The blood testing startup Theranos, once favored by the well connected in Washington, has hit a costly new roadblock. Elizabeth Holmes' (WOT:nonperson) startup went through the expensive process of developing a blood test for the Zika virus which they can't market because they botched up the paperwork documenting their testing again while further breaking patient safety rules. Theranos appears to be giving up on recouping the development costs for their test and they withdrawn their application to the FDA. It is still possible for Theranos to reapply after conducting further testing that complies with patient safety rules. Tim Draper (WOT:nonperson) was not solicited for comment and is assumed to still be bullish on Theranos. Sorry for your loss.
Author Archives: Aaron 'BingoBoingo' Rogier
Update On Some Forking Losers
The latest attempt to organize a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain organized on the subreddit /r/btcfork is still underwhelming. The closest thing to an actual name attached to the project is that of noted hamplanet "community organizer" Marshall Long (WOT:nonperson) of GAW Miners and ClassicCoin infamy. The apparent mechanism for triggering their fork is now by setting a "flag day" as trigger mechanisms that require actual indicators of support are too much for them. This fork is setting itself up to be exactly Paycoin 2.0 with the addition of more economic failure modes inherent in being a Bitcoin hard fork. Can you smell what your loss is cooking?
US Third Party Candidate's Ad Buy Spotted In The Wild
Evidence of a radio ad buy on behalf of United States Libertarian party presidential candidate Gary Johnson was observed in the wild. This morning while the Qntra editor in chief was driving his motor carriage to buy cigarettes he heard a Gary Johnson presidential advertisement on KMOX during their broadcast of the Rush Limbaugh show.
Ad buys by candidates outside of the two major socialist political parties in the United States are an extreme rarity with rare exceptions like the 1992 candidacy of Ross Perot that spoiled the election for George Herbert Walker Bush and ushered in the Clinton I presidency.
The move suggests that in addition to having the money to buy ads, Gary Johnson's campaign is making a serious push to raise their already impressive poll numbers across the 15% threshold necessary to be included in the televised debates. Johnson's chances of winning the November election are slim, but given the major party candidates' historically and consistently low likability, approval, and job readiness polling numbers, there is a solid1 chance Johnson makes the televised debates and draws enough votes to spoil the election for one or both of the major party candidates. Peace in our time.
~35% Enough to happen, but not enough to refer to as likely ↩
Mircea Popescu Announces Fanfic Contest With 1 Bitcoin Prize
Following his commentary on pre-eminent American socialist Elliot Rodger and the substantial discussion that followed, Mircea Popescu has announced a prize of one whole integer Bitcoin for the best fanfic. The upswell in fanfic has been inspired of the unconsummated romance between Elliot and his childhood friend James, two kissless virgins who should have kissed each other. Eligibility for the prize is contingent on having a GPG key registered with deebot and a blog upon which to publish your fanfic. The deadline is Halloween. Peace in our time.
Florida Appeals Espinoza Decision, Florida's Status At Stake!
The government of Florida, a peninsular territory that hangs from the United States mainland like a limp penis with collapsed veins from years of IV drug use and subject to swampy decay, has decided to appeal a decision by one of their judges and imperil their place in the future. The United Kingdom faced a similar dilemma and decided to walk the lonely road to irrelevance. Peace in our time, but who knows about Florida's.
Not Quite News Roundup Xtend 3 (TM)(R)
Welcome to the third edition of the Qntra Not Quite News Roundup Xtend (TM)(R). These events of the past week happened, but didn't quite qualify as news on their own merits.
- Enrollment at the turmoil stricken University of Missouri is down 2,100 students. This year Mizzou enrolled 4,799 incoming freshmen, 1600 fewer than they did last year. Their credit outlook is also still down.
- An Ass-shaped Airship crashed while landing to end its second flight. The Ass-shaped Airship had an estimated cost of 25 million pound formerly sterling. This figure is far less than a billion dollars, and it was not shot by police after rampaging through the countryside.
- A suit against the late altcoin exchange Cryptsy has been granted class action status in the United States.
- Bitmain, the group behind Antpool and Antminers, is looking to grab some quick cash by releasing "hobbyist grade" Bitcoin miners for sale.
- Krypton, an altcoin to the altcoin Ethereum, suffered a 51% attack following dump of the currency by the attacker. The affected retailer Bittrex was reimbursed by the project lead by Stephanie Kent (WOT:covertress) suggesting the value in real and potential terms involved was minimal.
- US Presidential candidate Donald Trump-Clinton was criticized by his political opponents for suggesting that black American should be able to walk down the street without fear of being shot despite goal composing a substantial part of their political platform.
- Several fiat banks have teamed up to propose an altcoin they would like to call "settlement coin" which in their estimation would supplant existing altcoin "Special Drawing Rights" for easing settlements of fiat between fiat banks for fiat purposes.
Argentine Government And Monsanto Approaching Peace Deal
The Argentine government is considering a bill which would require soy farmers to pay royalties over three generations of crops grown from genetically modified seeds of the sort peddled by Monsanto. The measure would present a far better situation than that available to farmers in the United States, where in there perverted farming culture they are made to either buy seeds for every crop or pay as though they had bought seeds. The Argentine compromise would at least recognize that in sane agriculture farmers get to save a portion of their previous crop as seed if they choose to do so. Peace in our time.
US Navy Project "Tor" Surrounded By Drama As USG Reasserts Control
Further drama continues to besiege the fandom surrounding the United States Navy project commonly referred to as "Tor" as the United States Government reasserts overt control over the project. Back in July the entire board was sacked with the exception of NSA asset, Political Officer, and project co-founder Roger Dingledine who transitioned to a "technical leadership" position along with his fellow co-founder. Now that it is a month later, the fandom community surrounding Tor is proposing a "general strike" and other forms of flailing because reality won't let them continue pretending this thing they though was their private playground never actually was any of the things they pretended. Sorry for your lost innocence.
After Years Of Rumours Coinbase Adds Litecoin Support, Kind Of
With rumours of Coinbase adopting Litecoin1 dating back to 2012, the time has finally arrived. Sort of. Coinbase has opened a market for trading a Litecoin versus United States dollar currency pair on their GDAX exchange. Anticipation that Coinbase would in some way do something with Litecoin peaked in August of 2013 when they hired Litecoin creator Charles Lee (WOT:coblee). Apparently Coinbase was just waiting for the right scamcoin to pop their altcoin cherry before letting the largely abandoned Litecoin take a ride with them. Sorry for your lost years.
Cost Of Wrong Kitty Litter Escalates Into The Billions Following Nuclear Waste Accident
The Los Angeles Times reports that the estimated cost of cleaning up a 2014 underground containment failure at a nuclear waste storage site in New Mexico is climbing past the two billion United States dollar mark (archived). The failure occurred at a facility located within an underground salt dome. A container holding Plutonium and Americium waste failed because organic kitty litter used as a binding agent reacted with the waste creating gas that lead to an explosion reportedly contaminating 35% of the space in the underground facility. Using inert mineral kitty litter would have prevented this accident.
The accident has lead to a cavalcade of fail1 as the facility's unsafety has lead to delays in sequestering waste from "temporary" storage at former nuclear weapons facilities including the notorious Hanford Site there. This means that in addition to the costs imposed by attempts to restore this salt dome to safety the accident has forced the United States Government to breach agreements with a number of state and local governments for failure to dispose of their nuclear trash according to agreed upon schedules. It has also threatened to bring the United States into violation of International Treaties with Russian and other nuclear powers on the reduction of weapons grade material.
The immediate cost of cleaning up after this breach is set to eclipse the Three Mile Island incident in absolute dollars, and the total cost imposed by the fallout is likely to eclipse Three Mile Island in inflation adjusted dollars. The latest alleged USMS auction of Silk Road-ish Bitcoins at 1.6 million United States dollars for 2700 Bitcoins can do nothing for the fiat order when it has debts like this. Sorry for your loss, but you should have read the label on that kitty litter.
This is not unlike the situation US farmers chose trading their windbreaks and their neighbor's orchards for a season's soybean harvest. ↩