Snapchat Leaving Venice

I’d heard rumors, but that’s it.

Well, it turns out the rumors are true.

The tech company, founded in Venice in 2011, is vacating a large chunk of its Venice network of office space for a location in a corporate office park in Santa Monica.

This may actually serve as one final “fuck you” to the Peoples Republic of Venice, as the move will undoubtedly create a vast surplus of vacant office space. Five years’ of rising rents has taken its toll on the neighborhood’s character. That increased cost of doing business has forced out dozens of local businesses (not to mention my local beer garden). Okay, so I have an axe to grind.

The company is planning to move to an office complex adjacent to Santa Monica Airport. I wonder if the corporate leadership will benefit from the accessibility of private air travel?

Who knows? Oh, well. Maybe now I can finally start using the app. I hear it’s kind of fun.

via Snapchat Is Pulling Out of Venice, and Gentrification Activists Are Overjoyed ~ L.A. TACO

Putin denies ‘new Cold War’ but says new nukes are on ‘combat duty’ – NBC News

Hey, great! Everybody gets laid, alright?

“Every single weapons system that I have discussed today easily surpasses and avoids a missile defense system,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told NBC News on Thursday. “But “some of them still have to be fine-tuned and worked on. Others are already available to the troops and battle-ready.”
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-denies-new-cold-war-says-new-nukes-are-combat-n852496