The Extremely Strange Disappearance and Death of Erin Valenti
October 16th, 2019Via: Mercury News:
The family of Erin Valenti stopped its search on Saturday night, shortly after police reported that a body was found in South San Jose’s Almaden Valley, the location where the 33-year-old tech entrepreneur went missing after a series of bewildering phone calls during an apparent mental health episode.
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Valenti went missing Monday night after driving off course from Palo Alto to catch a flight home from the San Jose International Airport.
The San Jose Police Department reported finding a body inside a vehicle parked on the 6500 block of Bose Lane, only a half-mile from Valenti’s last known location, near Almaden Expressway and Camden Avenue. Records show that the San Jose Fire Department responded to a medical call at 3:56 p.m. near 6582 Bose Lane.
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On Saturday, relatives had continued their frantic search for Valenti, who they said apparently suffered a manic episode early in the week, telling them in a string of bizarre phone calls that “it’s all a game, it’s a thought experiment, we’re in the Matrix.”
Her husband said she had no history of mental illness.
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Valenti was founder and CEO of Tinker Ventures, an application design and development company, where she managed a global team of 120 employees in their Salt Lake City and Pakistan offices. Prior to forming Tinker, she was the Head of Product Development for Overstock.com, where she oversaw a team of 250 engineers.
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Nothing seemed amiss until she called her parents about 3:30 p.m. on Monday after she met with a former colleague on Sand Hill Road, and said she couldn’t find her rental car. Once she found the car, she stayed on the phone with her parents, her conversation became bizarre.
Valenti missed her Monday evening flight home to Utah from San Jose International Airport and did not attend a Tuesday ceremony in Utah, where she was looking forward to receiving a “women in tech” award.
“We talked to her for hours on and off” on Monday night, Valenti said. “Her thoughts were disconnected. She talked a mile a minute. She’d say I’m coming home for Thanksgiving, then in the next she was saying she’s in the Matrix,” a reference to a science fiction movie about a virtual reality world.
Stunning Survey Reveals Quarter Of Americans Have Never Eaten Vegetables [???]
October 15th, 2019Via: StudyFinds:
The most popular vegetable in America is — corn! That’s according to a survey of 2,000 Americans who were asked which vegetables they liked and disliked the most. However, it turns out the most surprising result of the study may be that a staggering number of adults haven’t eaten any vegetables their entire lives.
Animal Testing Atrocities at German Laboratory
October 15th, 2019Via: Daily Mail:
A horrifying laboratory where monkeys were strapped into metal harnesses as tests were carried out on them is facing closure after German inspectors raided the building.
Footage showed macaques bound in brackets in rows on the wall, their heads locked in restraints, allegedly at LPT Laboratory of Pharmacology and Toxicology in Mienenbuttel, on the outskirts of Hamburg.
Other shocking images showed a beagle bleeding profusely in a cramped cage.
After the footage was released authorities in the Harburg region conducted a spot check of the facility and confirmed some of the allegations made by the animal activists.
Firefox Privacy – The Complete How-To Guide
October 15th, 2019Via: Restore Privacy:
Mozilla Firefox is arguably the best browser available that combines strong privacy protection features, good security, active development, and regular updates. The newest version of Firefox is fast, light-weight, and packed full of privacy and security features.
It is for this reason that I consider Firefox to be the best all-around browser for privacy and security. It remains a solid alternative to some of the other options, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Safari.
“The Digital Poorhouse”
October 15th, 2019Via: Guardian:
The Guardian has spent the past three months investigating how billions are being poured into AI innovations that are explosively recasting how low-income people interact with the state. Together, our reporters in the US, Britain, India and Australia have explored what amounts to the birth of the digital welfare state.
Their dispatches reveal how unemployment benefits, child support, housing and food subsidies and much more are being scrambled online. Vast sums are being spent by governments across the industrialized and developing worlds on automating poverty and in the process, turning the needs of vulnerable citizens into numbers, replacing the judgment of human caseworkers with the cold, bloodless decision-making of machines.
At its most forbidding, Guardian reporters paint a picture of a 21st-century Dickensian dystopia that is taking shape with breakneck speed. The American political scientist Virginia Eubanks has a phrase for it: “The digital poorhouse.”
How Amazon.com Moved Into the Business of U.S. Elections
October 15th, 2019Via: Reuters:
The expansion by Amazon Web Services into state and local elections has quietly gathered pace since the 2016 U.S. presidential vote. More than 40 states now use one or more of Amazon’s election offerings, according to a presentation given by an Amazon executive this year and seen by Reuters.
So do America’s two main political parties, the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and the U.S. federal body charged with administering and enforcing federal campaign finance laws.
While it does not handle voting on election day, AWS – along with a broad network of partners – now runs state and county election websites, stores voter registration rolls and ballot data, facilitates overseas voting by military personnel and helps provide live election-night results, according to company documents and interviews.
How to Butcher a Cow
October 15th, 2019This is an absolutely incredible video.
Via: The Bearded Butchers:
Lights Filmed South of Groom Lake Road [???]
October 14th, 2019I’m pretty sure that is some sort of tracer ammo. The distance makes the projectiles look like they’re not moving very fast.
Via: UFO Seekers:
Counterfeiting Microsoft’s “Restore CD” Landed Me in Prison for a Year
October 14th, 2019“When I save something, that’s taking away from their market share.”
Via: Vice:
ABC Attempts to Pass Off Gun Range Footage as Combat Footage From Syria
October 14th, 2019Via: Summit News:
ABC News attempted to pass off footage from a 2017 gun range show as evidence of Turkey bombing Kurdish civilians in order to blame President Trump.
Yes, really.
The ABC News anchor presenting the footage comments that it shows “the situation rapidly spiraling out of control in northern Syria” after Trump ordered U.S. forces to leave.
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The anchor accuses Trump of “effectively abandoning America’s allies in the fight against ISIS,” before discussing the video.
“This video right here appearing to show Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town,” he states before mentioning “horrific reports of atrocities committed by Turkish-backed fighters.”
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However, the video (original posted here and below) is from a 2017 gun range show entitled ‘Knob Creek night shoot 2017’.
