June 3, 2016

Is life a video game? | Elon Musk | Code Conference 2016

June 3, 2016

Boy missing after parents left him in a forest has been found, Japanese police say

Source: LA Times

mall boy whose disappearance in northern Japan engrossed the nation for six days and launched a discussion about what constitutes child abuse has been found unhurt, authorities said.

His parents had let him out of their car on the side of a mountain road Saturday night and drove away to punish him for having thrown rocks at cars earlier that day, according to national media accounts. They reportedly returned five minutes later to find that he was gone.

The state broadcaster NHK reported Friday morning that a search party found the boy, 7-year-old Yamato Tanooka, uninjured in the town of Shikabecho, about four miles from where he had been left on the island of Hokkaido. Police confirmed that he was found.

The boy told the police that soon after being abandoned he found shelter in a hut that was part of a national defense force training facility, according to the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-boy-missing-japan-forest-found-20160602-snap-story.html

June 2, 2016

Giant Alligator Roaming around Golf Course

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e7_1464646590

June 1, 2016

US election 2016: Why Hillary Clinton could lose Democratic nomination to Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton could lose the race for Democratic nominee as the focus shifts to California, where an influx of voter registrations threatens to derail her lead over Bernie Sanders.

Mr Sanders will be looking to the state to boost his campaign with news of a further 1.5 million people registering to vote since January this year.

The latest statistics from the Institute of California will be encouraging to Mr Sanders as a big win in the 7 June California primary, where the candidates are currently virtually deadlocked, could hand him hundreds more delegates. Mr Sanders currently has 1,501 pledged delegates to Ms Clinton's 1,769.

The influx of additional registrants – a 218 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2012 – is likely to include large numbers of young voters and could make this scenario a reality.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/us-elections-hillary-clinton-could-lose-democratic-nomination-to-bernie-sanders-a7059076.html

May 31, 2016

Television Networks Struggle to Provide Equal Airtime in the Era of Trump

Donald Trump relishes the spotlight of live television. Hillary Clinton has long recoiled from it. Now, the television news industry is wrestling with how to balance fairness, credibility and the temptations of sky-high ratings as it prepares for a presidential matchup like none other.

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has become a daily fixture on influential programs, startling producers by even personally calling control rooms to shape coverage.

Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, is not absent from cable news; she called in to CNN and MSNBC last week to rebut attacks from her rival. But she remains leery of TV’s unscripted nature, appearing far less often than Mr. Trump and irking some bookers who complain about the difficulties of luring her on the air.

For broadcasters, turning down an interview with a candidate is anathema to a news culture trained to pursue maximum access. Yet the starkly different strategies of the candidates are straining the industry’s bedrock notions of evenhandedness.

“The two candidates are running two different kinds of races,” said John Dickerson, the moderator of “Face the Nation” on CBS, who has interviewed both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump on his show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/business/media/television-networks-struggle-to-provide-equal-airtime-in-the-era-of-trump.html

Posted to GDP cause is mention Hillary.

May 31, 2016

Rise of Ad-Blocking Software Threatens Online Revenue

Many of the world’s largest Internet companies, like Google and Facebook, rely heavily on advertising to finance their online empires.

But that business model is increasingly coming under threat, with one in five smartphone users, or almost 420 million people worldwide, blocking advertising when browsing the web on cellphones. That represents a 90 percent annual increase, according to a new report from PageFair, a start-up that helps to recoup some of this lost advertising revenue, and Priori Data, a company that tracks smartphone applications.

The use of ad-blocking software has divided the online world. Supporters say it allows people to get better access to content without having to suffer through abrasive ads. Opponents, particularly companies that rely on advertising, say blocking ads violates the implicit contract that people agree to when viewing online material, much of which is paid for by digital advertising.

Mobile ad blockers, though, have become particularly widespread in emerging markets, where people are more reliant on their smartphones to use the Internet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/business/international/smartphone-ad-blocking-software-mobile.html

Threatens revenue, but more importantly for the PTB disconnects the public from their messaging. On mobile devices I've been really happy using the purify app to block all the ads.

May 31, 2016

Holder says Edward Snowden performed a 'public service'

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents.

"We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made," Holder told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

"Now I would say that doing what he did -- and the way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal," Holder added.

Holder said Snowden jeopardized America's security interests by leaking classified information while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency in 2013.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/30/politics/axe-files-axelrod-eric-holder/index.html

May 30, 2016

Clinton adds more campaign stops to avert a Sanders upset in California

Source: Washington Post


NEW YORK -- Hillary Clinton has upended her campaign schedule, adding more stops in California, in an effort to prevent an embarrassing loss there to Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton originally planned to campaign for two days this week in New Jersey, but at the last minute canceled an event on Thursday and will instead return to California for a five-day swing.

The schedule change comes as Sanders has barnstormed California, not leaving the state in more than a week. Meanwhile, a recent poll found the race closing significantly. Clinton's lead over Sanders had narrowed to just two points.

Details are scarce, but Clinton now plans to hold events in California from Thursday until the day before the state's June 7 primary.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/30/clinton-adds-more-campaign-stops-to-avert-a-sanders-upset-in-california/

May 30, 2016

Japan parents left missing boy in woods 'as punishment'

The parents of a seven-year-old boy missing in the mountains of northern Japan have admitted that they left him alone in the woods as a punishment.

The child has not been seen for two days, since his parents abandoned him in northern Hokkaido, a region home to wild bears.

The couple first told police he got lost as they foraged for vegetables.

But they later confessed they had left him alone for five minutes to punish
him but when they returned he had gone.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36408641

May 30, 2016

Did Sanders just concede the nomination?

Sanders warns Clinton to pick a true progressive running mate


Bernie Sanders cautioned Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in an interview aired Sunday that she will lose the backing of his many supporters unless she picks a hardline progressive as her running mate.

"That means having a candidate who can excite working families, excite young people, bring them into the political process, create a large voter turnout," the Vermont senator said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Clinton's lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is nearly insurmountable, but Sanders has continued to win primaries and draws far larger and more raucous crowds to his rallies.

The 74-year-old senator has mobilized large numbers of young voters and self-identified independents -- areas where Clinton hopes to make inroads before the November election.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sanders-warns-clinton-pick-true-progressive-running-mate-144036878.html

If she doesn't win she doesn't pick, sounds like he's conceding.