Tootfinder

Investigation: Polymarket is paying creators to make deceptive videos about winning bets, targeting users in the US, where its primary crypto platform is banned (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/polymar…

Kinda a subtoot, but I'm begging people to stop using the "civilization/barbarism" dichotomy, even if you're somehow applying it "in reverse."
From day 1, the notion of "civilized" nations contrasted against "barbarians" was propaganda for empire, and it still is.
When you observe that those who called themselves "civilized" were more violent and destructive than those they called "barbarians", or that the standard of living for their poor was much worse, or whatever other glimpse through the lies you want to share, if you do that by calling empires "barbarians" or their victims "civilized" you're demonstrating that you haven't yet moved beyond the idea of that distinction: that some folks are "civilized" and this superior to others in light of their "civility". But it's not civility that makes a society better; it's justice, happiness, peace, etc., and civility is often the enemy of those things, both in the "access to luxuries (without regard to their cost)" and the "avoiding strenuous disagreement (and thus shushing those attempting to hold power to account)" senses. The things that make empires bad are also easy to denounce: violence, oppression, corruption, etc.

Makes building them in Texas look that much better, right?
Amazon’s cloud services were largely back online on Friday after overheating at one of its data centers triggered ‌an outage that impacted companies including cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-cloud-unit-says-data-center-overheating-north-virginia-disrupts-services-2026-05-08/

With Trump’s backing
scandal-plagued Ken Paxton
has won over John Cornyn
in the Texas GOP primary for senator
– but he might lose in November against James Talarico,
a Democrat with a groundswell of popularity
Paxton comes with significant political baggage,
National Republicans worry they will have to spend significantly more with him as the nominee.
Paxton was impeached in 2023 after being accused of corruption,
and reported to the FBI…

An Indonesian court sentences Gojek co-founder and ex-education minister Nadiem Makarim to 10 years in prison for power abuses over a Chromebook contract (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/business/indonesia-trial-nadiem-makarim.html

Prominent Tech Founder in Indonesia Is Found Guilty in Corruption Case
The case against Nadiem Makarim, a co-founder of Gojek, has fueled concerns about judicial fairness in a nation where foreign investors were already growing wary.

#photography #bloomScrolling #tulips #pink