Here are ten items worth your time this week:
🎥 1) Netflix Raises Prices on All of Its Subscription Plans [WSJ]
“Netflix, which last raised its prices in late 2017, will increase the cost of its most popular plan by 18% to $13 a month, from $11. That plan allows users to stream on two screens at the same time. The most basic plan, which allows a single stream, will go up one dollar, or 13%, to $9 a month. Raising prices will help Netflix swallow higher content costs as the streaming TV wars intensify.”
💔 2) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and wife MacKenzie are getting a divorce [Recode]
“The split between the tech titan and his wife, a novelist, could have an impact on Amazon’s ownership. Jeff Bezos owned 16.3 percent of Amazon’s shares as of February 2018, but it’s possible half of that stake could go to MacKenzie in a split.”
🌊 3) Antarctica is losing ice 6 times faster than in 1980s [Axios]
“Antarctica is shedding ice at an increasingly rapid rate, potentially imperiling coastlines around the world as sea levels increase in response, a new study finds.”
🤸 4) For Katelyn Ohashi, Viral Gymnastics Joy Was No Act [NY Times]
“At a college meet over the weekend, Katelyn Ohashi of U.C.L.A. delivered a brilliant technical floor routine, with nary a step on her landings. But a YouTube video of that performance has attracted millions of viewers not because of her skill level but rather the unabashed fun she seems to be having while doing it.”
Watch her routine on YouTube here.
🔇 5) Project Alias is a Weird ‘Parasite’ That Gloms Onto Alexa to Increase Privacy [Gizmodo]
“Project Alias’s solution is to play static into the smart speaker’s mic all the time, only stopping when you give Alias a command that it has to pass on.”
📊 6) The Hot New Asset Class Is Lego Sets [Bloomberg]
“Collecting Lego – yes, the plastic toys made of interlocking bricks that become cars and castles and robots – returned more than large stocks, bonds and gold in the three decades ending in 2015, says a study by Victoria Dobrynskaya, an assistant professor at Russia’s Higher School of Economics. ”
🎸 7) Behold the theorbo, an enormous baroque lute [BoingBoing]
“‘People complain a lot about the space that I take up,’ says Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny.”
🌍 8) It’s Waiting There For You: Toto’s ‘Africa’ Is Playing On Repeat In A Desert [NPR]
“Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf installed Toto Forever late last December while back home with his family in Namibia. Six speakers are placed atop individual plinths and attached to an MP3 player that contains only the song; the entire thing is powered by solar energy with the promise that it will run ‘for all eternity.’”
👏 9) A typo landed him an invite to a bachelor party halfway across the country. Naturally, he’s going. [Washington Post]
“Will Novak was sitting in front of his computer Jan. 7 when an email flashed across the screen, advising him that his attention was urgently needed. The subject? Angelo’s bachelor party. The 35-year-old did not, however, know anyone named Angelo.”
(Well spotted, Miles!)
P.S. There are pics on Will’s Instagram feed.
💃 10) Dancing Dog Gets Haircut [YouTube]