By BY JULIET MACUR from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3fhoouG
Saturday, 31 July 2021
Simone Biles has withdrawn from the gymnastics floor exercise final.
By BY JULIET MACUR from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3fhoouG
Demonstrations against France’s vaccine pass surge for a third weekend, even as cases rise.
By BY AURELIEN BREEDEN from NYT World https://ift.tt/3rJhKSK
LNMC With ZZ Top
I’m down in my happy place Sayulita, Mexico and am gutted to hear about the death of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill. Dusty was a great human and one of my all time favorite bass players. Here’s a favorite of theirs about my favorite place.
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With seven medals at one Olympics, Emma McKeon ties a record.
By BY RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3xhoZTh
LBJ’s Daughter Delivers Powerful Message For Voting Rights
Saturday’s rally at the Texas Capitol building was the culmination of a 27-mile march, modeled after the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama that helped get the Voting Rights Act passed that year – under Texan President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
With Texas poised to pass a horrific voter suppression bill, Luci Baines Johnson, now 74, told MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart why she felt “I just have to do my part” to pressure Congress to protect voting rights with the For The People Act.
JOHNSON: Today, I'm 74 years old. Can you imagine what it would be like for me to meet my father one day in heaven and say I didn't do my part? This is the only place i can be, because generations of Johnsons are forever on the side of justice. And we shall not sleep until all of us shall overcome bigotry's strangle on our nation.
Capehart asked what her father would say about his daughter marching to protect the vote, 56 years after he signed the Voting Rights Bill.
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Caeleb Dressel of the U.S. and Emma McKeon of Australia sprint to gold in swimming’s finale.
By BY ANDREW KEH from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3fh1T93
2 Dead in Random Shooting at ‘Purge’ Movie, Officials Say
By BY JESUS JIMÉNEZ from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3xfQz3g
Swalwell Doubts The GOP Will Have The Courage To Testify
Congressman Eric Swalwell joined Jonathan Capehart to discuss revelations about Jim Jordan's possible/probably/definite calls on January 6th with The Former Guy. One of the most interesting questions lingering, and one that is definitely haunting Jim Jordan right now, is whether he will be called as a witness, like when Hillary Clinton was called in front of the Benghazi Committee — and testified for a marathon 11 hours. Can Qevin or Jordan make it even 11 minutes? Or will they just plead the 5th and refuse to testify at all?
CAPEHART: To your point on who's responsible, you and I have talked about this -- actually, we talked about it last night. We're going to talk about it again. Even a listen to Congressman Jim Jordan.
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(bananas clip of a stuttering Jim "I don't own a blazer like a big boy" Jordan)
CAPEHART: Yeah, that's not the clip I thought it was. It was the hum-nah, hum-nah, hum-nah clip, when he was asked this stuff from the notes from the former acting assistant AG, saying that the president said 'leave it to me and the Republican Congressman.' But how worried should Congressman Jim Jordan be about his role, such as it was, that we know so far, on January 6th and the work of the Select Committee?
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Demand for shots is increasing in less-vaccinated states under siege from the Delta variant.
By BY EDUARDO MEDINA from NYT World https://ift.tt/2WHZduL
Cori Bush, Once Homeless, Introduces Unhoused Bill Of Rights
Housing advocates and experts on Wednesday applauded Rep. Cori Bush following her introduction of an Unhoused Bill of Rights, a resolution aimed at ending the U.S. homelessness crisis by 2025.
Bush (D-Mo.)—who was formerly unhoused—described the measure (pdf) as "the first federal resolution to declare unalienable rights for unhoused persons and provide solutions to permanently end the crisis by 2025."
"In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, this resolution illustrates the interconnectedness of the unhoused and public health crises," she added.
Bush said in a statement that "the unhoused crisis in our country is a public health emergency, and a moral and policy failure at every level of our government. As someone who has lived in her car with my two infants while I was working a full-time job, I know the daily trauma and stress that comes with the perpetual instability of not having a safe place to live."
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A transgender weight lifter’s presence at the Games prompts discussions over inclusion and fairness.
By BY TARIQ PANJA AND KEN BELSON from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2V8xMd2
U.S. broadcast coverage on Saturday evening includes golf, swimming and baseball.
By BY REBECCA THOMAS from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3icMkRw
Swimming and golf wrap up as track and field heats up on Day 9.
By BY VICTOR MATHER from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2Vpc0BG
Protests against France’s vaccine pass surge for a third weekend, even as cases rise.
By BY AURELIEN BREEDEN from NYT World https://ift.tt/3fhv7EE
233 staff members at 2 San Francisco hospitals have tested positive, most in breakthrough Delta infections.
By BY EDUARDO MEDINA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3zXEkda
Delta Variant Drives Global Virus Surge, W.H.O. Warns
By BY THE NEW YORK TIMES from NYT World https://ift.tt/2TKFJEy
‘It’s Nowhere Near Over’: A Beach Town’s Gust of Freedom, Then a U-turn
By BY ELLEN BARRY AND BETH TREFFEISEN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2WHBc75
San Marino becomes the smallest country to win an Olympic medal.
By BY VICTOR MATHER from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3yumY7H
How to Put a Stop to Russia’s New Form of Organized Crime
By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3xkFi1s
How Strong Is Trump’s Grip on the G.O.P.?
By BY ROSS DOUTHAT from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3yg5Imn
¿El escritor de ‘El código Da Vinci’ tiene un secreto?
By BY CAITY WEAVER from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/37aZrfJ
Here’s what happened on Saturday at the Tokyo Games.
By BY VICTOR MATHER from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3fgGixy
Friday, 30 July 2021
Florida’s governor plans to sign an order ‘protecting the rights of parents’ on masks in schools.
By BY SARAH MERVOSH from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2WIbZcN
From ‘Call My Agent!’ to Hollywood Career
By BY NICOLE SPERLING from NYT Movies https://ift.tt/2V0rFHQ
In BMX racing, danger is never far from the lead.
By BY JOHN BRANCH from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3ya5gGd
Lakers’ Russell Westbrook Deal Shifts Power Back to Los Angeles
By BY JONATHAN ABRAMS from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3zY2J2t
As patients stream into a Covid I.C.U. in Florida, hopes fade.
By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI from NYT World https://ift.tt/2WFpNof
Guggenheim Museum Curators Move to Join a Union
By BY COLIN MOYNIHAN from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/3zXN3MH
Yat thinks emoji ‘identities’ can be a thing, and it has $20M in sales to back it up
I learned about Yat in April, when a friend sent our group chat a link to a story about how the key emoji sold as an “internet identity” for $425,000. “I hate the universe,” she texted.
Sure, the universe would be better if people with a spare $425,000 spent it on mutual aid or something, but minutes later, we were trying to figure out what this whole Yat thing was all about. And few more minutes later, I spent $5 (in USD, not crypto) to buy 
, an emoji string that I think tells a moving story about my caffeine dependency and sensitive stomach. I didn’t think I would be writing about this when I made that choice.
Kesha’s Yat URL on Twitter
On the surface, Yat is a platform that lets you buy a URL with emojis in it — even Kesha (y.at/
), Lil Wayne (y.at/
), and Disclosure (y.at/
) are using them in their Twitter bios. Like any URL on the internet, Yats can redirect to another website, or they can function like a more eye-catching Linktree. While users could purchase their own domain name that supports emojis and use it instead of a Yat, many people don’t have the technical expertise or time to do so. Instead, they can make one-time purchase from Yat, which owns the Y.at domain, and the company will provide your with your own y.at subdomain for you.
This convenience, however, comes at a premium. Yat uses an algorithm to determine your Yat’s “rhythm score,” its metric for determining how to price your emoji combo based on its rarity. Yats with one or two emojis are so expensive that you have to contact the company directly to buy them, but you can easily find a four- or five-emoji identity that’ll only put you out $4.
Beyond that, CEO Naveen Jain — a Y Combinator alumnus, founder of digital marketing company Sparkart, and angel investor — thinks that Yat is ultimately an internet privacy product. Jain wants people to be able to use their Yats in any way they’re able to use an online identity now, whether that’s to make payments, send messages, host a website, or login to a platform.
“Objectively, it’s a strange norm. You go on the internet, you register accounts with ad-supported platforms, and your username isn’t universal. You have many accounts, many usernames,” Jain said. “And you don’t control them. If an account wants to shut you down, they shut you down. How many stories are there of people trying to email some social network, and they don’t respond because they don’t have to?”
Image Credits: Yat (opens in a new window)
Yat doesn’t plan to fuel itself with ad money, since users pay for the product when they purchase their Yat, whether they get it for $4 or $400,000.
In the long run, Yat’s CEO says the company plans to use blockchain technology as a way to become self-sovereign. Yats would become assets issued on decentralized, distributed databases. Today, there are several projects working to create a decentralized alternative to the current domain name system (DNS), which is managed by internet regulatory authority ICANN. DNS is how you find things on the internet, but uses a centralized, hierarchical system. A blockchain domain name system would have no central authority, and some believe this could be the foundation of a next-gen web, or “Web 3.0.”
Today, words like “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” don’t appear on the Yat website. Jain doesn’t think that’s compelling to average consumers — he believes in progressive decentralization, which explains why Yats are currently purchased with dollars, not ethereum.
“Something we think is really funny about the cryptocurrency world is that anyone who’s a part of it spends a lot of time talking about databases,” Jain said. “People don’t care about databases. When’s the last time you went to a website and it said ‘powered by MySQL’?”
Y.at, however, was registered at a traditional internet registrar, not on the blockchain.
“We agree that this is early stage, there’s no debate about that,” said Jain. “This is laying the foundation — there are certain elements of the vision that are certainly more of a social contract than actual implementation at this point in time. But this is the vision that we’ve set forth, and we’re working continuously towards that goal.”
Still, until Yat becomes more decentralized, it can’t yet give users the complete control it aspires to. At present, the Terms & Conditions give Yat the authority to terminate or suspend users at its discretion, but the company claims it hasn’t yet booted anyone from the system.
“As Yat becomes more decentralized, our terms and conditions won’t be important,” Jain said. “This is the nature of pursuing a progressive decentralization strategy.”
In its “generation zero” phase (an open beta), Yat has sold almost $20 million worth of emoji identities. Now, as the waitlist to get a Yat ends, Yat is posting some rare emoji identities on OpenSea, the NFT marketplace that recently reached a valuation of $1.5 billion.
A still image of a Yat visualizer creation
“For the first time ever, we’re going to be auctioning some Yats on OpenSea, and we’re going to be launching minting of Yats on Ethereum,” Jain said. Before minting Yats as NFTs, users can create a digital art landscape for their Yats through a Visualizer. These features, as well as new emojis in the Yat emoji set, will launch this evening at a virtual event called Yat Horizon.
“Yat Creators will now have more rights,” Jain said about the new ability to mint Yats as NFTs. “We are going to continue to pursue progressive decentralization until we achieve our ultimate goal: making Yat the best self-directed, self-sovereign identity system for all.”
Consumers have a demonstrated interest in retaining greater privacy on the internet — data shows that in iOS 14.5, 96% of users opted out of ad tracking. But the decentralization movement hasn’t yet been able to market its privacy advantages to the mainstream. Yat helps solve this problem because even if you don’t understand what blockchain means, you understand that having a personal string of emojis is pretty fun. But, before you spend $425,000 on a single-emoji username, keep in mind that Yat’s vision will only completely materialize with the advent of Web 3.0, and we don’t yet know when or if that will happen.
from TechCrunch
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'I Should Have Gotten The Damn Vaccine': A Dying Man's Last Words
Freedy only learned he had COVID because the family forgot their sunscreen at the beach. By then it was too late. Not just severe sunburn but an advanced infection. A couple of weeks later he was dead and his five children no longer had a father.
Source: FOX5, Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -- Two weeks ago, life was great for Jessica DuPreez. She was on vacation in San Diego with her fiancé Michael Freedy, (better known as Big Mike at the M Resort where he worked), and their five kids ages 17, 10, 7, 6 and 17 months.
Shortly after their vacation, Freedy went to the hospital for what he thought was a severe sunburn. He tested positive for COVID-19.
Thursday morning, Freedy died with DuPreez by his side.
“He is only 39. Our babies now don't have a dad. You can't say I am young and it won't affect me because it will,” DuPreez said.
Freedy was not vaccinated for COVID-19.
As is often the case, a GoFundMe page has been set up for the family for their sudden and unnecessary loss.
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