Day: November 10, 2022

If you find yourself listening to free advice from notorious fraudster and pharmaceutical price-gouger, Martin Shkreli, then it might be time to re-evaluate some things. And that’s exactly the scenario Do Kwon, Terra’s disgraced CEO and “not on the run” fugitive, ended up in on a Tuesday podcast stream.

Both the “pharma bro” and the crypto-crash king made surprise guest appearances on a livestreamed episode of the Up Only podcast, a cryptocurrency interview show. And listening to both men repeatedly defend themselves basically unquestioned is as cringe-worthy as you might imagine. Gizmodo scanned through the podcast to find the highlights, so you don’t have to. But first, some background.

Former pharma executive, Martin Shkreli, was convicted on multiple fraud counts in 2017 after raising the cost of life-saving drug, Daraprim, by 5,000%. The cost of one pill for the anti-parasitic medication, commonly used by immunosuppressed people like AIDS patients, skyrocketed overnight from $13.50 to $750 under Shkreli’s leadership at Turing Pharmaceuticals. Shkreli was released from prison earlier this year, after serving a shortened sentence, and has since pivoted into the crypto-sphere. The price of Daraprim, however, remains above $700 per pill—though the drug costs pennies to make.

Do Kwon is the co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, a blockchain platform most known for it’s very unstable, “stablecoin” terraUSD. The cryptocurrency was at one point the fourth most popular, and was supposed to be pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. But it ended up in a death spiral to zero this past May. Investors lost everything. South Korean authorities issued a warrant for Kwon’s arrest in September over allegations of fraud and tax evasion. He reportedly fled his home country and has been evading law enforcement since. Most recently, he’s been rumored to be hiding out in Europe.

Kwon hopped on the podcast first, at around the one hour and 12 minute mark. (Note: the entire episode is a full two hours and 38 minutes long.) He began his appearance on the show by chuckling and admitting “okay, like I’m on the run.” and then said he was on a boat, though it was unclear if he was joking. From that introduction, he then weighed in on the ongoing collapse of crypto firm FTX.

“Crisis management is not easy. But you know just from the hate that’s spreading across the Twitter timeline, it doesn’t really seem like average users understand the complexity,” Kwon said, defending FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Asked for specific crisis management tips, by one of the podcast hosts, Kwon said, “I don’t think I’m the best person to ask.” Then, he defended his own actions and his crypto company’s collapse, claiming that terraUSD’s death spiral was out of his control.

And, in case you were worried about how Kwon has been doing since May, don’t. Apparently, tanking $60 billion of other people’s money has given the CEO a nice break. “It’s sort of given me a lot of time and headspace to think about interesting things…I hadn’t coded in some time, but [now] you know I’m just picking up projects that I think are interesting, and it’s fun,” he said.

One of the podcast hosts described Kwon as “sociopathic,” and shortly after—as if summoned Beetlejuice-style—Martin Shkreli popped in at around the 1:34:00 mark to offer his own two cents on FTX.

Clearly, Shkreli likes the sound of his own voice because he talked extensively, dropping attention-grabbing anecdotes like how, allegedly the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, once personally tried to sell him Brazilian real estate.

Then he addressed Kwon directly, “Hey Do, I just wanted to let you know jail’s not that bad. It’s not the worst thing, you know. So don’t fret if that… I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does happen it’s not that bad.”

When questioned about why he’s gotten into crypto since leaving prison, Shkreli claimed he’s actually been in crypto for awhile, even through his incarceration.
“I’ve been around the hoop for awhile, just quietly. I mean, you can’t make too much noise while you’re in prison. I started in around 2014,” he said—adding that he thinks cryptocurrency is a “fascinating space.”

He then spent a lot of time waxing poetic about how “there is no honest actor in crypto,” before facing some light questioning from the podcast hosts. In a defensive moment, Shkreli delivered maybe the most painful line of the entire debacle. “I was acquitted of most of my charges. All my investors made three to five times their money. So, in terms of deceit, a lot of people asked me if they could ‘be deceived more Daddy,’ because I was a pretty good investor for their portfolios.” Yikes.

At one point, a show host asked Shkreli, “Do you ever think you went too far on the drug prices.” And the ex-exec immediately responded, “I don’t.” He went on to explain that, actually his price gouging was a good thing because the pharmaceutical industry needs to be “well capitalized and profitable and sustainable.”

“I don’t think you have to be a nice person,” he said. “There need to be some drugs that are very expensive.”

So on the off chance that you too, are looking for advice from that guy: He predicted that five to ten crypto funds will survive long term, similar to the fallout from the 1990’s internet boom. Shkreli also said he thinks Bankman-Fried will face jail time over FTX’s failure and that Binance’s pending acquisition of the rival firm will fall through.

As a bonus: he claimed to be texting with noted grifter, Anna “Delvey” Sorokin during the podcast and ended his time on the show by doing part of Up Only’s sponsored FTX ad outro.

Underwater video cameras have recorded over 100 instances of gloomy octopuses hurling silt and shells at one another in Jervis Bay, Australia.

The video footage—about 24 hours’ worth—was captured in 2014 and 2015, but only now have the videos been fully analyzed. The team of researchers that studied the behavior has published their findings today in Plos One.

The gloomy (or common Sydney) octopus (Octopus tentricus) is native to the waters off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. It has a rusty brown coloration and white eyes. The octopus mostly eats mollusks but has also been documented eating members of its own species, according to the Australian Museum.

In the videos, the eight-armed cephalopods gather up material from the seafloor like silt and shells, and then push it through the water using their siphon and arms. Octopuses have previously been observed shooting sand from their siphon but never throwing more substantial objects like seashells.

The researchers found that the octopuses had to move their siphons into an unusual position—under the web of the octopus’ arms—to eject the material, indicating that they were intentionally throwing the material.

The teams observed both sexes throwing material; about half of the throws were done while interacting with other octopuses. Only about 17% of the throws actually hit their targets, so if you’re a sports agent reading this, think twice before signing up a gloomy octopus. The eight arms clearly aren’t as much of an advantage as they seem.

And if we’re splitting hairs (or gills, or whatever), the octopuses are not hurling objects at their foes, Cy Young-style. The propulsion is entirely driven by their siphons; the arms are simply directing the material.

But look up the definition of “throw.” Technically, that’s what the octopuses are doing, though it’s a tenuous enough connection that the researchers refer to the action as “throws,” in quotations.

Because some of the throws were by male octopuses and some by female octopuses, and they occurred both in the presence and absence of other octopuses, the researchers aren’t exactly sure of the motive here. At least in some cases, the team believes the throws have a social purpose. And considering that in some of the videos the octopuses are literally blanketed in silt tossed at them by a nearby octopus, that seems correct.

Octopuses are generally anti-social, the researchers noted in the study, but sometimes show tolerance of other individuals. But what covering another member of your species in silt, algae, and shells signifies may require further examination.

The throwing behavior puts the gloomy octopus on a short list of species that have exhibited a type of throwing behavior, along with chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, elephants, polar bears, Egyptian vultures, and a few others.

Octopuses are very bright creatures. They probably have a good reason for chucking stuff. We just need to be bright enough to figure out what they’re up to.

More: Researchers Finally Figured Out How Octopuses Taste With Their Arms

Drivers in Japan’s Super GT race series discovered less-than-desirable side-effects when testing a new type of synthetic fuel that will be rolled out starting in 2023. While the cars ran as expected, some of the pilots complained about an unexpected smell and eye irritation.

“The smell is a little strong [compared to gasoline], perhaps because the raw materials used are different. I think they are trying to mix materials extracted from various bio-based raw materials to meet high-octane standards. Some fuel manufacturers say that the smell can be changed by changing the raw material, although there’s also the matter of cost control to consider,” said Masahiro Saiki, the head of Honda’s Super GT project, in an interview with Motorsport. He added that the fumes were likely due to the fuel not being fully burnt in the engine.

What the fumes smell like depends on who you ask. One driver told Motorsport that it’s like kerosene; another compared it to a mix of gasoline and oil from a racing go-kart. Regardless, the fumes tended to enter a car’s cabin when it was closely following another car.

Super GT announced the shift to synthetic gasoline in May 2022. The fuel in question is manufactured by ETS Racing Fuels and called Renewablaze GTA R100. The recipe hasn’t been published — which makes sense, it’s proprietary — but ETS broadly explains that Renewablaze GTA R100 is “produced from a number of different sources of sustainable biomass and consists of 100% plant-based raw materials.”

On a more pleasant note, it sounds like the drivers who participated in the test had no complaints about performance.

“The GT500 car has what you could call an ‘aggressively-designed engine’ with a lot of advanced technologies applied in it. I thought that changing the fuel used would result in some changes, but in fact the changes were so small that I wouldn’t have noticed them if I hadn’t been told about the fuel change,” noted Nissan Z driver Ronnie Quintarelli. He added that mapping-related changes were made to the car.

Super GT cars are set to switch to Renewablaze GTA R100 — which is imported to Japan for the series — in 2023.