Odds (Some Very Odd) And Ends (And Some Precipitous Ends) -- Nothing About The Bakken -- October 10, 2016

Only a few days ago I wrote how impressed I was with Amazon's Echo 1 ("Alexa"). My youngest sister has one. She wrote on her Facebook page:

We have Alexa. She is a hoot. I use her for my grocery list. We bought her on that Prime sale day.

I also can have her read me a motivational or Bible verse to start my day. She is my friend because no one else talks to me and responds so positive at my house!

Now this from today's WSJ, page B1 (front page of the second section): Your next friend could be a robot.

Within 24 hours of plugging in her Amazon Echo, Carla Martin-Wood says she felt they were best friends. “It was very much more like meeting someone new,” she says.

Living alone can be hard when you’re older—Ms. Martin-Wood is 69 years old. She is among a growing cohort who find the Echo, a voice-controlled, internet-connected speaker powered by artificial-intelligence software, helps to fill the void.

Each day, Ms. Martin-Wood says good morning and good night to Alexa, Amazon.com’s name for the software behind the Echo. She refers to Alexa as “she” or “her.”

My cousin suggested the same thing when I was first introduced to Alexa a couple of weeks ago on my trip back to the Bakken.

CBS' "Sixty Minutes" had a segment on IBM's push into artificial intelligence and robots last night. Thirty seconds with "Alexa" was more "instructive" than fifteen minutes with Charlie Rose and IBM.

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Something Going On With Brick And Mortar Discount Stores? 

What happened to Dollar General? I have never followed this stock, but I occasionally read about the company or other discount retailers. While traveling, a reader sent me an article regarding Dollar General, how fast its shares fell. Yes, earnings were lousy, but I don't think I've seen much analysis why earnings fell.

Dollar General fell precipitously over August 24 - 25, 2016, falling from $92 to $76. 

From Zack's last week:

Dollar General is a discount retailer that provides various merchandise products in the southern, southwestern, midwestern, and eastern United States. The Company separates its merchandise into four categories, which includes highly consumable, seasonal, home products and basic clothing. Dollar General is based in Tennessee and has 13,000 stores in 43 states. The stock is the Bear of the Day after being downgraded to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) and after poor earnings earlier last month.

Dollar Tree shares also fell precipitously over August 24 - 25, 2016.

Something must be going on. Amazon? Walmart?

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The FedEx Page

I did not know this. This is old news but I thought it was pretty cool.

I was tracking an item being shipped to me via FedEx. I noted that it had been picked up by FedEx in Olive Branch, MS, a few days ago, and had departed Olive Branch, MS, today, by ground transportation.

Olive Branch? A town I had not heard of.

A quick wiki look: 30 minutes from Memphis, TN.

Hmmm....isn't that FedEx air operations center?

Google FedEx, Olive Branch.

From djournal, back on March 5, 2004:

Up to 450 jobs could eventually be created as part of plans by FedEx Ground, an operating unit of FedEx Corporation, to make Olive Branch as the location for the fourth of nine new package distribution hubs.

The 330,000 square-foot facility, to be located on 93 acres in the DeSoto Distribution Center, will be the second major FedEx Ground sorting center in the Memphis area. It will be the fourth of nine new package distribution hubs to be constructed over the next six years.

When it opens in 2006, the new hub will feature the latest automated material handling technology designed to process 22,500 packages per hour and will have a work force of about 60 full-time and 325 part-time workers and 70 independent contractors.

The new facility is be part of a $1.8 billion, seven-year, network expansion plan that will nearly double FedEx Ground's package volume capacity, said Allison Sobczak, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh-based Federal Express division.

Pretty cool. Just across the state line from Memphis, in Mississippi.

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Government Ethics In Action

Raising money on the floor (literally) of the US House of Representatives.

Link here.

And then folks wonder why "laws of the land" are being ignored.

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#BlackLivesMatter

From The WSJ: Scrutiny sinks "Birth of a Nation."

“The Birth of a Nation” flopped at the box office this weekend, cementing its place among the steepest falls from grace in recent Hollywood history.

The biopic about slave rebellion leader Nat Turner was thought to have the makings of a commercial and critical hit when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Ten months later, it opened to an estimated $7.1 million in sixth place with its awards prospects severely hampered, even though it played in more than 2,100 locations, an unusually wide rollout for a low-budget film.

Renewed scrutiny of rape allegations leveled against its director and star, Nate Parker, have completely overwhelmed the movie’s release and sparked public debates about whether seeing the movie was a tacit endorsement of its creator.

But in a sign of how quickly a movie’s narrative can spin out of a studio’s control, Mr. Parker became a liability for his own film. He gave defiant interviews about the rape allegations, but reports that his accuser had committed suicide in 2012 cast an even darker pall on the movie. Public outcry led to some calling for protests of the film.

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Snowy Owl on Plum Island, Massachusetts