The missing cryptocurrency queen

Some people have made a lot of money in the tech world. Some have done it by creating companies, others by investing in them. But there are others who wish that they had invested in successful companies early on and made a lot of money but didn’t and now feel that they missed out. These people who are on the lookout for the next big thing so that they can get is early and cash in too. Such people are easy prey for con artists who know that the sales pitch of ‘buy now before it is too late’ can drive people to rash decisions and invest in something they may know little about for fear of missing out again.

We have seen this scenario play out so many times before and blog reader Jason Wessel sent me a link to this extraordinary story about someone who managed to scam people out of millions of dollars by promising them great rewards with a new cryptocurrency called OneCoin that she claimed would put Bitcoin out of business. The scam was based on the multi-level marketing scheme used by companies like Amway whereby people are recruited to sell both a product and also recruit new people to sell the product. Part of the sales proceeds of the new recruits goes to the person who recruited them, all the way up the chain. This is a version of a pyramid scheme and, like all such schemes, the few people who get in early make the most money while those lower down the chain can lose whatever they invest.
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Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving day in the US where family and friends get together to set aside differences and share food in a spirit of harmony. So what could be more appropriate than to hear Donald Trump rant in an unhinged manner about a non-existent war on Thanksgiving?

Seth Meyers walks us through this latest nonsense as well as update us on the impeachment process.

Jonathan Miller (1934-2019)

The multi-talented Miller died yesterday at the age of 85. His obituary describes the wide range of activities that he was involved with in his life, including being a doctor, writer, and theatre and opera director.

I first came across him as one of the four people (along with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Alan Bennett) that made up the sketch comedy team whose performance of Beyond the Fringe broke with traditional British comedy and set the stage for later acts like Monty Python.
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Jeremy Corbyn accuses Boris Johnson of secret deal to sell the NHS

The rumors that the Conservative party will seek to use the National Health Service as a bargaining chip in getting a trade deal with the US after they leave the EU has been around for a long time. The Conservatives and Boris Johnson have vigorously denied it because for all the grumbling about its shortcomings (mainly caused by insufficient government finding) people are fond of the NHS and would fiercely resent giving it up and letting the poisonous American private health system be foisted on them.

But Corbyn says that they have received a leaked dossier that shows that Johnson has already been in negotiations with the US to put the NHS up for sale.
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Pete Buttigieg’s smug complacency on race issues

Via Pharyngula I came across this article by Michael Harriot that looked at how oblivious people like Pete Buttigieg are when it comes to understanding the issues that black people face in this country.

“Kids need to see evidence that education is going to work for them,” Buttigieg explained whitely, when he was running for mayor in 2011. You’re motivated because you believe that at the end of your education, there is a reward; there’s a stable life; there’s a job. And there are a lot of kids—especially [in] the lower-income, minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven’t seen it work. There isn’t someone who they know personally who testifies to the value of education.”
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I want to be clear: Pete Buttigieg is a lying motherfucker.

This is not a misunderstanding. This is not a misstatement. Pete Buttigieg went to the best educational institutions America has to offer and he—more than anyone on the goddamned planet—knows that everything he just said is a baldfaced lie.
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Mayor Pete’s bullshittery is not just wrong, it is proof.

It proves men like him are more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of negro neighborhoods needing more role models and briefcase-carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun and see the blinding light of racism. Get-along moderates would rather make shit up out of whole cloth than wade into the waters of reality. Pete Buttigieg doesn’t want to change anything. He just wants to be something.

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Shattering Pyrex glassware

Pyrex glass dishes have a reputation for being able to withstand extreme temperatures from the very hot to the very cold. Hence I was surprised when someone I know did something that many of us have done without incident. He took a hot Pyrex baking dish from the oven and laid it on top of the rods that surround the burners you find on gas top stoves that keep the pots slightly above the gas outlets for the flame. But this time, the dish shattered into fragments, sending shards in every direction. He was lucky that he did not suffer any cuts from the high-speed bits of glass.

It turns out that this can happen on occasion and this video shows what can happen when a drop of cold water is placed in a hot Pyrex container.


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The ‘uncanny valley’ and CGI

Computer generated graphics now enable some pretty amazing visual effects in films. In particular, it has been able to make animations look extremely lifelike. But interestingly, when it comes to depicting humans, there turns out to be a problematic element. As the animation gets more and more lifelike, audiences respond positively, getting more empathetic and engaged, but once it gets pretty close but is still not perfect, audience approval drops sharply and people tend to see the humans as creepy until the animation reaches close to 100% of being lifelike, as shown in this graph. The dip is known as the ‘uncanny valley’.

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Solitary confinement for children

Putting people in solitary confinement for extended periods is recognized to be a form of torture. So what does it say about us that in the state of Illinois, school districts have been using this form of punishment as disciplinary measures for decades, even with very young children, though giving them benign-sounding euphemisms. ProPublica investigated these practices and issued a damning report.
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