California Will Become First State to Require Pet Stores to Sell Only Rescue Animals…
December 29, 2018
The new law, titled AB 485, is an effort to crack down on puppy mills. Starting on Jan 1. 2019, California pet shops will only be allowed to sell dogs, cats, and rabbits from shelters and rescues.
The law will “require all sales of dogs and cats authorized by this provision to be in compliance with laws requiring the spaying or neutering of animals, as specified.”
Trump urged to nationalize ‘E-Verify’ after 700 percent surge in arrests of illegal workers…
December 29, 2018
President Trump is being encouraged to sign an executive order on E-Verify after immigration police said that arrests of illegal immigrant workers and employers surged 700 percent.
Led by advocates of tighter immigration laws, Trump is getting advice to nationalize the E-Verify system that the federal government uses to make sure that contractors are hiring employees that are legally allowed to work in the United States.
Long overdue legislation.
NASA: Detergent-like Molecule Recycles Itself in Atmosphere…
December 29, 2018
The hydroxyl (OH) radical—a molecule made up of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom with a free (unpaired) electron—is one of the most reactive gases in the atmosphere. It acts like a detergent in the air, breaking down other gases. In particular, OH is the main check on the concentration of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming.
New research led by a postdoctoral fellow at NASA has shown that hydroxyl radicals are recycling themselves and maintaining a steady atmospheric concentration even in the face of rising methane emissions.
Chinese Gene-Editing Experiment Loses Track of Patients, Alarming Technology’s Inventors…
December 29, 2018
Mr. Samal began improving after receiving the first Crispr-modified blood infusions, according to his brother who accompanied him for treatment. The 57-year-old’s disease-fighting white blood cells were drawn, reprogrammed with Crispr to delete a gene that interferes with the immune system’s ability to fight cancer, then re-injected into his body. After the second infusion, “Dr. Wu came running to tell us the results,” said the brother, Ajit Samal. The results showed that “90% of his tumor had gone; hardly anything was left,” he said, noting that his brother reported feeling better. “It was like a miracle,” he said. “No one could believe it.” Six weeks later in September, Mr. Samal died in India. Indian doctors declared he had suffered a heart attack and brain stroke, according to his brother. Mr. Samal, who didn’t have a known prior heart condition, was due to return to China for a third infusion.
I wonder if the gene modifications triggered a previous latent heart defect that had been dormant in Mr Samal's DNA.
Seven Mexican Customs Agents Busted in Arms Smuggling Investigation…
December 29, 2018
The arrest of the seven agents was the result of an investigation into information from within the agency about corrupt activity. The agents were caught trying to doctor importation documents and processes to claim that vehicles coming through the ports of entry were carrying electronic equipment. As part of the investigation, authorities learned that the vehicles were carrying thousands of ammunition magazines. Law enforcement authorities arrested the seven agents and transported them to Mexico City. Prosecutors charged the corrupt agents with violating multiple arm smuggling statutes.
Why facial recognition software has trouble recognizing people of color…
December 29, 2018
Absolutely, because what we have right now is blind faith in AI that doesn't acknowledge how easy it is for bias to creep into the systems. And at the end of the day data reflects our history, and our history has been very biased to date. So we have to be checking, and this is especially important because now we're using artificial intelligence in high stakes decision making
Canadians paid more than $1.2 billion in wireless data overage fees last year…
December 29, 2018
Nothing irritates wireless customers quite like data overage fees, yet Canadians still spent more than $1.22 billion in extra charges for surpassing their data limits last year.
It Is Both Ridiculous And Dangerous To Make Domain Registrars Liable For Content On Domains…
December 29, 2018
Are domain registrars now expected to police the content on domains they register? Because that's often way outside of their areas of expertise, and like most such companies when put in that position, they will default to shutting down (or threatening to shut down) websites, rather than actually taking the time to understand the details and nuances (is it fair use? is most activity on the site non-infringing? etc).
What is idiotic here is the idea that registrars should be held accountable for the content of EVERYTHING they provide domain names for, which is totally ridiculous because registrars don’t host, manage or display any actual content.
Vet Who Has Raised $18 Million for Border Wall Promises Big Announcement Next Week…
December 29, 2018
“You all will be very happy to see what a little hard work can achieve and how we have it pulled off,” Kolfage wrote on the GoFundMe page where 294,661 people have donated and 2,984,722 have signed a petition that Kolfage added to his campaign.
[...]
“We are funding the Wall! We Have it Done. Big Announcement Next Week!!! Donate,” Kolfage tweeted.“There’s nothing better than being told we can’t do something and then coming out on top. We are funding the wall, and you are about to take part in a historic moment. Next week we release our full plan,” Kolfage tweeted.
The Memes Write Themselves. Women’s March Cancelled For Being Too White…
December 29, 2018
"Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community," the press release went on to say.
A Breaker or circuit just blew up in 8Chans data center…
December 29, 2018
A breaker or circuit just blew up in our data center. An electrical engineer is on the way now to repair the damage. Expect services to be down for the next few hours while the electrical engineer patches things back together. pic.twitter.com/p0duuqXOYK
— Ron (@CodeMonkeyZ) December 29, 2018
All of our network and power equipment is setup to be redundant; this is a very very abnormal outage.
— Ron (@CodeMonkeyZ) December 29, 2018
8chan current status:
posting: 100% down
caching: 33% down
storage: 50% down— Ron (@CodeMonkeyZ) December 29, 2018
A Doctor Was Denied a Handgun over His (Legal) Use of Medical Marijuana. Now He’s Suing the FBI and ATF…
December 29, 2018
The case could have far-reaching Second Amendment implications and has the potential to affect millions of gun owners in the U.S.
Suspected killer of California officer Ronil Singh had 7 alleged accomplices…
December 29, 2018
A Mexican man accused of gunning down a Northern California police officer was taken into custody Friday following a massive manhunt that ended with a surrender after authorities surrounded a home in Bakersfield, California, 200 miles south of where the crime took place, officials said.
[...]
An undocumented immigrant with known gang affiliations, the 32-year-old Arriaga tried to flee to Mexico after his alleged crime, authorities said Friday. Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said that Arriaga crossed into Arizona from Mexico illegally a couple of years ago and it is believed that he had been working on farms in California's Central Valley.
[...]
By late Friday night, a total of seven people had been arrested for either misleading authorities about Arriaga’s whereabouts or aiding him in evading authorities ...The substance that ‘can withstand 75 nuclear blasts’…
December 29, 2018
For those who can't be bothered clicking. It's for a plastic material called 'starlite'. The inventor died and despite some interest, it appears to have disappeared.
Google wins dismissal of facial recognition lawsuit over biometric privacy act…
December 29, 2018
Google just got an important lawsuit alleging it violated users’ privacy by collecting facial recognition data dismissed by a judge in Chicago. As first reported by Bloomberg, the judge found that the plaintiffs didn’t suffer “concrete injuries.” The Google lawsuit is one of three cases aimed at prominent tech companies that have allegedly violated the United States’ toughest biometric privacy law and it’s the first one to get dismissed.
911 emergency services go down across the US after CenturyLink outage…
December 29, 2018
A nationwide outage for CenturyLink customers, including those trying to reach 911 emergency service, dragged on for the better part of two days before its resolution late Friday.
The outage hit customers of CenturyLink, a phone, internet and TV service provider, in areas including Idaho, New Mexico and Minnesota. The company's site lists residential services in 35 states. It also affected 911 service across the country, prompting nationwide alerts to cellphones.
The Federal Communications Commission said Friday that it's launching an investigation into the disruptions.
India accused of being ‘surveillance state’ after allowing 10 central agencies to snoop on any computer…
December 29, 2018
Bit of a cheek coming from a UK-based newspaper, a country where 50 agencies have such powers. In the UK the Food Standards Agency can do this, as can the Fire Brigade. Local councils have used it to ensure that parents aren't sending their kids to a school in a different area.
Dead musicians are touring again, as holograms. It’s tricky — technologically and legally…
December 29, 2018
In the process, they hope to unlock vast amounts of money in the back catalogues of the 20th Century's biggest artists.
[...]
The technology behind this post-human age of live entertainment is reaching a tipping point, with several companies clamouring — sometimes by way of the courts — to create a hologram performance that can be as engaging as a human one... The technology is cutting edge, but based on old-fashioned theory... The technology is one hurdle, but the law is another.
[...]
In order to put one of these performances on, a hologram tour promoter has to pay to use the entertainer's music. In addition to that, in the US — where Orbison, Elvis and Holiday lived and died — there is also a thing called right to publicity, which gives someone an exclusive right to profit off their likeness. But whether that right extends beyond death, via the person's family or estate, differs from state to state.Another way to make money off of dead people, what a time to be alive!
Here's some suggested names for some of the holograms created by Anons:
- Grateful Undead
- The Jimi Hendrix Re-experience
- The Velvet No-Longer-Underground
- Amy Rewindhouse
- Billie Hologram
- Dead Zeppelin
- Frankenstein Zappa
- The Body Formerly Known As Prince
AP poll shows high job approval for Trump from veterans…
December 29, 2018
That’s according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters — including more than 4,000 current and former service members — conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago. It found that veterans overall approved of Trump’s job performance, showing high support for the president’s handling of border security and his efforts to make the U.S. safer from terrorism.
Trump makes 2019 federal pay freeze official…
December 29, 2018
Federal employees, about to head into the second week of a partial government shutdown, received another piece of bad news on Friday evening: their pay will be frozen at 2018 levels for the entirety of next year.
President Donald Trump had signaled his intent to hold the line on federal civilian pay in a letter to Congress in late August. But he made the freeze official in an executive order Friday.