How is everyone’s weekend going? Happy Easter to all.
Before we all get together with family/friends for the holiday, thanks for stopping by a spending a portion of the day reading the Six.
Politics-free today. A little bit of pop culture, water commerce and a cat video (first time on the Six!)
Let’s proceed.
What do you do if you can’t get Amazon and other e-commerce behemoths to deliver stuff to your doorstep in the remote islands of French Polynesia (where the lack of Internet access is another problem)? Easy: Start your own online shopping service. From the article: “As the global online shopping market continues to grow — a trend that has been augmented by the Covid-19 pandemic — local services are closing the last gaps for those living in some of the world’s most remote places.” This is a story about the “last mile,” in this case, over water.
In Ontario, Canada, organized crime is focused on the towing industry. A lack of regulation and a highway authority keen to see obstructions cleared quickly has created an ecosystem of "chasers", in which the first recovery vehicle to reach an accident gets the job. Rival companies battle for territory, resulting in firebombs, shootings and extortion rackets. As this article from The Drive explains, if ever traveling in Toronto, try not to have your car break down.
Why Are All the Billionaires Moving to Hawaii?
So I saw a piece in The New York Times Magazine raising the question of just how many billionaires there are in America. The article explains why it’s impossible to pinpoint exactly how many there are (estimate ranges from 735 to 927) but how every week, more billionaires are minted. In this linked story from Town & Country magazine, the author takes a delightfully humorous look at the billionaires’ exodus to Hawaii—“the Eden for the one percent”—where there’s golf with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Mai Tais with the Zuckerbergs of Facebook. If given the choice, I’d take golf with Bezos but only if there was accompanying drink cart to pour bottomless Mai Tai’s.
How TikTok Heartthrob Fandom Turned Toxic.
I’ve linked out many articles on TikTok and the rising currency of influencers. This super entertaining – and disturbing – read from Input tells the story of the development of a raucous rumble over a TikTok star named William White. Apparently battle lines were drawn between scores of middle-aged women who adore White and the throngs who mercilessly troll those who adore him. White, meanwhile, just keeps smiling into the social media app’s filtered camera lens and raking in the cash. While reading, you will likely ask yourself numerous times, ‘what the hell is wrong with these people?’Who the Heck are Data Brokers? John Oliver Explains.
Any belief we may have held onto that we can preserve some semblance of privacy while surfing the internet will be lost after viewing this video. John Oliver, the often funny host of Last Week Tonight on HBO, did a deep dive into the world of “Data Brokers” on his show last Sunday. I linked out the entire segment (25 minutes worth) as Oliver reveals how everything we do online is being tracked by somebody, with these data brokers constantly making money collating our cookie-acquired data, bundling it up into neat little packages and selling it on to third parties. At the end of the video, Oliver runs his own hilarious data-harvesting experiment on politicians in Washington (one titled “Ted Cruz Erotic Fan Fiction”).
Nosy Cat Eavesdrops on Arguing Neighbors.
This video is from a few months back but stumbled upon it on Twitter the other day. A cat hanging out at a windowsill hears bickering from the house next door. The reaction from the cat is priceless – just when it’s about to jump off the stool, the argument continues and the cat puts its paws back up to snoop some more. The location of the video is Bangkok, Thailand. As the song goes, one night in Bangkok…
Thanks for reading everybody and enjoy the rest of your Easter weekend.
Have a suggestion for the Sunday Six? Send email to jon@jonjkerr.com