Category Archives: Post Human

Minnesota has the third highest number of human trafficking cases in the nation, according to the FBI

ST. PAUL, Minn. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has announced it will be installing posters at 41 rest areas across the state to educate the public about human trafficking.

The posters include guidelines on how to recognize signs of human trafficking and potential victims, and a toll-free hotline to report any suspicious activity.

Human trafficking often involves travel, which includes the transport of victims form a base of operations to locations of exploitation.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Twin Cities is one of the 13 U.S. cities with a particularly high rate of child prostitution, and Minnesota has the third highest number of human trafficking cases in the nation, said MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle. MnDOTs responsibility for maintaining the quality and safety of multiple modes of transportation, including highways, airports, rail lines, transit systems, and commercial vehicles, provides unique opportunities to see, and stop, human trafficking.

MnDOT signed a pledge in January 2017 to join Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking, to make a stand against human trafficking and work to develop resources to inform the traveling public, as well as its employees on the issues.

To learn more about the initiative visitwww.dot.state.mn.us/humantraffickingawareness/

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MnDOT to Post Human Trafficking Messages at Rest Areas - FOX 21 Online

Ten years ago, Scott Cheney-Peters stood watch on the bridge of the USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer deployed to the Pacific. Despite sophisticated navigation systems, keeping the ship a safe distance from other vessels in crowded maritime corridors was complex, especially at night, he said.

The bridge teams have help from some automated systems that suggest what they think is happening and can alert the human operators to potentially dangerous situations, said Cheney-Peters, the founder of the Center for International Maritime Security, which facilitates discussion of naval issues. But as with any algorithm, those alerts can be occasionally thrown off, in this case by things like large waves or two other ships very close together so its humans that have to ultimately make navigation decisions.

Early Saturday morning, the Fitzgerald found itself at the center of one of the ugliest maritime incidents in years for the Navy. The 505-foot long ship collided off the coast of Japan with the Philippine-flagged MV ACX Crystal, a 730-foot container ship. The Crystal ripped a 12-foot hole in the starboard (right) side of the Fitzgeralds hull, fully flooding the third and fourth platform levels of the ship and drowning seven sailors in sleeping quarters, according to Navy officials and an unclassified document obtained by The Washington Post.

Three additional people, including the ships commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, were medically evacuated from the ship by helicopter, Navy officials have said.

[There wasnt a lot of time as water flooded U.S. destroyer below decks]

The dead included Gunners Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19; Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25; Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T. Truong Huynh, 25; Gunners Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26; Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlos Victor Ganzon Sibayan, 23; Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24; and Firecontrolman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37.

The damage to the Fitzgerald, which typically carries about 279 U.S. service members, is so extensive that senior Navy officials are discussing spending $8 million to put it on a powerful heavy-lift ship and bring it back to a shipyard for repairs, the document said. The Navy did the same with the USS Cole, which was hit by terrorists with explosives in October 2000, and the USS Samuel B. Roberts, which was nearly sunk by an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf in 1988.

Several investigations are now underway to determine what happened. And if past is prologue, the Navy will assess how human error on the part of either crew could have led to such a catastrophe, despite all of the radar and communication systems on board. Similar situations occur about once every decade or so, and are a deep, powerful reminder of how fundamentally dangerous it is to operate warships at sea, said retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who was once the captain of a sister destroyer, the USS Barry.

To understand how could this happen, you need to think of that particular area of the sea as an eight-lane highway, at night, with ships moving at speed but no traffic lanes, Stavridis said in an email. Any sudden, erratic move by another ship poses an extreme risk, with little time to react, exactly as if a car just ahead of you on the highway suddenly turned around. At night, its hard to figure out the visual picture and correlate it with the radar images. The investigation will pull that apart with extreme diligence, and accountability will be swift and ruthless.

Stavridis, now thedean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the situation heartbreaking, and credited sailors on the Fitzgerald with saving the ship from sinking, which almost certainly would have made the loss of life far heavier.

The incident will become the basis for extensive scenario training by the Navy to try as much as we can to avoid the next such incident [everything] from ship handling, to command and control, to technology and warning systems will be examined and improved, he said. But the cost of losing those seven sailors will never be recovered, tragically. It is a heartbreaking day for the good ship Fitzgerald and her captain.

Seven U.S. sailors went missing after a U.S. Navy destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant ship off the coast of Japan on June 17. A number of the missing sailors were found dead in the destroyer's flooded berthing compartments. (Elyse Samuels,Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

Previous collisions also may come up as the service scrutinizes how to avoid another accident. In one recent incident, the USS Porter, another destroyer, collided in 2012 in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran with the MV Otowasan, an oil tanker. An investigation found that the Porters crew missed that the tanker was in front of them while watching out for other traffic in the tightly congested waterway. In that case, the Porters captain, attempted to cross left ahead of the tanker to avoid a head-on collision, but was not able to do so in time to avoid a blow to the starboard side.

Analysts have so far questioned the unusual path of the Crystal, which was proceeding on a course toward Tokyo but performed a sudden U-turn and returned to where it had been. Company officials said the turn actually happened about an hour after the collision, as its crew turned back to check on the Fitzgerald.

One former naval surface warfare officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said it appeared to him that the Fitzgerald was in the wrong when it was struck by the Crystal.

Im always troubled when you see a hit on the [right] side, the former Navy officer said. My gut is that [the captain] will be questioned on why he didnt turn right.

The officer said he was surprised that Benson wasnt on the bridge at the time of the collision, and was instead hurt in his quarters. The waterways where the two vessels collided are notorious for the heavy volume of shipping traffic, where lights and radars contacts can make navigation extremely difficult.

After seeing where the collision was, the officer said those with experience in damage control knew right away what had become of the missing sailors, as their berthing areas flooded and were sealed.

We knew they were trapped inside, he said. We knew it had turned into a chamber of death.

Among the work the Navy will undertake in coming days is offloading the Fitzgeralds weapons and fuel, and gathering data from the ships electronics so that the incident can be reconstructed. Presently, anyone going aboard the ship needs permission from a senior military officer.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to accurately define the USS Samuel B. Roberts incident.

Related stories:

Missing U.S. sailors found dead after collision with ship off coast of Japan

7 U.S. Navy sailors missing off Japans coast

Read more here:
When Navy ships collide, there is virtually always human error involved - Washington Post

Humanity has died out and all that's left on Earth are the mutated animals and household robots we left behind. This is how you're introduced to the world of Post Human W.A.R, a turn-based strategy game that pits sentient vacuum cleaners against tracksuit monkeys against each other in warfare.

There are, in fact, three different factions - or groups - to choose from in Post Human W.A.R. They're all battling to decide the fate of the world now that humans have been wiped out. The mutated animals are hoping to destroy everything - they're pretty angry about the state they've been left in - the robots are hoping to protect humanity's heritage, and finally the monkeys are hoping to pick back up where the humans left off, becoming the new dominant species.

Once you've picked which side you'll serve, you then enter battle with the others, which requires you to pick units and spread them across a honeycomb grid - positioning your fighters to be the most effective is crucial. While fighting, either in single-player or online against strangers, you'll also need to make use of the environment, as well as react to the enemy's bluffs - adding a psychological level to the game's tactics.

If you want to get involved in the beta of Post Human W.A.R right now, you can. Just enter via our widget below and unlock your key.

When you've grabbed your code redeem via Steam. Simply click the Add a Game button at the bottom left of the Steam client window, and Activate a Product on Steam. Follow the instructions, download the game, and get playing!

If you like our giveaways and want to be kept in the loop about them, head over and give thePCGamesN Facebook page a likeorfollow us on Twitter.

Post Human W.A.R giveaway

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Grab one of 2,000 Post Human W.A.R beta keys and start playing ... - PCGamesN

Humanity has died out and all that's left on Earth are the mutated animals and household robots we left behind. This is how you're introduced to the world of Post Human W.A.R, a turn-based strategy game that pits sentient vacuum cleaners against tracksuit monkeys against each other in warfare.

There are, in fact, three different factions - or groups - to choose from in Post Human W.A.R. They're all battling to decide the fate of the world now that humans have been wiped out. The mutated animals are hoping to destroy everything - they're pretty angry about the state they've been left in - the robots are hoping to protect humanity's heritage, and finally the monkeys are hoping to pick back up where the humans left off, becoming the new dominant species.

Once you've picked which side you'll serve, you then enter battle with the others, which requires you to pick units and spread them across a honeycomb grid - positioning your fighters to be the most effective is crucial. While fighting, either in single-player or online against strangers, you'll also need to make use of the environment, as well as react to the enemy's bluffs - adding a psychological level to the game's tactics.

If you want to get involved in the beta of Post Human W.A.R right now, you can. Just enter via our widget below and unlock your key.

When you've grabbed your code redeem via Steam. Simply click the Add a Game button at the bottom left of the Steam client window, and Activate a Product on Steam. Follow the instructions, download the game, and get playing!

If you like our giveaways and want to be kept in the loop about them, head over and give thePCGamesN Facebook page a likeorfollow us on Twitter.

Post Human W.A.R giveaway

See more here:
Grab one of 2000 Post Human WAR beta keys and start playing right now! - PCGamesN

The Minnesota Department of Transportation will begin installing posters in 41 rest areas across the state this week to educate the traveling public about human trafficking and to encourage them to report suspicious activity. The posters include guidelines on how to recognize signs of human trafficking and potential victims and a toll-free hotline to report any suspicious activity.

Human trafficking often involves travel, including the transport of victims from a base of operations to locations of exploitation.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Twin Cities is one of the 13 U.S. cities with a particularly high rate of child prostitution, and Minnesota has the third highest number of human trafficking cases in the nation, said MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle. MnDOTs responsibility for maintaining the quality and safety of multiple modes of transportation, including highways, airports, rail lines, transit systems and commercial vehicles, provides unique opportunities to see and stop human trafficking activities..

Zelle, on behalf of MnDOTs nearly 5,000 employees, signed a pledge in January 2017 to join Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking and make fighting human trafficking a MnDOT priority by developing and sharing resources to inform and empower MnDOT employees as well as the traveling public. Nearly 20 million travelers visit Minnesota rest areas each year.

If you see signs of human trafficking or are a trafficking victim, resources are available to you. For general trafficking information, to connect with a service provider or to report a tip on potential human trafficking activity, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-3737-888. Submit a tip on the NHTRC website at https://traffickingresourcecenter.org/report-trafficking.

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center is a national, toll-free hotline available to answer calls in multiple languages from anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. The NHTRC is not a law enforcement or immigration authority and is operated by a nongovernmental organization funded by the Federal government.

Originally posted here:
MnDOT to post human trafficking awareness messages at state rest areas - International Falls Journal

Enlarge / A picture taken in Vertou, western France, shows Facebook logos.

LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images

Facebook has admitted that "AI can't catch everything," and it remains heavily dependent on human moderators to flush out terrorist posts on the free content ad network.

In a blog post that comes days after the UK and France signalled a crack-down on big tech firms that fail to take action against the sharing of extremist content on their sitesFacebook said it was, for the first time, talking publicly about the methods it employs to try to combat terrorism.

It was keen to highlight how artificial intelligence was being used to attempt to limit the proliferation of such content on a site that has close to two billion users worldwide.

But AI and its wonky slant on social context serves only as an add-on to the tireless work being carried out by Facebook's 4,500-and-counting moderators who are tasked with having to mop up vile posts on the network.

The company's boss, Mark Zuckerberg, recently confirmed plans to grow that team by 3,000 over the next year. Controversially, Facebook didn't reveal whether those moderators would be employees or outsourced contractors.

Facebook rattled off a number of areas where it says AI could help it to squish extremist posts on the network.

Among other things, it uses image matching to determine if "terrorism" photos or videos have been previously posted; the system should then prevent other accounts from uploading it again. Language understanding using software that relies on "text-based signals" is also employed to apparently determine whether support is being given to Daesh or Al Qaeda.

Facebook said its system is getting better at "detecting new fake accounts created by repeat offenders." The company added:

Through this work, weve been able to dramatically reduce the time period that terrorist recidivist accounts are on Facebook. This work is never finished because it is adversarial, and the terrorists are continuously evolving their methods too. Were constantly identifying new ways that terrorist actors try to circumvent our systemsand we update our tactics accordingly.

It also took the opportunity to justify some of its thinking behind the decision to share WhatsApp and Instagram users' phone numbers and selected other data with Facebook in a U-turn that upset plenty of folk.

"Because we dont want terrorists to have a place anywhere in the family of Facebook apps, we have begun work on systems to enable us to take action against terrorist accounts across all our platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram," it said. "Given the limited data some of our apps collect as part of their service, the ability to share data across the whole family is indispensable to our efforts to keep all our platforms safe."

Nonetheless, AI merely plays a support role to human moderators whose job it is to deal with endless reports from users flagging up dodgy accounts and hateful content.

On the heated topic of end-to-end encryption, which is baked into WhatsApp, Facebook said it can only "provide the information we can in response to valid law enforcement requests, consistent with applicable law and our policies." But it can't read the contents of encrypted messages.

This post originated on Ars Technica UK

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Facebook sics AI on terrorist posts, but humans still do the dirty work - Ars Technica

Facebook had declared that it is actively fighting terrorism online, and it is using artificial intelligence (AI) to do so. In a Thursday blog post, the company detailed its strategy for removing terrorist content from Facebook, and how it's working to protect users from such material.

The post said that radicalization typically occurs offline, but there's no denying that the internet is a major communication channel for terrorist groups around the world. The Islamic State (ISIS) is thought to have hundreds of social media accounts, even doing recruiting drives on social media.

It's a massive problem, and Facebook wants to help solve it.

SEE: How one ransomware campaign was actually a front for a terrorist kill list

"We remove terrorists and posts that support terrorism whenever we become aware of them," the blog post said. "When we receive reports of potential terrorism posts, we review those reports urgently and with scrutiny. And in the rare cases when we uncover evidence of imminent harm, we promptly inform authorities."

With billions of users speaking some 80 languages, the post noted, the challenge is enormous. But Facebook said it believes that AI can act as a solution.

One of the ways that the technology can help is by matching images and videos to known terrorist content. The hope is that the company would be able to prevent other accounts from uploading a photo or video that was previously removed from the site for its ties to terrorist activity, the post said.

Facebook's systems are also looking out for language. Text that praises extremist groups, or seems to be promoting the work of terrorist groups, can be recognized and flagged for removal. The site also uses signals to determine if a particular page is a central location for a terrorist cluster so they can remove it, the post said.

According to the post, Facebook is also working harder to eliminate fake accounts used to circumvent the site's policies. The company is also attempting to tackle terrorist activity on WhatsApp and Instagram as well, the post said.

AI isn't the only solutionpeople are also a big part of Facebook's anti-terrorism strategy. In addition to reports and reviews from its Community Operations team, Facebook is also employing some 150 counter-terrorism experts as well, including academic experts, former prosecutors, former law enforcement agents, analysts, and engineers, the post said. And if a threat is imminent, a separate Facebook team communicates with law enforcement.

Additionally, specialized training, partner programs, industry collaboration, and government partnerships all play a role in Facebook's work against terrorists online.

Image: iStockphoto/ventdusud

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Facebook's secret weapon for fighting terrorists: Human experts and AI working together - TechRepublic

The Jerusalem Post

US threatens to replace UN human rights body over anti-Israel stance The Jerusalem Post ... opinion on alleged Israeli human rights abuses toward Palestinians. She made a clear link between America's continued involvement in the council and its biased treatment of Israel. Last week a UNHRC spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that the US has ... and more »

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US threatens to replace UN human rights body over anti-Israel stance - The Jerusalem Post

ST. PAUL, Minn. (Valley News Live) A strong message will soon appear in some Minnesota rest areas. The Minnesota Department of Transportation wants to educate people about the signs of human trafficking.

MNDOT will begin installing posters in 41 rest areas across the state this week to educate the traveling public about human trafficking and to encourage them to report suspicious activity.

The posters include guidelines on how to recognize signs of human trafficking and potential victims and a toll-free hotline to report any suspicious activity.

Human trafficking often involves travel, including the transport of victims from a base of operations to locations of exploitation.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Twin Cities is one of the 13 U.S. cities with a particularly high rate of child prostitution, and Minnesota has the third highest number of human trafficking cases in the nation, said MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle.

MnDOTs responsibility for maintaining the quality and safety of multiple modes of transportation, including highways, airports, rail lines, transit systems and commercial vehicles, provides unique opportunities to seeand stophuman trafficking activities..

Zelle, on behalf of MnDOTs nearly 5,000 employees, signed a pledge in January 2017 to join Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking and make fighting human trafficking a MnDOT priority by developing and sharing resources to inform and empower MnDOT employees as well as the traveling public. Nearly 20 million travelers visit Minnesota rest areas each year.

Read the rest here:
MnDOT to post human trafficking awareness messages at rest areas - Valley News Live

Those in power in Wisconsins capitol want everyone to notice that the states unemployment rate has come down some. They are equally eager to have everyone to look past other troubling facts, such as wage and job growth that is lagging behind the national average, a poverty rate thats higher than its been in 30 years and a middle class thats disappearing faster than anywhere else in the country. They pay no attention to rising economic inequality and hope no one notices that the income gap is growing faster in Wisconsin than in other states.

As unwilling as they are to acknowledge much less do something about these politically inconvenient realities, they are even more reluctant to engage the public in any kind of discussion about even greater challenges that lie ahead.

There is a reason why most Americans believe our kids will be worse off than their parents. The U.S. is hurtling toward an increasingly jobless economy, and everyone can see it coming. Even the politicians can see it but dont want to deal with what is plainly visible on the horizon. Instead they look for scapegoats, telling frightened workers that immigrants are stealing their jobs. Or they offer empty promises that closed factories can be reopened and lost assembly line jobs will somehow magically reappear. This is the cruelest kind of hoax.

Todays immigrants arent replacing yesterdays factory workers on the assembly lines, robots are. Immigration is not the culprit, technology is. Even if new factories replace the old shuttered ones, how many people will work in those plants? Driverless vehicles are coming. When they arrive, what happens to the truck drivers and bus drivers and cab drivers?

Call this emerging American economy what you will. Some call it global, some call it high-tech. Others label it an information or knowledge economy. Still others see little left but a service economy. Probably the most accurate description is post-human. Workers have every reason to feel vulnerable, and those feelings are only going to intensify.

Fewer and fewer workers have union representation. There was a time when virtually every American household included at least one union member. Today, less than 11 percent of all Americans and only 6 percent of private-sector workers belong to a union. Labor unions were an outgrowth of the industrial revolution. That revolution came and went. In what came after, unions struggled to adapt and steadily lost membership. Workers lost bargaining power.

In the short term, steps can be taken to empower working people, from affordable and debt-free education and job training to universal access to everything from health care to high-speed internet. But in the longer term, if our society is going to hold together in an increasingly jobless economy, we are going to have to renegotiate the social contract. Totally new approaches to maintaining social cohesion are going to have to be considered. Maybe part of the answer is moving to the 30-hour workweek that Amazon and other companies are trying out. That would make work available to more people. Maybe the time will soon come for a universal basic income. That would require all of us to see the value in making sure no one is left behind. Maybe making union representation a civil right could be a piece to the puzzle. Perhaps some combination of these or other ideas will light the way.

If minds are open, we can steer clear of the social, political and economic turmoil and upheaval this new economy has the capacity to create. If heads are buried in the sand, chaos will reign.

Mike McCabe, Madison, is the founder and president of Blue Jean Nation.

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MIKE MCCABE: Employment in the post-human economy - La Crosse Tribune