surprise, surprise: Trump gave #DavidSacks (pro #Putin, anti-#Ukraine All In Podcast broligarch and America's "crypto & AI czar") a waiver on any and all financial conflicts of interest that could result from Sacks using taxpayer money to enrich himself by investing in his crypto & AI scams.

(i will note that Sacks claims to have divested himself of his crypto investments but i find it impossible to believe he isn't at least indirectly financially exposed to the crypto market)

Remember, it was Sacks who helped propose the #StrategicCryptoReserve which proposed that US taxpayers invest in the same 5 cryptocurrencies held by Sacks's company #Bitwise.

https://www.levernews.com/trump-issues-ethics-waiver-for-his-ai-crypto-czar/

New paper from #Yale and the #FederalReserve blames the 2023 banking crisis on (you guessed it) #crypto and Nerd Reich #VCs.

> "A clearer commonality between the six banks [that failed], the paper argues, is their exposure to risky depositor bases that other banks shied away from: #crypto firms and [tech] venture capitalists."

* American Banker: https://www.americanbanker.com/news/new-paper-hangs-march-2023-failures-on-business-model-risks
* Paper: https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/working-papers/2025/2025-04

If you’re worried about the centralisation around #github, worth checking the #Fossil #SCM / #VCS. All parts of it are decentralised, including its built in wiki, ticketing system, documentation, chat and of course versioning. Runs from a single binary.

https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki

shocking allegations that #Passes, a social media platform run by Thiel Fellow #LucyGuo and funded by crypto bros, was basically #OnlyFans but (wink wink) for minors...

Financial backers included #JakePaul, #ParisHilton, as well as multiple bros who are attending the White House Crypto Summit on Friday,(e.g. "crypto czar" #DavidSacks's #CraftVentures and Kyle Samani's #MulticoinCapital).

Xitter post by a founder who objected to her own company being acquired by such a deeply amoral organization: https://x.com/jasminericegirl/status/1895947481764286567

(Lucy Guo was also a Forbes 30 Under 30 person... lol)

checking in on how #DavidSacks's proposed "strategic crypto reserve" where taxpayers will buy a bunch of rich crypto bros' bags is going over with the #MAGA folks (hint: not well)
https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/1896482883424211188

the meeting logs of #DavidSacks and #a16z's "Crypto Task Force" that is I guess now running american financial regulation via the #SEC contain many incredible things, but only a single meeting with anyone trying to advocate for the public interest (#BetterMarkets, who deserve a lot of credit for trying).

* SEC page: https://www.sec.gov/about/crypto-task-force/crypto-task-force-meeting-logs
* archived meeting notes: https://legacy.www.documentcloud.org/app?q=%2Btag%3A%22crypto%20task%20force%22

a bro from the largest american crypto VC firm #a16z is going to be running the #CFTC which in turn will be the agency "regulating" crypto now that the #SEC (also now run by crypto bros) has decided cryptocurrency is not a "security" (like a share of stock or a bond) but instead a "commodity" (like corn or pork bellies). which makes sense, as long as you don't think about it.

fun fact: the CFTC was the agency that regulated (and still regulates) financial derivatives and is more or less directly responsible for 2008's Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/11/trump-taps-former-cftc-commissioner-a16z-policy-head-brian-quintenz-for-cftc-head

people are talking about tracking down as many of #a16z's limited partners (the people who provide the money that a16z directs into investments) as possible. the firm is very opaque about this but #SaudiArabia is one... so if you see something, say something.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-reveals-investments-vc-113014842.html

another great (and very detailed) resource on the #debanking and "Operation Chokepoint 2.0" conspiracy theories being wielded against the #CFPB and #FDIC from #PatrickMcKenzie (Patio11).

#NathanMcCauley, the broligarch who runs "crypto bank" #AnchorageDigital, asked Patrick to retract the post. He refused.

* original post: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/
* thread about the retraction request: https://x.com/patio11/status/1888973701342785942
* full story about retraction request rejection: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2025/02/10/retraction-request-denied/

#Venmo co-founder launched a memecoin #JELLYJELLY to raise money for a new venture (something something video sharing something something). This kind of thing used to be considered obvious securities fraud but going forward this is how all companies are going to raise money. Why issue shares of stock (which makes you beholden to very annoying regulatory bodies like the #SEC) when you can just launch a #memecoin and make millions instantly without creating any kind of product?

Oh, and it’s pretty obvious #Solana memecoin bros on Twitter with high follower counts are getting tipped off and engaging in insider trading.

All of this is perfectly legal in a post #TrumpCoin era.

https://decrypt.co/303551/venmo-founders-jellyjelly-solana-token

Ross Ulbricht, the recently pardoned Silk Road founder and hirer of multiple contract killers, is launching a crypto startup... and of course crypto ghouls like #MarcAndreessen (#a16z) and #Paradigm want a piece of the action.

* tweet: https://x.com/techbrospod/status/1884264410899943639
* you gotta admit there's an "uncomfortable" racial dynamic at work here: https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/113886909556257574

I have never hide my intense dislike of git UI/UX (and I'm not alone there).

Currently looking at Jujutsu and while some of its ways are completely different from Git (or Hg for that matter), i think we may have a git-compatible successor there.

#git #jujutsu #dvcs #vcs #versioncontrol

https://jj-vcs.github.io/jj/latest/

https://steveklabnik.github.io/jujutsu-tutorial/introduction/introduction.html

https://v5.chriskrycho.com/essays/jj-init/

a much needed dismantling of the bullshit marc andreessen, a billionaire whose fund a16z is an incredible wrecker of average consumers' bank accounts all over the world, was spewing on the Joe Rogan Experience.

https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/p/synapse-investor-marc-andreessen

I am new to git.

Last night, I read the first three or so chapters of "Pro Git":

https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

It has already been incredibly helpful, in terms of understanding the conceptual underpinnings of git, and how to use it in practice.

I haven't read anything else yet about git, so I can't offer a comparative perspective, but so far it treads that fine line between "too simple" and "too complicated" really well.

I love a good manual for software.

Any recommendation for free Mercurial Hosting? Nothing fancy, don't need to run jobs, just a vcs for saving configurations files.

1 commit = 1 logical change, seems like a good practice.

1 ticket = 1 pull request = 1 commit = 1 change, seems questionable. It ends up with unrelated changes squashed into the same commit.

Store Code Discussions in Git using Git Notes

https://wouterj.nl/2024/08/git-notes

Discussions: https://discu.eu/q/https://wouterj.nl/2024/08/git-notes

#AI #GenerativeAI #AIBubble #AIHype #SiliconValley #VCs #VentureCapital: "For now, attitude is more important than any product—that tech companies are willing to spend so much is their proof that AI will pay off. And perhaps even more important in Silicon Valley than a messianic belief in AI is a terrible fear of missing out. “In the tech industry, what drives part of this is nobody wants to be left behind. Nobody wants to be seen as lagging,” Joshi said. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are defending their empires. Go all in on AI, the thinking goes, or someone else will. Their actions evince “a sense of desperation,” Cahn writes. “If you do not move now, you will never get another chance.” Enormous sums of money are likely to continue flowing into AI for the foreseeable future, driven by a mix of unshakable confidence and all-consuming fear."

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/ai-companies-unprofitable/679278/