Bail Bloc

A new project, using the blockchain to generate bail money for nonviolent offenders, who are often victims of racist policing and sentencing.

Here’s how it works: When you download the app, a small part of your computer’s unused processing power is redirected toward mining a popular cryptocurrency called Monero, which is secure, private, and untraceable. At the end of every month, we exchange the Monero for US dollars and donate the earnings to the Bronx Freedom Fund and through them, a new nation-wide initiative, The Bail Project.

Can’t speak highly enough of The New Inquiry, Bronx Freedom, and The Bail Project for running this. This is the kind of “technology changes lives” shit we need here in 2017. Save the “smart” shower curtain.

Graffiti from Pompeii

This is, apparently, not a joke. Recall that these must all have been written before AD 79, when Pompeii was covered by molten rock from Mt. Vesuvius. It is simply humanity doing what we do. Personal favorites include:

II.2.3 (Bar of Athictus; right of the door); 8442: I screwed the barmaid

and

If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.

I could go on, but I’ll leave the rest for you.