Ask, and the universe provides. My first actual post to SN was one asking about Bitcoin in fiction, and then an author I'm already a fan of turns out to have a book I'd missed that does have Bitcoin (in a minor role) in it!
Ruth Ware's become one of the big names in the British (and to a lesser extent, the global) crime scene. She's often called the "New Agatha Christie," but I find that reductive and kind of insulting to both of them. Ware's not about recurring detectives like Poirot and Marple, but more about ordinary people caught up in big events. Hitchcock's probably a better comparison.
She's dealt with tech in her books before -- One by One, a nifty crime novel set at a snowed-in ski lodge, is about the execs at a company working on a successful social media tool -- but Zero Days has pen testing as a core plot point, and could almost be classified as a techno-thriller. More importantly, though, it's fun and a good read.
The plot: Jacintha "Jack" Cross is part of a two-person penetration testing team with her husband, Gabe. Gabe's the hacker of the two, running code and trying to break through digital defenses, while Jack's the one doing the in-person work, breaking into facilities to test them, leaving USB drives in the parking lot, etc. One night, she gets caught by a security guard, and while she's sorting things out at the police station (contacting the CSO to confirm she was there legitimately) and then taking a long drive home, her husband is brutally murdered.
She not only has the trauma of discovering his body, but soon enough, realizes she's the prime suspect, as the knife (from their kitchen) has her fingerprints on it, and Gabe seems to have opened up a brand new life insurance policy with Jack as the beneficiary. Sure that if the police take her in, the frame will be complete, she goes on the run, injuring herself in the process (a wound that gets worse and worse through the book, eventually leading to sepsis).
Jack's a fun protagonist. She's able to use a ton of her pen testing skills when hiding, from bluffing her way into facilities to finding passwords through social engineering -- but since her husband was the tech whiz, can't rely on hacking skills (or worse, fictionalized "magic hacking" skills that are so common. She's forced to improvise, even as her health's getting worse and her ability to navigate around London (with its ubiquitous surveillance) gets more and more restricted.
There's a good supporting cast -- essential in any thriller, since "who can you trust?" has to be a recurring question -- and the pace ramps up quickly as Jack goes on the run. The "who" part of the whodunit element is always the least interesting things to me, since I read so many crime novels that I'm reasonably good at intuiting it, but the "how" and the "why," along with how the protagonist puts it together, are what I enjoy. This one has a solid dénouement and ending, and wraps things up nicely.
BTC itself is essentially treated as a valued asset here, not really vital plot element, but it fits in with the characters and setting, and is used realistically (for starters, it's actually Bitcoin and not some BS coin made up for the book). At one point, she's aware of how KYC will nail her: "I had Gabe’s Bitcoin, of course, but I was fairly sure that no reputable exchange would start handing out cash—not without showing ID, anyway." At another, she ends up agreeing to something in fiat and realizing after the fact that BTC's exchange rate fluctuates. Not a reason to read the book, but definitely a nice addition.
I'm just saying, it cannot be a coincidence that roughly 3-4 months post full carnivore, my life-long bout with asthma began to disappear. After a good 6+ months it was gone completely. I used to use ventolin and symbicort to manage the asthma, but have not touched them in over a year.
Magic.
I suspect they don't fully appreciate how many businesses they harm or prevent from starting with the increasing hodgepodge of reporting and regulation requirements.
I'd really like to see very minimal regulation and reporting for businesses below a certain size. If we are going to have all this burdensome regulation stuff, it'd be nice for it to be progressively structured.
wow bro, I didn't realize you cared so much about shitcoins
Nice! Glad that Block continues to pursue development of their ASIC program. Even better is that they are picking up the slack left over and abandoned by Intel.
Now that they are focusing on 3nm development, can't wait to see what their new ASIC will be capable of. More decentralization and more competition, gogo!
Ditching seed oils
Hi Sphinx.chat. very interesting job and i would like to apply.
Oh wow. My immediate thoughts go to members of my family.
Zooming out, so many tireless human rights defenders who sacrifice everything for countries stuck in dictatorship.
Check out the story of Hyeonseo Lee, who escaped from North Korea and then WENT BACK to rescue her family
Awesome. I will send James an email tonight and copy Ben.
Spinning up a FutureBit Apollo BTC miner!
Sorry you feel so discouraged. I'm actually really encouraged to hear there are Econ professors out there that are willing to pose these questions to their students in the first place, even if it's outside of the classroom. That's honestly super refreshing.
Idk how much freedom you have to teach the class the way you want to, but sounds like you might have an opportunity to present various schools of thought about the questions you mentioned? If so, I say go all in! If not, I hope you find an opportunity to do that at a college that's more open to teaching people HOW to think rather than WHAT to think. (Not saying you should quit, job security is important, just hope you eventually find a more rewarding fit at some point.)
Also, FWIW, your student that's going into data science/software engineering and didn't feel like he got anything meaningful from his economics degree sounds like he'll be primed for the orange pill in a year or two.
https://m.stacker.news/5180
100% Well said sir!
I am glad you found the light.
https://i.postimg.cc/cLMGLKHR/BTC-the-light.jpg
Day 168 of snailposting everyday 'til BTC hits $100k.
__@_'-'
https://m.stacker.news/58014
I wonder if it is a presumptive move in response to possible legal action:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/sec-crypto-crackdown-continues-with-robinhood-as-lawsuit-looms/
https://m.stacker.news/20954
Spotted at Singapore Zoo
Sounds too good.
I need to study more in order to have an opinion.
But I do not reject it.
I think it should do the purpose.
https://theminermag.com/news/2024-09-30/swan-bitcoin-redact-tether/
BIP 300 has nothing to do with privacy, sure you can make privacy focused sidechains, but we already have liquid and no one uses it.
This makes no sense, the difficulty adjustment exists
If this is the scare, something like coinpools is a much better approach. It actually works on solving the problem rather than just creating another blockchain.
🙏 Please Donate for August 2024
In line with the plan to achieve sustainability (break-even), donations will directly reduce the posting fee, such that donations + forecasted posting fees - monthly rent = 0. The "forecast" will just use the prior month's post-count.
The next Fee Operation Management Committee will announce new posting fees according to the following schedule:
Block 856011 ~2024/08/10 13h00 UTC
Block 860330 ~2024/09/09 13h00 UTC
Block 864506 ~2024/10/08 13h00 UTC
See the prior month's post for more details @ 604610.
Accounting Notes
July Crowd Funding
Crowd Funded Contributions for July 2024 - thank-you!
@Undisiplined - 25K
@siggy47 - 5K
@grayruby - 3K
@anons - 5.1K
Total Crowd Funding = 38.1K
July Revenue
40.9K according to the operational stats.
Posting Notes
Shortfall of ~44 posts vs forecast.
Treasury was 41K at end of May. I'm holding off ratifying rules around treasury burn until I see signs of stability in modelling the future. We're still bleeding money, and @jeff is plugging the holes.
Short Term Priorities & Goals
These are unchanged.
Operational Metrics / Quick & Dirty Fee Change Analysis
All-Time
1.9m stacked \ 177.8k revenue \ 2.3m spent \ 2942 posts \ 14.5k comments
~ 4 weeks in March @ 10 sats-per-post:
215.7k stacked \ 19k revenue \ 247.3k spent \ 588 posts \ 1755 comments
April (proper):
277.9k stacked \ 26.8k revenue \ 322k spent \ 605 posts \ 2303 comments
~4 weeks in April @ 21 sats-per-post:
203.9k stacked \ 24.6k revenue \ 239.3k spent \ 537 posts \ 2151 comments
May (proper):
149.5k stacked \ 27.8k revenue \ 194.8k spent \ 380 posts \ 2095 comments
~4 weeks in May @ 100 sats-per-post:
105.3k stacked \ 26k revenue \ 144.6k spent \ 326 posts \ 1919 comments
June (proper):
253.4k stacked \ 36.8k revenue \ 327.1k spent \ 331 posts \ 2297 comments
~4 weeks in June @ 136 sats-per-post:
260.4k stacked \ 35.5k revenue \ 332.4k spent \ 327 posts \ 2551 comments
July (proper):
339.4k stacked \ 40.9k revenue \ 423.8k spent \ 287 posts \ 2662 comments
~4 weeks in July @ 187 sats-per-post:
307.8k stacked \ 39.2k revenue \ 389.6k spent \ 250 posts \ 2230 comments
Territory Change Log
2024/07/11 - Increased the posting fee to 187 @ 604610
Owner's Pledge
If this territory ever runs a cumulative net profit, I'll find a way to do right by the earliest contributors. There is no guarantee of that scenario. Most likely, it'll take the form of "pay-it-forward"-style BTC-adoption/effort/charity.
Disclaimer
Do not donate with the expectation of receiving a share of future profits. This is not a security offering.
Prior Updates
July 2024 601808
June 2024 566281
May 2024 526847
April 2024 493332
March 2024 448054
the difficulty in dumping those forks was what kept me from doing it at all - i suppose i 'lost' the chance to increase my holding, but i don't really regret it as, like you say, swapping them out discreetly wasn't trivial, and was beyond me - i remember people publicly crowing about it and thinking how they were doxxing themselves - i'm glad you were able to capitalise on the trouble the forkers caused - all in all i came through those weird times untouched by the drama, so i'm at peace.
Some Reddit mods are getting banned just by joining the API protest, let's see how this play out
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192312
Targetting the none hardware tinkerers is a win for all of us. More nodes, stronger bitcoin.
Sorry, that was me, I just spun up a small node for some micropayments.