Hasta La Gadget!

America’s newspaper of record ran a front-page article this past Thursday, “How Russia Often Benefits as Assange Reveals Secrets” that exemplifies the “New McCarthyism” at work.

The article insinuated without providing any concrete proof that Russian intelligence was behind the leaked emails pertaining to the Democratic National Committee’s efforts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders and ensure the nomination of Hillary Clinton.

The allegations are based on the claim by an unnamed CIA official that Wikileaks materials had the same bit of code and telltale metadata traced to previous intrusions attributed to Russian spy agencies.

The New York Times’ article quotes critics of Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who said he had become blinkered in his worldview while confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and a one dimensional critic of U.S. policy. The authors noted that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had taken up Assange’s cause and they criticized Assange for taking a critical view of Western political interference in the Ukraine.

During the era of Joseph McCarthy critics of U.S. government policy were similarly maligned for being anti-American or pro-Russian or communist if they raised serious ethical questions about U.S. policy. Many were also accused of being spies unfairly, including Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed by the state unjustly as recent evidence has confirmed.

FDR’s Vice-President Henry Wallace, one of the victims of McCarthyism, was smeared as a pro-communist and an apologist for Soviet premier Joseph Stalin simply because he believed that the Russians did not have the capacity to attack the U.S. and could be engaged with through diplomacy like any other country.

A trademark of McCarthy was to accuse someone of being a communist agent based on rumor, conjecture or fabricated evidence. The New York Times appears to have lowered itself to Mr. McCarthy’s standards as the article on Assange does not contain one bit of hard evidence the email leaks came from Russian government sources. There is only speculation and “belief” by U.S. intelligence agencies, which have a history of planting misinformation in the media in order to shape public opinion.

A cardinal rule of journalism is to present evidence to back up one’s story. Rumor or hearsay is no basis for charging somebody with something.

In this case, the Times employs a coy rhetorical trick. Since they have no actual evidence against Assange, they frame it that Russia “benefits” from his revelations and that the “agenda of Wikileaks and the Kremlin often overlap.” The effect is to equate Assange with Russia and vilify him, while blocking discussion about the Wikileaks revelations themselves and their implications.

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in their 1989 book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, emphasize the Times‘ historical role in promoting U.S. government interests in foreign affairs and marginalizing critics of the capitalist system. The Assange case fits directly into their analysis.

The “newspaper of record” and its pundits have supported Hillary Clinton from the beginning of the election campaign, and want to whitewash any evidence that the primary process was flawed. Fitting the interests of the military-industrial complex which needs an excuse to keep arms sales going, the Times has adopted a vendetta against Putin and supported the reckless Obama administration policies that have resulted in a new cold war.

The Nation Magazine, which has a proud tradition of standing up to McCarthyism, penned a strong editorial last month “Against Neo-McCarthyism.” It emphasized how critics of U.S. foreign policy and NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, including at varying points in his campaign, Donald Trump, have been accused of being Putin surrogates. Liberal Times writer Paul Krugman as a case in point asked in one of his columns if “Donald Trump would be Vladimir Putin’s man in the White House if elected?,” insinuating he was some kind of Manchurian candidate.

James Kirchick in The Daily Beast meanwhile accused progressive critics of Clinton’s foreign policy of being closet Trump supporters” and by implication “Putin’s pawns.”

This is another example of a disturbing trend whose net effect is to limit rational dialogue and debate on major social problems and to threaten revival of a political culture reminiscent of America’s dark-age.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

We’ll all seen it in various Police and Espionage dramas: some horribly blurry or pixelated image is taking from an equally horrible surveillance camera and after “enhancement” a face come out of it. For years, many of us have laughed at these movie scenes, and rightly so, because there is simply not enough original information to reconstruct an image that is clear and sharp from a blobby bunch of pixels. Each group of four images A, B, C, D, represent (from left to right):

• A:16×16 input
• B: a blurred version of A
• C: computer generated image
• D: clear photo of the person blurred in A

However, the image presented here shows something very interesting: how an AI using deep learning and a lot of face photos (130,000) can “guess” what a very pixelated face may end up looking like. You can find the sources from David Garcia on github. This is somewhat to having AI create art from what the computer has seen before, which has been demonstrated before.

Based on all the face that is has seen, the Deep Learning AI will generate a clear image of what the face would “probably” look like, based on the blurry 16×16 input image. The output result is a 64×64 image with clearly defined face features.

First of all, you will see that the likeness of each computer-generated photo does not exactly match the actual, real photo. However, the quality is surprisingly good, especially since the training dataset of images is relatively small (a large one would be hundreds of millions or billions).

The computer-generated images are the equivalent of an artistic rendering which is based on really geeky science, which is something like “from all the humans I’ve seen, this blob would resemble this computer-generated one”.

Although these images cannot be considered and be used as “proof” (they’re not!) they can prove useful as the equivalent of a super-fancy sketch artist. The important part is to remember that the generated image is a loosely close rendering and not a person.

OF course, I’m being sarcastic about apologizing about how laughable some of the movie depiction of “photo image enhancement” are sometimes, but this is yet the closest thing to what Hollywood has been showing for years, and it will get only much better with time.

Apologize for Mocking CSI’s “Photo Enhance” All These Years , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Here comes a new line of WiFi-enabled portable HDDs from Buffalo, the HDW-PDU3-C. Available in two different storage capacities: 1TB and 2TB, these travel-friendly portable HDDs has a USB 3.0 connection interface, a micro-USB charging port and built-in WiFi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity – can stream wirelessly to up to eight devices.

Powered by a built-in high-capacity 3020mAh lithium polymer battery (can be functioned as a power bank for charging mobile devices), the HDW-PDU3-C HDDs comes with a dedicated free of charge app ‘MiniStation Air 2’ for accessing image, video and audio from your smartphone or tablet via WiFi connectivity.

The Buffalo HDW-PDU3-C portable HDDs will start shipping from late September for 25,500 Yen / $247 (1TB model) and 34,400 Yen / $333 (2TB model), respectively. [Product Page]

The post Buffalo HDW-PDU3-C WiFi-Enabled Portable HDDs appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.

The first time I got married, it was 1971. I was in junior college and I hated it.
I didn’t even apply to a four-year college because I didn’t care. All of my friends were going to UC campuses and my parents had saved for me to go to college. My aunt and sister had gone to Berkeley…it just wasn’t in me.

I did not find school to be a learning experience, but rather a corral for the young. I’m young, why do homework? It wasn’t until I was 33 and wanted to go to cooking school that I found passion for learning. Cooking kept me out of jail. While others needed socialization or philosophy or life learning, I only needed to know the secrets to a perfect bernaise. I’m simple in the head.

My mother invited 400 of her closest friends to my wedding, my father reserved his club, (a beautiful old mansion in my hometown) and mailed fancy, expensive ecru wedding invitations. The invitations also included stamped enclosure cards, steak or chicken entree options, and a piece of silky see-through paper that I never did know the purpose of. I promised my mother I would shave under my arms and maybe, maybe my legs. And yes, get a manicure.

I was a semi-hippie. I met Janis Joplin, knew Bill Graham, wore ugly sandals, but still loved luxuries. Marin County princesses die hard, even during the societal revolution.

We went to Saks Fifth Avenue in Union Square to shop for THE dress. Of course we did. My mother was raised poor and both of my sisters eloped. This wedding was her moment. Her parents killed her pet rooster during the depression, and served it. I think his name was Pepe. She needed beauty. Handmade lace, an ecru veil and a huge train were in order.

I did not care. I loved my mother, deeply. I understood her. Sometimes as tastefully as she could, she showed off. “There is no such thing as vulgar when it comes to the size of a diamond.”

Fine. I would look like an ecru meringue for a day.

My groom was handsome. I loved him more than bacon. He was the college boyfriend, after my high school dream boyfriend left. Looking back, we were just too fucking young to get married. But we held love in buckets. Our life would be a beautiful dream. Our first home really was a dream. We ordered Harvest Gold appliances and matching shag carpet. It’s almost impossible not to be jealous, even now.

The dream choked to death after seven years. We got divorced. It hurt. So much. The appliances were still under the premium warranty program.

I lived for more than a decade as a single woman. I built my own life. Then, a second marriage. New dreams. Husband number two and I will celebrate our shiny, silver anniversary next year. It has been what I wanted the first time. I just had to grow up to get there and respect it.

I have a sister who has always been my angel. Always. Pretty, sensitive and so very kind. She left the first message, “Neesey, call me. I don’t want to leave this on your voicemail.” (Remember, we are Italians, we like to build the drama. It’s operatic, really.)

“Honey, Randy died.” I had no idea who she was talking about. Then she said, “Randy, Randy Kline died.” Crap. My first husband. He had a heart attack in his car, on the way to Oregon where he volunteered his time as a dentist on an Indian reservation. Crap. I have to look at the old dream.

I was fine all day. I did my work. I did my job. I ran my business. I pushed my life forward. At about four in the afternoon, I emailed my original bridesmaids and my dear friend that caught my wedding bouquet and said, “I’m almost widowed.” Then I cried.

I felt weird and sad and my darling girlfriends sent me all the right messages. “Of course you’re sad, you grew-up together.” “He was your husband, how could you not be sad?” And unexpected kindness came from hometown people. The world did not seem so very big or my past so far away.

The nicest moment was when Randy’s sister, Becky, responded to an email to tell me how lovely it was to hear from me and said that she often told her kids what I taught her. “Denise, my first sister-in-law, made this delicious chicken dish. She called it, Almost Chicken Divine.”

Denise Vivaldo is the author of eight cookbooks, all available on Amazon.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Despite its initial success, Pokémon Go has been struggling to maintain its popularity. The game’s active users have shrunk by more than 10 million from its mid-July peak, which makes keeping the remaining players engaged that much more import…