Mass Exodus from Tesla’s Autopilot Team
July 10th, 2019Definitely see, Automakers Are Rethinking the Timetable for Fully Autonomous Cars.
A friend of mine, who happens to be involved with AI research, completely dismissed Musk’s claims that Tesla is anywhere near to having a full self driving capability.
And now…
Via: ZeroHedge:
Several key members of Tesla’s Autopilot team have left the company together after CEO Elon Musk expressed unhappiness with the progress in developing fully automated driving capabilities, according to The Information. Musk is also reportedly upset that some team members have told him that they can’t meet his timelines for developing the technology.
Parents Are Hiring ‘Screen-Free Coaches’ to Help Keep Kids Off Their Devices
July 10th, 2019“Is there a ball somewhere? Throw the ball… kick the ball.”
Via: Global News:
It seems like some parents have forgotten what parenting was like before smartphones and tablets.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, some parents in the U.S. are hiring screen-free parenting coaches to help them raise phone-free children.
The trend, which is picking up in several U.S. states, allows these screen-free coaches to go into homes, schools and religious institutions to lecture parents on how parenting worked before screens.
“I try to really meet the parents where they are, and now often it is very simple: ‘Do you have a plain old piece of material that can be used as a cape?’” one coach told the site. “‘Is there a ball somewhere? Throw the ball… kick the ball.’”
Another parenting coach, Gloria DeGaetano, based in Seattle, told the site coaches in small cities can make up to US$80 an hour in small cities or rural areas and up to $250 in larger cities.
For the most part, coaches added, parents had forgotten what life was like before screens because they’re glued to their own devices.
Desperate to Get Rid of Homeless People, Businesses Using Prickly Plants, Fences, Barriers
July 10th, 2019Via: Los Angeles Times:
L.A. has struggled to stymie the growing number of obstructions that residents and business owners are creating to target homeless people. There are now about 59,000 people without homes in L.A. County. Within the city of Los Angeles, the population soared 16% this year to more than 36,000 — the majority of whom are living outdoors on city streets.
In parts of South L.A., business owners have built chain link fences around their buildings. Venice has seen a proliferation of sidewalk planters. In Koreatown, orange mesh fences are so common that a Twitter account documenting their existence has sprouted up. Still other Angelenos have taken to planting rosebushes and pointy cactuses in the “furniture zone,” the city’s designation for the sometimes paved and sometimes grassy area between the sidewalk and street.
That’s where obstacles are being placed the most, usually without permission from the city.
Ship Seized in Record $1.3 Billion Cocaine Bust Belongs to JPMorgan
July 10th, 2019Fascinating.
Via: ZeroHedge:
Today we learn that the vessel, the MSC Gayane, is owned by JP Morgan, and has been seized by US authorities according to the Wall Street Journal. The Gayane is the world’s second-largest container ship – operated by Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Co, MSC.
Ross Perot Dead at 89
July 9th, 2019Via: Reuters:
H. Ross Perot, the feisty Texas technology billionaire who rattled U.S. politics with two independent presidential campaigns in the 1990s that struck a chord with disgruntled voters, died on Tuesday at the age of 89, his family said.
New Zealand Gun Owners Refusing to Turn Over Firearms to Government
July 8th, 2019Via: Reason:
Once again, responding to a horrendous crime by inflicting knee-jerk, authoritarian restrictions on innocent people proves to be an ineffective means of convincing people to obey. Specifically, New Zealand’s government—which also stepped up censorship and domestic surveillance after bloody attacks on two Christchurch mosques earlier this year—is running into stiff resistance to new gun rules from firearms owners who are slow to surrender now-prohibited weapons and will probably never turn them in.
Officials should have seen it coming.
“Police are anticipating a number of people with banned firearms in their possession won’t surrender them,” Stuff reported at the end of May, based on internal government documents.
As of last week, only around 700 weapons had been turned over. There are an estimated 1.5 million guns—with an unknown number subject to the new prohibition on semiautomatic firearms—in the country overall.
Deutsche Bank Cuts 18,000 Jobs, Exits Equities
July 7th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Deutsche Bank AG unveiled a radical overhaul that will see the lender exit its equities business, post a 2.8 billion-euro ($3.1 billion) second-quarter loss and cut the workforce by a fifth to reverse a slide in profitability.
How to Enable DNS-Over-HTTPS (DoH) in Firefox
July 6th, 2019Via: ZDNet:
A step by step guide to enable DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) support in the Firefox browser.
Skywatcher Captures Rare Image of Mysterious X-37B Military Space Plane
July 6th, 2019Via: LiveScience:
Skywatcher and satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands recently caught a rare glimpse of the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane.
Vandebergh said he’d been hunting for the robotic spacecraft for months and finally managed to track it down in May. But it took a bit longer to get photos of the vehicle.
“When I tried to observe it again [in] mid-June, it didn’t meet the predicted time and path,” Vandebergh explained. “It turned out to have maneuvered to another orbit. Thanks to the amateur satellite observers’ network, it was rapidly found in orbit again, and I was able to take some images on June 30 and July 2.”
The X-37B’s recent passes were almost overhead, Vandebergh added.
Jeffrey Epstein Arrested, Charged with Sex Trafficking of Minors
July 6th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
U.S. prosecutors have arrested fund manager Jeffrey Epstein and charged him with sex trafficking of minors, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Epstein, who had been previously accused of molesting young girls, is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Monday, according to the person, who declined to comment publicly because the charges remain private.
Suspicions about Epstein date back more than a decade, when his alleged victims said he used employees to bring local teen girls to his Florida mansion for sex and paid them to recruit new victims. The girls were as young as 13-years-old. Epstein eventually pleaded guilty in 2008 to two counts of soliciting a prostitute and served 13 months in a Florida state prison in Florida, while avoiding prosecution for federal sex-trafficking offenses.
