A Few of the Silk Road Victims, Best and Worst Airlines, 12 Dudes and a Hype Tunnel
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, Defendant (Link)
Here I was last week suggesting President Biden pardon every first-time federal drug offender—which he didn’t do—but then President Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who created Silk Road, which prosecutors said facilitated $200 million in virtually untraceable illegal drug sales and led to the deaths of at least six people.
Ulbricht was a cause célèbre of crypto interests (the site ran on Bitcoin) and some libertarians; Trump had promised to commute his life sentence, but then went much farther by giving him a “full and complete pardon.”
I can understand people who say life in prison was too much, but … well, let’s just say that the idea of a complete pardon shocks me. Anyway, judge for yourself; here’s the transcript of Ulbricht’s sentencing in 2015, including the court’s reasoning, along with testimony of the families of two of those six people who died from overdoses.
My name is Richard and I am the father of Bryan whose death was referred to in the government's sentencing document.
...
It has been nearly 20 months since I buried my son. As I wrote to you in my letter, I could not have been more shocked when I received the phone call on the morning of October the 7th, 2013, to tell me that my son was dead. As far as I knew and as far as anyone who was close to him knew, Bryan did not do drugs.
...
We now know that he had this struggle and it breaks all of our hearts … He was managing to fight these urges until he discovered Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road.
The lure of Silk Road's convenience, the anonymity, the use of an untraceable payment system, the low risk of detection by law enforcement or parents or family or friends, it all overpowered Bryan.
As I indicated in my letter, the forensic analysis of his computers and phone show us exactly what happened. He discovered Silk Road while doing an Internet search. He downloaded the Tor browser. He transferred money from his bank account to a bitcoin account. He set up several new e-mail accounts, as per Silk Road's instructions. And then, he ordered heroin.
[It] arrived by the U.S. mail. He died from an overdose a few days later.
...
Since Ross Ulbricht's arrest, my family and I have endured the persistent drumbeat of his supporters who proclaim Mr. Ulbricht a hero and persistently portray his crimes as victimless.
...
Early in the trial the prosecution revealed that Silk Road generated $200 million in revenue in its existence. With drugs like heroin selling for relatively low prices, Bryan's Silk Road purchase was less than $200. I found it.
Just imagine how many individual drug transactions it would have taken to get to $200 million in sales.
And, keep in mind that Ross Ulbricht collected a commission on every sale.
(Free Ross opens as .pdf)
Bonus: The New York Times re-upped some of its video investigation of the most violent of the Jan. 6 rioters who all received pardons from Trump, including one who assaulted a police officer with an electric stun gun, and another who was charged with beating police officers with a baseball bat. (New York Times)
Elon Musk’s Inauguration ‘Salute’ Stokes Debate in Congress, Europe
OK, one more public item and then we’ll move on …
The controversial gesture, which some interpreted as a Nazi-style salute, drew criticism from the president’s political opponents -- and invigorated fans on the far right.
It has been dismissed as an awkward gesture and criticized as a Nazi-style salute. But whatever billionaire Elon Musk’s intentions while giving a post-inauguration speech in Washington, the move has sparked debate and recriminations.
In a speech Monday at Capital One Arena, Musk thanked President Donald Trump’s supporters by clasping his hand against his chest before raising it, flat-palmed, in the air. “My heart goes out to you,” he said.
It gave rise to international concern Tuesday, with politicians and extremist experts expressing alarm that such a gesture from one of Trump’s closest advisers might signal broader aims within the administration.
“That was a Nazi salute,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who studies fascism, said on X, “and a very belligerent one too.”
The Best and Worst Airlines of 2024
How the top two performing U.S. carriers separated themselves from the pack in a near photo finish
Delta took the crown again in The Wall Street Journal’s 17th airline scorecard, standing out in nearly every category.
This is Delta’s fourth consecutive win and seventh in eight years. It prides itself on reliability and customer service—it displays this and other accolades on stickers near its cabin doors—and commands a premium for it. There’s a reason those Delta tickets often cost more.
But this contest was a squeaker. Southwest finished a mere point behind Delta, with Alaska in third.
In our ratings cellar? Frontier. Spirit placed eighth and American Airlines finished seventh.
The Mediterranean Diet Really Is That Good for You. Here’s Why.
It has become the bedrock of virtuous eating. Experts answer common questions about how it leads to better health.
In the 1950s, researchers from across the globe embarked on a sweeping and ambitious study. For decades, they scrutinized the diets and lifestyles of thousands of middle-aged men living in the United States, Europe and Japan and then examined how those characteristics affected their risks of developing cardiovascular disease.
The Seven Countries Study, as it later became known, famously found associations between saturated fats, cholesterol levels and coronary heart disease. But the researchers also reported another notable result: Those who lived in and around the Mediterranean — in countries like Italy, Greece and Croatia — had lower rates of cardiovascular disease than participants who lived elsewhere. Their diets, rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, lean proteins and healthy fats, seemed to have a protective effect.
People Are Bad at Reporting What They Eat. That’s a Problem for Dietary Research
Studies that use surveys to link dietary patterns to human health may be irredeemably biased, new paper suggests.
Is coffee good for you? What about wine or chocolate? Scientists trying to answer these questions often look for links between what people say they eat and drink and the health conditions they develop later in life. But a study published last week in Nature Food shows just how unreliable that approach may be.
With the help of a technique that measures people’s energy expenditure, researchers came up with an equation to assess the accuracy of responses in dietary surveys. They found that more than half the records in large, widely used nutritional survey databases such as the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) are likely wrong because of people underreporting what they consumed. The results call into question the thousands of studies that have used these data sets to link particular diets to human health, the authors claim.
(Science)
‘Not Second Screen Enough’: is Netflix Deliberately Dumbing Down TV So People Can Watch While Scrolling?
Streaming insiders have claimed they’re being made to rewrite scripts for viewers who use their phones while watching. Is this the end of prestige TV? Or pure fiction?
How much attention do you pay when you watch TV? If you’re familiar with the ritual of half-watching a series or film – Netflix on in the background while you check out what your arch enemy has just posted on Instagram, say – it may surprise you to hear that Netflix doesn’t just know you engage in this obscene behaviour. It actually wants you to carry on.
[One claim is that] Netflix [has] told various screenwriters to have their protagonists "announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along."
Unsurprisingly, this results in atrocious dialogue like the following, from the Lindsay Lohan film Irish Wish.
“We spent a day together,” Lohan tells her fictitious lover, James. “I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, but that doesn’t give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow, I’m marrying Paul Kennedy.”
“Fine,” he responds. “That will be the last you see of me because after this job is over I’m off to Bolivia to photograph an endangered tree lizard.”
Twelve Dudes and a Hype Tunnel: Scenes from the ‘Super Bowl for Excel Nerds’
At the Microsoft Excel World Championship in Las Vegas, there was stardust in the air as 12 finance guys vied to be crowned the world’s best spreadsheeter.
Like soccer players taking the field in a giant stadium, the 12 finalists ran through a glowing “hype tunnel,” some wearing jerseys with sponsorship logos. As an announcer bellowed introductions and cameras captured their every move, they approached a neon-lit stage to raucous cheers.
Then the men sat down at desktop computers, opened their Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and began to type.
Excel, a program that does complex math on a human’s behalf, is often associated, rightly, with corporate drudgery. But last month, in a Las Vegas e-sports arena that typically hosts Fortnite and League of Legends tournaments, finance professionals fluent in spreadsheets were treated like minor celebrities as they gathered to solve devilishly complex Excel puzzles in front of an audience of about 400 people, and more watching an ESPN3 livestream.
I do not understand how someone can think it is a good idea to pardon people convicted by a jury of attacking and assaulting police officers and others convicted for committing serious crimes such as Ross Ulbricht. It is OK for Ulbricht to facilitate drug traffic but there is a problem when others do the same thing at the borders?
Dr. Anthony Fauci Is Stripped of Government Security Protection
Fauci, who was one of the nation’s top health officials for decades, had received death threats during the coronavirus pandemic.
all the pardons on both sides, along w/ the preemptives, have gone way too far.
I see 2 old men in the boxing ring w/ their supporters trying so hard to hold them both up, w/ every excuse. Crapola.
I'd say comparable to Silk Road https://apnews.com/article/biden-clemency-connecticut-adrian-peeler-28fa099588ec3f0d2555e036fda16be3 And there are plenty of others that are similar