exocrinous
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
“Maybe if I date someone who’s famous, they’ll have enough money that I won’t have to worry about paying for medical bills or groceries anymore. Gee, maybe we could even buy a house and raise kids.”
We live in a capitalist hellscape where such things are no longer taken for granted, and are now associated with the heights of success.
No, it’s really hard to go to America.
Sorry, I can’t hear your edgy ass over the sound of these Eldritch blasts
Americans are still using monarchy units while the rest of the world is on freedom units.
Nobody in history has ever been self sufficient for eggs. You need a chicken for that.
I disagree. The bad reviews and refunds produced, effectively, a single bad week for the company, while getting the publisher to backtrack on a decision that would have slowly but surely killed both the game and the company. Spitz saved Arrowhead. Unfortunately, instead of capitalising on the cooperation between developers and players to win back their reputations and make the game profitable again, Arrowhead decided to throw away Spitz’ hard work by firing him, ruining their reputation just after he saved it for them. Now they’re fucked.
The way I see it, their only chance to return to profitability is for them to explain that Spitz was fired for his earlier comments mocking players for complaining about PSN. If they did that, the players would return to Arrowhead’s side. But if the narrative that he was fired for sticking with the players and saving the company prevails, then Arrowhead is doomed.
Mastodon is just a bunch of news articles and people talking like robots. I try to engage and there’s fucking nothing I care about. Anything actually interesting is like half a thought. Like they started talking about a topic but didn’t get to the point before they decided to hit post. Posts from popular accounts talk about electoral politics in a weird clipped manner like a newspaper but even more boring.