Archive for 2024

OF COURSE:

Lol:

BUT WILL ANYONE MARKET IT IF IT’S NOT PATENTABLE? Natural Compound Found in Olives Found To Reduce Blood Sugar Levels and Promote Weight Loss. “The researchers found that after just one week, obese mice with diabetes that were given oral elenolic acid weighed significantly less and showed better blood sugar (glucose) regulation than before treatment and compared to control obese mice not receiving elenolic acid. The glucose-lowering effect was comparable with that of the injectable diabetic medication liraglutide and better than metformin, one of the most common oral medicines for type 2 diabetes.”

THE CLIP IS OLDER BUT THE ORIGINAL TWEET IS STILL UP:

False narratives about racial division don’t maintain themselves, you know.

GENERATORS: Stuff We Use: Gasoline-Powered Generators. “The present generator at our disposal is a Honda unit, marketed as an inverter and belting out a maximum output of 2,200 watts. This is more than enough for the requirements around here, great for tools in the garage or the fridge and freezer when this area’s power company fails to keep the lights on (again). A huge feature of this Honda 2200i unit is its quiet operation, putting out less than 60 decibels of noise even at full whack. Using about a quarter of the 2,200-watt output results in a sub-50 decibel performance, which is scarcely more than a quiet room with the A/C softly blowing.”

BILL WHITTLE: Remembering Dick Rutan.

A powerful tribute to a great man.

BE PREPARED: CRKT Williams Tactical Pen: Low Profile, EDC Self Defense. #CommissionEarned I just bought one of these. I had another CRKT tactical pen that I loved, it went through airports, was a great pen and super heavy and solid. Sadly, I lost it today, hope this one works okay.

SIGNS OF LIFE! Mr. Burns Spotted Inspecting Springfield Nuclear Power Plant:

PLEASE CLAP:

A BILLION HERE AND A BILLION THERE…: Alexa Is in Millions of Households — and Amazon Is Losing Billions.

Echo speakers are the type of business success companies don’t want: a widely purchased product that is also a giant money loser.

Chief Executive Andy Jassy is trying to plug that hole—and move away from the Amazon accounting tactic that helped create it.

When Amazon launched the Echo smart home devices with its Alexa voice assistant in 2014, it pulled a page from shaving giant Gillette’s classic playbook: sell the razors for a pittance in the hope of making heaps of money on purchases of the refill blades.

A decade later, the payoff for Echo hasn’t arrived. While hundreds of millions of customers have Alexa-enabled devices, the idea that people would spend meaningful amounts of money to buy goods on Amazon by talking to the iconic voice assistant on the underpriced speakers didn’t take off.

Customers actually used Echo mostly for free apps such as setting alarms and checking the weather. “We worried we’ve hired 10,000 people and we’ve built a smart timer,” said a former senior employee.

As a result, Amazon has lost tens of billions of dollars on its devices business, which includes Echos and other products such as Kindles, Fire TV Sticks and video doorbells, according to internal documents and people familiar with the business.

Between 2017 and 2021, Amazon had more than $25 billion in losses from its devices business, according to the documents. The losses for the years before and after that period couldn’t be determined.

They gave away the razors before ever figuring out how to make the razor blades.