When that day comes, Anthony Levandowski will be firmly on the side of the machines. In September 2015, the multi-millionaire engineer at the heart of the patent and trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future. Its purpose, according to previously unreported state filings, is nothing less than to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.”
Way of the Future has not yet responded to requests for the forms it must submit annually to the Internal Revenue Service (and make publicly available), as a non-profit religious corporation. However, documents filed with California show that Levandowski is Way of the Future’s CEO and President, and that it aims “through understanding and worship of the Godhead, [to] contribute to the betterment of society.”
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The Self Driving Car Whiz Who Fell from Grace | WIRED
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Gunfight at Pizza Hut
This story has been updated with a statement from Pizza Hut.
The Pizza Hut had just closed.
Outside the windows of the store on South Grant Avenue, William Hotop could see only darkness.
"Bam! Bam!"
A man was knocking down the glass door, so Hotop, 31, said he bolted for where he knew a gun was located in the Pizza Hut.
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DIA Insider Arrested, Accused Of Looting Checked Luggage « CBS Denver
DENVER (CBS4)– CBS4 has learned that an employee at Denver International Airport has been fired and charged with rifling through passengers’ checked bags on three occasions, and stealing guns out of their luggage.
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'A fairytale without the prince': Italian woman 'marries herself'
A madly in love couple is usually a prerequisite for any marriage, but a lovelorn Italian woman has broken with tradition by 'marrying herself'.
Laura Mesi dressed in a white gown and was joined by 70 family and friends for the self-marriage ceremony, which is not legally recognised.
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Video shows Bronx man fall into coma after hours of neglect - NY Daily News
On a sultry July night in 2014, an ambulance crew brought Angel Rivera to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx after the handyman got punched in the head.
Rivera slipped into a coma and wound up dead due to negligence, a lawsuit charges.
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Feds Collect Record Taxes Through August; Still Run $673.7B Deficit
(CNSNews.com) - The federal government collected record total tax revenues through the first eleven months of fiscal 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 through the end of August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
Through August, the federal government collected approximately $2,966,172,000,000 in total tax revenues.
That was $8,450,680,000 more (in constant 2017 dollars) than the previous record of $2,957,721,320,000 in total tax revenues (in 2017 dollars) that the federal government collected in the first eleven months of fiscal 2016.
At the same time that the federal government was collecting a record $2,966,172,000,000 in tax revenues, it was spending $3,639,882,000,000—and, thus, running a deficit of $673,711,000,000.
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Venezuela Prepares for War With U.S. With ‘Rifles, Missiles and Well-Oiled Tanks at the Ready’
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro called on his nation's military leaders Tuesday to prepare for war against the U.S. days after the Trump administration banned Venezuelan officials from entering the nation.
"We have been shamelessly threatened by the most criminal empire that ever existed and we have the obligation to prepare ourselves to guarantee peace," said Maduro, who wore a green uniform and a military hat as he spoke with his army top brass during a military exercise involving tanks and missiles. "We need to have rifles, missiles and well-oiled tanks at the ready....to defend every inch of the territory if needs be," he added.
The Trump administration has taken a hard stance against Maduro's regime by banning money lending to Venezuela's government or its state oil company PDVSA, and passing sanctions against Maduro and his top officials.
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Superintendent Now Forcing Student Athletes to Stand During National Anthem
Superintendent Now Forcing Student Athletes to Stand During National Anthem
A top school official in Louisiana is now requiring student athletes and club members to stand during the national anthem.
“It is a choice for students to participate in extracurricular activities, not a right, and we at Bossier Schools feel strongly that our teams and organizations should stand in unity to honor our nation’s military and veterans,” wrote Bossier Parish Schools Superintendent Scott Smith in a letter released Wednesday.
On Thursday, Principal Waylon Bates of Parkway High School, which lies in the parish, followed suit, saying that athletes who break the rules could lose playing time.
“Continued failure to comply will result in removal from the team,” he wrote in a letter obtained by The Shreveport Times.
On Friday, President Donald Trump referred to NFL players who knelt during the national anthem as “son of a &!@$#,” and said it would be good if they were fired. In response, players from multiple teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars, pointedly knelt during the anthem. Proponents of kneeling during the anthem argue that it is done in opposition of police violence against people of color. Critics insist that this is disrespectful to military service-members. When Law Newz wrote about it at the time, legal experts agreed that teams could discipline players if kneeling somehow breached their contracts–free speech, as defined by the Constitution, does not apply to private employment. The League itself does not require them to stand for the anthem, however.
The picture is different when it comes to public schools. These are government entities, and therefore subject to the First Amendment. After the 1943 Supreme Court decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, it is unconstitutional for school officials to make students take the pledge of allegiance during class. This ruling also covers the national anthem. The reasoning is that government cannot make people say what they don’t mean.
But in Wednesday’s letter, Smith seems to be staking out different territory, legally speaking. Professor Catherine Ross, a First Amendment expert at George Washington University, told Law Newz that appellate courts are split as to whether student clubs, including sports, are a right or a privilege. It is pretty obvious that Smith is staking out his policy on the latter.
Ross points out that his position is stronger if reasonable observers interpret kneeling by student athletes as bearing the approval of the school. In other words, it is seen as the school’s own speech.
“The school district is entitled to avoid that confusion,” she pointed out. That said, Ross argues that it is likely, at least in context of recent media coverage, that reasonable observers will understand that kneeling is speech by the students, not the school itself. Ross, author of the 2015 book Lessons in Censorship: How Schools and Courts Subvert Students’ First Amendment Rights, also argues that these kinds of policies fail to teach students about the importance of free speech in society.
“When schools curb speech, students don’t learn why free expression is critical to democracy,” she said in a 2016 USA Today op-ed. “Instead, they receive a message that free speech can be sacrificed for a competing social good. That message undermines an unwavering First Amendment premise: The best cure for objectionable speech is more and better speech.”
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Armed military to replace cops on Danish streets and border - The Local
Starting Friday, armed soldiers from the Danish Armed Forces (Forsvaret) will replace police officers at both Denmark’s southern border to Germany and at potential terror targets in Copenhagen.
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Trump administration demands Facebook info on anti-Trump activists | New York Post
The Trump administration reportedly has obtained search warrants that would allow them access to the Facebook pages of thousands of anti-Trump protesters.
The requested data — which targets all the information in three accounts — would include information on about 6,000 individuals who “liked” an anti-Donald Trump Facebook page, according to CNN.
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Shocking footage emerges of mutant Hulk-like boars | Daily Mail OnlineD&C 89:4 wrote:Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation—
The company, called Duroc Cambodia, appear to have genetically modified pigs
Videos of the pigs show that they are unable to walk because of their physiques
Cambodian company also offer artificial insemination kits available for just £5
PETA has hit out at the farmers, calling the practice 'the stuff of nightmares'
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Amazon, Siri, Facebook, Google: How to turn off listening devices
Virtual assistants are handy, but they’re always listening. As more manufacturers and developers jump onto the audio tracking bandwagon, you may wonder how much your devices are recording. And what happens to the audio files they gather?
Worst of all: apps that use ultrasonic data to profile you. You don’t hear the tones, but your device does. More about that later. Some regular apps are designed to spy and report back recordings. Read more on five spy apps that could be on your phone watching and listening right now.
Creeped out? Many people are. Lots of consumers don’t trust their virtual assistants and wonder how to switch them off. If you're worried about the privacy risks of your smartphone's always-on microphone, here are tips on how to turn it off:
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Toronto millennials are living at home to save money, not because they're lazy, survey finds
80% of young adults live with their parents for financial reasons, Waterloo research shows
A new report from the University of Waterloo reveals nearly 80 per cent of young adults who live with their parents do so to save money.
Instead, it's more about coping with rising housing costs and precarious work, explains researcher Nancy Worth, a geography professor at the university.
"If you're unsure that you'll have a job that will pay your next mortgage payment, or your next rent on the first of the month, living at home is a way of mitigating that insecurity," she says.
...revealed that nearly half of young adults in the GTA live with parents — much higher than the Canadian average of roughly 35 per cent. Her team surveyed more than 700 young adults living at home to figure out the burning question: Why live with your 'rents?
Alongside the financial reasons, Worth says other factors include shared care-giving, cultural norms, and simply wanting to be at home.
The Waterloo survey also found living with their parents is not a burden for most young people, with 70 per cent saying they're satisfied, or very satisfied, with their lives while living at home.
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What a waste of research time. Let Millennials self-evaluate and then draw conclusions that Millennials are victims which they all believe anyway.
"I'm saving my money for ________ (apartment, house, marriage, college) , do you see my new _________(x-box, smart phone, car) ?"
"I'm saving my money for ________ (apartment, house, marriage, college) , do you see my new _________(x-box, smart phone, car) ?"
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Now schools are ditching AD and BC in RE lessons | Daily Mail Online
The traditional terms BC, Before Christ, and AD, Anno Domini, are being ditched for BCE – Before Common Era, and CE – Common Era
The new terms still denote the periods before and after the birth of Christ
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey said the rulings by the religious education committees were a ‘great shame’
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Sex change regret: Gender reversal surgery is on the rise, so why aren't we talking about it?
Around five years ago, Professor Miroslav Djordjevic, the world-leading genital reconstructive surgeon, received a visit at his Belgrade clinic: a transgender person who had undergone surgery at different clinic to remove male genitalia - and since changed their mind.
That was the first time Prof Djordjevic had ever been contacted to perform a so-called gender reassignment “reversal” surgery. Over the next six months, another six people also approached him, similarly wanting to reverse their procedures. They came from countries all over the western world, Britain included, united by an acute sense of regret.
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Google, Facebook may have to reveal deepest secrets - POLITICO
The investigations into Russia's role in the 2016 election are threatening to pry the lid off tech companies' most prized possessions: the secret inner workings of their online platforms.
As the probes unfold into social media’s role in spreading misinformation, U.S. lawmakers are beginning to show an interest in the mechanics of everything from how Facebook weights news items to how Google ranks search results. The questions, which echo European regulators’ interventionist approach to technology, are a stark change for Silicon Valley companies accustomed to deference from U.S. officials on how they run their operations.
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Facebook Blocks Chinese Billionaire Who Tells Tales of Corruption - The New York Times
HONG KONG — A Chinese billionaire living in virtual exile in New York, Guo Wengui has riled China’s leaders with his sometimes outlandish tales of deep corruption among family members of top Communist Party officials.
On Saturday, his tales proved too much for one of his favorite platforms for broadcasting those accusations: Facebook.
The social media network said it had blocked a profile under Mr. Guo’s name and taken down another page associated with him. Facebook said the content on both pages had included someone else’s personal identifiable information, which violates its terms of service.
Facebook investigated the accounts after receiving a complaint, according to a spokeswoman.
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Shooting On Las Vegas Strip Kills At Least 58, Wounds More Than 400 « CBS Philly
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo says he doesn’t know if this shooting could have been prevented.
“This individual was described as a lone wolf, I don’t know how it could have been prevented. We didn’t have any prior knowledge to this individual. It wasn’t evident that he had any weapons in his room. We have determined that there has been employees going to and fro to his room and nothing nefarious was noticed at this point,” explained Lombardo.
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Somebody else must have known about this. This was too well planned to be random.mes5464 wrote: ↑October 2nd, 2017, 10:38 am Shooting On Las Vegas Strip Kills At Least 58, Wounds More Than 400 « CBS Philly
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo says he doesn’t know if this shooting could have been prevented.
“This individual was described as a lone wolf, I don’t know how it could have been prevented. We didn’t have any prior knowledge to this individual. It wasn’t evident that he had any weapons in his room. We have determined that there has been employees going to and fro to his room and nothing nefarious was noticed at this point,” explained Lombardo.
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Extremists who watch streamed terror content on the web face 15 years in prison in fresh crackdown by Amber Rudd
Home Secretary Amber Rudd will close a loophole that allows people to freely watch vile propaganda.