THIS IS DEFINITELY A BUG, NOT A FEATURE: Apple and Google Browser Tweaks Could Boost Mobile Video.

Apple Inc. and Google made tweaks to their popular mobile web browsers recently to enable video content to play automatically in web pages, provided audio is muted.

The changes could result in a boost in mobile video consumption for online publishers if they allow their videos to play automatically, and it could unlock new revenue opportunities as a result.

For marketers, the tweaks will enable them to automatically play video content when potential customers visit their websites.

Will Google or Apple be paying for our increased data usage? And then there’s the annoyance of having autoplay videos taking up valuable real estate on tiny mobile screens.

“User hostile” is the correct description of this kind of thing.

YA THINK? Trump-Clinton debate expected to shatter records.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Mind-Controlled Nanobots Used to Release Chemicals in Living Cockroaches.

This is wild: a team of Israeli scientists developed a contraption that uses a person’s brain waves to remotely control DNA-based nanorobots — while the nanobots were inside a living cockroach. When prompted by a human thought, the clam shell-like robots opened up, revealing a drug-like molecule that tweaked the physiology of the cockroach’s cells.

Though “merely a demonstration and proof of concept,” the technology represents a new era of brain-nanomachine interfaces that links a person’s mental state to bioactive payloads such as drugs. Future techniques that build upon this prototype could be helpful for schizophrenia, depression or other mental disorders, in that the drugs only activate when a patient’s brain waves show signs of abnormality.

I’m not sure whether to say “faster, please” or worry about what Skynet might do with an army of mind-controlled cockroaches.

VENEZUELA IS FAILING, BUT IRONY IS STILL GOING STRONG: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

One oil rig was idle for weeks because a single piece of equipment was missing. Another was attacked by armed gangs who made off with all they could carry. Many oil workers say they are paid so little that they barely eat and have to keep watch over one another in case they faint while high up on the rigs.

Venezuela’s petroleum industry, whose vast revenues once fueled the country’s Socialist-inspired revolution, underwriting everything from housing to education, is spiraling into disarray.

To add insult to injury, the Venezuelan government has been forced to turn to its nemesis, the United States, for help.

“You call them the empire,” said Luis Centeno, a union leader for the oil workers, referring to what government officials call the United States, “and yet you’re buying their oil.”

It seems doubtful that Venezuela’s socialists will hang us with the rope we sell them.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT? South Korea, US to simulate attack on nuclear facility.

GOOD LORD: At Least 12 Charlotte Cops Injured During Riot After Fatal Police Shooting.

And the obligatory:

LONE WOLF? Turkish Police Shoot Man Attempting to Enter Israeli Embassy.

SHE IS IN NO WAYS TIRED: Clinton Cancels Fundraiser, Trump Rally Draws 10,000 in NC.

There’s no more rigorous hiring process than the one for POTUS, because there’s no more rigorous job than POTUS. If a candidate can’t handle the process, then they can’t handle the job.

OH PLEASE LET THIS BE TRUE: Obama’s Last Lecture.

RESET: US blames Russia for Syria convoy attack; Moscow points to terrorists.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the attack “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate.”

“Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the power of depravity sinks lower,” Ban told world leaders convening Tuesday at the UN General Assembly annual meeting.

Eighteen of the convoy’s 31 trucks were hit, the United Nations said. The convoy was due to deliver food and medical aid for some 78,000 people in eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 civilians are facing severe shortages as a result of a government siege.

Publicly, John Kerry sold the Syrian deal with Russia as a possible “turning point” in the five-year-old civil war. But privately, he “conceded to aides and friends that he believes it will not work,” even before it was implemented.

BREAKING: After more than two decades, Japan still hasn’t admitted to themselves that they can’t spend their way back to robust growth.

I wonder how long it will take us.

ELI LAKE: Preparing for North Korea’s Inevitable Collapse.

Crimes against humanity generally cost a regime its legitimacy, if not its sovereignty. And yet most national security professionals would regard the collapse of the North Korean slave state as a calamity. The reason for this is simple: all the nuclear weapons and material. A 2015 study from the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies estimated North Korea possessed 10 to 16 nuclear weapons, and will possess 20 to 100 such weapons by 2020. This says nothing of the highly enriched nuclear fuel the state has produced or the mobile rockets and longer-range missiles to launch the warheads.

Trying to secure all this after a chaotic collapse or overthrow of the Kim regime would be a nightmare.

But not the only nightmare, as I wrote more than a decade ago:

Whether or not there’s a war, when North Korea collapses there’s going to be a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen — 22 million scared, hungry, and desperate people left without any semblance of anything familiar.

And then there are the costs of reunification. A country smaller and less rich than West Germany would have to pay the transition costs of de-programing and westernizing a country larger, far poorer, more oppressed than East Germany. For additional perspective, the Germanys reunited 25 years ago, and the bills still aren’t paid.

North Korea’s nukes are the immediate concern, but the North Koreans will require decades of healing.

THE REDSHIFT EDITION: Over at VodkaPundit, I have the latest installment of Wargaming the Electoral College.

The map has changed so much in just two weeks, that I interrupted a lovely vacation just to fill you in.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Burritos by drone will soon be a thing.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: I was behind the wheel when a self-driving Uber failed — here’s what happens.

I was driving on a perfectly straight back road, pictured below, without any cars when I heard a ding indicating the car wasn’t driving itself anymore. The engineer in the passenger seat wasn’t sure why the car stopped driving.

When the car goes back into manual mode, it doesn’t automatically stall, but begins to slow down. That means you have to be aware the entire time you’re behind the wheel in case you’re on a road where there are cars around.

When I was riding in the backseat, the car switched into manual mode on a busy bridge. Our driver had his hands on the wheel the entire time and took over so quickly you wouldn’t have known anything had happened had a noise not sounded. We were told the failure had nothing to do with being on a bridge, but with how busy our surroundings were.

There are also situations where drivers are advised to take over, even if the car doesn’t switch to manual mode.

For now at least, I’d prefer to take over whenever the engine is running.

CRIMINAL GENIUS: Man driving chemical and radioactive waste company’s stolen 18-wheeler leads California police on hours-long highway chase.

The pursuit started in Apple Valley, northeast of Los Angeles, around 10:30 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol.

The man, identified as James Edgely, 48, was driving the stolen tractor-trailer solo and told authorities he was unarmed and did not want to go to jail.

Maybe he should have thought of that before stealing a truck from a chemical and radioactive waste company.

21ST CENTURY POVERTY: 15 Facts About US Poverty the Government Hides.

Poor households routinely report spending $2.40 for every $1 of income the Census says they have.

The average poor American lives in a house or apartment that is in good repair and has more living space than the average nonpoor person in France, Germany, or England.

Eighty-five percent of poor households have air conditioning.

Nearly three-fourths of poor households have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

Nearly two-thirds of poor households have cable or satellite TV.

Half have a personal computer; 43 percent have internet access.

Two-thirds have at least one DVD player.

More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.

Poverty ain’t what it used to be.

DEALMAKER: Details of Syria Pact Widen Rift Between John Kerry and Pentagon.

Mr. Carter was among the administration officials who pushed against the agreement on a conference call with the White House last week as Mr. Kerry, joining the argument from a secure facility in Geneva, grew increasingly frustrated. Although President Obama ultimately approved the effort after hours of debate, Pentagon officials remain unconvinced.

On Tuesday at the Pentagon, officials would not even agree that if a cessation of violence in Syria held for seven days — the initial part of the deal — the Defense Department would put in place its part of the agreement on the eighth day: an extraordinary collaboration between the United States and Russia that calls for the American military to share information with Moscow on Islamic State targets in Syria.

“I’m not saying yes or no,” Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, commander of the United States Air Forces Central Command, told reporters on a video conference call. “It would be premature to say that we’re going to jump right into it.”

Kerry can’t even get the Pentagon to go along with his deals — how is he supposed to get anything but the short end of the stick from the Russians?

OH GOOD: The DoJ is using a boring procedure to secure the right to unleash malware on the internet.

A power-trio — Senator Ron Wyden; security ninja Matt Blaze; and engineer/mathematician/social scientist Susan Landau — have published a joint op-ed in Wired sounding the alarm about the use of an obscure, technical, fantastically boring procedure to radically expand the powers of American law enforcement under cover of dullness.

But the results will be anything but dull. Even with advanced testing and scrutiny, the construction of “cyberweapons” is tricky business, nearly impossible to get right. The FBI’s history in this area does not inspire confidence: one FBI agent testified that he ascertained that a cyberweapon was safe because he tried it on his home PC and couldn’t see anything wrong with it. This is not sufficient testing for technology that could end up infecting hospitals, or cars, or voting machine, or insulin pumps, or nuclear reactors.

A bipartisan Congressional effort to stop this is now underway: the Stop Mass Hacking Act, which will require the DoJ to get Congressional approval before giving itself these sweeping, deadly new powers.

That last sentence would have had the Founders up in arms — literally.

You can help the EFF take nonviolent action here, but Congress has only until December 1 to stop the Justice Department’s dangerous usurpation.

NOTHING’S SHOCKING:

Iran Reportedly Diverted $1.7 Billion from Nuclear Deal to Support Military, Terrorist Groups https://t.co/5CIfH8YRsa

— IJR Politics (@TheIJRPolitics) September 14, 2016

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND MORE DAMNED LIES: Interim DNC Chair Warns Not to Look at New Hack — Could Have Malware!

Interim Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile warned against perusing the documents released in the latest DNC hack, alleging that they could have viruses which damage your computer.

Read the whole thing.

ED MORRISSEY: It’s not the cough. It’s the cover-up.

It’s also the cough — embrace the healing power of “and,” Ed!

HEALTH: Scientific evidence grows for e-cigarettes as quit-smoking aids.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) analyzed the latest data on smoking and quitting in England – including details on smokers who worked with the health-worker devised Stop Smoking Services to set a quit date.

While they found no direct evidence that e-cigarettes prompted more people to make the decision to try and quit, the team did find that as more people used e-cigarettes, more people also successfully stopped smoking.

In a separate scientific analysis also published on Tuesday, researchers at the Cochrane Review found that the overall weight of evidence on e-cigarettes suggests they can help people stop smoking and have no serious side-effects.

Nannystaters however see e-cigarettes as important sources of revenue and scolding, rather than a source of pleasure and improved health.

STUDY: Sex Ed Is Negative, Sexist and Out of Touch.

In the study published in the journal BMJ Open, researchers pored over 55 qualitative studies that examined the views of young people — mostly ages 12 to 18 — who’d received sex-and-relationship education at school in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Iran, Brazil and Sweden between 1990 and 2015.

Even across all of those different countries and a 25-year time span, kids’ views were remarkably consistent: sex ed sucks.

The problems, researchers found, were numerous. “Everything we got in our class had a really clinical feel,” said one student. ‘They don’t mention anything about same-sex relationships,” said another. A group of students recalled their PE teacher Miss Plum, who was so uncomfortable giving her own presentation that she cried during it.

Amazingly, the human race seemed to date, marry, and propagate itself just fine even before the educators involved themselves.

FROG SAYS SCORPION MUSTN’T STING: Supporters say Clinton must shake secrecy.

A wobbly, overheated Clinton was caught on video being helped into a van by Secret Service agents after leaving a Sept. 11 memorial in New York, an image that has dominated the news cycle for the last two days and could do lasting damage to her presidential hopes.

Clinton allies say it could all have been avoided if she and her campaign had been forthcoming and aboveboard about the Democratic nominee’s bout with pneumonia.
They point to Clinton’s unwillingness to give up an inch of privacy as the root of the problem.

“The way it all unfolded on Sunday was sloppy at best,” said one former Clinton aide. “With a little more transparency, we probably wouldn’t be discussing this at all today.”

While the allies acknowledged that Clinton would have taken a hit over her illness, “releasing more information will always help, that’s the reality,” another former aide said.

“Privacy” is one word for Clinton’s attempts to hide… well, pretty much anything she can. “Lying” and perhaps “obstruction” are others.