Rookie Numbers.

Did Chicago quit trying? 

Elon Musk: "Facebook Sucks."

@ Elon Musk

Breitbart: Elon Musk to Facebook AI Chief: ‘Facebook Sucks’.

Arlando Henderson; The first thing you do with stolen cash is post images of yourself with it on social media.

Arlando Henderson, a former bank employee in Charlotte, North Carolina, allegedly stole $88,000 from a bank's vault. (Obtained by New York Daily News)

NY Daily News: Man accused of stealing $88,000 from bank where he worked arrested after posing with money, posting photos on social media.

Arlando Henderson was arrested by the FBI on Dec. 4 and charged with financial institution fraud and related charges — based off Henderson’s greenback-laden Instagram post.
[.]
On at least 18 occasions in 2019 he stole cash from deposits made by the bank’s customers from the vault, and then deposited some of it in a nearby ATM.
[.]
Henderson also made a $20,000 cash down payment on a 2019 Mercedes-Benz, according to the indictment[.]
[.]
He might have even gotten away with it, weren’t for his wish to tell the world — via social media ― what an accomplished professional he was.

In several Facebook and Instagram posts, Henderson posted pictures where he is seen holding large stashes of cash, or posing in front of his new car.

“I make it look easy but this s--t really a PROCESS,” he posted on Facebook on Aug, 4, from Charlotte.

Less than a month later, on Sept. 1, in a post tagged as written from San Diego, Henderson wrote, “Looking at my brand thinking this how I got rich.”

His 15 minutes of fame probably made it easier for investigators to locate him.

He likely never bothered watching "The Sopranos" or "Breaking Bad."

-
NY Daily News Archived

Parents sue Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, because it's addictive.

Burlington Free Press: Fortnite as addictive as cocaine? Parents sue makers of popular game.

Epic Games, the maker of the third-person shooter game Fortnite, is being sued by parents who claim the game is as addictive and harmful as cocaine.

The Montreal-based law firm Calex Legal is representing parents of 10- and 15-year-old gamers. The parents allege the Fortnite makers did not warn players of the addictive nature of the game.

According to an article in USA Today, the legal action claims that when engaged in playing the game, the brain's pleasure center releases dopamine which creates addiction. It also claims psychologists and statisticians helped design the game over a four year period to "develop the most addictive game possible."

"Gaming Disorder" became a recognized health condition last year by the World Health Organization. It is "characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences."

Epic games has 30 days to respond to the legal action.

It's easier, and potentially more financially rewarding, to blame a third party because parenting is too hard.

Facial recognition software mistook 1 in 5 California lawmakers for criminals, says ACLU. So, they're saying it works, then?

MSN: Facial recognition software mistook 1 in 5 California lawmakers for criminals.

California Assemblyman Phil Ting has never been arrested, but he was recently mistaken for a criminal.

Ting (D-San Francisco), who authored a bill to ban facial recognition software from being used on police body cameras, was one of 26 California legislators who was incorrectly matched with a mug shot in a recent test of a common face-scanning program by the American Civil Liberties Union.

About 1 in 5 legislators was erroneously matched to a person who had been arrested when the ACLU used the software to screen their pictures against a database of 25,000 publicly available booking photos. Last year, in a similar experiment done with photos of members of Congress, the software erroneously matched 28 federal legislators with mug shots.

Again, they're saying it works, or it's not identifying enough politicians as criminals?

 One glance and you can tell they all look guilty.

-

MSN Archived

Tech News

New Atlas: Your air taxi is waiting.

Alaka'i Technologies' Skai machine has a range of up to four hours/400 mi (640 km) and a five-passenger capacity [...] using a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain that neatly sidesteps the energy density issue that's holding back battery-powered aircraft.

 - - -

IEEE: How to Build a Moral Robot. 

So how can we build a robot that can figure out which norms to follow, and when?
[.]
"Our hypothesis is that in any particular context, a subset of norms is activated—a particular set of rules related to that situation. That subset of norms is then available to guide action, to recognize violations, and allow us to make decisions."

It's a very good article. Hit the link.
- - -
Packt>: House Oversight and Reform Committee labels Facial Recognition as racist, biased and abusive to civil rights.

At the hearing, Joy Buolamwini, founder of Algorithmic Justice League highlighted one of [her] studies at MIT, on facial recognition systems, it was found that for the task of guessing a gender of a face, IBM, Microsoft and Amazon had error rates which rose to over 30% for darker skin and women. On evaluating benchmark datasets from organizations like NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology), a striking imbalance was found. The dataset contained 75 percent male and 80 percent lighter skin data, which she addressed as “pale male datasets”. She added that our faces may well be the final frontier of privacy and Congress must act now to uphold American freedom and rights at minimum. 

The Algorithmic Justice League. Aren't they the nemesis of THE Justice League?
- - -
AI News: Amazon patent envisions Alexa listening to everything 24/7.

A patent filed by Amazon envisions a future where Alexa listens to users 24/7 without the need for a wakeword.
[.]
For example, say you were discussing booking a seat at your favourite restaurant next Tuesday. After asking, “Alexa, do I have anything on my schedule next Tuesday?” it could respond: “No, would you like me to book a seat at the restaurant you were discussing and add it to your calendar?”

Today, such a task would require three separate requests.

Three separate requests? WTFITS? We ask so much from ourselves, don't we? When will the heavy-lifting end?
- - -
The Guardian: World's first raspberry-picking robot set to work.

Yeah, it's slow. However, the story states, "[the] machine [is] expected to pick more than 25,000 raspberries a day, outpacing human workers." Kind of  reminds me of the autonomous dry-waller at Bustednuckles.

- - -

Seattle Times: Judge orders Facebook to turn over records on data privacy.

A Delaware judge is ordering Facebook to turn over internal records regarding data privacy and access to user data.
[.]
The lawsuit followed reports that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users had been misappropriated without their knowledge by British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica in 2015.

- - -
Engadget: Cadillac's hands-free SuperCruise.

Plenty of images of the new Caddy at the link and the engineering seems as solid as autonomous driving can be. Until...something goes wrong.
- - -
Pocket Lint: Lego worked with NASA to release this 1,087-piece Apollo 11 Luna Lander set.

Your iPhone is spying on you while you sleep.

No one saw this coming. No one.

The Jeff Bezos Peoples' Republic via 9to5Mac: Washington Post finds 5,400 app trackers sending data from an iPhone.

Monitoring software used by The Washington Post on an ordinary iPhone found that no fewer than 5,400 app trackers were sending data from the phone – in some cases including sensitive data like location and phone number.

    "It’s 3 a.m. Do you know what your iPhone is doing?

    "Mine has been alarmingly busy. Even though the screen is off and I’m snoring, apps are beaming out lots of information about me to companies I’ve never heard of. Your iPhone probably is doing the same — and Apple could be doing more to stop it."
[.]
     [The] biggest concern is transparency: If we don’t know where our data is going, how can we ever hope to keep it private?

The same story at OregonLive mentions one additional detail not noted in the above article:

[My iPhone] was receiving a message that included my IP address -- once every five minutes.

Tech News

Mashable: Microsoft partners with BMW for "smart factory" systems.

And, BMW's riderless bike (it takes a moment for the clip to load):

- - -
Tech Talks: AI can read and text can be weaponized.

“When people see typos right now, they don’t think it’s a security issue. But in the near future, it might be something we will have to contend with,” Stephen Merity, AI researcher and expert on machine learning–based language models, told me in a call last week.

And there’s ample reason to take his warnings seriously. In recent findings, scientists at IBM Research, Amazon and the University of Texas have proven that small modifications to text content can alter the behavior of AI algorithms while remaining unnoticeable to human readers.

- - -
Extreme Tech: Three stickers will make an autonomous Tesla veer into oncoming traffic.

Keen Security researchers reverse-engineered the software Tesla uses to see how easy it would be to fool those sensors. They didn’t need to make any changes to the car’s software — this is not a hack. They simply used three small reflective stickers on the roadway to trick Autopilot into thinking the lane had merged when it hadn’t.

I'd imagine covering exterior sensors on the car with duct tape would also put a big dent into Tesla's "autonomy".
- - -
Ubergizmo: Burger King's Non-Beef Whopper.

[Burger King] is staking its reputation on [a no beef patty], saying that the taste is identical to its beef patty.
[.]
It’s a protein that’s cultivated from soybean roots that can mimic the texture of meat.

It's not a real Whopper, then.

- - -
Ubergizmo: Fake alcohol; get the buzz but never drunk.

[S]cientist David Nutt’s...synthetic alcohol can allow drinkers to experience everything they enjoy about having a drink but not worry about getting a hangover. Nutt told the Guardian that he can design his synthetic alcohol molecule to interact with the body in a way that doesn’t induce any of the negative side effects.

Ars Technia: Study finds there is "something special" about Tennessee whiskey.

Scientists are beginning to unlock the scientific secrets of what makes so-called "Tennessee whiskey" so distinct from other whiskeys, bourbons, and similar spirits[.]

The success of Tennessee Whiskey has to have something to do with this guy, if only for his guile and name.
- - -
Ars Technia: Google's product shut-downs are damaging its brand.

We are 91 days into the year, and so far, Google is racking up an unprecedented body count. If we just take the official shutdown dates that have already occurred in 2019, a Google-branded product, feature, or service has died, on average, about every nine days.

Engadget: After eight years, Google+ is dead.

- - -

Digital Trends: Good bye metal; hello Soft Robotics.

Where previous soft robots have still required components like metal valves, this latest soft robot can function using only rubber and air — with pressurized air replacing the need for electronic innards. In doing so, it integrates memory and decision-making directly into its soft materials, using a kind of digital logic-based soft computer.

- - -
C|Net: The ethical issues of smart home cameras and facial recognition.

You might gain the peace of mind that comes with knowing who's at the door, but it could come at the cost of compromising your loved ones' privacy by sending their biometric data back to manufacturers or even hackers.
[.]
Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is the oldest legislation and the strictest. It regulates how biometric information is collected, stored, used and even destroyed. Texas followed a year later with the Texas Biometric Privacy Law, while Washington signed its own state House Bill 1493 two years ago.
[.]
When a homeowner adds facial recognition technology, multiple relationships come into play.

"There are deep ethical questions," [said Betsy Cooper, director of the Aspen Policy Hub]. "Because while the relationship between the individual and the person crossing their threshold is clear, the relationship between the person crossing the threshold and all those other companies and actors is less clear."

Tech Talks: Law firms, the digital age and the impact of Tech.

Lawyers need technology these days, but technology also needs lawyers.
[.]
Algorithms shape how people interact with news and entertainment media and how they research civic issues on the internet, and there are new questions arising about citizens’ “digital civil rights.”
[.]
What happens when a city decides to ban facial recognition technology?

- - -
Beta News: Linux Fedora 30 Beta is here.

Fedora is the best overall Linux distribution.
[.]
While Fedora maybe isn't the best distro for beginners, it should be the eventual choice for those that "level up" to being an experienced Linux user later.

As someone commented at the above link, it is unfortunate that Beta News didn't include any screenshots of Fedora 30. So, here's some. It's hot!

Tech News

Ars Technia: 4Chan, 8Chan and other sites blocked by New Zealand and Australia for mosque shooting video.

[ISP Vodafone] decision to block access to websites was controversial as they acted to censor content without instruction from either the Australian Communications and Media Authority or the eSafety Commissioner, and most smaller service providers have decided to keep access open," The Australian Financial Review wrote.

- - -
C|Net: Facial recognition may ban you in stores you've never been in.

...with facial recognition, getting caught in one store could mean a digital record of your face is shared across the country. Stores are already using the technology for security purposes and can share that data -- meaning that if one store considers you a threat, every business in that network could come to the same conclusion.
[.]
Privacy advocates fear that regulations can't keep up with the technology -- found everywhere from your phone to selfie stations -- leading to devastating consequences.

"Unless we really rein in this technology, there's a risk that what we enjoy every day -- the ability to walk around anonymous, without fearing that you're being tracked and identified -- could be a thing of the past," said Neema Singh Guliani, the American Civil Liberties Union's senior legislative counsel.

- - -
Technocracy: Clean, Cheap, Abundant Fusion Energy Would Wreck Globalization.

Economies are enabled by the energy required to produce activity, and the crucible of globalization seeks to create an artificial shortage of energy in order to control all economic activity.  Fusion reactors would provide cheap and clean energy to the world, effectively trashing globalization. ⁃ TN Editor

- - -

 

PC World: The 10 Most Annoying Computer Cables.

Bare speaker wire

Mini-HDMI

Micro-USB 3.0

And seven others - hit the link.
- - -
C|Net: Sequel to "Bird Box" coming.

Did Sandra Bullock see this coming?
- - -
BrightHub: Why you should free-style rap every morning.

Scientific research demonstrates that freestyle rap might boost your brain’s creative power, too, and when it does, it can free you from boredom and stagnation and offer you a reprieve from the monotony of everyday tasks.

Well, if science says so...

"Fuck why, fish fry, black eye, no cry, bye-bye, oh my super-high. More pie, necktie, oh why-why try, Jai Alai no Lie, drinking Rye in the sky."

Yeah, it works. Add another ritual to the morning routine...
- - -
Fortune: Firefox 66 Is a Gift For Anyone Who Hates Autoplay Videos.

The latest version of Firefox can detect when a video is playing with audio, and automatically mute it. Videos that play on mute will be allowed to continue to run. If someone wants to watch a video, along with listening to the audio, they can click the play button. Firefox also offers the option to add certain websites to a list of exceptions, or to turn blocking off if they really enjoy having videos suddenly play while they’re busy at work.

The new block autoplay feature will be gradually rolling out to users, according to the Firefox 66 release notes.

Killing auto-play videos has to be one of the top three best Tech innovations ever.
- - -
TechCrunch: Morphin lets you drop a selfie into any GIF.

Upload a selfie to Morphin, choose your favorite GIF and your face is grafted in to create a personalized copy you can share anywhere. Become Tony Stark as he suits up like Iron Man. Drop the mic like Obama, dance like Drake or slap your mug on Fortnite characters.

Oh, the fun and mischief to be had!
- - -
TechXplore: Study shows people prefer wind-turbines as neighbors over other energy plants.

...the study showed...approximate[ly] two-thirds who have a preference, the local wind power project was preferred over a commercial-scale solar installation by approximately three to one.

- - -
Popular Science: Unsubscribe from newsletters all in one sweep.

If you find you've signed up for many, many email newsletters too many, don't just accept your fate—here's how to quickly unsubscribe from the emails you no longer want or need, in the most common email clients around.

Tech News

Gizmodo: Big Tech is automating the climate crisis.

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all struck lucrative arrangements—collectively worth billions of dollars—to provide automation, cloud, and AI services to some of the world’s biggest oil companies, and they are actively pursuing more.

- - -
Geek: Hot Abe Lincoln statue goes viral.

Someone recently discovered a shirtless Abraham Lincoln statue in California, and the Twitter community can’t handle it.
[.]
Zack Stentz posted a picture of the steamy statue on his Twitter account. “Reminder that the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse has a statue of Abraham Lincoln where he’s a shirtless young stud"[.]

 "Hot" Abe Lincoln statue; Photo Credit: Zack Stentz/Twitter

- - -
Technocracy: Pepsi massive layoffs sparked by automation.

By PepsiCo’s own estimates, the company’s layoffs are expected to be a multimillion-dollar project in 2019.

- - -
Tech Dirt: Google fesses up to hidden microphone in Nest.

The problem: more privacy-conscious Nest owners weren't aware that the Nest home security base stations had a microphone in the first place, raising questions about whether Google was using the microphone for data collection and monetization in some capacity.

- - -
Extreme Tech: Audi cars tell you what speed to drive to hit all green lights.

Audi is revving up its slick Traffic Light Information (TLI) system. Now Audi TLI can tell you the best speed to drive in order to hit a string of green traffic lights, without having to suddenly speed up to make a light on yellow, or brake hard if you can’t speed up enough.

- - -
19 Years Ago...Win2000 updates appear. Beta News:

Microsoft has announced a slew of updates for Windows 2000, just one day after their next flagship operating system hit store shelves.

And...MS has been releasing endless series of patches ever since then.
- - -
Gizmodo: Once thought extinct, world's giant bee found ALIVE.

[Since 1981], no one had documented any encounters with the huge bee.

That all changed when a search team visiting the North Moluccas last month laid eyes on the bee for the first time in 38 years.

More - C|Net: HUGE BEE alert.

The report describes the bee as being about the size of an adult thumb, with a wingspan of about 2.5 inches (6.35 centimeters). That means it's four times larger than the European honey bee.

BFB; Photo: Clay Bolt

- - -

Gizmodo: Ong's Hat got too real.

Ong’s Hat was once home to secret experiments led by the Dobbs Twins, a pair of Princeton scientists who’d been forced to build a secret lab out in the Pine Barrens after their work in “Chaos Studies” got them booted from the academy.
[.]
...Ong’s Hat has become a site of pilgrimage for fans of the supernatural.

- - -
Tech News World: JP Morgan-Chase issues dollar backed digital token.

JPMorgan Chase on Thursday announced that it has created and successfully tested a digital coin. Each JPM Coin represents US$1 in funds held in designated accounts at JPMorgan Chase N.A.

Huawei Conspired to steal T Mobile's trade secrets from Tappy the Robot.

Corporate espionage? This is a great Tech story.

NPR: DOJ case claims Huawei hi-jinx with Tappy the T Mobile Robot.

The Justice Department unsealed two separate indictments of Chinese telecom device maker Huawei on Monday. But only one of them reads like the script of a slapstick caper movie.

That would be the one that describes the U.S. government's case alleging that Huawei stole trade secrets from T-Mobile, the wireless service company.

In the indictment, the government says that between June 2012 and September 2014, Huawei repeatedly made efforts to steal information about the design of a T-Mobile robot. The robot's name, adorably, is "Tappy."

We would like to include a photo here of Tappy, but photographing the robot is expressly prohibited by T-Mobile, and Tappy is kept under very tight security in a lab at T-Mobile headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.
[.]
Meanwhile, Huawei China was reportedly trying to build its own device-testing robot — named, less cutely, "xDeviceRobot" — and it was not finding much success. And Huawei's devices weren't faring well on T-Mobile's Tappy tests, failing more often than devices made by competitors.

In May 2012, Huawei USA asked if Huawei China could license the Tappy technology, and T-Mobile said no.

That's when Huawei began attempting to steal the design secrets of Tappy, according to the indictment.

"xDeviceRobot" ??

One area where China falls woefully behind the rest of the world is in naming their Tech-AI-Robo devices. Honestly...the best they could think of is "xDeviceRobot"? That's not much of a creative leap since the days of Johnny Sokko.

"Flying Robot" and not Tappy

Tech News

Bright Hub: Insurers Fear Autonomous vehicles.

According to research by Accenture and the Stevens Institute of Technology, as many as 23 million fully automated vehicles will cruise on U.S. streets by 2035. As a result, insurers could see losses as great as $25 billion. Even worse, a report by KPMG puts expected losses by 2050 at $137 billion.
[.]
According to a survey by AAA, 63 percent of U.S. drivers are afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle. The rate of fearful drivers was 78 percent last year.

- - -
Ars Technia: Internet watchdog group Citizen Lab in a real-life Spy vs Spy.

Researchers at Internet watchdog group Citizen Lab orchestrated the sting after they grew suspicious of a man calling himself Michael Lambert who contacted Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton to request a lunch meeting at a New York hotel. The suspicions were fueled by an earlier meeting in December, in which a man masquerading as a socially conscious investor named Gary Bowman grilled a different Citizen Lab researcher about work the watchdog did exposing NSO Group, the Israeli exploit seller.

The Spy Cam. Image: AntanO / Wikimedia

 - - -

BGR: Russian fighter pilots to fly with AI wingmen.

[Russian] military forces have also been testing the feasibility of having AI-powered wingmen fly alongside Russian fighter pilots, executing commands issued by the human pilot an inaugurating a scary new chapter in aerial military combat.

- - -
Computer World: Linux's hyperledger Grid.

The Hyperledger Grid project, as it's called, will initially offer businesses modular software and smart contract components to address problems such as tracking and tracing shipped goods, electronic certifications and bill of lading exchange.

"Supply chain is one of the most promising areas for blockchain use cases, and implementation of many of these use cases can benefit from capabilities which can be provided by a shared platform," the Linux Foundation said earlier this week.

- - -
Extreme Tech: New pics of Ultima Thule.

Object called 2014 MU69 or “Ultima Thule.” Image: NASA

- - -
WIRED: Uber wants self-driving scooters.

Oh, hell yes. Transportation isn't dangerous enough. Keep driving and texting...while on that scooter!
- - -
This deserves a sole post. I'll do that soon. ZD Net: Artificial intelligence will become the next human right.

If the predictions of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff prove to be true, [AI] will one day become a new human right.
[.]
According to Benioff, AI is going to become a service which everyone will need. Countries and companies alike will be "smarter," "healthier," and "richer" if they have AI, whereas those without will be "weaker and poorer, less educated and sicker," the publication reports.

In addition, those with artificial intelligence capabilities will have the most advanced warfare capabilities, the executive says, and as we know, military power is often linked to resource gain.

- - -
TechCrunch: Is Huawei a national security threat?

Despite the fact that the company’s founder and president is a former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army and the company remains heavily funded by the Chinese government, there’s also no public, direct evidence that Huawei is using its equipment to spy on network traffic inside the U.S. or any other country. In any case, Huawei can’t prove a negative, so all it can do is allow governments to assess its devices — which has so far found some issues but nothing conclusive to tie it to Chinese espionage actors.

That’s the crux of the argument: nobody thinks Huawei is spying now. To get caught would be too dangerous. But nobody knows that it won’t spy in the future.

- - -
Tech wants to confiscate your car. Technocracy:  Green Tech "Expert": "Car ownership is nonsense."

The UN’s Agenda 21 and 2030 Agenda are personified by this propaganda: “walking comes first, bicycles and scooters second and public transport third. Cars should only come in fourth place.” That’s right, you can walk wherever you need to go. ⁃ TN Editor
[.]
[W]e will see a transition to the shared economy. In the future, we will not own cars. Judged by efficiency, it is nonsense. Up to ten people can share one vehicle.
[.]
Are consumers ready to accept that car ownership doesn’t make sense?
[.]
In the future, car ownership could end up being only reserved for super-luxury vehicles and super-rich people. But considering efficiency, it is definitely not the way to go. Transport networks will be optimised, emissions will be cut down.

World News

Brisbane Times: Police hunting arsonist: "This is for Fu-king my wife."

An arsonist broke into the homeowner's ute before 8am, reversed it into the side of the Belah Street home in Ashmore, set the vehicle alight and the fire spread to the house.

The 46-year-old male resident was not home at the time.

 Image: 7 News Gold Coast/Queensland Police Service

I believe there is a Commandment that tells us, "thou shalt not noodle around with women whose spouse is an arsonist or can do things that blow-up real good."

- - -

World News: California officials find PG&E NOT responsible for Tubbs fire.

 A 2017 fire in California that killed 22 people and destroyed more than 5,600 structures was caused by a private electrical system adjacent to a home, California fire officials said Thursday, CNN reported.
[.]
The Tubbs Fire started in Sonoma County on Oct. 8, 2017, burning 36,807 acres and destroying 5,636 structures, Cal Fire said.

- - -
CNS News: AOC invokes the Bible.

Ocasio-Cortez did not indicate which translation of the Bible she was using or provide links to the passages she cited.

No...no she didn't. We couldn't expect her to accurately quote the Bible, should we? The Memes...oh how we'll be treated to the Memes!
- - -
Mint Press: Kamela Harris wants Clinton-donor money.

In addition to having employed numerous Clinton and Obama staffers, Harris has also been busy privately courting their old donors. Notably, while she has been courting Clinton’s biggest and most influential donors during a series of private luncheons and meetings in the Hamptons, Harris’ fledgling campaign has been eager to portray her as a “crowd-funded” candidate. Indeed, when one visits Harris’ campaign website, a banner immediately appears that reads “Alert! Kamala refuses to accept donations from corporate PACS! Add your donation here.”

- - -
BBC: Doomsday clock remains at 2 minutes til midnight.

Does the Doomsday clock get set ahead and behind an hour, during Daylight Saving Time?
- - -
France 24: Davos elite want cake and to eat it too.

[Carl] Cederstrom, who is also the author of the book "The Happiness Fantasy", warned that the focus by employers on their staff's wellbeing allows them to "achieve more control over employees".

"Now even in work places where people work for the minimum wage they are expected to be happy," he said.

He said that many elites harbour a "naive illusion" that poverty can be resolved through personal fulfilment [sic] schemes.

"Happiness is such a vague idea that it is easily exploited."

Happiness was, for eight years, also known as Hope and Change.
- - -

- - -
Canada Free Press: NY Gov Andrew Cuomo "wears" Devil Pink.

The shade Cuomo chose was a putrid pink that could be called Luciferian pink, a color that comes with an acrid odor of sulphur [sic].

- - -
Courthouse News Service: Judge says he is not fit to say what's best for gorilla.

Despite warnings that a 37-year-old ape might die if transferred to an Ohio zoo, a federal judge said Thursday he can only settle matters of law, not what’s best for the well-being of the late Koko the gorilla’s longtime friend Ndume.

“I’m not the sterling professor of gorilla care,” U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said in court Thursday. “I’m a judge. I have to look at the contractual terms and see if the risks are so great as to defeat the contractual purpose.”

 Another reason we need gorillas as judges.

Tech News

Extreme Tech: Don't Miss tonight's Super Blood Moon eclipse.

WIRED: What IS a "Super Blood Wolf Moon"?
- - -
Ars Technia: Facebook facing record-setting financial penalty by FTC.
- - -
Ars Technia: Dr. Richard Sackler family blamed for Oxy addiction?

Members of the Sackler family, particularly Richard Sackler, aggressively pushed for extreme sales figures—and profits—which they accomplished in part by bullying their sales representatives; targeting vulnerable patients, such as the elderly and veterans; suggesting that the addictive opioid was an alternative to safe medications like Tylenol; and encouraging doctors to write longer and higher dose prescriptions, according to the lawsuit.

- - -
UberGizmo: World's first 5G remote surgery conducted in China.

The test involved a doctor in the southeastern province of Fujian removing the liver of a laboratory test animal at a remote location. The doctor performed the surgery by controlling robotic surgical arms over a 5G connection.

- - -
Tech News World: Cops can't compel unlocking of phone with body or physical parts.

"The Government may not compel or otherwise utilize fingers, thumbs, facial recognition, optical/iris, or any other biometric feature to unlock electronic devices," Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore wrote in an opinion for the U.S. District Court for Northern California.
[.]
Passcodes used to unlock devices already are protected by the Fifth Amendment, which prevents the government from forcing people to testify against themselves, she explained.
[.]
"The judge rightly recognized that traditional constitutional principles must be adapted as technology changes in order to preserve privacy and other rights ensured by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments," [said Alan Butler, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center].

- - -
Tech Crunch: Building a Chevy Silverado out of Legos. Or watch below.

- - -
TechSpot: Ford's F-150 electric pickup truck.

Increased customer demand and rising competition have finally pushed Ford to announce the development of an electric version of the world and America’s best-selling truck: the F-150 pickup.

- - -
C|Net: Facebook adding "Petitions" to your news feed.

The social network will start rolling "Community Actions" out to its US users on Monday.

- - -
Beta News: Win 10 built-in screen recorder you might not know about.

You didn't know that Windows 10 could record videos of on-screen activity? You're not alone. The screen recorder is built into the Game bar and you may well not have seen it.

- - -
Security Week: Bulgaria extradites Russian hacker to U.S.

Alexander Zhukov had been extradited on January 18 and was being held in a jail in Brooklyn, New York.
[.]
Zhukov is one of eight people, most of them Russian, indicted in November for creating fake advertising schemes through remote data centres and malware-infected computer networks.

 Well-known Russian "bad actor." Hacker status unconfirmed.

Tech News

TechDirt - Students charged with terroristic threats for posting video of fictional school shooting.

Three students face felony charges of making a terroristic threat for posting online two brief videos where they act out a school shooting in someone’s house.
[...]
Content disturbing to others is present in a lot of content. Just because this dramatization happened to be produced by students and distributed by Instagram doesn't somehow entitle it to less First Amendment protection than a motion picture released by a major studio.
[...]
Sheriff Craig Apple's speech -- as moronic as it is -- is also protected by the same First Amendment he won't extend to these students.

    “There’s been enough shootings going on around the country. This is despicable artistic expression, if that’s what it was.”

Is the video protected under the First Amendment or is the sheriff's interpretation of the video consistent within the context of preventing a potential threat?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
- - -
Business Times: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it will fix years to FB's problems.

Who...knew?

Gadgets Now: India law misunderstood by FB moderators. 

[Facebook moderators are advised] that any post degrading an entire religion violates Indian law and should be flagged for removal.

[Another instructs moderators] to "look out for" the phrase "Free Kashmir" - though the slogan, common among activists, is completely legal.

- - -
Ars Technia: Residential home battery (power) not energy efficient in most cases.

"There may be good reasons to decentralize the grid through ubiquitous installation of small RES [Residential Energy Storage], but cost-effective emissions control is not one of them at the moment," the researchers write.

- - -
Caution - story contains AI created "scary" names (I'm looking out for the easily frightened Libs, here.); Ars Technia:

AI invents New Year fireworks names that sound more like the end of humanity.
[...]
Flaming Thundersplont Box
Red flashing cake
Machine Blinking Display
Black Moo
Original Cat Pix Budget 2 Boom

Yikes! Machine Blinking Display and Original Cat Pix Budget 2 Boom. Run Away ! Run Away !
- - -

Coffee? Tea? Lots of room?

Technology: What happens when almost no passengers show up for their flight?

- - -

Technology: Wind turbines hurting robins. 

...wind turbines are rather loud and robins have to adapt. In these areas where wind turbines are present, robins drop their lower pitch and go for the trademark puffed up red chest instead. Little birds cannot compete against the low hum of the wind turbine blades.

- - -
TechRadar: MS 2018 retrospective.

...the October 2018 Update has been the most problematic and buggy update ever released for Microsoft’s OS, outdoing even the infamous Anniversary Update.
[.]
Another major development for Microsoft in 2018 was that the firm finally admitted that it had got things wrong with the default web browser for Windows 10. The company has been pushing hard with Edge for a good while now, but to no avail[.]

WccfTech: Here comes Win 10 forced update v 1809.

We are still waiting for user reports to see if they have experienced any Windows 10 forced updates over the last few days. But, if you want to avoid Windows 10 version 1809, it would be wise to block it to avoid any surprises.

- - -
Gadgets Now: Elon Musk needs people to beta test Tesla's autonomous-driving cars.

Earlier this year [Tesla] reportedly sought hundreds of employees to test its full-driving system and offered free Autopilot upgrade with new purchases.

- - -

The Drive - Ford's 2019 preview and 2020(?) Bronco.

Ford "Super Duty"

World News Links

China very silent over missing Interpol Chief. Singapore Press:

..."China remained silent yesterday over the disappearance of the head of Interpol, deepening the mystery over the international police chief's fate [who] was last seen leaving for China late last month from the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, south-east France[.]"

- - -
Final court appeal for Christian woman on death row; charged with insulting Muhammad. The Independent:

If her appeal fails the mother of five, from the rural village of Ittan Wali, Punjab, will become the first woman to be executed for blasphemy in Pakistan.

- - -
The Weekend Australian: Congo tanker truck fire, at least 50 dead.

"The driver of the tanker truck has disappeared while the driver of the tractor trailer died at the scene," the ministry said.
[.]
Deadly traffic accidents are common in Congo, where roads and other infrastructure in the vast country are often poorly maintained.

- - -
The Weekend Australian: Tina Turner's kidney transplant.

Tina Turner has revealed she underwent a kidney transplant with an organ donated by her husband.

The 78-year-old singer says in an upcoming autobiography she has suffered from kidney disease and by 2016 her kidneys were at "20 per cent and plunging rapidly"

- - -
The Daily Dot - Tesla inventors to Elon Musk: Nix the tweeting:

Perhaps most frightening of all, one Tesla staffer said the company was chaotic.
[.]
While Musk was mostly silent toward those asking him to stop tweeting, he did respond to one Twitter user who said it seemed like Musk was actually working against Tesla’s long-term investors.

“Hang in there,” Musk tweeted. “If you are truly long-term, it will be fine.”

Elon Musk tokin' on The Joe Rogan Show

- - -

Silicon Valley Liberal planning "Internet Bill of Rights." Recode: 

The author of these proposals is Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) [...] a set of new regulations for Silicon Valley that Democratic legislators may start pushing next year if they recapture Congress in November.

Tech has been, and will continue, outpacing law at breakneck speed. Politicians meddling in Tech is never good for Tech (or for law) and this is equal across Dems, Repubs and Others. Libertarians excluded, of course.

- - - 

You gotta fight...

For your right...

To Party ...

... ur, You gotta fight, for your right, to be a prostitute. BBC:

Husna Bai, a 24-year-old woman, told Judge Jagdish Sahai that she was a prostitute. Invoking the constitution, she had filed a petition challenging the validity of a new law to ban trafficking in human bodies.

By striking at her means of livelihood, Bai argued, the new law had "frustrated the purpose of the welfare state established by the Constitution in the country".

- - -

Let's all get our favorite junk foods, sit down and read about it:  Can social media help people lose weight?  BBC: 

"I think the negative thing about being able to hide behind that anonymity is that people will say things on Reddit that they would never say to an actual person," [said Christy Brissette, a registered dietician in Chicago].

Whoaaaaa....right there. What's this about people on Reddit hiding behind anonymity? That can't be accurate, can it?

- - -

The Observer -  Conservative Pundits thank Michael Avenatti for Kavanaugh confirmation:

Pundits on the right are crediting attorney Michael Avenatti with Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Will the Libs turn on Avenatti? What if he is secretly working against them? Huh? Huh? Conspiracy Thread time?
- - -

Movie: Metropolis

New Statesman: Nietzsche's descent into madness.

...he was often incapacitated, as he would continue to be throughout his life, by illnesses of various sorts.
[.]
... the onset of his madness is usually dated to 3 January 1889, when, seeing a cabman mercilessly beating his horse, a sobbing Nietzsche threw his arms around the horse’s neck and then collapsed.

- - -
Sidney Morning Herald - "Party-bus" passengers being denied entry into bars:

...[the party bus passengers], "Usually they are pre-loaded, they have obviously been drinking at home and on the bus on the way in.  (Well, yeah - that IS the idea, isn't it? - DD).  We want an environment where locals and visitors can all enjoy a venue," [said Richard Adamson, Coordinator of the Newtown Liquor Accord].
[.]
 "So if you're coming on a party bus, you're probably going to be turned away," [he said].