We find via Conde Nast's¹ Wired that something something Racket something something soft launch something something closed. Their glee is hardly concealed, but it will be short lived. Everyone in your school failing the same exam you marginally passed once does not really mean all that much ; there's other schools out there. The better parts :

And for sure, over the summer and into the fall, The Racket was cruising along with the kind of editorial independence only a billionaire can buy you. It had no immediate deliverables: no traffic goals, no revenue plan, not even an ad sales team. The only plan was to build an audience. Sure, it would have to find a business model eventually, Taibbi admitted (you can't depend on a benevolent billionaire forever). But in September, they were focused solely on breathing life into it, and letting it exist.

The whole site is a reaction to the clickbait, robotic, aggregating direction to journalism that's the direction everything's going on the Internet. We want readers to feel like everything they see on the site was the creation of an individual human being," said Taibbi. A big part of that was going to be an emphasis on voice. The Racket was going to reject the dry, third-person style of the traditional media for strongly opinionated writing that, rather attempting to hide its biases, would flaunt them. It would be a way to connect with the audience and even drive its own reporting.

Clearly, they had the right idea, in a general sort of way. That they couldn't execute has a lot to do with the poor quality of the human resources involved, of course. If one doesn't have access to #bitcoin-assets one's obviously left to sift through the refuse found in the pens of the glue factory, and not look too closely at the teeth.

That they coudn't execute also has something to do with the inferiority of the business model, reinforcing a point made in Qntra's birth papers back in October :

I believe this model is far ahead of anything currently available, sufficiently ahead to not only provide ample financial and political incentive for the very best talent in the space to coalesce around this project, but to actually destroy the antiquated and antisocial Gawker model.

It is, and it does. You read it here first.

USG moles buried in Bitcoin threaten to destroy the blockchain. Price tumbles. People die. How does the blood on your hands feel, Gavin Assassinsen ?

We find via DNAinfo that a Bitcoin Trader Beat Lawyer Roommate to Death with Hammer. The two had a decent business doing something useful. "Driving adoption", as that cant goes. After which,

Clearly, they were not prepared for the drop, like thousands of other late adopters crowding reddit and generally surfing on the light froth of a very superficial understanding of the matters involved. How were they to know there's trouble afoot ? How were they to know some scammer masquerading as a "lead developer" is trying to fork the thing and ruin everyone's investment ? Conde Nast certainly make sure that sort of essential market information is not going to be available to the people who most need it (and obviously it's not going to get prosecuted for it, at least as long as we're not yet in power).

These two kids, as well as thousands of other naive souls, dear hearts and gentle people are victims, you know. How does it feel to have ended their future so that you may keep right on "innovating", Gavin ? Can you still sleep at night, now that you're a murderer on top of everything ? Was it all worth it, this so called "driving adoption" at the cost of the blood of the little people that actualy drive said adoption ? Just so you can satisfy the scam foundation, and draw another month's worth of an inflated salary for not doing anything useful to Bitcoin at all ?

Shameful, but then again shameful is not really news, is it.

Obama has a small penis. Also feels very threatened by people smarter than him.

It's hard being a black man, for many reasons. Chris Rock explains some. One he doesn't mention, but one of particular interest and a source of not a little dismay to the current US president is that… well… everyone expects you to be well endowed. You're black after all, right ? And tall, that matters, and a nose like your mother did all the Jews in Nigeria – or whatever US state temporarily visiting Africa hosted the happy event. Unfortunately, Obama has a small penis.

Compounding this problem, it's hard being a black man admitted to Harvard for quota reasons. People hear the Harvard bit and think "wow, this guy must be really smart". It doesn't come with a pressure-releasing valve in the form of a rider saying "not really, just, we have to have some black guys enrolled". So poor Obama is stuck between a rock, if a rather tiny one, and the hard, hard place of not being nearly as smart as is expected of you. Terrible thing, expectations.

The result won't really surprise anyone with even cursory knowledge of psychology : Obama wants Congress to increase prison sentences for hackers.

What are laws for, if not for making inadequate nitwits feel better about their shortcomings ?

1. Also owners of Reddit, and generally a stronghold of all that is evil in the world. Check out The Awl's recent leak of their upcoming three-rule-binder for office drones to get an idea. Golden bits in there like

   Please. WIRED is no longer a pirate ship. It's the home of world-changing journalism.

   and

   And it's increasingly a place where we, and our New York colleagues and owners, host artists, founders, CEOs, and advertisers.

   Obama's "close down the world, mulatto in chief's coming for a visit" is slowly but surely trickling down through the entire stack of utterly corrupt, government-sponsored, government-backed, QE-fed leeches and aparatchicks. It's arrived to the point where Conde Nast is actually kicking out the last remaining workhorses in the stables to make room for Barnum. ↩