I'm sorry but it's such a braindead, pointless, utterly... inane take that for some reason people like to parrot. This guy said Drogba wouldn't SURVIVE in the premier league today (insane). He takes the idea that "standards improve with time" (valid) and applies it like a sledgehammer, without an ounce of thought. Messi struggled far more in the 2010 world cup (still in his athletic prime), than he did in 2022 (washed). So did football actually get worse? Or are performances and stats influenced by dozens of contextual factors that these simplistic era arguments completely ignore? Maybe it's not as simple as 'he's more modern therefore better' At what point does football 'get away' from the upper echelon players? Maldini played across 3 decades at a high level. Drogba thrived in the exact same era that Messi and Ronaldo did. I can be intentionally obtuse and point out that Salah thrived in the modern PL, while he struggled for Chelsea barely a year after Drogba lifted the UCL. How does this dude square these things? if the past was so much worse, then surely every top player today should've destroyed it when they were actually coming through right? Or at least in their 20s? Danny frickin Welbeck is still bossing it, but I suppose Rooney would struggle? I have never seen any indication that a top player can't translate at least 90% of their value from one era to the next. The only thing that stops them is athletic decline. I cant believe I have to explain this - but even if it's granted that standards today are better, that doesn't necessarily mean a goal today is more valuable. Those are two separate things lmao. There have been simply more goals from ~2010 onwards, and especially the last few years. For a plethora of reasons (more refined build-up, tactical advances, rule changes, more expensive squads/superteams, greater disparity between top teams and the rest etc). The mid 2000s averaged about 2.6 goals in the PL (around that if i remember right). The last few years it's been over 3(!!). If anything goals are EASIER to come by for the top forwards today (we can quibble with semantics, and it wont be true in ALL cases, but generally this is true). When watching old games - yes u see some practices, or some spaces that wouldn't exist today. At the same time, I often see shocking defending, or certain spaces open up today that wouldn't have existed in the past, so let's not oversell how good defending is now, it's not a case of 'every single thing is definitely way better now' either. Evolution is not always linear. Regardless, doesnt it naturally follow that higher standards, owed to better data/training etc would allow those past players to also scale up? Isn't that just a super obvious conclusion to come to? So what is the point of constantly saying "things are way better" or "this ex player wouldnt survive" other than to smugly and ignorantly disparage past talent? What other point is being made? I've attached a clip of Arteta (who seems to be Alex's lord and saviour pbuh going by his YT thumbnails) saying that he would be a better player today with all these modern advancements.show more

So, my opinion on what the Antarctic (Antarctica) Anomaly... is that it's a type of frequency technology. It must be way more powerful than HAARP, as many have claimed it to be, because we would see these anomalies at other HAARP sites, and we don't, not like this. With that said, and I'm very much trying to avoid letting what I want it to be not play a part here, I think it is a technology that is being used either off the coast of Antarctica itself or Bouvet Island. A third possibility is an area just to the northwest of the island that looks odd. It's possible it is a sonar scan from a ship, but why in that remote location? It looks like an antenna set up or rows of something that is out of place. I also believe that the weather events and fires that have taken place in Africa could possibly have been because of this. Each time we saw the anomaly, it was followed by a destructive weather event in Africa. A weird connection to that is we have been told and warned of a very busy 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. This is in part because of the above-average Atlantic ocean temperatures, which is the fuel to Hurricanes. With all this info, it's possible to see how the Anomaly could be a frequency tech that can manipulate or create weather, And or WARM up the Ocean temps to purposely enhance the Hurricane season and Storm growth. Keep in mind that many of our hurricanes and many of the biggest hurricanes have come from the west coast of Africa and form over the Cape Verde islands before heading towards the Caribbean and the United States. This is all of course speculation, and I'm learning many new things every day, so this idea may morph over time as we learn more. In the end, it is very hard to ignore all these findings. #antarctica #anonaly #AntarcticaAnomaly #BouvetIslandshow more

OK, I have a definitive word on the CJ... Abrams play from today's Pittsburgh Pirates at Washington Nationals game after talking with Elias Sports Bureau on this. This play will stay as a sacrifice fly. The originial ruling of NOT a sacrifice fly was for the exact same reason that I thought, which is that the infielder is not running into the outfield, which is year's past would have been correct As it was explained to me, in past years, an infielder had to be running almost in a straight line towards the outfield wall to be considered "running in the outfield". Here, since he is running, and he ends up further away from home (157 feet) than when he started (145 feet), this is going to count as a sacrifice fly. That definition is changing, in part from this play to help bring greater consistency, and to take some of the guesswork out of it (the argument that he is running into the outfield as opposed to more parallel). Now, folks all the time ask "why doesn't MLB publish the OS Manual" and I always say because it is a living document that can have the wording change, and the wording for this play will be modified to something like "more towards the outfield wall than towards home plate" to eliminate any confusion. The big key to this play is that he was running on a full sprint. Also, and this is helpful for me, but for all fly ball outs that score a run, Elias Saba reviews to ensure consistency. So, yes, it's a sacrifice fly, and now that I have that info from Elias themselves, that sort of settles this one. Sounds like the guidelines for this definition will be changing, either this season, or certainly for next season.show more

even so, I trust that any new watcher will... be able to pick up what's going on. The people who made the OVAs shown from time and time again that they have faith in their viewers that they'll be able to understand the world building that culminated to this point. You can start the other shows prior to this, either before or after this OVA and it will still feel like a proper climax leading up to this. The story beats in this show are pretty good in the sense that anyone can understand it, it's not universally profound but it does a good job in highlighting perspectives of every side and have a glimpse at what happened that lead up to it.show more

Wondering if you are “quad dominant” in your throw... and if you should change it? Maybe you shouldn’t 🤷‍♂️ A coach’s post coming from Austin Roark 🚀⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ One question I get from a lot of athletes is whether they should change their lower half because their knee is over their toe during their loading phase down the mound. ⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ The biggest thing that I look for when trying to figure out if it is an issue or not is to see how they are able to get out of that position. Some guys are able to leverage and rotate from that position extremely well, which then I would say that it’s not an issue.⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ On the other hand, there are some guys who will get out of this position by driving extension out of their back leg, killing their ability to rotate their pelvis and get it in an open position into landing.⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ This is when I would suggest trying to make a change. I think a lot of people jump into certain ideologies that you shouldn’t do certain things because it’s “inefficient” or it looks “wrong”. ⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ Take a look at these pitchers shown in the video. All 3 of these high level arms have some degree of knee flexion over their toe. Now, granted, they all have insane levers to help them, but the way they are moving is what makes them efficient in how they throw. ⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ I think if you told Dustin May that he had to hold a vertical shin down the mound, it would be a disaster and mess a lot of things up upstream that would impact him in a negative way.⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ The big takeaway here is that there are no absolutes. One thing that may look inefficient to you could be the thing that makes someone else very efficient.⠀⁠ -⠀⁠ When trying to figure out if you should change something about someone's delivery, make sure to look at the entire unit as a whole and don’t jump into any quick changes.show more

Brooks Koepka leaving LIV Golf is an obvious blow... to the league. But, it would be a considerably bigger blow if Bryson DeChambeau were to do the same. Bryson is contracted through the end of 2026, but he’s currently in discussions to extend early. Speaking exclusively to Tom Hobbs from Flushing It Golf, he spoke about the current situation: “I mean, look, it's confidential. I’m not going to share too much, but the conversations are in process. We have to get to a place where both parties have a good understanding of one another. It is getting to a place that makes sense for both sides. “And, I think that can happen, but you never know. Life throws curve balls and, obviously, we saw what happened today (Brooks Koepka leaving LIV Golf) and that was quite a shock to a lot of people and something that, you know, it is what it is. “People make decisions for whatever their needs and wants are and, ultimately, you have to respect it and move on and it feels like it was a mutual understanding and that's great. “I think that as a league now we have more opportunity to make some movements and I think that team has an opportunity to do some things differently than the past few seasons. So, we'll see where it all goes and where it all leads. Ultimately, it's quite interesting.” It certainly is interesting. Throughout the season, LIV Golf officials were trying desperately to convince media members that Brooks was happy and committed to the league and his franchise, when perhaps they were actually just trying to convince themselves. So, were the players aware he felt this way and did they expect the news to come so soon, before the end of his current contract? “There was always rumblings, but ultimately, it was a shock when I saw it today. I was like, whoa, all right, well, didn't know it was going to happen today. I didn't have that on my bingo card for the 23rd of December. “There's also, people can look at it as an opportunity. I always look at it as when one door closes another opens, right? And, I'm not going to speak for LIV, but I think that's what we're thinking of, at least from my perspective. If I was running the league, I'd look at it as an opportunity, not in a negative or positive way. It's just, it is what it is, right?” Bryson makes an interesting point. Brooks was never really committed to his captaincy of Smash GC or building a franchise, so perhaps a change of leadership and the opportunity that offers is actually a positive. There’s no point in having a big name player on the league if he’s not even prepared to wear his own team branding. So, now that Brooks has officially left, does Bryson think Brooks should be allowed back onto the PGA Tour? “I don't know, man. I don't know what they should allow or not… If they're going to be doing it by the book, they should do it by the book and not give any special exemption. But if there's a special exemption, it definitely opens the doors for others to do the same, which, you know, it's a slippery slope for sure.” Currently, no official pathway back to the PGA Tour for Brooks Koepka has been announced. So, any decision that is made will definitely be something all players on the LIV Golf League will be paying very close attention to. Follows on in a quote of this post. Bryson DeChambeau Crushers GC LIV Golfshow more

When Brayden Point came into the league, drafted 79th... overall, people questioned his ability to skate. Jon Cooper said his first impression of Point was that he struggled to skate. So, what did No. 21 do? He worked tirelessly to improve, becoming one of the best skaters in the world. Yes, I know he struggled this year, posting 18 goals & 32 assists through 63 games. It’s not great. But if anyone can work his way out of a slump, it’s Brayden Point. “I learned some things in my game that I gotta get better at. Now it’s about putting in the work, and this Summer is going to be a great opportunity to work on those things I identified.” - Brayden Point (during exit interviews). (🎥) - Here’s a glimpse of the Brayden Point we needed more of this season & what we can expect in 2026-27. I’m predicting 50 goals out of Pointer next year. Am I nuts?! #GoBoltsshow more

UPDATE: my wife and I agreed last night, that... if Echo puked at all this morning, even once even a little bit, or if he refused to eat…. we would be taking him to the vet for a sonogram because our concern at that point would be a spleen or a pancreas or a blockage of some kind - but I am happy to report that Echo managed to eat a third full cup of chicken and rice assertively today and no puking yet. So that’s probably 3 cups in total, today with no pukes. We are in the process of rebuilding the stomach lining that was puked out mostly all over my driveway over the past day and a half. It really does feel like we’ve been able to get things stabilized now. THANKS AGAIN, for all the incoming love and support and prayers. I’m like 80% we’re on the mend now. We even got in a short walk at the park, today. (notice the IV shaving on the right front leg).show more

And, the way you always keep the most important... person for last, the fact that the apogee of his acceptance speech was about Connor.. he had me sobbing, cause of how completely unguarded and raw Hudson is here. The way the emotion is slowly building up, as he is going down that list, his voice cracking a bit, his hands shaking. And he can feel it slowly, tears forming in his eyes, tears he is holding in the best he can. As he is holding that award, so firmly, that last name on his list, the one that felt like an awakening. He is the one he'd want to hold right there (or rather be held 🥺). The one who is more than a scene partner, more than a best friend, his "emotional support person in life", his "soulmate", his anchor even. Cracking a joke or two to try to release a bit of pressure, but when comes the point of saying his name "to the honorary Canadian Connor Storrie, I share this award with you." and not find his face, his eyes, his smile in front of him, the absence is screaming in his chest and the tears are closer than ever. Cause to be here, and for that to happen not side by side, like everything they've experienced for the past year or so, this doesn't feel quite right. "A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty" So yes he got through that speech without crying (barely), but not without beautifully opening his heart up to us before, and showing just how much he loves him 💓show more

UPDATE: Charlie Kirk Blood Spatter, Earpiece, or Necklace? This... video is going viral from someone named RangeDayBro on YouTube, saying this is 100% evidence Charlie was shot in the head, BUT… it’s kinda wrong. I was the original person to point out that something looked like it hit Charlies right side of his head when it happened… when I first started looking, I thought the exact same thing he did about the “Blood Splatter”. But I kept slowing down the video, and discovered what appears to be an earpiece or necklace. He also gets the “FLASH” wrong, 100% wrong. Stating that’s where the shooter was.. then said he was hiding in the bush. After combing through video footage, I found what I believe to be 100% the muzzle flash. The shot did not and could not have come from that location because it’s merely the top window panel of the interior hall of flags (I think that’s what it’s called.) The muzzle flash was 100% a reflection off that glass panel from a far off distance, notably in the same general direction they said the shooter was. (See post below) Conclusion: Now, I’m not saying he couldn’t have been shot from anywhere else.. nor in any direction. In fact, I don’t buy the story at all that his neck bones stopped that bullet. As we saw that day, there were several distractions, which I feel played a significant role to allow the real people to get away. I’m only saying his suggestion about the “blood spatter” is just his earpiece or most likely a necklace... It’s important to be accurate and process eliminate these things. Maybe Turning Point USA can confirm if in fact his necklace did pop off, it could settle some of these “theories”. All we want is the truth.show more

Today is the birthday of the great Malcolm X.... His message is still relevant today because we still live under the same capitalist system that has to change for things to get better. “You’re living at a time of revolution. A time where there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it. And now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built. I will join with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”show more

While I have premium I definitely want to do... a long post breaking down the main scene from this show that I obsess with. There's so much that I feel could be learned from it. Not just for expansion animators either. There's honestly a LOT that can be learned from how this show directed its expansion scenes that can be applied to even safe for work animations. Obviously yes, the expansion alone is really good. What makes it so good though is just the fact that there's things you pick up on that you likely don't even realize until you re-watch. I'm using this scene as an example as it's not AS good I would say, but it still has a lot going for it. One thing I've always loved from it that I want to use in my own animations someday is that the expansion sort of comes in waves as opposed to one consistent growth. In a way, it makes it feel more natural while also selling how tight the top is getting. It could have been accompanied by showing the knot getting tighter or smaller with each growth. It's a small part of the animation but just that one thing already adds another layer to appreciate. It's not like most expansion scenes where there's very little outside of just "growing" on its own. There's a bunch of little things that subtly improve it without being obnoxious. The first expansion scene has WAY more that I want to talk about honestly. Far more than this one has. It will probably be a really long post now that I think about it...show more

Today, I received a call I will not forget.... I had just woken up after studying through the night. As I prepared to pray, my phone kept ringing. I ignored it at first, but it persisted. When I finally answered, the voice on the other end said: “Pastor… my brother has died.” Silence filled my chest. He had been sick. Sleeping outside in the cold after the rains. Trying to survive in a city that is becoming increasingly unforgiving. His sister visited him with some food. He seemed better afterwards. But then, he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. His sister was far away working. Pain does strange things to people. Sometimes it hardens the very heart that needs help the most. By the time his sister returned… he was already fading. And shortly after, he was gone. What broke me even more was this: She said she didn’t call earlier because she knew things have been tight, and I hadn’t been able to meet many of their needs recently. That sentence pierced deeply. This was a man who struggled—yes. He battled alcoholism. He fell, rose, and fell again. But he also believed. Just last Sunday, after a long absence, he came back to church. He said his spirit was restless until he returned. He worshipped. He served. That was the last time. I wasn’t there that day. And now, he lies in a morgue—another quiet casualty of hardship, addiction, and a city that demands more than many can give. But here is what I hold onto: God is not absent in broken stories. The same grace that meets us in our strength also meets us in our weakness. The One who began a work is not blind to the battles fought in secret. We must do better—for one another. We must see more, reach more, love more. Because sometimes, what looks like “irresponsibility” is actually exhaustion. What looks like “resistance” is actually pain. And what looks like “distance” is often a silent cry for help. Rest in peace, Brother Hassan Musa. May mercy speak louder than failure. And may God help us to be more present, more compassionate, and more responsive to the burdens around us.show more

Has been a while since I've given an update... so here's a breakdown of where Sappy is at right now and what we're focusing on going into this year. Pre-amble: With altcoins & NFTs the market is definitely not the same as it was before. I think this is obvious to everyone but I've noticed there are still japanese soldiers that are convinced old tricks and mechanics work. They don't. Liquidity is thin; people want to bid assets that feel like "real companies" not vacuous memecoins. There's still room for memecoins, social currencies, and "utility tokens" (I would say without these functions, tokens are hard to justify versus equities). I'm not part of the camp that thinks there will never be hyperspeculation in crypto again, because there will be; we all love ponzis and PvPing each other onchain. Just not with solved games -- people need something new and fresh. So the overarching plan is to continue building for users, sustainable revenues that aren't tied to directly to crypto, and doubling down on the areas that we've already found PMF / Brand Market Fit. Then leaning into crypto during cyclical periods where liquidity is sloshing around at an accelerated rate. Where we've found early PMF / what we're leaning into: Roblox: we're going to continue to go hard and accelerate here. It's our main objective to ship more seal/brainrot focused games across most genres to cast as wide of a net as we can for the brand, and to also iterate and see what works and stays sticky. Our initial incursion into Roblox was very successful peaking at 2M+ MAU and still sustaining a large portion of that player base... for all of its success, that was a relatively amateur first attempt; we've been setting up better AI pipelines for Roblox development that makes it reasonable to ship many more games and 10x those player counts in totality. It's my belief that Roblox is the sandbox whose audience will be the most valuable on the internet once they are grown up. That intense feeling you get when you see a TikTok referencing an old game you enjoyed on the PS2 or the Gamecube, or when you see a Pokemon card is the exact same feeling the youth of today will get when reminiscing on the things they enjoyed engaging with when they were younger. Fortnite and Roblox are functional equivalents to the old school consoles and exactly where that is taking place. Which is why as much as I care about scaling revenues through Roblox, the long term brand equity gained purely through being popular on the platform is totally invaluable. It also can heavily convert to merchandise sales today if all touchpoints for the brand are dialed in (which is why brands get overcharged so much by Roblox dev shops for the same ROI that only cost us a few thousand $). We have the playbook, it's just about iterating new concepts and then aggressively scaling. Brand Expansion & Merchandising: I've started to create a content pipeline that is easily repeatable, cost efficient (costs next to nothing through either AI or smart reusable concepts), while still being very tasteful and meeting our quality standards for the brand. We are mostly focusing here on reaching people where they're at through nostalgic/emotional content, or just being visually stimulating through carefully curated aesthetics. Content that isn't superficial and touches people in a memorable way. I've attached some examples to the post so you can see what I mean rather than just read it. I don't think it's long until larger brands start doing this at scale, but it's always good to be ahead of the curve and most importantly winning on taste -- knowing what will resonate with people and what won't has always been our edge. The purpose for these accounts is not only to rack up attention but also to begin converting those into sales of both of physicals (plushies & gacha collectibles) and digital avenues like our games, and any other apps we produce. Because they're offshoot accounts it's also a lot easier to be aggressive/experimental with said conversion strategies. Sappy Studio: I'm wrapping everything like Omnia, and everything else into this category because they're all tangentially related. Beginning with Omnia, our current focus is gearing up for Season 0 which involves players competing in the ranked ladder for a prize pool that has rewards through Monad Momentum as well as a player-funded prize pool. This season will be fairly simple with us mostly logging retention, deck building habits, as well as qualitatively observing how aggressively players push the combat system. Deeper monetization wont exist yet outside of the player buy-in (to be eligible for P2E rewards). Beyond that our overarching principle this year is to focus heavily on risk-to-earn mechanics where a portion of that excess value is circular i.e. revenues flow back to prize pools or other parts of the economy, treating the game almost like a protocol where the objective is to amass TVL or player liquidity. Social is also a big focus, and that means implementing the Open World hub which from an infrastructure perspective has already been built out and tested by all of you previously. Right now we are scaffolding the environment in 3D and working through how that hub should look and feel, so players are excited to hang out & idle together while they're queuing. For sappydotlol, what I'm about to say is still early days from a design perspective so a lot can change, but I'm pushing the site in the direction of being a virtual game console. An intersection between Nintendo & Myspace where users can play, trade, and socially interact in a way that's deeply personalised; a breathe of fresh air from the hostility of the current internet. If you go back to my thesis on Roblox above and the game console references, you can kind of see how this will all sequentially tie together. In essence, the strategy is to acquire a critical mass of players through traditional platforms like Roblox, and use that attention and trust to provide an onboarding funnel for web2 users into our own sandbox filled with a mixture of our own browser-based experiences as well as an aggregation of others. The aim is to make the platform a breath of fresh air & bunker from the enshittified platforms like TikTok/IG/X where users are actually served in ways that delight rather than agitate, and where self-expression is incentivised. Closing: As always everything here is subject to change but I've never felt more conviction in our direction until now; I know exactly what we need to do and how, with everything aligning with our team's strengths. Very excited and grinding through things to the point where I'm getting headaches and can't sleep from being hyperfocused for long periods of time lol. There probably has never been a better time to join the ecosystem from a price to fuck around and find out perspective.show more

"Pros won’t use generative AI, and when the bubble... pops, nobody will ever talk about it again." No. That’s delusional. 1/ Generative AI is already being used professionally at the level of big studios like Disney ($1B to OpenAI), and there’s zero doubt that studios like Industrial Light & Magic, Netflix, Hollywood VFX experts, etc. are already experimenting with it too. Or do you think they’re idiots? They’re not idiots at all. They have the experience and, more importantly, the DISTRIBUTION POWER. The point is: someone with taste, judgment, and storytelling experience, basically from their living room, will have access to (almost, or not even almost) the same capability as the big guys, because the pure "making stuff" skills have been commoditized, and the new way to create is just NATURAL LANGUAGE. What hasn’t been commoditized is good taste, the ability to create great stories that move people, and the ability to get them in front of people. So in the end, what wins is story quality and distribution. Having good taste, making a name for yourself, and owning strong IP (Marvel, etc.) will still matter. That’ll be true right up until AI is genuinely opinionated and can create by itself: if it comes to that, with zero human direction, stuff as good as (or better than) the very best human experts today, and on top of that, interactive in real time... Because yeah: there’s nothing in this universe that actually prevents that from happening. BUT WE’RE NOT THERE. For now, generative AI is a tool that needs direction and taste to make anything decent. And I hope it stays that way for a long time, because otherwise that’s going to be a brutal hit to humanity’s ego. 2/ On the "bubble": you have to distinguish between a stock valuation bubble (possible, I actually believe it) vs a bubble like some people imagine where it "pops" and we never hear about AI again. That obviously makes no sense given how insanely useful it is. It can only grow, and it’s going to grow fast, regardless of any stock market drawdowns (the internet kept growing even when valuations got nuked in 2000). Either way, the near future is going to be extremely interesting.show more

Snapshot of something Mike Vrabel expressed frustration with this... morning: He sees Hunter Henry (bottom of screen) trying to communicate with the official 15 yards away/do the right thing alignment-wise … and still get penalized. “I’ll have to try to get some clarification on that — how we are going to do this going forward,” Vrabel says. Earlier today, in his radio interview, Vrabel shared that he was irked with over-officiating at the line of scrimmage. “If our guys are going to look over; I get that we have to be legal. But for as long as I can remember in this league, the refs are going to try to officiate proactively and work with the players. “If it’s a hold, call a hold. If it’s defensive pass interference, call defensive pass interference. But at the line of scrimmage, if players are going to try to get the formation correct … we’re not going to tell them that they are either on the line of scrimmage or they have them off? They’re just going to sit there and tap their knee? “I don’t know what that is. That’s frustrating that we are that literal as an officiating department — if that is indeed what they are telling them. … “I didn’t know when we were going to start officiating the line of scrimmage and not communicate with our players. Because in the end, the relationship the players have with officials, I think can be really positive and they can explain the mechanics they’re looking for.”show more

I've been working in silence for quite a while... now. Tbh, I don't really even know where to start, so cue the rambling and ranting. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, no one can argue the past few years haven't been politically and economically wild. For crypto as a whole it feels like a never ending game of tug of war. A lot of X content has become toxic, so I just largely am not interacting these days. But I read, I read a lot of it. I think we like to forget history a bit in this community. $PLS launched off the highs, and the SEC swooped in right after. Very few people want to admit it, but it shook confidence immediately. I mean no other crypto project has survived such a thing at the time. But #PLS $PLSX and $HEX did. However, winning doesn't unshake that confidence. And RH during and after that event took social precautions to protect himself and his creations. Thing is, the guy isn't stupid. Someone once asked me if I thought certain aspects of the launch we rushed because he knew it was coming? And honestly, maybe. I'd attribute at least a non-zero probability to it. And If that were the case, im glad it was rushed. That case may have gone differently otherwise. Do I still think #PulseChain, #HEX, etc... all have futures? Yes. RH has had the opportunity to just straight up bounce from all of this. Why hasn't he? You could point to exhibit A, B, C, D, etc... of how he's likely got the funds to do that and we all could relatively do nothing about it. So why is he still around? I think it's pretty simple. The usual answer, he wants to win. It's in his twitter handle for Christs sakes. I'll go a step further and say he likely also wants us to win by extension, arguably not as much as he wins, but I mean that's pretty locked in at the moment 🤣 That's not to say he hasn't long been encumbered. And in that state, at lot has gone on without him. Much of which is / was bad. $pDAI guys... I pointed out from day one how building all this around a protocol in a dangerous state was a risky move. And I was right about that.... on multiple occasions... But does that matter now? I suppose not as much. In its current state, it's seemingly no longer exploitable. No different than a meme token now. (presumably, not like I have deep dove on any further risks since ESM). So I guess just whale risk mainly now? Now a lot of people here are in the anti-pdai camp. Me too for what it's worth. But I don't care as much about it's negative anymore in its current state. A lot of people are still in the #pDAI camp strongly. We view this as tribalism, but it's important to note that makes all of us in the #PulseChain camp universally. So these day I find myself relatively pDAI neutral. If you guys want to send it to $1 do it. Only whales can stop you, they run out eventually. (insert super strong this is NOT financial advice). Hell you can maybe even use Sigma to help? Or maybe it wont help, idk. Depends on how people use the software. Conversely, when looking at chain state overall... Why is there nearly $50M in stables sitting on the sidelines. Why not just bridge it out if you want out of what you think is a dead chain. Surely leaving it there exposes you to bridge risk? Why all these yield movements, why the $HEX dusts.... Something is happening. People are seemingly waiting to see what that something is. Or I am reading into things, NFA as always. This whole post is just ramblings of someone trying to do the best they can and certainly not any kind of advice. When I look at other ecosystems, I see a level of polish we don't have. I see tooling we don't have, I see a fostered developer environment we don't have. So I've just been building it, painstakingly.... Because someone has to if we want to be taken seriously. And what I've been building has allowed me to get Sigma to where it is. Sigma is so close... Really just in UI mode, performance optimization, going through nice to haves. I don't believe in launching in a non-finished immutable state. So yeah, I take my time. As with everything. But my point with all of this, and the "why" #Sigma question.... It's unifying, anyone can participate. Which tribe you're in doesn't matter. And if you don't like it, don't use it. It's just software you can use or not use. As it should be. The years of tooling work to deliver this has been a lot of work for one guy in silence. In that time AI has appeared. My take, every dev should be using it. Given the right direction and context. It will make you better. If you blindly trust it, it will make you worse. GPT 5.4 audits smart contracts better than most auditing services. Especially if you give it the context of what you are trying to do. Anyways I digress, testnet is soon. Soon more meaning a feeling of near completion not always reality. That how software is. I do think Sigma stands to unify the chain in a common goal, and shift liquidity into more meaningful places, but ultimately it up to the people the decide to use the software or not use it. And after these frameworks I've built will be applied to what I am tentatively calling the universal hex UI. More or less something aggregative of every derivative I can reasonably support. With data and analytics we since lost. So not just $HEX, $HDRN, and $ICSA, but others as well. However, that depends on some aspect of $Sigma to exist first, so sigma first, chain unity first. And last but not least, take care of yourselves and strive to do cool things. If we aren't doing cool things then what's the point? Hope you think my UI looks good, I spent a while on it. /rantshow more

"PRICE IS WHAT YOU PAY. VALUE IS WHAT YOU... GET." I keep buying $Kekec and I have a strong conviction. Here's Why: While the market is down, and Kekec is declining with it, there are data points that few are considering. Kekec borned in October and since then has been posting a different and original 30-second video every day, which I find extremely funny. For the past couple of months, they have also been posting daily on Instagram, and the attention on Kekec (which doesn't present itself on social media as a memecoin) is growing, moreover, it's increasing exponentially. The number of followers is increasing by about 500-1000 a day. This is largely due to the fact that they are not just focused on the main account but have several others that post reels and redirect to the main one. In short, an excellent strategy to keep growing more and more. Instagram link: Guess What? Not only are the followers increasing, but the team's workload is also growing. In fact, for a little over a month, they have also started pushing on YouTube, and the data here is promising as well. YouTube link: If we want to make a comparison, we can take Pudgy Penguins as an example, which has shown it can reach millions and millions of users without mentioning that they are a WEB3 company that owns an NFT collection. Or, if we want to be more appropriate by comparing one memecoin to another, we could take PONKE. Thanks to the use of social media and the quality of their content, they managed to achieve incredible numbers, which then translated into an increase in the coin's price. Kekec came before PONKE, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better than PONKE. I believe PONKE is unbeatable in terms of content, but I want to make you reflect on an important point. PONKE came after KEKEC, and after PONKE's success, many coins have emerged trying to imitate it. One of KEKEC's strengths, in my opinion, is precisely the fact that it leverages social media without being a copy-paste. Instead, it is a unique meme derived from a 90's film, and it uses a unique form of content. In short, KEKEC > KEKEC and no one else. I want to conclude by suggesting you follow them on Instagram and evaluate not only the exponential growth of their followers day by day but also observe how the views of each reel increase accordingly. Pay special attention to the comments. Many of the people commenting have no idea what it is, and you can see from the comments how Kekec generates particular emotions in people—strange but still emotions. Personally, I believe that when something is unique and even very strange, it needs time to be adopted. However, once it happens, it usually explodes and spreads like never before. A few days ago, a Kekec video was posted by a very popular meme page. They probably don't know what Kekec is about but thought the video could spark interest among their followers. How many other pages will do the same? Lastly, but not least, I want to point out how Kekec maintains a good market cap despite everything that has happened in the crypto world since October 2023. As far as I know and have personally observed, everything is extremely organic. There is no cabal behind it, and the quality is not reflected in a single jpeg but in work that has been ongoing daily for months. Every day they work harder, and the quality of their videos grows as well. I have no affiliations with the team, but I believe that Kekec truly deserves more in this world where we push celebrity or cabal-backed coins to hundreds of millions in market cap. I keep buying because the numbers suggest so. Don't just evaluate the chart (price), evaluate the data (value). BÂLKÂN DWÂRFshow more

I haven’t followed the Epstein story closely and don’t... have strong, settled views on it. But even from a distance, a few things are obvious. There’s literally a video of Alan Dershowitz admitting he got a massage at Epstein’s mansion. That alone—just the basic fact that Epstein had “masseuses” hanging around ready to give “massages” to his guests—makes it all but certain that a lot of people got those massages, and very likely that at least some of those encounters went beyond massages. That much, I take as a given. The real question, then, is what Epstein was actually doing? Was he simply offering his friends a good time? Was it transactional, i.e. exchanging favors or deals for access to these “services”? Or was he collecting blackmail material? Any of those are plausible, and others may be too. But calling the whole thing a hoax falls apart the second you watch that clip. Dershowitz’s own admission proves there’s a there there. Now, it may not have been as widespread or depraved as some have claimed. Some of the women involved gave contradictory testimony. That doesn’t erase what happened, but it might mean the scope was narrower than assumed. Still, people have a right to ask how far it all went. What the government should be saying is simple: Yes, the rollout was a disaster, especially the ridiculous “binder” stunt. Yes, Epstein was a predator. Yes, Alex Acosta never should have let him off. Yes, it is probably too late to piece everything together. And yes, we cannot reliably determine how old some of the girls were or exactly who did what and that is also why names cannot simply be released, because, as Dershowitz claims of himself, some guests may have engaged in conduct that was technically legal and consensual. And at the very least, one basic question should be easy to answer: did Epstein work for U.S. intelligence? He’s dead. They can say yes or no.show more