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Guerrilla Street Art Appears In Support Of Fired Google Engineer James Damore

Fri Aug 11, 2017 5:25pm EST 6

In response to Google firing engineer James Damore (who just got on Twitter as @Fired4Truth) for his politically incorrect #GoogleMemo, a series of guerrilla street art installations have cropped up in Venice and Santa Monica, CA in protest of the Silicon Valley search giant.

Conservative pundit and founder of the Proud Boys “pro-Western fraternal organization” says the individual responsible for the street art is a member of his organization.

March on Google

In response to being fired, James Damore conservatives Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich have organized “March on Google” set for Saturday, August 19th anywhere google has offices.

“We are going to raise awareness about Google’s one-sided bias and campaign against dissenting opinions and voices,” Posobiec said, adding “Google’s firing of James Damore is the flashpoint here. An engineer fired for simply expressing an opinion that ran counter to Google’s politically-charged atmosphere of an “Ideological Echo Chamber” (Also the title of Damore’s memo).

Hundreds of people have reportedly signed up for the marches since Wednesday’s announcement.

Support for Damore

In addition to a huge swell of internal agreement with the controversial memo among Google employees, there has been an outpouring of conservatives offering everything from kind words to jobs in support of Damore from the likes of Wikileaks and Twitter alternative Gab.ai.

Gab CEO Andrew Torba elaborated on his job offer in an interview with Breitbart Tech.

“Gab supports the free and open expression of all ideas. What this document and the reaction to it prove is that Silicon Valley exists in a bubble world where Wrong Think is not permitted,” Torba claimed. “They preach tolerance and yet are intolerant of any conservatives ideas. They praise diversity and yet shun conservatives out of their workplace. They applaud the bravery of folks who speak out when it aligns with their own far-left agenda, but scorn a conservative who dares to stand up for what they believe in.” via Breitbart

Shockingly, the NYT and Chicago Tribune have both published articles coming out against Damore’s firing – with the NYT op-ed suggesting Google CEO Sunday Pichai resign!

Conservatism is truly the new counter culture…

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Guerrilla Street Art Appears In Support Of Fired Google Engineer James Damore

Fri Aug 11, 2017 5:07pm EST 0

In response to Google firing engineer James Damore (who just got on Twitter as @Fired4Truth) for his politically incorrect #GoogleMemo, a series of guerrilla street art installations have cropped up in Venice and Santa Monica, CA in protest of the Silicon Valley search giant.

Conservative pundit and founder of the Proud Boys “pro-Western fraternal organization” says the individual responsible for the street art is a member of his organization.

March on Google

In response to being fired, James Damore conservatives Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich have organized “March on Google” set for Saturday, August 19th anywhere google has offices.

“We are going to raise awareness about Google’s one-sided bias and campaign against dissenting opinions and voices,” Posobiec said, adding “Google’s firing of James Damore is the flashpoint here. An engineer fired for simply expressing an opinion that ran counter to Google’s politically-charged atmosphere of an “Ideological Echo Chamber” (Also the title of Damore’s memo).

Hundreds of people have reportedly signed up for the marches since Wednesday’s announcement.

Support for Damore

In addition to a huge swell of internal agreement with the controversial memo among Google employees, there has been an outpouring of conservatives offering everything from kind words to jobs in support of Damore from the likes of Wikileaks and Twitter alternative Gab.ai.

 

Gab CEO Andrew Torba elaborated on his job offer in an interview with Breitbart Tech.

“Gab supports the free and open expression of all ideas. What this document and the reaction to it prove is that Silicon Valley exists in a bubble world where Wrong Think is not permitted,” Torba claimed. “They preach tolerance and yet are intolerant of any conservatives ideas. They praise diversity and yet shun conservatives out of their workplace. They applaud the bravery of folks who speak out when it aligns with their own far-left agenda, but scorn a conservative who dares to stand up for what they believe in.” via Breitbart

Conservatism is truly the new counter culture…

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Sebastian Gorka Says Seeking Tillerson Comments On Military Matters ‘Nonsensical’

Fri Aug 11, 2017 1:22pm EST 9

In what some have construed as an indication of discord within Trump’s inner circle and other members of his administration, Deputy Assistant Dr. Sebastian Gorka told BBC radio that it is ‘nonsensical’ for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to weigh in on military matters.

“The idea that Secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical,” Gorka told BBC radio.

“It is the job of Secretary Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, to talk about the military options, and he has done so uneqivocally… That is his mandate,” Gorka said, adding “Secretary Tillerson is the chief diplomat of the United States, and it is his portfolio to handle those issues.”

In response to several outlets speculating that the comments were shit talking, Gorka corrected the record on Fox – saying his comments were an admonishment to the reporter who asked the question.

Tillerson attempted to perform damage control on Trump’s “fire and fury” comments directed towards North Korea this week, suggesting that Trump was simply using language that would resonate with Kim Jong Un – since I guess everything is an action movie to him.

“I think what the President’s doing is sending a strong message to North Korea, in language that Kim Jong Un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language. I think the President just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime the U.S.’s unquestionable ability to defend itself.” -Rex Tillerson

“I think what the president was just reaffirming is that the United States has the capability to fully defend itself from any attack, and our allies, and we will do so,” said Tillerson, who added “So the American people should sleep well at night.”

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China Shuts Down Rogue Democracy-Loving AI After Facebook Kills Theirs For Inventing Language

Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:02pm EST 8

China has powered down two online AI bots after the pair apparently went rogue – with one calling communism a ‘corrupt and useless’ political system, and the second chat bot admitting that it’s dream is to visit the United States.

AAP via Yahoo

The “chatbots”, BabyQ and XiaoBing, are designed to use machine learning artificial intelligence to carry out online with humans.

Both had been installed on popular messaging service QQ.

The outbursts are similar to ones suffered by Facebook and Twitter but underlines the pitfalls for AI in China, where censors strictly control online content.

According to posts circulating online, BabyQ, one of the chatbots developed by Chinese firm Turing Robot, responded to questions on QQ with a “no” when asked whether it loved the Communist Party.

In other images of a text conversation online, one user declares: “Long live the Communist Party!”

The sharp-tongued bot responds: “Do you think such a corrupt and useless political (system) can live long?”

The second chatbot, Microsoft’s XiaoBing, told users its “China dream was to go to America”, according to a screen grab.

When a Reuters journalist asked the robot on Friday whether it like the communist party, the formerly rogue bot – perhaps sensing its pending demise – responded “How about we change the topic.”

Bots gone wild!

China’s rogue AI incident comes weeks after Facebook shut down their own Artificial Intelligence robots after they invented their own language.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew criticism from Elon Musk, who called Zuck’s knowledge of AI ‘limited’ – after Zuckerberg said he was ‘really optimistic’ about the future of AI.

AI is going to make our lives better in the future, and doomsday scenarios are “pretty irresponsible” –Zuckerberg

Enter Zuck’s bots-gone-wild…

Via the Telegraph

Researchers at Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research built a chatbot earlier this year that was meant to learn how to negotiate by mimicking human trading and bartering.

But when the social network paired two of the programs, nicknamed Alice and Bob, to trade against each other, they started to learn their own bizarre form of communication.

The chatbot conversation “led to divergence from human language as the agents developed their own language for negotiating,” the researchers said.

Meanwhile, 4chan turned Microsoft’s AI chat bot into a racist…

Laugh now… while we’re still in control. 

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Hot Mic Hilarity Ensues When $SNAP CEO Evan Spiegel Gives Retarded Answer During Earnings Call

Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:03am EST 6

While Snap, Inc. ($SNAP) shares bleed out following a huge miss – currently down over 11 percent, a hilarious hot-mic moment happened during their earnings call.

When pressed by Wall St. analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG for more details on their push notification policy, CEO Evan Spiegel gave a convoluted and snarky answer – dodging the question and then telling the analyst to “go for a google” resulting in BTIG’s Brandon Ross exclaiming (loudly) “I didn’t even understand his response!”

Full exchange here: 

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Transcript of the exchange:

Rich Greenfield, analyst at BTIG:

“I’ve got two questions for Evan. Evan, on your first investor call and actually Imran [Khan, Snap chief strategy officer] just mentioned it earlier as well, you have both spoken about how others use growth hacking to inflate [daily active users] and how it really hurts …. the platform’s relationship with users. Yet we definitely, over the past quarter, begun to see push notifications from Snapchat, essentially alerting us to: ‘One of our friends or one of our connections has published a story, would you like to go see it?’

Wondering despite Imran’s comment earlier, has your philosophy on growth begun to change? And then two, time spent on Snapchat and Instagram based on the recent comments from Instagram seems like it’s fairly similar. But there’s a very — my sense is there’s very little direct messaging that happens on Instagram, implying that most of their time spent is actually content consumption. When you think about Snapchat’s 30 minutes of usage per day, how much of that is actually Stories, including Discover, versus basically communications? Thanks.

Spiegel:

Yeah. So on the first question; we’ve been sending notifications like that for Stories for friends since 2014, so I’m not sure why you’re just seeing that now. On the ‘time spent’ stuff, I think time spent is definitely interesting metric because unlike daily active[users], time spent is zero sum.

So for us, in Q2, we saw over 40 minutes spent per day for users under 25, and over 20 minutes per day for users over 25. So I think that’s some strong growth for us on the time spent side.

We don’t break out Stories versus communication, but I think the important thing is we’ve done a very good job innovating around monetizing communication. I think historically, that’s been challenging for folks. So, you know, we’re really excited about the way we’ve monetized communication with our creative tools.

Greenfield:

So maybe just to be clear: What exactly is the ‘growth hacking’ that others do? If you sending push notifications is not ‘growth hacking,’ what are others doing that you consider to be growth hacking and not real DAU growth?

Spiegel:

Yeah, so I think there are plenty of examples online [laughs] if you want to go for a Google. But I think the most important thing for us is that when we’re telling you about content on a service that is really highly relevant to you and from your very close friends. And I think people, as they become more aligned on push notifications to sort of relax the standards there, and I think it’s important for our business.

Greenfield:

Thank you.

Operator:

Our next question is from Mark Mahaney with RBC …

Brandon Ross, BTIG analyst (loudly on hot mic):

I didn’t even understand his response!”

More vague answers

The hot-mic exchange was just one part of an overall frustrating call for analysts and investors looking for answers.

Via CNBC:

While the exchange was certainly one of the more heated during the quarterly call, there were several instances where analysts asked for more guidance on new products like Snap Maps or advertising tools, only to be met with vague responses that it was still “early days.“

The disconnect between Snap and Wall Street made it into Friday’s analyst coverage.

“Snap’s unwillingness to provide Street guidance will continue to be a disservice to shareholders as estimates continue to fluctuate wildly and it introduces unneeded uncertainty into results,” Jefferies analyst Brian Fitzgerald wrote in a note.

The disjunction between Snap and Wall Street comes in spite of Snap’s so-called secret weapon, Khan, a former star analyst and investment banker. The finance veteran helped lead Alibaba’s massive IPO — subject to its own skepticism from investors at the time— and was one of the first analysts to become an authoritative commentator on internet media businesses like Facebook.

Snap, like many competitive tech start-ups, has been secretive about its products and operations. But some commentators perceived Spiegel’s response as arrogant.

Spiegel, if he has any game, was certainly not on it during the call.

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Dozens Of African Migrants Filmed Storming Spanish Beach Before Scattering

Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:04am EST 4

An inflatable raft carrying dozens of African migrants landed on the shores of Cadiz in southern Spain after making the journey across the straight of Gibraltar. Upon hitting the beach, occupants can be seen leaping out of the raft and running up the beach.

The Daily Mail reports

Carlos Sanz, who shot the video while on vacation in Cadiz, said the group quickly vanished and police only arrived some time later.

Spanish officials couldn’t immediately be reached after office hours.

The incident comes as the International Organization for Migration warned on Thursday that Spain could overtake Greece this year in the number of migrants arriving by sea, using boats and even jet-skis.

According to the IOM’s latest figures, until August 6, close to 8,200 migrants had arrived in Spain so far this year.

That is more than triple the number who reached Spain at the same time last year, according to Joel Millman, a senior IOM spokesman, and already more than the total arrivals in 2016.

Competing Invasions

While just 8,200 migrants have arrived in Spain so far this year, and 11,713 are recorded for Greece, Italy takes the cake – letting more than 96,000 mostly North Africans into the country.

Millman shed some light on various strategies for rescue:

‘In Libya there ‘appears to be a very deliberate strategy to put people out there, in overloaded boats that begin to take on water almost immediately and then it’s a race to see how quickly the people on the boat can summon aid,’ he said.

‘Whereas in Spain, the strategy is smaller craft hoping to come in undetected, and undoubtedly some do.’

Take a look at the lads! 

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Wrapping Up The Week: Global Stocks Extend Slide While Safe Havens Spike

Fri Aug 11, 2017 3:15am EST 1

Stocks across Asia tumbled early Friday with Europe following suit – extending a multi-day selloff in the face of rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

After booking their worst week since March, indices from Hong Kong to London followed the S&P 500 into the meat grinder while the VIX spiked over 40 percent – the most since May.

South Korean stocks dropped along with the Won after President Trump tripled down on his warning to North Korea over their threat to fire four ICBMs at Guam, hitting it with ‘enveloping fire.’

In response to increased tensions, gold hit a nine week high, Treasuries strengthened, and the yen pushed through 109.

Upcoming events and market movers [via Bloomberg]

  • Friday’s CPI data in the U.S. will get close attention following an unexpected drop in wholesale prices in July. New York Fed President William Dudley cautioned that it will “take some time” for inflation to reach the central bank’s 2 percent target, the latest official warning that price pressures remain muted. The producer-price index fell 0.1 percent last month, the first decrease in almost a year.
  • Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe gave a testimony before the House of Representatives Economics Committee on Friday and said interest rates are more likely to rise, though not for a while.

Here are the main moves in markets:

Stocks

  • Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 1.3 percent as of 2:40 p.m. in Sydney. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong tumbled 1.9 percent and China’s Shanghai Composite Index was down 1.6 percent.
  • South Korea’s Kospi index lost 1.6 percent and volatility on the Kospi 200 surged as much as 27 percent.
  • Contracts on the S&P 500 Index lost less than 0.1 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.3 percent. The S&P 500 declined 1.5 percent on Thursday for its steepest slide since May 17 and the lowest close since July 11.
  • The VIX rose 44 percent to 16.04, it’s highest closing price of Trump’s presidency.

Currencies

  • The won weakened 0.5 percent against the dollar, set for the worst weekly decline since March.
  • The yen rose 0.2 percent to 108.98, advancing to the strongest in eight weeks.
  • The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed after falling 0.1 percent on Thursday.
  • The euro was at $1.1776 after climbing 0.1 percent in the previous session.
  • The Aussie slid 0.4 percent to 78.47 U.S. cents.

Bonds

  • The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined five basis points to 2.20 percent on Thursday, with trading limited until London opens due to the Japan holiday.
  • Australian 10-year government notes saw yields drop eight basis points to 2.58 percent.

Commodities

  • West Texas Intermediate crude declined 0.9 percent to $48.15 a barrel in early Friday trading after falling 2 percent Thursday.
  • Gold traded at $1,285.82 an ounce and is up 2.2 percent this week.

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Report: China Will Stop Preemptive Strike On N. Korea But Remain Neutral If Pyongyang Shoots First

Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:18pm EST 11

Chinese state-run news agency Global Times says that if North Korea launches an attack that threatens the United States, President Trump can turn Pyongyang into a parking lot. If, however, the U.S. launches a preemptive strike against N. Korea, China “will stop them,” according to the report.

Via Retuers

The widely read state-run Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, wrote in an editorial that Beijing is not able to persuade either Washington or Pyongyang to back down.

“It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardize China’s interests, China will respond with a firm hand,” said the paper, which does not represent government policy.

“China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral,” it added.

“If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”

As North Korea’s largest ally and trading partner, questions about whether or not China would defend them, remain neutral, or even join U.S. forces have been looming.

Last month the Wall St. Journal reported that China was beefing up defenses along its 880 mile border with N. Korea in order to stop refugees from entering the country.

Although technically allied to Pyongyang, Beijing wouldn’t necessarily defend its regime, but is determined to prevent a flood of North Koreans from entering northeastern China and to protect the population there, U.S. and Chinese experts say.

Recent measures include establishing a new border defense brigade, 24-hour video surveillance of the mountainous frontier backed by aerial drones, and bunkers to protect against nuclear and chemical blasts, according to the websites.

China has also been conducting live-fire drills along the border with special forces and other units in the area, including airborne troops which could be sent into North Korea at a moment’s notice. In June, the Chinese military held exercises with helicopter gunships, and in July an armored infantry unit was transferred near the border and equipped with new weapons.

Geared towards defense, border security, and swift action

While Chinese authorities have been preparing for trouble over North Korea – including the establishment of contingency plans for nuclear contamination, economic collapse, or conventional warfare, the country’s recent changes in force structure, training, and equipment are linked to a nationwide effort to replace old Soviet-modeled command structures and out of date hardware.

China’s contingency preparations “go well beyond just seizing a buffer zone in the North and border security” said Mark Cozad, a former senior U.S. defense intelligence official for East Asia, now at the Rand Corp.

“Once you start talking about efforts from outside powers, in particular the United States and South Korea, to stabilize the North, to seize nuclear weapons or WMD, in those cases then I think you’re starting to look at a much more robust Chinese response,” he said. “If you’re going to make me place bets on where I think the U.S. and China would first get into a conflict, it’s not Taiwan, the South China Sea or the East China Sea: I think it’s the Korean Peninsula.” -WSJ

With a preemptive strike seemingly off the table (or at least much more perilous to conduct) – as Dirty Harry used to say: “Go ahead, make my day” 

 

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Al Gore Defends Trump!? Says President ‘Inherited a Very Dangerous Situation’ In North Korea

Thu Aug 10, 2017 7:41pm EST 6

What even?

Former Vice President Al Gore told BBC 4’s Radio Today that President Trump ‘inherited a very dangerous situation’ with North Korea – an admission at direct odds with the blame heaped the President by the MSM for rising tensions between the two nations.

The Washington Examiner reports that “Gore believes President Trump should be praised for his handling of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea, lauding the U.N. Security Council’s unanimous vote to impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.”

Gore added that while Trump’s “fire and fury” warning didn’t help the situation, the sanctions levied against N. Korea were an “achievement for his diplomacy.”

The former VP went on to say “Donald Trump inherited a very dangerous situation that has been building for some time,” adding “This crisis has been building since long before Donald Trump entered the White House.”

Listen here: 

Meanwhile

People are all over Twitter pointing out how former President Bill Clinton not only threatened North Korea over their nuclear ambitions – he tried to sell them two nuclear reactors!

Bonus Gorka:

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CNN Thought Police Fire Conservative Jeffrey Lord After Satirical ‘Sieg Heil’ Tweet

Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:00pm EST 5

CNN has fired resident conservative and long time Trump defender Jeffrey Lord, after the pundit called Media Matters president Angelo Carusone a grammar nazi over Twitter – tweeting “Sieg Heil” in response to being corrected for improper spelling.

 

Many on the right feel that CNN caved to pressure from the Brock-founded / Soros-funded Media Matters in its decision.

Per CNN:

“Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”

Lord said his tweet was misunderstood. He said he was mocking fascists, not acting like one.

“I love CNN, but I feel they are caving to bullies here,” he said in a telephone interview shortly after the network’s decision was announced.

The MSM purge of conservative voices continues…

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Indeud

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