Real ideas

Bill Gates may be smarter than any of us imagined.
On Tuesday, Bill Gates did his fourth Ask Me Anything on
Reddit. It was filled with interesting details about life in the
next 20 years and how he likes to spend his money.
One Redditor asked Gates what his fondest memory was

Apple remains dependent on the iPhone. Last quarter, it
generated about 68% of the company's revenue, and probably
a greater percentage of its net income. iPhone customers are
famously loyal, but the company still faces a healthy amount
of competition in the high-end handset market.
If history is any indication, Apple's next flagship smartphone
(presumably called the iPhone 7) will make its debut in
September.
The most significant competition it's likely to face, however,
could arrive this month. Samsung's Galaxy

You finally get the call. The hiring manager on the
other end says they'd like you to come in to interview
for the job you applied for — and they ask when
you're available to meet.
Overwhelmed with excitement, you may be inclined
to say something along the lines of, "I can come in
whenever you'd like me to," or,

A disgruntled man ordered to cough up £1,851.94 in
council tax footed the bill in the most inconvenient
way he could imagine: by paying it all in one-pence
coins.
The bronze booty, which almost weighed a ton,
apparently had to be delivered in a lorry because it
was too heavy to put in a a car.
Trouble started brewing in

People could soon be able to pay for things using
their face.
Google is testing out digital wallets which do not even
require the user to take their Android smartphone
out of their pocket.<(>Instead the payment will be hands-free, with facial
recognition used to validate any transaction

As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the
highest appreciation is not to
utter words, but to live by
them.

One way to truly know yourself and experience fulfilment is to
get in touch with your Life Purpose. With the

In 2012, Harvard Business Review named data
scientist the " sexiest job of the 21st century." More
recently, Glassdoor named it the "best job of the
year" for 2016.
"It isn't a big surprise," Dr. Andrew Chamberlain,
Glassdoor's chief economist, told

A record 3.1 million people quit their jobs in December. We'd love to chalk this up to stellar job growth and a booming economy. While it's true the U.S. is doing better on both these fronts, many workers quit their jobs because they simply don't have a choice. Contract-based freelance

At age 23, Dawn Archer felt her life spiraling out of control. She weighed 220 pounds -- her heaviest yet -- was in a deep depression and often found it hard to get out of bed in the morning.

“I just wanted to sleep all day and eat anything that I could find,” says Archer, who lives in Richmond, Va.

Her personal and financial life were a mess, too. Working as a graphic design intern and making $23,000 a year left Archer in a constant state of anxiety.

“To be honest I couldn't pay any of my bills. Once I graduated from college, I had a lot of student loan debt so I was working 40 hours a week but I was still living negatively,” says Archer.

It wasn’t until her suicidal thoughts began that she realized it was time for a drastic change. “I was driving one day and just saw myself driving off of the bridge,” explains Archer, “I have such a great family and such strong faith but I just thought -- this can’t be life.”

Archer, now 28, decided to turn her life around by using exercise as therapy and began to document her journey on her Instagram page. Little did she know this would later become the starting point of her nationally known brand, SWEAT.

Leading a healthy lifestyle began with baby steps for Archer, like walking to the store instead of driving. Although she says that it was never about losing weight, her results spoke for themselves as Archer began dropping the pounds.

“I was already posting my progress and what I was eating,” she says. “Then I started to notice my number of followers increasing and people were asking me for some additional info on my meals.”

Putting her graphic design skills to the test, she wrote her first e-book on “How to meal prep” and sold it for $5 while only promoting it on Instagram.

Archer saw Instagram as the best way to market herself and get wide exposure. The success of Archer’s first two e-books is ultimately what gave her the confidence to quit her job as a graphic designer.

“I moved back home and decided I wanted to teach fitness classes,” says Archer. “So one day I posted on my Instagram: if you want to work out with me, meet me at this parking lot and bring $5.”

Within a matter of months, Archer’s SWEAT classes jumped from 5 to 50 people attending at a time.
The idea for the “SWEAT 2014 tour” came after noticing that her followers were starting to request her to travel to their city. In November 2013, Archer was at 75,000 followers and set a goal for herself. “If I reach 100,000 followers by New Year’s, I’ll travel to all 50 states in a year to teach my class.”

From the 6 months teaching in a Richmond parking lot, Archer saved $40,000 and by New Year's, when she reached 118,000 followers, she sold her car, bought a one-way ticket to California and began her drive around the country. “I taught a class in a different state every Saturday for an entire year. In every single state I had at least 1 person working out with me,” she says.

Archer made $130,000 during her time on the road. With that money, not only did she use it to keep traveling, but she was also able to continue teaching classes by opening her own SWEAT studio in her hometown.

It’s been three years since Archer began documenting her journey on Instagram. Today, she has 218,000 followers and 6 different streams of income generating from the SWEAT brand, which also consists of workout apparel, workout DVDs, and private consultations, all for $5 each. She owns a 3,000-square-foot studio with over 800 active members enrolled in her classes and shows no signs of slowing down.

Says Archer: “I just want to continue helping people. And if I helped one person get out of bed this morning and actually want to live their life, then I’m doing my job.”

There are seven keys to a lot of things in life. There
are seven steps to heaven and seven types of
intelligence and seven habits of effective leaders.
Now we have seven steps to retirement planning
courtesy of the Society of Actuaries, which just
released a

The end of the tax year is less than a month away so
there’s not long left to get our finances in order.
AXA Wealth has picked out seven things we should all
be doing to make the most of our money before the
6th April deadline.
1. Maximise your ISA savings
Each year we all enjoy an Individual

The economy might be recovering, but plenty of us
still feel a bit broke and few of us have money to
burn.
So why are so many of us wasting our cash? And
when I say us, I mean me.
I recently realised that a credit scoring service has
been taking money from my account even though I
have not actually used it in (whispers) three years.
Credit checking services are useful but I have been
accessing mine elsewhere and not used this one
since the company asked for a copy of my marriage
certificate, which I forgot to send.
That’s £10 a month I have been paying for three
years. That’s £360 I have wasted because it slowly
dripped out of my account without me really noticing.
£360!
Now, before you rush to the comments to tell me I’m
an idiot, I’d like to point out that I am not alone. A
worryingly high number of us waste cash by failing to
cancel services and subscriptions we no longer need.
Around 3.6 million Brits are paying unnecessary bills,
with the average victim forking out an extra £70 a
month in unnecessary and forgotten direct debits,
suggest research carried out last year by price
comparison website moneysupermarket.
Here are some other examples of when we pay for
things we don't use
Gym no-shows
Almost half of gym members don't go, wasting
around £350 a year each, according to to research by
thinkmoney. And 19% of UK adults pay for a gym
subscription, yet more than one in ten of them
admits that they hardly ever go.
Most of them say they ‘plan on going soon’, but
others simply haven’t got round to cancelling or feel
too guilty to cancel.
"Rather than simply cancelling their contract or direct
debit it seems that most of us have convinced
ourselves that we will go to the gym – starting
tomorrow!" said Thinkmoney’s Ian Williams.
"It makes sense to review all the direct debits leaving
your current account at least once every few months
and check that you really are using the things you are
paying for."
Pointless phone contracts
The moneysupermarket research showed that 17% of
people pay for a phone contract they don’t need. For
some, that’s because they’ve allowed a contract to
drift on even after they’ve taken out a new one.
However, plenty of people were wasting cash in a
less obvious way by continuing to pay full price for a
phone contract after they became eligible for
renewal. That means they were paying extra even
though they had already covered the cost of their
handset. Others simply paid for more texts and
minutes than they really needed.
Useless utilities
Could you be paying for services that you no longer
use? The moneysupermarket research showed that
one in five people admit still paying unnecessary bills
for utilities they never use. I suspect that’s what my
£10 monthly charge would come under.
Unnecessary insurance
The same research showed that 16% of people are
paying for insurance they don’t need. Before you
scoff and say that you aren’t, it’s worth checking
whether you’re paying for insurance that you already
have.
After all, many packaged current accounts include
perks such as free breakdown or mobile insurance,
so it’s worth double-checking that you aren’t
spending money on insurance you don’t need.
So what can you do?
Don’t assume that you’re safe and that everyone who
forgets a direct debit has more money than sense.
The research proves that this is a relatively common
phenomenon – direct debits make paying bills easier,
but they also make them easier to forget.
Here are some tips for staying on top of your direct
debits, and avoiding unnecessary payments.
• If you spot a relatively small amount leaving your
account each month then don’t delay chasing it up
and cancelling it – these payments might be small but
they soon add up to an amount that will make you
kick yourself.
• When you sign up for a free trial that rolls into an
ongoing contract, make a note in your calendar or set
an alarm on your phone to remind you to cancel it
before you automatically subscribe.
• Think seriously about your monthly commitments.
Is it worth paying for that gym membership or
magazine subscription if you don’t use it? Consider
scrapping any expenses you’re not that committed to.
• Find out your rights. Don’t just cancel a subscription
without checking whether or not you’re allowed to
escape the contract early; you don’t want to pay
penalties on top of the wasted money.
• Spend some time each week or month looking at
your current account. If you don’t recognise the
incomings and outgoings then find out more.
What do you think? Are direct debits a help or a
hindrance? Do people who forget to cancel
subscriptions simply have more money than sense?
Have your say using the comments below.

Getting charged for paying by card is one of those
things that always feels patently unfair. If you're
going to run a business, then you need to take your
customers' money somehow. It's ridiculous to
penalise people for paying you.
Presumably, most companies also need to keep the
lights on in their office, or pay an accountant to do
their taxes each year. These aren't things that
customers get itemised charges for - so why should it
be ok to get a charge for paying by card? It's just a
cost of being in business.
One of my proudest moments as a consumer
campaigner was blowing the lid off part of this
scandal a few years back. I was working at Which?,
and persuaded my colleagues to use the
organisation's special powers to launch a so-called
"super-complaint" (or "super-dooper complaint" as
Ryanair was fond of calling it).
This forced the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to look at
an issue where we thought consumers were being
mistreated. The OFT agreed that things needed to
change, and soon enough new rules were being put
in place, preventing companies from passing on any
more than the cost of processing a card transaction.
What's the real cost of paying by card?
These new rules put an end to charges for paying by
debit card. That's because it typically costs
companies a few pence to process a debit card
transaction - not the £48 that Ryanair was charging a
family of four for paying for their flights by debit
card.
However, when it came to credit cards, the OFT
conceded that it wasn't quite clear what the real cost
was - as there was so little transparency in this area.
Nevertheless, the new rules made it clear that
companies should not be passing on any more than
the costs that they incurred.
Which? bandied around the figure of 2 percent as
being the absolute limit of what customers should be
charged for paying by credit card - and hey presto,
most of the airline industry settled on charging
customers exactly that. So on a long haul holiday,
where a family of four might spend £4,000 on their
flights - they'd still be hit with up to an extra £80 for
paying by credit card.
A new cap on charges
Things carried on like that for several years. But last
month, new rules came into place which capped part
of the amount that banks charge companies for
processing card transactions. When an airline or
retailer processes a card transaction, they are forced
to pay something called the Merchant Service Charge
to their bank. Part of this charge is made up of an
“interchange fee”. (This is a world plagued by jargon).
In December, interchange fees were capped at 0.2
perceny for a debit card transaction and 0.3 percent
for credit cards.
Interchange fees are only part of the Merchant
Service Charge, but payments experts suggest that it
makes up around 70 percent of the fee that retailers
are charged. So with this new cap in place, it’s hard to
see how companies could justify charging any more
than 1 percent for paying by credit card.
Before December’s cap came into place, the
payments industry said that the average interchange
fee was roughly 0.85 percent. This also begged the
question: why have we been paying 2 percent to
airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair for the past four
years?
Many organisations don’t charge anything for paying
by credit card. And some such as councils charge
much closer to 1 percent. All this suggests that
perhaps the airlines were never abiding by the new
rules.
Now that the 0.3 percent cap on interchange fees has
come into place, at the very least we should expect to
see credit card fees come down. The UK Cards
Association estimates that almost £900 million in
savings should be passed onto consumers.
Who's policing the rules?
But the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet are still charging
2 percent. While British Airways charges a fixed fee
of £5 a ticket which can amount to a double digit
percentage on cheaper shorthaul flights.
The reason that companies have been getting away
with this is that no one is enforcing it. Strictly
speaking, it falls to the under-resourced Trading
Standards. But consumers are also in their rights to
challenge companies in the courts.
I’m seriously considering doing just that. I’ve spent
several thousand pounds on flights over the past few
years and I’d like to challenge the airlines to justify
the excessive credit card charges that they’re passing
onto their customers.
When Radio 4’s Moneybox covered the issue on
Saturday, the airlines said they were complying with
the rules but weren’t able to provide a breakdown of
their costs.
Some companies have already started to change
their fees. Budget airline Jet 2 got rid of its credit
card fees altogether in December.
The good news is that everyone else may be forced to
follow suit in a couple of years when new European
rules banning card surcharges come into force. For
now, it’s down to the likes of Moneybox and
ourselves to shame the worst offenders into doing
the right thing. If you’ve seen examples of companies
charging for paying by card, let us know.

To find out how to do that, we checked out the Quora thread, " How do I become a more interesting person?" and pinpointed the most practical advice. Read on for ways to capture people's interest and win their admiration. 1. Develop new skills. One way to ensure that other people find you interesting is to make yourself helpful in any situation. That's why Quora user Anthony N. Lee suggests learning as many useful skills as you can, from web design to sewing. That way, you'll always be the go-to person, whether a friend needs to create a website for her new business or a blanket for her baby niece. 2. Be curious. One way to ensure that you're not interesting is by closing yourself off to differing opinions and viewpoints. Instead, you should actively seek out new ideas and experiences that will change the way you think and feel. Sudhir Desai advocates being a "lifelong learner." He writes: "Keep an open mind, be curious. Allow for a complex world with multiple interpretations. Learn things to deepen and broaden your perspectives." 3. Learn how to tell a good story. Maybe you've amassed a ton of information and experiences — but if you can't communicate them to other people, you're sunk. That's why Marcus Geduld says you should learn how to be a storyteller: "You don't just dump whatever is on your mind into the conversation; you purposefully shape it to make it interesting. … Start thinking of your life as a gift you can give to others. Wrap it in the finest paper you can find." Geduld says that means you need to learn how to read your audience to see how long they'll be able to pay attention and tease your listeners with clues to the end of the story. 4. Listen and show compassion. A striking number of Quora users mentioned that one way to seem interest ing is to be interested in others. Writes Quentin Hardy: "Listen carefully to others, and try with some compassion to understand their motives and actions. Few of us are really good at this. Everyone becomes nearly infinite in their experience of life, if we listen to them with enough imagination. Working that out grows ourselves. Wondering if you're wrong helps, too." 5. Ask good questions. At a party, you don't need to say much about yourself for people to believe you're interesting. Instead, engage them in deep conversation about their lifestyle. "Ask thoughtful (not prying) questions, as needed, about them and their interests and priorities," says Stephanie Vardavas. "Really listen to the answers. Follow up with more thoughtful discussion and necessary questions (again, not prying). By the end of the evening they will remember you as one of the most interesting people they ever met." 6. Say what you think. Kat Li says people who don't opine on or disagree with anything can be boring. "You feel like you can't really ever have a conversation with them," she writes. "You should try to say what you really think about some things, even if other people won't like it." 7. Follow your interests. Instead of learning about a ton of dull topics just for the sake of being knowledgeable, pursue areas that you actually find stimulating. That way, you'll sound animated and engaging when describing them to other people. "I don't think it's as much a matter of trying to be interesting as much as it is naturally following what you enjoy, being an avid student and collector of information that interests and excites you," writes Renee Nay. 8. Read a lot. If you have the time and money to travel the world, great. But even if you don't, you can still learn about different cultures and historical periods by reading everything you can get your hands on. Books, blogs, periodicals — expose yourself to as many new stories and ideas as possible. "Read a lot — it opens up multiple new worlds to us," says Chaitra Murlidhar. 9. Run with a different crowd. Perhaps the real reason you don't feel interesting is because you're spending time with people who don't appreciate you. In that case, you should find a different community who understands how much you have to offer. Writes Travis Biziorek: "Challenge yourself to meet new people, hang out with a different crowd, and experience people with different outlooks and views on life. I promise you'll find people that interest you and those that find you fascinating."

An Indian company has launched a smartphone that
costs just £2.50 - what many of us pay for our
morning coffee.
The company behind it, Ringing Bells, says its
mission is to give citizens in rural and semi-urban
areas access to digital technology.
Such parts of India have a population of half a billion
people.
The Freedom 251 phone (costing Indian Rs 251) as a
four-inch screen and runs Android Lillipop software.
It has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 8GB of
memory, which can be expanded to 32GB.
There are cameras back and front.
A women's safety app is pre-loaded, while other apps
are aimed at farmers, fishermen, and provide
medical assistance to the elderly.
Ringing Bells is offering a one-year warranty and has
more than 650 service centres across the country.
It is working with two Indian government initiatives.
India is the second-largest mobile phone market in
the world, behind China, but only 19% of the
population are on the internet.
A report from the Internet and Mobile Association of
India, and KPMG, says that India has 236 million
mobile internet users.
That figure is expected to rise to 317 million next
year.
But there are doubts about whether the Freedom
251’s low price is commercially viable.
A mobile entrepreneur, Sachin Sen, told Sky News:
"India is a country of announcements and such
launches need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
"It's an artificial pricing and subsidised by companies
and investors. It's got to have a longevity and be able
to sustain itself.”
Pointing to the Akash tablet, launched for just £30 in
2011, Mr Sen said: "It fizzled out as it was
unsustainable and fell by the wayside."
FINANCE
Smartphone launched for the price of a coffeeSky News 1 hr ago
Neville Lazarus, Sky News Asia Producer

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 26 October 1951 – 6 April 1955
Monarch	George VI Elizabeth II
Deputy	Anthony Eden
Preceded by	Clement Attlee
Succeeded by	Anthony Eden
In office 10 May 1940 – 26 July 1945
Monarch	George VI
Deputy	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Neville Chamberlain
Succeeded by	Clement Attlee
Leader of the Opposition
In office 26 July 1945 – 26 October 1951
Monarch	George VI
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Clement Attlee
Succeeded by	Clement Attlee
Leader of the Conservative Party
In office 9 November 1940 – 6 April 1955
Preceded by	Neville Chamberlain
Succeeded by	Anthony Eden
Minister of Defence
In office 28 October 1951 – 1 March 1952
Preceded by	Emanuel Shinwell
Succeeded by	The Earl Alexander of Tunis
In office 10 May 1940 – 26 July 1945
Preceded by	The Lord Chatfield
Succeeded by	Clement Attlee
First Lord of the Admiralty
In office 3 September 1939 – 11 May 1940
Prime Minister	Neville Chamberlain
Preceded by	The Earl Stanhope
Succeeded by	A. V. Alexander
In office 24 October 1911 – 25 May 1915
Prime Minister	H. H. Asquith
Preceded by	Reginald McKenna
Succeeded by	Arthur Balfour
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 6 November 1924 – 4 June 1929
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	Philip Snowden
Succeeded by	Philip Snowden
Secretary of State for the Colonies
In office 13 February 1921 – 19 October 1922
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	The Viscount Milner
Succeeded by	The Duke of Devonshire
Secretary of State for Air
In office 10 January 1919 – 13 February 1921
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	The Viscount Weir
Succeeded by	Frederick Edward Guest
Secretary of State for War
In office 10 January 1919 – 13 February 1921
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	The Viscount Milner
Succeeded by	Sir Laming Worthington-Evans
Minister of Munitions
In office 17 July 1917 – 10 January 1919
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	Christopher Addison
Succeeded by	The Lord Inverforth
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 25 May 1915 – 25 November 1915
Prime Minister	H. H. Asquith
Preceded by	Edwin Samuel Montagu
Succeeded by	Herbert Samuel
Home Secretary
In office 19 February 1910 – 24 October 1911
Prime Minister	H. H. Asquith
Preceded by	Herbert Gladstone
Succeeded by	Reginald McKenna
President of the Board of Trade
In office 12 April 1908 – 14 February 1910
Prime Minister	H. H. Asquith
Preceded by	David Lloyd George
Succeeded by	Sydney Buxton
Member of Parliament for Woodford
In office 5 July 1945 – 15 October 1964
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished (Replaced by Wanstead and Woodford)
Member of Parliament for Epping
In office 29 October 1924 – 5 July 1945
Preceded by	Sir Leonard Lyle
Succeeded by	Leah Manning
Member of Parliament for Dundee
In office 24 April 1908 – 15 November 1922
Preceded by	Alexander Wilkie
Succeeded by	Edmund Morel
Member of Parliament for Manchester North West
In office 8 February 1906 – 24 April 1908
Preceded by	William Houldsworth
Succeeded by	William Joynson-Hicks
Member of Parliament for Oldham
In office 24 October 1900 – 12 January 1906
Preceded by	Walter Runciman
Succeeded by	Alfred Emmott
Personal details
Born	Winston Leonard Spencer–Churchill 30 November 1874 Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England
Died	24 January 1965 (aged 90) London, England
Resting place	St Martin's Church, Bladon
Political party	Conservative (1900–04, 1924–64) Liberal (1904–24)
Spouse(s)	Clementine Hozier (m. 1908)
Children	Diana Churchill Randolph Churchill Sarah Tuchet-Jesson Marigold Churchill Mary Soames
Parents	Lord Randolph Churchill (father) Lady Randolph Churchill (mother)
Alma mater	Harrow School Royal Military College, Sandhurst
Profession	Member of Parliament statesman soldier journalist historian author painter
Religion	Anglican
Signature
Military service
Service/branch	British Army, Territorial Army
Years of service	1895–1900 1916–18
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Battles/wars	Second Boer War, First World War