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The Reuters article said they exploded over an hour

> Some one-ways can last for over a month.

More like a year or two off of a single AAA battery.


The theft of it wasn’t even noticed for months. It got sold some months before they realized it was stolen.

I can’t find the article, but the buyer had stated that Sotheby’s mostly reimbursed him. Maybe he was out shipping or VAT? It also said, the buyer, an Italian lawyer, technically could have kept it, but chose not to.


I wonder if the fact that he was a lawyer had a significant impact on the decision. It is my understanding that in some jurisdictions lawyers are held to high ethics standards. I could see the local bar association taking disciplinary actions had he chosen to keep a painting he knew was stolen.

He wanted a conversation piece and he got one!

If it were me, I would have made the exchange contingent on eventually getting the forgery in return once the case was closed.

Presumably it technically was “given” to the hotel.


I’ve also learned how to read a language’s phonetic alphabet.

Always funny when someone asks “hey, can you read this $language”, then I read it out aloud to them.

Then they ask what it means and I’m like “oh, I have absolutely no idea, I just know how to read it”


> I mean, this is all very well known information to monero users and I can't believe anyone would be doing important transactions without using their own node and/or I2P/Tor etc

And I wonder what an estimate is of % of transactions (by volume and value) that are sent from a full node vs public remote node and public web vs tor/i2p.

Obviously won’t be able to get an accurate answer, but one of the remote nodes in that pool might be able to provide some absolute numbers and a rough estimate of their share of connections in that pool.

Should be easy for them to differentiate clearnet vs tor exit node (and dunno how detectable i2p is).

Even the geo-dns mentioned in the article would be interesting data to see geo-source of transactions.


NotDildo needs some more tuning methinks

Better than aviation: "it was legal when we got it approved it, so it's legal to manufacture now!" (decades later)

(I like the discussion about this example: https://www.flightglobal.com/airbus-challenges-737-grandfath... )


Is this basically saying he sent all the ETH out of his "account" (presumably to another one that was pre-generated & pre-shared half the private key with his family), so that it just had the Shiba tokens left in it?

Then he didn't have to worry about the Shiba related transactions affecting his ETH?


Unfortunately I couldn't find a better writeup, although I remember it.

The basic problem was that they transferred into his "cold wallet" https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/hot-wallet-vs-c...

He didn't want to have the signal be that he was happy holding SHIBA and was uncomfortable with that much power & control over SHIBA. So he wanted to be able to transfer his SHIBA out to a hot wallet and then burn most of it and donate the rest, given the amount of money involved he took extra steps like buying a new computer to generate the new keys, airgapping it from the internet while it held the cold wallet keys etc


> Officials said the vast number of parcels made it harder to block shipments of faulty products and illegal drugs like fentanyl.

I don’t believe for a second that their fentanyl interceptions will sufficiently improve otherwise.

The reality is that the margin is so strong, other methods (if small individual parcels were even a factor) would fill any gap. Even more interceptions would just lead to more shipments. That’s how good the margins are.


I doubt more than 2% of the fentanyl in the US comes direct from China. China just ships to Mexico, which makes it to the US through the wide open southern border.

> doubt more than 2% of the fentanyl in the US comes direct from China. China just ships to Mexico

Correct. "The majority of precursor chemicals for illicitly manufactured fentanyl come from China and are synthesized into fentanyl in Mexico. Fentanyl is then smuggled across the border into the United States" [1].

That said, "China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States" [2].

> which makes it to the US through the wide open southern border

No. "Most of the illicit fentanyl coming across the U.S.-Mexico border is smuggled through official ports of entry" [3].

[1] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1953

[2] https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...

[3] https://www.npr.org/2023/08/07/1192557904/part-1-investigati...


Quote from NPR article

"Last year, we seized about 700 pounds of fentanyl," Modlin stated. "That was encountered – 52% of that, so the majority of that – was encountered in the field. So that is predominantly being backpacked across the border."

And that seizure is from only a vanishing minority of migrants who were searched. Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are just sneak in without any checking. The formal ports of entry undergo far more validation and hence more stuff is found.


Perhaps you should also quote the part from the same article that states it’s American citizens doing the smuggling, not illegal immigrants

One can agree that illegal immigration is a problem that needs to be stemmed.

But where’s the fun in that.

The real fun lies in dehumanizing the illegal immigrants so one can hopefully start a pogrom against them. Now that’s fun!


If the border is open it doesn’t matter who is moving.

Are you implying you believe the US southern border is open?

During the months where there are an average of 10k illegal crossings per day, some would argue that the border is open enough to be porous to about a towns worth of humans per day.

There is, by definition, no illegal crossings when the border is open. So, no, I think your assertion is very ill informed

In good faith, when people mean open, they mean unenforced to the point of 10k people per day strolling in.

No they don’t. There’s actually been a huge problem in that many people come to the border because they’ve been told it is open, when in fact, it is not. The myth that it is open is amplified by the American right constantly claiming it is open on the news.

> tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are just sneak in without any checking

One TEU can weigh up to 67,500 lbs [1]. Humans can’t carry more than 20 to 30% of their body weight for meaningful distances. To rival the capacity of a single container, assuming only really fit men, you’d need 1,350 backpackers (assuming 200 lb men carrying 50 lbs each, which is ridiculous).

If every one of the nation’s 2mm illegal crossers were a fit man carrying their maximum load on a backpack, it would total to the tonnage of 1,500 containers. The Port of LA processed over 500x that in June [2]. The throughput at a signal American port is 3+ orders of magnitude more than could possibly be carried by every illegal border crosser by backpack.

It’s wild for anyone with a basic sense of numeracy to believe that humans carrying backpacks are bringing a material amount of anything into this country, let alone a product for mass consumption.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit

[2] https://www.portoflosangeles.org/references/2024-news-releas...


This stat in isolation doesn't tell you much, because it's based on what was caught.

The stuff they didn't catch is the problem, which they can only estimate.


Majority of the fentanyl was backpacked in. I am not sure if you are trying to make the point that even though the US Government has failed to effectively stop the flow of illegal immigrants and cartel mules flowing drugs across the southern border, fentanyl is coming through official ports of entry illegally. Honestly not sure why it matters.

Of course it matters. The solutions are completely different.

GP was making a political point not a practical one

> Majority of the fentanyl was backpacked in

No. This should be plainly obvious for anyone who understands the scale and economies of logistics. If fentanyl were mostly backpacked in, it wouldn’t be a national problem.


Quote from NPR article "Last year, we seized about 700 pounds of fentanyl," Modlin stated. "That was encountered – 52% of that, so the majority of that – was encountered in the field. So that is predominantly being backpacked across the border."

Copied from another comment and sourced from NPR


Denominator error. “Close to 90% of that fentanyl is seized at ports of entry.”

52% of Tucson’s Border Patrol seizures were on the field. Like, 100% of the wine I drank this afternoon was delicious; that doesn’t mean there is no terrible wine.


Well, that's still technically "open". If the border was hermetically sealed (and boats/subs that tried to circumvent it were sunk) that would stop. Pesky international agreements however.

It is true that the United States could treat Mexico the way South Korea treats North Korea. I think that would be a terrible idea for extremely obvious reasons.

You only need to enforce like 1% of the illegal crossings and the 1% facilitating the economy of crossings will be gone.

The US does that! We have border control agents! They regularly apprehend migrants attempting illegal crossings.

True, I should’ve stipulated the right 1%. Those orchestrating the cartel coyotes, etc.

Is this what you meant though?

I'm not following your question-- unless you're confused and think this person is the GP commenter.

I'm not saying this is necessarily accurate, but could it be inferred from the article that this loophole might act like a Denial of Service (DoS) attack on the mail inspection system? Similar to the overwhelming number of security log entries that no one reads?

Drugs, child porn and terrorism can be used as universal arguments to "go to war", censorship, massive spending, etc etc. and people will not ask for evidence or at least any actual verifiable evidence.

I mean if you doubt the claims then you are advocating for spreading child pornography.


Do US schools and media educate the public that taking drugs is dangerous, ruinous, self destructive, and shameful. I understand that the US in general favors personal freedom, but shouldn't there be some universal values, like don't take drugs?

There is nothing shameful about drug usage. It’s a part of being human.

What people who face an addiction needs is help, not being shamed.


I feel shame for our society every time I walk past drug addicted homeless people camped out on the sidewalk.

Drugs are shameful, to the degree that they impact your life.

Some of us are so oppposed to shame that we justify and defend the most self destructive habits. You should be ashamed for that.


Yes, you should feel shame for society not helping these people.

But why is drug usage shameful? Most drug users are responsible.


Reasons I can think:

* Harm to the body

* Harm to the brain

* It can be expensive (sometimes disastrously)

* Opportunity costs, both of time and money

* Drugs alter your behavior, sometimes not in polite ways

* Addiction make you dependent on something outside of yourself, a literal substance.

* Many drugs leave you unable to work or operate heavy machinery (cars)

* Some addicts prioritize their drug over anything, even family or friends.

* Some addicts with steal to fund their habit.

Some people make it work, there are high functioning stoners out there, there are people who need painkillers for chronic pain. These people don’t let a drug affect their lives as negatively as the alternative.

But being a dependent addict isn’t virtuous.


Yes, there are obviously negative things about doing drugs, just as there are positives. But that doesn’t make it shameful.

No one is saying its virtuous.


I'm saying it's shameful to the degree it impacts your life.

If you're in endless pain, go for it.

If you're still functional while getting high, all the power to you.

If you can drink nightly and still operate, that's great.

But it's not a virtue, and that substance will be what you reach for in your darkest moments. Maybe that's a good thing, if it doesn't impact your life in worse ways than the alternative.


Had a big bank’s app force me to update. Ok, updated it.

Ok, looks like a total UI refresh.

Tried to schedule a bill payment (which previous version could do, uhh, for 10y+) and threw a dialog saying “coming soon”.


Apple requires apps to be updated at least once every 3 years, keeping the dependencies of an app up-to-date is not easy

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