Archived threads in /news/ - Current News - 236. page

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/09/06/bianco-star-trek-more-than-sci-fi-preaching-peaceful-co-existence/85557626/

>It might have been a simpler time, but it certainly wasn’t a better one.

>Viewed from a 50-year distance through the CGI lens of modern sci-fi blockbusters, NBC's original Star Trek TV series, which premiered on Sept. 8, 1966, can look adorably quaint. The oh-so-obviously plastic models visiting planets that are clearly back lots and sound stages. The by-now-standard multinational, multi-ethnic crew: A Russian, an Asian, an African-American, and an intellectually advanced alien among them. And that peaceful mission, to explore but not to interfere, and never — heaven forbid — to conquer.

>It’s all so cute. Except there was nothing cute about it at the time — and nothing cute about the times.

>Star Trek began in 1966 and ended in 1969 — a three-year span that was one of the most tumultuous and divisive in our nation’s history. The 1965 Watts riots warned of the simmering racial tensions that would explode over the next few summers, setting many of our inner cities ablaze. The war in Vietnam raged every night on our TV newscasts, leading to riots at the 1968 Democratic convention and widespread fears that the conflict might engulf all of Asia. There was war in the Middle East; the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. at home; and a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that seemed to bring us all one step closer to nuclear annihilation.

>That’s not just a quick history lesson — it’s the context through which Star Trek must be viewed. In the midst of international strife, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry preached a message of peaceful coexistence. In the face of racial and ethnic divides, his show offered an unprecedented view of a diverse workplace where everyone was competent, everyone was relied upon, and everyone was treated with friendship and respect.

...

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/19/three-words-chinese-space-station.html

>China has just launched its second small Tiangong space station into orbit, more or less catching up to what the United States’ and Russia’s own space programs achieved starting in the 1970s.

>Riding atop a Long March rocket, the 34-foot-long, 10-ton Tiangong-2 blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sept. 15, aiming for an orbit 240 miles over Earth’s surface.

>While Beijing’s effort to establish a long-term human presence in orbit is impressive on a political level, on a technological level it’s decades behind the curve. In the United States and elsewhere, private companies are poised to establish a long-term presence in space that doesn’t depend on big, government-run orbital structures.

>“China is currently doing nothing in space that the U.S. hasn’t done already, much sooner, and often with a much higher level of technological sophistication,” Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and a space expert, told The Daily Beast.

>In the race to build orbital habitations, Russia actually beat the United States by a few years when it launched the first of several Salyut stations beginning in 1971. America’s first space station was Skylab, which lasted six years starting in 1973. Today Russia and the United States work together on the International Space Station, which began operation in 1998 and has expanded to include dozens of modules capable of supporting six crew in total, year-round.

>Compared to the International Space Station, the single-module Tiangong stations are tiny.

>The plan is for a pair of Chinese astronauts to visit Tiangong-2 in October and stay for a month or so—an improvement over the Tiangong-1 station, which managed to support two crew for just eight days in 2012 and 12 days in 2013.
...

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/09/20/world/middleeast/ap-syria.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/death-toll-rises-in-syria-aid-convoy-attack-1474370636

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/aleppos-children/no-sign-syria-cease-fire-or-humanitarian-aid-aleppo-n650446

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/aleppos-children/no-sign-syria-cease-fire-or-humanitarian-aid-aleppo-n650446

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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/trump-putin-cant-fool-me-except-this-one-time.html

In his interview with Matt Lauer Wednesday evening, Donald Trump insisted that the public lovefest between his campaign and Vladimir Putin would not in any way hamper his ability to shrewdly deal with the Russian leader. “It’s not going to get him anywhere,” Trump insisted. “I’m a negotiator.” The next day, Trump handed the Russians a major propaganda victory when he appeared on RT and criticized American foreign policy. Kellyanne Conway, who is still Trump’s campaign manager, explains that her candidate did not intend to appear on RT. He was bamboozled.

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here's the link from nbcnews.com:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nyc-explosion-fbi-cops-investigate-vehicle-interest-n-y-new-n650306

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A bullock that had its face blurred by Google Street View has proved a hit on social media.

The animal was snapped by Google's cameras at Coe Fen, Cambridge, and seemingly given the same treatment humans receive for privacy reasons.

A tweet by The Guardian's David Shariatmadari highlighting the sight was retweeted more than 9,000 times.

Google admitted its face-blurring technology had been "a little overzealous".

Bovine anomaly

The animal's face can clearly be seen grazing near the river River Cam on an image taken slightly further away, but Google seems to have blurred it for a close-up view.

Image copyright Google
Image caption The mysterious bullock's identity can be seen in all its glory moments before
Google's Street View launched in 2007 and received widespread media coverage as cars mounted with cameras mapped streets around the world.

To help combat privacy concerns, software is used to automatically blur human faces.

Mr Shariatmadari spotted the bovine anomaly and posted it on Twitter, saying it was "great to see Google takes cow privacy seriously".

"Udderly ridiculous," said one user in reply. "Google teat view," said another.

It has also been reported by the Cambridge News and national media.

So far the tweet has been liked more than 12,000 times.

A spokesman for Google said: "We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it's clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous.

"Of course, we don't begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-37378007

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A bomb exploded inside a trash can,it happened in nyc on saturday ,29 injured. news article at http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/nyc-mayor-addresses-bomb-explosion/

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http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/aclu-students-have-right-to-sit-during-pledge-of-allegiance/

>Two students at separate schools have filed complaints with the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana saying they were told they would be punished for sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance, an act protected as free speech.

I remember this happening in my high school as well, although that was well over 10 years ago. I figured by now the social climate would be different, but evidently not. Then again, this report indicates it's happening in the South. Why am I not surprised?

Back in my day, students just say it out and accepted any detentions or suspensions they were issued for exercising their rights. I don't think there was nearly as much oversight in public education back in those days, so complaining to the school superintendent - for instance - probably would have fallen on deaf ears.

>inb4 edgy

Sure, some instances of 'protest' were from edgy goth kids or other losers who just wanted to stand out, but some students were genuinely concerned about patriotic conscription. I mean, these are the same rights people are fighting for overseas. To mandate that we *have* to honor servicemen or salute our nation's flag when public institutions say so goes against the very nature of freedom these servicemen are fighting for.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/18/angela-merkels-party-suffers-slump-in-berlin-election

>CDU achieves just 18% of vote, leaving city likely to have its first leftwing triple-coalition government
>Centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) came out top with 21.6% of the vote, ahead of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on 17.5%. Leftwing Die Linke came third on 15.7%, ahead of the Greens on 15.1%.
>Anti-immigration populists Alternative für Deutschland are set to enter the German capital’s state parliament for the first time, with 14.1%.

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Euthanasia has been carried out on an underage person for the first time in Belgium, under a law introduced in early 2014, the head of the country's euthanasia commission confirmed Saturday.

Professor Wim Distelmans was notified this week of the procedure, he told dpa. Under Belgian law, the commission has to be informed within four days of the patient being euthanized.

No details were available on the minor, who had been terminally ill.

https://aboutcroatia.net/news/europe/euthanasia-performed-minor-first-time-belgium-37069

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http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2016/09/man_allegedly_punched_nj_transit_conductor_in_the.html

>An Israeli man was arrested Sunday on aggravated assault and theft-of-services charges after he attacked a train conductor, NJ Transit said in a statement Monday.

>Peer Fikhman, 22, boarded a train at the Radburn station in Fair Lawn around 2:40 p.m., then hid in a restroom before a conductor could ask him for a ticket, NJ Transit said.

>When Fikhman left the restroom and was asked for his ticket, Fikhman punched the conductor in the face, the agency also said.

>Fikhman was arrested at Secaucus Junction by NJ Transit police and taken to the Hudson County Jail, where he was being held on $5,000 bail. The conductor's face was bruised but he refused medical attention, the agency said.

>If convicted on all charges, Fikhman faces up to six years in prison and a $7,500 fine.

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A few weeks ago, two researchers told the Defcon hacking convention audience that We Vibe “smart” sex toys send a lot of data about their users back to the company that makes them. According to Courthouse News, one We Viber took this news hard. A woman known only as “N.P.” filed a class action civil suit in a federal court in Illinois against Standard Innovation, which makes the We Vibe line of sex toys and corresponding app.

The smartphone app lets users “customize” their We Vibe experience, unlock app-only “bonus” vibration modes such as the “cha-cha-cha” and the “crest,” and “create unlimited custom playlists,” according to the product’s website. In the suit, N.P. says she bought a We Vibe in May and used it “several times” until she realized that it was sending data about her usage practices back to Standard Innovation’s servers, including when she used it, which vibration settings she used, and her email address.

The two researchers, known only as “followr” and “g0ldfisk,” said they discovered the amount of data the app transmitted back to Standard Innovation when looking for security flaws (not an unheard of possibility when it comes to internet-enabled sex toys). After the presentation, a spokesperson for the company told CNET it would “clarify” its terms and conditions to make it more obvious that the app could transmit data, which was “mostly anonymized” was being used for “market research.” It would also add the ability to opt-out. The company (which did not respond to request for comment) also posted a “commitment to customer privacy and security” on its website.

http://www.vocativ.com/358530/smart-dildo-company-sued-for-tracking-users-habits/

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/09/13/black-rifles-matter-sign-draws-complaints-from-tourists-in-maine-town.html

>A Maine town’s tourism sector has come under fire after some visitors have been complaining about a large, hand-painted sign on a private lawn that reads “Black Rifles Matter.”

>Linc Sample, the sign’s creator, told NECN on Monday that his work in Boothbay Harbor is about gun rights, not race. He was inspired to post the sign after reading an ad in the local paper that supported a ban on assault weapons.

>"That's really a trigger for me — the assault weapons ban," Sample told NECN.

>Sample said he used “Black Rifles Matter” – a plan on “Black Lives Matter” – to make an impact. He said if anything, the Black Lives Matter movement should be “flattered” he used the phrase.

>Boothbay Region Chamber of Commerce Director Rick Prose said that they’ve received a few complaints from visitors.

>"Some of these people have cut their vacation short and left early," Town Manager Thomas Woodin said.

>Boothbay Harbor officials said Sample has the proper permitting and is exercising his First Amendment rights, despite some calling for the sign’s removal.

>"People are ignorant. They shouldn't be putting things out like that," Paul Mayor, who was visiting Maine from Connecticut, told the station. "It's taking a shot obviously at Black Lives Matter."

>Another tourist, Jeremy Plasse believes that the town is doing the right thing by leaving the sign up.

>"Massachusetts has a ban right now, and I think they should lift it,” he added.

>Sample said he usually changes the sign and will soon replace the Black Rifles Matter sign that has drawn some scrutiny.

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The DEA is trying to ban Kratom. Kratom saves lives! Anonymous we need your help
They say it's because it's a public safety concern and has zero medical value. However, Big pharma is currently patenting and developing drugs based on the active alkaloids found in Kratom( Mitragynine and 7-hydroxy-mitragynine ). This is the true reason for the ban.

The DEA’s attack on another naturally occurring substance attracted immediate pushback from kratom supporters and drug policy experts, who reject the agency’s claim that the herb is an “imminent hazard to public safety.” Kratom users say the DEA ignored anecdotal evidence and emerging science that suggests the drug could be a promising treatment for a variety of ailments, including chronic pain and opioid addiction.

http://www.americankratom.org/national_call_to_action

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>http://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2016/09/17/reports-several-hurt-crossroads-center-incident/90607870/

>tldr - somali scum stabs 8 people at St Cloud mall

I know Minnesota has a strong Swedish ancestry so I'll be the first to say 'Minnesota Yes' We're #1 in homegrown terrorist and now this shit. At least Michele Bachmann doesn't sound too crazy now...