Almost three years ago, I wrote in the New York Times that Bitcoin could redeem an America gone off the rails: Through its recent legal threat against Coinbase’s new interest-bearing cryptocurrency account program, the Securities and Exchange Commission has created a stir. … Deviate, and you are shut down. This is the un-American logic of the social credit system being imposed on us. … Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies can free ordinary Americans from the financial and psychological discipline and punishment at the core of this system of control. Three years ago, I began working to help people understand that America needed Bitcoin. Now, the time is ripe for elite technologists and everyday citizens to understand that Bitcoin needs America. I called then – and I’ve been calling ever since – for states “to become broad legal sanctuaries” for digital rights. “Americans need Bitcoin and the like in order to take back their destinies in the digital world instead of entrusting it to more private or public sector overlords.” Vindication for this call to action has been slow. But thanks to Donald Trump, this week, it’s here. The former president’s stubborn resistance to the Biden regime’s lawfare has inspired a growing share of leading technologists to come out publicly as Trump supporters. Had Trump thrown in the towel, those techies would likely have resigned themselves to four more years of the Biden borg’s woke war on the digital rights implicit in our First, Second, and Fourth Amendments: free speech, free association, the keeping and bearing of basic defensive tools, and freedom from warrantless surveillance and seizure. That’s why Bitcoin is the linchpin of the tech-Trump nexus. While most cutting-edge technologies, like AI, remain far from ordinary Americans’ reach and understanding, Bitcoin is fundamentally different. It’s ready, right now, for regular people to use – not just collect in a Wall Street-approved and controlled account – as a medium of exchange, one free from control by overseers hostile to our way of life, our constitutional form of government, and even our humanity itself. As Coinbase cofounder and CEO Brian Armstrong posted this week on X, “Bitcoin is an important check and balance on inflation and deficit spending. It may extend the American experiment, and western civilization along with it. Owning Bitcoin is pro-America.” Bitcoin is like nothing else in tech or in politics – a unique weapon we can wield together to bring America back from the brink. And with Trump’s embrace of it, technologists unwilling to join the Biden borg are ready to hug Trump back. Now is the time for the next, crucial step: getting everyday people involved by the multimillions. The public needs to hear from strong pro-Trump tech leaders that Bitcoin isn’t about getting rich quick off of dollar-denominated speculation; it’s about reclaiming our country’s destiny from control by a woke supercomputer. Buying Bitcoin is great, but it isn’t enough. Since the Founding, Americans have agreed that real wealth is useful – and that honest use toward healthy ends generates true wealth. That’s why millions and millions of Americans need to be using Bitcoin as it was designed: to bend our vast computational resources to serve what’s best and most sacred about us and our lives, not collectivist ideologies or globalist fever dreams. Three years ago, I began working to help people understand that America needed Bitcoin. Now, the time is ripe for elite technologists and everyday citizens to understand that Bitcoin needs America. Despite our myriad misfortunes and mistakes, America is still unique in the world – because of the American people. Like none other, we combine industriousness and spiritual grounding in a special, powerful way. Our mix of fierce devotion to liberty and living faith in the living God might be under siege, but it’s still at a critical mass sorely lacking in other parts of the world. That means we have a special opportunity and obligation to imbue Bitcoin with our uniquely dynamic spiritual life. Without it, without us, Bitcoin is sadly destined to become the biggest tech tool in a global box already overflowing with algorithms and automation, forces that have no inherent reason to care about us as living beings, much less as creatures lovingly made in the image of God. We can’t let Bitcoin become what the Borg wants: just another set of numbers to which our biomass must conform. For Bitcoin to redeem America, the American people must redeem Bitcoin. That’s the message Trump and his tech supporters must rally the country around – to secure victory for us all.

Ten Americans have died of drug overdoses for every Ukrainian soldier killed in the war with Russia, but you wouldn’t know it based on the Biden administration’s policy choices. Joe Biden’s support for the Ukrainian cause, in dollars and diplomacy, dwarfs his response to the crisis of addiction and death ravaging the American interior. While Biden signed a much-praised anti-fentanyl bill, a close examination reveals the law will do little toward reducing overdose deaths, which continue apace at all-time highs. The number of migrants Joe Biden has led America to face at the border is nearly double the size of the Russian army. The fentanyl crisis is a far greater calamity for America than a distant border war in Europe. The 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers who died since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022 equals 10% of the 300,000 Americans who have died of drug overdoses during Biden’s first three years in office. As with the war in Ukraine, there is no end in sight for the fentanyl crisis, only assurances of more suffering. The federal government has passed five bills and spent more than $175 billion to help the Ukrainians defend their borders. These appropriations have furnished Ukraine with tanks, anti-aircraft missiles, artillery shells, and other expensive military equipment. Some $68 billion is allocated to support the nations neighboring Ukraine and other undefined U.S. interests. Compare this legislative largesse with this administration’s “landmark” anti-drug law, the awkwardly named Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence Off Fentanyl Act or the FEND Off Fentanyl Act. Though the media heralded the bill as a major accomplishment, it does not deserve the hype. For example, the law is designed to combat money laundering, which has become significantly harder to do. Mexican drug cartels have partnered with China. They no longer utilize smaller countries, such as Panama, to launder their ill-gotten profits. Communist China is now the preferred country to launder drug money. High-level Chinese officials will be much harder to bring to justice than Panama dictator Manuel Noriega, who was captured by U.S. forces in Operation Just Cause in the 1980s. The FEND Off Fentanyl Act mandates that federal law enforcement seize assets from cartels to help cover enforcement costs. While law enforcement has been confiscating such assets for some time, cartels continue to generate substantial profits through human trafficking. They have divided the Mexican side of the border into territories that they control tightly, charging thousands of dollars per person to smugglers, known as "coyotes," for illegal crossings. However, these lucrative operations remain unaffected by the new law. This uneven policy response is particularly puzzling given the numbers involved. The Russian military tops 3.5 million personnel, including active soldiers, reservists, and paramilitary units. Meanwhile, the House Committee on Homeland Security reports that by the end of this summer, the Biden administration is projected to face over 10 million migrants attempting illegal crossings into the United States. Additionally, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has already reported 6.5 million illegal crossings at the southern border. Even accepting the lower figures from the DHS, the number of migrants Joe Biden has led America to face at the border is nearly double the size of the Russian army. Ironically, the Russians understand fentanyl’s potency as a weapon better than anyone. The Russians invented a gas aerosol version of the drug to end a hostage crisis caused by 50 well-armed Chechen terrorists. The fentanyl gas killed all the terrorists and more than 100 hostages, but it effectively ended the crisis. Since this incident, fentanyl has only gotten stronger as Mexican drug cartels manufacture Chinese precursor chemicals into more powerful analog versions of fentanyl. It is not far-fetched to suggest that America is under attack, and fentanyl is a lethal weapon.

It's fair to say that Cody Wilson, the creator of the first 3D-printed gun, is an accommodating documentary subject. The company Wilson founded, Defense Distributed, has always taken a build-in-public approach, both as a practical matter of fundraising and to frame its project — the free distribution of blueprints for personal, at-home gun manufacturing — as a fundamentally political one. 'I think people want an intellectually rigorous experience that's cinematic and beautiful at the same time. But they're scared of the political ramifications of the feelings that they might encounter.' Wilson is an articulate and charismatic spokesperson for this project. While he can fluently cite post-Marxist theorists to justify his anti-state provocations, there's a certain mischievous swagger behind the Baudrillard quotes. He doesn't mind playing the villain a bit. Early in "Death Athletic: A Dissident Architecture," filmmaker Jessica Solce's intimate portrait of an eight-year span in the techno-gadfly's life, Wilson even pulls a classic villain move — explaining his devious plan: To a certain level, all this is theater. If Google's motto is "don't be evil" — and we all know how good Google is at doing that — Defense Distributed's motto is "be evil," or at least "think evil." I've always been up front about how it's going to go, what I plan to do before I do it. And really, only when people reach out and try to stop it does that seal the deal and make it happen. In other words, when various federal, state, and corporate forces single out Defense Distributed and do their best to thwart it, they're playing right into Wilson's hands. At the same time, as much as Wilson seems to thrive in the spotlight, it's also clearly taken its toll. At home with ambiguity About 15 minutes into "Death Athletic," Solce gives us our first look at this more vulnerable side of Wilson. Having been dropped by his second payments processor, he makes a confession: "I'm telling you, I can't handle it, emotionally, mentally ... I'm gonna be screwed up because of the highs and lows." He stews on the "the insult, the humiliation" of "malicious bureaucrats" making him a target, "the constant ... dread and fear" they've instilled in him. As if to illustrate his mood swings, Wilson suddenly becomes defiant. "They can all go to hell. They can all go to hell. They can go to hell." Taking a big swig from gallon plastic jug of spring water, he turns from his computer to the camera: "Live with the federal monkey on your back for years. Live with it and do what I do. Live with it and build a multimillion-dollar company despite what they want to do to you. And sue the f*** out of your enemy." Then Wilson gets up from his desk and walks abruptly out of frame, continuing to talk as the camera finds him again. He looks directly at us, his agitated movement bringing him in and out of focus "I can't ... this is ... this is turning me into a cartoon character, a strange zealot ... bizarre monkish figure who lives only for revenge," he says, and for a split second, he seems to be speaking of Solce and the very film we're watching. Is he about to walk off? It's a thrilling moment, and it testifies to Solce's talent and taste as a director, especially given the moribund state of the documentary today. In a genre in which most directors aim for worldview-affirming propaganda or quirky, undemanding crowd-pleasers, Solce is at home with ambiguity. DEATH ATHLETIC - A DISSIDENT ARCHITECTURE - TRAILER www.youtube.com Irrational commitment "Death Athletic" opens with artful close-ups of 3D-printed guns, dappled in shifting, geometric patterns of light, as slow piano chords play. The weapons look beautiful and mysterious, setting a mood that evokes one of those old James Bond opening credit sequences. Solce then pulls back to reveal that we're observing a photo shoot orchestrated by Wilson himself. He fiddles with the camera as he continues the first of his many eloquent politico-philosophical monologues in the film. To what extent are we observing Wilson objectively? And to what extent are we already seeing things through his point of view? From the start, Solce makes it unclear. So it is with the of atmosphere of paranoia that Solce creates this film with surveillance footage-esque long shots and sinister synths. How much of this sense of persecution is real — and how much is of Wilson's own creation? For his part, Wilson seems to agree. In an interview late last year with Compact, Wilson said that Solce's film “captures something true about being committed to your work to the point it may become irrational. There’s a Freudian death drive or something.” The result is that "Death Athletic" succeeds in being as unsettlingly confrontational and contradictory as Wilson himself. Embracing 'No Control' While the reception for "Death Athletic" has been enthusiastic, it was never a forgone conclusion that it would ever be seen at all. Once she'd assembled enough of a rough cut, Solce worked with an industry PR person she knew to try to sell it to get funds for post-production. "Streaming services basically said, 'We will not touch this film,'" Solce tells Align. "And one even said it was on the wrong side of history because I was profiling [Wilson]." According to Solce, her let-the-viewer-decide approach would not have been such a hard sell 10 or 15 years ago. "But if you touch the gun world right now and you want it to be mainstream, it has to be anti-gun. It just has to." If Solce came to the subject without an agenda, in part it's because she came to it — and documentary filmmaking in general — by accident. Solce's background is in acting, writing, and theater directing — she mounted a small but well-regarded New York City production of "The Crucible" some years back. "I never thought I was going to make documentaries," she says. "I literally never thought about documentaries at all, other than to sometimes watch one and enjoy it." A chance meeting in 2013 with a family friend named Greg Bokor changed that. When Bokor casually mentioned that he was about to debut an art installation in reaction to the Sandy Hook shootings (which had happened the previous December) something clicked. "That was moment in my life where I had finally [started to realize] how media worked and how every time you saw this issue, there was nothing really important being discussed," says Solce. "Just fear and the imagery of terror to get this emotional response." Solce called up a director of photography she knew, and five days later, she was filming. Originally, she had only planned to cover the installation, "but within two weeks, I realized I was making a feature." That feature was Solce's self-funded 2014 debut, "No Control," a notably even-handed examination of the gun debate that features interviews with figures across the political spectrum. Among the gun rights advocates Solce spoke to was Wilson. In fact, "No Control" ends with Wilson prophetically announcing the inevitability of the new freedom promised by 3D-printed guns. The moment all but demands a follow-up; Solce soon began working on one. Solce threw herself in to making what would become "Death Athletic" the same way she started her first film: "impulsively." An unfinished story "I wasn't done with the story. I was tired of seeing people making ineffectual, small, biased shorts on what Cody was doing," Solce says. "I realized that this gun issue wasn't really about guns. It was about the First Amendment. It was about sharing information online. It was about the digital era. It encapsulates and incorporates everything that's happening in the Bitcoin space." Solce contacted Wilson, and he got on board. Like its predecessor, "Death Athletic" was paid for out of Solce's pocket. Despite the obvious limitation of this approach, Solce says it can be motivating. "Nobody can tell you not to do it. You don't have to wait for permission. You don't have to pitch for six to eight months. [If I'd had to] do that with either of those films, neither of them would have happened." Forging a career Getting the movie noticed is its own struggle. "Right now, it's a lovely trickle [of viewers] and I appreciate every single person who watches it," says Solce. "But it's still kind of lost in this niche world. Breaking out into any kind of mainstream has been a process of talking to people, trying to get on podcasts," Solce says. And Solce remains optimistic that "Death Athletic" will slowly find a bigger audience. "There's something evergreen about it. Everybody [who sees it] has these incredibly visceral reactions and they want to discuss it." Solce recalls the surprising reactions of some longtime acquaintances when they finally saw "Death Athletic" at the New York City premiere. "Throughout the eight years of me doing this film, they were aggressively against it. Oddly enough, they ended up being extremely moved by it." Solce's next project is "Forging a Country," a short film about the recent re-election of El Salvador's populist president, Nayib Bukele. Solce will premiere "Forging a Country" this August at the Palestra Bureau conference in San Salvador. While Bukele is another potentially divisive subject, Solce says she doesn't court controversy for its own sake. She merely asks that audiences watch her work with an open mind. "I think people want an intellectually rigorous experience that's cinematic and beautiful at the same time," Solce says. "But they're scared of the political ramifications of the feelings that they might encounter." "Death Athletic" can be streamed on Amazon and Apple TV. Both "Death Athletic" and "No Control" can also be bought directly from the filmmaker.

Once Human is a survival game with a little bit of everything. A sci-fi multiplayer FPS set in a post-apocalyptic world, you build your own weapons and farmstead, engage in massive battles with other players and NPCs, and even create user-generated content for others to enjoy. This premise is one a lot of players have latched onto, as publisher NetEase is celebrating just how well the Steam Next Fest demo has done. Continue reading Once Human is dominating Steam, and it’s not even out yet MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best sandbox games, Best open-world games, Best survival games

AOC has just unveiled its new C27G4ZXE 27-inch gaming monitor, which not only boasts some solid esports-centric specs, but also includes one really simple addition to help improve the lives of gamers on a budget and with limited space. Quite simply, it has a small stand. This simple innovation means gamers have more space to move their mouse, as well as more room to reposition their mouse pad, keyboard, and mouse. There's no guarantee that AOC's new display will be one of the best gaming monitors available, but its stand design is a simple little tweak that could tip the buying balance for some. Continue reading AOC’s new gaming monitor just improved gaming in the simplest way MORE FROM PCGAMESN: AOC AGON Pro AG274QXM review, AOC AGON AG275QXL review, Best gaming monitor

Celebrate summer in style by grabbing yourself a special price on the king of gaming handhelds, the Steam Deck. Valve has knocked 15% off the price of two of its Steam Deck LCD models, meaning you can get in on the portable gaming action for less than ever before just in time for your summer holidays. Despite still being comfortably the least powerful of the main portable gaming options, the Steam Deck still reigns supreme as the best handheld gaming PC thanks to its ease of use and vast library of compatible games. The Steam Deck OLED might still be the most desirable version but the Steam Deck LCD is nevertheless a great option, especially at these new low prices. Continue reading Valve starts Steam Summer Sale early with 15% off some Steam Decks MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best graphics card, Best gaming PC, Best SSD for gaming

What’s the one game you would most like to see on PC? The original Red Dead Redemption still isn’t here. Half-Life 3 remains the white whale. And what about the Bloodborne PC port? Maybe they could all happen. Maybe not. But in the meantime, one slice of gaming infamy is on its way to our beloved rigs. Sometimes cited as the worst game of all time and absolutely ripped to shreds critically when it launched, this one is worth seeing, if only out of morbid curiosity. Continue reading One of the most controversial, infamous games ever is coming to PC MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best old games, Best platform games, Best upcoming PC games

Fanny Angelina Hesse introduced agar to the life sciences in 1881. A trove of unpublished family papers sheds new light on her many accomplishments

Later today, developer Respawn Entertainment and publisher EA will be releasing a brand-new update for Apex Legends. While the new content update will mark the beginning of a new Collection Event, it will also bring with it some much-needed bug fixes, adjustments, and more.

It's already been a very long wait for HBO's The Last of Us to get back on our screens, but season two looks like it's shaping up nicely with production going full steam ahead. Season one was a smash hit straight out of the door when it debuted in January 2023, and although the series has seen its fair share of setbacks due to the strikes, fans have had sneak peeks of Joel and Ellie to tie them over.