I have a few little things to get off my mind but none of them materialize enough to be their own entire post. I’m going to do bite sized versions of my typical insanity. Like the Black Eyed Peas said in 2003: “Let’s get it started.”

LattepunkCoin

I had this whole storyboard thing going on for a legitimate post about cryptocurrency. I kept putting it off cause I just didn’t know what I had to say about it. There’s something to talk about, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I was even going to make my own coin and just give them out for free. It was going to be an expensive stunt that I just didn’t think you’d appreciate. But even looking at the links I wanted to use, I don’t know if I was able to portray how stupid I think it is.

I say this as someone who lost money investing in bitcoin. But it wasn’t until a recent phenomenon that I also think is dumb, along with a podcast I listen to (I actually don’t any original ideas), that it clicked.

Do you remember when everyone went crazy and bought GameStop’s stock? I was sitting at work when I read the original post on Reddit about pumping that stock. I thought it was a load of shit. It was a wild gamble if it worked out. As usual, I was wrong and GME blew up. Daytrading became the get rich quick scheme of the moment.

Around the same time a little known thing called Dogecoin got popular. It wasn’t as big as bitcoin but it was much cheaper to get in on. Another gamble, another get rich quick scheme, another missed opportunity. After those gambles’ wave subsided, the major sports leagues decided they have no problem with people gambling in the open on their games. These things aren’t linear but stay with me.

DraftKings and FanDuel blew up. Like trading stocks or buying crypto became easy when it was a few clicks in an app, betting on sports became hassle free with its low barrier to entry. Just like people who make a living analyzing stock markets, sports has a lot of data to study if you want to look at it. Parleys, multiple legged bets (Team A wins AND Team C wins AND Player A scores X points), were low risk high reward events. In one day you could win life changing money, if all legs of your insane bet win. The more legs, the lower the odds of winning, the higher the payout.

Stock market has trading hours. Wall Street needs to sleep. It’s hard to get rich when the money markets are closed. Crypto is 24 hours. Buy this coin, sell that NFT, do whatever whenever. Sports betting has a similar issue. NBA only plays so many games a night. NFL can take all day on Sundays, but what about between games? I’m a degenerate soccer fan. I can bet all day and into the afternoon on European soccer, then ride my statistical losses into American soccer at night. Basketball fan? China is like 14 hours ahead of us, have you consider their basketball league? Place a bet in an African league sport before bed, wake up and find out if you won. Those get rich quick gambles can hit at any hour.

Which leads us into the recent gambles that have crossed my internet browsing. Prediction markets.The people who run these markets will tell you it’s public indicators, give people the news faster than the news. Don’t be fooled. It is gambling. You can “predict” who will win the Premier League. You can “predict” how many points LeBron will get. Why stop there? You can “predict” who will win best actor at the Oscars. Hell, you can “predict” how many deaths will happen in specific Ukraine city by a certain date.

You’re betting on anything and everything, all in the hopes to get rich quick. What makes prediction markets insane? Besides not having to be regulated for sports betting or, you know, actively rooting for someone’s death? Insider knowledge is basically encouraged. If someone buys or sells stocks based on information that isn’t available to the public before hand, that could be considered a crime. Bet on a sports game where a player intentionally sabotages or gets a mysterious injury just before the game? That could be a crime. Hell, you promote your stupid memecoin to a bunch of people in hopes they buy it so the value goes up so you could then sell your coins, leaving you to profit and everyone who just bought is left with some shitcoin that’s now worthless? Some could consider a pump and dump a crime.

If I know the color of the Gatorade in the bucket at the Super Bowl that will be dumped on the coach because, I don’t know, I’m the one that filled it up? Why not “predict” it and see if anyone thinks I’m wrong? Let’s do a more realistic example: what if I was part of the team responsible for an overnight “special operation” to forcibly remove the sitting president of Venezuela? How many people would take me up on something like that happening? How much could I make? At least $400,000.

The getting rich quick market seems to be getting shadier and a bit grim. At least we finally have a use for crypto: betting on war crimes.

Update your phone!

This crossed my eyeballs courtesy of an article on WIRED by Andy Greenberg. A new hacking toolkit called Coruna that “takes advantage of 23 distinct vulnerabilities in iOS”, which is wild! This is state sponsored levels of hacking. Here’s an important part of the article:

“Google notes that Apple patched vulnerabilities used by Coruna in the latest versions of its mobile operating system, iOS 26, so its exploitation techniques are only confirmed to work against iOS 13 through 17.2.1”

If your phone isn’t receiving any updates beyond these, which I believe is an iPhone 8, good for you on using your device for that long. Be aware of this threat. Everyone else, update your phone!

If only it ended there. Andy Greenberg at WIRED again had an articlethat stood out to me. This one about DarkSword, another hacking tool that popped up.

“Russian hackers who most recently used DarkSword in their espionage campaign left the full, unobscured DarkSword code—complete with explanatory comments in English that describe each component and include the “DarkSword" name for the tool—available on those sites for anyone to access and reuse. That carelessness, he says, practically invites other hackers to pick up the tool and target other iPhone users.”

That means clicking links could be really scary right about now. Here’s the main part I want you to know:

“While the technique doesn't affect the latest, updated versions of iOS, it does work against iOS devices running versions of Apple's previous operating system release, iOS 18, which as of last month still accounted for close to a quarter of iPhones”

So if you haven’t updated to iOS 26, you know what you need to do right? At least if you’re on iOS 26, there can’t be anything to concern yourself with. Right? It’s never that easy reader. This came across my eye sockets via Lawrence Abrams at Bleeping Computer:

“Apple has released its first Background Security Improvements update to fix a WebKit flaw tracked as CVE-2026-20643 on iPhones, iPads, and Macs without requiring a full operating system upgrade.”

It stood out cause I’ve never heard of Background Security Improvements to push updates. Quite silly stuff really. I read a lot about iPhones cause that’s what I use, but make sure all your devices are up to date. It’s such an easy way to stay safe online.

Must be Nice

Let’s end it with some absurdity. Hermès (it’s pronounced Err-mez. Remember reader, when you sound like a dumbass it makes me sound like a dumbass. Err-mez.) made a duo MagSafe charger. When purchased with the Grand case, they want $5000….five fucking thousand dollars!!! Pumping gas in your car is getting crazy but you can’t be seen charging your phone like some broke peasant!

My favorite “feature” is this:

A minimum 20 W power is required, provided via a USB-C port or a wall adapter (not included).

It doesn’t even include a wall charger. Five grand and you still need to order a wall charger from Amazon. I ordered this charger, which uses the latest in wireless charging tech (25W > 20W), can charge three devices (3 > 2), AND (I can’t stress this enough) comes with the fucking power adapter. That charger costs $100. Clearly I have bad taste. Must be nice.

things i read

Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It | Clive Thompson for www.nytimes.com

In search of Banksy, Reuters found the artist took on a new identity| Simon Gardner, James Pearson, and Blake Morrison for www.reuters.com

You want me to air drop you some LattepunkCoin? Let me know at blog@lattepunk.com.