Founder at Empire Flippers and bouncing between Texas, Europe, and SE Asia.
Houston, TX
Joined June 2011
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Fascinating recent spy story. Seems like a ton of effort to categorize new sailors though?
A backpack with about $10,000 in cash, left in a locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California, in January 2022. It was a Chinese intelligence dead drop, and on Friday the two men who arranged it from inside China were each sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.
Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, worked for Beijing's Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's main civilian spy service, from at least May 2021. Lai recruited Chen. Chen soon took assignments straight from MSS officers.
The MSS didn't want blueprints from them. It wanted American sailors.
Chen obtained photos of Naval Base Kitsap in Washington state. Inside a Navy recruiting station in San Gabriel, California, he photographed and filmed recruits and active-duty sailors. Court filings say his photos captured a board listing new recruits' full names, hometowns and programs. He also collected personal details on a Navy employee and kept biographical files on service members flagged as potential intelligence targets.
I keep coming back to that board. People who had just signed up to serve the United States, catalogued for Chinese intelligence by a man living in Oregon as a legal permanent resident.
In March 2023, Lai traveled to the US and handed Chen a phone dedicated to covert contact with the MSS. Chen called it a "state secret." He later traveled to Guangzhou in 2024 and 2025 to meet MSS officers, who gave him new assignments on US service members.
In April 2025, Lai came back on a tourist visa. A month later the MSS directed him to Phoenix to facilitate another covert cash payment, roughly $20,000 this time. On June 27, 2025, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Chen in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Lai in Houston.
Count the stops: Livermore, a Washington naval base, a Southern California recruiting office, Phoenix, Guangzhou. Two men, one covert phone, two cash payments and a running file on the people who crew the US Navy.
Both pleaded guilty to acting as agents of the People's Republic of China without notifying the Attorney General, plus conspiracy to do it. Their assignments came from MSS officers, some handed over face to face in Guangzhou.
— ACI
This is pretty wild…
The ranking members of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees have written a letter to President Trump asking whether he has been soliciting advice from Grok in order to help carry out his official duties as President of the United States.
They also demanded that he preserve any prompts sent to Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, as well as outputs in response to those prompts, that were 'submitted to AI chatbots in carrying out your constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties.'
The letter was provided by Politico.
Justin Cooke retweeted
What stage of capitalism is this? 😬🙃
Anthropic has filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC related to its proposed IPO.
Read more: anthropic.com/news/s1-sec
Legal disclaimer: A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the SEC but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold, nor may offers to buy be accepted, prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This post does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
Justin Cooke retweeted
Hey @grok, is this true??
Some data centers now run on lab-grown human brain neurons derived from stem cells, wired directly to silicon chips via electrode arrays, and kept alive on life support. Fed sugar every few days. They play Doom. We don’t know if they’re conscious.
Justin Cooke retweeted
A 20-year eCom developer I know just closed up shop. No one's calling him anymore.
Owners dumping bookkeepers for AI solutions.
We rebranded last year with an agency. No way we'd hire them today.
Lots of talk about AI coming for jobs. Seems like it's actually starting to play out.
Justin Cooke retweeted
Trying to work out how to pay someone $1,000,000 to run the software products we build.
What's the most you've ever paid a single employee?
Justin Cooke retweeted
🎒After a decade, I have made nomads.com free for everyone now!
Well almost free, it's $1 to sign up to avoid getting lots of spam
The reason is
1) I have made enough money (from it)
2) charging for a community artificially limits the size, if you put the price at $299 you get 50 new members per month, at $99 you get 200 people, at $29 you get 400 people, etc.
And this always annoyed me, I don't want to put a limit but I had to, to be able to make money from it, so it's free now
I want it to be it the biggest community for digital nomads, world travelers, sovereign thinkers and network state type people
For years it has has a great sponsor with @SafetyWing and I think that's maybe a better model for the future, get much more people in and then just add more sponsors
Right now for the record it has 43,252 paid members (so about 300/mo for 12 years!), so it will be interesting to see what it can grow too
I think now that AGI is on the horizon (or some say already here), online and offline (IRL) communities will become really important. People are talking more to AI now than to humans, and there was already a loneliness epidemic before AI
Making new friends and dating is not so easy for people now. And with remote work and entrepreneurship, people lack a space like an office where people would usually make friends or meet partners
I made most of the friends I have now through traveling and living around the world for the last 10+ years (and many via my site too), and I also met my girlfriend through those friends! So I think communities can have a real role in that post-AGI
Post-AGI business wise, communities also have a moat where many of my SaaS apps do not. So there is some urgency I feel to make Nomads in to the best community there is for those people. But that's why I have to remove any limitations to its growth now
So in a way after 12 years I am switching to the subsidized VC model a bit, but still 100% bootstrapped, kinda like "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
Having enough money now I can afford to do these things and figure out the business model later, which I think will be more sponsors
Enjoy and please sign up and tell me what to improve!!! 😊
We have to build stuff that AGI cannot replace
Like human connection, audience (X for ex), community (Nomads.com for ex)
Justin Cooke retweeted
WOW, umm...this is kind of a huge deal. Complete stab in the back to sellers if true. Like holy shit, I didn't think seller sentiment could get any lower but this is taking money directly out of seller pockets.
BREAKING: We just sued Amazon over what we believe was a vast, ad-rigging scheme.
We believe Amazon found a way to charge a few extra pennies to an enormous number of transactions, adding up to over $20 billion in illegal charges.
This is about how something becomes a "Sponsored product."
Amazon lets businesses bid to be "Sponsored" but it told businesses that the highest bid would only pay slightly more than the second-highest bid.
For example: If you bid $1 to have your product “Sponsored” and the next-highest bid is $0.50, you should pay about $0.51.
But we believe that Amazon would run the auction, see those bids, and then secretly raise the second-place price so it could charge the winner more.
It was a gradual strategy based on concealment.
Internal Amazon documents show they tested how much they could raise those hidden charges without advertisers catching on, then raised them more when businesses didn’t react, then gave false answers when businesses started asking questions.
This is a case about affordability, fair competition, and basic honesty in the marketplace. My thanks to the big bipartisan team on this, from AGs across the country to the FTC.
If we’re horse trading, why don’t we grant the removal of birthright citizenship, but require passing a civics exam to remain a citizen?
The results would be fascinating, I bet. :-)
Both feel pretty Un-American TBF
Justin Cooke retweeted
USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
🤖 Made with AI
Justin Cooke retweeted
Okay, bear with me. This is gonna be a rant...
Okay, first off, go find 20-30 people that you actually want to follow back that maybe have some authority. Put them on a list and actually engage with them, real questions, real responses to their stuff. Hopefully they are probably large accounts that are likely to go viral. You want to give real replies on their stuff and follow them. Eventually, some will follow you back. What you're looking for initially is social proof.
You should also be posting real, useful, expert content on your timeline at the same time. Maybe pin something to the top of the timeline that shows you actually know what you're talking about and is really interesting. That makes people want to follow you. This should help those people that you engage with actually want to follow you as you're in their comments. Other people will see you as well. Eventually, come see your page.
The toughest part is going to be zero to 1,000 followers. 1,000 to 10,000 followers. After 10,000, it gets much, much easier. For virality's sake, you probably want to go find things in your niche that are trending. X used to be an expertise platform. It's much more now of a news platform. Now, what I mean by that is, as things start to take off, quote tweet them with an interesting take that gives context and aligns you as an expert as well. This will end up showing those tweets more to those people that already engage with the initial viral tweet. Say something from Anthropic, for example, or something from OpenAI if you're in the AI space.
Then just get in people's DMs. Be useful, be real, be legitimate. Don't be afraid to follow people. Give them actual real value. Eventually, the hope here is that one of the original pieces of content that you're creating daily gets seen by someone that appreciates the level of effort you've been putting in to really be useful in their comments. It's a slow-building process, but eventually it does work.
I would also then maybe have something like a newsletter in your bio as a way to capture emails and take people off the platform. I would then also, early on, mention places that you've worked or big accomplishments that you've had in the past in your bio so that there's more social proof. Sorry, that's a long rant, and it's not so simple, but it is doable. It's not so easy, but it is simple.
The other piece that's really tough to admit is that some people are just better at writing really interesting content. You can see there are certain people that just have a je ne sais quoi when they tweet. People find it interesting, people find it useful, and they get into the algorithm, they get into the conversation. Some people really just are bad on this platform. Everyone can be a creator, but it's important they find the platform that they best perform on.
Thank god for wispr and voice to text allowing me to do this haha
Justin Cooke retweeted
¡ HOT JOBS !
These DTC companies are hiring humans, make a friend and find your way in.
@KendraScott | Manager, Marketplace
- Hybrid | Austin, TX
- Focus on Amazon FBA; TikTok Shop
- 5+ years in eCommerce
@PoshPeanut | Head of Ecommerce
- Glendale, CA
- $200k - $250k
- Evolve digital flagship
- Daily site health; shape roadmap
- 4+ years experience with Shopify+
@fringesport | Director of Ecommerce
- Austin, TX | Hybrid
- Base: $120k - $150k
- Target Comp: $170k - $250k
- 5+ years experience
- Not a “scale Meta spend” role. Not a “build a big team” role. Not a strategy-deck job. Not a remote role.
@IRONMANtri - Ecommerce Manager
- Tampa, FL
- Hands-on manager, driving strategy
- Day-to-day coordination
- Own eCommerce, registration platform, B2B
- 5-7+ years merchandising experience
I think physical standards make sense for people we send to space.
Would be willing to make some agreement for certain presidents. We good here?
@TedRall
Gotta be a political cartoonist pointing this out @TedRall
Justin Cooke retweeted
A must watch
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou on why Iran is far from the most dangerous threat this country faces.
0:00 Where Did the Intel About Iran Really Come From?
3:58 Why Does Israel Hate Europe?
6:24 Is There an Iranian Nuclear Program?
12:35 Using Heroin as a Weapon
17:49 Should Russia Be an Enemy of America?
23:18 Why Aren't We More Focused on Drug Cartels?
27:53 Why Would Trump Believe a Foreign Intel Agency Before His Own?
31:11 Why Didn't General Caine Advocate Against the Iran War?
38:07 Are We Going to See Terrorist Attacks in the United States?
39:56 What Is Iran Really Like?
42:32 Who Are the MEKs?
54:02 Why Did We Think Iraq Would See Americans as Liberators?
1:00:36 How Is Peace Achieved?
1:03:01 What Are America's Military Options?
1:05:00 Charlie Kirk's Assassination and the Attempt on Trump's Life
1:16:50 Has America Assumed All of Israel's Priorities?
1:19:06 What If Canada Is Taken Over by China?
1:19:43 How Do We Get U.S. Sovereignty Back?
1:25:44 The Draft and the Midterms
1:28:46 Can We Reform the CIA?
1:36:29 What's Wrong With Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz?
