Seth Meyers slams Trump’s latest lies about everything from hurricanes to Iran

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“Oh my god, the fake news is coming from inside the house!”

In Monday night’s Closer Look, Seth Meyers traces the issues with the White House’s casual relationship with the truth all the way from Sharpiegate and Mike Pence’s assertion that a horse bit him, to Trump crying fake news on reports about a possible meeting with Iran literally just repeating what he himself said on camera. (He also connects the dots as to how all the Iran confusion has to do with appeasing Saudi Arabia.)

“If they’re willing to lie about something as dumb as a weather forecast or an interaction with a horse, what else are they lying about?” Read more…

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Furries ban Milo Yiannopoulos from FurFest convention

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Milo Yiannopoulos, far-right incendiary and professional complainer, has been banned from a furry convention. 

Yiannopoulos announced that he took on a “fursona” — alternate egos that furries adopt in the form of anthropomorphized animals — and bought tickets to the Midwest FurFest, a convention to “celebrate the furry fandom” just outside of Chicago in December. He posted it on the messaging app Telegram. According to Right Wing Watch, it’s one of the few social platforms that hasn’t kicked him off yet. 

He also suggested hosting a panel titled “The Politics of Fur,” according to the Telegram posts, and instructed his followers to contact him to set up “dinners, drinks, photos or anything else” if they were also in attendance.  Read more…

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See what AI really thinks of you with this deeply humbling website

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You are nothing more than a collection of deeply embarrassing and problematic machine learning-determined classifiers.

That humbling truth is brought home by ImageNet Roulette, an online tool that gives anyone bold or foolish enough to upload a photo the opportunity to learn just exactly how artificial intelligence sees them. The project, described as “a provocation” by its creators, aims to shed light on how artificial intelligence systems view and classify humans. 

And, surprise(!), AI has some pretty racist and misogynistic ideas about people. Or, rather, the dataset ImageNet Roulette draws from, ImageNet, is filled with problematic categories that reflect the bias often inherent in the large datasets that make machine learning possible.   Read more…

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Usher worried he was too old to play himself in glorious ‘Hustlers’ cameo

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There comes a time in every Hustlers showing when audiences must lose their shit, collectively, completely, and with no hope of return. 

Yes, I’m talking about the moment when “motherfucking Usher” shows up at the club. 

Appearing as a 2008 version of himself, the singer-songwriter cameos in this Robin Hood-esque tale of strippers besting their clients. A deadly combination of nostalgia, bravado, and sex appeal (with thematic resonance to boot), Usher’s brief Hustlers appearance is already being called the best celebrity cameo of the year — and with good reason. 

“It was our biggest day on set,” director and writer Lorene Scafaria recalls for Mashable. “Of course, we had 300 extras, we had a crane, and you have got to bring out the green lasers for Usher. We had all the girls on stage dancing. Honestly, I had tears in my eyes because it felt like a Renaissance painting. I just couldn’t believe how gorgeous it was to see them all up there together in front.”  Read more…

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Elon Musk’s defense against diver’s lawsuit: ‘Pedo guy’ just means ‘creepy old man’

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Elon Musk’s bizarre feud with a British cave diver, who he called a “pedo guy,” took a strange turn as the eccentric billionaire seeks to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought against him.

In court documents filed on Monday, Elon Musk’s defense team argues that the suit filed by diver Vernon Unsworth should be thrown out as Musk’s tweet calling the diver a “pedo guy” does not constitute defamation.

Among his team’s many arguments, Musk claims that he was not insinuating that Unsworth was a pedophile when he called him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.

“Mr. Musk testified that ‘pedo guy’ was a common insult used in South Africa during his youth,” says the filing. “It is synonymous with ‘creepy old man’ and aimed at mocking a person’s appearance and demeanor, not an accusation of pedophilia.” Read more…

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