Hollywood—says that she had little interest in further riffing on the blonde-bombshell theme: “I was going to have to show people that I could do something different. I didn’t want to get pigeonholed.” Accordingly, her next roles gave the middle finger to the hot-blonde paradigm.

☆ If Politics Is a ‘Joke,’ Voters Get It
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Holman W. Jenkins | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

He picks up on a long-running theme of this column, Donald Trump’s bottomless cynicism about the game of politics and the people who play it. Mr. Trump’s big election lie, Mr. Lozada writes, “is yoked to an older deception, without which it could not survive: the idea that American politics is, in essence, a joke. . . . When politicians publicly defend positions they privately reject, they are telling the joke. When they give up on the challenge of governing the country for the rush of triggering the enemy, they are telling the joke. When they intone that they must address the very fears they have encouraged or manufactured among their constituents, they are telling the joke.”

Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry, Darling” is — on its immaculately, obsessively polished surface — a film about the danger of dreams. Even if you have somehow avoided all publicity for the film, the pop culture reference points should already be clear. Pugh conveys blissful serenity and anguished confusion with equal conviction; her deftness justifies Wilde’s poetic anti-narrative, and vice versa. The real world feels like ghostly and desaturated reflection. “Don’t Worry, Darling” is a movie that airily warns you to watch out for illusions even as it revels in a film’s power to create a world deliberately untethered from reality.

☆ Yogurt company Siggi's will pay one person $50,000 to move to Iceland and follow a 4-day work week as its 'Chief Simplicity Officer'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dream job alert: Yogurt company Siggi's is hiring for a "Chief Simplicity Offi-skyr." The person will be paid $50,000 to move to Iceland and follow a four-day work week there. The lucky person will be paid $50,000 to move to Iceland and take up a four-day work week. Applicants must have a valid passport, strong writing and photography skills, and "a desire to live a simple life." Outside of Iceland, a four-day work week pilot currently underway in the UK is also showing positive signs.

☆ What it's like working for lawmakers whose golden years are clouded by power struggles, rumors of senility, and constant second-guessing
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-13 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +25 min

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told Insider that some political maneuvering is more tactical. Emanuel, now the US's ambassador to Japan, didn't refute that the exchange took place but told Insider he didn't remember it. It serves the institution," the former GOP aide told Insider, adding that seasoned dealmakers are preferable to partisan bomb-throwers "with some agenda that they're driving." Paul Morigi/Getty ImagesWhite, now the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, told Insider his boss always had the final word. 'Preserving their dignity'Convincing career lawmakers to hang it up before they tarnish their respective legacies is tricky business, a veteran GOP leadership aide told Insider.

☆ What 'quiet quitting' is actually about
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-08 | by ( Aki Ito | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Now, everyone and their mother has an opinion about "quiet quitting," whatever it is. Quiet quitting isn't about quitting our jobs. Slacking off vs. work-life balanceMuch of the debate around quiet quitting revolves around the definition of what it actually is. How should I feel about coworkers who are quiet quitting if I end up having to take up the slack? In a self-help sense, quiet quitting is only the first step on the road to fulfillment.

☆ The Tucker Carlson origin story
▼ + stars: | 1998-01-28 | by ( Aaron Short | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +57 min

Tucker Carlson is remembered as a provocateur and gleeful contrarian by those who knew him in his early days. It was Tucker Carlson. (Note on style: Tucker Carlson and the members of his family are referred to here by their first names to avoid confusion.) In 1979, Richard Carlson married Patricia Swanson, heiress to the Swanson frozen foods empire that perfected the frozen Salisbury steak for hassle-free dinners. Tucker Carlson attended St. George’s School, a boarding school starting at age 14.

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