Not so dank, dudes. NBC News reports that “countless purveyors of illicit THC products” are selling illegal cannabis or fake cannabis products in plain sight on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

“They are facilitating a public health crisis,” said Timothy Mackey, a professor at the University of California San Diego. His team has done extensive research on how social media platforms are used to sell various illicit products.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says “Dank Vapes” THC cartridges were the source of several illness outbreaks -- but until fairly recently, you could still search #dankvapesofficial on IG and get 49,000 tagged posts in return.

Excerpt from the new NBC News investigative report:

Shopping for illicit vape cartridges on Instagram is astonishingly simple. Open the app, plug in a hashtag such as #vapecartsforsale and — voil`a — multiple posts appear with pictures of THC cartridges. In the comments or caption section, sellers advertise their products and post phone numbers for would-be buyers.

“Shop here everything is good,” one seller wrote above a phone number.

“Everything must go,” another wrote in a separate post.

The CDC has identified a bootleg brand of THC cartridges called Dank Vapes as the source of several vape-related illnesses. NBC News has previously reported that the bogus brand’s cartridges contain contaminants such as hydrogen cyanide and vitamin E acetate, a cutting agent identified by the CDC as one of the likely culprits in the outbreak.

But until recently, you could type #dankvapesofficial into Instagram, and more than 49,000 posts would pop up.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/D4cZKor6rlQ/illicit-thc-dealers-are-raking.html

Former Vice President and current 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden says U.S. Section 230 should be immediately revoked for Facebook and other social media platforms, and that Mark Zuckerberg should be submitted to civil liability.

He made the comments in a question-and-answer sessions with the New York Times.

Here's a long excerpt but a relevant one from the New York Times Q&A session with Biden, which is worth a read in entirety:

Charlie Warzel: Sure. Mr. Vice President, in October, your campaign sent a letter to Facebook regarding an ad that falsely claimed that you blackmailed Ukrainian officials to not investigate your son. I’m curious, did that experience, dealing with Facebook and their power, did that change the way that you see the power of tech platforms right now?

No, I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem. I think ——

CW: Can you elaborate?

No, I can. He knows better. And you know, from my perspective, I’ve been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which you’re not exempt. [The Times] can’t write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can. The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/OvxEXs0XK-g/biden-says-section-230-should.html

The editors of Guardian Cities (previously) saw my Toronto Life blurb about how a "smart city" could be focused on enabling its residents, rather than tracking and manipulating them, and asked me to write a longer piece on the theme: The case for ... cities where you're the sensor, not the thing being sensed is the result.

In it, I revisit my 2015 Locus column on the idea of an Internet of Things that treats people "as sensors, not things to be sensed" -- a world where your devices never share your data with anyone else to get recommendations or advice, but rather, where all the inanimate objects stream data about how busy they are and whether they're in good repair, and your device taps into those streams and makes private recommendations, without relaying anything about you or your choices to anyone else.

As I've often written, the most important thing about technology isn't what it does, but who it does it to, and who it does it for. The sizzle-reels for "smart cities" always feature a control room where wise technocrats monitor the city and everyone in it -- all I'm asking is that we all get a seat in that control room.

My editor tells me that this is the last piece that will be commissioned for Guardian Cities, and I'm sincerely honored to get to close out an outstanding, longrunning project on urban reporting and theory.

It’s a safe bet that the people who make those videos imagine themselves as one of the controllers watching the monitors – not as one of the plebs whose movements are being fed to the cameras that feed the monitors.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/sPigWlLocBw/gods-eye-views.html

FBI needs to be able to hack into your iphone, Trump's sham AG William Barr says

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/CLO_F0OZhTs/why-ag-barrs-use-of-pensacol.html

I've been a paying member of Skillshare for a few years. It's $10 a month and I'm able to watch unlimited instructional videos on a wide range of topics - programming, data science, Photoshop, photography, and tons of others.

The Adobe After Effects instructional classes were very helpful in teaching me how to make my first animated video (about blockchain technology). I'm not only a Skillshare student -- I also created two popular video courses on Skillshare. One is an introduction to the Arduino electronic prototyping platform and the other is a course on how to design and make things.

Skillshare asked me to share this link that will get you 3 months of full access to Skillshare for 99 cents. This is a great deal and a good way for you to sample everything they have to offer. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/0h1qpyEYVwg/i-have-an-arduino-and-intro-to.html

Ars Technica health reporter Beth Mole (previously) is a national treasure, and nowhere is her background in biology and science communications on better display than when she is puncturing the potentially lethal bullshit (vaginal jade egg -toxic shock -RIP) that Gwyneth Paltrow peddles through her Goop magazine and store (Mole was very good on Paltrow's advice to squirt coffee up your asshole).

Now, Mole has watched all six episodes of "Goop Lab," Paltrow's abysmal new Netflix show, and has lived to tell the tale. Of course, Mole doesn't merely critique the incoherent, bumbling storytelling of the series -- she also digs into the scientific chaos of Paltrow's fully on-brand bad advice on subjects as varied as the therapeutic uses of psychedelics to energy healing to immersing yourself in ice-water under the supervision of a charlatan who claims he can cure cancer and whose "therapy" has killed some of his "patients."

The thing that struck me about Mole's review is that some of Paltrow's guest-experts clearly made some kind of tradeoff where they agreed to tacitly endorse Paltrow's woo-profiteering in exchange for access to her audience, in the hopes of passing on some real, useful, scientific information -- and how Paltrow managed to neutralize most of the benefit that these legitimate experts might have had to offer to her viewers by bookending their advice with stupid stunts or foolish commentary.

In fact, earlier in that same episode, we learn that the 47-year-old actor didn't even know what a vagina is.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/bGD7Be8GH9Y/must-not-see-tv.html

Approximately 170 people who recently visited Yosemite are suffering stomach pain, nausea and diaherria.

CNN:

About 170 people who've gone to Yosemite National Park this month are suffering from gastrointestinal illness, including visitors and employees.

Two of the cases are confirmed as norovirus, and the majority of the others are consistent with the virus, the park said in a statement Thursday. Most of the incidents occurred around the first week of January, and there has been a decline of new cases in the past several days, it said.

The park is investigating the circumstances surrounding the illness and is interviewing affected people. It has also enhanced sanitation protocols to prevent further spread of the disease.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/NIShpSEQTbQ/yosemite-sickens-guests.html

Last night, a lost horse was trotting around the busy A48 road in Cardiff, Wales. Police and passers-by weren't quite sure what to do but a kind Cardiff Bus driver stopped and offered to take the horse to meet its owners at a safe location. From BBC:

"The police arrived and we were all a bit flummoxed of what to do because we couldn't get a horse box there in time," (said Harley Stephens, a citizen who assisted in the rescue).

She said the Cardiff Bus driver suggested putting it on a bus, so they put the disabled ramp down and "it went on quite happily".

Accompanied by Ms Stephens the horse was then taken to the hospital Park and Ride stop, with one other passenger sitting close by.

"He was quite chill about it," she said.

Inc 900A loose horse on the 'mane' A48 Eastern Ave decided it wanted to 'stirrup' a little trouble but in doing so it risked falling 'foal' of the law.It then decided to alight an @Cardiffbus which was on it's way to the Heath Hostable!Road now re open.#team1east pic.twitter.com/z7YyMWO1x3

 South Wales Police Roads Policing Unit (@SWP_Roads) January 16, 2020

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2JV6X8OOdEQ/lost-horse-takes-city-bus-ride.html

If you're looking to build a career in web development, it starts with Javascript. This programming language was there at the golden age of the internet, and it's still the basis for millions of web pages and apps worldwide.

Suffice to say, if you're a coder who doesn't know JS yet, you're not a coder. But short of an internship with a master in the language, the Complete Full-Stack JavaScript Course is the quickest way to get familiar with it.

The online course encompasses 87 lectures, but they're far from static recitations of terms. The core of the curriculum will have you designing a calculator app, chat app and a weblog - all from scratch.

Along the way, you'll use essential JavaScript tools like ReactJS, NodeJS, Redux and many more. Even if you don't use this course to land a high-paying web developer job (and they are out there), you'll be fully able to make your own apps and pull back the curtain on your favorite websites.

All told, you get more than 20 hours of content in the Complete Full-Stack JavaScript Course, which is now available for 93% off the MSRP. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/T7vcRoDAzws/learn-full-stack-web-developme.html

"In the Realms of the Unreal [Henry Darger], 1998" by Joe Coleman

"Outsider art" is generally defined as work created by untrained, self-taught, or "na"ive" artists who aren't connected to or influenced by the traditional art world. Like most art labels, it's murky. But if anyone can help follow its historical threads, that person would be gallerist Andrew Edlin, owner of the influential Outsider Art Fair happening right now in New York City. In the below new episode of Juxtapoz Radio, Edlin looks at the history and present of the genre and its place in the art establishment:

From Juxtapoz:

From Jean Dubuffet coining the term Art Brut in the 1940s to Roger Cardinal in the 1970s bringing the term "Outsider Art" to prominence, there has been an enduring if not increasingly complicated relationship between the genre and the institutional art world. Can Outsider Art remain, well, Outsider, when shown in museums and placed into the history books?

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/G8y-YVeZ6oA/audio-history-of-outsider-art.html

Y NAKAJIMA posted this fully functional "Assault Type Thomas" to YouTube. Check out more photos at Badland Models. I dig the postapocalyptic Chp 'n' Dale.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/HFTuWsKmfos/not-sure-about-this-thomas-the.html

Defacto Sound posted this short loop of audio, the sound of a tape being sped up then stopped abruptly. Each time you play it, they say, it will sound like it's getting higher in pitch. Did it do it for you? It worked for me about three times, then the effect  whatever it is  wore off. Some people report that it didn't work at all for them; others that it works every time and they feel they're going mad listening to it. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/3isCo_y7TGo/every-time-you-play-this-audio.html

Famed "Mother" crooner and former ex-lead-singer of the Misfits Glenn Danzig has finally directed his first film, and of course it's a horror anthology. The movie's called Verotika, and while I'm slightly disappointed he didn't name it Die Die My Darling, this absolutely bonkers minute-long trailer makes up for it.

The trailer doesn't really tell you what the movies about, per se, but it definitely gives you some gorey, self-indulgent, eerily terrifying B-movie vibes—though whether it's genuinely terrifying, or just terrifyingly bad, well, the reviews so far lean towards the latter. Alex McLevy at the AV Club caught the film last summer at the Cinepocalypse Film Festival in Chicago, and his review is a work of art in and of itself:

Within the first 60 seconds, a narrator pokes out a woman’s eyes with her fingers, and it works all too well as a metaphor for what this movie puts the audience through.

[…]

This wasn’t quite the willful misunderstanding of a Tommy Wiseau, but it wasn’t far off.

[…]

Glenn Dan-zigged where he should have Dan-zagged, and for that we should all be profoundly grateful.

Verotika will be available on Vimeo on-demand starting February 25, with a 3-disc collector’s set to follow in March. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/V9MwsawEsx0/watch-the-gloriously-brutal-tr.html

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/QO2x8CNvFu8/tools-to-replace-swear-words-w.html

I missed this earlier in the week, but Wednesday, January 15 was the 30th anniversary of They Might Be Giants' third album, Flood—their major label debut that brought Casio synths and drum machines and Triangle Man and Constantinople to the mainstream.

SPIN Magazine has a great retrospective on the album, speaking with artists from Mike Doughty to Chris Carrabba to Open Mike Eagle about the impact that it had on their lives.

My own exposure to TMBG came through their weird animated music videos on Tiny Toons. I started actively listening to them in high school because my friend Flood from Asbestos Records told Teenage Me that they had an album named after him. He was lying. But he did later convince me to start a They Might Be Giants tribute band. We played exactly one show, and we called ourselves Your Racist Friends, after a song from Flood.

In hindsight, that name may not have come across as tongue-in-cheek as I thought at the time.

They Might Be Giants’ Flood Turns 30: Musicians Extol the Landmark Album [Chris Harris / SPIN]

Image via Wikimedia Commons Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/mhZ9GZOC7IE/happy-30th-anniversary-to-they.html

Ed Lawson describes the scene of an accident in no uncertain words.

"I don't know where the fuck that came from!

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/aDCjNUWtL48/man-investigates-motherf.html

As an antidote to the madness and mayhem I subjected you all to with my idiots with chainsaws post, here is ten minutes of controlled demolition of decommissioned water towers.

This is a great example of professionals knowing what they're doing as these demolition engineers land the towers between buildings, next to parked cars, etc. So many amazing things here: the crunching, booming sounds of the crashes, the great, billowing clouds of rust that plume from the tanks as they crack open, the grace (or not) of the descents.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/TPw-OmJjtpo/ten-minutes-of-collapsing-wate.html

An undercover cop in Houston shot a man who he claims approached his car, made terroristic threats, then reached for a gun. The man, Keith Martin, 45, says he was simply offering to clean his car. Martin survived his injuries, but is stuck in jail.

Martin, 45, survived the shooting and has since been charged with misdemeanor terroristic threat. His backpack did not contain a gun, but rather his car detailing equipment and cellphone, said his lawyer Andre Evans. Martin runs his own mobile car detailing service, Evans said.

In the statement, Evans said the shooting was “unjustified” and that the officer’s actions displayed racial bias. Martin, who is black, remains in Harris County Jail in lieu of a $2,000 bond.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/3krTQ53O1Wo/houston-cop-shoots-black-man-t.html

I'm absolutely charmed by Fred & Friends' Pick-its, clever little picket signs made for boozy beverages.

Unite with your fellow party-goers to take on the establishment and CHOOSE BOOZE! PICK ITS will mix it up and make a statement with 12 clever sayings fit for any picket line. This set of 24 cocktail picks is perfect for your next martini march or spritzer sit in.

A pack of 24 (12 different sayings) is available for just $5.

(RED) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/q7QNX2wm-28/tiny-protest-signs-for-your-co.html

PigeonBot is a robotic bird outfitted with real pigeon feathers that move to reshape its wings like an actual bird. Developed by researchers in Stanford's LentinkLab, the remote-controlled PigeonBot demonstrates how morphing wings improves flying agility. (Video below.) Their resulting technical paper is the cover story in the current issue of the journal Science Robotics. From Science News:

Birds can modify the shape of their wings by fanning out their feathers or shuffling them closer together. Those adjustments allow birds to cut through the sky more nimbly than rigid drones....

Researchers bent and extended the wings of dead pigeons to investigate how the birds control their wing shape. Those experiments revealed that the angles of two wing joints, the wrist and the finger, most affect the alignment of a wing’s flight feathers. The orientations of those long, stiff feathers, which support the bird in flight, help determine the wing’s shape. Based on those findings, the team built a robot with real pigeon feathers, whose faux wrists and fingers can morph its wing shape as seen in the pigeon cadavers.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/3Yn3AAnVOvI/robot-bird-with-real-pigeon-fe.html