Archives for February 11, 2018

‘Hey, I know you — you’re my mother’: mom finds long-lost son after cop’s Facebook post

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‘Hey, I know you — you’re my mother’: mom finds long-lost son after cop’s Facebook post

On a cold Toronto day in late November, Const. Jason Kirkwood heard someone calling his name as he walked down the street after leaving a bank machine.

“I saw it was Danny, and I thought, ‘Uh-oh,’ as I know he saw me at the bank machine,” Kirkwood said.

He has known Danny MacKillop for about five years through his work with homeless people and those living with addictions.

Kirkwood is a special constable assigned to Toronto Community Housing. MacKillop, 38, is from Reserve Mines, Cape Breton, and struggled with heroin and fentanyl addictions.

“He asked me how much I had taken out. Then he asked me to count it.”

Kirkwood said he was guarded as he took out his money, as he figured MacKillop would want some. But then he realized he only had $120 of the $160 he had taken out.

Then MacKillop pulled both hands out of his pockets with $20 in each, saying the officer had forgotten the cash in the machine.

“I said, ‘Wow, Danny, thanks,'” said Kirkwood.

He gave him some money and went on his way.

“I thought wow, that was pretty amazing for someone who is a substance user and has no source of real income, to give me back my money. So I wrote about it on Facebook.”

A few weeks later, he ran into MacKillop again and told him that he’d written a blurb on Facebook about his kind deed.

Kirkwood said MacKillop asked if he would do him a favour and tag him on the note, “‘so my mom doesn’t think I’m such a bad guy.'”

“I tagged him and then my page exploded with messages from Cape Breton,” said Kirkwood.

One of those many messages was from Mary MacKillop, Danny’s mother.

She hadn’t seen her son in eight years, or been in touch with him for almost two.

“I was dazed,” said Mary MacKillop. “I was trying to put it all together in my mind, like, oh my God, he’s there, I gotta go.”

She went to Toronto to find him and searched the streets with her sister.

“We checked every soup kitchen, every hostel, spoke to the security guard at different places.”

As it got dark, Mary decided to end the search for the day.

Then, the almost impossible happened.

‘Hey, I know you — you’re my mother’

“This man passed me by and said, ‘Hey, I know you — you’re my mother,'” said Mary.

She said several days later, with the help of many of Danny’s friends, he made it to a rehabilitation facility in Vancouver. Mary said her son had tried various rehab centres in the past, to no avail. This time, she said, he really wants to get clean.

“Danny is calling me every day. Every day, he sounds more positive.”

Kirkwood calls Danny the hero in this story after that moment with the money — and wishes him the best.

“Three words for Danny: You got this,” said Kirkwood.

Mary plans to go to Vancouver in a few months to see Danny.

“Now that I’ve found him, I don’t want to lose him.”

Newly found asteroid ‘the size of a blue whale’ to skim past close to Earth today

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This afternoon, the asteroid will pass Earth Getty

A newly discovered asteroid the size of a blue whale is to skim past Earth within 39,000 miles, just one-fifth of the distance from our planet to the moon.

The asteroid, 2018 CB, was found just days ago on February 4, by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.

It’s between 50 and 130 feet wide, similar in size the one which exploded over Chelyabinsk five years ago.

Unlike the Chelyabinsk rock, though, this asteroid will miss our planet, passing by Earth on Friday evening British time.

The path of asteroid 2018 CB, which will come close to Earth on Feb. 10.

During the 2013 Chelyabinsk event, 1500 people were injured and 7300 buildings damaged by the intense overpressure generated by the shockwave at Earth’s surface.

Why Netflix’s Global Subscriber Count Could Still Triple

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The Netflix menu featuring Stranger Things

Coming off if its biggest quarterly subscriber growth ever, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) is showing no signs of slowing down.

The company is investing more money in content and marketing as it bets on the continued growth of its platform. In the fourth quarter, it added 8.3 million members, giving it a total of 117 million, but there are signs that Netflix is reaching maturity in the U.S. — its domestic growth peaked in 2013, and the company will soon reach the bottom end of its target long-term range of U.S. subscribership at 60 million to 90 million. Investors may be wondering how many subscribers Netflix can attract around the globe.

Even with its total subscriber count having already topped 100 million, there’s a good reason to believe that the streamer’s subscribership could one day reach 400 million, more than triple what it has today. Let’s take a closer look.

The domestic goal is clear

In Netflix’s Long-Term View statement, the company says it believes it can reach 60 million to 90 million members, “based upon our trajectory to date and the continued growth of internet entertainment.” Considering there are now 126 million households in the U.S. and that figure is growing by about 1 million per year, Netflix, with 55 million U.S. subscribers, still has ample opportunity to add new ones at home. According to estimates from Morningstar, 79 million U.S. households have subscribed to Amazon Prime, and in its heyday more than 100 million households paid for cable or satellite TV, so the appetite for Netflix’s product is clear as long as it can continue delivering value for its subscribers.

At this point, it almost seems certain that Netflix will reach 60 million U.S. subscribers, but with the increasing popularity of Internet TV and Netflix’s increasing spending on content and marketing, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the company eventually reach 80 million or even 90 million members at home. Recently, Netflix has been adding about 5 million U.S. subscribers a year, so it could reach 80 or 90 million in another five to 10 years.

International is the big opportunity

Netflix’s international subscriber base surpassed its domestic one last year, and it continues to grow much faster. The company added 18.5 million international subscribers in 2017 and sees that growth accelerating at least into the first quarter. Management has said that the international markets it first entered like western Europe, Canada, and Latin America are beginning to deliver solid contribution profits, while growth has been more difficult in Asia. Considering that more than half of the world’s population lives in Asia, there should be considerable international growth ahead if its product can catch on in Asian countries, where it launched only two years ago.

For comparison, some of Netflix’s peers have found a much larger user base outside of the U.S. than within it. Alphabet’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube draws more than 80% of its viewership from outside the U.S., and the video-sharing site now claims 1.5 monthly billion users. Facebook’s (NASDAQ: FB) properties similarly skew toward an international audience. At Facebook, roughly 90% of its monthly users come from outside North America, and the share of international users Instagram claims is now above 75%.

Twitter has a similar breakdown, with about 80% of its users coming from abroad.

There are some key differences between Netflix and those social media sites. Importantly, they are all free, while Netflix charges subscribers about $11/month. Most of Netflix’s content is also in English, so it may not have the international appeal of user-driven content that sites like Facebook and YouTube do.

The global box office may offer a better proxy. Last year, all but one of the top 25 movies (Wonder Woman) drew more box office revenue overseas than domestically, and international markets contributed 68% of box office revenue for the top 25 movies last year. The international share of theater revenue is also growing; China’s box office is now bigger than the U.S.’. Considering that Netflix is cheaper than an evening out at the movies, the company’s share of international revenue should eventually eclipse that of the box office.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to expect the streamer to eventually generate at least 70% of its revenue from overseas, though its ability to enter China will have some impact on that. If the company can reach 80 million subscribers domestically, a 70% share abroad would translate into 190 million international subscribers, or 270 million total. If Netflix reached the high end of its domestic subscriber at 90 million and it brought in 75% of it subscribers from abroad, that would mean a total of 360 million members, more than triple its count today.

Whether Netflix can achieve that will depend on its ability to produce content that appeals to international audiences and persuade new members to join its service, but the accelerating international growth should give investors confidence in the company’s ability to do that. With its negative free cash flow, content spending may be a concern for some investors, but with Netflix just beginning to penetrate foreign markets, long-term user growth should not be. It’s one big reason to bet on the streamer’s continued success.

The 3 Most Disruptive Accomplishments Inside Amazon’s Earnings Report

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Wavy lines of ones and zeroes signifying artificial intelligence.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shareholders have had quite a lot to smile about over the past few years, and the company’s most recent earnings release was no exception. If you’ve never read an Amazon quarterly press release before, it can seem like a novella, as Amazon operates in just about every industry on the planet (it is “The Everything Store” after all) and adopts a rapid pace of innovation.

Here were the most noteworthy achievements from Amazon’s busy fourth quarter.

1. A future bundle?

Many may not have noticed a tidbit regarding Amazon’s new partnership with CBS (NYSE: CBS) All Access, which will be added to the Amazon Channels lineup. Amazon Channels allows Prime customers to buy on-demand streaming services from most premium video suppliers, like Starz, HBO, and Showtime. Of course, Amazon also has its own Prime Video service, and it just acquired the rights to The Lord of the Rings for an upcoming prequel series.

However, this CBS deal actually marks the first live linear broadcast feed in Prime Video. In addition, Amazon had Thursday Night Football live-streaming for the first time as well last quarter. Major competitors like Alphabet and AT&T already offer skinny, over-the-top bundles with linear channels, so the new CBS deal could potentially mark Amazon’s entry into the skinny-bundle race. Since Prime and Alexa are becoming more and more embedded in customers’ homes, it only makes sense that Amazon should be able to “bundle a bundle” along with Prime at some point.

On that note, the company also reported that the Fire TV Stick was among the best-selling products across all of Amazon last year.

2. AI as a service

Amazon Web Services (AWS) posted another strong quarter with growth accelerating 45%. And just as AWS revolutionized outsourcing of corporate IT infrastructure, Amazon is now looking to do the same with artificial intelligence (AI) via a new service called SageMaker, which was just announced at the company’s November re:Invent conference.

Amazon had offered customers machine-learning tools since 2015, but SageMaker is a much more comprehensive, sophisticated system of ready-to-use, “one click” AI algorithms that don’t require a Ph.D. According to the press release:

SageMaker makes model building and training easier by providing pre-built development notebooks; popular machine-learning algorithms optimized for petabyte-scale data sets; and automatic model tuning, enabling developers to build, train, and deploy models in a single click. Since its launch two months ago, Amazon SageMaker is already helping thousands of developers to easily get started and become competent in building, training, and deploying models.

Of note, according to Wired, SageMaker’s team was headed by Alex Smola, a “machine-learning superstar with 90,000 academic citations” who had actually turned down a job at Amazon just five years ago when its machine-learning capabilities were much smaller.

The product could be very disruptive, because even though AI has the potential to greatly enhance just about every single industry, the talent required to reap those benefits is scarce. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said there were only a few thousand people capable of creating sophisticated machine-learning models. Therefore, SageMaker could go a long way toward solving that problem, reaping huge benefits for AWS customers.

3. Swooning for Alexa

Finally, CEO Jeff Bezos highlighted only one thing in the introduction to the release, and that was the incredible expansion in the adoption of Alexa: “Our 2017 projections for Alexa were very optimistic, and we far exceeded them. We don’t see positive surprises of this magnitude very often — expect us to double down.”

Amazon was early in opening up Alexa’s voice and AI capabilities to outside developers and companies, and the results have been extremely positive: Just as developers work on apps for either Android or iOS, there is now an expanding ecosystem of developers working on Alexa.

To give some perspective to how much Alexa is expanding, over 4,000 smart-home devices from 1,200 different brands now incorporate Alexa, and outside developers have created 30,000 “skills” (essentially akin to a smartphone application, built for voice). Amazon is also looking at giving developers more opportunities to monetize their innovations, including premium subscriptions and skill-based purchasing.

Amazon off and away

These are just a few of the milestones the company achieved in the fourth quarter, which also included more data center construction for AWS, new Amazon private label brands in clothing and furniture, and much more. With these latest developments, it looks like 2018 is shaping up to bring more pleasant surprises.

Common ways smart people lose their jobs

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Intelligent people can lose their jobs for silly reasons. While some of the mistakes are due to momentary lapses, others result from serious judgement problems.

Pulling a ‘sickie’ and posting about your day on Facebook

Pretending to be sick and sharing your “Ferris Bueller” experience on social media demonstrates poor judgment to say the least. If you have abused company policies in the past, your boss might even consider firing you for pulling a “sickie.”

The takeaway: Put the phone and tablet down

“Using sick time inappropriately is one thing, but blatantly posting about your day at the beach is just careless,” said Dana Case, director of operations for MyCorporation. “Sometimes, employees think of their bosses as separate from their personal lives, so they don’t even think about them seeing those types of posts. But if it’s on the internet, it’s easily viewable.”

Bottom line: Think twice when posting on social media. And consider whether your post is appropriate for all audiences who might have access.

Dressing inappropriately

A savvy employee dresses according to his workplace culture and environment. While ad agencies and tech companies tend to have more liberal dress code standards, law firms are generally more traditional. Your appearance and demeanor should reflect your company’s culture, as well as the types of clients you serve.

Devin Clark, who now works for the medical lien finance company Medport Billing, had a negative experience while working at a credit card processing firm. Despite showing solid potential as an in-house representative, Clark was dismissed because a banking partner found his earrings to be unprofessional.

The takeaway: Dress to impress

Although the way a person dresses is a form of self-expression, at work you represent your company. Your appearance counts, and it pays to conform to the work environment from 9 to 5, as well as when you’re applying for the job. If you don’t know how to dress for work, check out these clothing items every working man needs.

Lying on your application

A CareerBuilder survey revealed that 75 percent of employers have found outright lies on a candidate’s resume. Moreover, just 12 percent say they are likely to hire a candidate who does something odd or extreme in an interview.

In the long run, exaggerating or lying about your experience or qualifications just doesn’t seem to pay.

The takeaway: Don’t embellish

Tempting as it is to embellish your qualifications, it’s best to list only those resume achievements that can be proven. A certified coach, human resources consultant and speaker, Lisa Barrington advises applicants to avoid even small lies.

“Tell the whole truth,” said Barrington. “Remember, a lie of omission is still a lie.”

Be honest from the start, and boost the odds of landing your dream job.

Tardiness

Another CareerBuilder survey found that employees have devised some innovative excuses for their tardiness. They ranged from following a spouse’s lover after uncovering an affair to being delayed by a herd of deer.

Creativity aside, CareerBuilder revealed that more than 40 percent of employers have fired a worker for being late.

The takeaway: Practice punctuality

It’s not surprising that tardiness in the workplace is cause for dismissal. Companies rely on their staff to ensure smooth operations.

“Being even a few minutes late can throw off customer service,” said Barrington. “For example, in a retail establishment, doors can’t open on time or, in a customer service role, phones aren’t answered during posted times.”

According to Pamela Barsky, who designs and manufactures fashion accessories, businesses can even face fines when their employees are late.

“One of our stores is in a communal space, where the landlord has rules about what time we are required to be open,” said Barsky. “We are charged $50 if an employee is even one minute late. We pass the fine on to the employee the first time they show up late — the second, they no longer have a job.”

An HR expert and creator of the management program, From The Inside Out Project®, Laura MacLeod has faced similar issues with hospitality employees.

“Working in a major hotel, I saw many instances of employees arriving late with no excuse,” she said. “Counseling and discipline [were] progressive, but eventually they lost their jobs. This is totally avoidable.”

Consider that your employer has a good reason for demanding punctuality, and set your alarm clock accordingly. If the unavoidable occurs, and you have to be late or absent, take a moment to call your boss. A thoughtful, honest explanation can go a long way toward preserving your job.

Poor personal hygiene

Most employees are hired on an “at will” basis. According to Nolo, this term indicates that an employer can fire you for any reason save discrimination based on race, religion or gender. It is perfectly legal for a company to fire you for having bad hygiene, however.

The takeaway: Good hygiene shows respect

“At any one time, I have about 20 to 30 employees,” said Barsky. “One day, I came into the studio to find all of my sewing machine operators with toilet paper stuffed into their nostrils. The new silkscreen [worker] I had hired came into work smelling a little bit ripe. He was fired the same day.”

Not only can practicing good hygiene help you keep your job, but it also demonstrates your respect for your fellow employees.

Gossiping and ignoring customers

Gossiping is a silly but easy way to get fired. And gossiping in front of customers can put you on the chopping block even more quickly.

“We use Square to run our credit cards, which gives customers the option to send us a comment about their experience,” said Barsky. “Recently, I received one from a woman who’d been forced to wait while my salesperson finished gossiping with a friend … she’s now not working for me.”

The takeaway: Save the gossip for later — or never

For most firms, customer relations management is crucial. Even if business is slow, employees should strive to be attentive at all times and not get distracted by personal conversations and gossip.

Not only do employees who gossip wind up ignoring customers, but they also spread lies about their co-workers in many cases. Doing this creates an unpleasant work environment for everyone.

For best results, avoid passing on company gossip or sending emails with salacious information about your team. The last thing you want is a written record of your transgressions.

Swearing

It might seem obvious, but swearing at work is unprofessional and inappropriate — and it could result in your firing.

Pierre R. Tremblay is the director of human resources for Dupray, a company that sells steam cleaners and steam irons in six countries. According to Tremblay, employees should avoid swearing at all costs.

The takeaway: Be careful not to offend others

“Swearing fosters a toxic work environment,” said Tremblay. “We actually had to warn a few of our employees to stop swearing because it was offending others… if you can’t speak without dropping an f-bomb, it’s better to not speak at all.”

If you’re dreaming of a career in Hollywood, here’s where the jobs are

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Hollywood needs quite a few producers, directors, audio and video technicians, and film and video editors in the next four years.

Want a career in entertainment? Turns out Hollywood needs quite a few producers, directors, audio and video technicians, and film and video editors in the next four years. Those are the most in-demand entertainment industry jobs in the Los Angeles basin in the foreseeable future, according to a new Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation analysis of Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data published Friday.

The LAEDC report found that the top 14 most in-demand entertainment industry jobs in the L.A. basin over the next four years are middle-skill professions that don’t necessarily require a four-year college degree.

The L.A. basin, which has the highest concentration of entertainment jobs in the U.S., includes L.A. and Orange counties. “Entertainment industry” encompasses the motion picture and sound recording, broadcasting (excluding the internet), and performing arts and spectator sports industries.

Most job growth in the entertainment industry is a result of replacement jobs — openings created due to regular turnover or retirement.

These middle-skill jobs are “a pathway for people to obtain a good paying job in a region with a high cost-of-living without having to go down a time-intensive and costly road of a four-year degree,” said LAEDC economist Shannon Sedgwick.

LAEDC is working with local community colleges to ensure they have programs that can train workers for these jobs.

Developing the necessary talent pool locally helps to stymie the loss of entertainment jobs to other locales that Los Angeles has been struggling with in the last decade. Other cities in the U.S. and abroad — such as Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, Toronto and Vancouver — have lured film and TV crews away from Los Angeles with generous tax incentives.

The national share of motion picture and sound recording jobs in L.A. declined from 35.2 percent to 34.3 percent from 2006 to 2016, according to the report. The national share of artists, writers, and performers in L.A. declined from 24.2 percent to 23.7 percent during that time.

L.A. still has the highest concentration of entertainment industry employment, with 220,860 payroll jobs. About 150,370 are employed in the motion picture and sound recording industries.

L.A.’s longtime biggest competitor, New York, employs about 39,700 in motion picture, video production and post-production services, according to the New York Empire State Development Corporation.

A vibrant local talent pool makes Los Angeles a more attractive place to base a production, Sedgwick said.

It’s even more imperative to foster local talent now that a growing proportion of jobs are in digital media, which aren’t as tied to a specific location the way traditional entertainment productions are, Sedgwick said. “If we don’t have the proper labor supply we will be at a higher risk of losing the more mobile digital media industries.”

The L.A. basin’s entertainment industry is expected to add just a net total of 490 jobs in the next four years. That’s because growth in the motion picture, sound recording, performing arts and spectator sports industries will be offset by job losses in broadcasting. Of the 26,970 total job openings projected over the next four years, 26,480 are replacement workers.

However, entertainment jobs showed significant growth between 2010 and 2016, to the tune of 36,130 jobs, or over 19 percent. Much of that was driven by an increase in the number of promoters, agents and managers, amounting to 36,000 more jobs — a growth rate of over 164 percent. Cable and subscription programming jobs decreased by over 21 percent during the period. In comparison, total payroll employment in the L.A. basin across all industries grew by 4 percent in the same period.