🔗 WWW
? If you’re feeling stressed, hum a few bars of Alice’s Restaurant
💬 Dave Winer
Yesterday .. (If you’re feeling stressed) reminds us to tune into Alice’s Restaurant and hum a few bars. Me? 🖇️ I remind you of one specific verse late in the song
Either way - it’s all good - delivered nearly 60 years ago.
BUT
It is now 2025 - the same year as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones won Grammies - so nothing has changed right?
🎵 I know - who cares - its just a …
🔗 Concern the UK’s AI ambitions could lead to water shortages
If I’d been told when I was growing up in England that in the future the BBC would report that ‘water shortages’ loomed, I would have assumed that I had stepped into a dystopian SF novel that made up my reading pleasure at the time.
🔗 Archiving effort to preserve Data.gov - FlowingData
We continue with hope.
🔗 Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads
what does Unity, the 3D engine, have to do with the in-app advertisement or location tracking?
…
Turns out that Unity’s main revenue stream (they made $2 bln+ in 2023) is Unity Ads - “Mobile Game Ad Network”. Sounds quite interesting.
Too technical for this bear to fully understand - BUT I got enough to let out a very loud expletive.
(via John Wunderlich over on LinkedIN)
🚧 Prisons and Bitcoin
I am unsure if they are connected - so parking this here while we think.
There is also something going on with the Argentinian playbook - which I am planning to publish in a newsletter.
I am no expert - but my spidey senses are up … Bitcoin, Argentina, El Salvador .. OR, it’s all summarized thus ….
Bitcoin
El Salvador introduced bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 and then - as now - one Tim Draper has oft’ spoken breathlessly of how cool it is that a sovereign nation has adopted it.
Tim Draper Expects Bitcoin to Transform El Salvador Into One of the Richest Countries in the World.
The flag waving by Tim has never stopped.
That Said
- El Salvador’s experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender since 2021 has had mixed results.
- Only 8.1% of the population have used Bitcoin for payments by 2024.
- Seperately, the initiative faced criticism for its volatility, lack of transparency, and limited impact on remittances, which make up a significant part of the economy.
- Even so, El Salvador’s Bitcoin investments turned profitable by late 2024 - BUT the government has not recouped the costs of promoting the cryptocurrency.
- So, in December 2024, El Salvador agreed to scale back Bitcoin policies to secure a $1.4 billion IMF loan (Dollars speak) which included making Bitcoin acceptance voluntary and reducing public sector involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.
- Despite all of this by the end of 2024, its holdings surpassed 6,000 BTC which seems to have grown to 6,055 BTC as of February 1, 202. Value? Over $612 million.
Perspective
In a recent Bloomberg interview, Michael Saylor, executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy, revealed that beyond his company’s holdings, he personally owns at least 17,732 Bitcoin, currently valued at approximately $1 billion.
Yup - Saylor personally owns 150% more Bitcoin than The country of El Salvador - and let’s not forget that his company MicroStrategy owns another 471,107 bitcoins.
Question
Why do we still trumpet the El Salvador story?
Prisons
El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) is the largest prison in Latin America, with a capacity to hold 40,000 inmates. The facility spans 410 acres of land, with the prison complex itself covering 57 acres (approximately the size of seven football stadiums). It features eight cell blocks and extensive security measures, including electrified fences, reinforced walls, and 19 guard tower. It was built in late 2022 during a large-scale gang crackdown and officially opened in January 2023. Population of El Salvador - 6.5 million The USA has a total prison capacity across federal, state, and local facilities that can house 1.9 million people in federal prisons, correctional facilities, state prisons, local jails, and other detention centers.
Today’s News
# Could US criminals be sent to El Salvador’s mega-jail?
President Nayib Bukele confirmed that he had offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system". Putting aside the legal questions of exporting US citizens to another country’s prison system - I am wondering what’s going on.
Back Of The Napkin - Capacity
- El Salvador : 6,500,000/40,000=162.5 - in just a single prison
- USA : 350,000,000/1,900,000=184.2 - total capacity
Back Of The Napkin - Prisoner Count
- El Salvador : 1,086 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population
- USA : 531 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population
🔗 The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover
The names to remember ..
Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.
DEI? 🔗📼 Try This.
.. he includes a script.
Made a list of the contact info for my congresscritters in Notes.app to make it easier to call daily.
Today’s issue: This is a coup. Start calling it that.
💬 Patrick Rhone
I have a sub domain on Philpin.com called ‘documents’ where I keep finished docs that are'
1] more than a blog post or page
2] living documents
3] idea catalogues
4] private client documents
5] extended pages to my blog
Just finished an update on one such document …. 🔗 A Visual Thinking Primer - it fits very much into ‘2’ and part of ‘3’ which is occasionally called out in ‘4’.
Why does it exist? Because as it says halfway through …
I think the larger issue is that people don’t step back and think how to present their information.
Enjoy.
There are an increasing number of posts featuring this thinking …
🔗🎙️Trump’s Mafia World Order - Alastair Campbell
🖇️ I think Rushkoff said it best.
When two rocks hit each other both rocks lose parts of themselves in the battle.
Its loud and hard but even the winning rock is bruised and chipped.
But water flows over rock.
In time it erodes the rock to nothing and keeps flowing.
Maybe soft overcomes hard by understanding the importance of grace, flow and connection.
As @dave oft' signs off …
It’s worse than you think.
Mike Masnick summarises where we are - and it is not good.
🔗 Elon’s Twitter Destruction Playbook Hits The US Government, And It’s Even More Dangerous
We now have a new DNC leader - basically promoted from his existing vice chair to the top job.
SO now the new thinking starts?
PLEASE.
I go in and out with 🔗🎙️Hardfork with Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Topics aside the ‘out’ is often because they both have a habit of moving the tone of their voice up a couple of octaves which truly pierce’s my ear drums.
And just now I realized how much they also remind me of YouTuber 🔗📼 Ryan George — who can be very funny - and equally piercing.
Anyone ‘best mates’ with 🔗 Boardy?
