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AI Learns To Animate Your Face in VR (4m2s)

VR Facial Animation via Multiview Image Translation

THE ONLINE SILENCER MARKET IS BOOMING — JUST DON’T CALL IT A SILENCER

SD Tactical Arms calls them barrel shrouds. Hawk Innovative Tech says they’re solvent filters. Prepper’s Discount sells flashlight tubes. But with a few hours and a little elbow grease, all of these products become the same thing: gun silencers.

Silencers, otherwise known as suppressors, are among the most highly regulated gun accessories in the US. Under federal law, consumers must apply for a license to purchase them. The process involves paying a fee to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and submitting to extensive screening. It can take more than a year to get an answer. Americans eager to skip the wait, though, have a shortcut: tap one of the dozens of online retailers selling de facto suppressor parts and build their own.

Even a search for “solvent traps” on Amazon returns a page of unrelated items useful in silencer construction, such as automobile fuel filters. A spokesperson from Amazon refused to comment for this story, but emphasized that all the products sold on the site were legal.

[...] Bob Folkestad, the founder of a leading solvent trap retailer called Quiet Bore, told The Trace the ATF forced manufacturers like him into business. “It’s 450 dollars and a yearlong wait [to purchase a suppressor],” he said. “Buy a solvent trap, and you can be approved in two to four weeks.” Solvent traps are designed to collect cleaning fluid from the barrel of a gun, and amateur gunsmiths can easily convert them into suppressors.

Mod Virge Informatif. Much moreso than their PC builds.

30 Years Ago: Voyager 2's Historic Neptune Flyby

Thirty years ago, on August 25, 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft made a close flyby of Neptune, giving humanity its first close-up of our solar system’s eighth planet. Marking the end of the Voyager mission’s Grand Tour of the solar system’s four giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – that first was also a last: No other spacecraft has visited Neptune since.

The Solar System’s Loneliest Planets, Revisited

NASA’s nuclear rejuvenation could not arrive at a better time. To begin, there is no question that such a mission would revolutionize our understanding of the outer solar system, simply by virtue of voyaging there after three decades of further technological development and scientific discovery. What is more, in the late 2020s, the planets will be positioned so that a Neptune-bound spacecraft can get a gravity assist from Jupiter, picking up tremendous speed from swinging by the giant planet and shaving years off the travel time. Finally, a mission to Uranus needs to reach the world before 2050 in order to see its northern hemisphere for the first time. (When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus, only the planet’s southern hemisphere was illuminated.) “I’m hopeful because that puts a little bit more pressure on NASA,” says Mark Hofstadter, a planetary scientist at JPL. “But in the back of my mind, there’s a fear that if we miss it, I’m going to miss the boat.” Hofstadter is 56 years old and would therefore be in his mid-70s when—if—a mission reaches the ice giants in the late 2030s. To him and many other planetary scientists on the verge of retirement, an accepted mission would be bittersweet. “I like to joke that they’ll have to reserve a rocking chair and a drooling rag for me by the time we get there,” Hansen says.

The historically racist origins of gun control are hardly a topic for debate. As noted by Cato Institute’s David Kopel, the matter of arming blacks in America was the subject of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision; with one Supreme Court justice warning about the rights of free blacks “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Kopel also notes that as a part of the Black Codes passed in the South during the early post-Civil War Reconstruction, free blacks were required to secure permission from police in order to carry firearms.

From Harriet Tubman, who carried a pistol with her during the heroic rescues of slaves, to abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who quipped “a man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box” -- there is perhaps no other group in American history whose members understand intimately the “right to self-preservation” embodied in the Second Amendment than black Americans.

It is therefore more than a little curious as to why Democrats continue to push gun control measures that are inherently, historically, and intentionally designed to disenfranchise minority groups from their Second Amendment rights.

In spite of a downward trend of gun violence in America, even as gun ownership soars, Democrats contend there is both an “epidemic” of gun violence sweeping the country, and that access to firearms is the culprit. This mindset guides virtually every part of the Democrats’ gun control agenda; with no apparent regard to who actually is or will be impacted the most by their plans.

Carried to its natural end, the philosophy of gun control virtually ensures the only people left with firearms in a Democrat-controlled America are cops, affluent whites, and criminals.

Perhaps street crime and police response times are not concerns for rich liberals hiding behind privacy fences in gated communities with private, armed security guards (can you say, “Silicon Valley?”); but for millions of Americans in urban areas ravaged by gangs and crime, firearm ownership is literally a matter of life and death.

One underpinning gun control strategy favored most by Democrats centers around price control; wherein regulatory measures squeeze both supply and the cost of production of firearms, making them cost-prohibitive to acquire and possess.

Schemes such as removing the legal shield that protects firearm manufactures and retailers from lawsuits resulting from criminal acts by end users, and resurrecting the Obama-era tactic of employing the FDIC to bully banks into not doing business with firearms retailers and manufacturers, are measures intended to dry up the lawful gun industry.

However, the actual and ultimate victims of such measures are not big businesses, but individual, law-abiding men and women whose ability to protect themselves, their families, their homes, and their small businesses will be made increasingly difficult.

We see this strategy already playing out in municipalities controlled by liberal officials. Even where technically lawful to carry a firearm, such officials delight in making firearm licensing exorbitantly expensive and time-consuming. Overly complicated testing mandates are coupled with multiple in-person filing requirements available only during regular business hours. Such measures require significant time and effort to pursue -- luxuries largely unavailable to the working poor and middle-class workers.

One of the latest proposals gaining popularity among the Democratic presidential field is to mandate that gun owners carry firearms liability insurance; another side-door tax on a constitutionally-guaranteed right.

This “death by a thousand cuts” has now become gun confiscation by a thousand regulations; with its earliest and most numerous victims being the poor and “marginalized” citizenry these very Democrat bleeding hearts claim to champion.

Democrats long have vigorously opposed every effort by Republicans to require voter identification as a prerequisite to exercising one’s right to vote. Liberals assert such mandates intentionally “suppress” the minority vote. Yet, those very same civil rights champions have no hesitancy in pressing for measures that would seriously suppress the ability of minority and poorer citizens to exercise another precious right; one that is expressly guaranteed against such suppression in the Bill of Rights. Their hypocrisy is disgraceful.

https://townhall.com/columnists/bobbarr/2019/08/21/the-notsosubtle-racism-of-gun-control-n2551961

OK, so my favorite talk radio show. John Walton has passed away, and some millennial is trying to fill John's shoes. Kenny is from Chicago, raised up in a liberal city, by liberal parents, taught by liberal teachers, and probably had liberal preachers if he went to church. And, Kenny has grown into a right-leaning Libertarian. He made a comment that "Being conservative among millennials is counter culture, like being a hippy in the sixties was counter culture then."

That was worth a chuckle, obviously. But, maybe it's worth more than just a chuckle? Hmmm. In my own home, out of three millennials, two are political agnostics. That third one? I'm proud to say he's pretty much the same sort of asshole I am. He has plenty of contempt for Trump, and much of the rest of the right - but he hates the left with a passion. All the time he spent in college, he mocked all the SJW's and activists. When campus concealed carry was made legal in Texas, he concealed carried on campus.

So, I'm listening to the talk show host, thinking about my own son, and finally did a search for millennial counter culture.

Zane Turbyfill has some ideas on the subject here - https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Gen-Z-people-so-much-more-conservative-and-right-wing-than-millennials

9/10 of us are absolutely supportive of the LGB_ community. See the blank? We look at things logically, not Ethos (republicans) and not Pathos (democrats). LOGOS. We don’t hate transgender people, we just think you can’t logically change your gender by cutting your d_ck off and saying you changed. You make about as much since to us as those instagram girls that swear up and down that they’re black but are very obviously not. We think people with Gender Dysphoria should seek better treatment (becoming transgender showed a less than 1% decrease in deppression among people with gender dysphoria last I checked) and people who become transgender without Gender Dysphoria (or any other condition that would make you want to become transgender)… Pretty much the entire right wing Gen Zs response: F_ck you, you’re being an illogical idiot who likely goes to Antifa riots and preaches about the evil fascist ways of Trump (Not that Gen Z was proTrump as much as it was anti-Hillary, but his progress in the presidency has caused us to look at him in a much more positive way). Gun control is stupid to us, because it logically does not work. Communism (and socialism) is stupid to us because it logically does not work.

Hmmmmm - logic before feelz? What a concept!!

But, wait - there's a Z in his name. There's a Z in my son's name. Maybe it's the Z that does it to them? Let me search some more . . .

Alternet, of all places, has some thoughts on millennials and boomers - https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/lessons-millennials-can-learn-from-boomers/

Yet there is a certain irony in the popular depiction of Boomers as out of touch, conservative, and entrenched in their economic interests. Boomers were, after all, originally the opposite: the counterculture generation — who lived through the Cold War, rejected the American imperialist experiment in Vietnam, stoked the civil rights movement, and spread liberal social ideals through music, art and culture — was largely comprised of Boomers. Arguably, the generation born between 1946 and 1964 were more radical than millennials or Generation Z: the Black Panthers, Young Lords, American Indian Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Weathermen all were semi-militant Marxist groups who saw themselves as connected to a larger international socialist movement — and were, need I remind you, largely Boomer creations. The New York Times noted that there were 4,330 bombings in the United States between January 1969 and April 1970, more than one every day. Leftist millennials may have coined the term “woke,” but our politics are downright tame compared to our bomb-slinging parents’ generation.

Forbes - https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2017/08/11/why-democrats-should-be-losing-sleep-over-generation-z/#66af4ade7878

According to research, Gen Z is more individualistic, more conservative both socially and fiscally, and they’re already making waves of impact on our political system. Gen Z, those born in 1995 or later, is possibly the most conservative generation since World War II, and it is worrying that their impact has been completely overlooked during this election. While our fears might be preemptive, we should not make the mistake of disregarding the intriguing yet also possibly worrying world views of Generation Z.

Oftentimes Millennials have been criticized for being notoriously liberal, but it looks like the generation right behind us has completely rebelled. A U.K. Study at The Gild did a survey of almost 2,000 adults and found that on issues like gay marriage, marijuana legalization, transgender rights, and even tattoos, 59% of Gen Z respondents described their views as ‘conservative’ and ‘moderate’.
 

Oh, crap, that's another Z there? Maybe it is the Z that's doing it!! Maybe conservatives need to name all their babies with names with Z in them? Nahhhh, O'Crazio Cortez blows that theory out of the water, dammit!

OK, I'll stop A̶r̶i̶s̶t̶a̶r̶c̶h̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ editorializing, and give a few more links on the subject:

https://canadafreepress.com/article/hip-conservative-counter-culture-vs.-repressive-liberal-establishment
https://time.com/4909722/trump-millennials-igen-republicans-voters/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/generation-zs-rightward-drift/

For those who prefer not to read - a video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avb8cwOgVQ8 "You can't be the dominant culture, and the counter culture"

Maybe culture today is so far left, the only direction left to go is right?

Red pilling - awesome!!!

Intel goes on the defensive against AMD at Gamescom

Intel has been talking up its processors at Gamescom 2019, hosting an event where it admits that AMD, its chief rival, has “done a great job closing the gap, but we still have the highest performing CPUs.”

If that sounds a little defensive to you, we agree. We were at the event in Cologne, Germany, and there was a bit of a feeling that Intel wanted to remind everyone that while AMD has been getting a lot of positive news lately thanks to its new Ryzen 3000 series of processors, when it comes to gaming, Intel still has the best processors.

At the event, Intel’s Troy Severson said that “when we introduced the i9 9900K… it was dubbed the fastest gaming CPU in the world. And I can honestly say nothing’s changed. It’s still the fastest gaming CPU in the world.”

And the finisher:

Holding an event to essentially say that ‘nothing’s changed’ and ‘we’re still the best’ felt a little odd, and we (and many others) left feeling that Intel was a bit rattled by AMD’s recent success. At one point, it even talked about how it was sending anthropologists to live with gamers to study their habits – which doesn't sound like a job we'd fancy doing.

America’s federal deficit will expand by about $800 billion more than previously expected over 10 years, primarily because of two legislative packages approved this year, pushing the nation further into levels of debt unseen since the end of World War II, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

The CBO also said that the impact of higher trade barriers, primarily President Trump’s trade war, could hurt economic growth amid widespread fears of a recession.

The United States was already expected to hit about $1 trillion in annual deficits next year, an unusually high number, particularly given that deficits normally contract during sustained periods of economic growth.

U.S. deficit to expand by about $800 billion more than previously expected over 10 years, CBO says

Aug. 13: SpaceX settles on Friday for Starhopper’s next flight test milestone, FAA permitting

Aug. 15: SpaceX’s next Starhopper flight needs more analysis for FAA go-ahead, says Elon Musk

Aug. 20: SpaceX’s next major Starhopper flight test still awaiting FAA approval, says Elon Musk

News of the next hop test’s additional delays comes some four days before Elon Musk had planned to present an updated overview of Starship and Super Heavy in Boca Chica, Texas, and it seems that both events may have to wait.

[...] According to Musk, either or both of those orbital-class prototypes could be ready for their inaugural flight tests as early as mid-September, perhaps just 1-2 months from now. Given that Starships Mk1 and Mk2 are significantly higher fidelity than Starhopper, the ungainly testbed will likely become redundant the moment that its successors are ready for flight. In other words, Starhopper is fast approaching the end of its useful life, and SpaceX’s fight for a 200m hop-test permit could ultimately be a waste of time, effort, and money if said permit doesn’t also cover Starship Mk1.

Very annoying, but hopefully the presentation on the 24th goes ahead anyway. That will be more interesting than a second hop.

There are a lot of topics that could be addressed, such as the current plan for heat shield(s), amount of engines that will be used (at least initially) on the spaceship and the booster, the type of engines (sea level, vacuum), and updated figures for tons of cargo to LEO, as well as other destinations without an in-orbit refuel. How many tons can it get to geostationary orbit without a refuel (cheaper, less complicated)?

I've been learning to sail dinghies. I live a very long way from the sea so I sail on the local pond. It's been staring me in the face for years and a few months ago, missing the sea and boats in general, I decided to sign up for some courses.

I am fairly used to motor boats and have sailed aboard small yachts very occasionally a long time ago, but I figured I'd give it a try on my own as skipper.

I have a certificate now that means I can be let loose on the village pond in the company of a safety boat (captained by a young whipper-snapper shouting at me when I sit on the wrong side of the boat etc). Sailing a dinghy is very undignified. They tend to capsize, and it happens even to the best of us. What's more the pond water is green. It's not healthy like the sea.

Still, I went sailing on the sea with my dad again recently, and for once I was able to advise him about the trim of his sails.