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I Went to a Cannabis-Themed Gala and Saw the Future

Marketed as "Canada's first vapour gala," the Go Greene Winter Gala was held at a "private upscale location" made known to ticketholders the day of. Go Greene is an advocacy group that promotes diversity within the cannabis community. It was founded by former Alaska-based TV journalist Charlo Greene, who quit her job on air to become a full-time activist.

[...] A table outside the door of the party room was stacked with goodies like THC-infused soda, cookies, and candy. I passed, and by that I mean I stuffed them into my purse, because I knew I wouldn't be able to interview people baked. Once outfitted with green wristbands, we headed into what was akin to a massive hotbox. There was green lighting, gold balloons that spelled out "Go Greene," and a green carpet that was made of felt or something very similar to felt and was secured to the floor with visible packing tape.

The 80 or so guests were instructed to dress to impress, and many of them obliged, wearing gowns, tuxedos, and random head gear. (I put on a grey dress that I wear to work all the time because I'm lazy.) They posed for photos in front of a backdrop branded with the names of different cannabis industry sponsors—the kind normally reserved for film festivals and obnoxious clubs.

[...] Caterers made their way around the room carrying trays of prosciutto-wrapped melon and black bean cakes, while hip-hop artists and DJs performed on a slightly elevated stage. The bar was manned by two dabtenders with blowtorches. (There was no booze on premise, which is probably for the best.)

Sarah Gilles, who works at promotions/events company The High Five, was serving up weed juice shots and giving away swag bags filled with her cannabis-infused beauty products like body butter and a scrub. She told me weed is responsible for her glowing "420 face" and that people who suffer from skin conditions and pain should consider using it.

[...] My photographer and I were separated briefly until I found her sitting alone on a bright red dentist's chair beside the bathroom, hair tousled and eyes glazed.

"I did dabs," she said. "I seriously actually can't feel my face right now." Her words convinced me to do one, after which we posted up on a couch in the loft discussing all the times we'd ghosted on events because we were too high. Then we did exactly that.

In hindsight, I realized the weed ball was novel for more than just its atmosphere; there seemed to be no fear of being busted by cops and, for the first time in my experience reporting on drugs, no one hesitated to give me their name.

But the party is only a small reflection of movements taking place across the country. Pot shops (including a recreational one with a dab bar), already well-established on Canada's west coast, are making their way east. Judges have been calling bullshit on possession-related cases due to the "ridiculous" laws they hinge on, and politicians are vocalizing their visions for having cannabis sold in liquor stores. Dealers are even hosting holiday sales.

So while pragmatists will tell you legalization is a long way from being a reality, in some ways it seems it's already here.

Other selected stories:

Google dives into virtual reality with new division and new boss

Yahoo dumps 13.5TB of users' news interaction data for machine eating

Intel: For Mainstream Gamers, Our IGPs Are Equivalent to Discrete GPUs

Plan For Cuba Ferry Terminal Reveals Shift In Miami Politics

Microsoft Releases Its JavaScript Engine As Open Source 'ChakraCore'

The Guardian reports that the Royal Bank of Scotland has advised its clients to:

“Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small.”

There is a warning that the current situation is strongly reminiscent of 2008 just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

In another report, there are more prophecies of doom.

What's going on?

It's not all about Oculus:

Tom's Hardware

JB McRee, Sr. Manager of Product Marketing of Virtual Reality at HTC confirmed to us that the Vive headset will in fact be available for pre-order on February 29, 2016. HTC doesn’t have any other details to share about the retail release, but McRee told said the details will be announced prior to the pre-order date.

Wikipedia

HTC Vive is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display being developed in co-production between HTC and Valve Corporation. It is also part of Valve Corporation's SteamVR project.

To be edited

When Will Potential 2016 Candidates Discuss the ‘Extraterrestrial Issue’?

Former Obama aide and well-known X-Files obsessive John Podesta tweeted this month that his "biggest failure of 2014" was "Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files."

Many assume that Podesta will soon sign up for the still-hypothetical Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, which means that the UFO lobby might just endorse Clinton for a second time if decides to run.

Stephen Bassett, head of the Paradigm Research Group (which runs a blog about presidential UFO news and hosted an off-brand hearing for ex-members of Congress on government transparency in matters extraterrestrial), told the Huffington Post in 2007 that Hillary Clinton "knows this issue is not trivial." Nearly eight years later, Bassett is still trying to access any government documents on UFOs, and still hoping that Clinton will reach out to constituents like him.

CIA Cover-up Alleged in JFK's 'Secret UFO Inquiry'

Put articles here, edit, publish stories later. Comment if you like something.

Hate

Is CES getting too big for its own good?

Lenovo

Lenovo Refreshes ThinkPad Lineup at CES
Lenovo Launches The Modular ThinkPad X1 Tablet at CES
Lenovo Launches ThinkVision Displays With USB-C Docking At CES
Lenovo Launches ThinkPad X1 Yoga At CES With OLED Display
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lenovo-thinkpad-13-windows10-chromebook,30879.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9889/lenovo-refreshes-thinkpad-lineup-at-ces
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9887/lenovo-launches-thinkpad-x1-yoga-at-ces-with-oled-display
Lenovo Announces The Vibe S1 Lite
Lenovo Debuts New ThinkVision Displays At CES 2016
These Are Lenovo's idea And Yoga Products For CES
Lenovo Shows Off (Razer) Gaming Systems And Peripherals at CES

Acer

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/acer-ultra-thin-curved-monitors,30873.html#xtor=RSS-181
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/acer-h7-monitors-usb-type-c,30866.html#xtor=RSS-181
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/acer-ces-notebooks-chrome-tablet,30874.html#xtor=RSS-181
Acer Aspire Unveils Switch 12 S 2-in-1 Notebook

NVIDIA

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-vr-ready-qualification-program,30880.html
NVIDIA Announces DRIVE PX 2 - Pascal Power For Self-Driving Cars
NVIDIA Discloses Next-Generation Tegra SoC; Parker Inbound?
Nvidia Shield TV Update 3.0 Offers Marshmallow, Additional Storage Options And Customizations

MediaTek

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/mediatek-soc-wearables-smarthome-bluray,30833.html

Samsung

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-portable-ssd-t3,30875.html
Samsung Adds Lightweight Models To ATIV Book 9 Notebook Series
Samsung Unveils The Galaxy TabPro S
Samsung Announces New Gear S2 Models And iOS Support
Samsung Announces The Ultra-Light Notebook 9 Series Laptops At CES 2016

ASUS

ASUS Announces February Launch For The ZenFone Zoom

Huawei

Huawei's Mate 8 6-inch Phablet Coming To North America, We Go Hands On
The Huawei Mate 8 Review
Huawei Announces The MediaPad M2 10
Huawei Launches Huawei Watch Elegant and Huawei Watch Jewel
Hands On With the Huawei Honor 5X

PCs, Laptops, Tablets

MAINGEAR Rolls-Out 34” All-in-One PC with 18-Core Xeon, GeForce GTX Titan X
Endless On A Mission To Bring Information Age To All With $79 PC
Gigabyte Updates Aorus X5 Gaming Notebook With Skylake And Fusion Keyboard
Origin PC Goes Custom With Chronos SFF Case, Omni AIO Gaming PC
Toshiba’s DynaPad Tablet to Hit Stores in Late January
ASRock To Deliver Mini-PC Using Intel's New STX Form Factor
Razer Launches The Razer Blade Stealth Ultrabook And Razer Core At CES 2016
Samsung Announces Budget 'Chromebook 3' For Early 2016
Android-Based Remix OS 2.0 Coming As Free Download For PC And Mac
Intel’s Skull Canyon Mystery PC Confirmed And Detailed
First Benchmarks On Intel's New Atom-Based Compute Stick
Intel Brings Skylake To Its NUC PCs
AMD Reveals Single Socket For Zen CPU, APU
AMD Announces A10-7890K APU and Upgrades Desktop Platforms
Intel Expands Compute Stick Family with Cherry Trail and Core M Models
Compulab Rolls-Out Passively-Cooled Airtop Systems
CES 2016: MSI’s 27-inch 4K Gaming AIO with Full Sized Discrete GPU, the 27XT 6QE
CES 2016: 34-inch 3440x1440 AIO Hands-On at GIGABYTE
Home>desktops
CES 2016: MSI’s Vortex Gaming PC on Display and It Looks Almost Like a Mac Pro
CES 2016: MSI Gaming Notebooks and Mobile Workstations
ECS Goes Skylake with LIVA One

Smartphones

Gold Nexus 6P Comes To The US
Intel’s Smartphone: RealSense/Project Tango Dev Kit Shipping Q1
Lenovo, Intel Have Duelling Project Tango Smartphones
Intel and Google Equip Smartphones with 3D Cameras and Computer Vision
Acer Liquid Jade Primo Dock, Quick Look
Marshall's 'London' Smartphone Is Built For Music Creators
Macate 'Cyberphones' Promise Unspoofable Face Recognition, Other Security Measures

Wearables

CES 2016: Fitbit Blaze smartwatch sends shares into dive
Honor Launches The Honor Band Z1
Zeiss Smart Optics: Discreet Smart Glasses

Graphics

Imagination Announces PowerVR Series7XT Plus Family - Rogue Gets Improved Compute
Imagination Demos Realtime Ray Tracing
Asus Debuts Graphics Dock That Uses PCIe Over USB-C

Storage

Seagate used shingled magnetic recording in a 2.5" portable drive for the first time in order to fit 2 terabytes within a 9.6 mm thick enclosure.

Intel 3D XPoint, Pictured: Microsoft Joins The Party
LaCie Unveils USB-C Porsche and Chrome Drives
Seagate Updates DAS Portfolio at CES 2016
SanDisk Announces X400 Client SSD for OEMs
Patriot Memory Enters PCIe Storage Market with Hellfire SSDs
Zotac Prepares Premium NVMe SSD Based On Phison's E7
Silicon Motion Has The First Multi Vendor 3D Flash Controller
Need A 512 GB USB Stick Or USB Type-C SSD Enclosure? Patriot Has You Covered
OCZ Preps Second-Gen TLC, First NVMe SSDs For 2016
Patriot Shows Hellfire And Viper SSDs At CES
QNAP at CES: A M.2 SSD NAS, Dual-Xeon ZFS NAS and More
The QNAP TBS-453A Changes The NAS Game
Kingston Readies Several New Products For 2016
Mark Your Calendar: Phison E7 Set For March Release
SanDisk Updates DAS Lineup at CES
Plextor M8Pe With Marvell Eldora Coming Soon
Mushkin Goes For The SSD Trifecta At CES
G-Technology Demonstrates G-SPEED Shuttle XL Thunderbolt 2 DAS at CES

Displays

CES 2016: Hand-on with LG's roll-up flexible screen
Samsung Introduces Curved 27-inch CF591 FreeSync-Over-HDMI Monitor
Dell Introduces World's First InfinityEdge Monitors And 30-inch OLED Monitor
Dell's Wireless Monitors Change The Way You Work
Dell Demonstrates 30-inch 4K OLED Display
Hisense at CES: Affordable and Feature-Packed 4K TVs for HTPCs
Viewsonic Debuts Eight New Monitors At CES

Virtual Reality

Oculus Rift Now Available For Pre-Order For $599, Will Ship In April
The Vive Pre, HTC’s New VR Developer Kit: First Look
HTC Unveils the Vive Pre Dev Kit
Virtuix' Potential Mini-IPO Lets General Public Invest In VR Tech
Tom's Hardware Tries The Virtuix Omni VR Treadmill
Alienware And Dell Announce Oculus Ready PC Bundles For $1,600
Oculus: The Best Way To Keep A Secret Is To Not Know Answer
Exclusive: Fove's VR HMD At CES 2016, First Look
Virtuix Proved That The Omni Vr Treadmill Is the Real Deal
QiVARI Eye Tracking Tech Taking On Tobii, Fove In AR/VR HMDs
3DRudder VR Foot Controller Steering Towards March Launch
Interview: Valve's Chet Faliszek On The HTC Vive Pre
Crytek Announces 'VR First' Academic Program

Cameras

HumanEyes' Consumer-Grade 'Vuze' 360-Degree VR Camera Package, Under $1,000
Razer Launches The Stargazer Webcam With Intel RealSense3D At CES 2016
Kodak Launches 360-Degree 4K Action Cam And Accessories

Networking and Routers

Promise Unveils Apollo Personal Cloud Product
Amped Wireless' Athena Series Gets A New Router And Range Extender
Linksys Teases New MU-MIMO Products At CES 2016
Netgear Announces Cable Modem Router To Lower Your Monthly ISP Rental Costs
Wi-Fi HaLow: Long-Range, Low-Power Wi-Fi for Internet-of-Things Devices
Four New Linksys Cable Modems Revealed During CES
Netgear's MU-MIMO EX7300 And EX6400 Range Extenders Are Available Now
TP-Link Unifies Smart Home Functionality With The SR20 Smart Home Router
Securifi's Almond 3, An All-Encompassing Smart Home Solution
Netgear Releases Nighthawk X4 Successor: The R7800 Nighthawk X4S
D-Link Offers Adaptive Roaming With New Unified Network Kit
Synology Demonstrates RT1900ac 802.11ac Router at CES
Linksys Expands Max-Stream Networking Lineup at CES
Netgear Updates Networking Lineup at CES
TRENDnet Announces AC2600 Router and AC1900 USB 3.0 WLAN Adapter at CES
Amped Wireless Launches APOLLO IP Cameras and Updates Networking Lineup at CES
D-Link Demonstrates Innovative Networking Solutions at CES
Securifi Updates Smart Home Hub Lineup with New Almond 3 Wireless Router

Cooling, Cases, PSUs, Motherboards, Accessories

Cooler Master Debuts MasterWatt 1200W, 1500W PSUs
Cooler Master Unveils MasterAir Maker 8, MasterCase Maker 5
RGB Lighting Comes To Logitech’s G502 Proteus Spectrum
CES 2016: be quiet! Doubles Revenue in 2015
Deepcool Integrates Liquid Cooling Into Genome ATX Case
be quiet! Pure Power 9 Series Unveiled
Rosewill Showcases PSUs, Cases And More At CES 2016
Seasonic Reveals Its First Titanium PSU: The Prime
DeepCool's Liquid Cooled PSU
AMD Reveals Wraith: Next-Generation Cooler for Microprocessors
EVGA Introduces Upgradable All-In-One Liquid Cooling System
Thermaltake Pacific R360 D5 Water Cooling Kit Makes A Splash At CES
SilverStone PSUs, Cases And Other Accessories At CES 2016
In Win Outs H-Frame Case And Limited Edition 1065 W PSU
Thermaltake’s Core W100 And WP100 Are Cases With Plenty Of Spaces
Thermaltake Makes A 'Green' 1250-Watt RGB LED PSU
CES 2016: Deepcool’s Gamer Storm brand Exhibits Water Cooling for a Power Supply
The Problem With Overclocking On Non-Z170 Chipsets
CES 2016: GIGABYTE’s Double Length Gaming BRIX
MSI's Four New Motherboards Includes Gold PCB Model
Super Micro Unveils Z170, H170 Boards With OC Features At CES
The Rosewill Quark Series Power Supply Review (750W, 850W, 1000W, 1200W)
CES 2016: The Race to Skylake Xeon Motherboards at GIGABYTE
CES 2016: Deepcool’s Genome is a Water Cooling Equipped Case with a Helix Reservoir
All Of Asus' New Motherboards At CES
CES 2016: MSI’s Golden Idea for Motherboards
CES 2016: Cooler Master’s MasterWatt Connected Digital PSU Almost Ready
Patriot’s Three Prototype Gaming Mice At CES

Cars

CES 2016: Faraday Future shows off its concept car
Qualcomm, Nvidia are driving us nuts – with silicon-brains-for-cars
Automakers Mark Moves Into Tech With Expanded Presence At CES
NVIDIA Pascal GPUs Coming to Automotive ‘Supercomputer’

Drones and Robots

At CES, New Robots Deliver More Coos Than Utility
Drone able to transport humans shown at Consumer Electronics Show by Chinese drone company

Misc.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ces-enthusiast-news-here,30869.html#xtor=RSS-181
CES 2016: A look at the first tech announced in Vegas
NZXT Launches Overhauled CAM 3.0 PC Monitoring Tool
CES 2016 Day Zero Wrap-Up (Video)
Ambarella CES 2016 Tour
Revisiting Keyssa: Commercial Availability, Products in Q1 2016
Tom's Hardware CES 2016 Day One Video Wrap-up
Tom's Hardware CES 2016 Final Video Roundup
Tom's Hardware's CES 2016 Top Picks
Peek Into The Future: C.E.S. 2016 Wrap-Up
CES 2016: ASUS Product Tour
CES 2016: Dell Booth Tour
CES 2016: Lenovo Booth Tour
Conexant Announces New Audio Processing Solutions At CES
Report by Robert Scoble from CES
ASUS Booth Tour at CES 2016: 10G Switches, External GPU Dock, USB-C Monitor and more
An Unexpected CES Trend: Modularity

Write:

Automotive + NVIDIA Pascal
LG rollable display
3D Xpoint
Seagate stuff
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9940/intel-and-google-equip-smartphones-with-3d-cameras-and-computer-vision

Meet sexcurity theater:

Belgium police investigate Brussels lockdown orgy claims

Police chiefs in Belgium have reportedly launched an internal investigation into claims soldiers and police officers held an orgy while colleagues hunted for terror suspects. Two policewomen and eight soldiers are said to have engaged in a sex party at a police station in the Brussels neighbourhood of Ganshoren.

The city was in lockdown over fears of a Paris-style attack at the time. Soldiers slept at the police station for two weeks during the operation.

"When they left, they organised a small party to thank the police in the area," police spokesman, Johan Berckmans, told Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure (in French). "We have launched an investigation to find out what exactly happened."

Speaking to De Standaard (in Dutch), the spokesman said 15 to 20 soldiers had been sleeping at the Ganshoren police station during two weeks in November so they did not have to travel so far at the end of their shift.

I'm not a railway enthusiast at all, but back in the olden days (1960s) there was a British Rail research project to develop a train that could travel at high speed on Birtain's 19th Century railway lines. The project became the Advanced Passenger Train.

The APT employed a tilting mechanism to allow it to go around curves up to 40% faster than conventional trains. It could achieve speeds of 160mph, when not held up by slower traffic. There were even gas turbine-powered prototypes, however in 1981 three electrical trains were built.

Unfortunately, the journalists invited to experience the first Glasgow to London run were plied with drink and reported that the tilting mechanism made them feel sick. Mechanical problems followed, and the trains were withdrawn from service.

They were reintroduced in 1984 but were withdrawn in 1986 for good.

The technology was adopted by other companies in France and Italy, and now Virgin Trains uses the tilting Italian/French Pendolinos on the West Coast Main Line.

Lemmy died on 28th December at the age of 70. The Guardian has some of his best quotes (with swears etc.)

In your twenties, you think you are immortal. In your thirties, you hope you are immortal. In your forties, you just pray it doesn’t hurt too much, and by the time you reach my age, you become convinced that, well, it could be just around the corner. Do I think about death a lot? It’s difficult not to when you’re 65, son.

The BBC and the Guardian both recently reported that Pope Francis has officially recognised Mother Theresa' second miracle, and that her canonisation is expected to take place in Rome in September.

The BBC article states , "The miracle involved the healing of a Brazilian man with several brain tumours in 2008, the Vatican said."

The Guardian article, however, goes into more detail about the controversial nun and discussed the incident of another alleged miracle, as documented by Christopher Hitchens. "A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of Mother Teresa, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumour. Her physician, Dr Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumour in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine."

Mother Theresa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is said to have amassed vast wealth and enjoyed the best private health care money could buy, while the poor and sick in her missions in India endured illness without proper medication, pain relief and even had to use second-hand hypodermics, despite the huge sums of money donated to the "good cause."

All miracles are open to public scrutiny, so there should be no doubt!

Let us examine the evidence. Or not.

Learning from the past: What yesterday's media can tell us about the times

If you want to get a real feel for what was happening during a certain period in history, how people really felt about the issues of the day, take a look at the media coverage.

For example, a recent study of how historically black newspapers covered the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia, found their coverage not that much different from their mainstream counterparts.

The team of researchers, including a journalism professor from Michigan State University, was surprised by the findings, as they hypothesized that black newspapers would be more sympathetic to the racially mixed couple who challenged the Virginia law.

Historically, said MSU’s Geri Alumit Zeldes, the African-American press is an advocate for civil rights.

“Just knowing how the ethnic press operates, we thought they were going to be very one-sided in favor of the Lovings,” she said. “But they followed the same pattern as the mainstream media such as the New York Times and others.”

Zeldes said one of the lessons learned from this, something that hasn’t changed since the first newspaper was printed, is that news is a cultural mirror of what is going on in society at that point in time.

“If you take a look at the newspapers at the time they were published, they will give you hints as to what the times were like,” she said. “So if we look at the black press at that time period, you can get a sense of what the black community was thinking because those reporters were part of that community.”

Zeldes said that by reviewing the newspapers’ stances on the issue, it gives us a clue to the political and cultural mood of the time.

“It indicates,” she said, “that some segments of society in the late 1960s were ready to lessen social and cultural marriage restrictions, but that other groups in the United States were still undecided.”

News as a Cultural Mirror: Historically Black Newspapers Reflecting Public Views of Loving v. Virginia (1967) (DOI: 10.1111/josi.12144)

From Futurity.