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@The Librarian Sorry it took me so long to provide this.... I agree it is a nice feature.

I was recently notified by Google that this site is now on it's preferred mobile search index which should help us get seen even more.

This is going to be an extremely friendly place for SEO traffic with the latest changes including super fast loading speeds and even less of a bounce rate as our users are more engaged with even better content due to the club features focus.

Let me know if I can be of any more assistance.

I should also mention that all of this has been done without spending a dime on advertising. 

it's been awhile since our last update.... and more good stuff to come soon..... 

We will be have some serious SEO improvements ... AND faster loading....

So in the last couple years we have grown about 33% more members.

and about 50% per year growth on total posts....

I wonder what the next couple years portend?

On 5/6/2018 at 3:13 PM, Jack Ryan said:

Come Home Cardinal Pell by Tim Minchen

[Verse 1]

It's a lovely day in Ballarat

I'm kicking back, thinking of you

I hear that you've been poorly

I am sorry that you're feeling blue

I know what it's like when you feel a little shitty

You just want to curl up and have an itty-bitty doona day

But a lot of people here really miss you, Georgie

They really think you ought to just get on a plane

(Just get on a plane)

We all just want you to...

[Chorus 1]

Come home, Cardinal Pell

I know you're not feeling well

And being crook ain't much fun

Even so, we think you should

Come home, Cardinal Pell

Come down from your citadel

It's just the right thing to do

We have a right to know what you knew

[Verse 2]

Couldn't you see what was under your nose, Georgie

Back in '73 when you were living with Gerry?

Is it true that you knew but you chose to ignore

Or did you actively try to keep it buried?

And years later, when survivors

Despite their shame and their fear

Stood up to tell their stories

You spent year after year

Working hard to protect the church's assets

I mean, with all due respect, dude

I think you're scum!

And I reckon you should...

[Chorus 2]

Come home, Cardinal Pell

(Cardinal Pell)

I know you're not feeling well

Perhaps you just need some sun

It's lovely here, you should

Come home, you pompous buffoon

(Pompous buffoon)

And I suggest do it soon

I hear the tolling of the bell

And it has a Pellian knell

[Bridge]

I want to be transparent here, George:

I'm not the greatest fan of your religion

And I personally believe that those

Who cover up abuse should go to prison

But your ethical hypocrisy

Your intellectual vacuity

And your arrogance don't bother me as much

As the fact that you have turned out to be such

A goddamn coward

You're a coward, Georgie

(You're a coward, George)

Come and face the music, Georgie

(Face the music, George)

You owe it to the victims, Georgie

(You owe it, George)

Come and face the music, the music

Hallelujah, hallelujah

If the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

He would take one look at you and say:

(One look at you and say)

[Chorus 3]

"Go home, Cardinal Pell

I've got a nice spot in hell

With your name on it and so

I suggest you toughen up and...

"Go home, Cardinal Pell

I'm sure they'll make you feel wel-

Come at the pub in Ballarat

They just want a beer and a chat"

Come home, Cardinal Pell

(Cardinal Pell)

I know you're scared, Georgie-Poo

(Come home)

They have a right to know what you knew

Your time is running out to atone, Georgie

I think the Lord is calling you home, Georgie

Perhaps he could forgive even you

If you just let them know what you knew

[Outro]

Oh, Cardinal Pell

My lawyer just rang me to tell

Me this song could get me

In legal trouble

Oh well, Cardinal Pell

If you don't feel compelled

To come home by a sense

Of moral duty

Perhaps you will come home and fricking sue me

That song is so catchy.... I can't get the tune out of my head now... 😉

I guess they don't see the irony.

The Finnish government released the results of a two-year basic income trialon Friday:

• It didn’t make recipients more likely to work, as many of the program’s supporters had hoped.
• But here’s the thing: The trial did make people happier...and that’s in a country already rated the world’s happiest by the UN last year. Basically, if you're not actively laughing you're assumed to have just lost your house in an asteroid collision.

The basic income experiment was part of Finland’s search for alternatives to its social security model. Roughly 2,000 unemployed Finns were chosen randomly to receive regular monthly paychecks from the government—which didn’t slash those payouts even if recipients found work.

Other governments were watching. If basic income could encourage the unemployed to take low-paying jobs without fear of losing benefits, states could hypothetically slash welfare costs.

• The takeaway? “Seems to have been minor on the grounds of the first trial year,” Finland’s minister of health and social affairs said.

If you’re reading, Finnish government, we’ll gladly volunteer as tribute for the next study. You know...for science.

Note to self.... only buy top shelf liquor when traveling.... ;-)

100,000,000 degrees Celsius.

So... hotter than your average stove. 😉

I didn't even think of that @James Thomas Rook Jr.  

Thanks for keeping these stories real.....

Notice how the conversation is changing two years later...

ok... let's add to the list.

• Facebook (+0.57%) has acquired “visual shopping”/artificial intelligence startup GrokStyle to pad its own AI roster.

There’s risky rebranding, and then there’s the pot-stirring AT&T’s doing. Rival Sprint decided to take matters to a higher power...and that higher power is the federal court system.

Sprint (0.00%) has sued AT&T (+0.34%), alleging it deceived consumers into thinking they were using a next-generation 5G wireless network...which hasn’t yet been widely deployed.

We’ll explain. AT&T customers in 400+ markets have seen a “5G E” indicator on their mobile devices, right next to that battery icon hanging on to 7% for dear life.

• But users are still on a 4G network…mostly because smartphones on Android and iOS aren’t yet equipped to support 5G.
• AT&T is just calling it 5G Evolution, Sprint claims, to gain an unfair advantage. AT&T will tell you the 5G E network is a necessary stepping stone to get to “ultimate 5G.”

What’s one more G? Well, 5G can offer data speeds up to 100x faster than 4G networks. And every wireless carrier is battling for the first-mover advantage—if your engineers are running behind schedule, send in the legal team.

Morning Brew

You know about the ongoing power struggle between Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó and sitting (though widely unrecognized) President Nicolás Maduro...

We also told you about the sanctions the U.S. placed on Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA oil giant, aimed at cutting off $11 billion in exports from Maduro’s camp this year.

And now...

Venezuela’s oil industry has gone to pieces

Crude production is at a seven-decade low, and exports are at a 10-month low. That’s rough news for a country that ranked among the world’s top five oil exporters as recently as the late 90s.

Talent is leaving. Per the AP, “From the tar sands of northern Canada to the deserts of Kuwait, Venezuelan roughnecks now live in more than 90 oil-producing countries.”

And it’s been happening for a while. At least 30,000 oil workers have fled since the early 2000s, when then-President Hugo Chávez fired tons of them for going on strike and knocking output. But the most recent sanctions on PDVSA paired with political chaos have exacerbated the oil industry’s issues.

Now, there’s “desperation and chaos” at PDVSA

Bloomberg reported employees are working round the clock to find new markets to sell its crude, even contacting ex-employees to ask for trader info.

• Last year, Venezuela loaded a vessel a day to U.S. refiners. Since sanctions hit Jan. 28, only one (1) vessel has been loaded.

Bottom line: Oil’s been the backbone of Venezuela’s economy, so sanctioning PDVSA represents a calculated move by the U.S. to cut off funds from Maduro’s government. But if the country’s top brass isn’t swayed by the effects of the sanctions, those very sanctions could send the country even further into disaster.

via Morning Brew

@James Thomas Rook Jr.  I think you nailed it a couple month ago......

I read this headline today....

• Sears (+32.46%) Chairman Eddie Lampert won approval from a bankruptcy judge to buy out the struggling retailer for $5.2 billion. Liquidation averted.

Just as your Medium manifesto was “gaining steam” with 21 claps, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stopped all your momentum with a very personal postaccusing AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, of extortion and blackmail.

The backstory: Bezos and his wife MacKenzie recently announced plans for a high-profile divorce. The National Enquirer then published articles describing a relationship between Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. There were...juicy texts involved.

Let’s walk through this next part step-by-step

As described in Bezos’s blog post...

1. He “engaged investigators” to determine the source of the leaks and the motivation behind the Enquirer’s actions.
2. AMI’s Chief Content Officer sent an email saying that he obtained intimate photos of both Bezos and Sanchez (we’ll stop there...this is a PG newsletter after all).
3. An offer was made: AMI wouldn’t release the photos if Bezos said publicly the leaks weren’t politically motivated. Bezos refused, published this blog, and here we are.

Key Bezos quote: "Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?"

If your head is spinning...we’ve got good news

There’s more. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, which has largely been critical of the Trump administration. David Pecker, the chairman and CEO of AMI, has a cozy relationship with the president, who himself has lashed out at Bezos once or five times. That perhaps helps explain the talk of “political” motivations.

We can find no better bottom line than the NYT: 

• “Mr. Bezos’ online post details a stunning and bizarre clash between the world’s richest man and the nation’s biggest tabloid publisher.”
• “In it, all of the country’s obsessions of recent years appear to have collided, from the personal lives of billionaires and sensational tabloid headlines to Mr. Trump’s fight with the media.”

Via Morning Brew

I'm sure Costco is thrilled to learn that it's new push involved cheating minimum wage workers by it's new "partner":

and in less than 2 years I read this....

And Instacart will be the first to tell you. After facing backlash over its controversial worker compensation policy, the delivery startup has announced a change to how its couriers get paid.

• Under the old system...Instacart would put customer tips toward workers’ minimum pay guarantees, “in effect using them to subsidize their own payouts,” per the NYT.
• Under the new system...Instacart workers will get full tips from customers, which will be calculated separately from Instacart’s own contribution to employee compensation. Workers who lost out on tips under the old system can get back pay, too.

It was more than just Reddit outrage that drove Instacart to make the change, though. We hear class action lawsuits can be quite persuasive—and Instacart was facing one alleging it “intentionally and maliciously misappropriated gratuities.”

Zoom out: Workers in the gig economy have faced uncertainty over their compensation, “coping with opaque policies, dizzying technology changes, and black-box algorithms,” the NYT wrote. Now, those workers are pushing back.

The number of “Alexa, _____” jokes on Twitter is proof smart speakers have politely greeted their way into our everyday lives, and new data from research firm CIRP backs that up:

• The U.S. installed base for smart speakers grew to 66 million units in December 2018—up from 53 million a quarter earlier.

Who’s winning? Amazon Echo devices lead the domestic market with a 70% share. Google Home takes second place at 24%, and Apple’s HomePod claims 6%.

But that market dominance means something different for everyone, per smart speaker whisperer Benedict Evans.

• Google and Facebook are in it for your data.
• Apple wants to a) sell you expensive devices with serious margins and b) make sure you never leave its ecosystem.
• Amazon, though, has less black-and-white ambitions for Alexa…

For many users, it’s still a “glorified clock-radio,” Evans writes. But if Amazon can convert the 100 million Alexa-enabled devices that've been sold into glorified clock-radios that can get you to actually buy more things from Amazon...Alexa could unlock its “deeper strategic value.”

...and now you can, too. Facebook has released an unsend feature for Messenger that allows you to delete a message from everyone’s view within 10 minutes of sending it.

Quick update:

• Reddit is said to be prepping for a Tencent-led fundraising round of between $150 million and $300 million, per TechCrunch. Looks like the front page of the internet could soon be worth $3 billion.

Wealth inequality is already a major theme of the 2020 election, “as the recent financial crisis and a distrust of big institutions has fueled a populist surge in both parties.”

Here is a current related Twitter war as an example:

Since income standards vary widely throughout the world, you can attend a 1 percenter convention and find people across a range of income levels. Bloomberg crunched the numbers...

• India: $81k
• China: $105k
• UK: $290k
• U.S.: $478k
• Singapore: $694k
• UAE: $891k

#nunstoo