Facebook created AI to read all the memes

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There are so many memes on Facebook and Instagram that the company has enlisted its artificial intelligence to help understand them.

In a blog post, Facebook developers say they have created a dedicated AI tool, called Rosetta, to read the text that appears in memes (and other images and video frames) that are shared to Facebook and Instagram.

SEE ALSO: Americans’ relationship status with Facebook: ‘It’s Complicated’

At face value, understanding memes might not seem like the most important problem for AI to solve. But Facebook’s researchers point out that the technology, which is designed to recognize depicted text in a wide variety of languages, has many practical uses. Read more…

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Norm Macdonald’s sob story about Louis C.K. and Roseanne Barr doesn’t add up

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“There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day.”

That’s Norm Macdonald speaking to The Hollywood Reporter. He apparently urged the disgraced Louis C.K. to call Roseanne Barr after a racist tweet resulted in her losing her job (and the respect of many of her fans). Macdonald felt the two would have a lot to talk about.

SEE ALSO: The Louis C.K. apologists are missing the point

“They both said they had a good conversation and were just giving any advice you could give to each other. There would be no way for me to even understand that advice, because who has ever gone through such a thing? All their work in their entire life being wiped out in a single day, a moment,” he said. Read more…

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Juul is playing whack-a-mole with counterfeiters selling fake vapes to kids

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It’s a sue and be sued world out there!

In August, Juul Labs filed trademark claims against 30 entities in China selling counterfeit Juul products on Ebay. Now, the company has announced that a federal court granted the company a temporary restraining order over the accounts, and froze the counterfeiters’ PayPals. Take that, counterfeiters!

SEE ALSO: This anti-smoking giant is taking on Juul

For Juul, this isn’t a simple matter of copyright infringement, though. The company is fighting to reduce teenage use of the product, especially in light of a FDA investigation into why teens love Juuls so much (and whether that’s Juul’s fault). And maintaining control over online sales that are age-verified is a crucial component of that campaign. Read more…

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Hero fights off weed dispensary robbers with a bong

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This hero defended his dispensary against a squad of robbers, brandishing a bong against their bear spray until they were forced out of the store. 

And it was all caught on video. 

CCTV footage, posted by YouTuber Big Daddy Dishrags, shows the mystery hero walking into a cannabis shop in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Canada with an impossible tiny dog trailing behind him. There’s just under a minute of peace and quiet in the little cannabis shop as our hero and his colleague work behind the counter. 

SEE ALSO: These stoner hackers want machine learning to save us from sick weed

Then a crew of four robbers “brandishing canisters of bear spray,” according to the police report, burst into the store.  Read more…

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How to watch football (and other sports) live without cable or a TV

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Let’s be honest, there are few feelings that can match the rush of watching live as your favorite  team catches a pass in the end zone, snags a game winning run in the bottom of the ninth, or gets a sudden KO in the middle of the octagon. Even seeing these major moments an hour later — or worse, catching wind of them on Twitter — is enough to cause despair. 

SEE ALSO: Best places to watch anime online

But how do you watch live sports if you don’t have cable — or even a TV? The good news is that you don’t have to rely on cable anymore in order to follow your favorite sports teams live, and these services prove that. Read more…

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7 of the best dating sites for lesbians (and why they are actually good)

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Online dating as a lesbian, for the most part, still involves having to deal with men. Many sites continue to surface guys as potential mates, despite setting your preferences otherwise.

SEE ALSO: 12 of the best online dating sites for geeks, nerds, sci-fi buffs, and more

Up until recently, some of the nation has acted as though lesbianism didn’t exist outside of porn and Ellen Degeneres, and acted as if girls only turn to dating women if they had a bad experience with a man. This, of course, is not true.

If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you’ve experienced the frustration with dating sites and apps that claim to be inclusive to all sexual orientations, only to realize that some closeted quirks make it obvious that the straights are the target. Read more…

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10 of the best dating sites for working professionals

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There are three realizations you come to once you enter the real world as a working adult: 

1. A 9 to 5 job is rarely ever just 9 to 5.

2. Your free time is pretty limited.

3. Dating sucks.

The social freedoms you enjoyed before joining the rat race take a hit once you’re working for The Man. Unfortunately for singles, this can be hazardous for your dating life. 

For busy professionals, the idea of “finding someone” might seem like a daunting task. With deadlines, work dinners, and meetings galore, trying to meet someone often falls to the very end of your to do list. This is why dating apps were invented though: to make online dating way easier, enabling you to use your free time wisely. (Waiting for a meeting to start? Swipe on Tinder. Commuting to work? Message with that cutie you found on OkCupid.) Read more…

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Here’s what a rocket launch looks like from the view of a satellite

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Rocket launches are usually thrilling to watch anyway, but it’s particularly cool watching them from a satellite.

Over the weekend, Chinese private spaceflight company OneSpace launched its OS-X1 rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert.

SEE ALSO: SpaceX nails another rocket landing on its droneship

The suborbital test is the second time the company has sent a rocket to space, and its liftoff was captured by the Jilin-1 video satellite. 

The footage from space was originally posted on Weibo, and was reposted on Twitter by Dafeng Cao. 

And here’s what the launch looked like from the ground. Read more…

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Sarah Jessica Parker agrees ‘Sex and the City’ was ‘tone deaf’ on diversity

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Fashionably late as ever, Sarah Jessica Parker has come to a conclusion most of us came to years ago: Sex and the City didn’t age as gracefully as its cast. 

The main actress behind the beloved, decades-old show even went as far to call it “tone deaf” when looking back on the show with the hindsight of today’s social politics.

SEE ALSO: Cynthia Nixon insists she’s not Miranda so let’s all just stop with the SATC jokes

In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Parker discussed the major issues with reviving Sex and the City for the modern zeitgeist.

“You couldn’t make it today because of the lack of diversity on screen,” Parker said during the Deauville Film Festival, referring to the all-white cast of main characters. “I personally think it would feel bizarre.” Read more…

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Mark Zuckerberg will stop at nothing to win a game of Scrabble

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You can learn a lot about a person from the way they play Scrabble. Do they show off their SAT vocabulary or only know dirty words? Are they rule-sergeants or are they so competitive that they will stop at nothing to beat someone who is half their age?

If you’re Mark Zuckerberg, you’re in the latter category. It seems his Scrabble strategy involves aggressive rule bending in order to win a game against a high school-age opponent.

SEE ALSO: After losing trust of its users, Facebook assigns them a ‘trustworthiness’ score

This little Zuckerian anecdote comes to us from an extensive New Yorker profile about the Facebook CEO’s approach toward the myriad problems currently facing the social network, and whether he’s equipped to solve them. Read more…

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