A Super Blood Moon Will Mark The Second Anniversary Of Donald Trump’s Inauguration…
January 16, 2019
On January 20-21, we’ll have the first full moon of 2019, and the first lunar eclipse of 2019 (and this is an eclipse-heavy year, with three solar and two lunar eclipses). It can be viewed from North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Europe, northern and western Africa, plus the Arctic region of the globe. More details about viewing below.
The eclipse will happen on the night of the year’s first of three straight full supermoons, meaning the moon will be nearly at its closest to Earth for this January, as the eclipse takes place.
FACEBOOK’S ’10 YEAR CHALLENGE’ IS JUST A HARMLESS MEME—RIGHT?…
January 16, 2019
Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition algorithm on age-related characteristics, and, more specifically, on age progression (e.g. how people are likely to look as they get older). Ideally, you'd want a broad and rigorous data set with lots of people's pictures. It would help if you knew they were taken a fixed number of years apart—say, 10 years.
Sure, you could mine Facebook for profile pictures and look at posting dates or EXIF data. But that whole set of profile pictures could end up generating a lot of useless noise. People don’t reliably upload pictures in chronological order, and it’s not uncommon for users to post pictures of something other than themselves as a profile picture. A quick glance through my Facebook friends’ profile pictures shows a friend’s dog who just died, several cartoons, word images, abstract patterns, and more.
In other words, it would help if you had a clean, simple, helpfully-labeled set of then-and-now photos.
Greece Fined 200 million euros over failure to stop fraudulent import of Chinese goods…
January 16, 2019
the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) just issued a fine of more than 200 million euros to Greece for failing to stop a wide-scale tax fraud by Chinese criminal gangs importing ultra-cheap goods through the country’s largest port of Piraeus, Politico reported on Monday.
The Chinese criminal network, which took advantage of Greece's arguably most valuable asset, the port of Piraeus which has been dubbed "China's Gateway into Europe", dodged import duties and value-added tax on imported footwear and clothing items, and represents merely the latest "loophole" that Chinese criminals utilize to bypass China's draconian firewall.
Democrats Turn On Obama and conclude that he was a “Bad President”…
January 16, 2019
If today’s Democrats can’t beat Trump, then maybe Hillary Clinton wasn’t as bad a candidate as her critics claimed. And if Clinton wasn’t the problem, then what was the problem? Such questions are behind a recent spike of debates on the left over Barack Obama’s record. More and more voices seem to be saying, either obliquely or bluntly, that Obama was a bad president. -Vanity Fair
In short, Obama spent eight years "deferring a radical disruption" that the country was absolutely waiting for. And then Trump - an actual radical, came along and took the Oval Office away from the establishment.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to save humanity by implanting a hard drive in the brain…
January 16, 2019
Elon Musk’s main goal, he explains, is to wire a chip into your skull. This chip would give you the digital intelligence needed to progress beyond the limits of our biological intelligence. This would mean a full incorporation of artificial intelligence into our bodies and minds. He argues that without taking this drastic measure, humanity is doomed...
“My faith in humanity has been a little shaken this year,” Musk continues, “but I’m still pro-humanity.”
[...]
“How much smarter are you with a phone or computer or without? You’re vastly smarter, actually,” Musk said. “You can answer any question pretty much instantly. You can remember flawlessly. Your phone can remember videos (and) pictures perfectly. Your phone is already an extension of you. You’re already a cyborg. Most people don’t realize you’re already a cyborg. It’s just that the data rate … it’s slow, very slow. It’s like a tiny straw of information flow between your biological self and your digital self. We need to make that tiny straw like a giant river, a huge, high-bandwidth interface.”I predict this product will be free one day. You won't even need to pay money for it. Just one commercial break for every 30 minutes you dream. It will pay for itself with commercials directly injected into your brain while the chip releases a tiny amount of dopamine assuring you buy the advertisers product (Tesla car?). Looks like Zuckerberg's got some competition for your mind.
Brooklyn pastor charged with sexually abusing his own daughter…
January 16, 2019
Matthew Gibson, who heads the Progressive Baptist Church of Brownsville in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has been accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting his now 14-year-old daughter on the church’s grounds since 2012, after the girl’s mother passed away.
Matthew Gibson’s daughter reportedly revealed to her sister-in-law, Myia Maples, the extent of the abuse last week. Maples said her husband, the young girl’s older brother, has had full custody of the girl and her twin brother since their mother died nearly seven years ago. Their father, the pastor, is allowed visitation with the twins every other weekend, and they attend his church services.
‘To Catch a Predator’ host Chris Hansen arrested for larceny…
January 16, 2019
The former host of "To Catch a Predator" was arrested Monday in Stamford for larceny. Cops say he failed to pay a local vendor nearly $13,000 for stuff he'd purchased in 2017 ... and allegedly gave the guy the runaround with 2 bounced checks.
According to Stamford PD, Chris bought 355 mugs, 288 t-shirts and 650 vinyl decals from a mom-and-pop shop in town for marketing events he planned to attend. The owner says the goods were delivered, but Chris bailed on his $12,998.05 tab.
US-led coalition says American soldiers killed in Syria after blast in Kurdish-held Manbij
January 16, 2019
An apparent suicide bombing hit the Kurdish-controlled northern Syrian city of Manbij during a “routine” US-led coalition patrol, killing several US troops and civilians. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The blast happened near a restaurant and market. Preliminary reports say at least six people were killed and 19 others injured by the explosion. Various sources on the ground claim that between two and five US soldiers are among the casualties, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Facebook to invest $300M in local news…
January 16, 2019
As for why Facebook is focusing on local news specifically, Vice President of Global News Partnerships Campbell Brown said in a blog post that after examining “what kind of news people want to see on Facebook” and talking to industry partners, “we heard one consistent answer: people want more local news, and local newsrooms are looking for more support.”
Brown said the investments will go into two broad areas — supporting journalists and newsrooms in the news-gathering process, and helping them build sustainable business models. More specifically, the company says it will invest:
Man lets ‘pet’ giant venomous centipede crawl over his body…
January 16, 2019
🐛 kek
Nancy Pelosi uninvites Trump from the State of the Union until the shutdown is over…
January 16, 2019
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has uninvited President Donald Trump from delivering the State of the Union address because of the partial government shutdown, saying that because of security concerns, it would be better to wait until the government has reopened, or for Trump to submit it in writing.