Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Twitter Adds New Restrictions To Crack Down On Spam, ‘Misinformation’ Ahead Of Election Day

Following in the footsteps of Facebook, which last month announced plans to launch its long-promised “oversight board” before Nov. 3, Twitter has announced that it’s planning a raft of measures, including making it more difficult for tweets to go viral ahead of the vote, to ensure that social media doesn’t contribute to any election day violence.

According to a blog post published around noon on Friday, one of the ‘speed bumps’ being implemented by twitter will prompt users to add a “comment” when they go to share – or retweet – a tweet. The move is designed to slow the rapid-fire retweeting of others” – a behavior that President Trump, one of the world’s most famous Twitter users, has occasionally exhibited.

Twitter’s recommendations and trends features will see “new curbs” added to try and prevent abuse.

“Twitter has a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of the election conversation, and we encourage candidates, campaigns, news outlets and voters to use Twitter respectfully and to recognize our collective responsibility to the electorate to guarantee a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process this November,” company officials said in a blog post – written by Vijaya Gadde, the Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead at Twitter, and Kayvon Beykpour, its product lead – published at noon Friday.

Politicians, including President Trump, will be subjected to new restrictions if they start to share “falsehoods” according to Twitter. If they continue sharing “false” information – aka information that challenges the Democratic narrative – the accounts will be hit with “additional warnings and restrictions”.

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Brandon Caserta, accused of Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot: Trump is a ‘tyrant’

One of the militiamen accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer railed that President Trump was a “tyrant” and called all government workers “your enemy.”

Video circulating on social media appears to show Brandon Caserta expressing his anti-government — and anti-Trump — views.

“Trump is not your friend, dude,” Caserta says, with an anarchist flag hanging behind him. “It amazes me that people actually, like, believe that when he’s shown over and over and over again that he’s a tyrant. Every single person that works for government is your enemy, dude.”

He also ranted about “getting robbed by government thugs for some made-up traffic violation” after receiving a traffic ticket.

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Defense to Outfit and Steer Military Dogs with Augmented Reality Goggles

U.S. military dogs might one day be equipped with augmented reality goggles that their human servicemember partners can remotely provide guiding commands through during dangerous rescue operations or explosive device hunts.

Seattle-based small business Command Sight produced a technological prototype that could enhance troops’ safety by enabling exactly that, and some say it could fundamentally transform how the U.S. military’s canines are deployed down the line. Having completed a phase I project developing the prototype via a Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR, program steered by the Army Research Office, the company was selected for funding through phase II, to further refine the potential product. 

“The military working dog community is very excited about the potential of this technology,” ARO senior scientist Dr. Stephen Lee said in an announcement published Tuesday. “[It] really cuts new ground and opens up possibilities that we haven’t considered yet.”

When it comes to heeding instructions from the people that lead them, military working dogs generally follow hand signals, laser pointers, or walkie talkies and cameras strapped to their own bodies—all of which can lead to confusion for the animals or risk of unwanted exposure for humans. But the new prototype offers human handlers the ability to see from the dog’s point of view, and a means to give commands while staying completely out of sight. 

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Did The WHO Just (Accidentally) Confirm COVID Is No More Dangerous Than Flu?

The World Health Organization has finally confirmed what we (and many experts and studies) have been saying for months – the coronavirus is no more deadly or dangerous than seasonal flu.

The WHO’s top brass made this announcement during a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board on Monday October 5th, it’s just nobody seemed to really understand it.

In fact, they didn’t seem to completely understand it themselves.

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