Fri, Jan 15 2021

WASHINGTON — On Dec. 8, someone made a simultaneous transfer of 28.15 bitcoins — worth more than $500,000 at the time — to 22 different virtual wallets, most of them belonging to prominent right-wing organizations and…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 So our right wing activists are financed by Russia?

Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million. The password will let him unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 Yes, because most early investors in Bitcoin didn't really know how to use the kludgy infrastructure. You no longer need to have your private key if you use a site like Coinbase, which by now is an elephant probably secure enough.

Actions taken by technology platforms in the wake of Capitol Hill's events have generated intense debate, especially from within the tech community. But many of the loudest voices have shown little understanding of the nuance of the situation or…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 One of my favorite non political thinker. Network effects now happen at huge scale, and every technology has had unintended consequences.

Most days I try to bring you a wide range of stories about tech and democracy. Today, though, there's one that deserves our full attention: the concerted action across corporate America to deny services to Donald Tru……

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 This question about the role of social media and what should and should not be done is now the largest ethical question of our time. I'm trying to send around a lot of good information from people who understand technology.

Big Tech companies from Facebook to Apple took swift action in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol, banning the people and content that helped incite and organize a violent mob that left at least five people dead and dozens injured. The most…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 Yes, 230 needs a look. But I'm not in favor of deplatforming. I'd rather see decentralized services where people can find their tribes.This gives the consumer the choice.

The term Intellectual-Yet-Idiot (IYI) has been popularized by the modern day philosopher/author Nassim Nicholas Taleb as a descriptor for those with many years of education that parlay titles from esteemed universities to form a useless layer of…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 Another case where the emperor has no clothes.

Jan 7, 2021 • 10 min read I started Gumroad in 2011. In 2015, we reached a peak of 23 full-time employees. In 2016, after failing to raise more money, I ended up back where I began: a one-person company. Today, when I'm asked how many people…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 Such an interesting concept.

MORROW, Ga., Jan. 11, 2021 / PRNewswire / -- TOTO, the world's largest plumbing manufacturer with more than $5.47 billion in annual sales, announced today that at CES 2021, the company will introduce visitors to the future the company envisions…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 Here's the kind of story we expect from CES; a product that won't really be available for years, but is totally fascinating.

A terrorist assault in the capital, collusion between security forces and attackers, intelligence gaps, bickering between police and military commanders: Washington looks today like Kabul on the Potomac, a capital mired in rivalries and unable to…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 Yes, it was partly an inside job. What a surprise.Trump is the law and order president.And all his followers thought they were marching for HIM. Several have said that they thought he wanted them to do this.

On Wednesday afternoon, as Trump supporters mobbed the Capitol building, breaking windows, looting the chamber, vandalizing lawmakers' offices, and leaving members of Congress and Capitol staffers huddling behind barricades, the news alert came…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 The Democratic base is desperate for them to actually do something. If not, there will be more violence, and this time it will be from the left.

“In disputes upon moral or scientific points,” Arthur Martine counseled in his magnificent 1866 guide to the art of conversation, “let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss…

Francine Hardaway #ReUnitedStates🇺🇸 What we have to do is get people simmered down so we can talk to each other again.