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from the convert-it-to-libra-coin-if-course dept.
The bitcoin scam worked — almost too well. In 2012, back when almost no one had heard of the digital coin, he’d started modestly, asking people he found on the dark web for $200 or $300 worth of bitcoin as a way to test out his investment scheme. He told them he could exploit the then huge price differences between various bitcoin exchanges and promised huge rewards. But once they sent the funds, he vanished into the ether to find his next stooge.
There was a certain genius criminal irony to it: He would hype an untraceable anonymous digital currency, then get paid in it.
[...] But he had a problem. It was getting harder to turn the most overhyped currency since the tulip into actual cash.
[...] All of this means that people like our guy who are very rich on paper (or, more accurately, on the blockchain) must devise highly complex methods to convert their ill-gotten gains, or risk losing quite a bit of value, said Tom Robinson, co-founder of the blockchain analytics company Elliptic. “Funds from illicit activities are just lying dormant, and they are waiting to find effective means of cashing out,” he said.
Yet if we know anything about criminals, it’s that they’re resourceful. As financial institutions and regulators the world over grapple with bitcoin’s adaptation to mainstream use, some of these criminals have devised ingenious hacks for converting their money; still others are turning to alternative coins as they seek greater privacy for their transactions and to stay ahead of the law.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:34AM (32 children)
(Score: -1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:43AM (24 children)
OH, yeah! The eds constantly send me messages like this one:
Guess I will just have to fix the problem (stupid Nazi collaborating editors!) and resubmit! Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy, White Surpremacist Fascism!
[In case you are slow, notice that there is nothing after the "following reason:", in other words, another fine aristarchus submission rejected for no reason! None! So by all means, let janrinok attempt to sucker you in to submitting under a user name, so he can send you empty rejection notices as well.] Upside is, that you can keep re-submitting, almost indefinitely. Really, asymptotically approaching infinity.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:13AM (10 children)
In your case some editors have realised that telling you what is wrong with your submissions is simply a waste of time. When you start listening to what advice we do give you will probably find that more editors will be prepared to help you.
I tend to initial all my rejections and advice. If it doesn't have my initials it probably wasn't done by me. The only exceptions are when we delete a block of subs because they have become too old. There isn't a way to initial or comment on block deletions. If you look at the bottom of your own submissions page you will probably find that it tells you that complaining about rejections is usually off-topic. For your comment here I will not moderate it.
Some of your recent submissions have contained criticism of named community members. These are totally unacceptable. Your views belong in the comments where those being criticised can respond if they choose to do so.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:24AM (4 children)
You know, JR, "journal" tells me exactly nothing about what was wrong with a submission, other than you do not like it. But I do have to admit that you are the only Ed who even manages this small courtesy. Thank you, sir.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @03:40PM
obviously "this is so editorializish that it belongs in your journal, not on the front page"
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:06PM (1 child)
>You know, JR, "journal" tells me exactly nothing about what was wrong with a submission, other than you do not like it.
the editor does exactly that. purge what 'doesn't like'.
Youtube Facebook do exactly the same, and there is not much difference between red and black socialists in their end-justifies-the-means urge to silence whatever goes against the(ir) sacred truth.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21 2019, @08:12PM
Nah, it is entirely consistent. FB and YT are private platforms that don't make any promises of freedom. SN is supposedly all about freedom of speech and non-censorship. Hypocrisy is an ugly trait. Do you realize you're projecting your own issues on to others?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:28PM
I have written the comment 'Put it in your journal' or similar so many times that, if you cannot understand that 'journal' is shorthand for the longer instruction, you are not as intelligent as you profess to be.
But in case that is actually, in fact, the truth, in future when I write 'journal' it means publish it in your own personal journal. Please, do that and let the rest of us get on with the other stories.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:27AM (4 children)
Oh, and
You do realize that the Trump referred to is not our defunct realDonaldTrump soylentil of late fame and ignomy? Anyone else would have plenty of opportunity, and probably even an incentive, to defend themselves in the comments, were any such submission accepted.
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:57AM (3 children)
You have mentioned others, as well you know, including myself. Don't try to paint yourself as misunderstood. Read the submission guidelines and follow them.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:24PM (2 children)
Moderating my reply as 'Off-Topic' is a childish thing to do. It answers your claim that you were referring to Trump and not rDT - I pointed out that that you have commented about other members of this community in your submissions in a derogatory fashion. This is not your personal site for publishing your political views or your opinions of other community members. Post a decent submission.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:17PM (1 child)
Well, the topic *is* about criminals and bitcoin.
This thread has drifted far off topic long before we ended up here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:34PM
Agreed. To quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "GET ON WITH IT!"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:46PM (3 children)
"OH, yeah! The eds constantly send me messages like this"
You'd think a philosopher would think about this word 'constantly' and make better submissions.
I guess you CAN'T teach an old philosopher new tricks!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:19PM (2 children)
And correlation does not imply causation, my dear Gaaaaaark! You seem to assume without cause that quality is the issue, rather than the subject matter. But when the example we are comparing to is a year and half old fine "pump and dump" bitcoin article . . .
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:03PM (1 child)
Nooooo...I'm talking about, forget about advertising for the alt-right for a while and tell us about ancient Greece or what you ate that made you fart this morning or GODS, ANYTHING ELSE!
Philosophise about the sound of two noses clapping in the woods with fecking BEARS around!
A N Y T H I N G ! ! ! But the alt-fecking-right promotion!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:56PM
Promotion? It's ridicule, Gaaark. Did you not read the rejected submissions on the Traditionalist Workers Party incest incident?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:21PM (8 children)
Dude.
Look, I'm gonna get real here, as part of the old dude club that's been around for at least a few centuries.
I'm going to be honest with you, Aristarchus -- you were one of the original reasons I actually stuck around on this site, started reading it, and started contributing in comments and sometimes submissions (though I haven't done the last one in a while). In the midst of right-wing lunatics and trolls, you were a voice of occasional reason and insight, as well as lot of humor and wackiness (some of which tended to go so "meta" or get so random that I didn't bother to engage).
But you were one of the few foils to the predominant voices here. And now you've gone on this crusade for god knows how long of submitting insane rants that you KNOW will NOT be accepted, because they barely make sense (due to your attempts at randomness) and generally contain a huge amount of personal rant.
Look, I appreciate the kind of "aesthetic" you're going for. Sincerely. And there's a lot of smart stuff in what you say too. Unfortunately, it's being lost and neglected because you don't want to write vaguely reasonable submissions. Let the alt-right BS speak for itself. You can link to it and point it out, and many reasonable people will see the insanity there without your unhinged commentary. And if you even want to put your unhinged commentary in, submit a reasonable story, and then post an unhinged comment. I'd actually find that amusing sometimes. But what you're doing now is actually getting your message suppressed -- and for good reason. I don't want to read your bullshit in a submitted story anymore than I want to hear Khallow's or Mr. Buzzard's bullshit commentary. The submission is for drawing attention to news (or published professional commentary on news or whatever) -- then you get to spew whatever you want in comments.
I truly, truly would like to hear more from you. I want to see more of the kinds of things you sometimes submit. But the tone of a majority of your submissions is just not appropriate. I'm not an editor, but even though I'm often sympathetic to your rants, I too would reject your submissions on most occasions. And it's too much to ask volunteer editors here to edit out your nonsense just to get down to the relatively reasonable core of the submission.
I'll sympathize with you and say that sometimes people on this site make me incredibly angry. And on rare occasions, I have vented outrage at them, usually feeling very bad about it afterward. I try to keep things relatively civil and to keep rhetorical BS to places where it's appropriate (usually only in responding to other comments that already are using rhetorical BS).
You can choose what you want to do with your life. But be aware that there are some of us who appreciate your wit and intellect and would actually like to see you try to "behave" a bit so we could see your thoughts and submissions brought to the community's attention more often. But your current strategy isn't working, nor do I approve of it.
And I'll admit that I don't generally pay much attention to the subs queue, and I've only recently started really reading people's journals. If there's actual evidence that you've submitted reasonable submissions and they've been repeatedly rejected, show me -- because I want to know that, and I'll go to bat for you if you are being unfairly bullied. But right now, you are coming across as senile and unhinged.
I'll just leave you with some words of one of your elders (Heraclitus): σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαΐοντας.
Cheers, my friend.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:48PM (7 children)
Just a taste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:36PM (4 children)
"Right" socialists vs "left" socialists. It is the same socialist shit that assumes the government is on your side.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:57PM (3 children)
In America, they have this document. It begins, "We, the people, ". In America the government is the people. Who are you and what country do you live in, where your government is so anti-social?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:01PM (2 children)
I am Donald Trump, I live in the White House, USA.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:16PM (1 child)
Ah, that would explain your lack of knowledge of the structure of American Constitutional Government. Truly, Sir, is there nothing that you do not not know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:22PM
Yes, I do not know how the Clinton r
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:55PM (1 child)
Well, I obviously can't see the rejected ones. I just looked in the subs queue, and the only one I saw sitting there was the one on Pepe, which contains an offensive statement in quotation marks that's inserted as editorial commentary (not from the cited article), at least one misspelling, and then concludes with some random BS rambling.
If I were a volunteer editor, I wouldn't want to have clean up that crap. Sorry, man, but act like an adult and write reasonably (or just leave the personal commentary out completely), and I bet more of your submissions will get published.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21 2019, @08:20PM
Not ari but I submitted a few stories about the alt-right with no vitriol and just a copy of the intro paragraphs for the summary. Always rejected. This is about political bias more than anything, and besides it would be quite simple for editors to actually, you know, edit?
I will acknowledge that recently the main stories have been much more neutral. I also maintain that the front page could be easily updated to be more customizable by users and allow more submissions by having groupings, hidden summaries, all sorts of possibilities. Update submission rules a bit, kind of like a Code of Conduct *tweak the beak*, and then most stories could be published.
No one wants to discuss ways of making the site more community oriented though, just more deflecting criticisms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:21PM (6 children)
The sub was not rejected. It was accepted and then removed.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:18PM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:23PM (4 children)
Takyon found it: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=33189&page=1&cid=882482#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:37PM (3 children)
Well at 21:34 UTC this evening that story will go out. It had already been covered and is waiting to go out in today's story queue. In other words, by the time we received your story we had already processed someone else's submission on the same topic and yours became a dupe.
There was also a problem with the link which was changed by the quoted source - nothing that you could have done about that. If you look at the stories queue you will see it there. And as you are an AC, there is no point in adding your submission acknowledgement to it because you cannot receive karma even if we were to do so.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:40PM (2 children)
Whether you are the same AC as the story we have processed I cannot tell you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:39PM (1 child)
I am the same AC. And it looks like a popular story.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday August 21 2019, @04:51AM
Which is probably why an editor published it. Don't expect submissions to appear immediately, and don't underestimate the work going on in the background. When the original link was changed the submission became useless. We then had to search for alternative sources and wait for the link to be corrected again.