July 19, 2021

Ex-Student Charged with computer crimes After Putting Hitler Quotation in Yearbook

Ex-Student Charged After Putting Hitler Quotation in Yearbook, Police Say
The 18-year-old was charged with computer crimes after he used a school database to also alter another yearbook entry to refer to a Boston Marathon bomber, the police said.


Hollister Tryon, 18, a former student at Glastonbury High School, was arrested last week and charged with two counts of third-degree computer crimes, the police said.

Sometime before the yearbook’s publication in October, the police said, Mr. Tryon gained access to the database containing yearbook quotations submitted by students.

The police say he changed a student’s quotation to one attributed to Hitler, while misattributing it to George Floyd, whose murder in Minneapolis last year prompted nationwide calls for police reform.




Another student’s yearbook entry was changed by Mr. Tryon, the police said, to refer to drugs and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon attack that killed three people.

School officials in Glastonbury, which is about 10 miles southeast of Hartford, were made aware of the quotations in May, after the yearbooks were distributed, the police said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/nyregion/hitler-yearbook-glastonbury-connecticut.html

July 19, 2021

Video games are a labor disaster

Because these games are so complex, they are often quite unfinished or bug-ridden very close to their scheduled release dates. Video games are constantly delayed, but they cannot be delayed forever, especially if a large corporation’s earnings report depends on selling a lot of a heavily marketed video game. So many studios enter a period of grueling overwork and mandatory overtime. The practice is so common in the industry that it is simply known as “crunch.” A few years ago, one major studio founder actually bragged about enduring 100-hour workweeks in the period leading up to a major new game’s release. Reporting from Schreier and others calling attention to the exploitative nature of “crunch” led many studios to announce new policies banning the practice, but they are self-policing, and crunch in some cases simply may be outsourced to smaller studios, often overseas, away from the prying eyes of American reporters.

After the game is released comes the other problem: Now there is a studio full of expensive video game developers who are no longer developing a video game. (This is one reason why so many publishers develop franchises with annual or semiannual releases, like professional sports titles or war games with dependably high-selling new installments released almost every year.) This can lead to mass layoffs, and, as documented in Press Reset, studio closures, which can afflict even studios that release commercially and artistically successful games.

Irrational Games, creator of BioShock, one of the most critically acclaimed video games in history, was shuttered shortly after the release of a well-reviewed and bestselling sequel, BioShock Infinite, when the studio’s co-founder Ken Levine decided to move on to other projects. Irrational’s parent company determined it couldn’t afford to lose Levine, but the people who actually made his popular games were disposable. In another case, Big Huge Games, a studio Schilling purchased that actually managed to release a game, nonetheless closed along with 38 Studios. Then the publisher Epic Games rescued about a third of its employees to form a new studio—only to close that studio a few months later, meaning the same people experienced mass layoffs twice in less than a year.

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Even though video game workers are highly skilled, finding the next job is far from straightforward. Video game studios are located in cities around the world, with the North American segment of the industry in particular having no clear-cut industry town. The globalized, geographically scattered nature of the games business means it resists metonymy, which not even Silicon Valley can boast. Many workers are forced to uproot their lives each time they change jobs. After being laid off in Providence, Jennifer Mills “moved back to Boston (where she was laid off), then to Texas (where she was laid off), and then to Seattle,” where, Schreier reports, she found some stability, but still felt “looming doom.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/162606/video-games-curt-schilling-jason-schreier

July 19, 2021

whatever happened to Stacy Koon? (supervising LAPD at scene of Rodney King beating 30 years ago!!)

recent DUI... looks like he' would be finishing up probation in 2021.


Former LAPD Sgt. Stacey Koon — who served time in prison in connection with the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King — pleaded no contest Wednesday to a misdemeanor DUI count stemming from his May 1 arrest in the Castaic area.

Koon, 67, was immediately sentenced to three years probation, a three-month DUI class and a $390 fine plus penalty assessments. He was also ordered to install an ignition interlock device on his vehicle following his plea to a count of driving with a 0.08 percent blood alcohol content, according to Ricardo Santiago of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

A second misdemeanor charge — driving under the influence of an alcoholic beverage — was dismissed.


TMZ.com reported that Koon crashed his 1999 GMC Yukon into a parked 2004 Ford Super Duty pickup truck on Heather Lane, west of Greenwood Place, on May 1. He was subsequently arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, then booked at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Santa Clarita Valley station and released.

https://mynewsla.com/crime/2018/10/03/former-lapd-sergeant-stacey-koon-pleads-no-contest-in-dui-case/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacey_Koon

Stacey Cornell Koon (born November 23, 1950) is a former sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department and one of the four police officers who were responsible in the 1991 Rodney King incident.

After his prison release


Koon eventually moved to Castaic, north of Los Angeles.[3] In 2012, he began working as a chauffeur in Los Angeles for the limousine company Music Express where his patrons have included former U.S. vice president Al Gore, and political commentator D. L. Hughley as well as other prominent Hollywood writers.[12][13]

Both Koon and fellow LAPD officer Laurence Powell have been used as symbols of racism in hip hop and related music. He is referenced by rap metal band Rage Against the Machine in their song "Vietnow",[14] and is mentioned in Ice Cube's songs "Really Doe" and "We Had to Tear This Motherfucka Up." Koon was also namechecked in The Simpsons episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts" by conservative commentator Birch Barlow as an example of someone "railroaded by our liberal justice system" alongside Sideshow Bob, Oliver North, and Joe Camel. He was parodied twice in 1993 by Jim Carrey on the American sketch comedy television series In Living Color.

In 2007, Time magazine profiled Koon as it marked the 15th anniversary of the riots.[3] They reported that, since his release, he had been living on the royalties from his book.

In 2018, Koon was arrested for driving under the influence in Santa Clarita, California.[15] Koon pleaded guilty and received a sentence of three years' probation and was required to install an alcohol interlock on his vehicle.[16]

July 19, 2021

'Privileged' unemployed man is slammed for tweeting he resents his parents for 'spoiling' him

'Privileged' unemployed man is slammed for tweeting he resents his parents for 'spoiling' him by giving him $100K, paying for his college tuition and financially supporting him

Qiaochu Yuan took to Twitter on Thursday to share his realizations after taking 'a medium dose of acid'

He wrote in a 35-tweet thread that his parents have always provided for him financially to show their love, but have sheltered him from financial reality

Last August, he said his mom gave him a $100,000 birthday present, after already paying for his MIT education out of pocket
Yuan said he is now living in an AirBnB and has not had a job in three years

He said he realized during his acid trip that the only consequences he faces to losing all his money is that it would create a burden for his parents
After tweeting his thoughts, many people attacked him for being out of touch with the reality of many Americans


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9800091/Spoiled-rich-man-slammed-tweeting-resents-parents-giving-100k.html

July 19, 2021

Rudy Giuliani was so 'incredibly drunk' on election night that Trump aides worried he'd smash valuab

Rudy Giuliani was so 'incredibly drunk' on election night that Trump aides worried he'd smash valuable White House china, Michael Wolff says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rudy-giuliani-was-so-incredibly-drunk-on-election-night-that-trump-aides-worried-hed-smash-valuable-white-house-china-michael-wolff-says/ar-AAMfQ3X

Rudy Giuliani was "incredibly drunk" on election night, according to biographer Michael Wolff.
Trump aides worried that the former New York City mayor would smash valuable White House china, Wolff said.

Giuliani was "always buzzed" and Trump had concerns about his drinking, Wolff claims in his new book.


Rudy Giuliani was so drunk on election night that former President Donald Trump's aides were concerned he'd accidentally smash valuable White House china, presidential biographer Michael Wolff told MSNBC.

Wolff described how on the night of November 3, 2020, the former New York City mayor was struggling to maintain his balance while trying to convince others that Trump had won re-election.

At one point, he was pulled aside into the White House's china room by several aides of the former president, Raw Story reported. "And at that moment, Rudy was incredibly drunk, weaving this way and that way," Wolff told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Friday afternoon.

July 19, 2021

More Victims Of LAPD's Botched Fireworks Explosion In South LA File Claims Against City

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/07/18/more-victims-of-lapds-botched-fireworks-explosion-in-south-la-file-claims-against-city/



SOUTH LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – More victims of the Los Angeles Police Department’s botched fireworks explosion in South LA that wounded 17 people and displaced residents in the blast zone have no filed claim for damages against the city.

The massive explosion happened on June 30, after police seized illegal fireworks from a home in the 700 block of 27th Street and attempted to use a total containment vehicle to detonate just 10 pounds of the explosives.



Attorney’s representing the some of the victims said they have filed more than a dozen claims, but they have yet to get a response from the city or LAPD.


According to one victim, she and her family are now sleeping in a shoe store they own down the street because they have nowhere else to go.

July 18, 2021

Condo owner sees damage similar to Surfside

July 18, 2021

'Number one cultural issue': GOP turns to critical race theory in push to win back suburbs

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article252807478.html

“In suburban areas, the number one cultural issue is critical race theory. The suburbs are on fire with anger,” said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist who works on congressional races. “We are at the beginning of this issue, not the end.”

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Conservatives often use it as an umbrella term to argue that public schools are teaching children liberal ideologies and that the United States is an inherently racist country.

The conservative Fox News mentioned critical race theory 901 times on air in June, the liberal group Media Matters found, up from 537 times in May and 226 times in April. At least seven Republican-led state legislatures have passed legislation opposed to the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 classrooms this year, according to the Brookings Institution.

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Republicans are trying to harness that energy for next year’s midterms as they seek to take control of the U.S. House and Senate, where Democrats hold narrow majorities.

“Critical race theory has so many legs right now,” said Republican pollster Robert Blizzard. “It’s combining cultural frustration GOP voters have nationally with local concerns.”

July 18, 2021

Capitol rioter's bail revoked, send prob officer 'frightening' voicemails about size of genitalia

Capitol rioter's bail was revoked after he left his probation officer 'frightening' voicemails about the size of his genitalia

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-capitol-rioter-s-bail-was-revoked-after-he-left-his-probation-officer-frightening-voicemails-about-the-size-of-his-genitalia/ar-AAMgvuw?ocid=msedgntp
A District of Columbia judge revoked bail for an accused Capitol rioter on Thursday after he allegedly sent "problematic" and sexually explicit voicemails to his probation officer, CBS News reported.


Brandon Fellows, from New York, had previously been released on bail while facing a five-count indictment for his alleged role in the January 6 insurrection.

The 27-year-old is accused of breaching the Capitol and entering the office of Sen. Jeffrey Merkley, where he was pictured propping his feet on the senator's desk while smoking a joint.


Fellows' probation officer Kendra Rennie testified on Wednesday that he reportedly sent her long rambling voicemails while he was on bail and even called her mother once as a form of "intimidation," CBS reported.

Some of the messages were sexually explicit in nature, including one specific voicemail that he left in May in which he referenced "the size of his genitalia and the performance of his genitalia," according to CBS.

July 18, 2021

surfside condo collapse has faded from news

97 recovered bodies.

https://www.wptv.com/news/state/miami-dade/another-victim-identified-in-collapse-of-surfside-condominium