Just in time for all those holiday packages stacking up at your door, former NASA engineer Mark Rober released on Sunday a video of his new and improved "Glitter Bomb Trap 2.0" that exacts stinky, sparkle-filled revenge on porch pirates. The new trap features design upgrades and even more fart spray. Macaulay Culkin, whose character in Home Alone inspired the original viral prank, makes an appearance in the new video.
Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/youtuber-debuts-glitter-bomb-2-0-to-get-back-at-package-thieves/
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YouTuber's Glitter Bomb 2.0 Slaps Back at Package Thieves
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(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @09:19AM (1 child)
Didn't find it funny last year, less chances to find it funny this year.
I mean, I'm drowning in Marvel and Starwars movies already, why would I appreciate a YouTuber sequel. Or prequel. Or whatevs of the same old same old.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @02:25AM
Not only was it not that funny last year, there's evidence that it was all a big hoax with purported "package thieves" actually being Rober's friends/family/colleagues.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/21/viral-glitter-bomb-video-featured-fake-thieves-creator-says/2389954002/ [usatoday.com]
Just another faux pop-science youtube channel trying to get ad revenue.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday December 17 2019, @11:32AM (11 children)
It's a bit interesting as a concept. I would assume they have checked on the legality of the device, it's usually not legal to booby trap your house -- I further assume that your porch belongs to your house. That said perhaps the device should not be considered to be a booby trap, it seems less then lethal -- no explosives or actual shrapnel as far as I can tell, from the previous version he built there seems to be some kind of motor running the device and not an explosive which I gather helps with resetting the device for another go.
That said since this takes place in the USA I'm just waiting for some porch pirate (that is a funny term) to get glitter in their eyes and "go blind" and sue him for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:08PM (7 children)
I doubt they checked on the legality of the device. The point isn't the lethality, but rather whether it's deployed automatically without human intervention and causes damage. Waiting for the first person to get busted by this (like get caught and have nothing left to lose) but get glitter in their eyes and have to go to the hospital for a lavage. The creator of the device will be sued for the hospital bill and likely have to pay it. Plus damages if permanent damage is caused by, say, cornea scratches.
OTOH, if they device does require human intervention it could still be construed as an intentional assault depending upon the laws of the jurisdiction regarding ability to use force to stop a crime. For example: Someone trying to steal your package does not necessarily justify your cracking them over the head with a baseball bat and putting them into a coma - it's a disproportional use of force. May be stupid but them's the rules.
They'd be much smarter to use something like pepper spray than glitter IMVHO.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:14PM (5 children)
Does it actually cause any damage? A lawyer could argue it is a practical joke. Any claims of damages by anyone could be countered by claims of theft of the package from the porch.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @09:33PM (1 child)
Yes. [ceenta.com] And it can cost an eye [cosmopolitan.com]. Granted, that's only one case out of uncountable many.
Yeah, except that the law doesn't really work that way in either case. The action would be that the creation of the bomb, intentional or not or joke or not, caused the damage. Attempted theft or not, there is still a duty of a reasonable and prudent person to not cause unnecessary injury if that injury could be forseen.
That it was done in the commission of a crime isn't relevant; that was settled by the lawsuits where lethal booby traps were used to stop a trespasser. The trespass was only relevant to the amount of force employed against it and booby traps take out the ability to judge what level of force is appropriate - that is why castle doctrine or stand your ground laws are regarded as necessary where they exist. A camera with the GPS is plenty enough evidence to identify the perpetrator - the other elements (glitter and spray) are not necessary. One might even make the case that the fake package was an attractive nuisance (it did not have to be there).
In any events, the people who are trying to do this are actually asking for a costly lawsuit. I'd rather doubt that they'll recover their expenses.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 17 2019, @10:06PM
Bomb? I don't seem to recall any pyrotechnics. The glitter was in a 'spinner'. Once the motor spun up, the glitter goes flying out, for what looked like 2 to 3 feet. It ends up on floor, shoes, pants, etc. Now someone could be in just the wrong place to get some in their face.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @09:36PM
Also should have said regarding damage, the fact that cornea scratches and infection are possible are plenty enough justification to demand a trip to the hospital to wash the eyes out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @12:02AM
It could. But regardless, you can only use reasonable force against a thief to be considered justified, which this might cross. Not to mention traps in general are frowned upon because it is definitely foreseeable that innocent third parties might be harmed and force against innocent bystanders is never justified.
(Score: 3, Informative) by doke on Thursday December 19 2019, @05:43PM
No. It does not cause any damage. It just makes a mess, a bad smell, and plays amusing sounds to scare the thieves. The glitter is bio-degradable, not the glass, plastic, or aluminum grit mentioned in the links in other replies.
This is just a funny prank to teach thieves there are consequences to stealing from their neighbors. In the video, he explains he had reported the issue to the police, and they did nothing.
No one is going sue him, because they would have to publicly admit to being thieves. That would go on their permanent record, and be broadcast on social media. Their friends and any potential employer would see it on the internet. If they were still stupid enough to sue, he can afford a lawyer who would easily point out the plaintiff was offending the judge's intelligence.
(Score: 2) by doke on Thursday December 19 2019, @05:50PM
Please actually watch the video before making uninformed comments. It contains a clear explanation of how the device is triggered, and what it does. The device is triggered by the thief opening the package, not by any operator intervention. It is carefully designed not to cause any harm. It uses a small electric motor to throw bio-degradable giltter a few feet, emit a "fart" smell, and play sounds. There are no explosive compounds. It's a harmless prank.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by richtopia on Tuesday December 17 2019, @07:57PM (1 child)
The glitter bomb is designed to be non-lethal and non-harmful, so I assume it should be safe from legal retribution (not legal advice, IANAL).
If you would like to read on the case that defined the precedence of booby-traps read up on Katko v Briney. This case had a spring loaded shotgun aimed at a bedroom door so a trespasser would be shot if the door is opened. From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katko_v._Briney [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @11:57PM
You can be liable for any act that is negligent. Your good intent does not matter. Praying for your child to get better while denying them medical care? Still your fault no matter how well intentioned. You owe a duty to prevent unreasonable harm to others. The fact that someone is a thief does not change that duty, only the measure of reasonableness, which never reaches serious physical harm to protect property. There is a good chance that a finder of fact would consider blinding (or other serious damage to) a thief or any damage to third parties to be reasonably foreseeable and unreasonable.
Not that any of this matters. Last year's video was fake, so this one was likely faked too.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday December 18 2019, @01:35AM
The empty box turned up on the street 4 blocks away.
Better next time to put dog poop in bubble envelopes... more chance for spilling on clothes, etc when opening.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday December 17 2019, @12:26PM (3 children)
I'm sure this gets decent click revenue for the author, however the "thieves" seemed to simply think it was funny and I imagine it's just a story they tell their buddies "Yea, I got one of that youtube guys packages, it was hilarious". They then go on to continue stealing peoples packages. I didn't see a single instance where the police showed any interest in taking action.
Near as I can tell this just makes it a more "popular" pastime while enriching the author rather than doing anything to stop these pieces of sh*t.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @02:49PM (2 children)
Why would the author get paid when I click on the youtube link? I just see the video and then I'm done.
By the way: anyone know how youtube makes money? I suppose they need some money to keep their server running. I know that TV shows commercials, but I never saw one on youtube...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:23PM (1 child)
A certain % of users don't use adblockers, and that might be enough to carry the ones that do. Try it yourself: use a "clean" browser, disable any of your rules that are blocking GOOG/Doubleclick, and see how many ads you get on YouTube.
There's also YouTube TV, an attempt at a subscription cable service, as well as channel memberships (monthly paid subscriptions to individual YouTubers akin to Twitch subscriptions), etc.
https://www.feedough.com/youtube-business-model-how-does-youtube-make-money/ [feedough.com]
On top of what's listed, there's also superchats. Basically stream watchers promoting their chats with cash (usually read/responded to by the streamer), and YouTube taking a 30% cut.
I've seen superchats even on those live music streaming channels. Basically "24/7 chill hip hop beats to relax/study to", no human involved in the process as far as I can tell, and people in the chat will still pledge some money to make their chats somewhat more visible to other users.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7288782?hl=en [google.com]
Theoretically, the cost of running YouTube could start to drop eventually. There's only so many billions of users that they can have, only so much time in the day each user will be willing to watch on average, which leaves the upload rate (usually measured in hundreds of hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute) as a major determinant of costs. Meanwhile, YouTube will be the prime adopter of AV1 and AV2 codecs which should slash bandwidth needs, if not storage (since they store the same video in potentially dozens of codec + resolution pairs).
I'm not sure their costs will plateau or drop anytime soon since they'll need to continue using AI to determine which videos are advertiser-friendly. YouTube got hit by manufactured controversies by people looking to profit [adage.com], and now they have to bend over backwards and use the latest in Google's AI technology to try to wrangle the massive amount of content. They will probably end up throwing the equivalent of zettaflops of performance at the problem.
Finally, check out the Trending [youtube.com] page. Sure looks like there's some paid promotion there.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:20PM
^This is why I don't use YouTube on my tablet. There is a YouTube app, but blocking the advertisements would be difficult. Also, I don't use it enough to deal with trying to make sure YouTube doesn't show advertisements.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:13PM (4 children)
I just saw this video yesterday evening. Suggested by YouTube.
Coincidence? Or can The Google figure out this was an upcoming story and that I
write dumb commentsread stuff on SN?Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:25PM (3 children)
I saw it on the Trending page while writing the earlier comment:
https://www.youtube.com/feed/trending [youtube.com]
So it could be paid promotion for all we know. CNET will probably pick it up for free for clikz, and then we pick it up from CNET. Like a virus.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:31PM (2 children)
So it's like Internet-herpes except there was actually no fun involved?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:22PM (1 child)
It's like glitter, that annoying microplastic pollution that needs to be wiped from the face of the Earth.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 17 2019, @10:11PM
Glitter usually does get wiped up from the face of the Earth after the party or parade is over.
Keep your glitter off my lawn!
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 5, Informative) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:20PM (5 children)
Isn't this the same guy that faked some of his videos last year? Really can't believe he's doing this again. Yawn
(Score: 3, Informative) by epitaxial on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:37PM (2 children)
Yes the last one was fake as fuck. I knew it was fake from the start and finally the guy admitted the "thieves" were some friends of his. Everyone got paid because it pushed all the feel good buttons.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 17 2019, @06:49PM (1 child)
Gotta love the US: where a vigilante with an explosive device is a feel good story!
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday December 17 2019, @07:51PM
The guy doing this with the blank shotgun shells was the real hero.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @08:38PM
I think he's also the guy who spent about as much time at NASA Ames to heat up your coffee before leaving, but now he is forever branded as "former NASA engineer".
(Score: 2) by doke on Thursday December 19 2019, @05:28PM
Some of the footage was faked, without his knowledge or approval. As soon as he found out, he apologized, deleted that footage, and re-released the video.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @06:43PM (2 children)
Sounds like a robber himself. The khazar jew rats hide hoaxes with certain names and numbers added to let other khazar jew rats know that it is a hoax perpetrated by the khazar jew rats on simple humans.
With a name like Rober (Robber), the insiders know it is a hoax.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 17 2019, @06:51PM (1 child)
Let me guess: you also get really offended when people call you a Nazi.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @07:01PM
Being a Nazi is a good thing. As for neo-nazis, those are government-controlled groups meant to control people and prevent them from finding the truth about anything. There are people who still believe in the six million lie and the anne frank diary hoax and others.