#the horrible mr crypto

[datamodel-of-disaster]

Odious Cryptobro Coworker is… slowly turning into a... not friend. Patient? I think he comes to me for a weird kind of therapy. Idk.

He’s the most transparently terrible man, a layer of empty-eyed greed and rightwing manosphere bullshit covering a surprisingly tormented sense of self entirely built on personal exceptionalism and continuous achievement, stable only as long as the numbers go up, creating a rift of disconnection with others and an unresolvable sense of discontent with himself. Smells of high-functioning autism tbh.

He’s trying to date to replace a 12 year relationship, but I genuinely think he may just be gay or asexual, and in profound denial. I don’t know.

When we hang out we discuss his various dates, and while he has a Girlfriend-Shaped Hole(TM), he (unsurprisingly) doesn’t seem to like women very much. He’s wealthy and conventionally attractive and has a taste for the BPD type (blonde, hot, and emotionally unstable), yet also, most of his dating attempts sort of die out around the 3rd date, when the women start expecting some kind of physical sign of affection and he’s just… not into that. He heavily prefers women who are cruel, ruthless, and unavailable for some reason.

He likes that I call him on his bullshit; sometimes I suspect he may be getting some kind of humiliation kink met.

Anyway, I’ve been having weekly restaurant dates with him for a while now. It feels weird. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I always have a strangely excellent time but also expect every moment for this thing to turn sour.

(My husband and QPP know about him; QPP has started calling him my “little project”, husband calls him The Horrible Mr. Crypto, like he’s a supervillain.)

[datamodel-of-disaster]

…

[brokentoys]

Eddie pretends to have turned a leaf in this comic from 1966, I believe?

Riddler's Reform where Eddie was seemingly good but it turned out he was just pretending.

Did this in the comics based on the New Adventures of Batman & Robin.

Did this in the main comics in 2008.

And Villain of the Year was also hinting at doing it, but then he returned with a horrible design and addicted to speed lol. So it went nowhere more than the other examples here.

Now we're doing this again I guess (except now he's a Crypto Leprechaun)

How many times are we gonna let Eddie Get Better... but not really? (Especially how many times are we gonna do the "he's better because he's been CURED of SCARY MENTAL ILLNESS :)"?)

Oh, and in Justice League Action, he was also a good guy. But to give this show credit, I believe he remained a good guy (probz 'cos he was only in one episode, but that's still good!)

I just wish they'd either let Eddie be a good guy (at least for a long, long, long time) or just stop rehashing this trope. I'm tired of getting me hopes up! 😭 It's like they want Eddie to become good (which would be the ideal development for him) but liiike... DC is just afraid of committing to it.

And no, I'm not a believer that all villains deserve or need to be redeemed. However, Eddie is one I do believe should get it. Not because I'm bias, but because for the most part -- Eddie's one of the more tamer / not as evil rogues (unless someone like Mr. King is writing him) It'll help Batman's own belief of not killing anyone / everyone deserves a second chance, and considering how much this trope is repeated, as I said -- it feels like they want to make him good, they just can't go through with it.

[tyrantisterror]

Ok so this scam fell through and this isn’t the original upload of the video, so I feel no moral qualms in posting it to discuss a couple things about it I find (unintentionally?) funny about it.  Everyone who’s watched this notices that it is very painfully and obviously terrible, but there’s some things that almost feel self aware about its terrible-ness and I find that just a bit fascinating.

Like, listen to the stolen background music in the first couple minutes, when they’re revealing Cryptoland, a giant capitalist wet dream resort where people go to revel in making money without government interference.  It’s stolen from Jurassic Park, and is specifically the background music used in that movie when the titular island getaway dinosaur zoo resort is revealed.  The theme part resort in Jurassic Park is also a capitalist wet dream, specifically built on an island the creators bought so it could be free of government interference.

How did things turn out for the resort island in Jurassic Park, again?

When asked how he came up with the ideas for this resort, Connie, the horrible anthropomorphic coin who’s like a twisted hybrid of Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park and the Genie from Aladdin, says nothing but looks as the camera cuts away to a fucking toilet with a stock cartoon horror music sting.  Like... is the advertisement admitting this is a shit idea?  It couldn’t be, right?

There’s a room called the de-stress room.  They say it several times, emphasizing how it’s pronounced.  It’s a Scrooge McDuck money pool in the short, but just... de-stress.  deestress.  DISTRESS.

At the restaurant where various bitcoin-themed dishes are served, the waiter inexplicably hands the protagonist a bowl fool of rat poison.  This is never explained, and I guess it could be an in-joke for NFT lovers or whatever, but... what is the joke?  What is this supposed to mean?  Why is this luxury island resort giving its customers rat poison to eat?

There’s a horrible song, which is terrible, but it ends with a blatant ripoff of “Prince Ali” from Aladdin.  You know, the song where Aladdin sells an entire city on the blatant lie of him being a powerful and rich Prince who can make their dreams come true if they let him marry into their royal family.  The song about conning people.

A huge centerpiece of Cryptoland is a pyramid-shaped casino filled with machines that literally say they’re scams.  Like, a casino alone is already pretty sketchy - a business built on the idea of telling hundreds of people they could get rich only to suck most of their money out of their pockets without giving anything in return - but the machines literally say they’re scams.  The subtext is beginning to feel a lot like text here.  One is called Ponzi Connect for fuck’s sake.

The Cryptoland scam has already fallen apart.  They’re never going to build this gaudy, shitty ass island.  But they did manage to get some people invested, and I think it’s interesting that their advertisement seemed to be proudly waving its red flags for all to see.  And some crypto fanatics still bought into it.

[thewebcomicsreview]

So, Skin Horse is over. What are your thoughts?

I really enjoyed the comic as a whole, but I have to admit that I feel like the final arc... um, wasn’t the end of Narbonic as far as feeling like the perfect inevitable conclusion of the story is concerned. I kinda kept waiting to see the other shoe drop?

Narbonic is a very simple story

Dave meets Helen. They slowly hit it off and start dating. It gets out that Helen was keeping a Horrible Secret from Dave, they break up and have a huge fight but ultimately Dave forgives her and they get back together. Spoilers. That's the "steak" of the story. All the cyber gods and moon bases and the like are "sizzle". They heighten the emotional stakes of the story and add some spectacle, but they ultimately don't "matter". The story could have dropped all of that and been a realistic indie movie where the big secret was Helen cheating on Dave or investing all their money in crypto or something, and everything would still work.

What's the steak of Skin Horse. What's the emotional core?

The comic opens with a quote from The Velveteen Rabbit from the character of the Skin Horse, whom the comic is named after. The quote says that a toy can be brought to life and become Real if a child loves it enough.

The plot of this final arc is that nonhumans are no longer visible to humans, they're not Real to humans anymore. So there's some connective tissue there, and the finale does end with everyone getting paired off (Unity/Sweetheat, Nick/Victoria, Tip/Tigerlily, Annie/Lovelace), and much like the Velveteen Rabbit they leave the human world behind, even if (unlike the rabbit) they come back later to try to fix it. So the comic is sort of resolving its theme here: The velveteen rabbits aren't Real to humans, who will never accept them, but they are saved by their love in each other.

And then, after learning that Lovetron destroyed its version of humanity, they all decide to work out their own shit and come back to try to make the earth a better place instead of just fleeing to Space Canada. This is Tigerlily's idea and in part motivated by her love for Tip so love saves the human race as well.

And I think the reason Skin Horse's ending feels a little flat to a lot of people is that the thematic elements take a back seat to a big infinity war fight that's sort of at odds with it, such that the nonhumans win the big war and then flee the planet. The themes of "The world may never accept us, but we can accept each other and try to change the world" doesn't really jive with the "We defeated the bad guys easily hooray! But also not really!" battle. There was a lot going on in Skin Horse and it made the core message messy and confusing at times.

But thematically, it makes sense that Mr. Green is revealed to still be out there, working his way back up. They didn't solve discrimination. They likely never will. There's no satisfying solution to the problem of society hating you, no satisfying ending. You just find people who love you and do what you can for them and try to make things better, one day at a time.

[secretariatess]

Mr. Beast:

Paired up with two unlikeable influencers to make Lunchly which is turning out to be awful- and previously was awful for kids anyways because Prime has way too much potassium, and Lunchlys have way too few calories.

Had to -suspend? fire?- one of his "coworkers" (I don't know the correct term) for grooming, and evidence of this person's attraction to minors has resurfaced.

Hired convicted sex offenders to work for him. Knowingly. Separate from the one above.

Ran illegal sweepstakes and contests.

Created a toxic and sexist workplace environment for women.

Abused his employees, and even tormented one with sleep deprivation for a video, and didn't give him the whole amount of what he was owed because he didn't complete the challenge. (And his video didn't get posted- someone else was given the spotlight and fared much better because the other guy was essentially a test run.)

Faked his videos (even his charitable ones).

Allegedly had CP in "work chats."

Recreated the Squid Games and contestants received horrible treatment, some of which resulted in hospital visits.

I can't remember if I heard the crypto insider trading, so that might be a new one to me.

I think I'm missing some scandals, but these are ones I remember. Some are not as big scale as others, obviously, and some are alleged while others have proof.

But at this point, everything is Mr. Beast drama. I would not be shocked if something dropped where Mr. Beast was involved in someone's death.

By the way, here's a quick update on what's been going down on the worst part of the internet this week:

Five days ago, Rosanna Pansino made a video where she opened up a package of Lunchly taken straight off the store shelf (2 months before its expiration date), and found that the cheese was absolutely festering with mould.

Not only is this absolutely disgusting, but, as Pansino points out in her video, they're selling this to kids. The young kids opening up and eating this might not know what mould looks like, and therefore won't recognise this for what it is.

A source associated with MrBeast told Newsweek to "consider the context and the source", essentially accusing Pansino of faking the video. She responded by posting the full unedited video of her opening the box.

And while officially representatives for MrBeast, KSI and Logan Paul declined to comment, two days ago Logan Paul dropped an episode of his podcast guest-starring KSI where they kinda-but-not-really responded to the video/tweets in passing, implying that Pansino was clout-chasing.

But over the past week more people have been posting their own videos of finding mould in Lunchly.

[thespiantherepist]

Devoted Devotee Yandere Bakugou x Superfan reader!

{Warnings: Blood, obsession, creepy vibes. Yanderes, jealosy. Be careful here if youre not one for uncomfy themes. 18+ minors DNI. Enjoy the story! ~Nugget!} Ever since his debut you were obsessed. You had never heard of him until he lit up the city streets with light reminiscent of a newly born sun god. You were mesmerized. You watched him catapult through the air. His face and teeth shown with a sense of danger. He looked ready to kill if nessasary.  It drove you wild. SURE for a while your friends made fun of your newfound obsession. That was until... you didnt have friends anymore. You were a nice enough person! Sure, that wasnt the problem. They just got tired of not hearing about YOU. They always heard yap of the hero. “GROUND ZERO.” This, and, “GOD EXPLOSION MURDER!” That. It was time for  you to take a rehab... but you were’nt aware. You were part of his cult. The highest follower.  Papparazi. Spicy fan theories. FAN FICS. Oh how many nights you drooled over the scandelous drawings you blew much of your crypto currency on just to perfect. Your mind was in a haze and your heart was set on him. You went to almost every live viewing. And you were perfectly happy, and healthy... until you were’nt.  You started becoming sick more often. A sense of dread filling you if you were’nt able to snuggle up to your pillow with Ground Zero’s voice. Straight. In your ear. Insomnia would creep in. But you still woke as enthusiastic as ever, because you needed money for these meets... and money, comes from work. Your co-workers, were not as polite as your friends. While you rarely spoke to them, and mostly just to the clients they could always hear it.  Same as your friends. You would go to work and then be sent back home for being too sick sometimes. On one occasion your boss sent you some food, just so you’d eat. She used child tactics on you. “Ground Zero would like it if you ate your food dear.” She’d say, her soothing voice in front of you as you looked up. She’d give you a big smile. And you would eat. These. Were the only times you wouldnt talk of him. The womans heart broke everytime you talked of him. She would run her dark hands across your cheeck and softly tell you that he wasnt worth your love. She was never in the position to produce children. And she never wanted a husband. Nor did she want a wife. You were the closest to a grandchild the old woman had. So. To show your graditude you stopped. You chatted with her for hours. About you. Only you... and yourself. And that made her happy. You never thought you would get the chance to actually meet him. FOR REAL.  Your eyes buldged out of their sockets. You pulled your phone out, snapping pictures of him gliding through the air. HE WAS SO GRACEFUL! He looked like an angel and you thought of crying. He roared so loud you thought he’d damage his beautiful vocal cords. He finally after a greuling battle was able to take down the stupid villain. You swooned. Eyes filling with hearts as you leaned back wistfully. If only you could touch him. Then your life would be conten- “DUMBASS LEAVE ALREADY!” You felt a harsh prod at your forehead. Blinking you righted yourself. Awestruck at the sight before you. In fornt of your own two eyes. Touching you. Was Ground Zero. You fell to your knees. Hugging his boots.  “OMGOMGOMG!!!!! YOURE GROUND ZERO, I AM LITERALLY YOUR BIGGEST FAN. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG IVE WANTED TO MEET YOU!”  Behind his eyes there was a look of pure malace as he stared at his feet which were covered by your body. He was tempted to blast you to peices before realising. You were just a civilian. Just a weak, little, pathetic- You looked straight up at him. Eyes of admiration glistening back up at him. A hole night sky encapsulated in the precious lenses that were your eyes. He was taken aback. Suddenly noticing the adorable smiling face that peered up at him. He was almost confused. ‘When will they stop looking at me like that?’ He thought. But the longer he stared at them... the more enrapturing they got. He shook himself form the thought and pryed you away from him. “Fuckin what?” He said almost winded. Watching as you spryly lifted to your feet. Barreling back towards him before skipping in one spot.  “YEAH YEAH YEAH! OOH OOH.” You plucked a pen and notebook from your bag and shoved it towards him. He looked at it in discust. But at you? He just couldnt look away. “PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PPLLLLLLEEEEASE SIGN THIS! YOURE MY FAVOURITE AND I ADORE YOU!” The amount of praise you put out almost nullified any sense of discust now.  Witht the crowd gone and the sky darkening he sighed. But just before he could grab the objects. ‘Ill sign it! Mr. Fun Zero here wont take a chill pill for one second!” A flirtatious and somewhat goofy voice chimed in from behind him. A flash of yellow,and black passed the two of em. Chargebolt quickly wrote his alias... and his number. Followed by a black and yellow heart. Pikachu ears poking out at the top. He winked at you and handed the book back. “Youre a cutie, ya know?” He asked you retorically as you stared at the signature in confusion. “Haha! What am I asking of course you know.” He said in a friendly way.  Ground Zeros fists clenched. Noticable sparks flaking out. He wanted you to whine. And to complain. To bawl and cry about how that dumb pikachu stole HIS spot.  Bit you just awkardly and kindly nodded. The vibe kind of ruined now.  “I uhhh... I’ll get going.” You said jabbing a finger at the opposite road. Before you could even turn around Ground Zero snatched your book and held it over his head. You almost pouted. But he motioned for the pen. You squealed in joyous glee, as you handed it to him. He turned his head around. Sticking his tounge out angrily at Denki. He wrote three things.  His real name. His number. And a note...  “Ill always watch over you.~Ground Zero.” You watched in absolute astonishment at the scene. He gave the book back to you. Leaning in to close a distance, ‘Why the fuck are you doing this?’ He asked himself. Furious. ‘It feels right.’ He rebuttled. As he handed the book back to you he made sure to graze your fingertips. Keeping his serious, and stern look on.  “You better be going back home soon Teddy Bear. Dont want you getting hurt.” He turned you around for good measure. Making sure to lightly tap right above your ass to make you flustered.  Which you were. Immensely. Your face heated up like the surface of a blue star. Blood pouring from your nose to your cheeks. You whipped around and bowed several times. Getting a bit of blood on the ground. “THANK YOU SO MUCH. Uhh I UUHH. BYE BYE!” And with that you zipped off. Zooming straight back to your apartment and falling asleep straight as you locked the door and collapsed on the couch. Bakugou stayed behind. An inner quarrel raging in his mind. ‘TEDDY BEAR WHAT THE FUCK? “WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT! ‘You tapped their ass what the fuck you perv? ‘They liked Denkis more than yours. ‘I wanna see them writhing beneath me. He tried to shake them. Flustered horribly by these thougts. HE HAD ONLY JUST MET THEM! He needed to calm down. Then a voice breached all his other thoughts. “Their blood looks tasty.” Denki was taken aback. And now was moonwalking all the way back to his other patrol area.  Bakuhou didnt care, and insteasd just knealt down. Swiped a bit of the blood off the pavement and licked his finger. He could physically feel his pupils expand. Wider than they ever had before.  He smirked. A tastse of something sweeter than kicking a villans ass, or dragging Deku through the mud. Now he had a target... and they werent getting away. Why would they want to anyway? “

[themostexpensiveboningknife]

2020

Failed party, money in drawer, communicate, move house, move boxes, drive in van, walk to shops, buy noodles, think it’s the end, see whole bus of soldiers in Beijing, new area, walk in darkness, think about leaving, leave, think its temporary, in taxi, post stupid photos, check and check again phone, think people with goggles on my plane are over reacting, take off my mask to eat, keep taking off to loosen, arrive back in London. Tube. Cold. Pub. Party at WeWork. Exhibition at Dulwich Gallery. Farringdon. Drugs and drinks. Brockley, South east London. DJ. Ethiopian food. Morley’s Peckham. Walking on the River. Photographer friend’s house. Canal cycle. National Gallery. Car crash, Dalston. Omar Souleyman. Corsica Studios. Meet girl, back to my friends, back to hers, sex. Morning up to mum’s best friends birthday, Covent Garden restaurant. In a van, Sunday roast. Chisenhale Gallery. arebyte Gallery. Getting worse in China, seems nice and easy and calm in England. Camberwell beers and more. Second-hand book shops, Charing Cross Road. Courtauld. Leafed through a book about a man who lived his entire 86.5 years in East London. Still talking to the same girl back in China. Both believe I’ll be back soon. Chicken wings. West London, meal. South London pub. DJing somewhere inside. Kent, see grandma. Rave, Bermondsey. Friends from Israel and Germany arrive. More drinks, more drugs. Mixing friends. Gay bar in Bethnal Green for old friend’s birthday. Acid, confused and hilarious. Tate Britain. Serpentine. Cranes on the bridge. Liverpool Street film screening. Feels shallow, but good. Begin regular E Pellici sojourns. Primrose Hill with Dad. Beer festival with Keaton and co. Peckham, school friend’s house, bad vibe. More drinks, more drugs. Working on first music compilation with Slowcook and Fafa. Begin watching all of the Studio Ghibli movies. Watching Breaking Bad. At some point have huge argument with my brother, it went like this: He came home from work and I was sitting watching Breaking Bad, he asks, “Have you been like that all day?” I either took it in the wrong way or picked up on a sly dig. It was probably me, but at this point I was pretty self-conscious and worried about going back to China and whether or not I would have a job back there. Was getting surprisingly pissed off with my brother mentioning his work, felt like an affront to me. Weird. He goes crazy (he has a short fuse), punching a wall, ready to fight me. My mum is pretty upset. A few days later I go into his room and try to patch things up. Turns into a deeper chat. He feels like I haven’t been a good brother to him, he gives the example of not looking out for him on his first days of school. I say I’m sorry, it’s because I’m a bit scared and insecure. In retrospect I regret a little laying so much weakness on the table, seems his interactions/ways of acting around me have changed a bit. Still not sure how I feel about it all. Considered getting a gold tooth with Matthew. Play with cats, enjoying them more and more. Rave in Dalston, good music from Asia and beyond. Looking at magazines. Not doing much work at all. Being out and about instead. Go to Norfolk. It’s beautiful, but get way too drunk on first night, sick everywhere, wake up naked in sick. Massive fucking shitshow. Majority of people there have no choice but to act weirdly around me now, which is understandable. Still some nice aspects. One girl there surely hates me a lot. Tate Modern. Art stuff by self is good. Corsica Studios, semi-art, semi-music event. Mr. Bao for first time of many. Radio in Tottenham. Take drugs. Pubs. Drive to Asda with brother to stock up on food. It’s March and the reality of the pandemic is hitting. More canal cycling. First and only group chat on Zoom. BH Funk. Probably have taken cocaine and messaged one of three or four girls numerous times by now. If there’s one, in the cold light of day, horrible and disgusting thing I’ve done too much this year it’s this. Incessant messaging of poor girls that I know will react (although increasingly they don’t, I manage to alienate even close friends in this way). Southbank and The Mall with Nick. Reading about Wuhan. List of good texts. Continuing to do some writing. Making WeChat posts for guī WeChat, including mix series and miniessays. Greenwich park with Matthew. Grime quiz online. Delivering food regularly for my mum’s school. Hackney Marshes with Luan. Epping Forest with Mum and Dad. By this point probably have woken up feeling sorry for myself in Ludo’s flat, after untold amounts of alcohol and cocaine. Online rave. Beijing artists only mix. Go to Switzerland, pass through Italy on the way. Its breath taking, the mountains, the expanse of scenery, not used to it. Climbing up mountains with no one around. Rolo and Patrick and Rita smoke too much weed. I really, really, really still hate smoking it. Feel a bit annoyed how long we spend sitting around while they smoke, but this is way outbalanced by the uniqueness of where we are and the beauty all around. Producing more and more, actually getting somewhere. Cooking more and more food. Reading more and more, like: Black and British, The Corrections, Real Fast Food, Bass, Mids, Tops, Zadie Smith, Olivia Lang, Graham Greene, JG Ballard, Monica Ali, Mo Yan, Jenny Zhang, John le Carre, Naked Lunch, Nabokov, Bukowski, Zora Neale Hurston, Wiley, Bitcoin, Murakami, Judith E. Butler, The Painter of Modern Life, Maupassant, Chekov, Video Art, Gravity’s Rainbow (couldn’t finish), Anaïs Nin, The Net Delusion (couldn’t finish), The Establishment and how they got away with it (couldn’t finish), Roddy Doyle, The Secret of Scent, General Intellects, Women In Love, The Intelligent Investor, Lyndon Johnson. Victoria Park more often than I can remember. To Chrissy’s house. Mile End Park. Very regularly sitting on the river in Wapping. Bring the chessboard and play Ludo sometimes, people smile and look at you differently when you’re playing chess and drinking beers versus just sitting and drinking beer. I May Destroy You. Industry. The beautiful wide expanse of Hackney Marshes. My incessant quest to reach 1000 followers in Instagram. More cycling, and I hate to say it but it really was: Here there and everywhere. Margate with my Dad to see my grandma in hospital and saw the Turner Prize exhibition. Light blue like scrubs, the sky and sun felt eternal. Swimming in dirty water. Make a DJ mix of old 2000s Road Rap. Eat cheese in Peckham. Cycle along the canal north, keep going and going through Tottenham, past Enfield keep going, it’s mad how quickly it becomes quiet fields on all sides, arrive to some kind of lake, swim and then back to the centre of town. Outside a Hawksmoor church in Shadwell ate chicken with Karim and Ludo. DJing. From my bedroom window saw a big crane in the middle of the night sitting on the canal. Begin developing the second DCCY compilation this time with BULLY magazine. Go to a house in an old school in Camberwell. Discover new secret riverside spots in East London. Finally give up my apartment in Beijing. Mile End park. Cycle further and further East to a pedestrian bridge I didn’t know existed. Get onto the beach and into the Thames water. Interview Akito. Begin writing more, after few months of wiling away the summertime. My friend Emmy gets married in Rwanda, I give him some money as a wedding gift which he tells me he used to buy his wife’s dress. Protests in HK always on TV. Get more into finances, crypto and trading, and just saving in general. Had sex with an old friend. Now meeting a girl I first knew years ago in Beijing. More secret river spots. Keaton has his baby, Noah. More times on Hackney Marshes. Barbican conservatory. Watching more films, try to watch all the films of some directors including: Jia Zhangke, Bong Joon-ho, Edward Yang, Wong Kar-wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Decide to watch all of the infamous lauded series, go through Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos. Go to the seaside for a few days, camping also. Henry Wu album launch in a car park in Bermondsey. Go to visit Keaton’s baby for the first time. Good photography exhibition at Photographer’s Gallery. Go to Wallace Collection again. August. Go to Berlin. Swimming in Berlin lakes until I get an ear infection. It makes me drowsy and lethargic, but still seems to spend all my time cycling around the city. On one night cycle for hours to a rave on the outskirts of the city. Like a lot the abandoned airport in Berlin. Oh yeah, vaping. Found a dead bumble bee. Speak with Nevin about projects. Write a piece about the future of the art world for a magazine being started by Nevin’s friend in Canada. Go to Lithuania. Walk around Vilnius, get too drunk by myself. Get to the Curonian Spit and Nida, beaches and new friends. For the Nightlife Residency project. For a short while life is like on a desert island of new food, new people, new locations, quiet and new meaning. Go to the Russian border on the beach. Cycle to the road boarder and get stopped by the police. Go nude on the beach for the first time. Sauna, sand dunes and forests. DJ out for the first time in ages, this time with Nono. To Kaunus and try nice and stodgy Georgian food for the first time. Hackney Wick back for party. Meet a ginger girl online and go on a date. Wallace Collection again. Free beer and pizza. White Cube. National Gallery, Titian. On BBC Radio London with my Dad. Riverside beers. Saw a lost swan near my front door. Meet Keaton near his work, one of many times. Making more and more music, getting better. Decide I need more organisation and clarity, put everything I’ve done on a blog. More or less long since given up on my job at M Woods. But don’t really begin looking for anything new because it’s still sunny. At some point I start getting benefits money. Go to see La Haine in the cinema. Someone blocks me on WeChat because of me. Some pub somewhere. Sunday walks and breakfast with my parents. Go to an exhibition in Woolworth Road with Muzi. Realise how nice it is to run to Victoria Park along the canal. Vicky Park in general. Dinners at friends’ houses. Museum of London. Walking with Michael in some countryside near London, surprising how quickly things turn green. Break onto a pier in Wapping with Jack. Battersea Park. Tate, Bruce Nauman. Old Street Weatherspoon’s with Keaton, drugs. Central London cemetery. Chinese in Camberwell. Chinese in Aldgate. Italian in Camberwell. More and more exercise, running, weights and yoga with my brother. Sadie Coles. Nick, Central London. Gucci Mane. Hampstead Heath more because Ludo and his flatmates are nearby. Ludo’s now house more for days and nights of you guessed it. Borough Market more, with Emma. Alexandra Palace walk and famous sandwiches after. Tate Britian new lights. More time at Muzi’s. Signing up for cycle courier. LYL Radio show. Shave head. Take acid and it hurts my stomach. Camden Arts Centre with Muzi. Christmas party with friends. Birthday. Cake with Muzi, presents and Indian takeaway from family, walk in Vicky Park with Ludo and Karim plus battered sausage and chips. Christmas at home nice and warming meal. Evening to Ludo’s place with more friends. Boxing day with Matthew, pints and then more at his house in Peckham all night long. Next day is tough! Giant turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey curry. Buy first NFTs. New Year’s Eve stay in at Muzi’s, one drink and a cake.

[nickelkeep]

I wrote a lot of Destiel this year! LOL! These are the 26 Fics that I’ve written live on the @profoundnet Discord Server! (18+ Server, no hate, you can join here.) Listed in chronological order, like the other master list, they’ll be labeled with AU or Canon, ratings, and any necessary warnings. Because there’s so many, I’ll list the prompt that I used for it, and the person who suggested it (if someone did and they’re on Tumblr!)

Personal Quality Assurance - AU - 8,516 words - Explicit The OG prompt. Cas makes Dildos. Dean purchases one. Sexy meet-cute.

More Than a Feeling - AU - 5,284 words - Explicit For PB’s Favorite Fairy, Aleeliah: Dean and Cas like to travel. They fill up the Impala, grab their things... And get discounts by pretending to be a couple.

Like the Angel - AU - 9,605 words - Explicit TW: Homophobic Language For Umbrie: Imagine Teacher!Cas with a student who has a crush on him. The crush’s rival? Mr. Winchester, a classmate’s dad.

Bring Me Healing - AU - 5,978 words - Explicit For @darmysasagiri: The succubus and incubus root words are not gender-based but succubus=bottom incubus=top. So the idea is drunk wizard/mage Cas or Dean summons a succubus and gets power-bottom-succubus!

Some Pacific Wind - AU - 10,858 words - Explicit TW: Heavy Dom/Sub, Subdrop For @hartlessfiction: picture prompt from Tumblr that read:"There's a gay bar in my city and they're trying to get a new roof. So their slogan for the donations is 'Like all good bottoms, we've worn out our top' and I just felt that I needed to share that."

Edge of Paradise - Canonverse - 3,184 words - Explicit For Aleeliah, again!: Combination of a PB botstat (Dean is watching Dr. Sexy, Cas has his fingers in Dean’s Mouth, Sam has just walked in on Cas and Dean Boning) and their own personal request of Cas in panties.

Faithfully - AU - 7,043 words - Explicit TW: Alcohol Use, mentions of recreational drug use. For @drawlight:  Fact: Dean is desperately, horribly, absolutely in love with Cas. Also Fact: He should never have agreed to play Never Have I Ever while drinking. Especially not when the questions turn to sex and love and the questions start to hit a little too close to home.

Nothing You Confess - Canonverse - 5,204 words - Explicit For @mishalocked24: (Based on their twitter post) *No-lines episode for Cas. Dean is focused on a book, looking for a spell to lift the curse* "I love you." Cas says for the first time, staring at his profile. "I always have. I always will." Dean turns a page. "I love you, Dean." Cas closes his eyes; Dean can't hear him.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light - 6,768 words - Explicit For arielaquarial: Based on their own misadventure of trying to pull a dent out of their car and not having a plunger for the hot water/plunger trick, but using a dildo instead.

What About Us? - AU - 9,417 words - Mature TW: Infidelity (not Dean/Cas) For @elizasugarcane: Based on the Twitter Exchange where two ladies found out they were dating the same guy, dumped his ass, then ended up together. Destiel-fied.

Stay With Me - AU - 7,080 words - Explicit TW: Implied Homophobia Self-service Fic! Based on the news that “There Was Only One Bed!” happened in real life and added in the news about people trying backtrack and become Revisionist HIstorians with the Lovers of Modena.

Something So Magic - AU - 5,176 words - Teen TW: Brief Animal Attack/Animal Fight scene For @cryptomoon: I asked for a random prompt, and Crypto asked for Dean getting adopted by a cat. So how about some Familiar!Cas?

‘Cause My Monsters Are Real - AU - 7,091 words - Teen For @jemariel: photo prompt, but it's one people are familiar with: 'our humans are sleeping in bunk beds and we have to share the space under' aka: 'there's only one under-the-bed.'

And These Monsters Can Fight - AU - 6,325 words - Explicit Also for @jemariel, the continuation of ‘Cause My Monsters Are Real.

Carry Me Home - AU - 7,083 words - Explicit For Lily on PB: Cas watches a youtube vid on how to fix something around the house. Then because it was such an easy fix that he thought would be really hard and the youtube vid was so good AND the guy in the youtube vid is super hot, he binges the channel before going to the hardware store to get the supplies to fix the problem.......guess who owns the store? 

Like a Burning Flame - AU - 8,259 words - Explicit TW: Dom/Sub, Bad BDSM Etiquette For @unforth: a simple and sexy prompt, Uniform Kink and Panty Kink. 

To Confess - Canonverse - 8,491 words - Explicit For @idaaeri and @darmysasagiri: Darmys asked for Fake Relationship/Getting back together. Ida gave me the idea of Case Fic. (Funny story, I flipped this trope before I wrote the actual trope.)

Talk to Me Now - AU - 9,031 words - Explicit For @notfunnydean​: A Craig’s List “They Were Roommates” image prompt, and Dean asked for it to be an Enemies to Friends to Lovers fic.

Stuck in the Middle With You - Canonverse - 5,749 words - Explicit For @canadduh: They shared a video of two guys stuck in a finger trap, and asked for it to be Destiel-fied.

What I Thought I Knew - AU - 7,549 words - Mature TW: Dub-Con Kiss For Destielr, on PB: Based on the gif from Looking where Kevin pushes Patrick, who is working, against the wall and kisses him.

Slice of Your Pie - AU - 6,955 words - Mature TW: Severe Homophobia, Gender Issues, Straight up Sexism. Many people on PB requested another fic based on the “Alone on Thanksgiving” Craig’s List Post.

Shiver  - AU - 5,714 words - Explicit TW: Car Accident A part of @notfunnydean​‘s 2019 SPN Advent Calendar. Prompt was Blizzard. Of course, they get snowed in.

Chandeliers of Hope - AU - 6,921 words - Mature TW: Drinking, Recreational Drug Use A part of @notfunnydean​​‘s 2019 SPN Advent Calendar. Prompt was Mistletoe Kiss! I wanted a Christmas themed D&D Game. Shenanigans ensue.

A Cold, Dark Winter’s Night - AU - 7,813 words - Explicit A part of @notfunnydean​​‘s 2019 SPN Advent Calendar. Prompt was Secret Santa.

You Make it Feel Like Christmas - Canonverse - 7,473 words - Explicit A part of @notfunnydean​​‘s 2019 SPN Advent Calendar. Prompt was Last Minute Christmas shopping.

Auld Lang Syne - AU - 7,071 words - Teen Self-indulgent Fic, with a side of New Year’s Eve. (I asked my readers if they wanted a New Year’s Fic.) Based on the Thai Cornetto Ad. Holy Crap. Twenty-six fics. The series is continuing into 2020, so I hope you’ll join in!

[free-notion-alternative]

Taskade is The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity

Forget email drafts, notes programs and to Do list supervisors: Taskade does everything and much more

Everything I have to keep my entire life is stored on line. Somewhere. I just can not think it is.

I'm discussing all of the account numbers, meeting notes, todo lists, contact info and column info I want to observe daily. And also the recipes I desire to cook, perfumes I want to decide to take to, also YouTube videos I should see. A number of the stuff resides within my email in box, and also even some in Google Docs. Then you can find really my Pinterest planks, miscellaneous bookmarks and also the Evernote accounts I cannot organize coherently.

In theory, the web can make it easier than ever before to maintain all I want a couple taps off. In fact, the world wide web has a method of fragmenting our own lives. It's like I wrote what in a laptop and got drunk, torn out every page and concealed them in various places around my property.

Taskade produces a excellent tool for simple todo lists, also also you're able to utilize photos, emojis and stock artwork to liven up them.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

Over the last couple of weeks, an program named Taskade has let me turn chaos into order. Taskade combines a number of their most useful features of both all Google Docs, Excel and Dropbox, together with a great deal of task-management and organizational applications. Taskade Labs Chief Executive Ivan Zhao explains the product as"the next generation of Microsoft Office," that really can be really a small hyperbolic and much rough. Nonetheless, it's the very ideal life-organization tool I've tried.

Taskade combines the characteristics of a notetaking program, a task-management program and also a spreadsheet tool that the manner that Steve Jobs joined an I pod, a phone and an internet browser in to the iPhone: All the tools interact to make some thing more than its own parts.

I have to state that Taskade is quite costly: It features a small free routine, also costs $8 per month to get significant usage. Still, it may pay for itself from the programs that it stinks, and I've found it easily worth the price.

I finally have a full page together with of my airline and hotel devotion amounts at a bulleted list, above an image of my dental card and also an embedded map with instructions to my physician's office. I left data bases together with most of the current pictures, novels, TV shows, along with YouTube videos I want for at --each phone opens into a rich record along with my notes and thoughts. 

Taskade includes each of the interviews, research outlines and material for my own columns. I am getting married soon and'm bogged down my nuptial todo list daily.

One of Taskade's brand new features is that a database application, that you are able to view like a desk, a calendar and much more.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

I was able to want five distinct programs to maintain all of this stuff directly. Now it has all in Taskade, a couple clicks or even a easy hunt off.

Block by Block

It may be a lot much simpler to believe about Taskade as being a super-simple site builder compared to a productivity program.

When you start a brand fresh page at the program, you are really creating a sterile grid on which you'll be able to set and arrange virtually anything. The program's basic element could be that your cube, which might possibly become considered described as a paragraph of text, a bulleted list, a desk, a graphic, a code snippet, a YouTube video, even a PDF plus much more. You add cubes using a faucet or computer short cut, then reorder and arrange them to a heart's content. You are able to very quickly alter the essence of a cube, too. As an example, you are able to choose a lot of text and then change it to a to do list. Taskade's basic part could be the cube, that carries many forms: links, text, graphics, bookmarks and much more. Click here Free Notion Competitor

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

Taskade is similar to baseball: easy to learn, difficult to perfect. The program itself looks fairly comfortable, with a tap to the left and also your receptive page about the correct side. It's a couple of decorative niceties, just such as the solution to bring a cover photo to the peak of every page.

When you first start the program, though, it will not have enough to help you know what it could perform. Even with weeks of using Taskade each day, I'm just figuring out the best methods to accomplish things while attempting to stay clear of making layout decisions that are horrible. Can I actually require a fullpage photo inside my to do list? My information: Make substantial utilization of Taskade's templates, just since they assist you to set pages out and reveal what the program's effective at.

There are Indigenous Taskade programs for Windows, Mac and also iOS. Mr. Zhao states that a Android program ought to be available within fourteen days. The internet program works superbly on mobile and desktop, too, also it has the specific same experience whichever platform you are using.

Taskade is very determined by connectivity. It works off line just with pages you've opened recently while attached which means whatever you could do is cross your hands each single time you start Taskade onto a plane. On the up side, you are able to upload tweets and YouTube videos, also entire pages, in just a Taskade record.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

Though I utilize Taskade to remain in addition to my work and life (and you must too),'' Taskade is created for business organizations. It gives collaborative editing, in line opinions and useful tools for managing permissions and delegating tasks. In the event you utilize Slack, then you could possibly get alarms whenever somebody comments changes or on that a Taskade document. It's not a replacement for Slack or even Salesforce, nonetheless nevertheless, it can replace lots of the various equipment therefore many businesses utilize to store and share advice.

One-stop Shop

Matt Galligan, creator of those Picks and Shovels Co., also a Crypto Currency providers startup, provided a useful adviser for Taskade. He says with the program is like buying Amazon. Earlier,"stores specialized," he stated,"and they did a good job." Subsequently Amazon came and aggregated every thing. It maybe was not the ideal store for almost just about any single thing, however the onestop advantage managed to get unbeatable.

That's simply itTaskade isn't as successful a translation instrument as Excel, also it generally does not always possess a number of those task-management features I need --if an activity is expected, I would prefer a alert, for example. (Taskade states that is forthcoming.) The program has let me whittle the regions I maintain down stuff to two. I can not prevent email from arriving ; I could put every thing in Taskade.

Photo: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

There's many left to your own Taskade team todo, needless to say. Along with task alarms, additionally it is taking care of calendar sync, and PowerPoint-style demonstration features, a internet clipper, better off line service plus Android program. Additionally it is about to guide services like Zapier and If This Then That (IFTTT), that assists move data between programs. However, it does a lot more than some one of its competitors.

For years, I've slid around various notetaking programs and productivity programs, never quite pleased. Evernote makes it simple to catch information, however I liked the port. Google Docs and Keep do not provide enough capabilities. Trello, Asana along with other projectmanagement applications do not benefit notetaking.

Taskade combines the very greatest of every and every --along with many others --to some infrequent renaissance program, skillful in countless procedures of creation as well as company. I can not set a cost on the reassurance that originates in the unfragmented daily lifestyle. Waityes I will: It's eight bucks monthly.

[bitcoinevolutionsignup-blog]

bitcoin evolution Review, Conclusions, and Helpful Tips

 bitcoin evolution Review, Conclusions, and Helpful Tips The bitcoin evolution SCAM software, App, and faux trading bot is BLACKLISTED and it’s pointless to try and prove otherwise. If you've got been solicited via email promoting SPAM or some type of faux news advertisement asking you to affix this “new and profitable new software”, then you ought to understand that you're officially being targeted by crafty affiliate networks which are gunning for your wallet. As well to everything else, its additionally critical for you to understand that the crooks behind this shady scheme are well-known in the business for defrauding unsuspecting victims and have been exposed various times. This company has a headquarters in Cyprus and additional offices in Malta and other Middle Eastern countries. This means that its a well-oiled and heavily financed operation so create positive to hold on to your credit card and never divulge any type of sensitive money info. For additional info, we tend to can perpetually be contacted via our YouTube Channel, and Facebook Bitcoin Evolution 

Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Related Bitcoin Revolution Review, Cloned Bitcoin Revolution SCAM March 15, 20twenty In "Scam Reviews" Bitcoin Benefit Review, Avoid The Bitcoin Benefit SCAM App! January twenty two, 20twenty In "Scam Reviews" Bitcoin Victory Review, Bitcoin Victory SCAM Exposed! April 5, 2020 In "Scam Reviews" Filed Beneath: Scam Reviews Reader Interactions Comments Christopher says

I joined this software and was assigned to a broker named Kaya FX. My account manager Mr. Guy Schmidt advised me that when investing £250 I can just about expect to lose my money and that I needed to feature an extra £five,000 if I wanted to generate real income. I believe I got scammed and unfortunately it’s too late on behalf of me now. I will live through the monetary loss but my ego took a beating. Anyways, they don’t stop calling. Sometimes from a Manchester range and other times from Newcastle. Any recommendations?

Hi Christopher, thanks for sharing and Kaya FX isn't one of our suggested brokers to mention the smallest amount… They need a horrible name and they positively earned it. Please message us directly via the contact page for detailed info on how to proceed. Thanks. Stephan and Team

I actually have been obtaining The Altucher Report (James Altucher) regular over the past year however haven't signed up to anything nevertheless. Do you recognize something about the Altucher Report?. I am seriously interested in investing in Cripto currency . Could you please advise me on what is the simplest Bitcoin web site. The Altucher Report doesn’t say how to only obtain into bitcoin..

Bitcoin Evolution is a bitcoin trading robot that helps traders create thousands of dollars each day using an initial investment in as low as $250. This crypto trader assesses the bitcoin markets and automatically executes trading choices to help traders earn money even when the markets are falling. Bitcoin Evolution asserts to employ computer algorithms for this use. We can verify this crypto dealer is 100% legitimate and has carried out rigorous tests.

Bitcoin Evolution is a trading robot based by means of a rockstar team of crypto traders and software engineers with vast experience. This robo-trader implements complex computer algorithms mechanically place trades for consumers and to examine the markets. With less than 20 minutes of accounts tracking per day, tremendous gains can be made by traders with this particular robot.

The use of calculations is popular with traders and is not new in trading. This technique has a reputation for making overnight millionaires in assets trading. From the crypto business trading is fresh but catching up as the likes of bitcoin continues to get adoption.

Popular crypto coins comprise BitcoinEvolution  Ethereum, Monero, Ripple, Dash, Bitcoin Cash, and many more. With Bitcoin Evolution, one may trade major currency pairs such as EUR, USD, CAD, CHF, and NZD.

How to Place a Trade With Bitcoin Evolution? Can You Make Money With Bitcoin Evolution? Bitcoin Evolution Review As stated earlier in this Bitcoin Evolution review, this crypto-trader depends to analyze information in the bitcoin markets. The more data a trader can amass and it can be analyzed by them is the biggest determinant of how accurate their trading choices are. Substantial chunks of information manually is tedious and takes a great deal of time. That machines have become investment decision makers than humans. Luckily, with trading robots such as Bitcoin Evolution app, it’s possible make conclusions to examine enormous troves of information with supersonic pace and mechanically make corresponding trades. The trading bots can t

Hi Conor, James Altucher is half of a cluster of wealth gurus who facilitate every different by mutually referring clients thereby obtaining people to pay for his or her subscription service. For example, if you signed up for a Robert Kiyosaki seminar, chances are you received some email concerning varied programs and the way it is suggested. Truth is, it’s not an outright scam in the standard manner where they rip you off. Its simply various types of hype not to mention rehashed life hacks and some recurring mantra about how to urge out of the rat race and thus on. Its not a software or a practical trading tool that actually helps you generate money. For one thing that actually works we tend to invite you to test 

https://www.bitcoinevolutionpro.com/

[datamodel-of-disaster]

Life update!

So, my birthday passed (the new front door is installed -my 20s are truly over), and the anniversary of the disastrous friend breakup from last year has passed (somehow, I ended up going to the nude spa and having sushi after, *exactly* as I did the year before, and only when I was already halfway my sashimi I realised the bizarre parallel), and…

Let’s just say, if I had a dollar for every weird friendship that came to a confrontation/confession/breakup near the end of November and resulted in me adding a new piece of art to my dining room, I’d have 2 dollars. Which isn’t a lot, yadda yadda, BUT IT IS WEIRD THAT IT HAPPENED TWICE.

(If this becomes an annual thing I’m gonna run out of wall space.)

Cryptobro gifted me a Damien Hirst lithography for my birthday. The “Pharmacy” wallpaper print on metallic silver backing. (I’d post a picture of the actual piece but it is still at the framer’s.)

(It’s a panel just like this one)

I’m not gonna lie, king move. I had mentioned just once that I bid on it at auction but didn’t win it, and he went and tracked a version of it down for me. This is the kind of gift giving swag I thought only I myself possessed.

It is gorgeous (Hirst is problematic AF but I love stuff with pills on it sue me) and it wasn’t cheap, and… Yeah.

I thought I had sidestepped the whole math-themed confession from Cryptobro (see this post) but… no. There was a letter, and later on, after I cautiously addressed that letter over dinner and “reinforced the friendzone” so to say, a voice note.

Oh man.

Cryptobro is a man who doesn’t know how to have intimate friends. And more importantly, he is a man who fits the archetype, “wants a woman who is free because he wants to cage her”.

You see, I am who I am around him. Even tho I kept certain things private (my mental health conditions, my nonbinary identity) I’ve never hidden that I am married, I don’t want children, I love my husband who takes care of the household for me (and I find capacity to do laundry very important in a potential partner -learning that Cryptobro for the longest time DID NOT WASH HIS SHIRTS and instead just BOUGHT NEW ONES when he ran out of clothes would have been a monumental turnoff even if I *was* interested in him, which I’m not.) And yet… Cryptobro has this idea of a future me as a good little housewife with a nest of children and it is horrifying to me.

I just…

Aside from the fact that I’m still convinced he’s gay and repressing it like his life depends on it, I just… don’t know how to get through to him that he’s in love with an illusion and not the real me.

He’s starved for affection and has never had a friend who is understanding and kind rather than a posturing bro-type who’d pounce on him if he showed vulnerability, and his only model for intimacy is romance, and I’m just… BRO. BRO I AM BASICALLY YOUR THERAPIST. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

He could have everything he wants of me as a friend. Companionship, advice, fun dinner dates, hanging out, emotional vulnerability, therapy sessions, long philosophical debates, the lot! HE IS NOT EVEN SEXUALLY INTO WOMEN FFS. But no.

Sigh.

Anyway, I think whatever this bizarre relationship was may just be properly over now. Which…

I don’t know.

My emotional investment was decidedly tempered by how incredibly unhinged a man he is. (I wish I was kidding about the not washing his shirts thing, but that’s not even half of it. I didn’t make a post about it at the time because it felt cruel to put him on blast when I’m hardly Martha Stewart myself, but… 🤷🏻‍♀️ IT BAD.)

But I still mourn it. I mourn that this man cannot see how much fun we were having as a thing with value in itself, without any romantic label. I mourn that so much of the good thing we had going was him angling for something else. I don’t know. I got girlfriend-zoned and it feels shit.

I feel like life is making me catch up on all the flavours of weirdbad relationships I didn’t experience before I got into my current relationships with my husband and my QPP.

It kinda sucks.

[cryptswahili]

Just My Luck!

Another E-Mail From The Monkey Lawsuit Super Sleuth

You may remember Adam Luck. We met him last time he wrote that nonsense in The London Times (that at first he said he was writing for the Mail on Sunday, until they told him they wouldn’t publish it.) He says he is a journalist in London, which is strange, because some of his stories just don’t make any sense at all as stand-alone journalistic pieces. Also, there are so very few stories of his for a journalist, maybe a couple a month at most. But we can get to all that in later posts.

Let’s start with the obvious:

A former public schoolboy has been named as the alleged mastermind behind a multi-million pound property development fraud, according to High Court papers.

Charles Cunningham, whose time at Eton overlapped with Prince William’s, has been identified in court papers as controlling a series of companies used to defraud Asian investors of millions of pounds by enticing them with UK developments that were never completed.

The son of a City financier, Mr Cunningham, whose brother Rupert is friends with some of Prince Harry’s inner circle, lives in a large country estate in North Wales with his wife. The couple boast a who’s who of society contacts.

This was about a property development scheme I wrote about here that I tried to rescue. Adam Luck wrote this story in October 2017. Now let’s look at the lucky wordsmith’s account of Monkey Capital, about five months down the line:

A former public schoolboy has been accused of being the mastermind of a multimillion-pound international cryptocurrency fraud, which netted him $30m and saw one investor commit suicide.

Daniel Harrison, who is the son of a senior City financier, is alleged to have lured American investors with an initial coin offering (ICO), used to fund the creation of a cryptocurrency.

Harrison, in his late 30s, according to US court papers, was the founder of Monkey Capital LLC, a Delaware company, and Monkey Capital Inc, a Singapore-based company, and used them for “fraudulent purposes”. The claims have been made in a civil class action filed in a Florida court. The filing comes amid increasing legal and regulatory concerns about the boom in crypto-currencies.

Aside from the flabbergasting — pretty much self-plagiarised — similarity in the articles, what is startling is that Adam Luck, writing these two articles less than 6 months apart, didn’t pick up on the obvious —that I was involved at some level in both Monkey Capital and ALD. I’ve never hidden that. Not once. On the contrary — in fact, I am proud of my attempts to help salvage two horrible situations, and the strengths it took to stand up to thugs like Luck. In which case, the obvious question is why? Why not mention that I was connected with both? Surely that only serves to make his story better? (Ed: we’ll get there in subsequent posts and media articles in the mainstream press; don’t give the whole story away for now!)

But we digress. Today, I got another Charm-ing e-mail from Luck. I’ll print the whole thing in quotes. Further, just to assuage Luck, I will answer all the questions in detail, not in some backdoor e-mail but in black and white print.

Dear Daniel,

Happy New Year.

I am having a close look at the Absolute Living Developments fallout.

I’ve read your postings on ALD and a number of questions arose.

In light of the Insolvency Service decision to ban you as a director I wondered why the IS had presumably chosen to ignore your evidence? Or did you simply not present it? Or is it another conspiracy?

I simply did not present it. I didn’t have the time, what, with all the chaos you and your colleagues have been causing an innocent person barely keeping his business alive.

As to your stated innocence: I’ve been in contact with Vicky Chong who states that in your assumed role as the white knight of ALD you took GBP14,500 from her and this has not been reimbursed. Is this correct? She also states that she was told she would have to invest £100,000 in order to continue with the scheme. Why?

When I resigned from ALD, I offered everyone who had put down a deposit with my company DMH&CO one of two things: 1) either they could have the money back, no questions asked, or they could 2) convert the deposit into a loan note into DMH&CO. No one was obligated to do one or the other.

Vicky Chong was not in the original group, but phoned our office and literally begged for an appointment with me when I was next in Hong Kong (HQ was in Singapore). I met with her and she pleaded with me to let her invest 4,000 pounds. I declined initially but she was very insistent and so, like any businessman, I said, sure, why not. She then voluntarily topped up her amount another ten grand about a couple months later I believe (I was never party to that discussion which was had with the HK staff, but they certainly didn’t ask her). A few months later, she claimed that she should get back 250,000 pounds interest. We told her that the only way that could be done was if she invested at least 100,000 pounds.

As for a repayment, well, Mr. Luck, I have been struggling to keep the company alive which was perfectly healthy before you and your friends came out attacking it, throughout all last year. If I can make the repayment early this year to everyone — all our loan note holders — I will.

There were some other questions that I wanted to put to you please.

1. What was the total pecuniary reward you received from your work with ALD?

Zero. No, sorry .. minus whatever it was. Hundreds of thousands; maybe a million or so. Don’t take my word for it though — go look it up in the DMH&CO SG and HK accounts. That was because you and your friends, sir. What nice day jobs you have.

2. If these mystery Malaysians were really the power behind the throne at ALD why did all the monies go to UK businessmen, according to the High Court action taken by Ms Brittain.

I have no idea at all. I have been trying to find the answers out myself to some of this, in frustration. Perhaps ask ALD’s accountant, who when I confronted him with evidence of my resignation just blanked me completely. I’ll dig his name out for you if you like?

3. How many other ALD investors did you “assist”, did you take money from them, and was this money reimbursed. If not, why not.

The extremely supportive group of investors — by and large — in DMH&CO numbers about 13 in total I believe. They together committed about a little over a million dollars US, maybe nearer two million dollars US. Things were going well, until you and your friends turned up, Mr. Luck, and everyone was on schedule for prompt repayment. I have the statements to prove it if you want to see?

4. Will you be attending your impending court case hearing in Florida re Monkey Capital?

I have just today sent in the post two motions — one is a motion to dispute the bullshit presented by Silver Miller, and the other is a motion to subpoena you, among others. You can find them here and here.

Various investors do keep me abreast of your developments and they drew to my attention this curious posting: https://thecurrencyjournal.com/2019/01/11/dmh-advises-government-strategy-session-on-blockchain/

I cannot find any record of a Peter Browshare in relation to a “bi-partisan committee” and I wondered if you could explain which committee and which ministers took time off from Brexit to give you a standing ovation please.

Incidentally, I cannot find any evidence that a John Clare, formerly of the Nikkei and AWSJ, actually exists. Nothing in Factiva nor online that I can trace. Does he really exist or is he just you?

Then you’re not the sharpest button, Mr. Luck. Go to our terms and conditions page (it’s in bold at the top bar menu):

Unlike you, Mr. Luck, I advertise it when I write fiction. (Hint: it’s called satire. Chaucer I think is the most famous of the satirists, historically speaking: Secgan? Bidde weder hwa sy saltere? Good old public school boys — we never forget our 13th century English grammar!)

If you could come back to me by Thursday morning please that would be appreciated.

Regards,

As you can see, I gave you an answer in full to all your questions by Wednesday night, immediately upon finding your e-mail in my inbox.

Now I ask you for the same courtesy — by Thursday, tell me who you are (as in, let’s see a photo of you), and who do you work for (as in, let us have another photo please.) It seems fair that when you want to dig through my life and make things up about me, I get to see a picture of you, and get a little resume, surely? So — just in the comments section of this piece, two pictures. That is it.

Well, if you forget, don’t worry, I am sure the world will find out soon enough as it is …

Oh, and Happy New Year to you, too. You’re going to need all the luck you can get, soon enough, after the damage that you’ve done, believe me.

Just My Luck! was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

[notesandcoffee]

Opinions 4.16-7

I keep getting the sinking feeling that I've missed something horribly important, no matter how I interpret this episode. I've watched them both several times at this point, and things aren't just adding up for me. I'm hoping writing this will make things clearer for me, so bear with me if it's not super-polished. UPDATE: kinda helped, but not really. Feel free to shoot me an ask if you’re confused, because chances are really high I am too.

Our blacklister for the first part is a bee-shirted lady hunting down bad guys in a revenge quest. I just really enjoy the thought of all of those moving parts together, but I kind of wish that we got more of a glimpse into her daily life as an apiarist rather than just her wearing her bee-shirt as therapy. I wanted to bee more invested in her, and I wanted to see evidence of the fire, rather than having it bee in an infodump there at the end. But adding all of that in would have taken screentime from other plots I prefer, so I suppose it worked out in the end. In the first part of our two-part premiere, Dembe kidnaps Aram out of Janet's arms and into the trunk of a car, which he stops to force Aram in to... the trunk of another car. Dembe has a master plan in mind to clear his name with Reddington, and that is to figure out who opened the safe first, which is why he needs our master hacker, despite not knowing the slightest else about him. Aram pulls the data from the safe, and in a bit that hits too close to home for me, the data that he pulls is fucking useless unless he can break the encryption. Around this time, Dembe realizes that Aram  doesn't want to harm him, no matter how much he waves a gun at Aram, and the two tag-team to break into the security company to get the encryption to figure out who made it into the safe. Aram's protective, hyper-analytical personality is matched by Dembe's stoic loyalty to Reddington, causing Aram to pick up on things Dembe wasn't really planning on telling his hostage. With all the courage that comes from shit-talking "Agent Zuma" in front of the guard at the crypto-security company, Aram manages to steal the encryption key without much of an issue, until his colleagues show up to collect Dembe for Reddington. At the same time, Aram's kidnapping sets off a sequence of events in the P.O. Cooper and Ressler take turns taking shots at Red, both worried for their colleague. No one's really wrong in this scenario, but considering the amount of sympathy that's been garnered for Red, the rest of the P.O. comes across as callous to the audience. Red and Liz are searching for Dembe via his daughter (and granddaughter), the only two other people Dembe cares about. The relationship between our leads appears amicable, although there are a noticed lack of sentimental moments between the two in favor of Red's long stories and Liz's focus on the search. Red also calls in Glen, who happens to be in the middle of helping a Spanish-speaking driver, and is easily the funniest part of the premiere. Glen and Red bicker and get under each other's skin while both men are giving Spanish instructions to a confused señora, with Liz tagging along in the backseat. It gives everyone (literal) whiplash how quickly the scene ends and we're left with just Red and Liz again, but I'm always happy to see Glen in an episode. The interactions between Elise Janet and Navabi are cutthroat and tense, with each making suppositions about the other. After hearing of Aram's kidnapping, Navabi grabs Janet and immediately begins interrogating her for answers, without hearing the rest of the briefing. Not to be outdone with the emotional outbursts, Janet spends a solid amount of time trying to provoke Navabi into a reaction at their relationship. Navabi is mostly focused on getting Aram back into a not-kidnapped state, but she's barely holding it together around Janet's constant prodding, mostly by talking about Aram and his past. By the time Aram confronts her, she's done with talking about him and his relationship, having heard everything she needs to know through Janet. He gives a heartfelt statement about how he actually feels about her, and she responds in turn by trying to terrify him. Love triangles are such a bland "romantic" plotline in general that it's hard for me to believe I'm looking at one, but here we are. Everyone's trying their hardest to be mature about the whole thing, but no one actually is. While there's plenty of character development to be had here, I'm confused as to why I should be invested in this storyline. No one comes out on top in any scenario. If Aram had told Navabi earlier just how much her intensity scared him, or if Navabi had been a bit more clear with her intentions when she started, or Janet could just... stop fucking trying to get Navabi to punch her for a half-second, I would have reason to root for someone. That being said, other fans are more endeared to Navabi in a way that I don't relate to through this story, and want Aram to stay with Janet, so more power to them. I'm just having a hard time figuring out who it is I should be cheering for, even though my fave is in it. For the record, I don't like Janet with Aram, because she seems more intent on controlling him and showing him off than she does actually healing the damage she did while undercover. The episode even acknowledges this at one point, as Janet throws herself at Aram as he stares over her shoulder at Navabi. From the way Aram talks to Navabi at the end, being openly honest with her about what he loves admires about her, it's not hard to guess why Janet would be as insecure as she is. But Navabi, of course, turns it back on him in an apathetic rage. She has every right to, of course, but I can't help thinking that Aram is likely more of an anxious mess after that interaction than anything else. Friend. At any rate, that's not really what people are talking about, is it? This is the point where things start to fall apart, at least for me. Full disclosure: this is my understanding of events. This may or may not be correct, but it is mine. I had to write out most of the episode to merely understand what happened, but since it's been capped and recapped by now, I'll spare you that draft and just cut to the analysis. It's revealed that Katheryn Nemec -- better known to Liz as Mr. Kaplan -- poisoned the wine and is responsible for Red's episode. There was nothing surprising or dramatic about the reveal, as the audience knew the whole time about her struggle to stay alive, but I think I would have preferred at least the attempt at humor to help balance out how dark the whole idea was. Instead we got Creeper McCreeperson blowing himself up after a fight in the woods to help protect a woman he had chained to the bed at one point. Okay, then. The difference between Kaplan and every other villain that we've had on the show is that the past isn't a thing that separates the audience from Red and the villain. Luthor Braxton knew Red before Liz, brought it up with him as he taunted him while the audience was left completely in the dark, but that's not at all the case here. Here, the attempt is made to walk us through how exactly Kate became a villain, outlining her relationships with Katerina, Annie, and Nikos all in a span of minutes, memories triggered while on a gruesome road trip literally digging up Reddington's past murders. The explanation in flashback doesn't really work how it might be intended to, for me, but it is an attempt nonetheless. We know that Kaplan's spent more time backing up Red and being there for him independently of Elizabeth; it doesn't make sense that Kate would betray Red so quickly in such a span of time, especially when her main loyalty is to Liz, and not Red. Liz has nothing to be obviously gained by betraying Red at this point, though Kaplan makes the argument before Red leaves to turn himself in. I think I would like to see Kate really struggle with the idea of betraying Red in her own mind in upcoming episodes, to really underline that betraying Red and Liz, by extension, is something she isn't at all used to. I did actually like the idea of exploring who Kaplan is and why she's such a close asset to Red, but I really wish that it was clearer where exactly the pieces fall in this case. I felt like the exploration of Kate's backstory really needed to be two episodes, and a lot of the things that would have held the story together must have ended up on the cutting room floor, likely due to time. Little details that would have made Katerina more human and not just a personal illusion, Masha's personality as a toddler, and Kaplan's life when she wasn't with the Rostovas. There were quite a few unanswered questions by the end of the episode, and I found myself trying to make sense of a myriad of continuity errors -- just in the episode itself, outside of the story arc it's located in. To cite an example I wrote too much about in a previous draft, why is "the American" described as blond when he's clearly not? And why is Dembe worthy of forgiveness for "betraying" Red when Kaplan is not? How did Kaplan get ahold of the fulcrum in a shitty motel room after a week of being inside? Why is there so much weird emphasis on Katerina's sex life? That last question was actually enough to throw me out of the story about the third or fourth time it was mentioned, and I was left wondering why we needed to care about it. The American -- later referred to as "Raymond" and very clearly not Spader -- was with Katerina in the car, but Spader insists to Kate that he had an affair with Katerina as well. It made me wonder which I should be believing, and it felt disrespectful to Katerina to watch. And Katerina's bisexual, by the way. I will not get into discussions or arguments about it because it's 100% true. Moving back to my previous point, there are a lot of continuity errors, most of them un-accidental. Kaplan's memory is shattered, and we're seeing odd-placed clips that describe her time only after meeting Katerina. In the ending story in 4.11 ("The Harem"), we hear about Kaplan's sister being involved in witness protection. Red spends the better part of that episode tracking down information related to Kate's sister, risking Liz's life in the process, making Kaplan's story -- the whole story -- of deep importance to Red. This incident had to have made an impact on Kaplan, but of all the memories we see, that isn't one of them. Either it happened before Kaplan met Katerina, it didn't happen at all, or Kaplan's memory is shattered beyond repair. The first is plausible, the second is not, and the third opens up a possibility that we don't see confirmation of on-screen -- the idea that Kaplan's memories aren't 100% accurate. One of the recurring themes of "Blacklist" is it's use of memory and how the mind can play tricks, and in some cases, torture. We spent the better part of 2 seasons trying to get into Liz's childhood memories, and spent a whole episode in Red's memories of Katerina and their relationship. But the main difference here is that if we are in Kaplan's memory, if it is shattered, it's not explained to the viewer the same way as it is with Liz and Red. Kaplan's memories are presented as unfiltered flashback, the kind that you see in a kind of extended montage. There's no hazy lighting to show that it might be a memory of a memory as we've seen in Liz, no explanation scene as we saw with Red. Just the idea that being shot in the head twice probably isn't the best way to remember the past. What does all of this mean? Is Kaplan on a weird revenge quest against Red, or a rescue mission for Liz? What's her best-case scenario in this situation? Is Dembe going to pay the same consequences as Kaplan, or is he forgiven? Has Agnes moved out with TK? Why would we not get an explanation for the gross incontinuity that is Kaplan's memory, or even a hint that it may not be accurate? What actually happened to Kaplan's sister, and why did Katerina pick Sam to take care of Liz? And who am I supposed to cheer for? The audience surrogate is Liz as a premise, and she's torn over the idea of Kaplan and Red feuding, and Red offers very little comfort in that regard. I would like to see Red actually acknowledge Liz's pain and try to comfort her. It would provide a sentimental moment between the two of them, and we would see more of how Red feels about the ordeal. Twitter kept pace with our breakneck episodes, and it was hard for me to keep up with everything and my cocktail at the same time. In truth, I think that's how I prefer it, so I won't complain. Hatley's back to interacting with all kinds of feedback again, too, but it seems most of our friends in the writers' room have been quiet, for the most part. I wonder what that's about.

[jacobhinkley]

The Bitcoin Standard: BCH Troll Slayer Faces BTC’s Angriest Man

Bitcoin Cash’s (BCH) troll slayer Derek Magill is back at it, and this time he’s facing down a pretty fierce opponent. Saifedean Ammous’s The Bitcoin Standard is hardcore maximalist argumentation for the supremacy of bitcoin core (BTC) as a cryptocurrency and world settlement commodity. While good people can differ on Mr. Ammous’s views, the BCH Troll Slayer finds the way in which those positions are put forward to be lacking.

Also read: Square’s Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Leap, and Lightning Plug

The Bitcoin Standard Gets a Dismissive, Brutal Review

“I first heard of Seinfeld Ammous in January of this year,” BCH apologist Derek Magill began his tongue-and-cheek review of The Bitcoin Standard, purposely misspelling Mr. Ammous’s first name, “when I saw a bizarre, expletive-filled and frankly rather unlettered tweet of his attacking someone who committed the horrible crime of asking a question about an ‘altcoin.’” Mr. Magill is a known quantity in the BCH ecosystem, often a target of BTC ire in relation to his advocacy of bitcoin cash.

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking (Wiley, 2018) is professor Saifedean Ammous’s (‘Safe-ah-deen Amm-oose’) contribution to the growing body of literature arguing for the primacy of BTC.

The Bitcoin Standard, in fact, has become a quiet hit within the community. It came out of nowhere, and soon everyone from Nassim Nicholas Taleb to Caitlin Long and many others promoted its reading for no other reason than merit. Mr. Ammous combines orthodox neo-Austrian economics with BTC proselytizing: Bitcoin is a new, better gold standard.

He and his work were immediately embraced and toured all over the world in support. He continues to make the rounds of podcasts, Youtube channels. One notable appearance was on The Tom Woods Show. Mr. Woods is a polemicist of some regard, well established in libertarian, free market circles. The opening of this particular episode was a veritable love fest as Professor Ammous showered Mr. Woods with praise as an intellectual mentor.

The Best Take Downs Use Humor

Tom Woods is also something of a golly gee, every man interviewer when it comes to BTC. He appreciates mainstream apprehension to crypto, and is an articulate spokesman for their hesitancy. Mr. Woods and the professor wax all kinds of economics, discussing BTC as something that needs to be understood in order to be used (it doesn’t) and scarcity (nothing is perfectly held as a store of value, but BTC is the best so far; truly scarce).  

Not half way through the program, at 17 minutes and 46 seconds, Mr. Woods asks what, then as now, was on everyone’s mind: has BTC reneged on its initial promise to be a global, peer-to-peer cash, a currency? Do proponents of bitcoin cash (BCH) have a point? Mr. Ammous reluctantly gives a detailed retort, taking on the controversies. Satoshi is not god, tech evolves, and using BTC as a store of value will not necessarily cede more philosophical territory to the Fed.

“Stupid,” “absurd,” “ignorant,” “idiotic” are infused in his monologue, climaxing at about the 26:30 mark, “And, frankly, I’m quite disappointed we’re wasting this episode discussing this idiotic idea rather than getting into some interesting economic discussions,” Mr. Ammous scolded his host. It was a small insight in what was to come.

“He struck me at the time as a sort of alcoholic Taleb-wannabe,” Derek Magill’s published review continued, “and I have to say I forgot about him mostly until I became the target of one of his late night rants, not long after which he blocked me entirely.”

Personality Can Often Get in the Way of a Good Argument

For Mr. Magill, it was simply time to humble an earnest academic who seems to have overplayed his hand, and to crush him Taleb style. Although the book’s topics were interesting, they were not Bitcoin-centric and mostly about the history of money, “you can read about in much better detail from far more competent Austrian economists than Seinfeld,” Mr. Magill explained. “Only the last three chapters really discuss Bitcoin and one is left with the feeling that all the intro material was set up to smuggle in a pro-Bitcoin maximalist position at the very end without having to actually prove anything about it.”

From there, Mr. Magill addresses “a few errors in the book that stood out to me as I think these are enough to show that readers should be wary of Seinfeld’s conclusions.” A favorite supposed contradiction actually begins the book, according to Mr. Magill. None other than Taleb was tapped, a fellow scholar of Lebanese heritage, to pen the book’s introduction. “One of the most important parts of Seinfeld’s thesis in the book is that Bitcoin was ‘immaculately conceived,’ meaning essentially that no other coin could ever have Bitcoin’s genesis history and therefore could never replace Bitcoin and that Bitcoin can never be recreated again.”

Part of the more coarse BTC enthusiast position is how all other cryptocurrencies are illegitimate, scams. “Anyone who claims otherwise is, as he said in the tweet to me, a ‘con artist’ and a ‘scammer,’” Mr. Magill asserts as Mr. Ammous’s ultimate position. “If this makes no sense to you at all, don’t worry, it’s not really intended to. You’re expected to take it on faith, though when looking at the history of Bitcoin you can see that it was anything but ‘immaculately conceived.’” Mr. Magill details, “Bitcoin was created by a specific person for a specific purpose at a specific time. It was highly centralized when it began and Satoshi Nakamoto had the opportunity to mine upwards of 1 million coins himself, 5% of the total supply of Bitcoin that will ever exist, making him one of the richest people on the planet if he is still alive and has access to his coins. There is nothing all that fundamentally different from it and other coins other than that it got a head start. On top of that, the introduction by Taleb clearly states: ‘Bitcoin will go through hick-ups (hiccups). It may fail; but then it will be easily reinvented as we now know how it works.’ One wonders how Seinfeld could have missed such an obvious contradiction like this when he is so strongly against any suggestion that Bitcoin can be reinvented.” A solid point Mr. Ammous would do well to consider.

What is an effective way to deal with rude advocates? Let us know in the comments below. 

Images via Pixabay.

We’re celebrating Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer Jamie Redman’s work. Check out Jamie Redman’s author archives. It’s an encyclopedia, a living history of crypto. 

The post The Bitcoin Standard: BCH Troll Slayer Faces BTC’s Angriest Man appeared first on Bitcoin News.

The Bitcoin Standard: BCH Troll Slayer Faces BTC’s Angriest Man published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

[bowsetter]

The Bitcoin Standard: BCH Troll Slayer Faces BTC’s Angriest Man

Bitcoin Cash’s (BCH) troll slayer Derek Magill is back at it, and this time he’s facing down a pretty fierce opponent. Saifedean Ammous’s The Bitcoin Standard is hardcore maximalist argumentation for the supremacy of bitcoin core (BTC) as a cryptocurrency and world settlement commodity. While good people can differ on Mr. Ammous’s views, the BCH Troll Slayer finds the way in which those positions are put forward to be lacking.

Also read: Square’s Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Leap, and Lightning Plug

The Bitcoin Standard Gets a Dismissive, Brutal Review

“I first heard of Seinfeld Ammous in January of this year,” BCH apologist Derek Magill began his tongue-and-cheek review of The Bitcoin Standard, purposely misspelling Mr. Ammous’s first name, “when I saw a bizarre, expletive-filled and frankly rather unlettered tweet of his attacking someone who committed the horrible crime of asking a question about an ‘altcoin.’” Mr. Magill is a known quantity in the BCH ecosystem, often a target of BTC ire in relation to his advocacy of bitcoin cash.

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking (Wiley, 2018) is professor Saifedean Ammous’s (‘Safe-ah-deen Amm-oose’) contribution to the growing body of literature arguing for the primacy of BTC.

The Bitcoin Standard, in fact, has become a quiet hit within the community. It came out of nowhere, and soon everyone from Nassim Nicholas Taleb to Caitlin Long and many others promoted its reading for no other reason than merit. Mr. Ammous combines orthodox neo-Austrian economics with BTC proselytizing: Bitcoin is a new, better gold standard.

He and his work were immediately embraced and toured all over the world in support. He continues to make the rounds of podcasts, Youtube channels. One notable appearance was on The Tom Woods Show. Mr. Woods is a polemicist of some regard, well established in libertarian, free market circles. The opening of this particular episode was a veritable love fest as Professor Ammous showered Mr. Woods with praise as an intellectual mentor.

The Best Take Downs Use Humor

Tom Woods is also something of a golly gee, every man interviewer when it comes to BTC. He appreciates mainstream apprehension to crypto, and is an articulate spokesman for their hesitancy. Mr. Woods and the professor wax all kinds of economics, discussing BTC as something that needs to be understood in order to be used (it doesn’t) and scarcity (nothing is perfectly held as a store of value, but BTC is the best so far; truly scarce).  

Not half way through the program, at 17 minutes and 46 seconds, Mr. Woods asks what, then as now, was on everyone’s mind: has BTC reneged on its initial promise to be a global, peer-to-peer cash, a currency? Do proponents of bitcoin cash (BCH) have a point? Mr. Ammous reluctantly gives a detailed retort, taking on the controversies. Satoshi is not god, tech evolves, and using BTC as a store of value will not necessarily cede more philosophical territory to the Fed.

“Stupid,” “absurd,” “ignorant,” “idiotic” are infused in his monologue, climaxing at about the 26:30 mark, “And, frankly, I’m quite disappointed we’re wasting this episode discussing this idiotic idea rather than getting into some interesting economic discussions,” Mr. Ammous scolded his host. It was a small insight in what was to come.

“He struck me at the time as a sort of alcoholic Taleb-wannabe,” Derek Magill’s published review continued, “and I have to say I forgot about him mostly until I became the target of one of his late night rants, not long after which he blocked me entirely.”

Personality Can Often Get in the Way of a Good Argument

For Mr. Magill, it was simply time to humble an earnest academic who seems to have overplayed his hand, and to crush him Taleb style. Although the book’s topics were interesting, they were not Bitcoin-centric and mostly about the history of money, “you can read about in much better detail from far more competent Austrian economists than Seinfeld,” Mr. Magill explained. “Only the last three chapters really discuss Bitcoin and one is left with the feeling that all the intro material was set up to smuggle in a pro-Bitcoin maximalist position at the very end without having to actually prove anything about it.”

From there, Mr. Magill addresses “a few errors in the book that stood out to me as I think these are enough to show that readers should be wary of Seinfeld’s conclusions.” A favorite supposed contradiction actually begins the book, according to Mr. Magill. None other than Taleb was tapped, a fellow scholar of Lebanese heritage, to pen the book’s introduction. “One of the most important parts of Seinfeld’s thesis in the book is that Bitcoin was ‘immaculately conceived,’ meaning essentially that no other coin could ever have Bitcoin’s genesis history and therefore could never replace Bitcoin and that Bitcoin can never be recreated again.”

Part of the more coarse BTC enthusiast position is how all other cryptocurrencies are illegitimate, scams. “Anyone who claims otherwise is, as he said in the tweet to me, a ‘con artist’ and a ‘scammer,’” Mr. Magill asserts as Mr. Ammous’s ultimate position. “If this makes no sense to you at all, don’t worry, it’s not really intended to. You’re expected to take it on faith, though when looking at the history of Bitcoin you can see that it was anything but ‘immaculately conceived.’” Mr. Magill details, “Bitcoin was created by a specific person for a specific purpose at a specific time. It was highly centralized when it began and Satoshi Nakamoto had the opportunity to mine upwards of 1 million coins himself, 5% of the total supply of Bitcoin that will ever exist, making him one of the richest people on the planet if he is still alive and has access to his coins. There is nothing all that fundamentally different from it and other coins other than that it got a head start. On top of that, the introduction by Taleb clearly states: ‘Bitcoin will go through hick-ups (hiccups). It may fail; but then it will be easily reinvented as we now know how it works.’ One wonders how Seinfeld could have missed such an obvious contradiction like this when he is so strongly against any suggestion that Bitcoin can be reinvented.” A solid point Mr. Ammous would do well to consider.

What is an effective way to deal with rude advocates? Let us know in the comments below. 

Images via Pixabay.

We’re celebrating Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer Jamie Redman’s work. Check out Jamie Redman’s author archives. It’s an encyclopedia, a living history of crypto. 

The post The Bitcoin Standard: BCH Troll Slayer Faces BTC’s Angriest Man appeared first on Bitcoin News.

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