Curating the Internet: Business, leadership, and management micro-summaries for September 3, 2019

Inside Amtrak's new Acela cars; Tron CEO accused of buying Twitter followers; ECB official raises concerns about Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency; The story of WWI hero, Henry Johnson; 50 top DTubers for the month of August


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See inside Amtrak's luxurious new train cars that are the closest thing to European rail the US has yet seen - Amtrak's new Acela cars are expected to arrive in 2021. According to the company, they will provide, "world-class accommodations and amenities, along with a smoother and even more comfortable ride". The cars are manufactured by Alstom, in its Hornell, NY facility with seating for 378 passengers. Seats are made from recycled leather, and equipped with winged headrests that are similar to many airlines. This represents a 25% increase in seating capacity, and each seat will be equipped with power outlets, USB ports, reading lights, and double-trays. The dining areas and lavatories also feature numerous improvements for comfort and sanitation. And walking the aisles will be easier, too, because the train is equipped with tilt technology to make cornering smoother, and seats all have handles to assist with balance. Follow the link for photos of all the cool stuff...

Tron CEO Justin Sun Accused of Buying 5,000 Twitter Followers Per Day - According to a tweet from BlockRoots co-founder, Josh Rager, Justin Sun switched from losing followers to gaining a consistent 5,000-6,000 followers per day in late 2018. Rager backed the claim up with numbers in an attached image. The tweet has received responses from people expressing various levels of support or mistrust of Sun. Sun, himself, has not responded.

ECB official calls Facebook’s Libra ‘treacherous’ - Yves Mersch, a member of the ECB’s executive board, raised concerns that Libra's founding members include a cartel of dominant telecom, finance, and technology companies, and said that it's hard to square that with the promise of decentralization and dis-intermediation that arises from other cryptocurrencies. He also noted that Facebook's executives have, repeatedly, been called in front of US and EU legislative bodies to answer for privacy missteps. Finally, he noted that Libra lacks a "lender of last resort", has no sovereign backing, and has no depositor guaranty mechanism.

Henry Johnson, the One-Man Army Who Fought Off Dozens of German Soldiers During World War I - Not much is known about Henry Johnson's life before or after WWI, but his heroic accomplishments during the war earned him a posthumous medal of honor in 2015, and Albany, NY still celebrates "Henry Johnson Day". He may have been born as early as 1887 or as late as 1897. In 1917, he enlisted in New York's 15th NY Infantry Regiment, which was comprised entirely of black soldiers. As was customary for black soldiers at the time, the unit was ill-trained and ill-equipped, and his unit was normally assigned to menial tasks. Ultimately, however, his unit was absorbed into the 369th U.S. Infantry Regiment and then attached to the 161st Division of the French Army. One night, when he heard rustling in the dark, he and Robert Needham preemptively started throwing hand grenades so they could see their surroundings. When an enemy unit was illuminated, they charged on the two soldiers. After exhausting their grenades and experiencing a weapon jam, Johnson used his rifle as a club, and finally just a bolo knife in order to fend off the rest of the adversaries for about an hour, until reinforcements could arrive. He later estimated that he was shot 5 times during the encounter. Because his unit (known as the Harlem Hellfighters) had been attached to the French army, he was honored by the French, including one of their highest awards for valor, the Croix de Guerre. The confrontation soon became known as the Battle of Henry Johnson, and Johnson gained the nickname, The Black Death, a promotion to sergeant, and led a parade in his own honor when he returned to NY.

STEEM / DTUBE Top 50 DTubers August 2019! - In this dtube video, @tanbay talks about @dtube's top-10 votes during the month of August. The description of the post extends the list to top-50. The top-3 vote recipients were: @joythewanderer, @hafizullah, and @romafedorov. You'll have to click through for the rest. (A beneficiary setting of 10% has been applied to this post for @tanbay.)

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