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Criminal jo is Taking It With Him!

Astroforge has already launched their first mission in 2023.
They’ve updated their launch license for the next mission (Odin) early next year.
We’ll be mining asteroids by the next decade.

Meanwhile, real Quantum Computing will break all existing encryption certification methods, so you’ll see QC based encryption developed as well.

Bitcoin already has some built-in quantum resistance. If you only use Bitcoin addresses one time, which has always been the recommended practice, then your ECDSA public key is only ever revealed at the one time that you spend bitcoins sent to each address. A quantum computer would need to be able to break your key in the short time between when your transaction is first sent and when it gets into a block. It will likely be decades after a quantum computer first breaks a Bitcoin key before quantum computers become this fast.
Astroforge is so far away from bringing anything useful back that it can hardly be called practical.

There’s also the cost. They’re at several million dollars just to dock with a small asteroid. Putting a unit capable of refining and returning precious metals would be insanely expensive with near future technology.

United Healthcare CEO assassinated

Pretty solid New Yorker piece here on the fallout from this murder and what it reflects about American society in 2024 (Note that it was written a couple days prior to the arrest):

A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing?​

What the death of a health-insurance C.E.O. means to America.
By Jia Tolentino
December 7, 2024

As you know, the C.E.O. of UnitedHealthcare, fifty-year-old Brian Thompson, was murdered on the street in midtown Manhattan, on Wednesday morning, twenty minutes before sunrise. He was in town for an investors’ convention, and had worked for UnitedHealthcare for more than two decades—a company that is part of UnitedHealth Group, a health-insurance conglomerate valued at five hundred and sixty billion dollars. UnitedHealthcare had two hundred and eighty-one billion dollars in revenue in 2023, and Thompson, who became C.E.O. in 2021, had raised annual profits from twelve billion dollars to sixteen billion dollars during his tenure. He received more than ten million dollars in compensation last year. Andrew Witty, the C.E.O. of UnitedHealth Group, remembered Thompson in a video message to employees as a “truly extraordinary person who touched the lives of countless people throughout our organization and far beyond.” Thompson lived in a suburb of Minneapolis, where UnitedHealthcare is based, and he is survived by his wife and two sons.

The Lede
Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today.
The particulars of this murder are strange and remarkable: it occurred in public; the suspected shooter went to Starbucks beforehand; he got away from the scene via bicycle; he has not yet been found. But the public reaction has been even wilder, even more lawless. The jokes came streaming in on every social-media platform, in the comments underneath every news article. “I’m sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers,” someone commented on TikTok, a response that got more than fifteen thousand likes. “Does he have a history of shootings? Denied coverage,” another person wrote, under an Instagram post from CNN. On X, someone posted, with the caption “My official response to the UHC CEO’s murder,” an infographic comparing wealth distribution in late eighteenth-century France to wealth distribution in present-day America. The whiff of populist anarchy in the air is salty, unprecedented, and notably across the aisle. New York Post comment sections are full of critiques of capitalism as well as self-enriching executives and politicians (like “Biden and his crime family”). On LinkedIn, where users post with their real names and employment histories, UnitedHealth Group had to turn off comments on its post about Thompson’s death—thousands of people were liking and hearting it, with a few even giving it the “clapping” reaction. The company also turned off comments on Facebook, where, as of midday Thursday, a post about Thompson had received more than thirty-six thousand “laugh” reactions.

What on earth, some people must be asking, is happening to our country? Are we really so divided, so used to dehumanizing one another, that people are out here openly celebrating the cold-blooded murder of a hardworking family man? That people are making jokes about how the assassin could’ve won the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in Washington Square Park? That when a journalist at the American Prospect called an eighty-eight-year-old woman who was aggravated by her poor Medicare Advantage coverage for comment, she wisecracked that she wasn’t the killer—she can’t even ride a bike?

There had been prior threats against Thompson, his wife told NBC News, motivated, she said, by, “I don’t know, a lack of coverage? . . . I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.” There had been protests at the UnitedHealthcare headquarters, in Minnesota, in April and July; during the latter, eleven people were arrested. The group responsible for the protests, People’s Action, also confronted Witty, the UnitedHealth Group C.E.O., at a Senate hearing in May. In a statement, People’s Action leaders referenced endless hours on the phone trying to get medical care covered, and denials of coverage for lifesaving medication and surgery. A recent statement from the group, in response to Thompson’s death, read, “We know there is a crisis of gun violence in America. There is also a crisis of denials of care by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth.” They urged political leaders to “act on both.” UnitedHealthcare has the highest claim-denial rate of any private insurance company: at thirty-two per cent, it is double the industry average. And, though the shooter’s motive remains unknown, shell casings found on the scene had the words “deny,” “delay,” and possibly “depose” written on them, echoing the title of a 2010 book by Jay M. Feinman, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It,” which by Thursday had leapt up one of Amazon’s best-seller charts.

To most Americans, a company like UnitedHealth represents less the provision of medical care than an active obstacle to receiving it. UnitedHealthcare insures almost a third of the patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage, a government-funded program facilitated by private insurance companies, which receive a flat fee for each patient they cover and then produce their own profits by minimizing each patient’s care costs. Reporting in the Wall Street Journal has found that these private insurance companies, which cover more than a third of American seniors on Medicare, collect hundreds of billions of dollars from the government annually and overbill Medicare to the tune of around ten billion dollars per year; UnitedHealthcare has used litigation to fight its obligation to repay fees that were overpaid. In 2020, UnitedHealth acquired a company called NaviHealth, whose software provides algorithmic care recommendations for sick patients, and which is now used to help manage its Medicare Advantage program. A 2023 class-action lawsuit alleges that the NaviHealth algorithm has a “known error rate” of ninety per cent and cites appalling patient stories: one man in Tennessee broke his back, was hospitalized for six days, was moved to a nursing home for eleven days, and then was informed by UnitedHealth that his care would be cut off in two days. (UnitedHealth says the lawsuit is unmerited.) After a couple rounds of appeals and reversals, the man left the nursing home and died four days later. The company has denied requests to release the analyses behind NaviHealth’s conclusions to patients and doctors, stating that the information is proprietary.

Trump Considers DeSantis for Defense Secretary as His Support for Hegseth Falters

I’m just shocked (and knowing you for a number of years) that a self proclaimed “military brat” would trash anyone in one of those professions who decided to serve their country in one of these capacities.
My daughter in law’s Father is a retired Navy physician who served his country faithfully. He could have made more money in private practice but decided to serve.

Trump sends message to Kamala Harris supporters during 'Meet the Press' interview

The great Unifier. That's rich.

This same guy didn't want to send FEMA to California because they didn't vote for him. He tried to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they dug up some dirt on Biden. He sent a mob to the Capitol and wants to pardon them, but wants to shoot protesters in the leg if he doesn't agree with them.

He is only a unifier if you agree with him. People that disagree with him can kiss his butt for all he cares about them.
LOL - If you disagree with him you are the problem.

CBS Sports grade

This was Iowa's year to make the CFP. Iowa State and Ohio State were the only quality opponents. Go 11-1 and you're in Indiana's spot.

But we farted out diarrhea.
but no year is their year, really. even in 2002-03 they get killed by
usc. in the years they win the big west they get beat by msu or michigan. last year killed by tenn.


this just simply is not a cfp type of team under KF - for 25 plus years

Caitlin Clark: Time Athlete of the Year 2024

We are so lucky she chose the University of Iowa.

She EASILY could have played at a different school.

It's a treat that we have been a part of her journey.
I think that it ended up being a great marriage for BOTH sides.

Iowa benefitted as a team and a program by having a supremely talented player on the roster.

Caitlin benefitted by being part of a program that let her be herself. Perhaps, more importantly, the coaching staff also invested heavily in her on many fronts ... helping her be more reflective, helping her navigate the media, helping her be a better teammate, etc ...

I think that Caitlin obviously could have played at a different school ... but I think that her degree of stardom wouldn't have been the same at all places.

Chad Leistikow: "This is no longer KF's offense."

Iowa had plenty of time to prepare him to run the offense. You don't need a tremendous amount of time to learn how to hand the ball off or flip it to the right or left. Throw in about 10 different pass plays that are simple and low risk. Iowa had almost none of that. They FINALLY threw a swing pass to KJ that resulted in a TD. Not the brightest play calling even under the QB circumstances. Up the middle, up the middle, up the middle every time was simply asinine.
They had time to get him to run the base offense sure. Did you not see all the play action, motion, etc that got put aside because he wasn’t ready of all of it? Not to mention making sure you’ve got everyone in place, have time to read what the defense was giving you, etc.

Nebraska wasn’t Lester’s best work, anyone would admit that. But at least concede that there’s no college offense you can just throw your 4th string guy in like nothing had changes.

Biden shrinks from view ahead of Trump’s return to Washington

There’s really no alternative, because, again, calling every person who voted for Trump a disparaging name doesn’t win you much support. It certainly isn’t winning them many elections, considering they’ve lost to Trump twice now.
But here's the issue. Trump calls people and groups names and insults all the time. That is apparently ok though as long as its funny, I guess (to some).

The truth is the American electorate, imo, is dumber than it has been in a LONG time and many would rather be entertained than elect a decent President (on both sides to some extent). So, I'm not sure what to takeaway from all this, and I don't need to because it's not my job anyway. America is going to America at this point.
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