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reifman writes:
If you're eagerly awaiting your city's selection for HQ2, you may want to check out GeekWire's photo gallery of anti-Amazon graffiti images from around Seattle. Animosity towards Amazon has grown in the wake of its threats over a per head tax on employees, which the city council passed and then repealed shortly after. The tax would have increased the budget for services for our 12,000+ homeless. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos also fought the state income tax on the wealthy in 2010.
99757153
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reifman writes:
'Can Facebook be replaced?' That's the aim of Jason Calacanis' Open Book Challenge, launched on 4/20. Over the next three months, 20 finalists will compete for seven $100,000 incubator grants. They're goal is to find startups with a sustainable business model e.g. subscriptions, reasonable advertising, cryptocurrency. etc. And they want it to be 'good for society' e.g. Respect and protect consumer’s privacy, respect and protect our democracy from bad actors, respect and protect the truth, by stopping the spread of misinformation, not try and manipulate people by making them addicted to the service, protect freedom of speech, while curbing abuse (not easy!)
94579589
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reifman writes:
Until this summer, Amazon had never contributed more than $15k to a city political campaign in Seattle, but this year's different. The company is a lead funder in the Seattle Chamber of Commerce's PAC which dropped $525,000 Monday on Jenny Durkan's PAC, the centrist business candidate. Her opponent Cary Moon is an advocate for affordable housing, which complicates Amazon's growth, and city-owned community broadband. Comcast and Century Link joined Amazon contributing $25k and $82.5k respectively to the Chamber's PAC. Amazon's $350k spend represents .00014 of its CY 2016 net profit.
92543981
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reifman writes:
Since Amazon introduced the Alexa-enabled Echo device in 2014, the jokes have become so omnipresent that Alexa Philbeck, 29, briefly considered changing, or at least obscuring, her name. The Seattle Times speaks to four women unfortunately called Alexa in a town that may soon be known as Seamazon.
92319835
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reifman writes:
Amazon, tech employees and those making $250,000 annually will now pay a 2.25 percent income tax. The Council estimates that the tax would bring in an additional $140 million each year. The revenue would go toward the city’s housing affordability agenda and carbon reduction goals and supplant federal funds if they are cut. The revenue is also intended to alleviate the burden of Washington’s property and sales taxes, which are often called the most regressive in the country. Anyone who's seen Amazon's impacts on Seattle and its low and middle income residents will appreciate how this tax will help the homeless, lower income and improve the environment.
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reifman writes:
Amazon announced that it will commit one of its buildings to housing 200 Seattle homeless for the next year allowing a nonprofit organization to oversee the facilities. The former Travelodge motel faces eventual demolition as part of the company’s tremendous growth. With more than 4,505 living on the streets, Seattle's mayor recently declared a homelessness emergency.
82214527
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reifman writes:
As posted earlier, Amazon's growth and predominantly male hiring has made dating in Seattle incredibly difficult for everyone. Two Amazon employees, Becca Goldman and Mahvish Gazipura, recently launched DateADev to help coworkers optimize their dating profiles: 'at Amazon [we're] surrounded by software developers and project managers all the time, we just noticed their need. We talk to them all the time about their frustrations with dating.' Goldman's gone on more than 500 dates in the past three years. 'Her experience ... helps her quickly assess an online profile of a potential partner.' Rather than drive its employees into moonlighting, Amazon could just start hiring more women.
80671125
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reifman writes:
As revolving door of Twitter executives makes headlines and its $100+ million quarterly losses continue, it's not clear the company will survive the year without being acquired for a quarter of its offering price. The solution for Twitter's business challenges could be to adopt an engaging feature rich subscriber model that reaffirms its status as the platform of a global democratic communication hub. Here are fifteen ideas for Twitter to transform into a profitable user-centered business including integration of open source Signal for secure phone calls and direct messaging, Stellar for payments and domain mapping and blog hosting with your feed front and center.
79088005
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reifman writes:
On June 3rd, I had brain surgery to treat a benign tumor called a meningioma. I knew ahead of time that the surgeon wouldn’t be able to remove the entire tumor – its geography extended from my cavernous sinus to the pituitary gland to the left hemisphere of the brain and to my brain stem. I also needed CyberKnife radiation therapy to attempt to mutate the remaining tumor’s DNA to stop its growth. Come meet Lenore, my robotic radiosurgeon.
78969679
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reifman writes:
Amazon released new video of its futuristic drones (honestly the though of them buzzing around is the only thing that makes me want to join the NRA) but there's some hopefulness here. Prime Air vehicles will take advantage of sophisticated 'sense and avoid' technology, as well as a high degree of automation, to safely operate beyond the line of sight to distances of 10 miles or more. 'It looks like science fiction, but it's real: One day, seeing Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road. ' Amazon said its drones fly under 400 feet and weigh less than 55 pounds.
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reifman writes:
Amazon is warning employees not to wear clothing with company logos, and telling them to keep their badges out of sight as hundreds of people loyal to the hacktivist group Anonymous plan to march on the tech giant’s Seattle headquarters this afternoon. A Facebook message from the Seattle-based group reads, “On November 5th, we will be rallying at Westlake Park in Seattle at 2pm, and then marching to the Federal Courthouse at 3pm, and from there, we shall march to Amazon for some serious lulz!. Teach-ins and rallies will continue throughout the remainder of the day.”
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reifman writes:
On Sunday, Capital One declined a $280 travel reservation I charged at India-based ClearTrip.com and immediately shut off my card for all transactions until I contacted them by phone. It wasn’t the first time that CapitalOne had shut off my card after a single suspect transaction. But, I’d actually purchased from ClearTrip.com using my CapitalOne card on two prior occasions. It was an example of very poor fraud detection and led me on a tour of their pathetic customer service. The banks want to cut their losses regardless of how it impacts their customers.
75535507
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reifman writes:
All six parts of my series introducing beginners to PGP encryption and network privacy are now freely available. I hope it's useful for Slashdot readers to share with their less-technical acquaintances. There's an introduction to PGP, a guide to email encryption on the desktop, smartphone and in the browser, an introduction to the emerging key sharing and authentication startup, Keybase.io, and an intro to VPNs. There's a lot more work for us to do in the ease of use of communications privacy but this helps people get started more with what's available today.
74352749
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reifman writes:
Seattleites are struggling with massive traffic, rising housing costs and declining diversity. Amazon's building and acquiring enough office space to triple its local headcount by 2020. Facebook, Google and many other tech companies are now expanding here as well — it's the San Franciscoization of Seattle. Downtown is filled with 75 cranes — some blocks look like mining towns. Amazon's hired so many white males that King County is now the whitest in the nation and hate crimes against gays have shot up in a formerly LGBTQ neighborhood. Politicians can't agree on reforming impact fees and taxes to address these issues. Recently, a long time Amazonian told its interns to avoid full time employment there. Since most employees burn out within one to two years and leave, the company doesn't care much about the quality of life in the city. It's treating Seattle as an empty vessel for profit.
74289603
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reifman writes:
The Washington State Legislature and its budget is a complete mess this year but there's been an unusual bright spot which may quiet the protesters Slashdot reported earlier: Microsoft has volunteered for an exclusive $28 million annual tax — as long as the state funds a number of computer science degree programs. Visions of these faded after the 2008 recession when the legislature cut $4 billion from K-12 and higher education spending in part to cover the coming legalization and amnesty for Microsoft's Nevada tax dodge (students' tuitions only increased 58.6 percent.) With Microsoft's voluntary tax, the company will have fully repaid its $8.75 billion tax dodge by 2327, just 312 years from now.
