I can't find it: does the article mention who bought it? Because all of the big sales I've read about for this absolute tripe have been purchased by those who are either pushing said tripe or benefit from it being pushed. (The tweet @Jack sold was bought by a CEO of a blockchain company.) If it's not such a crony here, then I assume it's some uber-rich person throwing around money. The article also quotes the agent for Roth, Ben Lashes, who comments that some of his other clients (subjects of other popular memes) have made NFT sales. I assume as the agent he gets a cut of the sales; I don't know the guy but it wouldn't surprise me if those pushing NFTs have reached out to him with additional incentives to encourage his clients to do NFTs...

The article notes that Roth hasn't cashed out the Etherium yet; hopefully she does before the bottom falls out of this racket.

If it hangs around too long Hollywood will latch onto the pointless drama and the digital-pet-rock concept itself. We'll get OpenOcean's 11 (maybe Ocean's ERC-11), or The Fast and The Fungible, or the James Bond film Loyalty Is Non-Fungible.

It's already bad enough as it is.

SAFE TECH Act

In case anyone thought this was just shouting, "SAFE TECH" is an acronym (more likely backronym) for "Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms". (This is not mentioned in the linked article; here's Warner's release about it.)

I don't have to read a single thing about the bill to know it's near-certain bullshit: I'm not aware of any act or proposal put forth with a name that makes a cutesy-acronym to be anything less than vile. (It's not impossible for a good act to have a cutesy acronym, but I expect it's the exception.) It's always as though they put more thought into getting that name than the act's contents.

Whatever "normalcy" we had pre-Trump is what led to Trump's election in the first place. If Biden simply returns us to the Obama era then we'll be getting an encore of that song-and-dance within three elections. It's not enough to undo what Trump did, he and Congress have to at least improve (if not fix) the problems that existed under Obama (and a multitude of Presidents prior) that Obama and Congress either failed or refused to address.

If this nebulous claim causes you fear, dear reader, you can relax: Biden lacks both the will and backbone to actually do such a thing, nevermind the Democrats stating "we" need to reach across the aisle to fascists and conspiracy nuts.

Agreed, though I have two concerns about doing that which the article doesn't seem to address:

1) Does taking this vaccine interfere with other, more effective vaccines? That is, if someone takes CoronaVac will it cause complications when taking the e.g. Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or render those vaccines inert? Particularly in the 50% where CoronaVac fails

2) Could administration of the vaccine with such a high failure rate give undue confidence in the receiving population? If the low rate isn't well understood, and they just hear "vaccine distributed", all pandemic efforts could be ended/ignored and cause a large spread (perhaps leading to a mutation that CoronaVac doesn't cover)

Also, if money is a major block then using CoronaVac as a stop-gap probably can't work because doing so means they won't have the money for the more effective vaccine.

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A slightly modified version of this. (I added a height attribute so that blanked spots aren't huge.) Pop this into Tampermonkey or Scriptmonkey (or just as a bookmarklet) as you please and ads are hidden (not blocked; that's acceptable to me, and avoids any issues that can occur when trying to block them). It doesn't work on threaded posts but I'm also fine with the odd ad in exchange for using the hellsite known as Twitter.

(It doesn't help in the app, of course, but blech to apps.)

Youtube makes money when videos are viewed. Youtube thus prefers people watch lots of videos. Youtube thus cares to manage uploaded content only enough to avoid legal repercussions, advertiser repercussions, and public relations repercussions. The last of these is (usually) easily done with a veneer of handling destructive or malicious content.

If advertisers don't care when their ads are slapped on videos peddling lies then Youtube does not either. Same goes for any other platform where "engagement" is the primary goal. (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Are you or anyone in your political party a better expert at these sorts of logistics?

Personally, no, but as a veteran (though not career) I'm not filled with additional confidence. (And I wouldn't trust any party loyalist Dem or Rep to do such a thing.) Especially when Trump has been cleaning house in the DoD civilian side in the last few weeks. Even if General Perna is outside of that and eminently capable (and, harumphing aside, I've no reason to assume otherwise) his largest hurdle might be the Trump administration itself. Particularly if he has to wait on the order to "execute". (Also some state governments who still refuse to address pandemic despite a tidal wave of cases.)

Furthermore, to my knowledge it's still each state largely for themselves when it comes to local logistics, rather than a centralized federal plan, rendering Perna's involvement moot at a very early part of the chain. (And, in the interview link above, Perna himself states there is no system for tracking vaccinated on a federal level. They'll consolidate state data, but if the states are each coming up with their own plan then any db admin will furrow their brow at the concept.) Yes, yes, states have variability in challenges, but can getting to rural areas in Iowa be so different than doing the same in Idaho that the two have to come up with independent plans? Do we really need 50 individual tracking/assignment systems? Haven't even touched on funding.

Chances are real good that everyone will be vaccinated, and this whole thing will be a non-issue, by the time Jan 20 rolls around.

A hearty chortle was had, thank you. Even Gen Perna himself disagrees with your chances, per that NPR interview:

PERNA: I think a safe and effective vaccine will be available initially in December at tens of millions of doses and will expand rapidly January, February, March, April for the total of the American people.

If both vaccines are approved at the same time, we'll likely see both rolled out in parallel, with smaller hospitals and clinics getting the Moderna vaccine and higher volume facilities getting the Pfizer vaccine.

Even if they don't, I assume that the Pfizer one is initially limited to "priority" candidates: Medical personnel, "essential" personnel who will routinely come into contact with those likely to be infected (e.g. non-medical, but essential, nursing home staff such as janitors), and rich fucks with connections. Not a whole lot of rich fucks in more remote areas, so the hospitals/clinics will probably get stock for just their staff. With that assumption, while storage is still a concern the short time frame and requirements of the "suitcases" might be manageable. (Hospitals/clinics will probably administer it rather quickly, in many cases it wouldn't sit at the destination for more than a day or three.)

Aside from that, I found this interesting:

Pfizer has received $1.95 billion from the Operation Warp Speed to manufacture and distribute the first 100 million doses. The government will remain responsible for distributing syringes and other medical supplies needed for the vaccination effort.

Considering how much the federal government has fucked up the response thus far, any hospital that assumes they'll get the distribution supplies at the same time as, or before, the doses is insane. (Particularly if they're in a "blue" state or have a Democratic government and distribution begins before Jan 20.) Hopefully most are handling their logistics assuming they'll have to personally order the supplies and/or use what they have in hand, and any government assistance will help them stock back up after the fact.

if fricken Biden is the best candidate the Democrats can put forward

He wasn't. But he was the one that the Democrat establishment wanted, so he's the one that got picked. There were at least three other candidates who were better than he--sufficient qualifications, platforms, and actually able to generate enthusiasm above that of microwaved fish--and they were opposed, strong-armed, or (quite likely) offered good positions if they dropped out and endorsed Biden.

Does a social media platform, built around the idea of sharing limited information at a time (whatever you can fit into 280(?) chars), having to "enhance" users' posts with more content in order to be a better platform qualify for the proper definition of "irony"?

I would, but personal guilt won't let me walk away completely while I'm off. Plus, even if I could, there's nothing for me to do with my vacation time (not even a COVID thing, I just have severe depression so there's never anything I want to go to or do in my free time.)

Ignoring, for the moment, the eye-rolling "rock-star developer" legend: What is their contingency? At this point they likely have many such developers, so unless they're dumb enough to pack them all on a bus that gets driven into the Grand Canyon when the bus driver has a heart attack on a sight-seeing tour it's unlikely they'll all disappear at once. But when you start that way, especially in an "entrepreneur" environment, there's no time or budget for documentation, training, etc. and a lot of knowledge tends to stay inside that "rock stars" head; if they're gone the knowledge is, as well.

Of course, if these are "true" rock stars they have all of their ducks in a row and miles of documentation so that any other "rock star", or even just above-average software engineer, could immediately pick up where the last star left off. But I doubt this CEO can actually quantify any "rock star"-ness, so I would not be surprised if a sudden brain drain leaves them in a lurch due to their reliance on "rock stars". In the long run I expect it would be better to hire five competent engineers that can take over for each other rather than one "rock star" at five times the price. Maybe you'll get less "Aha!" moments within the company, but I don't think it's worth-while trade-off.

(This is forefront in my mind as I have experience with the potential issue: I am not "rock star" level by any means (perhaps above average at absolute best and with a pinch of salt), but I am the sole multi-stack developer at the small company I work for. If I go, so goes maintenance for the hundreds of small processes that keep the company upright. Many would likely continue without issue, but a few wouldn't and none of the other employees (mainly accountants) could even begin to work on them. It's something that causes me a lot of anxiety; I'm trying to improve documentation, train employees how to research data issues on their own, I've been hounding the owners for at least one other co-worker to not only ease my normal burden but also be able to take over if I fail to come in.)

Twitter sucks ass for conversation, but self-destructive tweets in the main timeline would be useful for folks who do live streams/shows/podcasts to put out an announcement without having to delete it later (as the tweet would be as useful as a torn ticket stub after the event has ended, and might cause confusion if left around.)

Flunking rates, especially at first year, are very high. After too many failures, you are expelled from the system.

While an exceedingly harsh, in-your-face method of determination (and so I would expect largely opposed), of the options for low/no-tuition college it seems like one of the best to me. Having various tests/metrics/requirements in place gives societal issues an undue influence, money either cuts out lower classes or potentially saddles them with debt.

So long as all students are given an equal opportunity (which would include addressing the other issues you bring up), making that first year difficult establishes merit. We would just have to make sure the difficulty is akin to a strict training regime, rather than something derived of cruelty or callousness. Not an easy accomplishment, I assume, but likely easier than convoluted tests that try to adjust/balance for (or are nullified by) societal factors.

(The CompSci course of my university (which is overall considered tougher than most) would lose 25% after the first year (mostly moving to a different degree.) They didn't take pride in it, but it was something expected due to the material and trying to cover as much as possible. A far sight from the 90% of yours, but most people probably still view it as too high.)