Facebook screws up royally:

Just months after the discovery that Facebook’s “trending” news module was curated and tweaked by human beings, the company has eliminated its editors and left the algorithm to do its job. The results, so far, are a disaster.

Facebook announced late Friday that it had eliminated jobs in its trending module, the part of its news division where staff curated popular news for Facebook users. Over the weekend, the fully automated Facebook trending module pushed out a false story about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, a controversial piece about a comedian’s four-letter word attack on rightwing pundit Ann Coulter, and links to an article about a video of a man masturbating with a McDonald’s chicken sandwich.

Obviously no one verified that the algorithm would use the ‘white list’ of reliable news sources, or if it had learned anything from the editors who had been training it. In a common mistake of current tech companies they fired all of the people who understood the system and created a major failure.

Position: 24.3N 87.8W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: North-Northwest [345°] near 2 mph [ 4 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1004 mb.

Currently about 415 miles [ 670 km] Southwest of Tampa, Florida and 427 miles [688 km] South of me.

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the Anclote River to Indian Pass.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for West of Indian Pass to the Walton/Bay County line.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Position: 34.5N 74.6W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [040°] near 5 mph [ 8 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 70 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1011 mb.

Currently about 70 miles [ 115 km] Southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

The Tropical Storm Warning was discontinued at 7PM CDT.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Position: 32.9N 50.9W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East-Northeast [070°] near 10 mph [17 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 120 mph [195 kph].
Wind Gusts: 135 mph [215 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 160 miles [260 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 45 miles [ 75 km].
Minimum central pressure: 956 mb ↓.

Currently about 1385 miles [2230 km] West of the Azores.

The storm has been regaining strength all day and is back at Cat 3.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]