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Heads, I kill him. Tails — well, Tails and he not only understands who wants him dead, he will learn how little he knows of real pain. I’ll teach him, though. When I’m done, there will be nothing about it beyond his experience and there will come a moment when he breaks and begs me to finish him, prays like a supplicant to me, his Almighty, singular judge of his redemption and sole voice of forgiveness. I’ll play deaf because I’m not paid to listen. Fuck. Heads again. Goddamn it. Another boring Friday night. Three minutes of focus, three seconds to jab the guy and plunge Father Paul’s secret recipe into his ass, and then what am I supposed to do for the rest of the night? What was all the training for if I can’t make use of it? “The toss allows God to decide,” the cunning old priest would say. “Rejoice in the blessing endowed on you to be God’s Will enabled.” I don’t get it. These bastards deserved to die in the worst ways possible, but God has never let a Tails spin into my palm. It’s like He’s fucking with me, like it’s a fucking joke to Him to wind me up and then relish the frustration and disappointment when that fucking coin smiles back at me. Whatever. I’m here, he’s here and between the crowd and the music, no one will hear him scream. Might as well be in space. Hoppin’ and boppin’ through the dancers, I could be invisible for all the attention I get. He, on the other hand, exudes so much charisma that even women with partners are half-turned to watch him from the corner of their eyes. Maybe becoming a serial kidnapper-rapist-murderer wasn’t entirely a matter of choice. Maybe he’s only using the gifts God gave him, just like I’m using mine, but I doubt I’m as happy with my lot as he is — or has been — with his. No complaints on my part, though. The money’s pretty good, I travel the world in First Class and though my green Vatican City passport may not have quite the get-out-of-jail-free status of the light blue United Nations one, I don’t attract national security bureaus like they do. The moments between songs allow me to close unnoticed, my syringe ready in its sheath under my left cuff. An instant after the pulsing bass returns, I stab and then pretend to trip, moving bent over to disguise my route. No need to confirm his death, so sure am I in the evil priest’s alchemical expertise, and then my Friday night boredom is redeemed via text message — double headers are rare enough events that I would exhaust my list with less than five fingers. My mission window is short and I must first change and dispose of these clothes, so I waste no time waiting for an Uber and flag the first taxi in the rank outside the club. I have never questioned a target and I don’t now, but I can’t honestly wrap my mind around what a pubescent girl could have done to deserve me. It’s late enough she’s probably in bed, asleep, but that makes no never mind to me. Five minutes after striding through the hotel’s front entrance, having greeted the doorman and smiled at the night-shift manager, I exit by a side door dressed in running gear, my syringe nestled in my sock. The taxi ride uptown is quick, and I climb out beside a park. I limber up until the cab is out of sight and then jog without urgency towards the target address. This late, all the neighbourhood businesses I pass are closed — coffee shops, upscale boutiques, salons, even a small insurance office. Slowing as I arrive ‘home,’ I pause and stretch on the pavement out front, using my movements to gather my tools. With tired purpose, I climb the front stairs. Two breaths and I’m shutting the front door behind me in practiced silence. My mission demands less illumination, so I turn the lights off as I come to them. Keeping to the shadows, I ignore the ground floor and head upstairs. A small part of me is grateful for the wall-to-wall as I step onto the landing, but a greater part smiles at the sound of pop music emerging from an alcove. Tossing my coin as instructed, giving God the final word, my breath catches. Tails. What the fuck? Tails again. And a third time. So. Two things occur to me. I cannot torture her here and I need a way to move her somewhere safe. An image brightens in my head — the sign in the window of the insurance agent listed it was closed all weekend. It will do in a pinch. I need a suitcase. Back down the stairs, ignoring the main floor once again, because suitcases are stored in the basement. I choose the largest and retrace my steps to the girl’s room. None of the lights have been turned back on, so there is no call for collateral victims. One final check. Tails. So be it. Opening the door enough to slowly reach in and quench the main light, I use her confusion to dart across to where she lies on her stomach lost in her iPad. A rap on her temple with a folded knuckle is enough to steal her awareness, and the suitcase is ample. On a whim, I toss in her iPad. Here, then, is the riskiest part. A man in running gear does not often haul a large suitcase through the night, but once more pretending purpose suffices to protect me. Trixie Thorn would otherwise have grown into a great beauty were it not for my orders, but I tie her to the table in the staff kitchen as securely as I always do. I push a piece of torn tea towel into her mouth and secure it with tape. The one thing I don’t do is cut away her pyjamas. Nudity is a great psychological weapon but I just can’t do it. Even armed with the remaining piece of towel doused with ammonia from under the sink, I hesitate to wake her. I cannot say why. So I study her. It’s pointless, but perhaps her iPad can tell me something. Lead image by on ZSun Fu Unsplash

Heads & Tails: A Tale of Chance, Faith and Morality - Part 1

মাথা ও পুচ্ছ: সম্ভাবনা, বিশ্বাস এবং নৈতিকতার গল্প - পার্ট 1

Kopf und Zahl: Eine Geschichte von Zufall, Glauben und Moral – Teil 1

Cara y Cruz: Una historia de azar, fe y moralidad - Parte 1

Pile et Face : Une histoire de hasard, de foi et de moralité - Partie 1

हेड्स एंड टेल्स: संयोग, विश्वास और नैतिकता की कहानी - भाग 1

表と裏：偶然、信仰、道徳の物語 - パート 1

앞면과 뒷면: 우연, 신앙, 도덕에 관한 이야기 - 1부

Cara e Coroa: Uma História de Acaso, Fé e Moralidade - Parte 1

Орел и решка: История о шансе, вере и морали. Часть 1

Yazı ve Yazı: Bir Şans, İnanç ve Ahlak Hikayesi - Bölüm 1

Đầu & Đuôi: Câu chuyện về cơ hội, niềm tin và đạo đức - Phần 1

正面与反面：机遇、信仰与道德的故事（上）

The Beautiful and Damned: Book II, Chapter I - The Radiant Hour 

Evaluating Your App Idea and Supercharging your Chances of Success [Part 2]

September 23, 2018 That’s the last thought I had before I crashed. “This is it. I’m going to die”. I’m cycling in Dolores Park for the first time in years (I’m more of a runner, and Classpass studio lover), and in a few seconds, I find myself in a predicament: a car is coming behind me, and I’m stuck between the trolley tracks. What to do; : get run over by the car behind me, : I try to cross the tracks with my bike. Option A Option B I try to do the latter. And that’s when it happened. The 80 pound electric JUMP bike catapulted me out of my seat and into the air and I smashed onto the ground while it fell on top of me — crushing my right rib, and my left knee so badly cartilage was exposed. Holy shit, I screamed. The pain was unbearable. I grabbed my knee, wishing I could reverse the last few minutes. What happened next felt like the movies: cars stopped, people came out to help. They offered to call the Ambulance. I crawled to the sidewalk, thankful for the helmet I grabbed at the last minute, and thought about my next steps. Back in my 20’s, I was a rather adventurous soul; I played soccer, went cliff jumping in the Swiss Alps, sky diving with abandon, scrambled for hours to the top of mountains, and competed in Olympic Triathlons. My tolerance for pain is fairly high, and I figured, nah, I don’t need an Ambulance. I also didn’t want to pay the ridiculously high fees when I knew that they could probably do nothing more than clean my gaping wound. The deep wound was something I could manage by creating a mini-wound clinic at my apartment. What I really needed was an X-ray and MRI. I needed to know what I broke or tore. I decided the best next step would be to find a top orthopedic surgeon in San Francisco, and schedule an appointment the very next day. Since I’m a Product Marketer and launch software products for a living, I spend A LOT of time online and have jokingly admitted to getting to the end of the internet when I’m researching something. I’m the kind of gal who reads every single Amazon review before I purchase a product and every Yelp review before I decide to commit to any service. I found an amazing orthopedic surgeon in San Francisco, and went through the usual tests. The X-ray cleared me of a broken bone, but I still couldn’t walk. Is it possible that I tore my ACL again? Nine years ago, I played club soccer 6 days a week in New York City and tore my ACL during a rather competitive match. I swore that I would never go back to playing sports because the ACL recovery rehab in the winter of NYC still gives me post traumatic stress. (Note: I used my hamstring graft rather than a cadaver and still cringe when I think about using the NYC subways with crutches!). When I mentioned to my dr that I may have torn my ACL, he said it was highly unlikely to tear an ACL with a bike crash since they usually tear in sports like tennis, soccer and skiing — hyperextending the knee and twisting it at the same time. But after some preliminary tests, he found that my ACL was looser than expected. And sure enough: the MRI results came back with a full ACL tear. Shit. Okay, ACL surgery on my “good knee” was not something I thought I’d ever have to go through again. I hadn’t cried at the time of the accident. I hadn’t cried when I poured alcohol every two hours on my deep wound creating my own sound machine in my bathroom while I tended to the gaping hole in my knee that had exposed cartilage. But when I crutched out of the dr’s office with the results that I tore my ACL, and potentially more — I panicked. I called my parents and then I stopped for a moment on a bench outside of the hospital and cried. Really hard. It wasn’t that I was in pain. It was the anticipation of the road ahead: It would be 8 months before I could even think about running again. the 2 months I’d have to wait until the bleeding on my knee stopped before I could even get ACL surgery, and the rehab of 6 months or more that would follow. I would have to mentally prepare for my sedentary lifestyle. I would have to learn how to sit at home and most frightening of all: I would have to learn what life was like without being in control of my physical body. I also had to learn to forgive myself for thinking that the unthinkable — another ACL knee surgery — would never happen again. Let’s rewind I spent the first 8 months of of 2018 on the road; I completed more than 60 flights by September, and the small shops at SFO airport confirmed my relentless travel schedule by speaking my first name out loud when I ordered something. I was consumed with a full life: , filming a movie I wrote called ” with an incredible team in LA, and building a consulting practice around Product Marketing with multiple clients. writing a book which I published on Amazon “A Star In The Desert But when your body becomes a liability rather than an asset, everything about your sense of self in the world changes. November 14, 2018 My mom flew in from Chicago, committed to celebrating Thanksgiving with me in my 1 bedroom apartment while I recovered from my ACL surgery which took place the morning of November 14th. The morning of the surgery, I woke up, and immediately burst into tears. It’s okay, I told myself. You’ll get through this, like you did before. It’s no fun to wake up to your leg in a big compression sock with major bandages and images from my last surgery floated in my subconscious. I still carried the imprint of the pain from my last knee surgery 9 years ago. Post-surgery, I came to and found out that instead of just ACL surgery, I had multiples surgeries: ACL using my hamstring graph, and two meniscus tears that needed to be repaired. The recovery for meniscus + ACL repair is much longer than just an ACL repair: no weight bearing or knee flexion past 90 degrees for at least a month or more. My mom, who flew in from Chicago to play caretaker, was a hero during the 10 days post-op, and brought our relationship to new heights. While she was giving me a sponge bath, I jokingly turned to her and said, “Next time, I’ll be giving you a bath”. November 14–20th, 2018 The first few days after the post-op were some of the most painful moments I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m not a fan of medicine, and my hyper sensitive body doesn’t really agree with it most of the time, so after 2 days I decided to go medicine free. But the pain was real: it felt like a sledgehammer went through my knee, and I was in a constant state of despair. My body tightened as a result of the pain, and it took every ounce of strength in me not to fantasize about the future, but to just sit with the present moment and breathe into it. I didn’t sleep more than 90 consecutive minutes for that first week, and would wake up in a hot sweat, holding my brace and putting a hand over my elevated knee, wishing that the pain would subside. I thought to myself: “This can’t be my life”. I’ve never spent an entire week indoors, and during the first few days of post-op, I started to lose my composure. Thankfully, my parents were staying with me, so I had great company and was taken care of during that time, but it felt like I dropped into a vortex. It was only after Day 6 post-op that I finally went outside (sliding down my stairs), and breathed in the fresh air. But I soon found out that spending time outside of my apartment wasn’t generally worth the difficulty: getting into an Uber/Lyft with crutches and a brace is an event in itself. November 25, 2018 “Bye my dear. We love you.” I heard the door close as I dozed back off to sleep. My parents had to leave and head back to Chicago that early morning. When I fully awoke at around 9 am, it dawned on me that I was truly and finally alone in my apartment, and mostly immobile. I hadn’t realized how limited I was until that moment. I tried to make myself breakfast that morning and it took me close to 45 minutes to make oatmeal while I fumbled around on crutches. I took one plate off the shelf in my right hand and placed it on the closest counter. Then moved it from that counter to my table. Next, a spoon. Next, the hot water. And so on. The rest of the morning had a similar tone; it would take me 10x longer to complete even the most simple actions. By noon, I was exhausted — both emotionally and physically, and decided to get back into bed. I had a mini-meltdown when I stirred from my rest, and decided to withdraw my overwhelming drive to be independent. I phoned a friend. December 4th, 2018 It’s been about three weeks since the knee surgery and three months since the bike accident. While some days are harder than others, and I still haven’t slept a full consecutive 8 hours yet, I’ve learned that human beings are so malleable. We can adapt to just about any situation. I’m in awe of the strength that I have within me. Since I live alone, in order to move any object from one room to the other, I need to carry a backpack, so I have fully invested in new camping gear and have strapped a knapsack and camping bag to my body. Soon enough, I’ll be crawling on the ceiling like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. We adapt, and we learn how to survive and make the best of our situations. This situation has given me a perspective about my body and about life that I did not have access to before, and I’m very grateful to have gone through such a big lesson. Switching from a mode of proactivity to a mode of receptivity is not easy. For as long as I can remember, I have championed values like independence, self-sufficiency, and tied those characteristics to my sense of worth and power. But there is a power and grace in allowing someone to contribute to you. Because I can’t even do basic things without the help of others, I am learning how to be really vulnerable, and how to ask for help without feeling the need for an exchange or a transaction of some sort. I am humbled by the kindness of my friends and family and how beautiful it is to be in a space of receptivity. It’s still hard for me to ask for help, but it’s getting less and less painful. Every difficulty I experience forces me to re-examine my ability to do so. While I used to spend a lot of time at events, or on the road, my home has suddenly been filled with dinner companions and never-ending social hour. To date, I haven’t eaten alone for a single night since the surgery. And I’m learning that’s it’s okay to “be” instead of “do” — that I am worthy and capable of love not because of my job, or relationships, or what I contribute externally in the world. I am worthy of receiving love because I exist. December 14th, 2018 I am not the same person who fell off that bike on September 23rd. I hope with this story, that I can inspire others to sit still and find solace in the idea that nothing is good nor bad — instead, there is something to be learned in every situation. And when I am able to walk again, ever so slightly, which will be very soon, I will celebrate that day with a stroll to Aquatic Park by the water filled with swimmers dodging seals, and I will put both of my feet in the sand, and scream out loud I will breathe in and fill my lungs with fresh California air, stare out in wonder and awe at the beautiful trees and plants around me, and I will promise myself that I’m never taking another day for granted again. YES, I AM ALIVE. Every day on earth with a healthy body is a great day and deserves a celebration. What a gift. I hope you cherish every single day with yours. “Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” — Haruki Murakami

Grounded in San Francisco; a story about knee surgeries and more

Jekyll Island Club where the secrete meeting to destroy the dollar took place in 1910. Two years later the Federal Reserve Act was passed. The Daily Caller , run by Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson, has published an astonishing article claiming that the US Congress is working on legislation to “legitimise” Bitcoin . We always expected the state to attack Bitcoin, but the undemocratic way in which this attack is being formed is apalling and shocking. In the information vacuum, all sorts of conspiracy theories rush to fill in the details. Lets examine a conspiracy theory now. https://twitter.com/dantwany/status/899281189713969153 Anyone familiar with Bitcoin knows that the word “legitimacy” was widely used when referring to Bitcoin for years as a necessary step to boost acceptance and adoption. This word was dropped and now it seems it is back. As ususal, the State is twenty steps behind (this is a good thing) but this time, there is a to the push for “Bitcoin Legitimacy”. It isn't a matter of making Bitcoin legitimate this time, it is a push to replace it with something else. for other memes twist If you know the recent history of money you’ll be familiar with the story of how the Federal Reserve was founded. The Federal Reserve is a private bank tasked with the management of the money of the United States. A secret meeting of cigar smoking fat men was held at a place called , where the details where thrashed out. What this Daily Caller article is claiming is that there has been a “ ” where soy drinking characters have planned in secret to replace Bitcoin with a totally crippled system stripped of privacy and economic soundness. Jekyll Island Jekyll Island 2.0 You might think that this comparison is totally wrong, and that in the 21st century of Open Source thinking, democracy, Wikileaks and inclusiveness, secret meetings are a thing of the past. If you believe that, . you are naïve From the article: The three offices looking at the issue asked not to be identified for this story because of the sensitivity of the issue and the complexity of the solution. The three “offices” mentioned here are part of the United States Government. They are working on behalf of the people , in a government of and by the people. It is that legislation that will violate the First Amendment should be drafted in secret without consultation from any stakeholders in society; but this is exactly what they are doing, just as the Jekyll Island meeting was held behind closed doors and in secret. under oath totally unacceptable When they say “sensitivity of the issue” this is not a legal pretext for refusing to draft this legislation in the open and under consultation. There are times where the State must keep secrets, and these circumstances are explicily laid out in law. If this proposed law is a matter of National Security, then they need to that it is a matter of National Security, and cite the law they are using to keep this secret, otherwise, what they are doing is not correct, is extra legal and profoundly un-American. say Three Members of Congress are working on legislation to protect certain digital currencies from government interference Only an insane person could characterise this as a Bill to, “Protect Cryptocurrencies from Government Interference”. You have to be a fully indoctrinated member of Orwell’s DoubleThink Newspeak team to characterise this story in those terms. There are already laws in the USA to protect cryptocurrencies from government interference; . The First Amendment of the Constitution _Some say that Bitcoin is money. Others say that it is not money. It doesn’t matter. No one should be licensed to use or…_hackernoon.com The “Bitlicense” is a bad idea that must die Cryptocurrencies are , and . This is established law, and any new legislation that tries to undermine this will be struck down if the system is working correctly. When we say Bitcoin is a profoundly disrupting tool, we actually . Because it is text and protected speech and it mimics good money perfectly, it sits in a special place between two worlds where, in the USA that has guaranteed rights, it cannot be touched. text text is protected speech mean it This story, if it is even true, is an account of a blatant attempt to subvert The Constitution and to stifle Bitcoin and render it useless. If the bill’s purpose is to prevent them from being used by those engaged in illegal business practices like drug traffickers and terrorists . That goal is on top of being unreasonable, hysterical, computer illiterate and unrealistic. These people should be honest. The scourge of drug taking and other unpleasant things is not the problem they are addressing. The problem this legislation addresses is , which has now been recognised as a real threat to fiat currencies. The where they talk of, “Dealing with Bitcoin by other measures”, a thinly veiled threat to use violence as a resort to destroy Bitcoin. it can never ever succeed impossible real the existence of Bitcoin IMF has stated this clearly in a recent report, Now for the heart of the conspiracy theory. Who would the US Government turn to to create its own version of Bitcoin, ? They don’t have the skill to create their own version of Bitcoin, and would have to find developers to create one from scratch, which is impossible, in terms of competent software developers and the prohibitive cost of building of a huge network to support it’s hash requirements and climbing the mountain of first mover advantage Bitcoin has. The best way to do it would be to take the existing Bitcoin network and replace the reference client with a client that had a small change that seemed reasonable, then once Bitcoin Core are denied access to changing the source, change Bitcoin into JekyllCoin. “JekyllCoin” BTC1 is the is the obvious candidate. Why BTC1? Once again, developing a bespoke system from scratch is bound to fail. The Canadian is an example and that failed before Bitcoin was as big as it is. The only possible candidate here is BTC1. It has vocal industry support from incumbents and it . Think about who is behind BTC1. Jeff Garzik already that , so he is “on side”. He has the . Do not be overly shocked by a surprise return to Bitcoin of Mike Hearn, who will join Gavin Andressen and Jeff Garzick on JeckyllCoin as developers. Hearn will eat dish of vengeance . Mint Chip is not Chinese owns a Blockchain Surveillance Company services Interpol and others minimum skills required to fork Bitcoin this with ice Barry Silbert and his “Digital Currency Group” are rallying companies with large numbers of users behind BTC1, and so they will have an off the shelf user base in the millions, running on a version of Bitcoin which is indistinguishable from Bitcoin at this point. When Congress anoints BTC1 as the official Bitcoin, the price will increase dramatically. Bitcoin will finally be “legitimised”. Banks will offer Bitcoin companies accounts and the ecosystem will burn white hot. …but there is a catch. What these people are offering is a classic fraudulent “ ” Bait and Switch They will offer both legitimacy and a slightly higher capacity at first, and whopping great profit for Bitcoin holders, only later to inject lethal poison into Bitcoin, utterly destroying and wrecking its fundamental proposition. There will be an increase in the total supply of Bitcoin beyond 21,000,000, , KYC/AML, reversible transactions and everything else characters like Mike Hearn, half wit economists like Paul Krugman, un-American Police Men like Preet Baharaha and Federal Reserve central bankers think are necessary. Remember also, that the block size increase of BTC1 is just the first of many, , cutting off access to all but the most thoroughly vetted and incumbents from the legacy financial system. Address Blacklists making the private operation of a Bitcoin full node impossible It will be the death of Bitcoin. Using actual Bitcoin would need to be illegal the moment this law is passed. Starting an alt coin with the correct characteristics would need to be made illegal. Even if they were not made illegal, it would be very difficult to replace or even compete with a government anointed JekyllCoin. Game Over for Bitcoin. First, there is a new entity that is considering issuing a brand new digital currency that is compliant with anti-money laundering laws unlike any other in circulation.” There is “A New Entity” what does this mean? If they do not mean BTC1, then they are talking about a new alt-Coin and they have absolutely no hope of succeeding against Bitcoin. The Bitcoin infrastructure is too big, too international, has first mover advantage and can never be stopped. The logical move is to use BTC1 as the Trojan Horse. CoinCenter and DCG probably advised on this corruption of Bitcoin. Jerry Brito has been pushing this sort of anti-bitcoin nonsense for a long time, appearing before legislators and spreading the disease of FUD and KYC/AML across America, by misinforming everyone who would listen, all paid for by some very misguided and unethical VCs. He also has access to deep state insiders at the infamous where he has appeared as a guest of magazine. BTC1 is a dream come true for these bad people; a Bitcoin that is gelded, tamed, and put under their control. Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs There is a problem however. A free and technically superior Bitcoin cannot co-exist with a crippled JekyllCoin; the market will always choose the superior option, especially on a global basis. No one in country will accept JekyllCoin. This is their one chance to break away from US Dollar hegemony and make a fortune at the same time. Businesses outside the USA have no incentive to root for it either. Any businessman who has had the pleasure of filling out dozens of US government forms to transfer even a tiny amount of money knows what is at stake. Banks globally are rejecting American customers to get away from the US Governments insane regulations. There is they will accept JekyllCoin over Bitcoin; in fact, it will only serve to highlight Bitcoin’s superiority and increase its adoption. any no way Lets go through some important countries and see whether or not they would want to adopt JekyllCoin over Bitcoin. **The Japanese. Answer: “NO”**Bitcoin is already huge in Japan, and their exchanges are set for domination. Why should they make themselves subservient to the USA again? **Answer : “нет”**Mother Russia is in a long term conflict with the west. Are they going to accept a subverted cryptocurrency that will dominate them and the entire globe? Do you not think they will at the very least, support real Bitcoin or start their own “RuCoin”? They may not be able beat the USA by themselves, but they can join with every other country on earth to adopt Bitcoin, which is politically neutral. This happened before with the GSM mobile phone standard, and America . The Russians. really lost **The Nigerians. Answer: “A’ah?! NO!”**No citizen of African country should want to be dominated by foreigners . Bitcoin is culturally neutral, and all people living on the African continent should be predisposed to adopting it. Anything else is de facto subservience to the old Colonial Master, and is utterly undignified. any ever again **The Chinese. Answer: “LOL”**The Chinese already dominate in several areas; Bitcoin mining, software and services, and custom Bitcoin mining hardware, that is exported globally. They are the world leaders in Bitcoin, and are so powerful they can threaten Bitcoin itself. Only a totally idiotic, parochial, ugly-American, myopic Congressman thinks the Chinese are going to accept US domination of Bitcoin because they pass . LOL! a law Once again, American domination of the global cryptocurrency standard will give back door access to the world’s money and economy in a way that is . It will be far worse than the Federal Reserve controlling the form and supply of the world’s reserve currency. The US Government would be able to . It could even block from being able to use money . This is a nightmare too terrifying to imagine, and yet it is absolutely achievable with a future version of BTC1. unprecedented block the transfer of money to or from anyone in any country entire countries both inside and outside of their country Big blocks are of the problems with BTC1, obviously. KYC/AML is nothing more than a pretext for the creation of a global financial surveillance system that can watch literally every single human on Earth. the least Members of Congress are working on legislation that would provide protections to currencies if they meet certain minimum conditions on preventing the currencies from being used by terrorists, drug traffickers, and others engaged in unlawful business practices. MSM sock puppets sometimes repeat that Bitcoin must be brought “out of the shadows”. Obviously, Bitcoin is not “in the shadows” at all, and it is totally transparent. Furthermore it is not possible to prevent people from using for a bad purpose. If the congressmen believed that what they were planning will be effective, they would pass a law requiring all kitchen knives to be registered. Knives in the USA. Why will Congress not any tool kill more people than rifles ACT?! There is no way to control Bitcoin ; that means that KYC/AML is totally pointless. The only way KYC/AML would make sense is if the entire structure of Bitcoin was changed, so that it was not permissionless. It would also mean all wallet software would need to be compliant. It would mean making sure that JekyllCoin was not interoperable with other Bitcoin variants, as . It would mean making a private network. once it moves from the wallet of the first purchase Olaoluwa Osuntokun as shown is doable You can see now, why this shabby, scabrous un-American plan is . doomed They continued that “the law needs to be changed to protect digital currencies from federal government harassment to make sure that a complaint currency can be backed by value, the currency cannot be treated like a security or investment, and that transfers are protected against taxation. The bottom line is that Congress needs to remove all the obstacles to a vibrant digital currency that has voluntarily taken the initiative to keep the bad guys from using it.” Congress…IS THE OBSTACLE. There is no need for a change in the law; the First Amendment already covers crypto currencies; . This line sounds like a Mafia threat. “We need to protect you from our own harassment — ?” You can protect Bitcoin from taxation by issuing a decree that, “We do not tax Bitcoin”. It’s as simple as that. Federal government harassment can be stopped by simply issuing instructions that . The problem is when you have foreigners who come from a different culture at the levers of government, their fundamental and irrevocably held perspective of the role of government ; it comes from their home lands. they are speech capish The Constitution must be followed is not American No real American is for any law that effectively nullifies the First Amendment. When they say, “Can be backed by value” this is meaningless. What Bitcoin is or how it works is not within the gift of government to define. It was created outside of the government, and has nothing to do with them at all. The bottom line is that if the US Government wants Bitcoin to thrive, it needs to and stop trying to help. If they don’t, and try to launch JekyllCoin, the rest of the world will be induced to join Bitcoin, as it will be clear that the Americans are trying to control the world with fraudulent “Super Money” a second time. It will be GSM vs CDMA all over again, and America . get out of the way will lose In the meantime, this project can be killed before it starts. It does not require you to do anything, in fact all that is required is that you . . No matter what anyone says, no matter what happens. If no one is running their software, their project . They can scream all they like, just like the MPAA/RIAA screamed about BitTorrent for years to . There are too many BitTorrent users to ever take that system down, and if there are enough Bitcoin users, Bitcoin can never be stopped. And do not think that this will put you in the cross hairs of the Government. Two courts, one in Florida and the other in New York have both found two men did nothign wrong by exchanging Bitcoin for money, and that Bitcoin , and is therefore . do nothing Do not run BTC1 or any version of Bitcoin other than Bitcoin Core dies zero effect ever is not money not subject to money laundering regulations All States world-wide should take the . If you value your sovereignty, your dignity, peace and prosperity of the citizens of you your nation, you will adopt Bitcoin now, and start taking it in payment of taxes. and so should you. advice we submitted to the British government Legislators in other countries are starting to wake up to this Of course, in this analysis . I could be completely wrong Even if Garzik, CoinCenter, Silbert and his DCG have absolutely nothing to do with any of this, and it is as much a surprise to them as it is to the Ethical Bitcoin community, the nature of the proposal remains . It is and should roundly condemned and by all market actors on a global basis. As I mention above there are precedents for such rejections, from the doomed CLIPPER chip, to the ill fated Canadian Mint Chip; the market cannot be forced to accept anything, and the State is not powerful enough to force it. Remember; what they would have to make illegal is — just like the ones that run the BitTorrent protocol. And we all know how well trying to ban turned out. absolutely unchanged pure anti-Bitcoin rejected the running of a computer programme that We knew this was coming. . They have no arguments, no software, the antipathy of the international community and math itself against them. They don’t even get marks for effort, because their thinking is so slipshod and shabby. We are still going to win Their best way out is to . This legislation, no matter what it says, should be . Secretly drafted legislation and unaccountable public servants embrace Americanism totally rejected on principle are anathema to democracy. If you like the content and feel so obliged to send some love via BTC donations you can do so at the address below:↴

“JekyllCoin” the US Government’s Doomed Attempt to Kill Bitcoin.

By Joseph Flaherty In population genetics, a “ ” is the long term consequences of a group being shaped by the DNA of the first members. The term is equally applicable to the tech industry where we see the personalities of the industry’s founders still echoing decades later. An interesting way to view this effect is by watching the television commercials that aired during the first dot-com boom. They’re incredibly fun time capsules, but also help to identify the themes that have animated tech as an industry over time. Founder Effect “Move Fast And Break Things” Has Deep Roots Facebook’s unofficial motto, “Move fast and break things,” has deep roots in tech. In this video, which is ostensibly advertising “The World’s first Network Services Platform for eBusiness,” a man is whisked through board meetings, given a police escort, and even evades what seems to be an East German checkpoint based on his personal charisma and a retro rocket toy/talisman. Tech founders have earned a reputation for believing that rules don’t apply to their companies. For good and ill, picturing oneself as Prometheus, a god-like figure bringing the gift of fire to the public, consequences be damned, is not new, it’s a long-standing part of the startup mythos — however problematic it may be. Favorite dated detail The multi-layer, brown business casual ensemble. Focus On The Things That Don’t Change When people ask Jeff Bezos about what’s coming in the next decade, he responds by asking “What’s not going to change in the next ten years?” It’s a brilliant response and one borne out by a pair of commercials for internet service providers created a decade apart. Look at these two videos: Compuserve 1989 Aol 1999 These videos are hilariously dated in terms of style and advertised download speeds, but substantively little changed in the intervening decade, or in the years since. Email, ecommerce, news, and gaming, all featured as core selling features in these videos, and still form the core of what we do online today. The importance of photo sharing was under appreciated and access to encyclopedias proved to be less important than those in the 80s hoped, but our underlying behaviors are largely unchanged nearly 30 years later. Favorite dated detail “We spent over $1M dollars building out a network.” The primary call to action in both commercials was a phone number, not a URL Dot-Com Startups Were Shockingly Prescient It’s easy to mock the excesses of the dot-com era, but it’s striking how many of the founders of these companies were right, just way, way too early. Pets.com is a laughing stock and cautionary tale, but with the benefit of two decades of infrastructure development, Chewy.com became a $3B success — one of the biggest exits in ecommerce history. The difference? Timing. The founders of many of these companies were ambitious and overly enthusiastic, not the worst of sins! Favorite dated detail The pre-1080p world was ruff. Tech Moves More Slowly Than We Think This commercial was created two years after Netflix’s founding but predicted their streaming service eight years before it launched in 2007. The idea of video on demand was glaringly obvious to technologists of the time, though it felt as fanciful as flying cars to many people. Twenty years later we’re still a ways away from this vision being a reality. As noted, many of our cultural treasures, . Fragmentation of services makes having access to all content limited to those with substantial entertainment budgets. The real-time translation promised in this commercial is still the stuff of academic papers, not commercial products. It turns out the potential of video on demand is easy to envision and surprisingly to build. Micah Rosenbloom from ER to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air are locked in IP vaults Favorite dated detail A person in their early-twenties is reading a book to pass the time instead of refreshing Instagram. Use Cases > Platforms From the earliest days of the internet, entrepreneurs saw the potential for selling cars online. Twenty years later, Autobytel is shockingly still in business, though no longer in the financial position to run Super Bowl ads. However, a new crop of upstarts, TrueCar and CarGurus, are building substantial businesses in the same space with value propositions that don’t stray too far from the path laid out in this commercial. Startups do best when they focus on consistent user needs, not the vagaries of the latest tech platforms. Favorite dated detail The idea of surfing the web being something you do in pajamas. Adaptability > Accuracy When the recent slate of Emmy nominations was announced, Netflix, which started out as a rival to Blockbuster and kiosks that sit outside grocery stores, rivaled major media players. In some categories, led while facing a surprising amount of competition from Amazon, which went from being a retailer to an Oscar winner in short order—all while building a multi-billion dollar computing platform service on the side. Many people believe that startup success comes down to having a single great idea when in reality, the companies that thrive for decades aren’t better at accurately predicting the future as much as skilled at adapting to the opportunities their success present. Favorite dated detail Being limited to three discs at a time. “i” is for Informality Before the internet, a caricature of a tycoon would involve a nattily attired captain of industry — think J.P. Morgan or the Monopoly man. The industrialists of our age have broke with that tradition and popularized a shabbier sartorial standard. Now, Mark Zuckerberg runs a half-trillion dollar company in a hoodie. Sam Altman wears sneakers to exclusive Davos sessions. But the informality of the internet predates Paul Graham’s cargo shorts and goes well beyond Reddit’s spartan aesthetic. The hippy culture that shaped the Homebrew Computer Club and the time Steve Jobs’ spent on ashrams made informality an integral part of tech’s ethos from dress codes to the self-deprecating voice used in one of the first tech ads ever run during a Super Bowl. Favorite dated detail No designer working today would sign-off on using any version of a monospace typewriter font like Courier. Silicon Valley’s Love of Hardware is Deathless Juicero got its share of deserved ribbing for their overbuilt juice press, but the desire for proprietary hardware is not a recent development in the world of tech. The CueCat, a barcode scanning companion to the trusty computer mouse, was a failure of Betamax dimensions. In fact, the CueCat also shows how deep the tech world’s desire for proprietary codes, most recently embodied in QR codes, goes. Favorite dated detail CueCat scanning a roll of Kodak Film. So. Much. Disruption. Bubble-phobia is as old as the Bubble A record 14 tech startups advertised during the . The next year, after the crash, only three did—including Etrade which used its 30 second spot for some commentary about bad dot-com ideas. It’s been fashionable to bash silly sounding startup ideas almost since startups have been a thing, be it E-pets or Hampton Creek. Thankfully, entrepreneurs and investors haven’t been overly influenced by the naysayers. In 2001, tech looked like the , but it’s biggest impacts were still yet to come. Super Bowl in 2000 Planet of the Apes Favorite dated detail A wrecking ball destroys eSocks.com. NB: . In 2015 a sock company raised $50M Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose… If At First, You Don’t Succeed… Once upon a time, smart people at Apple and their marketing agency thought that a guy in ill-fitting corduroys dancing poorly through what looks like the stage of a 90s sitcom was the best way to introduce the gadget that would transform the media industry and pave the way for the biggest consumer product in history. This commercial launched four years after the Think Different Campaign when Steve Jobs was at the height of his creative powers. The “click wheel,” which would go on to turn touch-based interfaces into the dominant UI in tech, is barely demonstrated. Fortunately, over time, the creatives at Apple arrived at a commercial aesthetic that matched the innovation present in their hardware… …And also realized that merely highlighting their amazing engineering was a superior way to showcase their wares. If it takes a company as creatively gifted as Apple several attempts to get their messaging right, it’s not surprising that it takes lesser companies even longer. Think Different This is the only commercial from this era that could be rerun today and still be 100% applicable and effective. It’s more of a Gettysburg Address commemorating Apple’s perspective on the first 30 years of the personal computing than a commercial. When Steve Jobs introduced this campaign, he was clear that it was a statement about Apple’s unchangeable core values before an ad for the iMac. It’s a powerful reminder that we’ve been witness to a generation of entrepreneurs who weren’t merely building businesses, but who saw their role as trying to change the world for the better. Edison wanted to electrify the world, and his company, GE, still produces medical devices that will save lives and the company is an enviable conglomerate, but is no longer on an explicit mission to change the world. Ford makes perfectly fine cars, but the days when the company was fundamentally rethinking the way we move through space or build things is long over. Now, it’s just another car company with a specialty in manufacturing pickup trucks. We’re lucky to have Bezos, Zuckerberg, Page & Brin still active at their companies. When they’re gone, their startups may well survive and thrive, but it will mark the end of an era. Favorite dated detail Nothing. You could rerun this commercial today, and it would still be as effective as it was in 1997. Here’s a fun parlor game though, who would you add from the last twenty years?

What 14 TV Commercials from the Dot-Com Era Tell us About Tech

213 Stories To Learn About Guide

The Go-Getter: A Story That Tells You How to be One by Peter B. Kyne is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . III here III At twelve-thirty, as Cappy was hurrying up California Street to luncheon at the Commercial Club, he met Bill Peck limping down the sidewalk. The ex-soldier stopped him and handed him a card. "What do you think of that, sir?" he queried. "Isn't it a neat business card?" Cappy read: Cappy Ricks ran a speculative thumb over Comrade Peck's business card. It was engraved. And copper plates or steel dies are not made in half an hour! "By the Twelve Ragged Apostles!" This was Cappy's most terrible oath and he never employed it unless rocked to his very foundations. "Bill, as one bandit to another--come clean. When did you first make up your mind to go to work for us?" "A week ago," Comrade Peck replied blandly. "And what was your grade when Kaiser Bill went A.W.O.L.?" "I was a buck." "I don't believe you. Didn't anybody ever offer you something better?" "Frequently. However, if I had accepted I would have had to resign the nicest job I ever had. There wasn't much money in it, but it was filled with excitement and interesting experiments. I used to disguise myself as a Christmas tree or a box car and pick off German sharp-shooters. I was known as Peck's Bad Boy. I was often tempted to quit, but whenever I'd reflect on the number of American lives I was saving daily, a commission was just a scrap of paper to me." "If you'd ever started in any other branch of the service you'd have run John J. Pershing down to lance corporal. Bill, listen! Have you ever had any experience selling skunk spruce?" Comrade Peck was plainly puzzled. He shook his head. "What sort of stock is it?" he asked. "Humboldt County, California, spruce, and it's coarse and stringy and wet and heavy and smells just like a skunk directly after using. I'm afraid Skinner's going to start you at the bottom--and skunk spruce is it. "Can you drive nails in it, Mr. Ricks?" "Oh, yes." "Does anybody ever buy skunk spruce, sir?" "Oh, occasionally one of our bright young men digs up a half-wit who's willing to try anything once. Otherwise, of course, we would not continue to manufacture it. Fortunately, Bill, we have very little of it, but whenever our woods boss runs across a good tree he hasn't the heart to leave it standing, and as a result, we always have enough skunk spruce on hand to keep our salesmen humble." "I can sell anything--at a price," Comrade Peck replied unconcernedly, and continued on his way back to the office. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Peter B. Kyne (2004). The Go-Getter: A Story That Tells You How to be One. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12257/pg12257-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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