Feb 20
The announcement came months after the comedian was widely criticized for making transphobic jokes in his special “The Closer.”
Feb 20
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, after being accused by Tesla CEO Elon Musk this week of conducting a “harassment campaign” against him, has responded with a reminder to Musk that this level of federal scrutiny was part of the deal he agreed to after his shitposting landed him in hot water.
Feb 20
Microsoft opened Activision acquisition talks three days after CEO harassment report
Posted in: Today's ChiliWhen Microsoft announced it would spend $68.7 billion to buy Activision Blizzard to bolster its Xbox gaming division, the news came as a surprise to many. For months, the troubled publisher had been in headlines stemming from the workplace sexual harassment lawsuit filed by California’s fair employment agency in July. The bad press hit a fever pitch on November 16th after The Wall Street Journal published a report that asserted Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had not only known about many of the incidents of sexual harassment that had occured at the company but had also acted to protect those who were responsible for the abuse.
Days after that article came out, Xbox chief Phil Spencer reportedly told employees he was “distributed and deeply troubled by the horrific events and actions” that allegedly took place at Activision Blizzard and that Microsoft would re-evaluate its relationship with the publisher. It’s one day after that email that Spencer called Kotick to start the process that would end with Microsoft announcing plans to buy Activision Blizzard some two months later, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing first spotted by CNBC.
Starting on page 31 of the document, Microsoft devotes nearly 10 pages detailing the timeline of its talks with Activision. According to the filing, Spencer told Kotick during their November 19th phone call that “Microsoft was interested in discussing strategic opportunities” between the two companies and asked if he had time to talk to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the following day. That Saturday, November 20th, Nadella made it clear Microsoft hoped to purchase the publisher, stating the company was “interested in exploring a strategic combination with Activision Blizzard.”
It turns out the quick pace at which the talks moved was mainly due to all the other companies interested in buying up Activision Blizzard after its stock dived in November. At least four other companies contacted the publisher about a possible acquisition. None of them are named in the SEC filing. However, one notably wanted to just buy Blizzard. Activision didn’t move forward with that option because the company’s board of directors deemed the sale would have been too difficult to pull off.
The document also details the terms of the purchase agreement. If the deal doesn’t go through due to antitrust complications, Microsoft has agreed to pay Activision Blizzard a termination fee of up $3 billion. A few years ago, that’s a possibility Microsoft probably wouldn’t have had to worry about too much, but 2022 finds the company in a very different regulatory environment. At the start of the month, NVIDIA abandoned a $40 billion bid to buy ARM after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the purchase. President Biden appointed Lina Khan, the Commission’s current chair, to the position on the strength of her experience in antitrust law. When the NVIDIA-ARM deal fell through, the agency specifically noted it was “significant” because it “represents the first abandonment of a litigated vertical merger in many years.”
Feb 20
Dramatic video shows the aircraft going down as beachgoers sunbathed and splashed in the water nearby.
Feb 19
Oath Keepers Leader Stewart Rhodes To Remain In Jail Until Capitol Attack Trial
Posted in: Today's ChiliThe far-right militant “presents a clear and convincing danger,” a federal judge said.
Feb 19
With help from machine learning software, computer scientists may have unmasked the identity of Q, the founder of the QAnon movement. In a sprawling report published on Saturday, The New York Times shared the findings of two independent teams of forensic linguists who claim they’ve identified Paul Furber, a South African software developer who was one of the first to draw attention to the conspiracy theory, as the original writer behind Q. They say Arizona congressional candidate Ron Watkins also wrote under the pseudonym, first by collaborating with Furber and then later taking over the account when it eventually moved to post on his father’s 8chan message board.
The two teams of Swiss and French researchers used different methodologies to come to the same conclusion. The Swiss one, made up of two researchers from startup OrphAnalytics, used software to break down Q’s missives into patterns of three-character sequences. They then tracked how often those sequences repeated. The French team, meanwhile, trained an AI to look for patterns in Q’s writing. Both techniques broadly fall under an approach known as stylometry that looks to analyze writing in a way that is measurable, consistent and replicable. To avoid the possibility of confusing their respective programs, the teams limited their analysis to social media posts. Among all the other possible authors they put through the test, they say the writing of Furber and Watkins stood out the most for how similar it was that of Q’s.
And they’re confident in that identification. The French team made of computational linguists Florian Cafiero and Jean-Baptiste Camps told The Times their software correctly identified Furber’s writing in 98 percent of tests and Watkins’ in 99 percent. “At first most of the text is by Furber,” said Cafiero. “But the signature of Ron Watkins increased during the first few months as Paul Furber decreased and then dropped completely.”
People have previously used machine learning software to identify Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling as the secret writer of Cuckoo’s Calling, a 2013 crime fiction novel Rowling wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. More broadly, law enforcement agencies have successfully used stylometry in a variety of criminal cases, including by the FBI to show that Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber.
Experts The Times spoke to – including Professor Patrick Juola, the computer scientist who identified Rowling as the author of Cuckoo’s Calling – told they found the findings credible and persuasive. “What’s really powerful is the fact that both of the two independent analyses showed the same overall pattern,” Juola said.
Both Furber and Watkins deny they wrote any of Q’s messages. “I am not Q,” the latter told The Times. Furber, meanwhile, said he was influenced by Q’s posts to change the style of his prose, a claim linguistic experts told the outlet was “implausible.” Also worth mentioning is the fact the analysis included tweets from Furber that date from the earliest days of Q’s existence.
What happens next is unclear. The researchers who worked on the identification told The Times they hope unmasking Q will loosen QAnon’s hold on people. Spreading like wildfire on social media, the conspiracy theory has had a profound effect on politics in the US and other parts of the world. And while Q hasn’t posted a new message since the end of 2020, that hasn’t dampened people’s enthusiasm for conspiracies about the “deep state” and its involvement in their lives.
Feb 19
The actor is set to reprise his role as Michael Lane in the next installment of the franchise, “Magic Mike’s Last Dance.”
Feb 19
FDA Is Reportedly Considering Whether to Approve a Second Booster Shot for This Fall
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis fall, you may be able to get a second covid-19 booster shot along with your annual flu vaccine.
Feb 19
A hefty black bear has caused “extensive” damage in a wealthy neighborhood of South Lake Tahoe. Now his fate is on the line.
Feb 19
While The Batman is treading fairly well worn ground with its title hero having some experience into his career as a superhero detective, its chief villain is another story. Paul Dano’s serial killer take on the Riddler is something of new ground for the green baddie, and it’s a new angle that Dano apparently nearly…
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