humanist + humorist

Title grabbed from The Onion’s lists of biggest crypto heists of all time.

As of this writing, Coinopsy has records of 2,403 “dead” cryptocurrencies, compared to a whopping 414 that are still kicking.

“In May, the Federal Trade Commission reported that consumers had lost more than $80 million on crypto scams between October 2020 and March 2021 — more than ten times the amount lost during the same period the previous year, $2 million of which was lost to scammers impersonating Elon Musk.”

Gaming company co-founder on why companies like Steam have stopped trying to work with crypto: “the vast majority of those transactions, for whatever reason, were fraudulent, where people were repudiating transactions or using illegal sources of funds and things like that. And that’s just out of control, right? You want that number, realistically, in a couple of percent, not half of all transactions turning out to be fraudulent transactions. Similarly, with the actors that are currently in this NFT space, they’re just not people you really are wanting to be doing business with. ”

Some crypto miners and traders “are attempting to take advantage of a controversial tax incentive in Republicans’ 2017 major tax legislation — specifically, by investing in “opportunity zones,” which were sold as a plan to buoy the poorest American neighborhoods but have evolved into a way for wealthy investors to funnel billions in untaxed profits into virtually any venture they choose.”

“As of Feb. 8 roughly 55% of Bitcoin investors were underwater, according to cryptocurrency investment firm 21Shares. That’s actually an improvement from several weeks ago, when Bitcoin was trading about $35,000. At that time, more than two out of every three Bitcoin investors were in the red.”

Crypto Critics’ Corner constantly has conversations about crypto so smart and technical and well-informed, I can barely keep up, and it’s an absolute pleasure to listen to. Recently a guest went “the value of Bitcoin is usually given in US$, but we should give it in Tether” and I was all…listen, I could not possibly have connected those dots myself, but know juuuust enough to grasp why it’s a Big Deal. I’m hanging on by my fingertips and it’s great.

Earlier this afternoon...a breakthrough.

I keep the fluff's brush on the couch, so when he comes close enough I can hold it out for him to sniff. Sometimes even get away with a light stroke -- not enough to actually reach any tangles, all it achieves is reassuring him that it's Not Dangerous -- before he darts away.

So he hops down from the windowsill, and I offer the brush for the usual investigation, and...



For a solid five minutes he just rolled around under the brush, twisting so I could get different angles, head butting up against my arm. There was, briefly but unmistakably, purring.

At first I was sure he'd lose his nerve if I reached for the phone to take any pictures. Then I risked it. He stuck around. I snapped these adorable shots. He kept it up.

It has been almost exactly 51 week since I brought him home. Just shy of a solid year. Six months ago, when people asked if he was letting me pet him yet, I told them it would be at least another six months -- well, look at him now.



I got a fair amount of loose fur out of his coat. Even managed to do a bit of bare-handed skritching, long enough for me to confirm that he is Very Soft, before I got a light swat to let me know he was Done. (He sat around on the couch with me for a while afterward, though, so it wasn't like he was mad about it.)

Wonder how long it'll take before he comes back for more. I guess we'll find out. Bet it won't be as long as 51 weeks this time, though.

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...the rest of this is COVID-19 news links, ordered by date.

(So, a timeline of what it's like to live through the point in every disaster movie where the experts say "we've scienced up some great preventative measures here, but please, you have to do them Right Now or it'll be too late.")

March 11: "From a woman whose symptoms started with a fever, to a man who said he was an inch from death, coronavirus survivors have begun speaking out about the worldwide pandemic."

March 18: "Gen. Dave Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, confirmed that military cargo planes were moving coronavirus testing kits, but did not give specific details during a Wednesday briefing at the Pentagon. The general acknowledged that 'we’ve just made a pretty significant movement into Memphis.'" ...From Italy. You know, they need those in Italy.

March 22: "People say Contagion is prescient. We just saw the science. The whole epidemiological community has been warning everybody for the past 10 or 15 years that it wasn't a question of whether we were going to have a pandemic like this. It was simply when." Interview with Dr. Larry Brilliant, the epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox.

March 23: "Product distributed by Diamond [i.e. comics, especially floppy single issues, to local comic shops] and slated for an on-sale date of April 1st or later will not be shipped to retailers until further notice."

March 24: "This particular group of Chicago workers was fed up with [Amazon] failing to provide paid time off or vacation it promised to part-time workers. They organized; Amazon resisted -- and at last, the coronavirus acted as tiebreaker." Good for them.

March 24 again: "'We saw his press conference. It was on a lot, actually,' she said. 'Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure.' [...] They mixed a small amount of the substance with liquid to drink. Within 20 minutes, both fell ill. Her husband could not be revived in hospital and she remains in critical care." It's been obvious for years that Trump is a compulsive liar, and everyone who's still ignoring that gets horrifically damaged by it eventually, but this must be some kind of record for the fastest trajectory from "trusting something he said" to "horrible consequences."

March 25: "A 52-year-old man [from Durban, South Africa] who allegedly tested positive for Covid-19 but went back to work, has been arrested for attempted murder. " Sounds right. If a country has specific bioterrorism laws, time to start charging people under those, too.

Various dates, on each individual photo: Reuters slideshow of the temporary hospitals and medical facilities being hastily set up around the world. It is tragic that we need these, but amazing to see the competence and dedication that's getting them up.