Monthly Archives: August 2016

Twitter is letting you make money off your followers by showing them video ads | Mashable

Posted on August 31, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Twitter is offering some of its most influential users a cut of the money it makes off of their posts in a push to populate the platform with more in-house video.

Starting Tuesday, publishers and other high-profile accounts will be able to mark a box on each video tweet they send indicating that they’d like to tack on a pre-roll promotion, the social network announced. Twitter will then share with them a portion of the revenue it collects on those ads.

The deal will give users the lion’s share of the revenue — 70 percent — while Twitter takes 30 percent for itself, a person familiar with the arrangement said.

Leave a comment

Posted in News and Views

Tagged ads on videos, make money on twitter, twitter

ITT Tech has ceased enrollments | Business Insider

Posted on August 31, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

For-profit educator ITT Technical Institute announced Monday that it will no longer accept any new enrollments, according to a notice at the top its website.

The news came four days after the US Department of Education (ED) imposed sanctions on ITT Education Services, the college chain’s parent company, barring the school from enrolling students who use federal financial aid and requiring ITT to provide a letter of credit showing it’s sufficiently funded.

Those sanctions will likely cause the demise of ITT Tech, according to Ben Miller, a senior director at the Center for American Progress and a former senior policy advisor at the Department of Education (ED).

Leave a comment

Posted in News and Views

Tagged Department of Education, federal financial aid, ITT Tech

Biofuels Aren’t Nearly As Green As You Thought | Co.Exist

Posted on August 31, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Biofuels might not be as clean as you thought, and they certainly aren’t carbon-neutral. The common thinking goes that crops used to make ethanol and biodiesel suck CO2 out of the air and turn it into a gas substitute. Then, when you fill up your car and take it for a spin, all you’re doing is releasing that carbon back into the atmosphere, not generating new emissions.

But for many years, environmentalists and academics have said that biofuels, depending on how they are cultivated and processed, could still lead to plenty of emissions and other environmental impacts. Now new research out of the University of Michigan shows how bad it is: In fact, biofuels might actually be worse, carbon-wise, than fossil fuels, it says.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged Biofuels, carbon-wise, CO2, fossil fuels

Sorry, But Your Browser Password Manager Probably Isn’t Enough | WIRED

Posted on August 30, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

AS YOU NAVIGATE through Chrome, or Safari, or Firefox, or whatever your browser of choice is, you’re often given an enticing option: Would you like us to save your password? A recent browser breach is a reminder that if you answer yes, you’re taking a risk.

Late last week, the browser Opera confirmed a successful attack on its systems. The hackers were likely able to access personal information, company developer Tarquin Wilton-Jones wrote in a post announcing the breach, “including some of our sync users’ passwords and account information.”

Leave a comment

Posted in News and Views

Tagged browser breach, Password Manager, the browser Opera

Amazon Tests Out 30-Hour Work Week | TIME

Posted on August 29, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

The Washington Post reports that Amazon is launching technical teams whose workers will only clock in for 30 hours a week. While plenty of employees at Amazon are part-time, the novelty here is that the teams are entirely made up of workers on a reduced schedule, including managers. The teams’ members will receive the same benefits as full-time employees, and 75% of a 40-hour workers’ pay.

The stated goal of the program is “to create a work environment that is tailored to a reduced schedule and still fosters success and career growth.” The initiative was accompanied by an event last week titled Reinventing the Work-Life Ratio for Tech Talent.

That reference to work-life balance highlights the possibility that that the testing of a lower-intensity schedule comes partly in answer to a damaging 2015 New York Times investigation into Amazon’s work culture. That report depicted the company as a challenging, even merciless place to work.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged 30 hour work week, Amazon, Amazon’s work culture

Virtually No Institutional Investors Are Happy With Activist Hedge Funds Right Now | Bloomberg

Posted on August 29, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

The ongoing squabble between billionaire hedge fund luminaries William Ackman and Carl Icahn over Herbalife Ltd. distracts from a large warning sign for activist managers: they’re failing to live up to the expectations of institutional investors.

The August edition of research provider Prequin’s Hedge Fund Spotlight shows that 100 percent of institutional investors surveyed indicated that returns on their activist hedge fund investments had fallen short of their expectations.

Activist funds have been one of the worst-performing strategies among hedge funds from July 2015 through the midway point of this year, though funds tracked by Preqin have booked five straight months in positive territory through July 2016.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged active hedge funds, Activist funds, investments

EpiPen maker to sell cheaper generic version | BBC News

Posted on August 29, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

The maker of the EpiPen will start selling a generic version in the wake of criticism about steep price increases.

Mylan said it expected to start selling a cheaper generic product “in several weeks” at a list price of $300 (£230).

That is about half the list price of the existing product, which is used in emergencies for severe food and insect allergies.

The cost of EpiPens in the US has risen by 500% in less than a decade.

Mylan said the generic version would be identical to the branded EpiPen, which costs $600 for two doses.

Leave a comment

Posted in News and Views

Tagged EpiPen, generic version, Mylan

How to Fire Someone So They’ll Thank You For It | Entrepreneur

Posted on August 26, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

In an earlier post, I described how our new CEO determined that we had to fire almost half our team. This sucked for many reasons, but the main one? It was emotional. Firing a terrible person is easy, but how do you fire a good person who is a bad fit in a way that doesn’t hurt them?

That was the next lesson from our new CEO, JT McCormick. He showed us how to fire someone, not just with dignity and respect, but in a way where they actually thank you for the experience. Literally, three of the five people he fired wrote him emails thanking him afterwards.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged how to fire a good person, how to fire someone

Can Vitamin B-17 Really Kill Cancer? | Life Hack

Posted on August 26, 2016 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Even if you are a health-conscious person who is aware of the importance of a healthy diet and taking vitamins and supplements, chances are, you probably have not heard of vitamin B-17. However, in spite of an FDA ban on this vitamin, there are many in the medical community who believe in the health benefits of this nutrient, especially in regards to a potential cure for cancer. Read on to find out why.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged FDA ban, potential cure for cancer, Vitamin B-17