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Bitcoin and Fixed Income was Written By Wyatt O’Rourke. If you enjoyed this article then support his writing, directly, by donating to his lightning wallet: ultrahusky3@primal.net

Fiduciary duty is the obligation to act in the client’s best interests at all times, prioritizing their needs above the advisor’s own, ensuring honesty, transparency, and avoiding conflicts of interest in all recommendations and actions.

This is something all advisors in the BFAN take very seriously; after all, we are legally required to do so. For the average advisor this is a fairly easy box to check. All you essentially have to do is have someone take a 5-minute risk assessment, fill out an investment policy statement, and then throw them in the proverbial 60/40 portfolio. You have thousands of investment options to choose from and you can reasonably explain how your client is theoretically insulated from any move in the \~markets\~. From the traditional financial advisor perspective, you could justify nearly anything by putting a client into this type of portfolio. All your bases were pretty much covered from return profile, regulatory, compliance, investment options, etc. It was just too easy. It became the household standard and now a meme.

As almost every real bitcoiner knows, the 60/40 portfolio is moving into psyop territory, and many financial advisors get clowned on for defending this relic on bitcoin twitter. I’m going to specifically poke fun at the ‘40’ part of this portfolio.

The ‘40’ represents fixed income, defined as…

An investment type that provides regular, set interest payments, such as bonds or treasury securities, and returns the principal at maturity. It’s generally considered a lower-risk asset class, used to generate stable income and preserve capital.

Historically, this part of the portfolio was meant to weather the volatility in the equity markets and represent the “safe” investments. Typically, some sort of bond.

First and foremost, the fixed income section is most commonly constructed with U.S. Debt. There are a couple main reasons for this. Most financial professionals believe the same fairy tale that U.S. Debt is “risk free” (lol). U.S. debt is also one of the largest and most liquid assets in the market which comes with a lot of benefits.

There are many brilliant bitcoiners in finance and economics that have sounded the alarm on the U.S. debt ticking time bomb. I highly recommend readers explore the work of Greg Foss, Lawrence Lepard, Lyn Alden, and Saifedean Ammous. My very high-level recap of their analysis:

• A bond is a contract in which Party A (the borrower) agrees to repay Party B (the lender) their principal plus interest over time.

• The U.S. government issues bonds (Treasury securities) to finance its operations after tax revenues have been exhausted.

• These are traditionally viewed as “risk-free” due to the government’s historical reliability in repaying its debts and the strength of the U.S. economy

• U.S. bonds are seen as safe because the government has control over the dollar (world reserve asset) and, until recently (20 some odd years), enjoyed broad confidence that it would always honor its debts.

• This perception has contributed to high global demand for U.S. debt but, that is quickly deteriorating.

• The current debt situation raises concerns about sustainability.

• The U.S. has substantial obligations, and without sufficient productivity growth, increasing debt may lead to a cycle where borrowing to cover interest leads to more debt.

• This could result in more reliance on money creation (printing), which can drive inflation and further debt burdens.

In the words of Lyn Alden “Nothing stops this train”

Those obligations are what makes up the 40% of most the fixed income in your portfolio. So essentially you are giving money to one of the worst capital allocators in the world (U.S. Gov’t) and getting paid back with printed money.

As someone who takes their fiduciary responsibility seriously and understands the debt situation we just reviewed, I think it’s borderline negligent to put someone into a classic 60% (equities) / 40% (fixed income) portfolio without serious scrutiny of the client’s financial situation and options available to them. I certainly have my qualms with equities at times, but overall, they are more palatable than the fixed income portion of the portfolio. I don’t like it either, but the money is broken and the unit of account for nearly every equity or fixed income instrument (USD) is fraudulent. It’s a paper mache fade that is quite literally propped up by the money printer.

To briefly be as most charitable as I can – It wasn’t always this way. The U.S. Dollar used to be sound money, we used to have government surplus instead of mathematically certain deficits, The U.S. Federal Government didn’t used to have a money printing addiction, and pre-bitcoin the 60/40 portfolio used to be a quality portfolio management strategy. Those times are gone.

Now the fun part. How does bitcoin fix this?

Bitcoin fixes this indirectly. Understanding investment criteria changes via risk tolerance, age, goals, etc. A client may still have a need for “fixed income” in the most literal definition – Low risk yield. Now you may be thinking that yield is a bad word in bitcoin land, you’re not wrong, so stay with me. Perpetual motion machine crypto yield is fake and largely where many crypto scams originate. However, that doesn’t mean yield in the classic finance sense does not exist in bitcoin, it very literally does. Fortunately for us bitcoiners there are many other smart, driven, and enterprising bitcoiners that understand this problem and are doing something to address it. These individuals are pioneering new possibilities in bitcoin and finance, specifically when it comes to fixed income.

Here are some new developments –

Private Credit Funds – The Build Asset Management Secured Income Fund I is a private credit fund created by Build Asset Management. This fund primarily invests in bitcoin-backed, collateralized business loans originated by Unchained, with a secured structure involving a multi-signature, over-collateralized setup for risk management. Unchained originates loans and sells them to Build, which pools them into the fund, enabling investors to share in the interest income.

Dynamics

• Loan Terms: Unchained issues loans at interest rates around 14%, secured with a 2/3 multi-signature vault backed by a 40% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio.
• Fund Mechanics: Build buys these loans from Unchained, thus providing liquidity to Unchained for further loan originations, while Build manages interest payments to investors in the fund.

Pros

• The fund offers a unique way to earn income via bitcoin-collateralized debt, with protection against rehypothecation and strong security measures, making it attractive for investors seeking exposure to fixed income with bitcoin.

Cons

• The fund is only available to accredited investors, which is a regulatory standard for private credit funds like this.

Corporate Bonds – MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR), a business intelligence company, has leveraged its corporate structure to issue bonds specifically to acquire bitcoin as a reserve asset. This approach allows investors to indirectly gain exposure to bitcoin’s potential upside while receiving interest payments on their bond investments. Some other publicly traded companies have also adopted this strategy, but for the sake of this article we will focus on MSTR as they are the biggest and most vocal issuer.

Dynamics

• Issuance: MicroStrategy has issued senior secured notes in multiple offerings, with terms allowing the company to use the proceeds to purchase bitcoin.

• Interest Rates: The bonds typically carry high-yield interest rates, averaging around 6-8% APR, depending on the specific issuance and market conditions at the time of issuance.

• Maturity: The bonds have varying maturities, with most structured for multi-year terms, offering investors medium-term exposure to bitcoin’s value trajectory through MicroStrategy’s holdings.

Pros

• Indirect Bitcoin exposure with income provides a unique opportunity for investors seeking income from bitcoin-backed debt.

• Bonds issued by MicroStrategy offer relatively high interest rates, appealing for fixed-income investors attracted to the higher risk/reward scenarios.

Cons

• There are credit risks tied to MicroStrategy’s financial health and bitcoin’s performance. A significant drop in bitcoin prices could strain the company’s ability to service debt, increasing credit risk.

• Availability: These bonds are primarily accessible to institutional investors and accredited investors, limiting availability for retail investors.

Interest Payable in Bitcoin – River has introduced an innovative product, bitcoin Interest on Cash, allowing clients to earn interest on their U.S. dollar deposits, with the interest paid in bitcoin.

Dynamics

• Interest Payment: Clients earn an annual interest rate of 3.8% on their cash deposits. The accrued interest is converted to Bitcoin daily and paid out monthly, enabling clients to accumulate Bitcoin over time.

• Security and Accessibility: Cash deposits are insured up to $250,000 through River’s banking partner, Lead Bank, a member of the FDIC. All Bitcoin holdings are maintained in full reserve custody, ensuring that client assets are not lent or leveraged.

Pros

• There are no hidden fees or minimum balance requirements, and clients can withdraw their cash at any time.

• The 3.8% interest rate provides a predictable income stream, akin to traditional fixed-income investments.

Cons

• While the interest rate is fixed, the value of the Bitcoin received as interest can fluctuate, introducing potential variability in the investment’s overall return.

• Interest rate payments are on the lower side

Admittedly, this is a very small list, however, these types of investments are growing more numerous and meaningful. The reality is the existing options aren’t numerous enough to service every client that has a need for fixed income exposure. I challenge advisors to explore innovative options for fixed income exposure outside of sovereign debt, as that is most certainly a road to nowhere. It is my wholehearted belief and call to action that we need more options to help clients across the risk and capital allocation spectrum access a sound money standard.

Additional Resources

• River: The future of saving is here: Earn 3.8% on cash. Paid in Bitcoin.

• Onramp: Bitcoin, The Emergent Asset Class

• MicroStrategy: MicroStrategy Announces Pricing of Offering of Convertible Senior Notes

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Bitcoin and Fixed Income was Written By Wyatt O’Rourke. If you enjoyed this article then support his writing, directly, by donating to his lightning wallet: ultrahusky3@primal.net

@ 65912a7a:5dc638bf

Chef's notes

This is my late partner's award winning Cajun rice & beans recipe. It's an updated take on the traditional Cajun comfort food.

Chef Darin was a classically trained chef who spent 30+ years in the kitchen perfecting his recipes, and delivering authentic Cajun and Creole food to his patrons. This is a 5-star dish that will earn the respect of the most discerning Cajun afficionado. You won't be disappointed.

I suggest making this recipe exactly as directed the first time, and then make whatever adjustments you want for future batches. Also, don't cheap out on the Andouille. No Johnsonville or Hillshire Farms. Chef Aidelle's is a good choice, as is Silva's from Whole Foods. They cost a few extra bucks, but it's absolutely worth it.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 30 min
• 🍳 Cook time: 3 hours
• 🍽️ Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 16oz small red beans, dry
• 2 cups long grain white rice
• 14-16oz andouille sausage, sliced
• 8oz ham, cubed
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 2-3 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 tbsp garlic (12 cloves), minced
• 7 cups water
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 large bay leaves
• 1 tbsp parsley, dried
• 1 tsp thyme, dried
• 1 tsp Cajun seasoning
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper, dried
• ¼ tsp sage, rubbed
• 1½ tsp salt (more or less to taste)

Directions

1. Soak beans in a large pot of water overnight.
2. Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Cook onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic in olive oil for 3 to 4 minutes (until onion is translucent).
3. Add beans, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, salt, MSG, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, Sage, and water. Stir, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to medium-low (btwn 2-3). Cover and simmer for 2½ hours.
4. Remove bay leaves. Mash some of the beans. Stir Andouille and ham into beans, and simmer uncovered for an additional 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, prepare the rice. Bring water and rice to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
6. Serve beans over steamed white rice.

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\ \ It was another historic week for both bitcoin and the Ten31 portfolio, as the world’s oldest, largest, most battle-tested cryptocurrency climbed to new all-time highs each day to close out the week just shy of the $100,000 mark. Along the way, bitcoin continued to accumulate institutional and regulatory wins, including the much-anticipated approval and launch of spot bitcoin ETF options and the appointment of several additional pro-bitcoin Presidential cabinet officials. The timing for this momentum was poetic, as this week marked the second anniversary of the pico-bottom of the 2022 bear market, a level that bitcoin has now hurdled to the tune of more than 6x despite the litany of bitcoin obituaries published at the time. The entirety of 2024 and especially the past month have further cemented our view that bitcoin is rapidly gaining a sense of legitimacy among institutions, fiduciaries, and governments, and we remain optimistic that this trend is set to accelerate even more into 2025.

Several Ten31 portfolio companies made exciting announcements this week that should serve to further entrench bitcoin’s institutional adoption. AnchorWatch, a first of its kind bitcoin insurance provider offering 1:1 coverage with its innovative use of bitcoin’s native properties, announced it has been designated a Lloyd’s of London Coverholder, giving the company unique, blue-chip status as it begins to write bitcoin insurance policies of up to $100 million per policy starting next month. Meanwhile, Battery Finance Founder and CEO Andrew Hohns appeared on CNBC to delve into the launch of Battery’s pioneering private credit strategy which fuses bitcoin and conventional tangible assets in a dual-collateralized structure that offers a compelling risk/return profile to both lenders and borrowers. Both companies are clearing a path for substantially greater bitcoin adoption in massive, untapped pools of capital, and Ten31 is proud to have served as lead investor for AnchorWatch’s Seed round and as exclusive capital partner for Battery.

As the world’s largest investor focused entirely on bitcoin, Ten31 has deployed nearly $150 million across two funds into more than 30 of the most promising and innovative companies in the ecosystem like AnchorWatch and Battery, and we expect 2025 to be the best year yet for both bitcoin and our portfolio. Ten31 will hold a first close for its third fund at the end of this year, and investors in that close will benefit from attractive incentives and a strong initial portfolio. Visit ten31.vc/funds to learn more and get in touch to discuss participating.\ \ Portfolio Company Spotlight 

Primal is a first of its kind application for the Nostr protocol that combines a client, caching service, analytics tools, and more to address several unmet needs in the nascent Nostr ecosystem. Through the combination of its sleek client application and its caching service (built on a completely open source stack), Primal seeks to offer an end-user experience as smooth and easy as that of legacy social media platforms like Twitter and eventually many other applications, unlocking the vast potential of Nostr for the next billion people. Primal also offers an integrated wallet (powered by Strike BLACK) that substantially reduces onboarding and UX frictions for both Nostr and the lightning network while highlighting bitcoin’s unique power as internet-native, open-source money. 

Selected Portfolio News

AnchorWatch announced it has achieved Llody’s Coverholder status, allowing the company to provide unique 1:1 bitcoin insurance offerings starting in December.\ \ Battery Finance Founder and CEO Andrew Hohns appeared on CNBC to delve into the company’s unique bitcoin-backed private credit strategy.

Primal launched version 2.0, a landmark update that adds a feed marketplace, robust advanced search capabilities, premium-tier offerings, and many more new features.

Debifi launched its new iOS app for Apple users seeking non-custodial bitcoin-collateralized loans.

Media

Strike Founder and CEO Jack Mallers joined Bloomberg TV to discuss the strong volumes the company has seen over the past year and the potential for a US bitcoin strategic reserve. 

Primal Founder and CEO Miljan Braticevic joined The Bitcoin Podcast to discuss the rollout of Primal 2.0 and the future of Nostr. 

Ten31 Managing Partner Marty Bent appeared on BlazeTV to discuss recent changes in the regulatory environment for bitcoin. 

Zaprite published a customer testimonial video highlighting the popularity of its offerings across the bitcoin ecosystem. 

Market Updates

Continuing its recent momentum, bitcoin reached another new all-time high this week, clocking in just below $100,000 on Friday. Bitcoin has now reached a market cap of nearly $2 trillion, putting it within 3% of the market caps of Amazon and Google. 

After receiving SEC and CFTC approval over the past month, long-awaited options on spot bitcoin ETFs were fully approved and launched this week. These options should help further expand bitcoin’s institutional liquidity profile, with potentially significant implications for price action over time.

The new derivatives showed strong performance out of the gate, with volumes on options for BlackRock’s IBIT reaching nearly $2 billion on just the first day of trading despite surprisingly tight position limits for the vehicles. 

Meanwhile, the underlying spot bitcoin ETF complex had yet another banner week, pulling in $3.4 billion in net inflows. 

New reports suggested President-elect Donald Trump’s social media company is in advanced talks to acquire crypto trading platform Bakkt, potentially the latest indication of the incoming administration’s stance toward the broader “crypto” ecosystem. 

On the macro front, US housing starts declined M/M again in October on persistently high mortgage rates and weather impacts. The metric remains well below pre-COVID levels. 

Pockets of the US commercial real estate market remain challenged, as the CEO of large Florida developer Related indicated that developers need further rate cuts “badly” to maintain project viability. 

US Manufacturing PMI increased slightly M/M, but has now been in contraction territory (<50) for well over two years.

The latest iteration of the University of Michigan’s popular consumer sentiment survey ticked up following this month’s election results, though so did five-year inflation expectations, which now sit comfortably north of 3%. 

Regulatory Update

After weeks of speculation, the incoming Trump administration appointed hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to head up the US Treasury. Like many of Trump’s cabinet selections so far, Bessent has been a public advocate for bitcoin. 

Trump also appointed Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick – another outspoken bitcoin bull – as Secretary of the Commerce Department. 

Meanwhile, the Trump team is reportedly considering creating a new “crypto czar” role to sit within the administration. While it’s unclear at this point what that role would entail, one report indicated that the administration’s broader “crypto council” is expected to move forward with plans for a strategic bitcoin reserve.

Various government lawyers suggested this week that the Trump administration is likely to be less aggressive in seeking adversarial enforcement actions against bitcoin and “crypto” in general, as regulatory bodies appear poised to shift resources and focus elsewhere. 

Other updates from the regulatory apparatus were also directionally positive for bitcoin, most notably FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg’s confirmation that he plans to resign from his post at the end of President Biden’s term. 

Many critics have alleged Gruenberg was an architect of “Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” which has created banking headwinds for bitcoin companies over the past several years, so a change of leadership at the department is likely yet another positive for the space.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler also officially announced he plans to resign at the start of the new administration. Gensler has been the target of much ire from the broader “crypto” space, though we expect many projects outside bitcoin may continue to struggle with questions around the Howey Test.

Overseas, a Chinese court ruled that it is not illegal for individuals to hold cryptocurrency, even though the country is still ostensibly enforcing a ban on crypto transactions. 

Noteworthy

The incoming CEO of Charles Schwab – which administers over $9 trillion in client assets – suggested the platform is preparing to “get into” spot bitcoin offerings and that he “feels silly” for having waited this long. As this attitude becomes more common among traditional finance players, we continue to believe that the number of acquirers coming to market for bitcoin infrastructure capabilities will far outstrip the number of available high quality assets. 

BlackRock’s 2025 Thematic Outlook notes a “renewed sense of optimism” on bitcoin among the asset manager’s client base due to macro tailwinds and the improving regulatory environment. Elsewhere, BlackRock’s head of digital assets indicated the firm does not view bitcoin as a “risk-on” asset. 

MicroStrategy, which was a sub-$1 billion market cap company less than five years ago, briefly breached a $100 billion equity value this week as it continues to aggressively acquire bitcoin. The company now holds nearly 350,000 bitcoin on its balance sheet. 

Notably, Allianz SE, Germany’s largest insurer, spoke for 25% of MicroStrategy’s latest $3 billion convertible note offering this week, suggesting growing appetite for bitcoin proxy exposure among more restricted pools of capital. 

The ongoing meltdown of fintech middleware provider Synapse has left tens of thousands of customers with nearly 100% deposit haircuts as hundreds of millions in funds remain missing, the latest unfortunate case study in the fragility of much of the US’s legacy banking stack. 

Travel

• BitcoinMENA, Dec 9-10

• Nashville BitDevs, Dec 10

• Austin BitDevs, Dec 19

• Nashville Energy and Mining Summit, Jan 30

@ 87730827:746b7d35

Original: https://techreport.com/crypto-news/brazil-central-bank-ban-monero-stablecoins/

Brazilian’s Central Bank Will Ban Monero and Algorithmic Stablecoins in the Country

Brazil proposes crypto regulations banning Monero and algorithmic stablecoins and enforcing strict compliance for exchanges.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Central Bank of Brazil has proposed regulations prohibiting privacy-centric cryptocurrencies like Monero.
• The regulations categorize exchanges into intermediaries, custodians, and brokers, each with specific capital requirements and compliance standards.
• While the proposed rules apply to cryptocurrencies, certain digital assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are still ‘deregulated’ in Brazil.

In a Notice of Participation announcement, the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB) outlines regulations for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) operating in the country.

In the document, the Brazilian regulator specifies that privacy-focused coins, such as Monero, must be excluded from all digital asset companies that intend to operate in Brazil.

Let’s unpack what effect these regulations will have.

Brazil’s Crackdown on Crypto Fraud

If the BCB’s current rule is approved, exchanges dealing with coins that provide anonymity must delist these currencies or prevent Brazilians from accessing and operating these assets.

The Central Bank argues that currencies like Monero make it difficult and even prevent the identification of users, thus creating problems in complying with international AML obligations and policies to prevent the financing of terrorism.

According to the Central Bank of Brazil, the bans aim to prevent criminals from using digital assets to launder money. In Brazil, organized criminal syndicates such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho have been increasingly using digital assets for money laundering and foreign remittances.

… restriction on the supply of virtual assets that contain characteristics of fragility, insecurity or risks that favor fraud or crime, such as virtual assets designed to favor money laundering and terrorist financing practices by facilitating anonymity or difficulty identification of the holder.

– Notice of Participation

The Central Bank has identified that removing algorithmic stablecoins is essential to guarantee the safety of users’ funds and avoid events such as when Terraform Labs’ entire ecosystem collapsed, losing billions of investors’ dollars.

The Central Bank also wants to control all digital assets traded by companies in Brazil. According to the current proposal, the national regulator will have the power to ask platforms to remove certain listed assets if it considers that they do not meet local regulations.

However, the regulations will not include NFTs, real-world asset (RWA) tokens, RWA tokens classified as securities, and tokenized movable or real estate assets. These assets are still ‘deregulated’ in Brazil.

Monero: What Is It and Why Is Brazil Banning It?

Monero ($XMR) is a cryptocurrency that uses a protocol called CryptoNote. It launched in 2013 and ‘erases’ transaction data, preventing the sender and recipient addresses from being publicly known. The Monero network is based on a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which incentivizes miners to add blocks to the blockchain. 

Like Brazil, other nations are banning Monero in search of regulatory compliance. Recently, Dubai’s new digital asset rules prohibited the issuance of activities related to anonymity-enhancing cryptocurrencies such as $XMR.

Furthermore, exchanges such as Binance have already announced they will delist Monero on their global platforms due to its anonymity features. Kraken did the same, removing Monero for their European-based users to comply with MiCA regulations.

Data from Chainalysis shows that Brazil is the seventh-largest Bitcoin market in the world.

In Latin America, Brazil is the largest market for digital assets. Globally, it leads in the innovation of RWA tokens, with several companies already trading this type of asset.

In Closing

Following other nations, Brazil’s regulatory proposals aim to combat illicit activities such as money laundering and terrorism financing.

Will the BCB’s move safeguard people’s digital assets while also stimulating growth and innovation in the crypto ecosystem? Only time will tell.

References

Cassio Gusson is a journalist passionate about technology, cryptocurrencies, and the nuances of human nature. With a career spanning roles as Senior Crypto Journalist at CriptoFacil and Head of News at CoinTelegraph, he offers exclusive insights on South America’s crypto landscape. A graduate in Communication from Faccamp and a post-graduate in Globalization and Culture from FESPSP, Cassio explores the intersection of governance, decentralization, and the evolution of global systems.

View all articles by Cassio Gusson

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I'm learning as I go, so take the text below for what it is: my notes on the process. These steps could become outdated quickly, and I may have some wrong assumptions at places. Either way, I have had success, and would like to share my experience for anyone new to the process. If I have made any errors, please reply with corrections so that others may avoid potential pitfalls.

!!! If you have "KYC Bitcoin", keep it in separate wallets from your "Anonymous Bitcoin". Any Anonymous Bitcoin in a wallet with KYC Bitcoin becomes 100% KYC Bitcoin.

!!! It took me several days to get all the right pieces set up before I could even start an exchange with someone.

!!! Using a VPN is highly recommended. If you're not already using one, take the time to find one that suits you and get it running.

!!! If you don't normally buy Amazon Gift Cards, start doing so now, and just send them to yourself, or friends that will give you cash in return, etc. For my first trade, Amazon locked me out of my account for about 22 hours, while I was in the middle of an exchange. All because I had never purchased an Amazon Gift Card before. It was quite nerve wracking. My second trade was for $300, and although my Amazon account wasn't shut down, that order had a status of "Sending" for about 22 hours, due to the large amount. In each of these cases I had multiple phone calls with their customer support, all of whom gave me false expectations. Had I already been sending gift cards to the anonymous email address that I created in the steps below, and maybe other anonymous email addresses that I could make, then I might not have been stalled so much.

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1. Install Tor Browser for your OS. The RoboSats.com website issues a warning if you are not using Tor Browser. If you don't know what Tor is, I won't explain it all here, but trust me, it's cool and helps keep you anonymous. If you use Firefox, the interface will look very familiar to you.

2. Create a KYC-free e-mail address. I used tutanota.com in Firefox, as it would not allow me to create an account using Tor Browser. After the account was created, using Tor Browser to login, check emails, etc. has been working perfectly. Tutanota requires a 48 hour (or less) waiting period to prevent bots from using their system. You'll be able to login, and even draft an email, but you won't be able to send. After you've been approved, you should be able to login and send an email to your new address. It should show up in your Inbox almost instantly if it's working.

3. Have, or create, at least one Lightning wallet that is compatible with RoboSats.com and has no KYC Bitcoin in it. The RoboSats website has a compatibility chart available to find the best wallet for you. During an exchange on RoboSats, you will need to put up an escrow payment, or bond, in Satoshis. This amount is usually 3% of the total amount being exchanged. If the exchange is successful, the bond payment is canceled, leaving that amount in your wallet untouched, and with no record of it having been used as escrow. If you don't hold up your end of the trade, the bond amount will be transfered from your wallet. I created a wallet, using my new email address, with the Alby extension in the Tor Browser. This anonymous wallet was empty, so I used a separate wallet for the bond payment of my first trade. This wallet had KYC Bitcoin, but since it is being used for a bond payment, and no transaction will be recorded if everything goes okay, I don't mind taking the minuscule risk. After the first trade, I don't need to use the "KYC wallet", and I will use only my anonymous Lightning wallet for transactions related to performing a trade.

4. Create a new Robot Token by going to RoboSats using the Tor Browser. Copy the Token (Robot ID) to a text file as a temporary backup. It is recommended to create a new robot-token for every session of exchanges you make.

5. Select "Offers" to browse what others are presenting. "Create" is for when you want to create an offer of your own. You may need to create your own offer if none of the existing offers match your criteria.

6. Select "Buy" at the top of the page.

7. Select your currency (USD).

8. Select your payment methods by typing "amazon" and selecting (Amazon Gift Card). Repeat this process and select (Amazon USA Gift Card).

9. Determine Priorities - If you prefer to trade quickly, and don't care as much about premiums, look for users with a green dot on the upper-right of their robot icon. If you're not in a hurry, sort users by premium and select the best deal, even if they are inactive. They may become active once they are notified that their offer has activity from you.

10. The Definition of Price = the price with the premium added, but not the bond

11. A. Find A Compatible Offer - Select the row of the desired offer and enter the amount you would like to buy. i.e. $100 If you do not find a compatible offer, you will have to create your own offer.

    B.  **Create An Offer** - First, take a look at "Sell" offers for your same currency and payment method(s) that you will be using.  Take note of the premium those buyers are willing to pay.  If your premium is drastically less than theirs, your offer may get ignored.  Select "Create" at the bottom of the screen.  There is a slider at the top of the screen, select it to see all the options. Select "Buy". Enter the minimum and maximum amount that you wish to spend.  Type "amazon" to select the methods that you would like to use (Amazon Gift Card, Amazon USA Gift Card).  For "Premium Over Market", enter an amount that is competitive with premiums you saw at the start of this step and do not use the % sign!  You can adjust the duration, timer, and bond amount, but I leave those at their default settings.  Select the "Create Order" button, and follow the instructions for making a bond payment.
    

12. Pay the Bond - Copy the invoice that is presented. From your wallet that contains bond funds, select "Send", and paste the invoice as the recipient. This money will never leave your account if the exchange completes without issue. No transaction will be recorded. If there is a complication with the exchange, it is possible that this transaction will complete.

13. Create and Submit Your Invoice for Their Bitcoin Payment To You - Select "Lightning", if not selected by default.* Select the Copy Icon to copy the correct amount of Satoshis. This amount already has the premium deducted. From your anonymous Lightning Wallet, select "Receive", and paste the Satoshi amount. If you enter a description, it's probably best to keep it cryptic. Copy the invoice and paste it into RoboSats; then select "Submit".

    * If you plan on "mixing" your Bitcoin after purchase, it may be better to select "On Chain" and pay the necessary fees swap and mining fees. In the example this comes from, Sparrow wallet is used and has whirlpool ability in its interface.

14. Connect With Seller and Send Funds - Greet the seller in the chat window. The seller has now provided RoboSats with the Bitcoin to transfer to you. Your move is to buy an Amazon eGift Card for the amount of the trade. Log in to your Amazon account and start the process of buying an eGift card. For delivery there is the option of email or txt message. Ask the seller what their preference is, and get their address, or phone number, to enter into Amazon's form. Complete the purchase process on Amazon, and check the status of your order. Once you see the status of "Sent", go back to RoboSats in your Tor Browser.

15. Confirm Your Payment - Select the "Confirm ___ USD Sent" button and notify the seller to check their e-mail/txt messages.

16. Seller Confirmation - Once the seller select their "Confirm" button, the trade will immediately end with a confirmation screen.

17. Verify - If you check the anonymous wallet, the new amount should be presented.

@ 65912a7a:5dc638bf

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 5 min
• 🍳 Cook time: 30 min
• 🍽️ Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 12-14oz fresh cranberries
• 1⅓ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 orange, peeled & chopped
• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Using medium sauce pan, simmer cranberries and water for 5-6 min. Cranberries will start to pop.
2. Add brown sugar, raisins, and chopped orange to the berries.
3. Bring to a simmer and continue to cook for 20 min. Stir often to prevent sticking. Remove from heat.
4. Let set until room temp. Mixture will thicken as it cools.
5. Put in a covered container and keep refrigerated. Lasts for about 2 weeks.

@ 5e5fc143:393d5a2c

Now test old reliable front end Stay tuned more later Keeping this as template long note for debugging in future as come across few NIP-33 post edit issues

@ 41e6f20b:06049e45

Let me tell you a beautiful story. Last night, during the speakers' dinner at Monerotopia, the waitress was collecting tiny tips in Mexican pesos. I asked her, "Do you really want to earn tips seriously?" I then showed her how to set up a Cake Wallet, and she started collecting tips in Monero, reaching 0.9 XMR. Of course, she wanted to cash out to fiat immediately, but it solved a real problem for her: making more money. That amount was something she would never have earned in a single workday. We kept talking, and I promised to give her Zoom workshops. What can I say? I love people, and that's why I'm a natural orange-piller.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

The case against edits

Direct edits are a centralizing force on Nostr, a slippery slope that should not be accepted.

Edits are fine in other, more specialized event kinds, but the kind:1 space shouldn't be compromised with such a push towards centralization, because kind:1 is the public square of Nostr, where all focus should be on decentralization and censorship-resistance.

• Why?

Edits introduce too much complexity. If edits are widespread, all clients now have to download dozens of extra events at the same time while users are browsing a big feed of notes which are already coming from dozens of different relays using complicated outbox-model-based querying, then for each event they have to open yet another subscription to these relays -- or perform some other complicated batching of subscriptions which then requires more complexity on the event handling side and then when associating these edits with the original events. I can only imagine this will hurt apps performance, but it definitely raises the barrier to entry and thus necessarily decreases Nostr decentralization.

Some clients may be implemneted in way such that they download tons of events and then store them in a local databases, from which they then construct the feed that users see. Such clients may make edits potentially easier to deal with -- but this is hardly an answer to the point above, since such clients are already more complex to implement in the first place.

• What do you have against complex clients?

The point is not to say that all clients should be simple, but that it should be simple to write a client -- or at least as simple as physically possible.

You may not be thinking about it, but if you believe in the promise of Nostr then we should expect to see Nostr feeds in many other contexts other than on a big super app in a phone -- we should see Nostr notes being referenced from and injected in unrelated webpages, unrelated apps, hardware devices, comment sections and so on. All these micro-clients will have to implement some complicated edit-fetching logic now?

• But aren't we already fetching likes and zaps and other things, why not fetch edits too?

Likes, zaps and other similar things are optional. It's perfectly fine to use Nostr without seeing likes and/or zaps -- and, believe me, it does happen quite a lot. The point is basically that likes or zaps don't affect the content of the main post at all, while edits do.

• But edits are optional!

No, they are not optional. If edits become widespread they necessarily become mandatory. Any client that doesn't implement edits will be displaying false information to its users and their experience will be completely broken.

• That's fine, as people will just move to clients that support edits!

Exactly, that is what I expect to happen too, and this is why I am saying edits are a centralizing force that we should be fighting against, not embracing.

If you understand that edits are a centralizing force, then you must automatically agree that they aren't a desirable feature, given that if you are reading this now, with Nostr being so small, there is a 100% chance you care about decentralization and you're not just some kind of lazy influencer that is only doing this for money.

• All other social networks support editing!

This is not true at all. Bluesky has 10x more users than Nostr and doesn't support edits. Instagram doesn't support editing pictures after they're posted, and doesn't support editing comments. Tiktok doesn't support editing videos or comments after they're posted. YouTube doesn't support editing videos after they're posted. Most famously, email, the most widely used and widespread "social app" out there, does not support edits of any kind. Twitter didn't support edits for the first 15 years of its life, and, although some people complained, it didn't hurt the platform at all -- arguably it benefitted it.

If edits are such a straightforward feature to add that won't hurt performance, that won't introduce complexity, and also that is such an essential feature users could never live without them, then why don't these centralized platforms have edits on everything already? There must be something there.

• Eventually someone will implement edits anyway, so why bother to oppose edits now?

Once Nostr becomes big enough, maybe it will be already shielded from such centralizing forces by its sheer volume of users and quantity of clients, maybe not, we will see. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't just push for bad things now just because of a potential future in which they might come.

• The market will decide what is better.

The market has decided for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. If we were to follow what the market had decided we wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't be reading this post.

• OK, you have convinced me, edits are not good for the protocol. But what do we do about the users who just want to fix their typos?

There are many ways. The annotations spec, for example, provides a simple way to append things to a note without being a full-blown edit, and they fall back gracefully to normal replies in clients that don't implement the full annotations spec.

Eventually we could have annotations that are expressed in form of simple (human-readable?) diffs that can be applied directly to the post, but fall back, again, to comments.

Besides these, a very simple idea that wasn't tried yet on Nostr yet is the idea that has been tried for emails and seems to work very well: delaying a post after the "submit" button is clicked and giving the user the opportunity to cancel and edit it again before it is actually posted.

Ultimately, if edits are so necessary, then maybe we could come up with a way to implement edits that is truly optional and falls back cleanly for clients that don't support them directly and don't hurt the protocol very much. Let's think about it and not rush towards defeat.

@ 4ba8e86d:89d32de4

Tutorial feito por nostr:nostr:npub1rc56x0ek0dd303eph523g3chm0wmrs5wdk6vs0ehd0m5fn8t7y4sqra3tk poste original abaixo:

Parte 1 : http://xh6liiypqffzwnu5734ucwps37tn2g6npthvugz3gdoqpikujju525yd.onion/263585/tutorial-debloat-de-celulares-android-via-adb-parte-1

Parte 2 : http://xh6liiypqffzwnu5734ucwps37tn2g6npthvugz3gdoqpikujju525yd.onion/index.php/263586/tutorial-debloat-de-celulares-android-via-adb-parte-2

Quando o assunto é privacidade em celulares, uma das medidas comumente mencionadas é a remoção de bloatwares do dispositivo, também chamado de debloat. O meio mais eficiente para isso sem dúvidas é a troca de sistema operacional. Custom Rom’s como LineageOS, GrapheneOS, Iodé, CalyxOS, etc, já são bastante enxutos nesse quesito, principalmente quanto não é instalado os G-Apps com o sistema. No entanto, essa prática pode acabar resultando em problemas indesejados como a perca de funções do dispositivo, e até mesmo incompatibilidade com apps bancários, tornando este método mais atrativo para quem possui mais de um dispositivo e separando um apenas para privacidade.   Pensando nisso, pessoas que possuem apenas um único dispositivo móvel, que são necessitadas desses apps ou funções, mas, ao mesmo tempo, tem essa visão em prol da privacidade, buscam por um meio-termo entre manter a Stock rom, e não ter seus dados coletados por esses bloatwares. Felizmente, a remoção de bloatwares é possível e pode ser realizada via root, ou mais da maneira que este artigo irá tratar, via adb.

O que são bloatwares?

Bloatware é a junção das palavras bloat (inchar) + software (programa), ou seja, um bloatware é basicamente um programa inútil ou facilmente substituível — colocado em seu dispositivo previamente pela fabricante e operadora — que está no seu dispositivo apenas ocupando espaço de armazenamento, consumindo memória RAM e pior, coletando seus dados e enviando para servidores externos, além de serem mais pontos de vulnerabilidades.

O que é o adb?

O Android Debug Brigde, ou apenas adb, é uma ferramenta que se utiliza das permissões de usuário shell e permite o envio de comandos vindo de um computador para um dispositivo Android exigindo apenas que a depuração USB esteja ativa, mas também pode ser usada diretamente no celular a partir do Android 11, com o uso do Termux e a depuração sem fio (ou depuração wifi). A ferramenta funciona normalmente em dispositivos sem root, e também funciona caso o celular esteja em Recovery Mode.

Requisitos:

Para computadores:

• Depuração USB ativa no celular; • Computador com adb; • Cabo USB;

Para celulares:

• Depuração sem fio (ou depuração wifi) ativa no celular; • Termux; • Android 11 ou superior;

Para ambos:

• Firewall NetGuard instalado e configurado no celular; • Lista de bloatwares para seu dispositivo;

Ativação de depuração:

Para ativar a Depuração USB em seu dispositivo, pesquise como ativar as opções de desenvolvedor de seu dispositivo, e lá ative a depuração. No caso da depuração sem fio, sua ativação irá ser necessária apenas no momento que for conectar o dispositivo ao Termux.

Instalação e configuração do NetGuard

O NetGuard pode ser instalado através da própria Google Play Store, mas de preferência instale pela F-Droid ou Github para evitar telemetria.

F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/eu.faircode.netguard/

Github: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases

Após instalado, configure da seguinte maneira:

Configurações → padrões (lista branca/negra) → ative as 3 primeiras opções (bloquear wifi, bloquear dados móveis e aplicar regras ‘quando tela estiver ligada’);

Configurações → opções avançadas → ative as duas primeiras (administrar aplicativos do sistema e registrar acesso a internet);

Com isso, todos os apps estarão sendo bloqueados de acessar a internet, seja por wifi ou dados móveis, e na página principal do app basta permitir o acesso a rede para os apps que você vai usar (se necessário). Permita que o app rode em segundo plano sem restrição da otimização de bateria, assim quando o celular ligar, ele já estará ativo.

Lista de bloatwares

Nem todos os bloatwares são genéricos, haverá bloatwares diferentes conforme a marca, modelo, versão do Android, e até mesmo região.

Para obter uma lista de bloatwares de seu dispositivo, caso seu aparelho já possua um tempo de existência, você encontrará listas prontas facilmente apenas pesquisando por elas. Supondo que temos um Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus em mãos, basta pesquisar em seu motor de busca por:

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus bloatware list

Provavelmente essas listas já terão inclusas todos os bloatwares das mais diversas regiões, lhe poupando o trabalho de buscar por alguma lista mais específica.

Caso seu aparelho seja muito recente, e/ou não encontre uma lista pronta de bloatwares, devo dizer que você acaba de pegar em merda, pois é chato para um caralho pesquisar por cada aplicação para saber sua função, se é essencial para o sistema ou se é facilmente substituível.

De antemão já aviso, que mais para frente, caso vossa gostosura remova um desses aplicativos que era essencial para o sistema sem saber, vai acabar resultando na perda de alguma função importante, ou pior, ao reiniciar o aparelho o sistema pode estar quebrado, lhe obrigando a seguir com uma formatação, e repetir todo o processo novamente.

Download do adb em computadores

Para usar a ferramenta do adb em computadores, basta baixar o pacote chamado SDK platform-tools, disponível através deste link: https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools. Por ele, você consegue o download para Windows, Mac e Linux.

Uma vez baixado, basta extrair o arquivo zipado, contendo dentro dele uma pasta chamada platform-tools que basta ser aberta no terminal para se usar o adb.

Download do adb em celulares com Termux.

Para usar a ferramenta do adb diretamente no celular, antes temos que baixar o app Termux, que é um emulador de terminal linux, e já possui o adb em seu repositório. Você encontra o app na Google Play Store, mas novamente recomendo baixar pela F-Droid ou diretamente no Github do projeto.

F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/

Github: https://github.com/termux/termux-app/releases

Processo de debloat

Antes de iniciarmos, é importante deixar claro que não é para você sair removendo todos os bloatwares de cara sem mais nem menos, afinal alguns deles precisam antes ser substituídos, podem ser essenciais para você para alguma atividade ou função, ou até mesmo são insubstituíveis.

Alguns exemplos de bloatwares que a substituição é necessária antes da remoção, é o Launcher, afinal, é a interface gráfica do sistema, e o teclado, que sem ele só é possível digitar com teclado externo. O Launcher e teclado podem ser substituídos por quaisquer outros, minha recomendação pessoal é por aqueles que respeitam sua privacidade, como Pie Launcher e Simple Laucher, enquanto o teclado pelo OpenBoard e FlorisBoard, todos open-source e disponíveis da F-Droid.

Identifique entre a lista de bloatwares, quais você gosta, precisa ou prefere não substituir, de maneira alguma você é obrigado a remover todos os bloatwares possíveis, modifique seu sistema a seu bel-prazer. O NetGuard lista todos os apps do celular com o nome do pacote, com isso você pode filtrar bem qual deles não remover.

Um exemplo claro de bloatware insubstituível e, portanto, não pode ser removido, é o com.android.mtp, um protocolo onde sua função é auxiliar a comunicação do dispositivo com um computador via USB, mas por algum motivo, tem acesso a rede e se comunica frequentemente com servidores externos. Para esses casos, e melhor solução mesmo é bloquear o acesso a rede desses bloatwares com o NetGuard.

MTP tentando comunicação com servidores externos:

Executando o adb shell

No computador

Faça backup de todos os seus arquivos importantes para algum armazenamento externo, e formate seu celular com o hard reset. Após a formatação, e a ativação da depuração USB, conecte seu aparelho e o pc com o auxílio de um cabo USB. Muito provavelmente seu dispositivo irá apenas começar a carregar, por isso permita a transferência de dados, para que o computador consiga se comunicar normalmente com o celular.

Já no pc, abra a pasta platform-tools dentro do terminal, e execute o seguinte comando:

./adb start-server

O resultado deve ser:

daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037 daemon started successfully

E caso não apareça nada, execute:

./adb kill-server

E inicie novamente.

Com o adb conectado ao celular, execute:

./adb shell

Para poder executar comandos diretamente para o dispositivo. No meu caso, meu celular é um Redmi Note 8 Pro, codinome Begonia.

Logo o resultado deve ser:

begonia:/ $

Caso ocorra algum erro do tipo:

adb: device unauthorized. This adb server’s $ADB_VENDOR_KEYS is not set Try ‘adb kill-server’ if that seems wrong. Otherwise check for a confirmation dialog on your device.

Verifique no celular se apareceu alguma confirmação para autorizar a depuração USB, caso sim, autorize e tente novamente. Caso não apareça nada, execute o kill-server e repita o processo.

No celular

Após realizar o mesmo processo de backup e hard reset citado anteriormente, instale o Termux e, com ele iniciado, execute o comando:

pkg install android-tools

Quando surgir a mensagem “Do you want to continue? [Y/n]”, basta dar enter novamente que já aceita e finaliza a instalação

Agora, vá até as opções de desenvolvedor, e ative a depuração sem fio. Dentro das opções da depuração sem fio, terá uma opção de emparelhamento do dispositivo com um código, que irá informar para você um código em emparelhamento, com um endereço IP e porta, que será usado para a conexão com o Termux.

Para facilitar o processo, recomendo que abra tanto as configurações quanto o Termux ao mesmo tempo, e divida a tela com os dois app’s, como da maneira a seguir:

Para parear o Termux com o dispositivo, não é necessário digitar o ip informado, basta trocar por “localhost”, já a porta e o código de emparelhamento, deve ser digitado exatamente como informado. Execute:

adb pair localhost:porta CódigoDeEmparelhamento

De acordo com a imagem mostrada anteriormente, o comando ficaria “adb pair localhost:41255 757495”.

Com o dispositivo emparelhado com o Termux, agora basta conectar para conseguir executar os comandos, para isso execute:

adb connect localhost:porta

Obs: a porta que você deve informar neste comando não é a mesma informada com o código de emparelhamento, e sim a informada na tela principal da depuração sem fio.

Pronto! Termux e adb conectado com sucesso ao dispositivo, agora basta executar normalmente o adb shell:

adb shell

Remoção na prática Com o adb shell executado, você está pronto para remover os bloatwares. No meu caso, irei mostrar apenas a remoção de um app (Google Maps), já que o comando é o mesmo para qualquer outro, mudando apenas o nome do pacote.

Dentro do NetGuard, verificando as informações do Google Maps:

Podemos ver que mesmo fora de uso, e com a localização do dispositivo desativado, o app está tentando loucamente se comunicar com servidores externos, e informar sabe-se lá que peste. Mas sem novidades até aqui, o mais importante é que podemos ver que o nome do pacote do Google Maps é com.google.android.apps.maps, e para o remover do celular, basta executar:

pm uninstall –user 0 com.google.android.apps.maps

E pronto, bloatware removido! Agora basta repetir o processo para o resto dos bloatwares, trocando apenas o nome do pacote.

Para acelerar o processo, você pode já criar uma lista do bloco de notas com os comandos, e quando colar no terminal, irá executar um atrás do outro.

Exemplo de lista:

Caso a donzela tenha removido alguma coisa sem querer, também é possível recuperar o pacote com o comando:

cmd package install-existing nome.do.pacote

Pós-debloat

Após limpar o máximo possível o seu sistema, reinicie o aparelho, caso entre no como recovery e não seja possível dar reboot, significa que você removeu algum app “essencial” para o sistema, e terá que formatar o aparelho e repetir toda a remoção novamente, desta vez removendo poucos bloatwares de uma vez, e reiniciando o aparelho até descobrir qual deles não pode ser removido. Sim, dá trabalho… quem mandou querer privacidade?

Caso o aparelho reinicie normalmente após a remoção, parabéns, agora basta usar seu celular como bem entender! Mantenha o NetGuard sempre executando e os bloatwares que não foram possíveis remover não irão se comunicar com servidores externos, passe a usar apps open source da F-Droid e instale outros apps através da Aurora Store ao invés da Google Play Store.

Referências: Caso você seja um Australopithecus e tenha achado este guia difícil, eis uma videoaula (3:14:40) do Anderson do canal Ciberdef, realizando todo o processo: http://odysee.com/@zai:5/Como-remover-at%C3%A9-200-APLICATIVOS-que-colocam-a-sua-PRIVACIDADE-E-SEGURAN%C3%87A-em-risco.:4?lid=6d50f40314eee7e2f218536d9e5d300290931d23

Pdf’s do Anderson citados na videoaula: créditos ao anon6837264 http://eternalcbrzpicytj4zyguygpmkjlkddxob7tptlr25cdipe5svyqoqd.onion/file/3863a834d29285d397b73a4af6fb1bbe67c888d72d30/t-05e63192d02ffd.pdf

Processo de instalação do Termux e adb no celular: https://youtu.be/APolZrPHSms

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Nostr is not decentralized nor censorship-resistant

Peter Todd has been saying this for a long time and all the time I've been thinking he is misunderstanding everything, but I guess a more charitable interpretation is that he is right.

Nostr today is indeed centralized.

Yesterday I published two harmless notes with the exact same content at the same time. In two minutes the notes had a noticeable difference in responses:

The top one was published to wss://nostr.wine, wss://nos.lol, wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com. The second was published to the relay where I generally publish all my notes to, wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com, and that is announced on my NIP-05 file and on my NIP-65 relay list.

A few minutes later I published that screenshot again in two identical notes to the same sets of relays, asking if people understood the implications. The difference in quantity of responses can still be seen today:

These results are skewed now by the fact that the two notes got rebroadcasted to multiple relays after some time, but the fundamental point remains.

What happened was that a huge lot more of people saw the first note compared to the second, and if Nostr was really censorship-resistant that shouldn't have happened at all.

Some people implied in the comments, with an air of obviousness, that publishing the note to "more relays" should have predictably resulted in more replies, which, again, shouldn't be the case if Nostr is really censorship-resistant.

What happens is that most people who engaged with the note are following me, in the sense that they have instructed their clients to fetch my notes on their behalf and present them in the UI, and clients are failing to do that despite me making it clear in multiple ways that my notes are to be found on wss://pyramid.fiatjaf.com.

If we were talking not about me, but about some public figure that was being censored by the State and got banned (or shadowbanned) by the 3 biggest public relays, the sad reality would be that the person would immediately get his reach reduced to ~10% of what they had before. This is not at all unlike what happened to dozens of personalities that were banned from the corporate social media platforms and then moved to other platforms -- how many of their original followers switched to these other platforms? Probably some small percentage close to 10%. In that sense Nostr today is similar to what we had before.

Peter Todd is right that if the way Nostr works is that you just subscribe to a small set of relays and expect to get everything from them then it tends to get very centralized very fast, and this is the reality today.

Peter Todd is wrong that Nostr is inherently centralized or that it needs a protocol change to become what it has always purported to be. He is in fact wrong today, because what is written above is not valid for all clients of today, and if we drive in the right direction we can successfully make Peter Todd be more and more wrong as time passes, instead of the contrary.

---

See also:

• Censorship-resistant relay discovery in Nostr
• A vision for content discovery and relay usage for basic social-networking in Nostr

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Anglicismos estúpidos no português contemporâneo

Palavras e expressões que ninguém deveria usar porque não têm o sentido que as pessoas acham que têm, são apenas aportuguesamentos de palavras inglesas que por nuances da história têm um sentido ligeiramente diferente em inglês.

Cada erro é acompanhado também de uma sugestão de como corrigi-lo.

Palavras que existem em português com sentido diferente

• submissão (de trabalhos): envio, apresentação
• disrupção: perturbação
• assumir: considerar, pressupor, presumir
• realizar: perceber
• endereçar: tratar de
• suporte (ao cliente): atendimento
• suportar (uma idéia, um projeto): apoiar, financiar
• suportar (uma função, recurso, característica): oferecer, ser compatível com
• literacia: instrução, alfabetização
• convoluto: complicado.
• acurácia: precisão.
• resiliência: resistência.

Aportuguesamentos desnecessários

• estartar: iniciar, começar
• treidar: negociar, especular

Expressões

• "não é sobre...": "não se trata de..."

---

Ver também

• Algumas expressões e ditados excelentes da língua portuguesa, e outras não tão excelentes assim

@ 5ee71c0a:b0506ae6

Hey, anyone who reads this—thanks for keeping me (somewhat) accountable.

I’m not big on formal New Year’s resolutions, but I do like to review the past year to see where I’ve done well, where I’m lacking, and what new habits I can form in 2025.

Wait, isn’t that a resolution? Anyway.

One thing that’s always been important to me is freedom of speech. I plan to keep using X/Twitter—yes, it has shortcomings, but so does every platform. None will ever be perfect for everyone.

That said, I believe strongly in decentralization. I’ve been exploring Nostr for the past two years. Now, I want to use it more often, learn its possibilities, and contribute where I can. I’ve also posted this on Habla.news, a Nostr community for long-form content, to encourage myself (and anyone else) to try new platforms and keep an open mind.

There’s a lot happening with Nostr, Lightning, and other Bitcoin-related projects. It reminds me of the early internet—everyone was contributing, and we had no idea what would stick. I miss those days, and it’s exciting to see a new community forming.

Speaking of the early internet, I think it’s time I set up a blog or personal site. It’s been ages! Neocities feels retro and has a growing community, so I might start there.

Work will be busy in 2025—2024 was already intense, and the bar is always rising. So I’m not going to overload myself with extra goals. Still, many of my work goals, like earning new certifications, blend into my personal ambitions.

In 2024, I did well with my health goals. In 2025, I want to build on that, but in small steps. For Q1, I’ll re-establish my Peloton routine; in Q2-Q3, I’ll get back into heavier weight training. I miss lifting and want to push myself again.

I also miss reading—especially sci-fi. It’s high time I make space for that.

So, this is my short list of goals. I’m sure I’ll refine it as the year unfolds. Thanks for reading, and if you want to connect with me on Nostr, here’s my info: nostr:npub1tmn3czhv2wzxvt4mpanttd8parnxgq528c0hzfehfm4rlvzsdtnqghwkhd

@ 1739d937:3e3136ef

This update marks a major milestone for the project. I know, with certainty, that MLS messaging over Nostr is going to work. That might sound a little crazy after so many months working on the project, and I was pretty confident, but until you’ve got running code, it’s all conjecture.

Late last week, I released a video of a working prototype of White Noise that shows the full flow; creating groups, inviting other users to join those groups, accepting invites, and sending messages back-and-forth. I’m thrilled that I’ve gotten this far but also appalled that it’s taken so long and disgusted at the state of the code in the app (I’ve been told I have unrelenting standards 😅).

If you missed the video last week...

nostr:note125cuk0zetc7sshw52v5zaq9apq3rq7e2x587tr2c96t7z7sjs59svwv0fj

What's Next?

In this update, I want to cover a few things about how I'm planning to proceed and how I’m splitting code out of the app into libraries that will help other developers implement MLS messaging in their own Nostr clients.

First off, many of you know that I've been building White Noise as a Rust app using the Tauri framework. The OpenMLS implementation is also written in Rust (with bindings for many other languages). So, when you hear me talking about library code, think Rust crates for now.

The first library, called openmls-nostr, is an extension/abstraction on top of the openmls implementation of the MLS spec that helps Nostr clients interact more easily with that implementation in a way that feels native to Nostr. Mostly this will be helping developers interact with MLS primitives and ensure that they’re creating, validating, and serializing these objects in the right way at the right times.

The second isn’t a new library as a big contribution to the already excellent rust-nostr library from nostr:npub1drvpzev3syqt0kjrls50050uzf25gehpz9vgdw08hvex7e0vgfeq0eseet. The methods that will go in rust-nostr are highly abstracted and based specifically on the requirements of NIP-104. Mostly this will be helping developers to take those MLS primitives and publish or query them as Nostr events at the right times and to/from the right relays.

Most of this code was originally written directly in the White Noise library so this week I've started to pull code for both of those libraries out and move it to its new home. While I’ve been at it, I've been writing some tests and trying to document things.

An unfortunate offshoot of this is that the usable builds of White Noise are going to take a touch longer. I promise it’s still a very high priority but at this point I need to clean a few things up based on what I've learned thus far.

Another thing that is slowing down release is that; behind the scenes of the dev work, I’ve been battling with Apple for nearly 2 months now to get a proper developer team set up so that we can publish the app via TestFlight for MacOS and iOS. I’ve also been recently learning the intricacies of Android publishing (oh my dear god there are so many devices, OS versions, etc.).

With that in mind, if you know anyone who can help get me up to speed on CI/CD, release pipelines, and multi-platform distribution please hit me up. I would love to learn more and hopefully shortcut some of the pain.

Thanks again so much for all the support over the last few months! It means a lot to me and is a huge part of what is keeping me going on this. 🙏

@ 1739d937:3e3136ef

Previous updates

• Check them all out here: https://highlighter.com/jeffg.fyi

Progress this week

It was a busy one. I've been focused on the critical path of getting the full end-to-end MLS messaging flow built into White Noise. Unfortunately, or fortunately for those that will come after, this has necessitated writing quite a bit of library code and figuring out how clients should think about storing the necessary group state and secrets.

Today I released the highly creatively named openmls-sled-storage. This is a storage adapter for Sled DB, an embedded database written in Rust. This allows clients to simply give their clients a file path where they want to store the data and the library will take care of the rest with regards to MLS storage.

Another bit of library code is a customer MLS extension called NostrGroupData (again with a wildly creative title - check it out in the WN repo here). This is a standardized way of storing the necessary metadata about a group that will allow it to function properly with Nostr conventions as well as basic data like Group name, description, etc. This, in specific, is the source of quite a few updates to the NIP, but overall it's going to give clients implementing MLS groups assurances that the data required is not only formatted the same, but cryptographically guaranteed to be there and respected by each group member, or the group will fork.

White Noise

The client currently supports multiple accounts, including generating new Nostr identities on the fly. It's also loading user's contact lists, and NIP-04 DMs at the moment as well. This week I managed to build out nearly the entire group creation flow. This includes publishing and fetching key packages (kind: 443 events), inviting another user to create a group, sending welcome messages (kind: 444 events), and I've started working on both parsing those welcome messages and how to represent the groups in the UI in a way that makes reasonable sense to users.

No showstoppers

I know this might sound insane after working on this project for several months already but I'm genuinely surprised that I've not run into any big unknown unknowns yet. Everything is coming together well and, while it's taking me some time to build it right and think carefully about where and how data is being stored and passed around, I'm very confident the client is going to be up and running in a few weeks (famous last words).

The NIP

As I mentioned before, I've left the NIP dormant while I'm working on implementing the entire messaging flow. Once I've got the flow fully built out, I'll know all the details that need to change and I'll update the NIP.

If anyone out there wants to chat about the changes I already know are coming, let me know.

Feedback & contributions always welcome

Thoughts? Questions? Want to contribute? Hit me up.

P.S.

The plant in the cover image is Asparagus Officinalis. My grandfather was the only person I knew growing up that grew it and, as a result, I also grow it at home. The interesting thing about Asparagus (other than making your pee smell funny) is that it takes several years before it starts bearing edible veggies. It's a low time preference plant and further proof that good things take time.

@ 0f1b5961:868242bd

The public theologian Jonathan Pageau has been a major influence in my life for the past couple years. I remember in one of his podcasts he talks about how church buildings have historically been the "focal points" of many towns. In the physical sense, this meant the church building was at the center of the town and was the tallest structure. He argues that the church occupying this station had a sort of psychological effect on the town members, enforcing a way of life that has God in the highest "place".

This got me thinking about my own home city of Des Moines, Iowa. Here, the two most prominent buildings, by far, are the capitol building and a skyscraper called the Principal building. They sit on either side of the Des Moines River and to me, seem to "face off" against each other as if in competition.

The Iowa State Capitol

The Principal Building (801 Grand Avenue)

I was musing over how to settle the competition between these two buildings and I realized that it could be addressed with some pretty basic math. The apparent heights of these buildings change as you move closer or further from them. So whichever building appears taller for a larger portion of the city would be the most prominent building. In an idealized scenario, there would be a straight line between the two buildings where they would appear to be the same height.

This line ends up coinciding with East 4th street on the east side of the Des Moines River. As the Principal building is about twice as tall as the capitol buiding, the point at which they look the same height is about twice as close to the capitol building.

Line along which the capitol and Principle building appear to be the same height.

And so a clear winner emerges. Not only is the Principal building the most prominent in the downtown district of the city. It's influence extends across the river and eclipses the capitol in what one might expect to be its home turf. The focal point of Des Moines is a skyscraper.

I now must conclude with a confession. With the Principal building being about twice as tall as the capitol, there was never going to be a close competition between the two buildings. And indeed this matches the experience of one moving about the city. The Principal building plainly feels more prominent. Despite this, the area in which the capitol ascends to the highest is certainly not small. I like to think this reflects some amount of balance between the mercantile powers and political powers in the area. Perhaps this balance is proportional to the very heights of the buildings.

Not looking good for the ecclesiastical powers in the area...

-Scott

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Nostr: a quick introduction, attempt #2

Nostr doesn't subscribe to any ideals of "free speech" as these belong to the realm of politics and assume a big powerful government that enforces a common ruleupon everybody else.

Nostr instead is much simpler, it simply says that servers are private property and establishes a generalized framework for people to connect to all these servers, creating a true free market in the process. In other words, Nostr is the public road that each market participant can use to build their own store or visit others and use their services.

(Of course a road is never truly public, in normal cases it's ran by the government, in this case it relies upon the previous existence of the internet with all its quirks and chaos plus a hand of government control, but none of that matters for this explanation).

More concretely speaking, Nostr is just a set of definitions of the formats of the data that can be passed between participants and their expected order, i.e. messages between clients (i.e. the program that runs on a user computer) and relays (i.e. the program that runs on a publicly accessible computer, a "server", generally with a domain-name associated) over a type of TCP connection (WebSocket) with cryptographic signatures. This is what is called a "protocol" in this context, and upon that simple base multiple kinds of sub-protocols can be added, like a protocol for "public-square style microblogging", "semi-closed group chat" or, I don't know, "recipe sharing and feedback".

@ c230edd3:8ad4a712

Chef's notes

Allow meat to soak for 1-24 hours. The rougher the cut, the longer the soak. This is great for open flame grilling, as well as pan seared, though the latter is preferable. Petit Sirloin can marinade for approximately 1 hour and still develop tenderness. I like to score the steaks if they will only be resting in the mix for a short time. All seasonings can be adjusted to taste. Base ingredients scale well, for any number of steaks. Equal parts, enough to coat the meat is really all that matters.

I'm terrible at remembering cooking pictures, so image is a random steak. I will try to remember to update that next time I make these.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 10
• 🍳 Cook time: However long you usually cook your steak to preferred doneness

Ingredients

• 4 petite sirloin steaks or other cut
• 1/4 cup yellow mustard
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3-5 cloves garlic, depending on size, minced and salted
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1\2 tsp crushed red pepper

Directions

1. Mix ingredients and marinade 1-24 hours.
2. Grill or pan sear to your preferred doneness
3. Enjoy!

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Estórias

• O caso da Grêmio TV
• Jofer
• Lagoa Santa: como chegar -- partindo da rodoviária de Belo Horizonte
• O Planetinha

@ 16d11430:61640947

For centuries, financial markets have been shackled by an archaic mindset rooted in Newtonian physics: "What goes up must come down." This belief has dominated the thinking of old-school fiat economists, who view the rise and fall of markets as a natural cycle of gravity-bound economics. But Bitcoin, the digital phoenix, was designed to defy this outdated paradigm. It isn't just an asset class or a currency—it's a revolution in financial physics, unshackling value from centralized control and rewriting the rules of money.

The Fiat Fallacy: Gravity Economics

Fiat systems are inherently cyclical, prone to inflation, manipulation, and collapse. Central banks print money endlessly, causing value to "come down" as purchasing power erodes. For fiat thinkers, this is unavoidable—a gravitational force they accept as immutable. Yet this mindset ignores Bitcoin’s game-changing properties: its hard cap of 21 million coins, decentralized consensus, and permissionless architecture.

Bitcoin is fundamentally non-Newtonian. It doesn’t adhere to traditional financial laws because it isn't bound by the same forces of supply and control. Instead, it operates in a new paradigm: deflationary, transparent, and immune to political meddling.

Bitcoin's Escape Velocity

Bitcoin's dominance lies in its ability to achieve escape velocity. Unlike fiat currencies, which are constantly being pulled back by inflationary policies, Bitcoin is propelled by its scarcity, adoption, and network effects. Every halving event tightens the supply, creating an upward pressure that fiat systems can't replicate. And as global trust in traditional systems erodes, Bitcoin's gravitational pull grows stronger.

This phenomenon is evident in the adoption curve. Institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide are recognizing Bitcoin as a superior store of value, an inflation hedge, and the ultimate form of financial sovereignty. The more participants enter the network, the more its value compounds, creating a virtuous cycle of exponential growth.

Humiliating the Old Guard

The fiat establishment—steeped in centuries of centralized control—has long dismissed Bitcoin as a bubble, a fad, or even a Ponzi scheme. Yet, year after year, Bitcoin rises from the ashes of their predictions. Its resilience, transparency, and provable scarcity expose the fragility and corruption of fiat systems.

The ultimate humiliation for fiat thinkers is Bitcoin's ability to thrive in crises. Where traditional systems falter—be it through hyperinflation, bank failures, or geopolitical instability—Bitcoin becomes a lifeboat. It doesn’t just resist gravity; it flips the entire script. Fiat currencies are revealed as infinite-print illusions, while Bitcoin’s immutable ledger stands as the ultimate arbiter of truth and value.

A New Financial Paradigm

Bitcoin’s ascent is not merely about price; it’s about domination. It represents a shift from centralized control to individual empowerment, from opaque systems to transparent protocols, from inflationary theft to deflationary savings. It’s a financial singularity, an escape from the gravitational pull of outdated thinking.

As Bitcoin continues its trajectory, the old world of "what goes up must come down" will look increasingly absurd. In its place, a new principle will reign: what’s decentralized cannot be stopped. Bitcoin isn’t just leaving Earth’s orbit; it’s becoming the financial universe’s North Star.

So buckle up, because Bitcoin isn’t just going up—it’s transcending. And as it does, it will leave the Newtonian thinkers in the dust, staring in disbelief at the rocket that left them behind.

@ 3f289d3c:cf35b9fc

In an increasingly regulated world, the industries that are not heavily regulated need to start switching to Bitcoin and Lightning payments now

I'll start this article off by giving you a little bit of back story. I'm from Canada and in Canada the government is increasingly crushing people under high taxes, massive inflation and unreasonable regulation. This seems to be the story in a lot of places but Canada is particularly bad on the regulation and taxes front, at least from my perspective. I live in a rural area where gasoline prices are much higher than in the higher population density areas of our province. Food prices are higher, product prices are higher including on the used market and property taxes here are way higher than what one might expect in such a remote area. You get the idea.

Now when I moved here the only method of income I had was crypto mining, specifically Ethereum. That seemed to be doing well for me for a short time. As time went on I noticed my savings dipping further and further and even though I was holding a lot of coins that were doing well overall, I was spending much more than I was able to earn with any of the crypto mining methods. I didn't lose a ton of money on any one of these but the Canadian market got so bad that I was forced to liquidate most of the tokens that I had set aside in order to make myself more on the cryptocurrency market. Not an ideal situation to be in.

As time went on I was forced to shut off my Ethereum mining rigs and get a "real job." Since then I've been more or less happily back in the the fiat mines (literally working at a gold mine) working for a meager (but not terrible) living and doing better than I was without a job. The biggest change over the course of the Last few months has been my switch to Bitcoin maximalism. I've learned more about the technology/currency and I've switched any remaining extra funds over to Bitcoin.

This all being said, The Canadian economy is now worse than it's ever been and I'm living paycheck to paycheck even though I make something like $78,000 a year in the mining sector. Obviously, this is absolutely Ridiculous. This is what brings me to my side income.

I've been a professional photographer for several years now and up until this point I hadn't considered trying to generate an income in anything other than Canadian dollars. With Canada being in the state it is currently I have reconsidered that and I am now accepting preferably Bitcoin or cash but I really want to emphasize Bitcoin. My issue at the moment is that I live in an area that is very rural and very remote so there are not a lot of people who even know what Bitcoin is let alone people who will actually use it. This is my biggest hurdle at the moment but frankly I don't think it's not much of a hurdle.

My primary plan for some time has been to build an online business focusing on education, community And maybe a bit of consulting versus going out and doing primarily photo shoots. Obviously that has to exist as part of the business ultimately, but my real goal is to focus on educating others and helping them to get to where I am and beyond. Basically I want to pass on my skill set and I want to avoid the awful economy as much as I can while doing it.

This is where accepting Bitcoin comes in. By accepting Bitcoin as payment for my photography services and only using marketplaces that Are built on that technology, I can largely skip past the modern woes of our economy. I can skip out on taxes and I can skip out on any kind of reporting that I would otherwise need to do. I can basically run a business completely free of the government and not need to do anything other than simply do what I would do if it were a hobby. This really excites me.

Imagine a world where you can just transact without having to report anything on your taxes. Imagine not having taxes at all! In an industry such as photography where it's mostly digital anyways, Bitcoin is the perfect method of payment for your services. With the lightning network And NFC chips, You can do all of your transacting right there on your phone to a lightning enabled Bitcoin wallet.

I think these industries where there isn't any regulation at all or at least very little regulation, are the perfect places to start doing this. They're the perfect breeding ground for all Bitcoin transactions and businesses. Why get the government involved at all when you can simply run your business the way it should be run? As they say on nostr, "Bitcoin fixes this."

I'm really looking forward to building my business in the nostr environment and on the back of a Bitcoin standard. I've already started the transition by joining nostr and I'm beginning to speak about photography there. I don't think I have felt as positive or as enthusiastic about this endeavor since joining nostr as a social platform and I'm really happy that I'm here. I believe that this is the future of digital transactions and social media and it may just be the best way to run an online business going forward.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and if anybody wants to see anything specific from me feel free to hit me up on nostr! I hope my thoughts brought some value to you and maybe got you thinking about how you could start transitioning your business to a Bitcoin standard.

@ 2f7463a4:e92b8023

| GitHub Repository | Lightning Address | | --- | --- | | https://github.com/sfr0xyz/openagents-bitcoin-stats | sefiro@getalby.com |

This is a plugin for OpenAgents that gives you the latest statistics about the Bitcoin network, its mempool and the Lightning Network.

It is inspired by Clark Moody's Bitcoin Dashboard and the TimeChainCalendar.

The project uses the Extism Framework, in particular its Go PDK, and the REST APIs of mempool.space, bitnodes.io and coincap.io.

Usage

Ensure that you have installed the Extism CLI and downloaded the btcstats.wasm file.

You can call the plugin with the Extism CLI:

sh extism call btcstats.wasm run --input '<YOUR INPUT>' --wasi --allow-host '*'

Replace <YOUR INPUT> with a list of statistics you are interested in.

Available statistics (see detailed descriptions on GitHub):

• market: Bitcoin market data such as current price and market cap
• latestBlock: Information about the latest block, such as size and total reward
• mining: Mining data such as current hashrate and difficulty, and difficulty adjustment
• fees: Recommended feerates based on the current mempool
• mempool: Mempool statistics such as number of unconfirmed transactions and pending fees
• lightning: Lightning Network statistics such as total capacity and number of channels
• nodes: Bitcoin node statistics such as total number of nodes

You can include more than one of the above at once.

If you leave the field empty (''), or include none of the above, all stats will be requested.

With the prefix -, e.g. -nodes, you can exclude stats, i.e. "I want all stats except nodes".

Note: If you request the nodes statistic, it will take a while, a few seconds, for the result to be displayed.

Examples[^1]

Note: The resulting JSON is prettified here for better readability.

Get latestBlock and mempool stats:

```plain $ extism call btcstats.wasm run --input 'latestBlock mempool' --wasi --allow-host '*'

{ "latestBlock": { "height": 845325, "timestamp": "Mon, 27 May 2024 01:34:54 UTC", "transactions": 5692, "size": 1.55, "totalReward": 3.272, "totalFees": 0.147, "medianFeeRate": 8.1, "miner": "MARA Pool" }, "mempool": { "unconfirmedTXs": 170669, "vSize": 180.66, "pendingFees": 5.257, "blocksToClear": 181 }, "mining": { "hashrate": 677612693053317300000, "difficulty": 84381461788831.34, "retargetDifficultyChangePercent": 13.39, "retargetRemainingBlocks": 1395, "retargetEstimatedDate": "Tue, 04 Jun 2024 15:07:02 UTC" } } ```

Get all stats except nodes:

```plain $ extism call btcstats.wasm run --input '-nodes' --wasi --allow-host '*'

{ "fees": { "fastest": 9, "halfHour": 9, "hour": 9, "economy": 6, "minimum": 3 }, "latestBlock": { "height": 845325, "timestamp": "Mon, 27 May 2024 01:34:54 UTC", "transactions": 5692, "size": 1.55, "totalReward": 3.272, "totalFees": 0.147, "medianFeeRate": 8.1, "miner": "MARA Pool" }, "lightning": { "totalNodes": 12836, "torNodes": 8930, "clearnetNodes": 1700, "clearnetTorNodes": 1360, "unannouncedNodes": 846, "channels": 50872, "totalCapacity": 4980.822, "averageChannelCapacity": 0.098, "medianChannelCapacity": 0.02 }, "market": { "supply": 19699693, "supplyPercent": 93.81, "price": 69020.61, "priceChange24hPercent": -0.32, "moscowTime": 1448, "marketCap": 1359684729700.71 }, "mempool": { "unconfirmedTXs": 170669, "vSize": 180.66, "pendingFees": 5.257, "blocksToClear": 181 }, "mining": { "hashrate": 677612693053317300000, "difficulty": 84381461788831.34, "retargetDifficultyChangePercent": 13.39, "retargetRemainingBlocks": 1395, "retargetEstimatedDate": "Tue, 04 Jun 2024 15:07:02 UTC" } } ```

[^1]: more examples in the README on GitHub

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

About Nostr, email and subscriptions

I check my emails like once or twice a week, always when I am looking for something specific in there.

Then I go there and I see a bunch of other stuff I had no idea I was missing. Even many things I wish I had seen before actually. And sometimes people just expect and assume I would have checked emails instantly as they arrived.

It's so weird because I'm not making a point, I just don't remember to open the damn "gmail.com" URL.

---

I remember some people were making some a Nostr service a while ago that sent a DM to people with Nostr articles inside -- or some other forms of "subscription services on Nostr". It makes no sense at all.

Pulling in DMs from relays is exactly the same process (actually slightly more convoluted) than pulling normal public events, so why would a service assume that "sending a DM" was more likely to reach the target subscriber when the target had explicitly subscribed to that topic or writer?

Maybe due to how some specific clients work that is true, but fundamentally it is a very broken assumption that comes from some fantastic past era in which emails were 100% always seen and there was no way for anyone to subscribe to someone else's posts.

Building around such broken assumptions is the wrong approach. Instead we should be building new flows for subscribing to specific content from specific Nostr-native sources (creators directly or manual or automated curation providers, communities, relays etc), which is essentially what most clients are already doing anyway, but specifically Coracle's new custom feeds come to mind now.

---

This also reminds me of the interviewer asking the Farcaster creator if Farcaster made "email addresses available to content creators" completely ignoring all the cryptography and nature of the protocol (Farcaster is shit, but at least they tried, and in this example you could imagine the interviewer asking the same thing about Nostr).

I imagine that if the interviewer had asked these people who were working (or suggesting) the Nostr DM subscription flow they would have answered: "no, you don't get their email addresses, but you can send them uncensorable DMs!" -- and that, again, is getting everything backwards.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Bitcoin transactions explained

A transaction is a piece of data that takes inputs and produces outputs. Forget about the blockchain thing, Bitcoin is actually just a big tree of transactions. The blockchain is just a way to keep transactions ordered.

Imagine you have 10 satoshis. That means you have them in an unspent transaction output (UTXO). You want to spend them, so you create a transaction. The transaction should reference unspent outputs as its inputs. Every transaction has an immutable id, so you use that id plus the index of the output (because transactions can have multiple outputs). Then you specify a script that unlocks that transaction and related signatures, then you specify outputs along with a script that locks these outputs.

As you can see, there's this lock/unlocking thing and there are inputs and outputs. Inputs must be unlocked by fulfilling the conditions specified by the person who created the transaction they're in. And outputs must be locked so anyone wanting to spend those outputs will need to unlock them.

For most of the cases locking and unlocking means specifying a public key whose controller (the person who has the corresponding private key) will be able to spend. Other fancy things are possible too, but we can ignore them for now.

Back to the 10 satoshis you want to spend. Since you've successfully referenced 10 satoshis and unlocked them, now you can specify the outputs (this is all done in a single step). You can specify one output of 10 satoshis, two of 5, one of 3 and one of 7, three of 3 and so on. The sum of outputs can't be more than 10. And if the sum of outputs is less than 10 the difference goes to fees. In the first days of Bitcoin you didn't need any fees, but now you do, otherwise your transaction won't be included in any block.

If you're still interested in transactions maybe you could take a look at this small chapter of that Andreas Antonopoulos book.

If you hate Andreas Antonopoulos because he is a communist shitcoiner or don't want to read more than half a page, go here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Coin_analogy

@ 16d11430:61640947

While Europeans were sealing agreements and greetings with handshakes, civilizations in the Indian subcontinent and Asia were elevating hand gestures to an intricate art form and spiritual practice. Hand mudras, meaning "seals" or "gestures" in Sanskrit, have long been a profound expression of the connection between the body, mind, and spirit. From the precision of classical Indian dance to the meditative stillness of yogic practices, mudras symbolize the articulation of human dexterity and the channeling of energy through the hands.

---

The Origins of Mudras: A Historical Perspective

Mudras trace their origins to the ancient spiritual practices of the Indian subcontinent, dating back to the Vedic period (1500–500 BCE). Initially described in the sacred texts of the Vedas and later elaborated in Tantric and Buddhist traditions, mudras became integral to rituals, meditation, and artistic expression.

1. Vedic Rituals and Spiritual Energy

In Vedic rituals, priests used specific hand gestures to invoke divine forces, seal intentions, and direct spiritual energy. These gestures were seen as a bridge between the human and the divine, a symbolic language that conveyed unspoken truths. (The Vedas: An Anthology by Wendy Doniger)

1. Buddhist Influence Across Asia

As Buddhism spread from India to regions like Tibet, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, mudras became central to meditation and iconography. The Dhyana Mudra (gesture of meditation) and the Vitarka Mudra (gesture of teaching) are prominently depicted in statues of the Buddha, symbolizing states of inner peace and wisdom. (Mudras in Buddhist Art by Frederick Asher)

---

Mudras in Classical Dance: The Pinnacle of Dexterity

The Indian classical dance forms—Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi, and others—perfected the articulation of the hands through hasta mudras (hand gestures). These gestures, cataloged in texts like the Natya Shastra (200 BCE–200 CE), serve as a sophisticated language to narrate stories, express emotions, and symbolize universal truths. (The Natya Shastra: A Treatise on Dance and Drama by Manomohan Ghosh)

1. Complexity and Precision

Each dance form requires the performer to master dozens of mudras, which involve precise positioning of the fingers and palms. For example:

The Pataka Mudra (flat hand) symbolizes a flag, and its variations convey wind, rivers, or blessings.

The Hamsasya Mudra (swan’s beak) represents delicacy, often used to signify picking a flower or holding a jewel.

1. Embodiment of Dexterity

These gestures demand exceptional finger dexterity and neuromuscular control, training the brain to enhance focus, coordination, and memory. The dancer's hands become extensions of their soul, weaving stories that transcend spoken language. (Dance in India: The Art of Precision and Emotion by Kapila Vatsyayan)

---

Mudras in Yoga and Meditation: A Gateway to Inner Activation

Beyond dance, mudras are integral to yoga and meditation, believed to direct prana (life energy) within the body. By forming specific gestures with the hands, practitioners stimulate energy pathways, harmonize the mind, and deepen meditation.

1. Therapeutic Benefits

The Gyan Mudra (gesture of knowledge), with the thumb and index finger touching, is said to enhance concentration and calm the mind. (The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Swami Satchidananda)

The Prana Mudra (gesture of life) energizes the body by activating dormant energy reserves.

1. Holistic Activation

Mudras work on the principles of Ayurveda, the ancient Indian science of health, balancing the five elements within the body—earth, water, fire, air, and ether. The hands become a microcosm of the body, with each finger representing a specific element. (Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing by Vasant Lad)

---

Beyond India: Hand Forms in Asian Arts

The influence of Indian mudras extended to Asian art forms, including Japanese mudrā in martial arts and Chinese qigong practices. In Southeast Asia, classical dance forms like Balinese and Khmer dance incorporate mudras as an essential element, showcasing the dexterity of the human hand in storytelling and spiritual expression.

1. Tibetan and Japanese Rituals

In Tibetan Buddhism, vajra mudras are used in esoteric rituals to symbolize cosmic forces. Similarly, in Japanese shingon practices, mudras accompany mantras to invoke specific deities. (Tibetan Ritual Practices by John Powers)

1. Visual Perfection

Southeast Asian sculptures, such as those in Angkor Wat, depict deities with elaborate hand gestures, representing divine attributes and cosmic harmony. (Art and Architecture of Southeast Asia by Peter D. Sharrock)

---

The Profound Significance of Mudras

Mudras are far more than physical gestures; they are a language of the body that communicates with the universe. They unite art, spirituality, and science, demonstrating how hand dexterity can be a profound expression of human potential.

In the modern era, mudras remain relevant as tools for holistic health and mindfulness. Their ancient legacy reminds us of the extraordinary capabilities of the human hand—not just as a tool for grasping but as a bridge between the physical and the metaphysical.

---

Key Takeaway: While the handshake reflects strength and intent in the West, the mudra exemplifies the ultimate articulation of human dexterity and spirituality in the East. Through dance, yoga, and meditation, these gestures symbolize the profound connection between the body, mind, and cosmos, showcasing the timeless beauty of the human hand.

---

References:

1. Doniger, Wendy. The Vedas: An Anthology.

2. Asher, Frederick. Mudras in Buddhist Art.

3. Ghosh, Manomohan. The Natya Shastra: A Treatise on Dance and Drama.

4. Vatsyayan, Kapila. Dance in India: The Art of Precision and Emotion.

5. Satchidananda, Swami. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

6. Lad, Vasant. Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing.

7. Powers, John. Tibetan Ritual Practices.

8. Sharrock, Peter D. Art and Architecture of Southeast Asia.

@ 2f7463a4:e92b8023

Original „Speaking Freely“ von Gigi, veröffentlicht zur Blockzeit 836245 unter der CC BY-SA 4.0 Lizenz. Übersetzt von sefiro.

---

Neulich unterhielt ich mich mit einem Freund und wir kamen auf das Problem der Meinungsfreiheit zu sprechen. Ich sollte es nicht als Problem bezeichnen, denn es ist die Lösung eines Problems. Das Problem ist ein immerwährendes Problem, was eine andere Art ist zu sagen, dass es ein wirklich schwieriges Problem ist, ein Problem, mit dem wir immer konfrontiert sein werden, solange wir Menschen sind.

Das Problem ist folgendes: Was ist das Problem, das es zu lösen gilt? Es ist ein Problem von Problemen, was natürlich ein Metaproblem ist. Wir als Homo Sapiens sind ein denkender Organismus. Sowohl kollektiv als auch individuell. Denken ist das, was uns ausmacht, aber es ist nicht einfach Denken als Selbstzweck, es ist Denken, um Dinge herauszufinden, ohne ständig dabei umgebracht zu werden. Eine weniger brutale Form der Evolution sozusagen.

Die Menschen der Antike haben der Aufmerksamkeit einen sehr hohen Wert beigemessen. Auch die Aufmerksamkeit ist von einem Metaproblem geplagt: Worauf soll man seine Aufmerksamkeit richten? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, muss man darauf achten, worauf man seine Aufmerksamkeit richtet, und das unterscheidet einen klugen von einem weisen Menschen.

Das bringt mich zu einem der Dinge die mir derzeit Sorgen bereiten. Wir sind zivilisatorisch gesehen sehr klug, aber nicht sehr weise. Wir sind schlecht darin, auf das zu achten, worauf wir unsere Aufmerksamkeit richten, zumindest gegenwärtig. Und ich fürchte, dass sowohl die falschen Anreize, die das Internet plagen, als auch unser kaputtes Geld daran schuld sind.

Annahmen [n=0]

• ∀ i ≤ c[^1]
• P! = NP[^2]
• Leben ist es wert gelebt zu werden[^3]
• Es gibt kein kostenloses Mittagessen[^4]
• Meinungsfreiheit ist erstrebenswert[^5]

Der Logos [n=1]

Es gibt einen Grund, warum Der Logos heilig ist. Aus dem gleichen Grund ist der Erste Zusatzartikel zur Verfassung der Vereinigten Staaten der erste, d.h. der wichtigste.

Meinungsfreiheit ist nicht optional; sie ist nicht optional, weil wir frei sprechen können müssen, um frei denken zu können. Es gibt kein echtes Denken ohne echtes Sprechen, genauso wie es kein echtes Sprechen ohne echtes Denken gibt. Es muss erlaubt sein, dummes Zeug zu sagen, so wie es erlaubt sein muss, dummes Zeug zu denken.

„Der Vernünftige passt sich der Welt an, der Unvernünftige versucht beharrlich, die Welt an sich anzupassen. Daher hängt aller Fortschritt vom Unvernünftigen ab.“\ — George Bernhard Shaw, Man and Superman

Der Grat zwischen Genie und Wahnsinn ist nicht ohne Grund schmal. Was idiotisch und was genial ist, ist oft schwer zu unterscheiden. Deshalb hängt aller Fortschritt vom Unvernünftigen ab.

Wie können wir den Unvernünftigen finden und ihm zuhören, wenn wir ihn zum Schweigen bringen? Schlimmer noch, wie können wir dem unvernünftigen/genialen Teil in uns selbst hören, wenn wir Angst haben, ihn in der Öffentlichkeit oder im Privaten zu äußern?

DiaLogos [n=2]

Auch freier und unbelasteter Dialog sind nicht optional. Wir müssen in der Lage sein, Dinge zu diskutieren, damit andere uns sagen können, wo wir idiotisch sind. Und wir sind alle idiotisch. Wir sind vielleicht auf unsere Weise idiotisch, aber wir sind alle idiotisch. Es gibt keine wertfreie Meinung, so wie es keine Sichtweise ohne blinden Fleck gibt. Das Beste, was wir tun können, ist, uns unserer Vorurteile und blinden Flecken bewusst zu werden und zu versuchen, ihnen entgegenzuwirken. Aber das können wir nicht individuell, das müssen wir kollektiv tun, und noch wichtiger: auf eine verteilte Art und Weise.[^6]

Der Bau eines Turms von Babel ist eine schlechte Idee.

Verteilte Erkenntnis [n=m]

Auch öffentlicher Diskurs ist nicht optional. In der heutigen Zeit, insbesondere im Internet, ist öffentlicher Diskurs, gelinde gesagt, problematisch. Eines der Probleme ist, dass wir keine öffentlichen Räume haben, so dass wir gezwungen sind, private Räume als quasi-öffentliche Räume zu nutzen.

Die übliche Methode, sich öffentlich zu äußern, besteht darin, auf eine Plattform zu gehen und zu sagen, was man zu sagen hat. Das Problem ist natürlich, dass es nicht deine Plattform ist. Es ist die Plattform eines anderen. Deshalb kannst du von der Plattform ausgeschlossen werden.

Der Unterschied zwischen all diesen Plattformen liegt im Grad, nicht in der Art. Auf einigen Plattformen kann man für sexuelle Inhalte sprichwörtlich ins Gefängnis kommen. Auf anderen Plattformen kann man für politische Äußerungen ins Gefängnis kommen. Nicht einmal sprichwörtlich.[^7]

„Geben Sie mir sechs Zeilen, die von der Hand des ehrlichsten Menschen geschrieben wurden, ich würde etwas darin finden, um ihn hängen zu lassen.“\ — Kardinal Richelieu

Wenn jemand die Macht hat, jemand anderen von einer Plattform auszuschließen, dann wird diese Macht früher oder später auch genutzt und missbraucht. Ein ausreichend großer Skandal oder eine entsprechende Kontroverse wird gefunden oder inszeniert und *puff* ist der „problematische“ Nutzer verschwunden. Depersonalisiert, auf Knopfdruck. Egal, wie mächtig man ist.[^8]

Aus diesem Grund können Plattformen für Meinungsfreiheit nicht existieren. Es kann nur Protokolle für Meinungsfreiheit geben.

Der Unterschied ist ebenso subtil wie wichtig: Wenn du ein Protokoll verwendest, bist du kein Nutzer im herkömmlichen Sinne. Du bist ein Sprecher. Du sprichst die gleiche Sprache wie andere, und wenn jemand anderes dich hören und verstehen kann, dann gibt es eine Verbindung. Es gibt keinen Vermittler. Die Sprache selbst ist der Vermittler. Sprachen sind Protokolle, und Protokolle sind Sprachen. Sie haben keine Nutzer, sie haben Sprecher.

Sprache ist naturgemäß frei. Du brauchst keinen Deutsch-Account, um diese Sätze zu lesen. Genauso wie dein Computer keinen HTTP-Account braucht, um die Nullen und Einsen zu verstehen, aus denen die Bytes bestehen, die wiederum die Zeichen dieses Satzes bilden. Beide sprechen die Sprache, daher könnt ihr euch verstehen.

Sprachen und Protokolle sind Netzwerkphänomene. Ohne Netzwerk keine Sprache. Ohne Peers keine Protokolle.

Deshalb ist Sprache, wie Geld, in einer komplexen Gesellschaft nicht optional. Wenn man in das eine oder das andere hineinpfuscht, zerbricht die Gesellschaft.

Es liegt an uns, es ist soweit [n=i]

Wir stehen an einem Wendepunkt in der Geschichte. Noch nie war unsere Zivilisation so vernetzt, so global, und sich ihrer Grenzen und Ignoranz so wenig bewusst.

Meine Hoffnung ist, dass hartes Geld und Meinungsfreiheit das wiederbeleben, was unsere Gesellschaft groß gemacht hat. Kooperation und verteilte Erkenntnis haben es uns ermöglicht, das Chaos des Dschungels hinter uns zu lassen. Sie haben es uns ermöglicht, von Auge um Auge zu einer klaren Sicht zu gelangen, zumindest teilweise. Sie haben es uns ermöglicht, von der Knappheit zum Überfluss zu gelangen. Sie haben uns ermöglicht, zur Wahrheit, zum Guten und zum Schönen zu gelangen. Sie ermöglichen es uns zu streben. Nach vorne und nach oben.

Der Kairos unserer Zeit ist ein persönlicher – vielleicht sind das alle kairotischen Momente.

Du musst entscheiden wie du weitermachen willst. Du musst entscheiden, welches Spiel du spielen willst; wie viel Verantwortung du bereit bist zu übernehmen. Willst du weiterhin in der Maschine stecken bleiben? Einer Maschine, die dich benutzt und ausnutzt? Eine Maschine, die sich selbst nährt, indem sie deine Zeit, deine Aufmerksamkeit und deinen Wert raubt und verschlingt? Oder hast du den Mut, die Kontrolle über deinen Wohlstand, deine Gesundheit, deine Gedanken und deine Sprache zu übernehmen?

Diese Entscheidung kann dir niemand abnehmen. Sie beginnt und endet mit dir.

💜

[^1]: Keine Information kann sich schneller als Lichtgeschwindigkeit verbreiten. Folglich stoßen alle Informationssysteme an physikalische Grenzen, wenn es um Synchronisation und Informationsweitergabe geht.

[^2]: Kryptographie funktioniert und wird weiterhin funktionieren. „[...] irgendwie lächelt das Universum bei Verschlüsselung.“

[^3]: Existenz ist real und gut. Weder Nihilismus noch Solipsismus sind wünschenswert. „[...] und es war gut.“

[^4]: Wir können nicht etwas für nichts haben. Freiheit erfordert Verantwortung; elektronisches Bargeld erfordert Zeit; Zeit erfordert Wärme.

[^5]: Meinungsfreiheit ist erstrebenswert, weil Freiheit der Tyrannei vorzuziehen ist, und der erste Schritt eines jeden Tyrannen ist es, die Meinungsfreiheit einzuschränken, Dissidenten zum Schweigen zu bringen, und Bücher zu verbrennen. Der zweite Schritt ist Völkermord.

[^6]: Es ist großartig, dass es immer mehr lange Dialoge in Form von Podcasts gibt. Der Nutzen dieser Gespräche geht jedoch verloren, wenn sie von einer zentralen Partei gehostet werden, weshalb ein offenes Podcast-Ökosystem so wichtig ist.

[^7]: Siehe Fälle im Vereinigten Königreich, in Saudi Arabien, etc.

[^8]: Noch nicht einmal amtierende US-Präsidenten sind vor einem Ausschluss von Plattformen sicher.

@ 7776c32d:45558888

I am still more censored than I was when Aaron Swartz was alive. For nostr to resist censorship, it would need a way for intellectuals to find each other and not be drowned out by anti-intellectual screeching.

Nostr is currently so anti-intellectual that this propagandist gets multiple likes, probably enough to be in trending feeds, for a post (she's reposted herself) pretending the word "car" is the best example she can think of for media bias today.

Meanwhile, I get no engagement for bringing a valuable infographic about media bias over from X.

The same incoherent propagandist gets multiple likes on a post lying about Hawk Tuah token. She doesn't quote post my prior post about the same topic to give credit to me as a faster news reporter, because she knows I am not a fake news reporter, meaning I will correct her misinformation, and indeed my post already contradicts some of it (the part about Haliey herself being sued).

Notice the lack of likes on my replies calling out her misinformation; and also none on my earlier, more accurate post about the same topic. The dishonest propaganda gets all the likes while the actual reporting on the same topic, faster, gets none.

When I've called out this retard's lies on the same topic in the past, getting almost no engagement has been the norm, but it's been negative engagement overall.

Here's her and some reply guy gaslighting me and, as always, she did not follow up to actually address my points, apologize, or hold any attempt at genuine, good-faith discussion in general.

It's not like I'm cherry picking. Let's look at the statistics.

According to nostr.band this anti-intellectual dickhead has reposted 33 events (from 8 other npubs), and her posts have been reposted 666 times. I have reposted 367 events (from 214 other npubs), and mine have been reposted 108 times.

But enough about her.

The #pandemic hashtag has gone from being full of pandemic deniers to having more people talking about the next pandemic - bird flu - while still nobody on that hashtag is using nostr to talk about COVID, the ongoing pandemic we still have.

nostr:nevent1qqs9gvuhvphwvxm96zl58ygxdp3w8jjpyl2hqhg0j2xhxfms73qls8sw7yhx3

I have stood for well over a year as the only person in the group of English speakers smart enough to understand the importance of both the pandemic and decentralized digital networks. That's so fucking depressing, enraging, and terrifying to me.

This shit makes me bloodthirsty. Luckily I can get away with killing people sometimes; and more often, inconveniencing them, by stealing essential parts from the boxes of products they'll buy, or cutting them off in traffic, or other things like that, to vent my disdain for my fellow humans.

People lie so much, the main comfort for me has been the brief time when Digit considered me a friend; she who seemed to also kinda see through all the lies.

You know what's stopping me from hurting anyone right now? The hope that Digit is still alive, and I keep thinking about this thread, where she was mentioned.

Someone showed curiosity about her, and someone else said "thank you (and Digit) so much." That "thank you and Digit" has been keeping me going on less toxic energy for those few days.

@ 16d11430:61640947

Grip strength and finger dexterity are uniquely tied to human neuromuscular wellbeing. These attributes go beyond their apparent utility, delving into evolutionary, physiological, and cultural dimensions. They not only signify physical health but also embody symbolic gestures like handshaking, reflecting capacity, intent, and mutual understanding in human interactions.

Neuromuscular Wellbeing: The Foundation of Grip Strength and Dexterity

1. Grip Strength: A Biomarker of Overall Health

Grip strength serves as a reliable biomarker for neuromuscular health. Studies have demonstrated its predictive value for outcomes like cardiovascular health, cognitive function, and longevity. Grip strength reflects the integrated function of muscles, nerves, and connective tissues, making it an ideal measure of overall physical resilience.

Physiological Insights: Strong grip strength is associated with robust neuromuscular function. This involves the coordination of motor neurons and muscle fibers, indicating an individual's capacity to perform complex tasks. Grip strength also correlates with brain health, as neural efficiency influences fine motor skills and physical force generation.

Preventative Indicator: Declines in grip strength can signal neuromuscular or systemic health issues, such as neurodegenerative diseases, making it a critical diagnostic tool.

1. Finger Dexterity: Precision in Action

Finger dexterity, encompassing coordination, fine motor skills, and adaptability, highlights the intricate control of hand muscles. This ability is crucial for various tasks, from typing to playing musical instruments, underscoring its link to neuromuscular health.

Cognitive Connection: Dexterity tasks stimulate brain regions responsible for planning and executing movement. Regular practice can enhance neuroplasticity, improving both motor and cognitive functions.

Rehabilitation Applications: Finger dexterity exercises are integral in neuro-rehabilitation, aiding recovery from strokes, injuries, or neurological disorders.

The Cultural Legacy of Handshaking: A Symbol of Grip Strength and Intent

Handshaking, though becoming an archaic relic in some cultures, remains a fascinating lens through which grip strength’s symbolic significance can be viewed.

1. Historical and Cultural Roots

The handshake, dating back to ancient times, originally served as a gesture of trust. A firm handshake was a non-verbal way of communicating strength, intent, and mutual respect. Anthropological evidence links it to the need for physical signals of peace and camaraderie in negotiations or greetings.

1. Strength and Intent in the Handshake

Grip Strength as a Measure: A firm handshake historically conveyed physical capability and confidence. Weak handshakes often carried connotations of poor health or dishonesty, though these interpretations are culturally relative.

Intent and Transparency: The act involved direct physical contact, symbolizing openness and the absence of concealed weapons, reinforcing its role as a non-verbal declaration of peace and trust.

Archaic but Relevant: Why Grip Still Matters

In an era where handshaking is less common, the underlying principles of grip strength and neuromuscular health remain profoundly relevant. Even as the handshake fades, its symbolic role persists in different forms, like the pressure and control exhibited in sports or tactile professions.

Bridging Neuromuscular Wellbeing and Cultural Practices

By understanding the deep connection between physical grip and broader health, we gain insights into human evolution and societal interactions. Grip strength and finger dexterity are far more than isolated physical traits; they are essential indicators of our holistic health and functional capacity.

Handshakes may be vanishing, but their essence—a quick, tangible measure of strength, confidence, and intent—remains a testament to the interconnectedness of our physical and social existence.

---

References:

1. Dodds, R., et al. (2014). Grip strength across the life course: normative data from twelve British studies. PLoS ONE.

2. Bohannon, R. W. (2019). Grip strength: an indispensable biomarker for older adults. Clinical Interventions in Aging.

3. Stewart, L. (2020). The history and significance of handshaking. Cultural Anthropology Journal.

4. Bechtold, M., et al. (2016). Finger dexterity as an indicator of cognitive function. Journal of Neurology and Rehabilitation.

@ 0f1b5961:868242bd

Trying out the highligher.com editor...

heaven : earth governance : generation emanation : emergence selection : variation

@ 330516bf:ea23d292

The self-declaration of identity is a philosophical open source project, hosted at https://memdeklaro.github.io/

Foreword

ID documents do more harm than good and should not be seen as a solution for trust or authentication. Many economic and social interactions can be done anonymously. For other situations, trust can be achieved by simply saying your (self-chosen) name, using a web-of-trust, word-of-mouth reputation, vouches, memberships, escrows or cash deposits, and authentication can be achieved by using a password, cryptographic key pair (e.g. PGP, Monero) or physical key or code (such as house keys or a safe code).

Background

In recent years, more and more things are asking for proof of identity, from basic necessities like jobs, housing and healthcare, to smaller things like receiving mail, buying a sim card or joining a gym. However, it is not enough to write your name and address on a form. Instead, only government-issued IDs are accepted, which gives the state a “monopoly on identity”.

Monopolies are dangerous in general due to the fact that if the service provider is harmful, inaccessible or otherwise problematic, you cannot choose a different provider, start your own provider, or go without. This particular monopoly is even worse, considering that access to government ID determines if you may participate in the economy (jobs, banking), society (housing, volunteer work, education, libraries, sports) or even exist (national borders).

Many people have no access to government ID. This group includes some stateless people, refugees, people who weren’t registered at birth, and people who escaped from child abuse, domestic abuse or cult abuse. The state’s claimed solutions, such as asylum procedures, stateless determination procedures, delayed registration of birth, child protective services and witness protection, often cannot help in practice, as the victim is often ignored, accused of lying, blamed for the persecution, or worse sent back to the persecutors against their will. Despite issuing laissez-passer and Nansen passports in the past, the United Nations and Red Cross do not issue alternative IDs today. It would be a relief if these processes would work and allow vulnerable people to escape from undeserved and dangerous situations, but unfortunately this is not the reality.

In addition, the collectivist concept of citizenship can be dangerous. For example, if someone does not identify with their birth culture, they should not be forced to follow it for life or identify themselves as a member of this culture. Instead, they should be free to dissent against this culture or leave this culture’s jurisdiction. Even worse is conscription — the cruel system where a nation-state can force someone against their will to kill or be killed, just because they happened to be born inside a certain territory. The world would be more free if people could exist as individuals, conscientious objectors against the fatalism of birth cultures and violence of statism, with freedom of association to leave hostile environments and join self-chosen communities.

“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

Self-declaration of identity gives people the power to decide their own fate. People are no longer the property of nations, governments, birth cultures or birth parents. The choice of your own name and renunciation of your circumstances of birth is a liberating act of individualism, where your ideals, actions and efforts matter more than the situation that you were arbitrarily born into.

Self-declaration of identity

Instead of requiring third parties such as birth countries, birth cultures and birth parents to define an individual’s identity, the self-declaration allows you to define your own name and eschews the concepts of birth countries and citizenship.

The self-declaration is a CR-80 plastic card or paper business card (85.6mm x 54mm). The self-declaration is written in Esperanto and includes the Esperanto flag and symbol. Esperanto was chosen because it is anational (sennacieca = not associated with a specific country, culture or state) and was created as a borderless language of peace, built on voluntary free association. The design features artwork of a peace dove in a blue sky with clouds.

As it is a self-declaration, it is not stored in a central database, does not require a third party’s permission and does not need to be issued by an authority. You are the authority over your own life.

The self-declaration includes the text:

• Title: Self-declaration of identity (Memdeklaro de identeco)
• Location: Esperanto community (Esperantujo)
• Issuer: EPO (ISO code for Esperanto)
• Quote: One world, one humankind (Unu mondo, unu homaro)

The self-declaration of identity contains:

• Self-chosen first name (Antaŭnomo) and self-chosen surname (Nomo) → an individual should be able to freely choose their own name
• Birth date (Naskiĝdato) → for declaration of age
• Photo → Dimensions 35mm x 45mm
• Signature (Subskribo) → sign your self-declaration
• Notes field (Notoj) → a place to write a note, e.g. “the holder is a conscientious objector” (Portanto estas konscienca obĵetanto)
• ID number (Numero), issuance date (Eldondato), expiry date (Limdato), issuer (Eldonisto), MRZ → bureaucratic boilerplate

The self-declaration of identity does not contain:

• Place of birth → allows people to cut ties with hostile environments and self-define their culture, beliefs and personal ties
• Citizenship or stateless status → allows people to cut ties with hostile governments or cultures, and exist as an individual instead of as property of a state that they did not choose
• Parents’ names → allows victims of child abuse to cut ties with abusers

To make your own:

• Use the generator at https://memdeklaro.github.io/ or download the repo (https://github.com/memdeklaro/memdeklaro.github.io/) and open index.html in your browser
• Alternatively download the front template (fronto.jpg) and back template (dorso.jpg) from the linked repo, and use an image editor such as GIMP to add your text (the font OCR-B.ttf is provided) and your photo and signature
• Calculate the MRZ code here (TD1): https://www.dynamsoft.com/tools/mrz-generator/ (Choose any country, then replace it with EPO)
• Print it out as a business card and optionally laminate (dimensions: 85.6mm x 54mm) or order a CR-80 plastic card from a printing service

Example:

Note:

Unfortunately the self-declaration of identity cannot be used to bypass government ID requirements, such as for jobs, housing, healthcare, finances, volunteer work, contracts, receiving mail or buying a sim card. Other non-government IDs such as Digitalcourage Lichtbildausweis (https://shop.digitalcourage.de/gadgets/lichtbildausweis-mit-selbst-waehlbaren-daten.html) and World Passport (https://worldcitizengov.org/what-is-the-world-passport/) have the same limitations.

Nation-states’ refusal to print IDs for undocumented, stateless and unregistered people (while forcing government ID requirements on employers, landlords, doctors and more) can and does put innocent people’s lives in danger. But unfortunately even the United Nations has not been able to change this, despite issuing conventions on statelessness and refugee status in the 1950s.

Further Reading

For further reading about identity (and why the state’s monopoly is harmful):

Passports Were a “Temporary” War Measure — Speranta Dumitru https://fee.org/articles/passports-were-a-temporary-war-measure

During World War II, we did have something to hide — Hans de Zwart https://medium.com/@hansdezwart/during-world-war-ii-we-did-have-something-to-hide-40689565c550

The Little-Known Passport That Protected 450,000 Refugees — Cara Giaimo https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nansen-passport-refugees

With each person left living on the streets, we are losing as a society — Petr Baroch https://www.statelessness.eu/blog/each-person-left-living-streets-we-are-losing-society

The rarely discussed dangers of KYC and what you can do about it — Anarkio https://vonupodcast.com/know-your-customer-kyc-the-rarely-discussed-danger-guest-article-audio

Exclusion and identity: life without ID — Privacy International https://www.privacyinternational.org/long-read/2544/exclusion-and-identity-life-without-id

Proving who I am: the plight of people in detention without proof of legal identity — Vicki Prais https://www.penalreform.org/blog/proving-who-i-am-the-plight-of-people/

Establishing identity is a vital, risky and changing business — The Economist https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2018/12/18/establishing-identity-is-a-vital-risky-and-changing-business

What’s in a name? The case for inclusivity through anonymity — Common Thread https://blog.twitter.com/common-thread/en/topics/stories/2021/whats-in-a-name-the-case-for-inclusivity-through-anonymity

True Names Not Required: On Identity and Pseudonymity in Cyberspace — Der Gigi https://dergigi.medium.com/true-names-not-required-fc6647dfe24a

Citizenship is obsolete — Samuela Davidova https://medium.com/@DavidovaSamuela/citizenship-is-obsolete-c36a20056752

License

Public Domain

Source code: https://github.com/memdeklaro/memdeklaro.github.io

Infographic

Translations

(Machine translated)\ Memdeklaro de identenco: self declaration of identity, autodeclaración de identidad, autodeclaração de identidade, autodéclaration d’identité, autodichiarazione di identità, autodeclararea identității, Selbsterklärung zur Identität, eigen verklaring van identiteit, Selvdeklaration af identitet, självdeklaration av identitet, egenerklæring om identitet, henkilöllisyysvakuutus, Isikuandmete esitamine, identitātes pašdeklarēšana, savęs deklaravimas, önbevallás a személyazonosságról, własna deklaracja tożsamości, vlastní prohlášení o totožnosti, vlastné vyhlásenie o totožnosti, samoprijava identitete, самодеклариране на самоличността, самопроголошення ідентичності, самозаявление о личности, αυτο-δήλωση ταυτότητας, pernyataan identitas diri, öz kimlik beyanı, الإعلان الذاتي عن الهوية, 身份自报, 身份自報, 自己申告, 신원 자기 선언

...

@ e83b66a8:b0526c2b

I watched Tucker Carlson interview Roger Ver last night.

I know we have our differences with Roger, and he has some less than pleasant personality traits, but he is facing 109 years in jail for tax evasion. While the charges may be technically correct, he should be able to pay the taxes and a fine and walk free. Even if we accept he did wrong, a minor prison term such as 6 months to 2 years would be appropriate in this case.

We all know the severe penalty is an over reach by US authorities looking to make the whole crypto community scared about using any form of crypto as money.

The US and many governments know they have lost the battle of Bitcoin as a hard asset, but this happened as a result of the Nash equilibrium, whereby you are forced to play a game that doesn’t benefit you, because not playing that game disadvantages you further. I.e. Governments loose control of the asset, but that asset is able to shore up their balance sheet and prevent your economy from failing (potentially).

The war against Bitcoin (and other cryptos) as a currency, whereby you can use your Bitcoin to buy anything anywhere from a pint of milk in the local shop, to a house or car and everything in-between is a distant goal and one that is happening slowly. But it is happening and these are the new battle lines.

Part of that battle is self custody, part is tax and part are the money transmitting laws.

Roger’s case is also being used as a weapon of fear.

I don’t hate Roger, the problem I have with Bitcoin cash is that you cannot run a full node from your home and if you can’t do this, it is left to large corporations to run the blockchain. Large corporations are much easier to control and coerce than thousands, perhaps millions of individuals. Just as China banned Bitcoin mining, so in this scenario it would be possible for governments to ban full nodes and enforce that ban by shutting down companies that attempted to do so.

Also, if a currency like Bitcoin cash scaled to Visa size, then Bitcoin Cash the company would become the new Visa / Mastercard and only the technology would change. However, even Visa and Mastercard don’t keep transaction logs for years, that would require enormous amount of storage and have little benefit. Nobody needs a global ledger that keeps a record of every coffee purchased in every coffee shop since the beginning of blockchain time.

This is why Bitcoin with a layer 2 payment system like Lightning is a better proposition than large blockchain cryptos. Once a payment channel is closed, the transactions are forgotten in the same way Visa and Mastercard only keep a transaction history for 1 or 2 years.

This continues to allow the freedom for anybody, anywhere to verify the money they hold and the transactions they perform along with everybody else. We have consensus by verification.

@ 3d842afe:2d44a42d

Websocket connection overhead is an obvious problem with the gossip model that few are willing to acknowledge. The more decentralized relay selection becomes (the goal) the worse it scales. Even at the current scale of nostr if users chose more diverse relay sets the issue would be crippling.

Below are some very simple simulations to illustrate my point. I used 2 relays per person to be conservative and chose 3 different realistic follow counts. The NIP-65 spec suggests clients should guide users to keep the lists small (2-4 relays) though currently the average kind 10002 contains many more. I ran each simulation 10 times and then took the average result.

EDIT: I understand that selecting relays at random is NOT how things currently work or will ever work. My point is that if our goal is to make relay sets more diverse then we should work towards a solution that scales with accomplishing that goal.

Available relays: 600 (~what nostr.watch currently shows for online relays) Follows: 200 Relays per person: 2 (randomly selected) Unique Connections Required: 291

Available Relays: 600 Follows: 500 Relays per person: 2 Unique Connections Required: 486

Available Relays: 600 Follows: 1000 Relays per person: 2 Unique Connections Required: 577

Even today if users randomly selected relays the total number of connections required would be staggering and this is with users only selecting 2 relays each. What happens if the available number of relays increases by 5x?

Available Relays: 3000 Follows: 200 Relays per person: 2 Unique Connections Required: 376

Available Relays: 3000 Follows: 500 Relays per person: 2 Unique Connections Required: 847

Available Relays: 3000 Follows: 1000 Relays per person: 2 Unique Connections Required: 1461

I’m not a client developer and I certainly don’t have all the solutions but I’ve spent enough time operating websockets at scale to know that these numbers aren’t going to work even with only 2 relays per person. Aside from the practical performance implications, browsers also enforce websocket limits that put most of these numbers out of reach (I believe Chrome is 255 and Firefox is 200).

What am I missing?

@ 3b19f10a:4e1f94b4

Sometimes perspective is everything...

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@ 56494b83:aa95511b

The Goal of Christmas

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4–6)

There are 4 phrases that I want to address from this passage Fullness of time Born of a woman Redeem those under the law Receive adoption as sons.

One of the attributes of God is what theologians call his “eternity” This means God is without beginning or end. He is free from all succession of time. He is outside of time. In fact he is the cause of time. from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2) And upon hearing this some Christians might make the mistake of thinking that God is not concerned with time. “Well since God is not bound by time like we are, he must be detached from it, or maybe disinterested”

But the opposite is actually true. The God of the Bible is extremely concerned with keeping time.

In Genesis 1: God defines what a constitutes a day. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. He decides how many days it will take him to create the world.
He uses the sun and the moon and the stars as “time-keepers”

And As we keep reading Genesis we come to long lists of names: specifically the descendants of Seth, and God tells us how many years they live.

All other events in the world are dated in relation to Seth.

But we can keep going: God teaches Israel to keep time. He gives them a calendar when they come out of Egypt. Referencing passover God says in exodus 12 “This month (march/April) shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you." (Exodus 12:2)

Pentecost comes in the third month. (Celebrating the giving of the law)

The 7th month was for celebrating the feast of booths, (when the people lived tents in the wilderness.)

On and on we could go, but the point I am trying to make is this: timing is everything.

You know that famous passage in Ecclesiastes 3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: (Ecclesiastes 3:1) Our lives are patterned after different times.

Weeping and laughing Breaking down and building up. A time to speak and a time to keep silence.

And then after this run—on list Solomon says:

[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.(Ecclesiastes 3:11)

God governs time. He orchestrates the times. He has in his mind a divine time-table in which he has written all events and circumstances into his perfect story.

Down to the second.

And the great demonstration of this is the incarnation.

In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son. The Son of God entered into time to show us the father. And he did this without ceasing to be the LORD of time himself.

Theologian Peter Leithart writes: “God came to us in time, not to rescue us from time, but to redeem all times. God the Son entered time so that whatever time it is - a time to live, a time to die; a time to seek, a time to give up; a time to weep or a time to rejoice - each and every time is a time of encounter with God in Christ through the Spirit.”

You and I can talk with God, meet with him, commune with the father and with the son and with the Holy Spirit at any any time, because God has entered into our time in the person of his son.

Many have asked: why was Christ born 2000 years ago?

Scholars point to the common greek langauge shared by much of the world (making evangelization easier)

Some point to the centuries-long era known as the Pax Romana; (roman peace= where THE WORLD was by and large at free from major wars.

Others have observed that the mythological god’s of Greece and Rome had been tried and found wanting:

In other words, men and women everywhere were primed to hear and accept the one true religion. Historically, this is all true.

But if we think about this biblically, we see that the arrival of the Messiah was perfectly—timed. The law of Moses, ESTABLISHED 2000 YEARS PRIOR, had made it clear: human beings need a savior.! All of us are law breakers!

It had been hundreds of years since a true prophet had spoken.

All of Israel’s history was pointing forward to the promised “serpent—crusher” from genesis 3.

The people had been waiting CENTURIES for the SON who was promised. 
the anticipation kept building! Why?

Because, as theologian GK Beale writes: “no prior son had ever been able to put an end to the law’s condemning control!”

Nobody had shown up and proven themselves to be the SaVIOR.

And the entire OLD testament seems to have been written so that we would anticipate the Son of GoD.

Every lamb slaughtered pointed us to the TRUE LAMB.

Every bowl full of incense burned pointed to the fragrant offering of Christ.

Every King installed in Israel pointed to the one true King whose kingdom would have no end.

Every priest ordained pointed to the great high Priest, who would not offer up the blood of bulls and goats, but his very own blood.

God is the creator of TIME, and at Christmas we are invited to celebrate when he entered time.

And this leads us to the second phrase: “born of a woman”

Almost a 1000 years ago, a theologian by the name of Anselm wrote a book called “why God became a man”

He begins his book with a discussion of sin, which he defines as “not rendering to God what is his due” (namely the submission of our entire will to his)

When we do not submit to him, we are stealing from him, robbing his glory; we are dishonoring him. And God, who is perfectly JUST, cannot over look this.

Here then is the problem: if we are to be forgiven, we must repay what we owe, but we are incapable of doing this. “The price tag exceeds the capability of the fallen sons of Adam to pay.”

Anselm says: our present obedience and good works cannot make satisfaction for our sins, since these are required of us anyway.

“The sinner owes what he cannot repay, and unless he repays it he cannot be saved.” We cannot save ourselves.

And here is where Anselm begins to point out the solution to our dilemma.

“There is no one who can make this satisfaction [for sin] except God himself… But no one ought to make it except man; otherwise man does not make satisfaction… Therefore, it is necessary that one who is God—man should make it. It is needful that the very same person who is to make this satisfaction be perfect God and perfect man, since no one can do it, except one who is truly God, and no one ought to do it, except one who is truly man.”

John Stott summarizes this teaching well: “Jesus Christ is therefore the Only Savior, since he is the only person in whom the “should” and the “could” are united, being himself both God and man.”

I realize this is pretty ‘high’ theology…but it is my opinion that Christmas EVE is the perfect time to hear these precious doctrines once again.

The wages of sin is death. We know that. And if you and I were EVER going to be saved, it would be because God himself came to save us. But God cannot die. So the eternal son of God had to be made like us. He had to put on our human nature.

Christmas reminds us that Redemption required incarnation.

This leads us to the third phrase: Christ was born to Redeem those under the law.

God gave his people the law…and we were unable to keep it, unable to obey it. Earlier in his Galatians Paul said

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” (Galatians 3:10)

And then a few verses later he says that the God-man secured our redemption by becoming a curse for us. Cursed is everyone hanged on a tree. Bible readers know this: there are many examples.

Pharaoh’s baker was hung on a tree. (Gen. 40) The 5 kings of Canaan were hung on trees (josh. 10) David’s Rebel son Absalom died while hanging on a tree. The wicked Haman (from the story of Esther) was hung on a tree intended for another.

Christmas reminds us that the holy son of God, the only perfect man who ever lived, would grow up and receive the culminating shame of all those in the Scripture who were cursed by God.

The child in the manger would grow up to be cursed. The child the shepherds came to see, would, 33 years later, be forsaken by his Father.

Christ endured the curse of the law so that a mysterious, divine exchange might take place. He takes our curse that we might receive his blessing.

As one another puts it: “he became sin with our sin, so that we may become righteous with his righteousness.” (Stott)

This kind of talk can be a bit confusing for us. Its mystical not physical. It’s spiritual, not material. The exchange that has taken place in the soul of the believer is not something that we can see.

I came across an analogy from John Calvin that I had never before considered…you remember the story from genesis 27, when Isaac (who is very old and blind) blesses his younger son Jacob INSTEAD of Esau. ?

Rebekah knows that her husband wants to bless his firstborn son…and so when Esau leaves to go hunting, she makes a plan to cook up Isaac’s favorite dinner, and she convinces Jacob to bring his father the food and ‘steal the blessing’

And of course Jacob objects: “uh, Mother, this plan of yours won’t work….I am a smooth man. . . and my brother Esau is hairy!”

But Rebekah persuades him to put on Esau’s clothing. . .goat skins on his hands and on his neck.

Now: don’t ask me how this worked, because I don’t really know. . . but it works. And as I am fond of saying: every page of scripture points us to Christ, if we have eyes to see….and when we don’t have eyes to see, we can be assisted with saints who saw more than us:

John Calvin: “as Jacob did not of himself deserve the right of the first—born, concealed in his brothers clothing, and wearing his brothers coat, which gave out an agreeable odor, he ingratiated himself with his father, so that to his own benefit, he receive the blessing while impersonating another. And we, in like manner hide under the precious purity of our firstborn brother, Christ, so that we may be attested righteous in God sight… And this is, indeed, the truth, for in order that we may appear before God's face unto salvation we must smell sweetly with his odor, and our vices must be covered and buried by his perfection.”

The younger brother gets the blessing he doesn’t deserve because he’s wearing his brother’s clothes!

Here then is the gospel on Christmas Eve.

Christ Jesus the Lord voluntarily puts on your stinky garments, and by faith you get to put on his royal white linen!

Disobedient rebels can be clothed with the righteousness of the son.

Praise God.

And now we come to the purpose of Christmas.

when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son. . . so that we might receive adoption. . . (Galatians 4:4–5)

The goal of Christmas is adoption. At just the right time, God sent his son because he wanted a bigger family.

J.I. Packer wrote many years ago: “The revelation to the believer that God is his Father is in a sense the climax of the Bible.”

There can be no greater gift, no higher privilege than receiving a place in God’s own family. I can approach God without fear, because he is Father.

the fatherhood of God implies affection. He loves me like a perfect father loves his children.

I have his name placed upon me. I have his Spirit given to me. I have his inheritance waiting for me.

But Paul adds the phrase “as sons” in the text.

The goal of Christmas is to receive adoption “as sons”

Why doesn’t Paul say “receive adoption as sons & daughters!?” It’s not a mistake to leave out daughters. He doubles down in the next verse.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)

Theologian Michael Reeves provides us with the glorious answer: (why daughters is not included)

“Paul is seeking to be as clear as he can that the status all believers are given is, quite specifically, the status of the son, himself. For God does not give us some exulted, but general standing before himself: the son shares with us, his own Sonship… Paul wants you and me to see that believers get to share the very cry of the son himself. In the garden of Gethsemane, talking in private to his father, Jesus had called him, “Abba, Father.”

Arguing that the Spirit of the Son makes us call out the very same words, Paul is demonstrating as intimately and visually as he can that in Christ, we get to share the very relationship with the father that the son himself has always enjoyed.

The personal name he has for his father we are allowed to share. We can come before the Almighty and say—or stutter!— with a beloved son’s own confidence, “Abba!” . . . The son of God became human that we humans might become sons of God.”

At the exact right time, time god sent his son, born of a woman…to redeem us and adopt us and give us his spirit and make us sons of God.

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. . . you loved me before the foundation of the world. . . . I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.” (John 17:22–26)

Redemption required the incarnation. The point of the incarnation was adoption. And adoption means God loves just like he loves his Eternal son. He has always has, and he always will.

This Christmas, rejoice in the truth that because the Son of God became a man…you and I are beloved sons of God.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Censorship-resistant relay discovery in Nostr

In Nostr is not decentralized nor censorship-resistant I said Nostr is centralized. Peter Todd thinks it is centralized by design, but I disagree.

Nostr wasn't designed to be centralized. The idea was always that clients would follow people in the relays they decided to publish to, even if it was a single-user relay hosted in an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

But the Nostr explanations never had any guidance about how to do this, and the protocol itself never had any enforcement mechanisms for any of this (because it would be impossible).

My original idea was that clients would use some undefined combination of relay hints in reply tags and the (now defunct) kind:2 relay-recommendation events plus some form of manual action ("it looks like Bob is publishing on relay X, do you want to follow him there?") to accomplish this. With the expectation that we would have a better idea of how to properly implement all this with more experience, Branle, my first working client didn't have any of that implemented, instead it used a stupid static list of relays with read/write toggle -- although it did publish relay hints and kept track of those internally and supported kind:2 events, these things were not really useful.

Gossip was the first client to implement a truly censorship-resistant relay discovery mechanism that used NIP-05 hints (originally proposed by Mike Dilger) relay hints and kind:3 relay lists, and then with the simple insight of NIP-65 that got much better. After seeing it in more concrete terms, it became simpler to reason about it and the approach got popularized as the "gossip model", then implemented in clients like Coracle and Snort.

Today when people mention the "gossip model" (or "outbox model") they simply think about NIP-65 though. Which I think is ok, but too restrictive. I still think there is a place for the NIP-05 hints, nprofile and nevent relay hints and specially relay hints in event tags. All these mechanisms are used together in ZBD Social, for example, but I believe also in the clients listed above.

I don't think we should stop here, though. I think there are other ways, perhaps drastically different ways, to approach content propagation and relay discovery. I think manual action by users is underrated and could go a long way if presented in a nice UX (not conceived by people that think users are dumb animals), and who knows what. Reliance on third-parties, hardcoded values, social graph, and specially a mix of multiple approaches, is what Nostr needs to be censorship-resistant and what I hope to see in the future.

@ 36bedab2:524acad4

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@ ee11a5df:b76c4e49

China

I might be wrong, but this is how I see it

This is a post within a series I am going to call "I might be wrong, but this is how I see it"

I have repeatedly found that my understanding of China is quite different from that of many libertarian-minded Americans. And so I make this post to explain how I see it. Maybe you will learn something. Maybe I will learn something.

It seems to me that many American's see America as a shining beacon of freedom with a few small problems, and China is an evil communist country spreading communism everywhere. From my perspective, America was a shining beacon of freedom that has fallen to being typical in most ways, and which is now acting as a falling empire, and China was communist for about a decade, but turned and ran away from that as fast as they could (while not admitting it) and the result is that the US and China are not much different anymore when it comes to free markets. Except they are very different in some other respects.

China has a big problem

China has a big problem. But it is not the communism problem that most Westerners diagnose.

I argue that China is no longer communist, it is only communist in name. And that while it is not a beacon of free market principles, it is nearly as free market now as Western nations like Germany and New Zealand are (being somewhat socialist themselves).

No, China's real problem is authoritarian one-party rule. And that core problem causes all of the other problems, including its human rights abuses.

Communism and Socialism

Communism and Socialism are bad ideas. I don't want to argue it right here, but most readers will already understand this. The last thing I intend to do with this post is to bolster or defend those bad ideas. If you dear reader hold a candle for socialism, let me know and I can help you extinguish it with a future "I might be wrong, but this is how I see it" installment.

Communism is the idea of structuring a society around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the idea of allocating goods and services based on need. It eliminates the concept of private property, of social classes, ultimately of money and finally of the state itself.

Back under Mao in 1958-1962 (The Great Leap Forward), China tried this (in part). Some 50+ million people died. It was an abject failure.

But due to China's real problem (authoritarianism, even worship of their leaders), the leading classes never admitted this. And even today they continue to use the word "Communist" for things that aren't communist at all, as a way to save face, and also in opposition to the United States of America and Europe.

Authorities are not eager to admit their faults. But this is not just a Chinese fault, it is a fault in human nature that affects all countries. The USA still refuses to admit they assassinated their own president JFK. They do not admit they bombed the Nord Stream pipeline.

China defines "socialism with Chinese characteristics" to mean "the leadership of the Communist Party of China". So they still keep the words socialism and communism, but they long ago dropped the meanings of those words. I'm not sure if this is a political ploy against us in the West or not.

China's Marketplace Today

Today China exhibits very few of the properties of communism.

They have some common ownership and state enterprises, but not much differently than Western countries (New Zealand owns Air New Zealand and Kiwibank and Kiwirail, etc). And there are private enterprises all over China. They compete and some succeed and some fail. You might hear about a real-estate bank collapsing. China has private property. They have mostly free markets. They have money, and the most definitely have social classes and a very strong state.

None of that is inline with what communist thinkers want. Communist thinkers in China moan that China has turned away from communism.

Deng Xiaoping who succeeded Mao and attempted to correct the massive mistake, did much when he said "to get rich is glorious."

China achieved staggering rates of economic growth. 10% annually on average since 1977. Chinese economic reform started in 1979 and has continued through successive administrations (Deng, Jiang, Hu and now Xi).

China is now the world's largest economy (by GDP in PPP terms) since 2016.

I was first made aware of China's economic growth by Jim Rogers, an American commodities expert who travelled through China (and the rest of the world from 1990-1992) and in 2007 moved to Singapore where he ensured his daughters learned to speak Mandarin, because Jim knew where the economic growth was going to happen. Jim always spoke positively of China's economic prospects, and his view was so different from the "China is a nasty communist place" view that I had grown up with that my mind opened.

How can anybody believe they are still a communist country? In what world does it make sense that communism can produce such a massively booming economy? It doesn't make sense because it is simply wrong.

What does happen is that the CPC interferes. It lets the market do what markets do, but it interferes where it thinks oversight and regulation would produce a better result.

Western nations interfere with their markets too. They have oversight and regulation. In fact some of China's planned reforms had to be put on hold by Xi due to Donald Trump's trade war with China. That's right, they were trying to be even more free market than America, but America's protectionism prodded Xi to keep control so he could fight back efficiently.

Government oversight and regulation IMHO is mostly bad because it gets out of control, and there are no market forces to correct this. This gets even more extreme in a one-party system, so I can judge that China's oversight and regulation problems are very likely worse than those in Western nations (but I have no first hand experience or evidence).

Why do you keep saying CPC?

The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the ruling party in China. That is their official name. To call them the CCP is to concede to the idea that the British and Americans get to name everybody. I'm not sure who is right, since CPC or CCP is their "English" name (in Chinese it is 中国共产党 and Westernized it is Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng). Nonetheless, I'll call them CPC because that is their wish.

Social Credit System

China moved from a planned economy to a market economy in stages. They didn't want any more sudden changes (can you blame them?). In the process, many institutions that have existed in the West for a long time didn't exist in China and they had to arise somehow. IMHO market forces would have brought these about in the private sector, but the one-party CP of China instead decided to create these.

One of those institutions was a credit score system. In the West we have TransUnion and Equifax that maintain credit ratings on people, and we have S&P, Moody's and Fitch that maintain credit ratings on companies. The domain of these ratings is their financial credit-worthiness.

So the People's Bank of China developed a credit information database for it's own needs. The government picked up on the idea and started moving towards a National Credit Management System. In 2004 it became an official goal to establish a credit system compatible with a modern market system. By 2006 banks were required to report on consumer creditworthiness.

But unchecked one-party governmental power will often take a good idea (credit worthiness data shared among private parties) and systematize it and apply it top-down, creating a solution and a new problem at the same time.

Nonetheless, originally it was about credit worthiness and also criminal convictions. That is no big scary thing that some right-wing American commentators will lead you to believe. In the US for example criminal records are public, so China's Social Credit System started out being no more over-reaching in scope than what Americans have lived under their entire lives, its only fault (a severe one) being centrally planned. And that remained the case up until about 2016 (in my estimation).

But of course there is always scope creep. As it exists today, I have reason to believe that CPC officials and even A.I. use judgement calls to score someone on how moral that person has been! Of course that is not a good idea, and IMHO the problem stems from one-party rule, and authoritarian administration of ideas that should instead be handled by the private sector.

Environmental, Social, and Governance

ESG is a system that came out of a couple basic ideas. The first is that many two-party transactions actually have externalities. They don't just affect the two parties, they also affect everybody else. When you fly in an airplane, you increase the CO2 in the atmosphere that everybody has to pay for (eventually). You may dispute that example, but that is no doubt one of the motivations of ESG.

But of course the recognition of this basic issue didn't lead all people towards market solutions (well it did, but those have been mostly messed up by others), but instead led many people towards ESG, which is a social credit scoring system which applies scores based on environmental and social side-effects of market transactions.

This is not at all the same as China's social credit system, which I described above. I hope you can see the difference.

In fact, China imported ESG from the West. Chinese companies, of their free will, in an attempt to court Western capital, achieve ESG goals for those Western investors. They have been playing this ESG game for 20 years just like the entire world has, because the West has imposed this faux-morality upon them. It isn't something China exported to us, it is something we exported to them.

I think China has avoided Woke-ism

My understanding of Chinese people, based on what I've heard many Chinese people say, is that China isn't affected by the Western woke-ism epidemic. They deride Western white woke people with the term "Baizuo". They have never sent an incompetent break dancer to the Olympics because of wok-ism. Competence is highly respected as is the competition to be the most competent, which (when augmented by a one-child policy which is no longer) has produced child prodigies like no other country has.

What about predatory loans of the Belt and Road initiative?

Predatory is an odd name for loans to people in need. The World Bank makes loans to people in need. China does too. China stands in opposition to Western Empire, and in that regard they produce their own alternative BRICS institutions. This is one of them.

There is AFAIK nothing more predatory about them. It is just that in some cases the borrowers have trouble paying them back and they get foreclosed upon. I don't think this is worthy of much discussion, except that the term "predatory" seems to me to be a propaganda device.

What about foreign influence from China?

China wants to influence the world, especially its own trading partners and potential trading partners. Doing that above board is fine by me.

But some of it is undoubtedly covert. Sometimes Chinese-born people run for public office in Western countries. In New Zealand we stood down some when it became clear they were being influenced too much by the CPC while being charged with representing their local town (dual loyalty issues). If only the USA would do the same thing to their dually-loyal politicians.

And all large nations run influence operations. The USA has the CIA, for example, and claims this "soft power" is actually the better alternative to what would otherwise be military intervention (but IMHO shouldn't be either). I'm not defending such operations (I despise them), I'm just explaining how China's position of exerting influence is not only no big deal and totally expected, it pales in comparison to the United States' influence operations which often become military excursions (something China rarely ever does).

What about the Great Firewall?

Yeah, that sucks. Again, single-party authoritarian control gone to extremes.

What about Human Rights Abuses? What about the Uyghur Genocide?

I don't like them. To the extent they are occurring (and I lean towards the belief that they are occurring), I condemn them.

China has anti-terrorism and anti-extremism policies that go too far. They end up oppressing and/or criminalizing cultures that aren't Chinese enough. But especially, China punishes dissent. Disagreement with the CPC is the high crime. It is the one-party rule that causes this problem. Anybody who speaks out against the CPC or goes against the state in any way is harshly punished. This happens to Uyghurs, to Falun Gong, to Tibetans, and to any religion that is seen as subversive.

Amnesty International and the UN OHCHR have documented issues around the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, Tibet, LGBT rights, death penalty, workers rights, and the Hong Kong special administrative region. I am not about to pretend I know better than they do, but to some extent they go too far.

Amnesty International says this about the USA: Discrimination and violence against LGBTI people were widespread and anti-LGBTI legislation increased. Bills were introduced to address reparations regarding slavery and its legacies. Multiple states implemented total bans on abortion or severely limited access to it. Gender-based violence disproportionately affected Indigenous women. Access to the USA for asylum seekers and migrants was still fraught with obstacles, but some nationalities continued to enjoy Temporary Protected Status. Moves were made to restrict the freedom to protest in a number of states. Black people were disproportionately affected by the use of lethal force by police. No progress was made in the abolition of the death penalty, apart from in Washington. Arbitrary and indefinite detention in the US naval base Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, continued. Despite extensive gun violence, no further firearm reform policies were considered, but President Biden did announce the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The USA continued to use lethal force in countries around the world. Black people, other racialized groups and low-income people bore the brunt of the health impacts of the petrochemical industry, and the use of fossil fuels continued unabated.

Amnesty international didn't even point out that the US government quashes free speech via pressure on social media corporations (because Amnesty International is far too lefty).

So who is worse, China or the US? I'm not going to make that judgement call, but suffice it to say that in my mind, China is not obviously worse.

China violates freedom of expression, association, and assembly of all people. This is bad, and a consequence mainly of one-party rule (again, what I think is the root cause of most of their ills). They arrest, detain, potentially kill anybody who publicly disagrees openly with their government. Clearly this is an excess of authoritarianism, a cancer that is very advanced in China.

As to organ harvesting of Uyghur Muslims, I think this is a myth.

China has dealt harshly with Muslim extremism. They don't offer freedom of religion to ISIS. And Amnesty International complains about that. But practically speaking you probably shouldn't respect the extremist religion of people who want to force everybody into a global caliphate through threat of violence. As you are well aware, some extremist Muslims (<1% of Islam) believe in using violence to bring about a global caliphate. Those extremists pop up in every country and are usually dealt with harshly. China has had to deal with them too.

I have watched two different Western YouTubers travel to Xinjiang province trying to find the oppressed Uyghurs and interview them. They can't find them. What they find instead are Uyghur Muslims doing their prayers five times a day at the local mosque. And also stories that the CPC pitched in some money to help them renovate the mosque. Maybe they were afraid it was a CPC trap and so they wouldn't speak freely. Amnesty International and the UN OHCHR say more than a million are "arbitrarily detained" and I'm not going to argue otherwise. But I'd be more convinced if there were a stream of pictures and news like there is out of Gaza, and it is suspicious that there isn't.

Conclusion

China is more like a Western nation that Westerners realize. Economically, militarily, socially. It still has a very serious obstacle to overcome: one-party rule. I don't think the one-party is going to voluntarily give up power. So most probably at some point in the future there will be a revolution. But in my opinion it won't happen anytime soon. For the most part Chinese people are living high on the hog, getting rich, enjoying the good life, in positive spirits about life, and are getting along with their government quite well at present.

@ 592295cf:413a0db9

Week 02-11

• Nsite zap by hzrd149 Support page

Content creator want more users. They can go to Bluesky.

Great that Nostr is a Echo Chambers. As stated by Rabble during NostRiga, Nostr is a bitcoin meetup. And it is very difficult as said several times, to subvert this fact. It seems that many bitcoiners don't like this, but they can't do anything, leave Nostr and migrate to other lids.

I'm reading Nostr adventar calendar of Japanese Nostr users.

The first two Don and Jun speak of a Mahjong game and the other of how possibly to count the followers of a given account, countfollowed. - Adventar calendar continue until Christmas 🎅

• Even Bluesky is looking at MLS , is not a soccer league, is a protocol for message by groups, "circles" Post on Bluesky

• Relays chakany is introduce sunday. link

I've never seen such dead animals as in Nostr. Something reminds me facebook. The carnivore folks

Hivemind podcast by Max, the kilometric comment on fountain under the podcast is the most appetizing thing of all. Just one comment, little one.

He interviewed Kagi's and searched for a brownie pill, perhaps caused a little headache. ( Brownie pill is orange plus purple)

---

Loss dog on Nostr this week 😔😔 Pam and Derek family dog

conspiracy theory: Fiatjaf was the reply guy!!!

I tried to download voyage, from zapstore but nothing does not work even the 17.1 does not go. Too bad.

I hear so much about notedeck that I want to make a notedeck do it yourself.

Cherry tree, stuck hzrd149 is making an app a day, Chunked blobs on blossom.

A like is used to send your writing Relays

Announcement of a possible wallet in Damus, this could make things better, zap and whatnot.

---

• Or I'm posting a song here, a musical interlude. song on wavlake

---

There seems to be a good buzz on Nostr, maybe it's already a Christmassy atmosphere.

• Backup di Bluesky cool things Bluesky post

---

On another rssfeed thing.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq9h35qgq6n8ll0xyyv8gurjzjrx9sjwp4hry6ejnlks8cqcmzp6tqqs93j2remdw2pxnctasa9vlsaerrrsl7p5csx5wj88kk0yq977rtdqxt7glp

It's the same thing as following a cross de bridge, but if they do 3 bridge, I say something is wrong. A bot is attached to a Relay. The Relay goes down and so much greetings, then I can look for RSS feeds in my computer without need of Nostr. I can share a particular opml file on Nostr, but I don't know how to do it I asked Fiatjaf but didn't answer it was taken by dichotomie.

Nip19 really Easy to do filter query.

You have events_id pubkey Relay Instead with Nostr:note you only have the event_id.

• Sebastix says he has to implement it in his library, discover the latest weekly report. nostr-php-helper-library

---

Oh no Pablo has become super Saiyan 🤣

There is a way to make a podcast starting from a long text, blog. With artificial intelligence. But then I thought, but if one does not have time could not have the text of the article summarized, perhaps we like generating content. It can be an option, either you read or you listen. But if you do not have time perhaps it is better to just summarize, dear chatgpt summarize this text, done. Essential points and make a thread for the social network and do what you want.

• Homemade Traditional Boozy Mincemeat, I didn't even know that existed 🤙 link to shopstr

Hodlbod news on bunker burrow

nostr:nevent1qqs84na25g6mdelvl0408nnq8m29j5070dm9mvjrzxyc6yrx2udjyuczyztuwzjyxe4x2dwpgken87tna2rdlhpd02

• In case you don't see the note burrow on github

Once you have the email what do you do with your encrypted key? No Enterprise user maybe. Rember the article of Hodlbod in "Is Always a political move". ✅

List of artists on Nostr nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzqfngzhsvjggdlgeycm96x4emzjlwf8dyyzdfg4hefp89zpkdgz99qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzfmhxue69uhkummnw3e82efwvdhk6tcqp9qku6tdv96x7unng9grdr

• An article for food recipe on Nostr Article link

I don't know if they'll ever be there. You can write a recipe book. Or to put recipes on wiki, there doesn't seem to be that attention or that desire. One more relay is always better

• Olas has a website 🥊 Olas app

Oh i see cool Hodlbod bot A summary bot

nostr:nevent1qqs0v88uc2u3he3lm3mpm5h3gr8cuht5wv9g0tk0x9hzvamgvpdjwvspzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgq3qjlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qu0ltyv

That's all!!

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

início

"Vocês vêem? Vêem a história? Vêem alguma coisa? Me parece que estou tentando lhes contar um sonho -- fazendo uma tentativa inútil, porque nenhum relato de sonho pode transmitir a sensação de sonho, aquela mistura de absurdo, surpresa e espanto numa excitação de revolta tentando se impôr, aquela noção de ser tomado pelo incompreensível que é da própria essência dos sonhos..."

Ele ficou em silêncio por alguns instantes.

"... Não, é impossível; é impossível transmitir a sensação viva de qualquer época determinada de nossa existência -- aquela que constitui a sua verdade, o seu significado, a sua essência sutil e contundente. É impossível. Vivemos, como sonhamos -- sozinhos..."

• Livros mencionados por Olavo de Carvalho
• Antiga homepage Olavo de Carvalho
• Bitcoin explicado de um jeito correto e inteligível
• Reclamações

---

• Nostr
• Bitcoin
• How IPFS is broken
• Programming quibbles
• Economics
• Open-source software

---

Nostr GitHub Telegram Donate

@ 36bedab2:524acad4

404 Page Not Found Error

@ c230edd3:8ad4a712

Love's worshippers alone can know

The thousand mysteries that are his;

His blazing torch, his twanging bow,

His blooming age are mysteries.

A charming science—but the day

Were all too short to con it o'er;

So take of me this little lay,

A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade

Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,

The children, Love and Folly, played—

A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.

Love said the gods should do him right—

But Folly vowed to do it then,

And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,

So hard, he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,

She called for vengeance on the deed;

A beauty does not vainly weep,

Nor coldly does a mother plead.

A shade came o'er the eternal bliss

That fills the dwellers of the skies;

Even stony-hearted Nemesis,

And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes.

"Behold," she said, "this lovely boy,"

While streamed afresh her graceful tears,

"Immortal, yet shut out from joy

And sunshine, all his future years.

The child can never take, you see,

A single step without a staff—

The harshest punishment would be

Too lenient for the crime by half."

All said that Love had suffered wrong,

And well that wrong should be repaid;

Then weighed the public interest long,

And long the party's interest weighed.

And thus decreed the court above—

"Since Love is blind from Folly's blow,

Let Folly be the guide of Love,

Where'er the boy may choose to go."

@ 7f5c2b4e:a818d75d

Nsec.app is a Nostr application which lets you share access to your account and login to Nostr apps seamlessly with numerous devices.

The app is super useful when collaboratively running a Nostr account. It lets you generate tokens to share with partners or colleagues and provide different levels of access to different individuals.

Another bonus feature of nsec.app is letting you forget about Nostr browser extensions. Extensions have their fair share of useful features, but using nsec.app (or other apps that support NIP-46 login, e.g. nsecBunker) is often more convenient, arguably more secure and offers some features, that extensions aren't able to deliver.

Let's walk through the process of starting the nsec.app and see what features it has to offer.

Installation

Nsec.app is a PWA (see my short blog post on PWAs and their benefits here), meaning that it can be saved to your device in a way that it feels and acts like a native app. Alternatively the app can be used in the browser.

Visit Nsec.app:

https://i.nostr.build/axlP.png

After pressing the "Get started" button you'll be welcomed by three main options: "Sign up", "Login" or "Import Key". Let's explore each of these options:

1. Sign up: This option suits those, who do not have a Nostr account yet. I'd steer clear from this option for now and create an account in a more "conventional" way – via one of the popular Nostr clients or by utilizing a dedicated browser extension.

Stay tuned as the developers are working on wide implementation of NIP49. At the moment few Nostr clients support NIP49, so you won't have many options of using keys created with nsec.app. When most Nostr apps support NIP49 logins, signing up to Nostr via nsec.app will become a more convenient option.

If you decide to utilize nsec.app to create your Nostr account, the process is super simple:

1) Choose your Nostr address 2) Create and confirm your password 3) Enjoy your new Nostr account 💜

https://i.nostr.build/JqgP.png

1. Import key: This approach assumes you would like to start using nsec.app with the existing Nostr account.

https://i.nostr.build/5e9y.png

In this case you'll need to choose your username, provide your private key and choose a password. This will create the nsec.app account (by setting a username and a password) while binding it with your original Nostr account (by providing your private key).

It is worth noting that your keys will be encrypted by your password and stored on nsec.app's server to sync to other devices in end-to-end encrypted manner.

1. Login: This approach assumes you've already set up nsec.app and would like to enter your dashboard from a new device.

https://i.nostr.build/k6aa.png

Do not forget to click the "Enable background service" tile after setting up your account. This will ensure you receive a notification whenever the request to authorize a login is created.

https://i.nostr.build/Zrdx.png

Usage

After setting up nsec.app you're ready to start utilizing it to login to numerous Nostr apps.

The most powerful feature of nsec.app is that it lets you login to apps without having to use the browser extension or exposing your private key.

For example, I can now turn Coracle client into a PWA on my iPhone, which is otherwise impossible, because Apple does not allow you to utilize browser extensions with PWAs.

Another use case is delegating the rights to interact with Nostr on behalf of the account you created.

Regardless of wether you want to use the app single-handedly, or delegate the private key, the process is as follows:

1. Use nsec.app to create a login string by pressing "Connect app".
2. Copy the string by pressing the corresponding button.

https://i.nostr.build/rvVB.png

1. Paste the string into the client that you'd like to login to.
2. As you (or your companion) try to login to the Nostr app, nsec.app will display a notification asking you (the administrator) to approve the login.

https://i.nostr.build/7x53.png

As you can see, there are two options for you to choose from:

• Basic permissions: This will approve all potential future interactions.
• On demand: This will log the user in and ask for your approvals every time the user tries to interact with the protocol in a new way (like, zap, follow, etc.)

That's it. You can now interact with nostr without ever having to utilize the browser extension or share your private key with any app.

Features

Customization

Nsec.app lets you customize the way your connected apps look. You can name them, specify a website address and choose an icon of your choice. Very handy functionality for when you start actively using the app:

https://i.nostr.build/ej6X.png

As the stack of connected apps grows this will help you distinguish between them in order to introduce any necessary changes.

https://i.nostr.build/XEgW.png

Connected apps management

This leads us to the next important part of using nsec.app: revoking access to apps. This is especially important when it comes to sharing access to account with someone else. In case you no longer plan to collaborate on the account, or you simply do not need some app connection to function any longer, you can revoke access at any time.

Just open the app you need and: (a) press "Delete app" (this completely cuts connection between your app and nsec.app) or (b) press the three dots next to the existing approved permission followed by "Delete permission" (this cancels the given permission, so that the next time you (or other user) tries to interact with the protocol, you will receive a notification asking you to approve their action).

https://i.nostr.build/d3QD.png

NIP49 logins

Nsec.app allows you to utilize another way of logging into Nostr apps – NIP49. We touched on this approach earlier, so let's explore how it works.

Here's an example with Noogle:

1. Choose the Login with NCryptSec option:

https://i.nostr.build/DzeV.png

1. Enter the encrypted Nsec (to be retrieved from the nsec.app in Settings -> Export) and the nsec.app password:

https://i.nostr.build/R505.png

That's it. You're logged in.

https://i.nostr.build/moLR.png

At the moment few clients support this NIP, but given the benefits of this functionality, it shouldn't be long before we see more and more clients join in.

Outro

Just like with every other Nostr app, there's a lot of work to be done. Nevertheless, nsec.app already solves many important problems, and is definitely worth your attention. Give it a try and let us know if you find any bugs, or come up with some ideas worth implementing. Feel free to ping myself or, better yet, the app developer nostr:npub1xdtducdnjerex88gkg2qk2atsdlqsyxqaag4h05jmcpyspqt30wscmntxy

---

Hope this guide was useful! If so, don't forget to zap this post 😉

See you on the other side of the Nostr rabbit hole

Tony⚡️

@ 16d11430:61640947

At the intersection of philosophy, theology, physics, biology, and finance lies a terrifying truth: the fiat monetary system, in its current form, is not just an economic framework but a silent, relentless force actively working against humanity's survival. It isn't simply a failed financial model—it is a systemic engine of destruction, both externally and within the very core of our biological existence.

The Philosophical Void of Fiat

Philosophy has long questioned the nature of value and the meaning of human existence. From Socrates to Kant, thinkers have pondered the pursuit of truth, beauty, and virtue. But in the modern age, the fiat system has hijacked this discourse. The notion of "value" in a fiat world is no longer rooted in human potential or natural resources—it is abstracted, manipulated, and controlled by central authorities with the sole purpose of perpetuating their own power. The currency is not a reflection of society’s labor or resources; it is a representation of faith in an authority that, more often than not, breaks that faith with reckless monetary policies and hidden inflation.

The fiat system has created a kind of ontological nihilism, where the idea of true value, rooted in work, creativity, and family, is replaced with speculative gambling and short-term gains. This betrayal of human purpose at the systemic level feeds into a philosophical despair: the relentless devaluation of effort, the erosion of trust, and the abandonment of shared human values. In this nihilistic economy, purpose and meaning become increasingly difficult to find, leaving millions to question the very foundation of their existence.

Theological Implications: Fiat and the Collapse of the Sacred

Religious traditions have long linked moral integrity with the stewardship of resources and the preservation of life. Fiat currency, however, corrupts these foundational beliefs. In the theological narrative of creation, humans are given dominion over the Earth, tasked with nurturing and protecting it for future generations. But the fiat system promotes the exact opposite: it commodifies everything—land, labor, and life—treating them as mere transactions on a ledger.

This disrespect for creation is an affront to the divine. In many theologies, creation is meant to be sustained, a delicate balance that mirrors the harmony of the divine order. Fiat systems—by continuously printing money and driving inflation—treat nature and humanity as expendable resources to be exploited for short-term gains, leading to environmental degradation and societal collapse. The creation narrative, in which humans are called to be stewards, is inverted. The fiat system, through its unholy alliance with unrestrained growth and unsustainable debt, is destroying the very creation it should protect.

Furthermore, the fiat system drives idolatry of power and wealth. The central banks and corporations that control the money supply have become modern-day gods, their decrees shaping the lives of billions, while the masses are enslaved by debt and inflation. This form of worship isn't overt, but it is profound. It leads to a world where people place their faith not in God or their families, but in the abstract promises of institutions that serve their own interests.

Physics and the Infinite Growth Paradox

Physics teaches us that the universe is finite—resources, energy, and space are all limited. Yet, the fiat system operates under the delusion of infinite growth. Central banks print money without concern for natural limits, encouraging an economy that assumes unending expansion. This is not only an economic fallacy; it is a physical impossibility.

In thermodynamics, the Second Law states that entropy (disorder) increases over time in any closed system. The fiat system operates as if the Earth were an infinite resource pool, perpetually able to expand without consequence. The real world, however, does not bend to these abstract concepts of infinite growth. Resources are finite, ecosystems are fragile, and human capacity is limited. Fiat currency, by promoting unsustainable consumption and growth, accelerates the depletion of resources and the degradation of natural systems that support life itself.

Even the financial “growth” driven by fiat policies leads to unsustainable bubbles—inflated stock markets, real estate, and speculative assets that burst and leave ruin in their wake. These crashes aren’t just economic—they have profound biological consequences. The cycles of boom and bust undermine communities, erode social stability, and increase anxiety and depression, all of which affect human health at a biological level.

Biology: The Fiat System and the Destruction of Human Health

Biologically, the fiat system is a cancerous growth on human society. The constant chase for growth and the devaluation of work leads to chronic stress, which is one of the leading causes of disease in modern society. The strain of living in a system that values speculation over well-being results in a biological feedback loop: rising anxiety, poor mental health, physical diseases like cardiovascular disorders, and a shortening of lifespans.

Moreover, the focus on profit and short-term returns creates a biological disconnect between humans and the planet. The fiat system fuels industries that destroy ecosystems, increase pollution, and deplete resources at unsustainable rates. These actions are not just environmentally harmful; they directly harm human biology. The degradation of the environment—whether through toxic chemicals, pollution, or resource extraction—has profound biological effects on human health, causing respiratory diseases, cancers, and neurological disorders.

The biological cost of the fiat system is not a distant theory; it is being paid every day by millions in the form of increased health risks, diseases linked to stress, and the growing burden of mental health disorders. The constant uncertainty of an inflation-driven economy exacerbates these conditions, creating a society of individuals whose bodies and minds are under constant strain. We are witnessing a systemic biological unraveling, one in which the very act of living is increasingly fraught with pain, instability, and the looming threat of collapse.

Finance as the Final Illusion

At the core of the fiat system is a fundamental illusion—that financial growth can occur without any real connection to tangible value. The abstraction of currency, the manipulation of interest rates, and the constant creation of new money hide the underlying truth: the system is built on nothing but faith. When that faith falters, the entire system collapses.

This illusion has become so deeply embedded that it now defines the human experience. Work no longer connects to production or creation—it is reduced to a transaction on a spreadsheet, a means to acquire more fiat currency in a world where value is ephemeral and increasingly disconnected from human reality.

As we pursue ever-expanding wealth, the fundamental truths of biology—interdependence, sustainability, and balance—are ignored. The fiat system’s abstract financial models serve to disconnect us from the basic realities of life: that we are part of an interconnected world where every action has a reaction, where resources are finite, and where human health, both mental and physical, depends on the stability of our environment and our social systems.

The Ultimate Extermination

In the end, the fiat system is not just an economic issue; it is a biological, philosophical, theological, and existential threat to the very survival of humanity. It is a force that devalues human effort, encourages environmental destruction, fosters inequality, and creates pain at the core of the human biological condition. It is an economic framework that leads not to prosperity, but to extermination—not just of species, but of the very essence of human well-being.

To continue on this path is to accept the slow death of our species, one based not on natural forces, but on our own choice to worship the abstract over the real, the speculative over the tangible. The fiat system isn't just a threat; it is the ultimate self-inflicted wound, a cultural and financial cancer that, if left unchecked, will destroy humanity’s chance for survival and peace.

@ 9cb3545c:2ff47bca

Hey there! So you’ve got a whopping 50+ Lightning Channels and you’re not keen on them Force Closing? Well, buckle up! This guide will be an additional resource as you navigate through daunting process.

In this post, we will go over some extra tips and tricks not covered in the official guide. While this guide does have some steps that are not covered by Umbrel, its main objective is to provide confidence in the process (not a replacement process), coming from someone who’s been there and done that, and some how came out with all Lightning Channels still running! I highly recommend reading this post fully before starting the migration process.

Before we dive in, here is the Official Guide from the Umbrel team on how to update UmbrelOS from 0.5.4 to 1.x.x. Reference the steps all the time, and follow them carefully.

With that out of the way. Here are some extra TIPs to fill in some gaps I encountered as I went through the process.

The Order of Steps

Tip #1:

In the Official Umbrel Guide, the Umbrel team asks you to start by backing up your data. As a lightning Node Runner, I recommend against this. Because the Bash script will stop all Umbrel Services and your node will remain offline while you prepare a Bootable USB Stick. So definitely don't start with the backup, first get the bootable stick sorted out, then move on to backups.

Creating the Bootable USB Stick

TIP #2:

After many failed attempts to create a bootable USB stick from the link umbrel provides in their official guide. I ended up getting the ISO directly from Umbrels team through their Discord Channel. Unfortunately, I wont be able to share this link here. but just in case the umbrelOS-amd64-usb-installer.iso.xz didnt work for you as well, this could be an alternative route.

TIP #3:

Since Umbrel is an actual full OS now. You might need to handle some BIOS quirks. The umbrelOS Kernal is not signed. So if you have Secure Boot turned on in the BIOS, your PC will try to protect you, and block you from booting into you USB Stick. Turn off Secure Boot and you should be able to bypass this issue. I also had to turn on Legacy Option ROMs as well.

Tip #4:

Test your Bootable USB Stick on a secondary device before you go on trying to update your node. Since turning the node off and on is a hassle, its just easier to be certain the the Bootable Stick is ready before even attempting to upgrade your node.

If all is good, you are ready to get back to the guide and walk through the steps.

Preparing the Hardware

Tip #5:

In the official guide they as you to connect a Keyboard and Screen. This is of course needed. I would highly suggest you connect a mouse as well. My Bios was very stubborn and didn't comply with just a keyboard as I attempted to re-order Boot Sequences.

The Migration Process

Tip #6:

Remember, this is 10 times easier if you are not running a lightning node, but on a lightning node, the Channel.db file is being updated constantly. Once you start the backup process, the script will shutdown umbrel services and start copying. you can''t turn your node back on after this stage. If you do, assume the backup you created through the Bash script is obsolete. and you will have to redo the backup process again. If you really know what you are doing, you probably can surgically copy/paste the LND folder. But its easier not to do this.

But not to worry, if you start the process just keep going (especially if you checked all the TIPs I cover above). I say this out of experience, because after I started the first backup process, it took me about an hour to backup my SSD, but then the Bootable USB stick threw so many errors I gave up, and turned on the node again. Then later re-attempted the process from scratch. This time, since my external SSD was already full, it took 3.5 hours to backup all the files again.

Tip #7:

This will take time, so just trust the migration process and wait for the files to get copied. you are probably copying more than a terabyte worth of data back and forth over USB, Leverage USB 3 if you have it.

Tip #8:

If you have a custom name for your umbrel node. Meaning you do not access it by using umbrel.local, this will be reset to the default umbrel.local after the migration. I am not sure if this could be switched again to a custom name, but for now, this won't cause any issues.

Tip #9:

During the last steps of the Migration process, and once Umbrel has copied the backup back into the SSD, it will finish the process with downloading your apps, and restarting. Don't freak out :D

Tip #10:

I honestly don't have a tenth tip, but thought it would make this list look nicer with one. So my last tip for you is to relax and enjoy the process. And feel free to tag me if you faced any issues. Hopefully it will be something i experienced and will be able to help.

Have Fun, and Good Luck!

@ d6affa19:9110b177

At the heart of a Female-Led Relationship (FLR) is the woman's position of authority and the man's surrender to her lead. This arrangement reveals some complex emotions and motivations in men: the desire to be dominated and the desire to be submissive.

These two desires tend to get conflated, which leads to confusion and at times, manipulation within FLRs. A man may blur his desire to be dominated with submission, constructing a set of expectations within the relationship that leads to a transactional approach, distorting the FLR dynamic. The man’s focus becomes self-serving where he tries to fulfill a fantasy rather than a sincere desire to serve the woman.

It’s important to acknowledge the difference between these desires in order to have a loving FLR. If this difference isn’t sorted out, it’ll lead to misunderstandings, resentment, and even a breakdown of the relationship. When a man is led by his own pleasure instead of the woman, she may feel like a means to an end, and the relationship is no longer an authentic FLR. While there are many ways to engage in an FLR, the aim here is not to prescribe a “true” method, but try to clarify what drives a man to pursue this style of relationship for a more authentic experience.

Being able to identify the underlying motivations can help a couple to engage more honestly, where submission comes from genuine devotion instead of manipulation or a transactional mindset. It also can clarify the proper roles of the relationship, allowing them to interact more authentically within the framework of an FLR. Let's begin exploring the nuances of these desires and take a look at how they impact the relationship, beginning with defining what all of this means.

Defining Terms: Surrendering to Who?

The Desire to be Dominated

So what does it mean to have a desire to be dominated? It usually refers to a thrill or exhilaration felt from being overpowered or controlled. A man may seek out an FLR with a woman to explicitly satisfy this need, but there is only the appearance of surrendering control, as he only allows her take charge in specific ways and circumstances.

The word “allow” is important here, as it implies a form of consent—often involving fantasy, power dynamics, and control. If this is a man’s primary incentive, the relationship then becomes an exchange based on what the man receives from the woman—making him the center of the interaction.

A man may desire to be dominated for a number of reasons: * To seek validation or affirmation * To explore vulnerability * For emotional release * To avoid responsibility * Simply to chase sexual gratification

In any case, if he allows himself to be largely motivated by this desire, he’ll invert the dynamic by prioritizing his own satisfaction over the woman’s. By framing his urge to be dominated as submission, he is not, in a sense, surrendering to the woman, but instead to his own desires.

The Desire to be Submissive

In contrast, when a man’s primary motivation is the desire to be submissive, his surrender is no longer conditional, but an offering. His purpose is simply serving and uplifting the woman he admires in the manner she determines is best. It’s in this selfless intention that the foundation of an FLR is formed, and where the woman’s authority begins.

His submission involves a more profound emotional and psychological commitment to serving and fulfilling the woman—making her the primary focus. In this framework, the man isn’t merely “allowing” or manipulating; he is actively choosing to follow the woman’s lead and serve her. This intention is what makes an FLR truly Female-led.

Misconceptions About Submission in FLRs

Confusing Desires

The desire to be dominated and the desire to be submissive often coexist. Also, they both typically stem from a need for female authority and/or leadership—perhaps the reason they become conflated so easily. However, it's important to stress that they are not the same thing.

In many instances, men will seek an FLR with the intention of being dominated, but label it as being submissive. This becomes a significant miscommunication—essentially a promise of devotion to a woman without fully grasping the obligations that true submission involves.

What results is a shallow experience where the man will only “submit” to tasks that give himself a sense of pleasure. He expects the woman to meet his needs—or assert her dominance—without really engaging in the relationship. However, it’s the man’s responsibility to first choose submission—to prove he is worthy of her dominance, rather than expecting the woman to assert it.

Recognizing True Submission

True submission contrasts this because the man doesn’t lead with expectations but consciously accepts his role and actively chooses to support the woman’s leadership. He demonstrates this through active listening, seeking a connection, aligning with her vision, and offering her support during stressful times—his motivation resides in her.

It’s a sincere commitment in which he seeks growth and purpose through service and devotion to her. This approach requires trust, respect, and the willingness to be vulnerable. Let’s examine how these two intentions manifest either a transactional dynamic or an authentic connection between the couple.

Uncovering the Heart of Submission: Transactional vs. Authentic Approaches

How the Dynamic Becomes Transactional

In an FLR, it remains a man’s role to initiate, but this initiation comes from his submission to the woman. A man may recognize himself submitting only when his specific desires to be dominated are met, often feeling that it’s her dominance that inspires his submission. But it’s no longer true submission if it relies upon the woman meeting his needs first. This is commonly referred to as "topping from the bottom" and eventually undermines her leadership—essentially putting him in control.

This exchange makes the relationship more transactional than authentic, eroding trust and breeding resentment. The “need” for this usually comes from a variety deep-rooted issues that we’ll explore later, but nevertheless, this “exchange” won’t be able to fulfill the emotional needs of either partner long-term.

Characteristics of Genuine Surrender

Genuine submission comes from a desire for emotional connection with the woman, rather than as a means to fulfill a fantasy. Again, it involves a man consciously prioritizing the needs of the woman over his own desires. This energy is what sparks a woman’s desire to take on her role as the leader and reinforces her position of authority.

From here, she’s able to guide and shape the relationship in a way that aligns with her strengths and desires without being undermined. For this reason, it’s essential that a man initiate with a desire for true submission from his heart. But how does a man discover this desire and nurture it?

Emotional Work and Self-Knowledge

The Courage in Surrender

Embracing true submission requires quite a bit of emotional work for a man, especially some deep self-reflection to understand his own desires and insecurities. What does true submission mean to him, and why is he drawn to it? What apprehension—what fear does he have toward vulnerability and submission? Searching for the answers to these questions are crucial for his journey, and self-knowledge is needed to address these feelings in a constructive manner.

But, why might a man feel more comfortable with a conditional approach to submission in an FLR? Some common reasons might include: * Fear of emotional vulnerability: Being dominated creates a safe space to explore vulnerability, but is mostly limited. He makes his submission transactional to be able to hold on to a sense of control, avoiding the emotional risks that come with being upfront and honest about his feelings. * Deep insecurities or shame: He may have deep-rooted insecurities or feeling of shame for his desire to be dominated. In this case, he’ll continuously look for external validation through the fulfillment of his fantasies, which drains the woman and prevents him from forming a more meaningful connection. * Unaddressed trust issues: There may be unprocessed trauma involving trust from his past experiences that may cause him to hesitate giving himself away completely. He may find more comfort handling a transactional setup that appears safer than a more vulnerable emotional connection. * Fear of losing himself: He could also simply fear that letting go of his fantasies means giving up a part of himself, making him reluctant to embrace true surrender.

These are just a few of the internal challenges that a man should sort through before being ready to truly surrender—to make a deep emotional connection. Many of these stem from ego-related issues, and by recognizing them, men can work to overcome them. Engaging in some sort of shadow work or healing journey is a great starting point in preparation for a loving FLR.

Open Communication

On top of the emotional work required, being able to communicate effectively has to be a top priority to maintain the authenticity in the relationship. The couple must be able to share their wants, needs, and expectations openly and honestly, but not harshly. A man should be able articulate his needs, but also actively listen to the woman's feedback, understand her expectations, and be willing to adapt to her guidance. Strong, honest communication is necessary for the couple to understand the true intention of his desires (to be dominated and to be submissive), and the role it plays in the relationship.

Does the man push for the woman to dominate more? Is he frustrated that she shows a bit more hesitancy? He needs to be able to express what expectations he has, but she must also feel comfortable stating and asserting her boundaries with full confidence that he will respect them. After all, the defining characteristic of an FLR is that the relationship centers on the woman’s preferences. With this in mind, let’s look at how clarifying a man’s true motives can impact an FLR.

How This Applies to FLRs

Exploring Motivations

By separating the desire to be dominated from the desire to be submissive, a man will be able to discover his true motivations. Is being a submissive partner in an FLR truly what he desires? Or does he simply want a safe space to explore his sexuality? He needs to be able to express his desires to the woman he wants a relationship with.

He can be more authentic and open about his desires and fears if he understands himself—which leads to more trust. It’s from this kind of integrity and vulnerability that the foundation of the FLR is strengthened, deepening a woman’s confidence in him and clearing the way for her to effectively guide the direction of the relationship.

The Devotional Heart

Another important aspect of this separation is that a man will be more able to focus on what he brings to the FLR (his surrender, his devotion, his submission) and less on what he receives. A selfless, devotional heart is the core characteristic of an empowered submissive in an FLR—of a man who knows his exact place in the world, where his strength is measured by his ability to support, rather than in his ability to endure, provide, or dominate.

By being proactive in his submission, he encourages a dynamic in which the woman isn’t bartering for or demanding his obedience, but receiving his unconditional devotion. Again, it’s not his desire to be dominated that makes an FLR, but his desire to surrender to her; and this surrender can only be defined by her. Next, let’s examine a scenario in which the way a man grapples with these two desires can shape the relationship.

How Authenticity Reinforces the Woman's Authority

Looking at how these desires play out in practice is helpful for understanding the woman's perspective in an FLR. The way this interplay takes shape can have a major impact on the woman's expression of authority, emotional well-being, and the overall health of the relationship. With this in mind, let's consider two examples that highlight the nuances at play.

The Transactional Approach

In this first scenario, a man might express his desire for the woman to take charge—typically in the bedroom, but he could also want her to “order him” tasks or chores. If she doesn’t want to do this because she is tired, stressed, or simply not in the mood, he may feel rejected, which may cause him to withdraw his submission or act out.

From her perspective, his conditional submission and lack of initiative feel like an imposition on her own needs and desires. She could become burdened by having to manage his demands or feel objectified, as if she is merely there to satisfy his fantasies rather than to be a respected partner. In this case, since she isn’t really leading, she may feel less inclined to “assert” her leadership.

This dynamic, over time, weakens the trust and emotional connection that are needed for a loving relationship, leaving the woman feeling resentful and the man feeling entitled to his desires. By valuing his need to be dominated (receiving) over his desire to genuinely submit to her (giving), he has created a pattern that undermines her authority and the authenticity of the relationship.

The Authentic Approach

Now let's examine a different approach. Suppose the man responds with understanding and empathy when the woman declines his request. Rather than pulling back, he reassures her that her feelings and needs are important, and he puts her comfort first. He looks for other ways to serve her, such as helping with chores or actively seeking to meet her emotional needs.

This response requires a great deal of emotional resiliency. Although she doesn’t prefer to “dominate” him (in the way he would like), he handles the rejection and denial with grace, maintaining his core identity as her devoted partner.

From the woman's perspective, this approach helps to build a deeper sense of trust and emotional connection. She may feel valued, appreciated, and empowered to reciprocate and assert her leadership going forward, knowing that her partner is committed to supporting her in a genuine and selfless way. Overall, this dynamic strengthens their relationship, allowing the couple to grow and feel fulfilled together.

Embracing True Submission: The Path to Fulfilling FLRs

In conclusion, understanding the differences between the desire to be dominated and the desire to be submissive are key to building a healthy and fulfilling FLR. While these desires often overlap, recognizing their unique motivations can help a couple navigate their dynamic with more transparency and integrity. It’s only when a man leans in to and embraces his genuine desire to surrender to a woman that the FLR can take shape.

This isn’t to say that the desire to be dominated isn’t relevant to an FLR. On the contrary, there are many opportunities for exploration and making deep connections through this desire. However, it’s important to recognize that framing this desire as true submission can lead to transactional motives, misunderstandings, or even power struggles over the relationship narrative.

Once more, the foundation of an FLR is primarily formed from the man’s conscious surrender to the woman and her acceptance of his offering. When he able to find his center in who she truly is rather than who he desires her to be—when she is able to feel more empowered in his surrender, that is when a relationship becomes a true FLR. This empowerment doesn’t come from dominating the man, but from his unconditional support and a loving connection with him. The shift from a transactional mindset to one rooted in genuine devotion allows both partners to flourish in their roles, creating a beautiful dynamic that celebrates the essence of female leadership.

@ 2d5b6404:d4b500b0

1. アンフィールドでリバプールの試合を観戦する
2. イタリアでピザ食べたりエスプレッソ飲む
3. じゅりよんやラルフ、ewelina、マルティン、jefgとか𓆏に会いにヨーロッパ旅行行く
4. 長崎ぺんぎん水族館に行く
5. 九十九里で貝を食べる
6. 奄美大島でクジラの鳴き声を聞く
7. 蒸気機関車に乗る
8. 台湾旅行に行く
9. 韓国旅行に行く
10. 船で東京か大阪、四国に行く
11. Punkt. MP02を買い替える
12. ベトナムに住んでる友達に会いに行く
13. ホームベースとなる共同体を見つける。もしくは作る
14. 収入の10分の１を寄付する
15. ~~デスストランディングをクリアする~~
16. ブレワイ、ティアキンをクリアする
17. べランピングする
18. 冷蔵庫を伊良コーラでいっぱいにする
19. 友達とこたつでゲームする

@ 592295cf:413a0db9

Week 25 11

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Vitor created another social network edit mode. There are countless cases of use. But type threads are possible, small books, Rabbit hole and those who put it more.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq3svyhng9ld8sv44950j957j9vchdktj7cxumsep9mvvjthc2pjuqyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcqyrewvkqwqt7urn2u9h5tk88vj9p3csl0wt08aqd8kxsngxtdmr0zqmszxds

Nostr Report is missing, was a lot of news, 20 notes in a day.

Some news do not need resonance case, Primal did a good job with trending. Of course is a centralized service. But it was one of the Twitter features, he did it with the top trending hashtags. Now Primal is more focused on DVM smart feed, read, and Discovery. This will bring chaos, as long as you can switch the trend feed with your Algo or DVM Algo. I'm obsessed with these switches 😅

Hostile people can happen along the way, it's not like in Bluesky 😔.

Someone share on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/laurenshof.online/post/3lbrsjzobps2u Video is this https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/fr/video/I-264553?lg=en

Trying to convince someone for Unanimity, Relay groups are nice, but Unanimity is simpler.

nostr:nevent1qqs9ar5t9xu97nhtwef9ej2y7cklnysf7hgwce7t2wk5axhfdwuq5sqpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgq3qmzyp990kgskujdyplzydmd08ft42mkkfg4lzldaap8ng7n2u3kmss8l76e

Game on Nostr on 2025, cool be.

Angor are finally ready, crowdfunding with Nostr and Bitcoin. (alpha test)

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqw4hcggg2f9h68qutp0snsdhux20teljykjmh9rlx78qwnt5a8dlqqstte0g54hfa2cmr63vq4ava7e7wsr483p63tylvut8cvufzs44a0cd6saa3

PR 1600

The name is curated pubblication use kind 30040 e 30041, 30040 Is the envelope and 30041 are chapters or paragraphs. We'll see what's left in a month. There are no big discussions until now. This is the basis to leave it so, if you can improve it without breaking it ok. I think liminal is preparing at least two other NPs. The bottom problem is that there are no "competitor", someone else outside who wants to use this thing. But if there are no one can invent.

You can't do things with others. There's too "bad" people. Keep calm is a toxin environment. Maybe you have to get away a bit.

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I was trying to help David but there are no aggregators for neo4j Nostr. Dustin's example, I think it's only worth the DVM. There are two other projects one grain of Oceanslim I saw the video where he explains some things, with Dr. Morales. And the other is Cody's Nostr Relay tray. At least you have all the data in a Relay, and for that Relay you can query, I don't think you find anything significant, maybe you need 100(k) notes to have a good sample. I think I'll make the update. I downloaded two months ago, it worked for a while with Nostrudel, then only with next, lately some problems with next. Cody launched the project with fiatjaf and I think it is also implemented here. In the end, I don't think this answer is useful to David.

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Zapview nostr-zap-view The lokuyow project, always attentive to zap lightning and Nostr.

Give a "microsat" to Fiatjaf nostrabia relay

I managed to send a zap from a hex known id, it only works with getalby, so until January 4th. I have to prove if other lnurls have the call.

Something I might have understood about the new version of Nostr_sdk or rust Nostr. Sending messages will be harder. The builder does not support the tag, it breaks almost all the scripts I was writing and to verify them you can do nothing but send to the Relays, I wait a few days if there are news, but I don't think there will be. It is no longer linked to the table of examples so it will not be updated presumably, I would like to continue, as the cli does not come out. That then the cli will be in python 12.. (I'm still in version 3.10.9 of python)

I've seen bulletin proof, posting on Nostr seems interesting, but they need many interactions to have a functioning client. link, stacker news

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Nostr nuance, login, Nostr connect, private. (two Notes)

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq77777lz9hvwt86xqrsyf2jn588ewk5aclf8mavr80rhmduy5kq9qyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddakj7qghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezucnpdejz7qpqqqqz3757ha8j5xcm7er8kkdc0dgtvmy55dz2t2d7c2tv9h8qm88qlcjsls

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq9eemymaerqvwdc25f6ctyuvzx0zt3qld3zp5hf5cmfc2qlrzdh0qyt8wumn8ghj7ur4wfcxcetjv4kxz7fwvdhk6tcpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5hsqgz98qckr40flhpyt48fxqjkuf9p4dv245634ygvp6dfu2kt7qk5egqmc4l8

An other microsat to Fiatjaf chronicle relay

Kind 1 was a mistake and many people are realizing it, they are replacing it. Kind 5 now it is only almost to eliminate drafts, here the option is to overwrite.

That's all!!

@ a367f9eb:0633efea

I’ll admit that I was wrong about Bitcoin. Perhaps in 2013. Definitely 2017. Probably in 2018-2019. And maybe even today.

Being wrong about Bitcoin is part of finally understanding it. It will test you, make you question everything, and in the words of BTC educator and privacy advocate Matt Odell, “Bitcoin will humble you”.

I’ve had my own stumbles on the way.

In a very public fashion in 2017, after years of using Bitcoin, trying to start a company with it, using it as my primary exchange vehicle between currencies, and generally being annoying about it at parties, I let out the bear.

In an article published in my own literary magazine Devolution Review in September 2017, I had a breaking point. The article was titled “Going Bearish on Bitcoin: Cryptocurrencies are the tulip mania of the 21st century”.

It was later republished in Huffington Post and across dozens of financial and crypto blogs at the time with another, more appropriate title: “Bitcoin Has Become About The Payday, Not Its Potential”.

As I laid out, my newfound bearishness had little to do with the technology itself or the promise of Bitcoin, and more to do with the cynical industry forming around it:

In the beginning, Bitcoin was something of a revolution to me. The digital currency represented everything from my rebellious youth.

It was a decentralized, denationalized, and digital currency operating outside the traditional banking and governmental system. It used tools of cryptography and connected buyers and sellers across national borders at minimal transaction costs.

…

The 21st-century version (of Tulip mania) has welcomed a plethora of slick consultants, hazy schemes dressed up as investor possibilities, and too much wishy-washy language for anything to really make sense to anyone who wants to use a digital currency to make purchases.

While I called out Bitcoin by name at the time, on reflection, I was really talking about the ICO craze, the wishy-washy consultants, and the altcoin ponzis.

What I was articulating — without knowing it — was the frame of NgU, or “numbers go up”. Rather than advocating for Bitcoin because of its uncensorability, proof-of-work, or immutability, the common mentality among newbies and the dollar-obsessed was that Bitcoin mattered because its price was a rocket ship.

And because Bitcoin was gaining in price, affinity tokens and projects that were imperfect forks of Bitcoin took off as well.

The price alone — rather than its qualities — were the reasons why you’d hear Uber drivers, finance bros, or your gym buddy mention Bitcoin. As someone who came to Bitcoin for philosophical reasons, that just sat wrong with me.

Maybe I had too many projects thrown in my face, or maybe I was too frustrated with the UX of Bitcoin apps and sites at the time. No matter what, I’ve since learned something.

I was at least somewhat wrong.

My own journey began in early 2011. One of my favorite radio programs, Free Talk Live, began interviewing guests and having discussions on the potential of Bitcoin. They tied it directly to a libertarian vision of the world: free markets, free people, and free banking. That was me, and I was in. Bitcoin was at about $5 back then (NgU).

I followed every article I could, talked about it with guests on my college radio show, and became a devoted redditor on r/Bitcoin. At that time, at least to my knowledge, there was no possible way to buy Bitcoin where I was living. Very weak.

I was probably wrong. And very wrong for not trying to acquire by mining or otherwise.

The next year, after moving to Florida, Bitcoin was a heavy topic with a friend of mine who shared the same vision (and still does, according to the Celsius bankruptcy documents). We talked about it with passionate leftists at Occupy Tampa in 2012, all the while trying to explain the ills of Keynesian central banking, and figuring out how to use Coinbase.

I began writing more about Bitcoin in 2013, writing a guide on “How to Avoid Bank Fees Using Bitcoin,” discussing its potential legalization in Germany, and interviewing Jeremy Hansen, one of the first political candidates in the U.S. to accept Bitcoin donations.

Even up until that point, I thought Bitcoin was an interesting protocol for sending and receiving money quickly, and converting it into fiat. The global connectedness of it, plus this cypherpunk mentality divorced from government control was both useful and attractive. I thought it was the perfect go-between.

But I was wrong.

When I gave my first public speech on Bitcoin in Vienna, Austria in December 2013, I had grown obsessed with Bitcoin’s adoption on dark net markets like Silk Road.

My theory, at the time, was the number and price were irrelevant. The tech was interesting, and a novel attempt. It was unlike anything before. But what was happening on the dark net markets, which I viewed as the true free market powered by Bitcoin, was even more interesting. I thought these markets would grow exponentially and anonymous commerce via BTC would become the norm.

While the price was irrelevant, it was all about buying and selling goods without permission or license.

Now I understand I was wrong.

Just because Bitcoin was this revolutionary technology that embraced pseudonymity did not mean that all commerce would decentralize as well. It did not mean that anonymous markets were intended to be the most powerful layer in the Bitcoin stack.

What I did not even anticipate is something articulated very well by noted Bitcoin OG Pierre Rochard: Bitcoin as a savings technology.

The ability to maintain long-term savings, practice self-discipline while stacking stats, and embrace a low-time preference was just not something on the mind of the Bitcoiners I knew at the time.

Perhaps I was reading into the hype while outwardly opposing it. Or perhaps I wasn’t humble enough to understand the true value proposition that many of us have learned years later.

In the years that followed, I bought and sold more times than I can count, and I did everything to integrate it into passion projects. I tried to set up a company using Bitcoin while at my university in Prague.

My business model depended on university students being technologically advanced enough to have a mobile wallet, own their keys, and be able to make transactions on a consistent basis. Even though I was surrounded by philosophically aligned people, those who would advance that to actually put Bitcoin into practice were sparse.

This is what led me to proclaim that “Technological Literacy is Doomed” in 2016.

And I was wrong again.

Indeed, since that time, the UX of Bitcoin-only applications, wallets, and supporting tech has vastly improved and onboarded millions more people than anyone thought possible. The entrepreneurship, coding excellence, and vision offered by Bitcoiners of all stripes have renewed a sense in me that this project is something built for us all — friends and enemies alike.

While many of us were likely distracted by flashy and pumpy altcoins over the years (me too, champs), most of us have returned to the Bitcoin stable.

Fast forward to today, there are entire ecosystems of creators, activists, and developers who are wholly reliant on the magic of Bitcoin’s protocol for their life and livelihood. The options are endless. The FUD is still present, but real proof of work stands powerfully against those forces.

In addition, there are now dozens of ways to use Bitcoin privately — still without custodians or intermediaries — that make it one of the most important assets for global humanity, especially in dictatorships.

This is all toward a positive arc of innovation, freedom, and pure independence. Did I see that coming? Absolutely not.

Of course, there are probably other shots you’ve missed on Bitcoin. Price predictions (ouch), the short-term inflation hedge, or the amount of institutional investment. While all of these may be erroneous predictions in the short term, we have to realize that Bitcoin is a long arc. It will outlive all of us on the planet, and it will continue in its present form for the next generation.

Being wrong about the evolution of Bitcoin is no fault, and is indeed part of the learning curve to finally understanding it all.

When your family or friends ask you about Bitcoin after your endless sessions explaining market dynamics, nodes, how mining works, and the genius of cryptographic signatures, try to accept that there is still so much we have to learn about this decentralized digital cash.

There are still some things you’ve gotten wrong about Bitcoin, and plenty more you’ll underestimate or get wrong in the future. That’s what makes it a beautiful journey. It’s a long road, but one that remains worth it.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Nostr: a quick introduction, attempt #1

Nostr doesn't have a material existence, it is not a website or an app. Nostr is just a description what kind of messages each computer can send to the others and vice-versa. It's a very simple thing, but the fact that such description exists allows different apps to connect to different servers automatically, without people having to talk behind the scenes or sign contracts or anything like that.

When you use a Nostr client that is what happens, your client will connect to a bunch of servers, called relays, and all these relays will speak the same "language" so your client will be able to publish notes to them all and also download notes from other people.

That's basically what Nostr is: this communication layer between the client you run on your phone or desktop computer and the relay that someone else is running on some server somewhere. There is no central authority dictating who can connect to whom or even anyone who knows for sure where each note is stored.

If you think about it, Nostr is very much like the internet itself: there are millions of websites out there, and basically anyone can run a new one, and there are websites that allow you to store and publish your stuff on them.

The added benefit of Nostr is that this unified "language" that all Nostr clients speak allow them to switch very easily and cleanly between relays. So if one relay decides to ban someone that person can switch to publishing to others relays and their audience will quickly follow them there. Likewise, it becomes much easier for relays to impose any restrictions they want on their users: no relay has to uphold a moral ground of "absolute free speech": each relay can decide to delete notes or ban users for no reason, or even only store notes from a preselected set of people and no one will be entitled to complain about that.

There are some bad things about this design: on Nostr there are no guarantees that relays will have the notes you want to read or that they will store the notes you're sending to them. We can't just assume all relays will have everything — much to the contrary, as Nostr grows more relays will exist and people will tend to publishing to a small set of all the relays, so depending on the decisions each client takes when publishing and when fetching notes, users may see a different set of replies to a note, for example, and be confused.

Another problem with the idea of publishing to multiple servers is that they may be run by all sorts of malicious people that may edit your notes. Since no one wants to see garbage published under their name, Nostr fixes that by requiring notes to have a cryptographic signature. This signature is attached to the note and verified by everybody at all times, which ensures the notes weren't tampered (if any part of the note is changed even by a single character that would cause the signature to become invalid and then the note would be dropped). The fix is perfect, except for the fact that it introduces the requirement that each user must now hold this 63-character code that starts with "nsec1", which they must not reveal to anyone. Although annoying, this requirement brings another benefit: that users can automatically have the same identity in many different contexts and even use their Nostr identity to login to non-Nostr websites easily without having to rely on any third-party.

To conclude: Nostr is like the internet (or the internet of some decades ago): a little chaotic, but very open. It is better than the internet because it is structured and actions can be automated, but, like in the internet itself, nothing is guaranteed to work at all times and users many have to do some manual work from time to time to fix things. Plus, there is the cryptographic key stuff, which is painful, but cool.

@ 16d11430:61640947

For Yadov Towri, dismantling the trap was only the beginning. As the city descended into chaos, its architects fled or were consumed by the very system they had built. Yadov had believed his work was done. But as the trap fell, something unexpected happened: the void it left behind began to call to him.

The city, even in its freedom, was a machine that demanded order. The billions of lives crammed into its sprawl couldn’t function without a structure to guide them. And as Yadov walked among them, their anguish and confusion pressed against his mind like a tide. His empathy, once his greatest strength, now became a curse, inundating him with the pain of millions.

The Lure of Power

At first, Yadov resisted. He sought to lead, to build a better system free of the corruption that had enslaved the city. But the burden of guiding so many was immense. His heightened sensitivity began to fracture under the weight of collective misery. Every cry, every unspoken plea for help, resonated in his mind until it became unbearable.

In a moment of desperation, he reached inward, tapping into the reservoir of psychic energy he had absorbed over years of navigating the trap. He found a way to silence the noise—not by healing, but by feeding. By taking their despair into himself, he dulled the ache of his empathy. It started as a survival mechanism, but it didn’t end there.

The Transformation

As Yadov siphoned the city’s anguish, he discovered something unexpected: power. The despair he absorbed didn’t just quiet his mind—it strengthened him. His senses became sharper, his endurance limitless. He could move through the city like a shadow, bending its will to his own. The empathy that had once driven him to liberate became the tool through which he dominated.

Yadov justified his actions at first. He told himself that by taking on the city’s pain, he was sparing its people from suffering. But the power was intoxicating. He began to manipulate the city’s new leaders, bending them to his will. The systems he had torn down were rebuilt—not to enslave, but to channel misery directly to him.

The New Trap

Under Yadov’s quiet rule, the city transformed. The chaotic freedom he had unleashed was replaced by a new kind of control. The population, unaware of his influence, found themselves drawn into an invisible web of dependence. The struggles of daily life were not as overtly brutal as before, but they were carefully calibrated to create just enough tension, frustration, and despair to feed Yadov’s growing hunger.

Public transport became slightly less crowded but always late. Workspaces allowed more personal freedom but with unspoken expectations that fostered guilt and self-doubt. The city’s poverty wasn’t eradicated, only redistributed in subtler ways. Everything was designed to extract psychic energy while maintaining the illusion of progress.

The Rise of a Psychic Vampire

Yadov’s power grew beyond the city. As his influence spread, he began to attract others like him—people who had discovered the power of psychic feeding but lacked his control. He took them under his wing, creating a network of psychic vampires who ruled from the shadows. Together, they refined the art of siphoning despair, turning it into an efficient, self-sustaining system.

The billions who lived in the city became the lifeblood of this new empire. Their misery was harvested in ways they barely understood: through bureaucratic frustrations, subtle social manipulations, and carefully orchestrated crises. The system no longer needed visible overlords. Its oppression was quiet, seamless, and absolute.

The Price of Power

Yadov, once the liberator, was now the kingpin of a new trap, far more insidious than the one he had destroyed. He told himself he was different—that his rule was necessary, that the energy he took was nothing compared to the peace he provided. But deep down, he knew the truth. The city’s pain was his lifeline, and without it, he would crumble.

The people, for their part, sensed the change but couldn’t articulate it. They felt the weight of an unseen force, the faint pull of despair that never quite left them. They whispered of ghosts in the city, of an invisible hand that guided their lives. They called it the Shadow King.

The Resistance

But even in the darkest systems, resistance is inevitable. Among the billions, a few began to notice the patterns, to piece together the truth. They saw how every improvement was a trap, every freedom a leash. And in the quiet corners of the city, they began to organize.

Yadov felt them—tiny sparks of defiance flickering at the edges of his perception. At first, he dismissed them. But as the resistance grew, so did their power. Unlike the masses, these rebels didn’t radiate despair. They carried something else: hope. And hope, Yadov realized, was poison to his kind.

A Reckoning

The resistance’s leader, a young woman named Senka, possessed a mind unlike any Yadov had encountered. Her hope wasn’t blind or naïve—it was calculated, weaponized. She and her followers began to unravel the psychic network Yadov had built, using the very tools he had once wielded against the original trap.

As their influence spread, Yadov found his grip on the city weakening. The despair he had fed on for so long began to wane, replaced by a growing wave of defiance. He could feel the system he had built collapsing, just as he had once destroyed the one before it.

The Final Question

Yadov faced a choice: to crush the resistance and tighten his grip on the city, or to let it fall and risk becoming the very thing he had once despised. The power he had gained whispered seductively, promising him dominion if only he would embrace it fully. But his healer’s heart, buried deep beneath layers of corruption, still flickered faintly.

As the city teetered on the brink of another transformation, Yadov stood at the crossroads of his own humanity. Would he embrace the monstrous king he had become, or would he finally, truly, set the city free?

@ 592295cf:413a0db9

November 18th week

Let's proceed step by step, calm and reason.

Bluesky is only 5 doubles from Twitter, now has its own network effect.

Article of Hodlbod. The state of the art of Key management

nostr:nevent1qqsgpckkyck5m58gux5xst03ls68xxfz0ep2ndws6s039492vxvtc7spp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqprdmhxue69uhksmmyd33x7epwvdhhyctrd3jjuar0dak8xq3qjlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qcxhke2

The problem is how a user creates an account. Will fix It.

If you have a signer account like Amber, nsec app, all right, then it says remove all logins And ask the user how he wants to login.

Bluesky is an anti Trump and Elon Musk movement. It started with Brazil the significant exodus, the thing had a certain amount of stability and began to arrive a lot of people. So it's a sort of political party hanging against.

Nostr is still made by fixed stars, there are many stars but they are still firm in the sky.

Rod made n8n ocKnamo bot

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqx760c0h894a5tg7lxgr8k506twrv2qs0yxln0nz7kgs8zae03xeqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qg4waehxw309ahx7um5wghx77r5wghxgetk9uqzqjgxwlfdru3zzcee0sxk8d0dddwj4tu3xp00gwahy2t0n5k2se6uu8p7fk

This is interesting, ocknamo Is a rock, keep pushing

Roadmap are bullshit, you spend the time to the the actual things, sure if a groups ok

I read Hodlbod's spech in practice with the tilde wants to create rooms, then there is the space that is the carcass we are very close to what is Unanimity, but it's fine with much more refining, but at the cost of being unique.

Discord vs Telegram

I downloaded three Nostr apps, I called it Atlas instead of Olas, zapstore and flotilla (removing Coracle).

Olas would be nice if he had the feature awards on the photo and Zap 😉.

Zap store continues to mark me an update of minibits, but minibits updates in the app, I also updated to a new version, however maybe it is a different type of app. Putting the key does not seem to have changed a comma the app. But then I realized it's about the app signers. The signers who followed the signers that are in your WoT, the signers that are in your lists 😉. It does not divide Nostr apps from Nostr, but it works.

Olas there is no focus on the media server, maybe if you have a new account it's all explained. Problems with dark mode and filter. I would like the idea of switching videos and pictures, can be something you can do in the settings

photos (home) video (other button) And maybe there's a flip button 😅 So Instagram becomes tik tok. The focus must be in creating content. Ok. Olas allows you to upload only images for the moment and shorts from other Nostr apps. For some reason, I don't hear video audio, maybe some permission to give.

Flotilla, if you connect with nsec.app creates a Nostr connect token from flotilla and enter it in nsec.app, asks for permissions and lists them and goes.

With this test account, I don't follow anyone using it to feed on Coracle. The app also suggests people to contact. There is also a space for personal notes. Then there are spaces. And it basically shows you the Relays and here the situation is a little confused. Although I know that there is a space/group called flotilla I am not able to find it, maybe you need the invitation code that is in the link. Also copying it I couldn't enter but the approach is that I think. flotilla link This was the link.

Maybe Hodlbod takes a step back and joins Unanimity. I don't think a step back is a possibility.

Maybe there are updates and they make a specific base workflow Relays based group and then the various branches NIP-29 chachi and 0xchat and the others (Telegram group) Flotilla (discord) It seems like there is a reconciliation at least to converge everyone 😉 "shallow reply hierarchies"

Kohei is also mentioned 🤙 NFC card article An interesting article

nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzqx760c0h894a5tg7lxgr8k506twrv2qs0yxln0nz7kgs8zae03xeqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qg3waehxw309ahx7um5wgh8w6twv5hsqzr9v3jx2wpn8qmsz4edqe

---

Marketplace on Nostr Help to test yojimble

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzphn4avwh5e38spagmlc0kvmulnccnelf479tvg5ldz8kv3cscvq5qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qpqw7f0ja820er7d2jfa4vq9upelw88ejha6hcvj5gxt7gqnz646r8ql2a2cp

That's all!!

@ a4a6b584:1e05b95b

Step 1: Secure Your Device

1. Install an Antivirus Program
   Download and install a trusted antivirus program to scan files for potential malware.
2. For Linux: Calm Antivirus

3. For Windows: CalmWin Antivirus

4. Install a VPN
   A VPN is essential for maintaining privacy and security. It will encrypt your internet traffic and hide your IP address.

5. Recommended: Mullvad VPN, which accepts Bitcoin for anonymous payment.

6. Install a Torrent Program
   You’ll need a torrent client to download files.

7. Recommended: Deluge

8. Install the Tor Browser
   To access The Pirate Bay or its proxies, you’ll need the privacy-focused Tor Browser.

---

Step 2: Prepare Your Setup

• Ensure your VPN is running and connected.
• Open the Tor Browser.
• Launch Deluge to have your torrent client ready.

---

Step 3: Using Tor Go to The Pirate Bay via Onion Service or Find a Trusted Pirate Bay Proxy

Accessing The Pirate Bay directly can be challenging due to restrictions in some regions. Proxy sites often fill the gap. - The Pirate Bay Onion service: http://piratebayo3klnzokct3wt5yyxb2vpebbuyjl7m623iaxmqhsd52coid.onion - Or find a trusted proxy: Use a site like Pirateproxy or a reliable Tor directory for updated lists.

---

Step 4: Search for Linux Distros

1. On The Pirate Bay, navigate to the "OtherOS" category under the Applications section.
2. Enter your desired Linux distro in the search bar (e.g., "Ubuntu," "Arch Linux").

---

Step 5: Select a Torrent

1. Filter the Results:
2. Look for torrents with the highest seeders (SE) and the fewest leechers (LE).

3. Trusted users are marked with a green skull icon—these are usually safe uploads.

4. Copy the Magnet Link:

5. Right-click on the magnet icon next to the trusted torrent and select "Copy Link."

---

Step 6: Start the Download

1. In Deluge, paste the copied magnet link into the “Add Torrent” box.
2. Click OK to start the download.
3. Monitor the progress until the download completes.

---

Step 7: Scan the Downloaded File

Once the file is downloaded: 1. Scan for viruses: Right-click the file and use Calm or CalmWin to verify its integrity.
2. If the file passes the scan, it’s ready for use.

---

Step 8: Manage Your File

• Seed or Remove:
• To help the torrent community, keep seeding the file by leaving it in your torrent client.

• To stop seeding, right-click the file in Deluge and remove it.

• Move for Long-Term Storage: Transfer the file to a secure directory for regular use.

---

Notes on Safety and Ethics

• Verify Legitimacy: Ensure the torrent you are downloading is for an official Linux distribution. Torrents with unusual names or details should be avoided.
• Support the Developers: Consider visiting the official websites of Linux distros (Ubuntu, Arch Linux) to support their work directly.

---

By following these steps, you can safely and privately download Linux distributions while contributing to the open-source community.

@ a39d19ec:3d88f61e

A state-controlled money supply can influence the development of socialist policies and practices in various ways. Although the relationship is not deterministic, state control over the money supply can contribute to a larger role of the state in the economy and facilitate the implementation of socialist ideals.

Fiscal Policy Capabilities

When the state manages the money supply, it gains the ability to implement fiscal policies that can lead to an expansion of social programs and welfare initiatives. Funding these programs by creating money can enhance the state's influence over the economy and move it closer to a socialist model. The Soviet Union, for instance, had a centralized banking system that enabled the state to fund massive industrialization and social programs, significantly expanding the state's role in the economy.

Wealth Redistribution

Controlling the money supply can also allow the state to influence economic inequality through monetary policies, effectively redistributing wealth and reducing income disparities. By implementing low-interest loans or providing financial assistance to disadvantaged groups, the state can narrow the wealth gap and promote social equality, as seen in many European welfare states.

Central Planning

A state-controlled money supply can contribute to increased central planning, as the state gains more influence over the economy. Central banks, which are state-owned or heavily influenced by the state, play a crucial role in managing the money supply and facilitating central planning. This aligns with socialist principles that advocate for a planned economy where resources are allocated according to social needs rather than market forces.

Incentives for Staff

Staff members working in state institutions responsible for managing the money supply have various incentives to keep the system going. These incentives include job security, professional expertise and reputation, political alignment, regulatory capture, institutional inertia, and legal and administrative barriers. While these factors can differ among individuals, they can collectively contribute to the persistence of a state-controlled money supply system.

In conclusion, a state-controlled money supply can facilitate the development of socialist policies and practices by enabling fiscal policies, wealth redistribution, and central planning. The staff responsible for managing the money supply have diverse incentives to maintain the system, further ensuring its continuation. However, it is essential to note that many factors influence the trajectory of an economic system, and the relationship between state control over the money supply and socialism is not inevitable.

@ f1989a96:bcaaf2c1

Good morning, readers!

In Russia, the State Duma passed sweeping amendments granting officials the ability to equate “funding extremist activities” with “financing terrorism.” These changes allow officials to label anyone accused of spreading “fake news” or “discrediting” the military and authorities as “terrorists and extremists.” This development threatens activists and civil society organizations with intensified financial repression, including frozen accounts, restricted access to funds, and strict withdrawal limits.  

Meanwhile, North Korea’s currency crisis continues to worsen, pushing citizens to abandon the North Korean won in favor of barter. As exchange rates for foreign currencies soar, merchants and money changers increasingly demand tangible goods like rice and fuel and no longer accept North Korean won for imported goods and foreign currencies. 

In technology news, Tando, a Bitcoin payment app in Kenya, received significant attention at the 2024 Africa Bitcoin Conference for integrating the Bitcoin Lightning Network with M-PESA, Kenya’s mobile money system. This allows people to use Bitcoin to buy things across the country while merchants receive Kenyan shillings, bridging the gap between the local financial system and Bitcoin. \ \ Finally, we feature the latest episode of the Dissidents and Dictators podcast, featuring Togolese human rights activist Farida Nabourema sharing her first-hand experience growing up under the Gnassingbé dictatorship. She believes Bitcoin can enable greater transparency and offer a financial lifeline for citizens in Togo and across Africa.

Now, let’s dive right in!

Subscribe Here

GLOBAL NEWS

Russia | Sweeping Amendments Expand Financial Repression Against Dissidents

Russia’s State Duma made sweeping amendments to 48 federal laws, granting officials the power to equate “funding extremist activities” with “financing terrorism.” This move allows the regime to directly target individuals, activists, and nonprofit organizations suspected of spreading “fake news” or “discrediting” the military and regime. Once designated as a “terrorist” or “extremist,” a person or organization faces frozen bank accounts, restricted access to funds, and a withdrawal cap of just 10,000 rubles ($95) per month — a limit that extends to each dependent in their family. Compounding these hardships, employers often refuse to hire individuals on these government lists.

North Korea | Failing Currency Forces Return to Barter

North Korea’s currency crisis is forcing citizens to abandon the depreciating won currency in favor of barter. As exchange rates for foreign currencies like the US dollar and Chinese yuan hit record highs, merchants and money changers now demand commodities (such as rice and fuel) for foreign currencies and imported goods. One such example is trading around 2 kilograms of rice for a single dollar. This collapse leaves those without access to foreign currency in increasingly precarious financial positions and struggling to secure food and basic necessities. Even farmers, once partially compensated with valuable goods, now increasingly receive devalued cash, worsening nationwide food insecurity.

Nicaragua | Human Rights Abuses and Financial Repression Exposed

Under Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian rule, Nicaragua exemplifies the devastating intersection of financial repression and human rights abuses. New reports detail how the regime has confiscated over $250 million in assets, dissolved more than 5,200 NGOs, canceled pensions, and frozen bank accounts, leaving citizens financially vulnerable and silenced. Since Ortega’s return to power in 2007, and especially after the 2018 protests, his government has dismantled civil society, crushed political opposition, and eradicated independent media. Hundreds have been killed and exiled, and in 2023 and 2024 alone, 452 political opponents were stripped of their citizenship.

El Salvador | Bitcoin Adoption Limited as Government Comes to Terms With IMF

El Salvador finalized a $1.4 billion agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support the government’s economic reform agenda at the cost of scaling back some of its Bitcoin policies. The deal will make accepting Bitcoin in the private sector voluntary, require all taxes to be paid in US dollars (as opposed to making it possible to pay in BTC), and see Chivo, the government-supported Bitcoin wallet, gradually unwound. In addition, the government will enhance “transparency, regulation, and supervision of digital assets” and establish a stronger Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financial Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework.

Malaysia | Parliament Passes Repressive Media Bills Amidst Financial Struggles

Earlier this year, Malaysia’s ringgit currency plunged to a 26-year low, driving up prices nationwide. As families struggled with a higher cost of living, officials passed an amendment granting law enforcement the power to freeze bank accounts suspected of fraud. Meanwhile, Malaysia’s parliament is passing two more bills to regulate media and online spaces, allowing officials to censor content and request user data from service providers without approval. Critics warn the vague language in these laws will likely be exploited to silence dissent and stifle public discourse. As financial hardships mount, Malaysia’s online spaces become increasingly controlled, eroding freedom of expression and financial autonomy.

BITCOIN NEWS

Tando | Bridging Bitcoin and Everyday Payments in Kenya

Tando, a new bitcoin payments app and HRF grantee, makes it easy to spend bitcoin anywhere in Kenya by integrating with M-PESA, Kenya’s mobile money system. Users simply download the Tando app, enter the merchant’s M-PESA number, and input the amount owed in Kenyan shillings. The app calculates the required amount of bitcoin and generates a Lightning invoice, which users pay through their own Bitcoin wallet. Tando then converts the sats to shillings and completes the transaction instantly (you can watch this one-minute live demo here). For Kenyans excluded from M-PESA due to Know-Your-Customer regulations, Tando provides a practical solution that bridges Bitcoin and local financial systems to make everyday transactions easier.

Yakihonne | Adds Support for Improved Encrypted Direct Messaging

YakiHonne, a Nostr client, champions free speech and facilitates Bitcoin payments across 170 countries. Recent updates have made the platform more user-friendly and secure. The updated text editor now supports multiple languages, including right-to-left scripts, enhancing accessibility for a global audience. Messaging capabilities have been upgraded to allow longer texts, and users can now activate Secure DMs (NIP 44) for encrypted messaging on Nostr. These improvements make YakiHonne an appealing communication platform for pro-democracy and human rights activists, offering secure messaging and the ability to receive payments in Bitcoin in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes.

Mostro | Making Bitcoin More Accessible and Private

Mostro, a private and peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin exchange built on Nostr, made significant strides this year toward empowering human rights defenders and nonprofits with accessible, private, and censorship-resistant financial tools. Created by Venezuelan developer Francisco Calderon, the platform implemented advanced key management which allows users to rotate the keys used for every bitcoin trade. This adds a layer of privacy critical for those operating under authoritarian regimes. Additionally, Mostro adopted NIP-69, standardizing all peer-to-peer orders on Nostr, creating a larger liquidity pool, and making trades more accessible for users. Finally, Mostro will soon launch a mobile app (currently in the testing phase), helping democratize Bitcoin access by providing individuals with a user-friendly mobile interface.

Foundation | Introduces Personal Security Platform

Foundation, a Bitcoin hardware wallet company, introduced Passport Prime, which they call “the world’s first Personal Security Platform.” Designed to protect users’ bitcoin and digital lives, Passport Prime offers a Bitcoin wallet, multi-factor authentication, secure file storage, and a Seed Vault to organize seed phrases. It does not require usernames, passwords, or email addresses, making it an interesting option for privacy-conscious users, particularly pro-democracy and human rights activists operating under authoritarian regimes. You can learn more about Passport Prime here.

BTrust Builders | Applications for 2024 ₿OSS Cohort Close Tomorrow

Applications for the 2025 ₿OSS Cohort, hosted by Btrust Builders in partnership with Chaincode Labs, close tomorrow, Dec. 27, 2024. This part-time, three-month, fully remote program is tailored to African developers seeking to contribute to Bitcoin open-source software (₿OSS), in order to increase the potential for use cases in a region where three-quarters of the governments are authoritarian regimes. The program is open to developers of all experience levels, and it provides hands-on technical training, career-building opportunities, and mentorship. If you’re a developer interested in this program, you can apply here.

RECOMMENDED CONTENT

Is Bitcoin a Lifeline for Africa with Farida Nabourema

In this episode of Dissidents and Dictators, an HRF podcast, Togolese human rights activist Farida Nabourema reveals her experience growing up under the Gnassingbé dictatorship—a single-family autocracy that has ruled Togo for over 50 years. Nabourema shares insights into the corruption and lack of trust that permeates Togo’s financial system and discusses how Bitcoin can enable greater transparency and offer a lifeline for citizens in Togo and across Africa, where authoritarian regimes stifle financial freedom. Watch the full episode here.

If this article was forwarded to you and you enjoyed reading it, please consider subscribing to the Financial Freedom Report here.

Support the newsletter by donating bitcoin to HRF’s Financial Freedom program via BTCPay.\ Want to contribute to the newsletter? Submit tips, stories, news, and ideas by emailing us at ffreport @ hrf.org

The Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF) is accepting grant proposals on an ongoing basis. The Bitcoin Development Fund is looking to support Bitcoin developers, community builders, and educators. Submit proposals here.

Subscribe to newsletter\ Apply for a grant\ Support our work\ Visit our website

@ ab216c04:c00fe2d7

Good morning. I’m writing my first public read with nostr as a way to introduce what I work on when people visit my profile. I studied computer science with a keen interest in education technology because I felt that the promise of the internet fell short when it came to its potential to transform education. I don’t believe it failed outright, but like our approach to identity, media and money, education seemed to have embarked in the wrong direction.

I think the role of educational technology is not to configure how students and teachers communicate, but to support an environment that encourages the most natural form of education. Teachers should teach and students should learn, but there are economic constraints that make that challenging in too many ways to highlight.

To keep things short, I believe there can be new ways to financialize internet properties to support schools economically in a way that isn’t mostly dependent on the value of housing properties or state & federal taxation policies. To spark imagination, I say that you can “create scholarships with learning” but the idea at scale essentially means the ability to redefine the infamous red line.

Many people in 2024 now see Bitcoin as a sort of treasury system, and most recognize Bitcoin as a store value. Likewise, people now view decentralized identity as a mechanism to better represent an individual’s durable interactions with technology. If you pause to think about it, one can appreciate how all of these concepts also play a crucial role in the educational process.

For example, how much economic value is lost when a 4th year engineering student drops out of college or transfers schools? The centralization of our transcripts and educational resources fails to precisely define our academic progress. This is a failure of education technology.

And what if schools, well-funded by expensive properties and high incomes, can realistically and pragmatically connect with schools that are far more dependent on state and federal distributions? What if we could expand the scope, the circumstances and conditions of education finance beyond physical borders?

So that’s what I work on, and my participation in nostr has been an incredible leap toward materializing these ideas, which you can experience on platforms like:

• Learn coding with AI: https://robotsbuildingeducation.com
• Track scholarships and draft essays with AI: https://girlsoncampus.org
• Study citizenship civics with with AI: https://civico.app

\ And above all else, you are welcome to build and design education technology in the same direction with open software: https://github.com/RobotsBuildingEducation?tab=repositories

@ ec42c765:328c0600

この記事は前回の内容を把握している人向けに書いています（特にNostrエクステンション（NIP-07）導入）

前回：Nostrのカスタム絵文字の使い方

手順

1. 登録する画像を用意する
2. 画像をweb上にアップロードする
3. 絵文字セットに登録する

1. 登録する画像を用意する

以下のような方法で用意してください。

• 画像編集ソフト等を使って自分で作成する
• 絵文字作成サイトを使う（絵文字ジェネレーター、MEGAMOJI など）
• フリー画像を使う（いらすとや など）

データ量削減

Nostrでは画像をそのまま表示するクライアントが多いので、データ量が大きな画像をそのまま使うとモバイル通信時などに負担がかかります。

データ量を増やさないためにサイズやファイル形式を変更することをおすすめします。

以下は私のおすすめです。 * サイズ：正方形 128×128 ピクセル、長方形 任意の横幅×128 ピクセル * ファイル形式：webp形式（webp変換おすすめサイト toimg） * 単色、単純な画像の場合：png形式（webpにするとむしろサイズが大きくなる）

その他

• 背景透過画像
• ダークモード、ライトモード両方で見やすい色

がおすすめです。

2. 画像をweb上にアップロードする

よく分からなければ emojito からのアップロードで問題ないです。
普段使っている画像アップロード先があるならそれでも構いません。
気になる方はアップロード先を適宜選んでください。

既に投稿されたカスタム絵文字の画像に対して

• 削除も差し替えもできない → emojito など
• 削除できるが差し替えはできない → Gyazo、nostrcheck.meなど
• 削除も差し替えもできる → GitHub 、セルフホスティングなど

これらは既にNostr上に投稿されたカスタム絵文字の画像を後から変更できるかどうかを指します。
どの方法でも新しく使われるカスタム絵文字を変更することは可能です。
同一のカスタム絵文字セットに同一のショートコードで別の画像を登録する形で対応できます。

3. 絵文字セットに登録する

emojito から登録します。

右上のアイコン → + New emoji set から新規の絵文字セットを作成できます。

① 絵文字セット名を入力

基本的にカスタム絵文字はカスタム絵文字セットを作り、ひとまとまりにして登録します。

一度作った絵文字セットに後から絵文字を追加することもできます。

② 画像をアップロードまたは画像URLを入力

emojitoから画像をアップロードする場合、ファイル名に日本語などの2バイト文字が含まれているとアップロードがエラーになるようです。

その場合はファイル名を適当な英数字などに変更してください。

③ 絵文字のショートコードを入力

ショートコードは絵文字を呼び出す時に使用する場合があります。

他のカスタム絵文字と被っても問題ありませんが選択時に複数表示されて支障が出る可能性があります。

他と被りにくく長くなりすぎないショートコードが良いかもしれません。

ショートコードに使えるのは半角の英数字とアンダーバーのみです。

④ 追加

Add を押してもまだ作成完了にはなりません。

一度に絵文字を複数登録できます。

最後に右上の Save を押すと作成完了です。

画面が切り替わるので、右側の Options から Bookmark を選択するとそのカスタム絵文字セットを自分で使えるようになります。

既存の絵文字セットを編集するには Options から Edit を選択します。

以上です。

---

仕様

NIP-30 Custom Emoji

NIP-30 カスタム絵文字（和訳）

@ 2f7463a4:e92b8023

Dies ist die deutsche Übersetzung von / This is the German translation of :

nostr:naddr1qqxnzd3cxserxdpsxverzwp4qgs87hptfey2p607ef36g6cnekuzfz05qgpe34s2ypc2j6x24qvdwhgrqsqqqa28zcj37a — nostr:npub10awzknjg5r5lajnr53438ndcyjylgqsrnrtq5grs495v42qc6awsj45ys7

Weitere Übersetzungen / Other translations : - Spanisch / Spanish : nostr:naddr1qqx9zat994jhxttgv93xccgzypl4c26wfzswnlk2vwjxky7dhqjgnaqzqwvdvz3qwz5k3j4grrt46qcyqqq823cf6w59v — nostr:npub138s5hey76qrnm2pmv7p8nnffhfddsm8sqzm285dyc0wy4f8a6qkqtzx624

---

Habla ist eine auf Nostr basierende Plattform, mit der du umfangreiche Beiträge erstellen und verwalten kannst. Man könnte es mit Medium vergleichen, aber Habla ist viel mehr als das. Habla ist herkömmlichen Blogging-Plattformen überlegen, weil es auf Nostr basiert. Es ist mit einer Vielzahl anderer Nostr-Apps interoperabel, was die Benutzererfahrung nahtlos und fesselnd macht. Darüber hinaus können deine Inhalte, wenn sie von den Lesern als wertvoll empfunden werden, dank des Lightning-Netzwerkes sofort mit dem besten Geld, das die Menschheit je gesehen hat, belohnt werden: Bitcoin.

Was ist Nostr?

Nostr ist eine neue Art der Online-Kommunikation, die ihren Nutzern zahlreiche Vorteile bietet. Nostr ist für alle kostenlos, man braucht keine ID oder andere Verifizierung durch Dritte, um sich anzumelden, Gleichgesinnte zu treffen und die Community um sich herum zu vergrößern. Nostr wird oft mit einer Social-Media-Plattform verwechselt, ist aber viel mehr als das. Wir empfehlen dir einen Blick auf die hier gesammelten Nostr-Ressourcen zu werfen, um die potenzielle Dimension dieses Tools zu erkennen.

Wie melde ich mich bei Habla an?

Um auf Habla zu schreiben, erstelle einfach ein Habla/Nostr-Konto und melde dich an. Folge diesen einfachen Schritten, um dich zu registrieren, Mehrwert zu bieten und Gegenwert zurückzuerhalten.

Wie verdiene ich mit Habla?

Habla ermöglicht es, Werte direkt von deinen Lesern zu erhalten. Es ist kein Bankkonto oder Ausweis erforderlich. Verbinde einfach deine Lightning-Adresse mit deinem Habla/Nostr-Konto und erhalte Geld direkt auf dein Wallet – ohne Dritte, ohne Warten auf Abhebungen, ohne Stress. Folge diesen einfachen Schritten, um loszulegen.

Warum ist das Publizieren auf Habla anders?

Das Nostr-Protokoll ist sehr schlank, was einige Besonderheiten im Verhalten von Nostr-basierten Anwendungen mit sich bringt. Wir gehen hier nicht auf die technischen Details ein, aber der offensichtlichste Unterschied, den du als Autor bemerken wirst, ist, dass du ein anderes und möglicherweise ungewohntes Textformat für deine Beiträge verwenden musst. Aber keine Angst, Habla bietet Tools, die diesen Prozess einfach und intuitiv machen. Hier ist ein kurzes Video von nostr:npub1wkljx5c6a8uccc5etws8ry0y3r4dgavh2dcav0tal4rtmcdl4z2sfu5u0t, das die Grundlagen des Publizierens mit Habla erklärt (der Leitfaden wurde vor dem Redesign erstellt, ist aber immer noch nützlich):

https://nostr.build/p/nb9474.mp4

Habla (und viele andere Nostr-Anwendungen) verwendet das etablierte Format Markdown. Das gibt es schon seit fast einem Jahrzehnt und wird von den meisten Apps, die du jeden Tag benutzt, unterstützt. Der Grund, warum du vielleicht noch nichts von Markdown gehört hast, ist, dass herkömmliche Anwendungen es normalerweise vor dem Benutzer verbergen, und wir arbeiten daran, dies auch zu tun. Mehr über Markdown kannst du hier herausfinden.

Wo werden meine Inhalte gespeichert?

Herkömmliche Blogging-Plattformen speichern die Inhalte auf ihren eigenen Servern. Das ist ein bequemer und (früher) solider Ansatz, der aber auch kritische Risiken birgt. Wenn du die Früchte deiner Arbeit einer einzigen Partei überlässt, hat diese die vollständige Kontrolle über deine Inhalte. Nostr löst dieses Problem. Jedes Mal, wenn du etwas veröffentlichst, wird dein Inhalt an zahlreiche Relais zur Speicherung und Verbreitung weitergeleitet. Wenn ein Relais-Betreiber deinen Beitrag blockiert oder sich weigert, ihn weiterzuverbreiten, können deine Leser auf andere Relais zurückgreifen, um Zugang zu deinen Inhalten zu erhalten (keine Sorge, wenn das kompliziert klingt, alles geschieht unter der Haube). Auf diese Weise wird sichergestellt, dass du niemals zum Schweigen gebracht wirst. Wir haben uns entschieden, uns auf das zu konzentrieren, was wir am besten können: eine intuitive, effiziente und einfach zu bedienende Blogging-Plattform zu entwickeln, die sich lohnt – und das Speichern und Verbreiten von Inhalten den Profis auf diesem Gebiet zu überlassen.

Wie publiziere ich?

Habla bietet alle Tools, die du brauchst, um eindrucksvolle Artikel zu erstellen, die sich von anderen abheben. Bereite deinen Artikel vor, formatiere deinen Text mit den entsprechenden Tools, füge Medien hinzu und schau dir das Ergebnis vor Veröffentlichung selbst noch einmal an. Alles, was du brauchst, steht dir zur Verfügung, und die Plattform wird von Tag zu Tag besser und benutzerfreundlicher.

Wer kann meine Beiträge auf Habla lesen?

Jeder im Internet kann deine Beiträge lesen. Wenn deine Leser jedoch mit deiner Arbeit interagieren möchten – sei es durch Folgen, Kommentieren oder indem sie dir etwas zurückgeben möchten – sollten sie ein Nostr-Konto einrichten. Wir ermutigen dich, deine Follower einzubeziehen, um eine blühende Community aufzubauen und neue Höhen zu erreichen. Diese Kurzanleitung wird dir und deinen Fans den Einstieg erleichtern.

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Dieses FAQ befindet sich in ständiger Entwicklung und wird sich in dem Maße ändern, wie Habla und Nostr zu noch leistungsfähigeren Tools werden. Bitte teile mir dein Feedback mit, damit ich es noch besser machen kann.

@ 1cb14ab3:95d52462

Originally written in October 2022 (Block: 757258 / USD: $20.1k / SatsDollar: 4961). Refined with slight edits for publishing on Nostr in December 2024 (Block: 875189 / USD: $106k / SatsDollar: 938 ). Banner image property of Hes. My journey down the rabbit hole has only intensified since the time of writing. Enjoy.

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The Bitcoin time perspective is wild. Reflecting on it has been profoundly eye-opening, and once it has been seen— there is no returning to our prior ways.

Ever since venturing down the rabbit hole that we call Bitcoin, I’ve started making significant life decisions and forming nuanced opinions on polarizing topics based on the implications of multi-generational timeframes. Before Bitcoin, I spent money recklessly, leading a fast-paced and impulsive lifestyle. Even in my early days of learning about Bitcoin, I hadn’t fully seen the light. I would still blow the occasional $500 bar tab or buy some flashy gadget I didn’t need. Living in the moment has its merits, but so does considering the time beyond our own lives. Now, I pause before purchases and decisions, always reflecting on how they might impact the future.

When your money isn’t constantly being devalued before your eyes, you start seeing the world differently. You begin saving for the future with confidence, knowing that no central authority can endlessly print away your hard-earned time and energy. Inflation doesn’t just erode purchasing power; it steals time. It destroys the hours, days, and years of effort represented by a lifetime of savings. When governments print money to prop up failing banks or fund inefficient ventures, the impact ripples through generations. Those at the bottom of the ladder are hit the hardest, their ability to save and plan for the future undermined by forces beyond their control. Decisions become focused on surviving today instead of thriving tomorrow, leaving little room to consider the long-term implications of our choices. This system creates a mindset where we are incentivized to spend now, instead of save for later—an unnatural phenomenon that most of us have accepted as normal.

For individuals who simply want to put away money for a rainy day, inflation is a relentless adversary. A dollar in 1900 has lost over 96% of its value. The countless hours of labor behind those savings have been stolen. Not only did the expansion of money destroy what they could buy, it stole our time and energy. Years of our lives—blood, sweat, and tears—washed away.

This isn’t just a historical problem—it’s a recurring one that occurs every decade or so and is accelerating. At an average inflation rate of 3%, the value of cash halves roughly every 23 years. This means that even modest inflation rates gradually diminish purchasing power over time, forcing individuals to chase speculative assets like stocks, real estate, and gold—not because they want to, but because they have no choice. Personal inflation rates differ depending on consumer habits, but a glance at rising prices reveals they often outpace the 2% annual rate reported by the government, which poses a significant problem for individua;s, as highlighted in the table below:

Corporations like McDonald’s understand this. Sitting on a prime corner lot in every major city is far smarter than stacking a pile of cash losing value. Even if the franchise is losing money, the building it operates in is guaranteed to “rise” in value over time. This mindset trickles down to everyday people. To protect themselves, they’re compelled to invest in assets—with real estate being the pinnacle savings instrument of our time. The financial system we’ve accepted as normal turns shelter into an investment vehicle and savings into a gamble.

But here’s the irony: real estate is a lousy store of value—which is what we are all truly seeking. Properties require constant maintenance. Without care, assets deteriorate. We’ve all seen abandoned theme parks and overgrown cities. We’ve all dealt with broken pipes and creaky floorboards. Why should saving our hard-earned wealth require us to become housing market experts, landlords, or property managers? Why should we pay financial advisors to manage stock portfolios full of companies whose values or practices we might not even believe in, just to beat inflation?

A flawed monetary system inflates bubbles in real estate and stocks, redirecting resources into speculative markets instead of productive investments. Imagine a world where people don’t have to read quarterly earnings reports after a long day of work to ensure their cash retains value. If the incentives driving these bubbles were removed, the financial landscape would dramatically shift. Inflation wouldn’t push people into markets like real estate or zombie companies; instead, they could focus on building or supporting businesses they genuinely care about. They could plan for the long term and make well-thought-out, rational decisions about their future.

Bitcoin takes this entire dynamic and flips it on its head. It isn’t a tool for speculation as often misunderstood. It is the best form of saving humanity has ever seen. Unlike fiat currencies, Bitcoin’s fixed supply ensures scarcity, making it a refuge from the erosion of wealth caused by inflation. As weak currencies flow into stronger ones (a concept known as Gresham’s Law), Bitcoin’s role as a store of value becomes clearer. It’s not that Bitcoin has “gone up 19,000%”—it’s that people are exchanging weaker money for stronger money.

The implications of a world on a Bitcoin standard extend far beyond monetary policy. It offers something unprecedented: a tool for transferring the value of labor and energy across time and space. Unlike fiat, Bitcoin allows time to be preserved across generations. It isn’t just a hedge against inflation—it reintroduces the idea of saving with confidence, of being able to store wealth in a form of money that cannot be manipulated or devalued.

By saving in Bitcoin, individuals are no longer tethered to the uncertainties of fiat systems. The Bitcoin time perspective is about aligning our actions today with the future we want to build tomorrow. It’s about prioritizing long-term impact over short-term gains. When you embrace Bitcoin, you embrace a mindset that values time, energy, and the well-being of future generations. It’s not just a currency; it’s a revolution in thinking that will change you forever. The past, present, and future converge in this new paradigm, offering hope in an otherwise uncertain world.

Bitcoin isn’t a bubble; it’s a beacon.

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More from Hes:

Art

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@ 1bda7e1f:bb97c4d9

Tldr

• Nostr is an open protocol which is interoperable with all kinds of other technologies
• You can use this interoperability to create custom solutions
• Nostr apps define a custom URI scheme handler "nostr:"
• In this blog I use this to integrate Nostr with NFC cards
• I create a Nostr NFC "login card" which allows me to log into Amethyst client
• I create a Nostr NFC "business card" which allows anyone to find my profile with a tap

Inter-Op All The Things!

Nostr is a new open social protocol for the internet. This open nature is very exciting because it means Nostr can add new capabilities to all other internet-connected technologies, from browsers to web applications. In my view, it achieves this through three core capabilities.

• A lightweight decentralised identity (Nostr keys, "npubs" and "nsecs"),
• A lightweight data distribution network (Nostr relays),
• A set of data interoperability standards (The Nostr Improvement Protocols "NIPs"), including the "nostr:" URI which we'll use in this post.

The lightweight nature is its core strength. Very little is required to interoperate with Nostr, which means many existing technologies can be easily used with the network.

Over the next few blog posts, I'll explore different Nostr inter-op ideas, and also deliver my first small open source projects to the community. I'll cover–

• NFC cards integrated with Nostr (in this post),
• Workflow Automations integrated with Nostr,
• AI LLMs integrated with Nostr.

The "Nostr:" URI

One feature of Nostr is it defines a custom URI scheme handler "nostr:". What is that?

A URI is used to identify a resource in a system. A system will have a protocol handler registry used to store such URI's, and if a system has a URI registered, then it knows what to do when it sees it. You are probably already familiar with some URI schemes such as "http:" and "mailto:". For example, when you click an http link, the system knows that it describes an http resource and opens a web browser to fetch the content from the internet.

A nostr: link operates in the same way. The nostr: prefix indicates a custom URI scheme specifically designed for the Nostr protocol. If a system has a Nostr application installed, that application may have registered "nostr:" in the protocol handler registry. On that system when a "nostr:" URI is clicked, the system will know that it describes a nostr resource and open the Nostr client to fetch the content from the nostr relay network.

This inter-op with the protocol handler registry gives us the power to do nice and exciting things with other technologies.

Nostr and NFC

Another technology that uses URIs is NFC cards. NFC (Near Field Communication) is a wireless technology that enables devices to exchange data over a few centimeters. It’s widely used in contactless payments, access control, and information sharing.

NFC tags are small chips embedded in cards or stickers which can store data like plain text, URLs, or custom URIs. They are very cheap (cents each) and widely available (Amazon with next day delivery).

When an NFC tag contains a URI, such as a http: (or nostr:) link, it acts as a trigger. Tapping the tag with an NFC-enabled device launches the associated application and processes the URI. For example, tapping a tag with "nostr:..." could open a Nostr client, directing it to a specific login page, public profile, or event.

This inter-op allows us to bridge the physical world to Nostr with just a tap.

Many useful ideas

There are many interesting ways to use this. Too many for me to explore. Perhaps some of these are interesting for your next side hustle?

• Nostr NFC "login cards" – tap to log into Amethyst on Android,
• Nostr NFC "business cards" – give to connections so they can tap to load your npub,
• Nostr NFC "payment cards" – integrating lightning network or ecash,
• Nostr NFC "doorbells", "punch cards", "drop boxes", or "dead drops" – put a tag in a specific place and tap to open a location-specific message or chat,
• Integrations with other access control systems,
• Integrations with other home automation systems,
• Many more ...

To start with I have built and use the "login card" and "business card" solutions. This blog post will show you how to do the same.

Nostr Login Card

You can use an NFC card to log into your Nostr client.

Most Nostr clients accept a variety of login methods, from posting your nsec into the app (insecure) to using a remote signer (more secure). A less known but more secure method is to sign into a session with a tap of a specially-configured NFC card. Amethyst is a Nostr client on Android which supports this type of login.

• A secure method for logging in
• Optionally keeps no log in history on the device after logout
• Does not require users to know or understand how keys work
• Keys are kept secure on a physically-separated card to reduce risk of compromise

Nostr devs think that this is useful for anti-establishment actors–Fair enough. For me, I am interested in this login card pattern as it could be useful for rolling out identities within an organisation context with less training (office workers are already familiar with door access cards). This pattern potentially abstracts away key management to the IT or ops team who provision the cards.

I first discovered this when Kohei demonstrated it in his video.

Here's how you set it up at a high level–

1. Buy yourself some NFC cards
2. Get your Nostr key ready in an encrypted, password protected format called "nencryptsec"
3. Write the nencryptsec to the NFC card as a custom URI
4. Tap to load the login screen, and enter your password to login

Here it is in detail–

Buy yourself some NFC cards

I found no specific requirements. As usual with Nostr so far, I tried to the cheapest possible route and it worked. Generic brand NFC cards shipped from China, I believe it was 50X for $15 from Amazon. Your mileage may vary.

Get your Nostr key ready

Your key will be saved to the NFC card in an encrypted password-protected format called "nencryptsec". Several applications support this. As we'll be using this to login to Amethyst, we will use Amethyst to output the nencryptsec for us.

1. Login to Amethyst with your nsec,
2. Open the sidebar and click "Backup Keys",
3. Enter a password, and click "Encrypt and my secret key",
4. It will add the password-protected key to your clipboard in the format "ncryptsec1...",
5. Remember to backup your password.

Write the ncryptsec to the NFC card

1. Download the free NFC Tools app to your device, and open it,
2. Click "Write" and "Add a record", then click "Custom URL / URI",
3. Paste your nencryptsec with the nostr URI in front, i.e. "nostr:ncryptsec1..." and click OK,
4. Click "Write". NFC Tools will prompt you to "Approach an NFC tag",
5. Place your NFC card against your phone, and it will write to the card,
6. Your card is ready.

Tap to load the login screen

Tap the card against your phone again, and your phone should open the login screen of Amethyst and prompt you for your password.

Once you enter your password, Amethyst will decrypt your nsec and log you in.

Optionally, you can also set the app to forget you once you log out.

You have created a Nostr NFC "login card".

Nostr Business Card

You can use another NFC card to give anyone you meet a link straight to your Nostr profile.

I attended Peter McCormack's #CheatCode conference in Sydney and gave a few of these out following the Nostr panel, notably to Preston Pysh where it got some cut through and found me my first 100 followers. You can do the same.

To create your Nostr NFC "business card" is even easier than your NFC "login card".

1. Buy yourself some NFC cards,
2. Download the free NFC Tools app to your device, and open it,
3. Click "Write" and "Add a record", then click "Custom URL / URI",
4. Write your npub to the NFC card as a custom URI in the format "nostr:npub1..." (e.g. for me this is "nostr:npub1r0d8u8mnj6769500nypnm28a9hpk9qg8jr0ehe30tygr3wuhcnvs4rfsft"),
5. Your card is ready.

Give the card to someone who is a Nostr user, and when they tap the card against their phone it will open their preferred Nostr client and go directly to your Nostr profile page.

You have created a Nostr NFC "business card".

What I Did Wrong

I like to share what I did wrong so you don't have to make the same mistakes. This time, this was very easy, and little went wrong. In general

• When password-protecting your nsec, don't forget the password!
• When writing to the NFC card, make sure to use "Custom URI/URL" as this accepts your "nostr:" URI scheme. If you use generic "URI/URL" it won't work.

What's Next

Over my first four blogs I have explored creating a good Nostr setup

• Mined a Nostr pubkey and backed up the mnemonic
• Set up Nostr payments with a Lightning wallet plus all the bells and whistles
• Set up NIP-05 and Lighting Address at my own domain
• Set up a Personal Relay at my own domain

Over the next few blogs I will be exploring different types of Nostr inter-op

• NFC cards integrated with Nostr (this post)
• Workflow Automations integrated with Nostr
• AI LLMs integrated with Nostr

Please be sure to let me know if you think there's another Nostr topic you'd like to see me tackle.

GM Nostr.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Pequenos problemas que o Estado cria para a sociedade e que não são sempre lembrados

- **vale-transporte**: transferir o custo com o transporte do funcionário para um terceiro o estimula a morar longe de onde trabalha, já que morar perto é normalmente mais caro e a economia com transporte é inexistente.
- **atestado médico**: o direito a faltar o trabalho com atestado médico cria a exigência desse atestado para todas as situações, substituindo o livre acordo entre patrão e empregado e sobrecarregando os médicos e postos de saúde com visitas desnecessárias de assalariados resfriados.
- **prisões**: com dinheiro mal-administrado, burocracia e péssima alocação de recursos -- problemas que empresas privadas em competição (ou mesmo sem qualquer competição) saberiam resolver muito melhor -- o Estado fica sem presídios, com os poucos existentes entupidos, muito acima de sua alocação máxima, e com isto, segundo a bizarra corrente de responsabilidades que culpa o juiz que condenou o criminoso por sua morte na cadeia, juízes deixam de condenar à prisão os bandidos, soltando-os na rua.
- **justiça**: entrar com processos é grátis e isto faz proliferar a atividade dos advogados que se dedicam a criar problemas judiciais onde não seria necessário e a entupir os tribunais, impedindo-os de fazer o que mais deveriam fazer.
- **justiça**: como a justiça só obedece às leis e ignora acordos pessoais, escritos ou não, as pessoas não fazem acordos, recorrem sempre à justiça estatal, e entopem-na de assuntos que seriam muito melhor resolvidos entre vizinhos.
- **leis civis**: as leis criadas pelos parlamentares ignoram os costumes da sociedade e são um incentivo a que as pessoas não respeitem nem criem normas sociais -- que seriam maneiras mais rápidas, baratas e satisfatórias de resolver problemas.
- **leis de trãnsito**: quanto mais leis de trânsito, mais serviço de fiscalização são delegados aos policiais, que deixam de combater crimes por isto (afinal de contas, eles não querem de fato arriscar suas vidas combatendo o crime, a fiscalização é uma excelente desculpa para se esquivarem a esta responsabilidade).
- **financiamento educacional**: é uma espécie de subsídio às faculdades privadas que faz com que se criem cursos e mais cursos que são cada vez menos recheados de algum conhecimento ou técnica útil e cada vez mais inúteis.
- **leis de tombamento**: são um incentivo a que o dono de qualquer área ou construção "histórica" destrua todo e qualquer vestígio de história que houver nele antes que as autoridades descubram, o que poderia não acontecer se ele pudesse, por exemplo, usar, mostrar e se beneficiar da história daquele local sem correr o risco de perder, de fato, a sua propriedade.
- **zoneamento urbano**: torna as cidades mais espalhadas, criando uma necessidade gigantesca de carros, ônibus e outros meios de transporte para as pessoas se locomoverem das zonas de moradia para as zonas de trabalho.
- **zoneamento urbano**: faz com que as pessoas percam horas no trânsito todos os dias, o que é, além de um desperdício, um atentado contra a sua saúde, que estaria muito melhor servida numa caminhada diária entre a casa e o trabalho.
- **zoneamento urbano**: torna ruas e as casas menos seguras criando zonas enormes, tanto de residências quanto de indústrias, onde não há movimento de gente alguma.
- **escola obrigatória + currículo escolar nacional**: emburrece todas as crianças.
- **leis contra trabalho infantil**: tira das crianças a oportunidade de aprender ofícios úteis e levar um dinheiro para ajudar a família.
- **licitações**: como não existem os critérios do mercado para decidir qual é o melhor prestador de serviço, criam-se comissões de pessoas que vão decidir coisas. isto incentiva os prestadores de serviço que estão concorrendo na licitação a tentar comprar os membros dessas comissões. isto, fora a corrupção, gera problemas reais: __(i)__ a escolha dos serviços acaba sendo a pior possível, já que a empresa prestadora que vence está claramente mais dedicada a comprar comissões do que a fazer um bom trabalho (este problema afeta tantas áreas, desde a construção de estradas até a qualidade da merenda escolar, que é impossível listar aqui); __(ii)__ o processo corruptor acaba, no longo prazo, eliminando as empresas que prestavam e deixando para competir apenas as corruptas, e a qualidade tende a piorar progressivamente.
- **cartéis**: o Estado em geral cria e depois fica refém de vários grupos de interesse. o caso dos taxistas contra o Uber é o que está na moda hoje (e o que mostra como os Estados se comportam da mesma forma no mundo todo).
- **multas**: quando algum indivíduo ou empresa comete uma fraude financeira, ou causa algum dano material involuntário, as vítimas do caso são as pessoas que sofreram o dano ou perderam dinheiro, mas o Estado tem sempre leis que prevêem multas para os responsáveis. A justiça estatal é sempre muito rígida e rápida na aplicação dessas multas, mas relapsa e vaga no que diz respeito à indenização das vítimas. O que em geral acontece é que o Estado aplica uma enorme multa ao responsável pelo mal, retirando deste os recursos que dispunha para indenizar as vítimas, e se retira do caso, deixando estas desamparadas.
- **desapropriação**: o Estado pode pegar qualquer propriedade de qualquer pessoa mediante uma indenização que é necessariamente inferior ao valor da propriedade para o seu presente dono (caso contrário ele a teria vendido voluntariamente).
- **seguro-desemprego**: se há, por exemplo, um prazo mínimo de 1 ano para o sujeito ter direito a receber seguro-desemprego, isto o incentiva a planejar ficar apenas 1 ano em cada emprego (ano este que será sucedido por um período de desemprego remunerado), matando todas as possibilidades de aprendizado ou aquisição de experiência naquela empresa específica ou ascensão hierárquica.
- **previdência**: a previdência social tem todos os defeitos de cálculo do mundo, e não importa muito ela ser uma forma horrível de poupar dinheiro, porque ela tem garantias bizarras de longevidade fornecidas pelo Estado, além de ser compulsória. Isso serve para criar no imaginário geral a idéia da __aposentadoria__, uma época mágica em que todos os dias serão finais de semana. A idéia da aposentadoria influencia o sujeito a não se preocupar em ter um emprego que faça sentido, mas sim em ter um trabalho qualquer, que o permita se aposentar.
- **regulamentação impossível**: milhares de coisas são proibidas, há regulamentações sobre os aspectos mais mínimos de cada empreendimento ou construção ou espaço. se todas essas regulamentações fossem exigidas não haveria condições de produção e todos morreriam. portanto, elas não são exigidas. porém, o Estado, ou um agente individual imbuído do poder estatal pode, se desejar, exigi-las todas de um cidadão inimigo seu. qualquer pessoa pode viver a vida inteira sem cumprir nem 10% das regulamentações estatais, mas viverá também todo esse tempo com medo de se tornar um alvo de sua exigência, num estado de terror psicológico.
- **perversão de critérios**: para muitas coisas sobre as quais a sociedade normalmente chegaria a um valor ou comportamento "razoável" espontaneamente, o Estado dita regras. estas regras muitas vezes não são obrigatórias, são mais "sugestões" ou limites, como o salário mínimo, ou as 44 horas semanais de trabalho. a sociedade, porém, passa a usar esses valores como se fossem o normal. são raras, por exemplo, as ofertas de emprego que fogem à regra das 44h semanais.
- **inflação**: subir os preços é difícil e constrangedor para as empresas, pedir aumento de salário é difícil e constrangedor para o funcionário. a inflação força as pessoas a fazer isso, mas o aumento não é automático, como alguns economistas podem pensar (enquanto alguns outros ficam muito satisfeitos de que esse processo seja demorado e difícil).
- **inflação**: a inflação destrói a capacidade das pessoas de julgar preços entre concorrentes usando a própria memória.
- **inflação**: a inflação destrói os cálculos de lucro/prejuízo das empresas e prejudica enormemente as decisões empresariais que seriam baseadas neles.
- **inflação**: a inflação redistribui a riqueza dos mais pobres e mais afastados do sistema financeiro para os mais ricos, os bancos e as megaempresas.
- **inflação**: a inflação estimula o endividamento e o consumismo.
- **lixo:** ao prover coleta e armazenamento de lixo "grátis para todos" o Estado incentiva a criação de lixo. se tivessem que pagar para que recolhessem o seu lixo, as pessoas (e conseqüentemente as empresas) se empenhariam mais em produzir coisas usando menos plástico, menos embalagens, menos sacolas.
- **leis contra crimes financeiros:** ao criar legislação para dificultar acesso ao sistema financeiro por parte de criminosos a dificuldade e os custos para acesso a esse mesmo sistema pelas pessoas de bem cresce absurdamente, levando a um percentual enorme de gente incapaz de usá-lo, para detrimento de todos -- e no final das contas os grandes criminosos ainda conseguem burlar tudo.

@ 16d11430:61640947

The metropolis was a living maze, a chaotic symphony of ambition, desperation, and survival. It wasn’t merely a city—it was a crucible, an intricate system designed to test and grind the human spirit. For some, it was a beacon of opportunity; for others, a labyrinth of pain and struggle.

Yadov Towri, born of a lineage of healers, was an anomaly within his heritage. Where his ancestors had mended and soothed, he endured and resisted. His unique blend of empathy, physical agility, and endurance made him an outlier—someone who didn’t just survive the trap but thrived within its crushing gears.

The Morning Assault

The mornings were never kind. A cacophony of relentless noise shattered any semblance of peace—alarms, shouts, machinery, and the ever-present drone of humanity. Cramped living spaces overflowed with activity, leaving no room for solitude. People jostled for basic necessities, their fatigue palpable.

For Yadov, this was the air he had always breathed. Where others staggered through the oppressive start of the day, he moved with practiced ease, absorbing the chaos without letting it claim him. His finely tuned empathy allowed him to predict and evade the surges of bodies and conflict, navigating the melee like a shadow.

The Daily Gauntlet

The streets were a relentless obstacle course. Public transport bulged with humanity, its overcrowded platforms and vehicles turning every journey into a battle for space. Sidewalks teemed with hawkers, pedestrians, and stray animals. The air carried the acrid smell of exhaust, mingling with the hum of endless activity.

For the unprepared, it was overwhelming. For Yadov, it was a game. His agility let him weave through the crowd, while his empathy read the ebb and flow of tension and frustration. Each step was calculated, each movement purposeful. The chaos became his ally, obscuring him from prying eyes.

Poverty and Crime’s Shadows

The city was a landscape of extremes, where towering structures loomed over crumbling tenements. The specter of crime lingered everywhere—pickpockets in crowded markets, petty gangs in shadowed alleys, and the pervasive fear of exploitation. Poverty wasn’t just economic; it was a state of existence, etched into the faces of its victims.

Yadov, attuned to the pain of others, couldn’t ignore the weight of it. He saw families torn apart by desperation, children hardened by survival, and the hollowed eyes of those crushed by unrelenting struggle. Yet he carried this knowledge like a blade, honed to cut through the trap’s layers.

The Psychological Traps

The workplace was no sanctuary. Overcrowded offices and factories became arenas of psychological warfare. Collective rituals of conformity, hazing from superiors, and constant surveillance stripped individuals of identity. The relentless hum of machinery and human voices blurred the lines between person and cog.

For Yadov, the psychological traps were the most insidious. But his healer’s heritage gave him insight into the minds of those around him. He saw their fears and insecurities, unraveling the invisible threads that bound them. His empathy became his shield, allowing him to endure the psychological barrage without breaking.

The Lunchtime Struggle

Food was a battleground. Crowded cafeterias and street vendors became stages for tense negotiations and desperate scuffles. Space and time were luxuries few could afford, and securing even the simplest meal required cunning and perseverance.

Yadov turned these skirmishes into opportunities. His ability to anticipate movements and emotions let him slip through the fray unnoticed, securing what he needed with minimal effort. For him, it wasn’t just about sustenance—it was another test of the trap’s design.

Mental Barrage

The demands of the day didn’t relent after lunch. Endless tasks and puzzles—both literal and metaphorical—kept minds overclocked and spirits drained. The psychological toll was immense, leaving most people numb, broken, or both.

Yadov saw these moments as crucibles. His mind, sharpened by the challenges of the trap, worked with precision. He dissected problems with surgical clarity, finding solutions where others saw only chaos. It wasn’t just survival; it was mastery.

Discovering the Trap’s Masters

Over time, Yadov pieced together the truth. The trap wasn’t a natural consequence of urban life—it was a deliberate construction. Its architects were shadowy figures: exploiters who thrived on the city’s chaos and despair. Politicians, criminals, and psychic manipulators worked together to weave an intricate web of control.

But Yadov was more than a product of the trap. His empathy let him see cracks in its structure, and his endurance gave him the strength to exploit them. The same traits that helped him navigate the system now turned him into its adversary.

Turning the System Against Itself

Yadov’s presence became a disruption. His sensitivity and resilience began to destabilize the psychic control that bound the city’s inhabitants. Those who came into contact with him found their illusions shattering, their subjugation slipping away. Rituals of conformity dissolved into chaos, and enforcers of the system faltered under his quiet defiance.

He didn’t fight with violence. His weapons were subtle: a whisper of doubt, a flicker of resistance, a spark of individuality. The psychic manipulations that had ensnared the city were no match for his clarity, and the trap’s architects found their power crumbling.

The Collapse

As Yadov’s influence spread, the city began to unravel. The exploited masses, awakening to their own agency, turned on their oppressors. The psychic manipulators, once untouchable, became targets of the very system they had controlled. The intricate web of the trap dissolved into chaos, its architects fleeing or falling.

A New Cycle

With the trap dismantled, the city found itself at a crossroads. Freed from its chains, it began to reshape itself. The people, no longer cogs in a faceless machine, began to reclaim their identities.

Yadov disappeared into the backdrop, his role fulfilled. He wasn’t a savior or a hero; he was a survivor, a product of the trap who had transcended it. And as the first light of dawn illuminated the city, it carried with it the promise of a new beginning—one born not of control, but of freedom and resilience.

@ fe32298e:20516265

Today I learned how to install NVapi to monitor my GPUs in Home Assistant.

NVApi is a lightweight API designed for monitoring NVIDIA GPU utilization and enabling automated power management. It provides real-time GPU metrics, supports integration with tools like Home Assistant, and offers flexible power management and PCIe link speed management based on workload and thermal conditions.

• GPU Utilization Monitoring: Utilization, memory usage, temperature, fan speed, and power consumption.
• Automated Power Limiting: Adjusts power limits dynamically based on temperature thresholds and total power caps, configurable per GPU or globally.
• Cross-GPU Coordination: Total power budget applies across multiple GPUs in the same system.
• PCIe Link Speed Management: Controls minimum and maximum PCIe link speeds with idle thresholds for power optimization.
• Home Assistant Integration: Uses the built-in RESTful platform and template sensors.

Getting the Data

sudo apt install golang-go git clone https://github.com/sammcj/NVApi.git cd NVapi go run main.go -port 9999 -rate 1 curl http://localhost:9999/gpu

Response for a single GPU: [ { "index": 0, "name": "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090", "gpu_utilisation": 0, "memory_utilisation": 0, "power_watts": 16, "power_limit_watts": 450, "memory_total_gb": 23.99, "memory_used_gb": 0.46, "memory_free_gb": 23.52, "memory_usage_percent": 2, "temperature": 38, "processes": [], "pcie_link_state": "not managed" } ]

Response for multiple GPUs: [ { "index": 0, "name": "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090", "gpu_utilisation": 0, "memory_utilisation": 0, "power_watts": 14, "power_limit_watts": 350, "memory_total_gb": 24, "memory_used_gb": 0.43, "memory_free_gb": 23.57, "memory_usage_percent": 2, "temperature": 36, "processes": [], "pcie_link_state": "not managed" }, { "index": 1, "name": "NVIDIA RTX A4000", "gpu_utilisation": 0, "memory_utilisation": 0, "power_watts": 10, "power_limit_watts": 140, "memory_total_gb": 15.99, "memory_used_gb": 0.56, "memory_free_gb": 15.43, "memory_usage_percent": 3, "temperature": 41, "processes": [], "pcie_link_state": "not managed" } ]

Start at Boot

Create /etc/systemd/system/nvapi.service:

``` [Unit] Description=Run NVapi After=network.target

[Service] Type=simple Environment="GOPATH=/home/ansible/go" WorkingDirectory=/home/ansible/NVapi ExecStart=/usr/bin/go run main.go -port 9999 -rate 1 Restart=always User=ansible

Environment="GPU_TEMP_CHECK_INTERVAL=5"

Environment="GPU_TOTAL_POWER_CAP=400"

Environment="GPU_0_LOW_TEMP=40"

Environment="GPU_0_MEDIUM_TEMP=70"

Environment="GPU_0_LOW_TEMP_LIMIT=135"

Environment="GPU_0_MEDIUM_TEMP_LIMIT=120"

Environment="GPU_0_HIGH_TEMP_LIMIT=100"

Environment="GPU_1_LOW_TEMP=45"

Environment="GPU_1_MEDIUM_TEMP=75"

Environment="GPU_1_LOW_TEMP_LIMIT=140"

Environment="GPU_1_MEDIUM_TEMP_LIMIT=125"

Environment="GPU_1_HIGH_TEMP_LIMIT=110"

[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target ```

Home Assistant

Add to Home Assistant configuration.yaml and restart HA (completely).

For a single GPU, this works: ``` sensor: - platform: rest name: MYPC GPU Information resource: http://mypc:9999 method: GET headers: Content-Type: application/json value_template: "{{ value_json[0].index }}" json_attributes: - name - gpu_utilisation - memory_utilisation - power_watts - power_limit_watts - memory_total_gb - memory_used_gb - memory_free_gb - memory_usage_percent - temperature scan_interval: 1 # seconds

• platform: template sensors: mypc_gpu_0_gpu: friendly_name: "MYPC {{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'name') }} GPU" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'gpu_utilisation') }}" unit_of_measurement: "%" mypc_gpu_0_memory: friendly_name: "MYPC {{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'name') }} Memory" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'memory_utilisation') }}" unit_of_measurement: "%" mypc_gpu_0_power: friendly_name: "MYPC {{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'name') }} Power" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'power_watts') }}" unit_of_measurement: "W" mypc_gpu_0_power_limit: friendly_name: "MYPC {{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'name') }} Power Limit" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'power_limit_watts') }}" unit_of_measurement: "W" mypc_gpu_0_temperature: friendly_name: "MYPC {{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'name') }} Temperature" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu_information', 'temperature') }}" unit_of_measurement: "°C" ```

For multiple GPUs: ``` rest: scan_interval: 1 resource: http://mypc:9999 sensor: - name: "MYPC GPU0 Information" value_template: "{{ value_json[0].index }}" json_attributes_path: "$.0" json_attributes: - name - gpu_utilisation - memory_utilisation - power_watts - power_limit_watts - memory_total_gb - memory_used_gb - memory_free_gb - memory_usage_percent - temperature - name: "MYPC GPU1 Information" value_template: "{{ value_json[1].index }}" json_attributes_path: "$.1" json_attributes: - name - gpu_utilisation - memory_utilisation - power_watts - power_limit_watts - memory_total_gb - memory_used_gb - memory_free_gb - memory_usage_percent - temperature

• platform: template sensors: mypc_gpu_0_gpu: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU0 GPU" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu0_information', 'gpu_utilisation') }}" unit_of_measurement: "%" mypc_gpu_0_memory: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU0 Memory" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu0_information', 'memory_utilisation') }}" unit_of_measurement: "%" mypc_gpu_0_power: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU0 Power" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu0_information', 'power_watts') }}" unit_of_measurement: "W" mypc_gpu_0_power_limit: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU0 Power Limit" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu0_information', 'power_limit_watts') }}" unit_of_measurement: "W" mypc_gpu_0_temperature: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU0 Temperature" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu0_information', 'temperature') }}" unit_of_measurement: "C"

• platform: template sensors: mypc_gpu_1_gpu: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU1 GPU" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu1_information', 'gpu_utilisation') }}" unit_of_measurement: "%" mypc_gpu_1_memory: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU1 Memory" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu1_information', 'memory_utilisation') }}" unit_of_measurement: "%" mypc_gpu_1_power: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU1 Power" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu1_information', 'power_watts') }}" unit_of_measurement: "W" mypc_gpu_1_power_limit: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU1 Power Limit" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu1_information', 'power_limit_watts') }}" unit_of_measurement: "W" mypc_gpu_1_temperature: friendly_name: "MYPC GPU1 Temperature" value_template: "{{ state_attr('sensor.mypc_gpu1_information', 'temperature') }}" unit_of_measurement: "C"

```

Basic entity card: type: entities entities: - entity: sensor.mypc_gpu_0_gpu secondary_info: last-updated - entity: sensor.mypc_gpu_0_memory secondary_info: last-updated - entity: sensor.mypc_gpu_0_power secondary_info: last-updated - entity: sensor.mypc_gpu_0_power_limit secondary_info: last-updated - entity: sensor.mypc_gpu_0_temperature secondary_info: last-updated

Ansible Role

```

• name: install go become: true package: name: golang-go state: present

• name: git clone git: repo: "https://github.com/sammcj/NVApi.git" dest: "/home/ansible/NVapi" update: yes force: true

go run main.go -port 9999 -rate 1

• name: install systemd service become: true copy: src: nvapi.service dest: /etc/systemd/system/nvapi.service

• name: Reload systemd daemons, enable, and restart nvapi become: true systemd: name: nvapi daemon_reload: yes enabled: yes state: restarted ```

@ 68ce44e4:ecd5f574

Xenea Wallet Daily Quiz (26 Dec)

Complete now : https://xenea.app/register/167mZpWf7A

XENEAwallet #CryptoAirdrop #cryptonews #cryptocurrency #EarnFreeCrypto

@ f3df9bc0:a95119eb

Welcome! 🌱

Interesting places to start: - Latest polished pieces: [[Latest Articles Index]] - Index of all articles by discipline: [[Discipline Index]]

About this site

This site is both a blog & wiki-style digital garden. Some ideas you’ll run into here may be of quality, others will be less interesting, not fully formed, or even just straight wrong. This is intentional. Content here is continuously cultivated and refined as I live my life and gain new experiences, and I welcome challenges to anything I’ve written.

The general idea behind this is that my unstructured thought is fast and divergent, but not coherent, and therefore difficult to use in any practical way. The process of writing is a forcing function for taking divergent thought and bringing it into a form that can be reasoned about, improved upon, or discarded as irrelevant. Stalling this process is counter-productive and can lead to a sort of comatose where the mind is stuck in the abstract, waiting for confidence on a particular strain of thought, but never making any progress.

Therefore there is no set topic for this garden, instead it’s purpose is to serve as an auxiliary brain for any and all topics that I find interesting and worth spending time refining.

Contact

• nostr: slipstream@htlc.io
• farcaster: @htlc

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Drivechain

Understanding Drivechain requires a shift from the paradigm most bitcoiners are used to. It is not about "trustlessness" or "mathematical certainty", but game theory and incentives. (Well, Bitcoin in general is also that, but people prefer to ignore it and focus on some illusion of trustlessness provided by mathematics.)

Here we will describe the basic mechanism (simple) and incentives (complex) of "hashrate escrow" and how it enables a 2-way peg between the mainchain (Bitcoin) and various sidechains.

The full concept of "Drivechain" also involves blind merged mining (i.e., the sidechains mine themselves by publishing their block hashes to the mainchain without the miners having to run the sidechain software), but this is much easier to understand and can be accomplished either by the BIP-301 mechanism or by the Spacechains mechanism.

How does hashrate escrow work from the point of view of Bitcoin?

A new address type is created. Anything that goes in that is locked and can only be spent if all miners agree on the Withdrawal Transaction (WT^) that will spend it for 6 months. There is one of these special addresses for each sidechain.

To gather miners' agreement bitcoind keeps track of the "score" of all transactions that could possibly spend from that address. On every block mined, for each sidechain, the miner can use a portion of their coinbase to either increase the score of one WT^ by 1 while decreasing the score of all others by 1; or they can decrease the score of all WT^s by 1; or they can do nothing.

Once a transaction has gotten a score high enough, it is published and funds are effectively transferred from the sidechain to the withdrawing users.

If a timeout of 6 months passes and the score doesn't meet the threshold, that WT^ is discarded.

What does the above procedure mean?

It means that people can transfer coins from the mainchain to a sidechain by depositing to the special address. Then they can withdraw from the sidechain by making a special withdraw transaction in the sidechain.

The special transaction somehow freezes funds in the sidechain while a transaction that aggregates all withdrawals into a single mainchain WT^, which is then submitted to the mainchain miners so they can start voting on it and finally after some months it is published.

Now the crucial part: the validity of the WT^ is not verified by the Bitcoin mainchain rules, i.e., if Bob has requested a withdraw from the sidechain to his mainchain address, but someone publishes a wrong WT^ that instead takes Bob's funds and sends them to Alice's main address there is no way the mainchain will know that. What determines the "validity" of the WT^ is the miner vote score and only that. It is the job of miners to vote correctly -- and for that they may want to run the sidechain node in SPV mode so they can attest for the existence of a reference to the WT^ transaction in the sidechain blockchain (which then ensures it is ok) or do these checks by some other means.

What? 6 months to get my money back?

Yes. But no, in practice anyone who wants their money back will be able to use an atomic swap, submarine swap or other similar service to transfer funds from the sidechain to the mainchain and vice-versa. The long delayed withdraw costs would be incurred by few liquidity providers that would gain some small profit from it.

Why bother with this at all?

Drivechains solve many different problems:

It enables experimentation and new use cases for Bitcoin

Issued assets, fully private transactions, stateful blockchain contracts, turing-completeness, decentralized games, some "DeFi" aspects, prediction markets, futarchy, decentralized and yet meaningful human-readable names, big blocks with a ton of normal transactions on them, a chain optimized only for Lighting-style networks to be built on top of it.

These are some ideas that may have merit to them, but were never actually tried because they couldn't be tried with real Bitcoin or inferfacing with real bitcoins. They were either relegated to the shitcoin territory or to custodial solutions like Liquid or RSK that may have failed to gain network effect because of that.

It solves conflicts and infighting

Some people want fully private transactions in a UTXO model, others want "accounts" they can tie to their name and build reputation on top; some people want simple multisig solutions, others want complex code that reads a ton of variables; some people want to put all the transactions on a global chain in batches every 10 minutes, others want off-chain instant transactions backed by funds previously locked in channels; some want to spend, others want to just hold; some want to use blockchain technology to solve all the problems in the world, others just want to solve money.

With Drivechain-based sidechains all these groups can be happy simultaneously and don't fight. Meanwhile they will all be using the same money and contributing to each other's ecosystem even unwillingly, it's also easy and free for them to change their group affiliation later, which reduces cognitive dissonance.

It solves "scaling"

Multiple chains like the ones described above would certainly do a lot to accomodate many more transactions that the current Bitcoin chain can. One could have special Lightning Network chains, but even just big block chains or big-block-mimblewimble chains or whatnot could probably do a good job. Or even something less cool like 200 independent chains just like Bitcoin is today, no extra features (and you can call it "sharding"), just that would already multiply the current total capacity by 200.

Use your imagination.

It solves the blockchain security budget issue

The calculation is simple: you imagine what security budget is reasonable for each block in a world without block subsidy and divide that for the amount of bytes you can fit in a single block: that is the price to be paid in satoshis per byte. In reasonable estimative, the price necessary for every Bitcoin transaction goes to very large amounts, such that not only any day-to-day transaction has insanely prohibitive costs, but also Lightning channel opens and closes are impracticable.

So without a solution like Drivechain you'll be left with only one alternative: pushing Bitcoin usage to trusted services like Liquid and RSK or custodial Lightning wallets. With Drivechain, though, there could be thousands of transactions happening in sidechains and being all aggregated into a sidechain block that would then pay a very large fee to be published (via blind merged mining) to the mainchain. Bitcoin security guaranteed.

It keeps Bitcoin decentralized

Once we have sidechains to accomodate the normal transactions, the mainchain functionality can be reduced to be only a "hub" for the sidechains' comings and goings, and then the maximum block size for the mainchain can be reduced to, say, 100kb, which would make running a full node very very easy.

Can miners steal?

Yes. If a group of coordinated miners are able to secure the majority of the hashpower and keep their coordination for 6 months, they can publish a WT^ that takes the money from the sidechains and pays to themselves.

Will miners steal?

No, because the incentives are such that they won't.

Although it may look at first that stealing is an obvious strategy for miners as it is free money, there are many costs involved:

1. The cost of ceasing blind-merged mining returns -- as stealing will kill a sidechain, all the fees from it that miners would be expected to earn for the next years are gone;
2. The cost of Bitcoin price going down: If a steal is successful that will mean Drivechains are not safe, therefore Bitcoin is less useful, and miner credibility will also be hurt, which are likely to cause the Bitcoin price to go down, which in turn may kill the miners' businesses and savings;
3. The cost of coordination -- assuming miners are just normal businesses, they just want to do their work and get paid, but stealing from a Drivechain will require coordination with other miners to conduct an immoral act in a way that has many pitfalls and is likely to be broken over the months;
4. The cost of miners leaving your mining pool: when we talked about "miners" above we were actually talking about mining pools operators, so they must also consider the risk of miners migrating from their mining pool to others as they begin the process of stealing;
5. The cost of community goodwill -- when participating in a steal operation, a miner will suffer a ton of backlash from the community. Even if the attempt fails at the end, the fact that it was attempted will contribute to growing concerns over exaggerated miners power over the Bitcoin ecosystem, which may end up causing the community to agree on a hard-fork to change the mining algorithm in the future, or to do something to increase participation of more entities in the mining process (such as development or cheapment of new ASICs), which have a chance of decreasing the profits of current miners.

Another point to take in consideration is that one may be inclined to think a newly-created sidechain or a sidechain with relatively low usage may be more easily stolen from, since the blind merged mining returns from it (point 1 above) are going to be small -- but the fact is also that a sidechain with small usage will also have less money to be stolen from, and since the other costs besides 1 are less elastic at the end it will not be worth stealing from these too.

All of the above consideration are valid only if miners are stealing from good sidechains. If there is a sidechain that is doing things wrong, scamming people, not being used at all, or is full of bugs, for example, that will be perceived as a bad sidechain, and then miners can and will safely steal from it and kill it, which will be perceived as a good thing by everybody.

What do we do if miners steal?

Paul Sztorc has suggested in the past that a user-activated soft-fork could prevent miners from stealing, i.e., most Bitcoin users and nodes issue a rule similar to this one to invalidate the inclusion of a faulty WT^ and thus cause any miner that includes it in a block to be relegated to their own Bitcoin fork that other nodes won't accept.

This suggestion has made people think Drivechain is a sidechain solution backed by user-actived soft-forks for safety, which is very far from the truth. Drivechains must not and will not rely on this kind of soft-fork, although they are possible, as the coordination costs are too high and no one should ever expect these things to happen.

If even with all the incentives against them (see above) miners do still steal from a good sidechain that will mean the failure of the Drivechain experiment. It will very likely also mean the failure of the Bitcoin experiment too, as it will be proven that miners can coordinate to act maliciously over a prolonged period of time regardless of economic and social incentives, meaning they are probably in it just for attacking Bitcoin, backed by nation-states or something else, and therefore no Bitcoin transaction in the mainchain is to be expected to be safe ever again.

Why use this and not a full-blown trustless and open sidechain technology?

Because it is impossible.

If you ever heard someone saying "just use a sidechain", "do this in a sidechain" or anything like that, be aware that these people are either talking about "federated" sidechains (i.e., funds are kept in custody by a group of entities) or they are talking about Drivechain, or they are disillusioned and think it is possible to do sidechains in any other manner.

No, I mean a trustless 2-way peg with correctness of the withdrawals verified by the Bitcoin protocol!

That is not possible unless Bitcoin verifies all transactions that happen in all the sidechains, which would be akin to drastically increasing the blocksize and expanding the Bitcoin rules in tons of ways, i.e., a terrible idea that no one wants.

What about the Blockstream sidechains whitepaper?

Yes, that was a way to do it. The Drivechain hashrate escrow is a conceptually simpler way to achieve the same thing with improved incentives, less junk in the chain, more safety.

Isn't the hashrate escrow a very complex soft-fork?

Yes, but it is much simpler than SegWit. And, unlike SegWit, it doesn't force anything on users, i.e., it isn't a mandatory blocksize increase.

Why should we expect miners to care enough to participate in the voting mechanism?

Because it's in their own self-interest to do it, and it costs very little. Today over half of the miners mine RSK. It's not blind merged mining, it's a very convoluted process that requires them to run a RSK full node. For the Drivechain sidechains, an SPV node would be enough, or maybe just getting data from a block explorer API, so much much simpler.

What if I still don't like Drivechain even after reading this?

That is the entire point! You don't have to like it or use it as long as you're fine with other people using it. The hashrate escrow special addresses will not impact you at all, validation cost is minimal, and you get the benefit of people who want to use Drivechain migrating to their own sidechains and freeing up space for you in the mainchain. See also the point above about infighting.

See also

• Podcast episode with Ruben Somsen and Aaron van Wirdum explaining Drivechain
• Alternatives to Drivechain
• Drivechain comparison with Ethereum

@ e83b66a8:b0526c2b

Can I suggest you read my book, it will tell you a lot. It is important you understand what Bitcoin is before you invest anything into it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CLJP6R3F/

Firstly, Bitcoin is not like anything else you have ever experienced in your life. Everything else is based on trust and there is a higher authority you can always turn to.

If you loose access to your bank account, you can walk in to a branch with your ID papers and within half an hour or so, your account access will be restored by them. The bank control your account and the money held within it.

If you loose your passport or driving license, the government can issue you new ones. They control your identity.

If you get locked out of your house, you can call a locksmith and they will break in, legally, for you.

Bitcoin is different, it is permissionless and trustless. Nobody can stop you spending your money and you can send it to anyone anywhere in the world instantly without having to trust a third party to authorise payment for you.

By that same token, if you make a mistake and send it to the wrong address or if you loose the keys that secure your Bitcoin, it is gone, nobody can help you. You need to understand and be comfortable with that.

As for Bitcoin as a store of value, this is the first stage that all new Bitcoiners go through, but if you do it properly, it will eventually be the least significant feature.

However, as for Bitcoin price cycles. Every 4 years the supply is automatically halved. This happened on the 20th April this year, you probably saw we were in Warsaw at a halving party. It happened at 3:09am European time, so we were asleep.

Nothing actually happens for around 6 months of the halving, but from 6 - 18 months after the halving, the price rises significantly to adapt to the new supply and scarcity.

So, from the start of November the price has started to rise and will continue to do so in a saw tooth pattern for around the next year.

The price rise often overshoots the new natural price level and so expect a crash around the end of next year, it will be significant and will take a year or so to recover, but will eventually settle to a new price.

In 4 years time, around April 2028, the cycle will happen again.

Bitcoin is not a short term investment, don’t invest unless you are prepared to hold for a minimum of 4 years.

Holding bitcoin for 8 years can produce generational wealth.

The three core tenets of Bitcoin are:

Not your keys, not your coins - in other words, don’t leave them on exchanges

Don’t trust, verify - which leads to:

Do your own research

Study Bitcoin, it will give you back far more than you can imagine.

@ a39d19ec:3d88f61e

This week's functional 3d print is the "Dino Clip".

Dino Clip

I printed it some years ago for my son, so he would have his own clip for cereal bags.

Now it is used to hold a bag of dog food close.

The design by "Sneaks" is a so called "print in place". This means that the whole clip with moving parts is printed in one part, without the need for assembly after the print. The clip is very strong, and I would print it again if I need a "heavy duty" clip for more rigid or big bags. Link to the file at Printables

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

bitcoind decentralization

It is better to have multiple curator teams, with different vetting processes and release schedules for bitcoind than a single one.

"More eyes on code", "Contribute to Core", "Everybody should audit the code".

All these points repeated again and again fell to Earth on the day it was discovered that Bitcoin Core developers merged a variable name change from "blacklist" to "blocklist" without even discussing or acknowledging the fact that that innocent pull request opened by a sybil account was a social attack.

After a big lot of people manifested their dissatisfaction with that event on Twitter and on GitHub, most Core developers simply ignored everybody's concerns or even personally attacked people who were complaining.

The event has shown that:

1) Bitcoin Core ultimately rests on the hands of a couple maintainers and they decide what goes on the GitHub repository[^pr-merged-very-quickly] and the binary releases that will be downloaded by thousands; 2) Bitcoin Core is susceptible to social attacks; 2) "More eyes on code" don't matter, as these extra eyes can be ignored and dismissed.

Solution: bitcoind decentralization

If usage was spread across 10 different bitcoind flavors, the network would be much more resistant to social attacks to a single team.

This has nothing to do with the question on if it is better to have multiple different Bitcoin node implementations or not, because here we're basically talking about the same software.

Multiple teams, each with their own release process, their own logo, some subtle changes, or perhaps no changes at all, just a different name for their bitcoind flavor, and that's it.

Every day or week or month or year, each flavor merges all changes from Bitcoin Core on their own fork. If there's anything suspicious or too leftist (or perhaps too rightist, in case there's a leftist bitcoind flavor), maybe they will spot it and not merge.

This way we keep the best of both worlds: all software development, bugfixes, improvements goes on Bitcoin Core, other flavors just copy. If there's some non-consensus change whose efficacy is debatable, one of the flavors will merge on their fork and test, and later others -- including Core -- can copy that too. Plus, we get resistant to attacks: in case there is an attack on Bitcoin Core, only 10% of the network would be compromised. the other flavors would be safe.

Run Bitcoin Knots

The first example of a bitcoind software that follows Bitcoin Core closely, adds some small changes, but has an independent vetting and release process is Bitcoin Knots, maintained by the incorruptible Luke DashJr.

Next time you decide to run bitcoind, run Bitcoin Knots instead and contribute to bitcoind decentralization!

---

See also:

• How to attack Bitcoin, Anthony Towns' take

[^pr-merged-very-quickly]: See PR 20624, for example, a very complicated change that could be introducing bugs or be a deliberate attack, merged in 3 days without time for discussion.

@ 592295cf:413a0db9

Week 11-11

Lamenting is becoming something I should ask people who complain. Charity bussiness and after sending zap received to those who do not complain...

I started making an RSS feed template. Open an opml file and check the feed. I called this script,Teed.

This morning I saw a bounty from a fiatjaf note, on a rss-feed long form, basic a plugin for an app. But I'm not doing that, of course, I can also publish it as soon as I'm in charge. Maybe I have some opml files and I want to see if these are still active.

Starter pack is not good apparently creates elites and maybe gives you the feeling of not choosing, but that's what people want. Do not choose but have the illusion of choosing.

Toxicity level. high.

---

P2P stuff, Iroh is a protocol for syncing & moving bytes iroh computer post on Bluesky

Juraj new project

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpk4kccr9csumnwhmpv83ladqc6p88089cx2e5s2c4448ppgl2pakqqsyv4hs424x6c8phks903s595q2lqp5fpwyq7ajwrf00lxev8cfamcvmq23h

Alex Gleason bunker Knox. (Beta) "knox is a new Nostr bunker CLI for running a NIP-46 remote signer and granting credentials to members of your team". Announcing bunker knox article

Local First podcast, web2.5. Something like Nostr but Local P2P, interesting episode. youtube link

Open Secret AI. "OpenSecret is a backend for app developers that turns private encryption on by default." announcment AI

I think users with regard to algorithms do not want ten different feeds to choose from, but that their feed adapts to their choices, training the feed if this makes sense. So the feed is your feed for your choices, respond and train with them.

Pleblab 2, cool "ANNOUNCING TOP BUILDER SEASON 2! " nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpmx02p4slzahlf7jlcaspsx57g6uc7kl7cc7dvhlsnqtpn6khjj0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctcqyzy9w0frd802hfmrp45jr6dqhf7umqj7s63z0jvhv7hvvkcsqjg0vjwd7q4)

It was the real Guardian, quit 7fqx, we know it's you who want to distract us from number go up. The Guardian has left or wants to leave twitter is looking for alternatives, but how to verify a high profile user on Nostr? Nostr Address is already something but it's not enough.

We sometimes think that there is the money tree somewhere is that they magically appear, when instead the money is in the ground but they are dirty.

If Amethyst doesn't support is others stuff

People are simple, they want an app that works for all devices they have. People are "flutter-system".

A podcast feed xml file

Add to teed, if only i had made that option, meanwhile i saw a new interesting project

An other RSS feed github project

Imagine making a file opml with categories and those are your follow nostriches.

The problem is this does not bring new sap to the social chart is important to you, receive the selected posts and it is fantastic. You can also not use Nostr, if you want to use it as backup is fine. Share opml files? It's okay, but you can also find specific sites and find the best. Update for clients, you have a lot of RSS feeds from clients but update after a few hours so if there is really an emergency you lose. I still need to figure out how to integrate Nostr into RSS feed. Maybe an event to make your lists known.

I saw the event in these pr: nostr verified podcast nip #1465 Add audio track NIP #1043

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

On "zk-rollups" applied to Bitcoin

ZK rollups make no sense in bitcoin because there is no "cheap calldata". all data is already ~~cheap~~ expensive calldata.

There could be an onchain zk verification that allows succinct signatures maybe, but never a rollup.

What happens is: you can have one UTXO that contains multiple balances on it and in each transaction you can recreate that UTXOs but alter its state using a zk to compress all internal transactions that took place.

The blockchain must be aware of all these new things, so it is in no way "L2".

And you must have an entity responsible for that UTXO and for conjuring the state changes and zk proofs.

But on bitcoin you also must keep the data necessary to rebuild the proofs somewhere else, I'm not sure how can the third party responsible for that UTXO ensure that happens.

I think such a construct is similar to a credit card corporation: one central party upon which everybody depends, zero interoperability with external entities, every vendor must have an account on each credit card company to be able to charge customers, therefore it is not clear that such a thing is more desirable than solutions that are truly open and interoperable like Lightning, which may have its defects but at least fosters a much better environment, bringing together different conflicting parties, custodians, anyone.

@ bcea2b98:7ccef3c9

Weekends are the perfect time to unwind, explore, or spend time doing what we love. How would you spend your ideal weekend? Would it be all about relaxation, or would you be out and about?

For me, an ideal weekend would start with a slow Saturday morning, a good book and coffee. Then I would spend the afternoon exploring local trails and looking for snacks. Then always a slow Sunday night hopefully.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/760492

@ e356a30c:11e846f7

Bitcoin's performance during the Christmas season has been a mixed bag, with both Santa Claus rallies and Grinch-like plunges. While the cryptocurrency's volatility can be attributed to various factors, including global economic conditions and regulatory developments, historical data reveals some interesting trends.

During bullish market cycles, Bitcoin has often experienced a "Santa Claus rally" in the weeks leading up to and following Christmas. This phenomenon is characterized by increased buying activity and a surge in prices, potentially driven by holiday bonuses and a general sense of optimism. For instance, in 2020, Bitcoin surged by a remarkable 25.63% during the 52nd week, coinciding with the Christmas period.

However, bear markets have historically brought notable price declines for Bitcoin during the festive season. Reduced trading volume and increased volatility due to holiday-related market closures can exacerbate price swings. In 2022, for example, Bitcoin experienced a significant decline during the Christmas period, mirroring the broader crypto market downturn.

Looking ahead, analysts are cautiously optimistic about Bitcoin's prospects during the upcoming Christmas season. While the cryptocurrency's price remains susceptible to market fluctuations, a combination of positive regulatory developments and a potential economic recovery could fuel a Santa Claus rally. However, the ongoing bear market and geopolitical uncertainties pose significant challenges.

Ultimately, Bitcoin's performance during the Christmas season is contingent on a confluence of factors. While historical trends offer valuable insights, it is crucial to exercise caution and conduct thorough research before making any investment decisions.

bitcoin #Naija

@ 6389be64:ef439d32

Resilience is the ability to withstand shocks, adapt, and bounce back. It’s an essential quality in nature and in life. But what if we could take resilience a step further? What if, instead of merely surviving, a system could improve when faced with stress? This concept, known as anti-fragility, is not just theoretical—it’s practical. Combining two highly resilient natural tools, comfrey and biochar, reveals how we can create systems that thrive under pressure and grow stronger with each challenge.

Comfrey: Nature’s Champion of Resilience

Comfrey is a plant that refuses to fail. Once its deep roots take hold, it thrives in poor soils, withstands drought, and regenerates even after being cut down repeatedly. It’s a hardy survivor, but comfrey doesn’t just endure—it contributes. Known as a dynamic accumulator, it mines nutrients from deep within the earth and brings them to the surface, making them available for other plants.

Beyond its ecological role, comfrey has centuries of medicinal use, earning the nickname "knitbone." Its leaves can heal wounds and restore health, a perfect metaphor for resilience. But as impressive as comfrey is, its true potential is unlocked when paired with another resilient force: biochar.

Biochar: The Silent Powerhouse of Soil Regeneration

Biochar, a carbon-rich material made by burning organic matter in low-oxygen conditions, is a game-changer for soil health. Its unique porous structure retains water, holds nutrients, and provides a haven for beneficial microbes. Soil enriched with biochar becomes drought-resistant, nutrient-rich, and biologically active—qualities that scream resilience.

Historically, ancient civilizations in the Amazon used biochar to transform barren soils into fertile agricultural hubs. Known as terra preta, these soils remain productive centuries later, highlighting biochar’s remarkable staying power.

Yet, like comfrey, biochar’s potential is magnified when it’s part of a larger system.

The Synergy: Comfrey and Biochar Together

Resilience turns into anti-fragility when systems go beyond mere survival and start improving under stress. Combining comfrey and biochar achieves exactly that.

1. Nutrient Cycling and Retention\ Comfrey’s leaves, rich in nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, make an excellent mulch when cut and dropped onto the soil. However, these nutrients can wash away in heavy rains. Enter biochar. Its porous structure locks in the nutrients from comfrey, preventing runoff and keeping them available for plants. Together, they create a system that not only recycles nutrients but amplifies their effectiveness.

2. Water Management\ Biochar holds onto water making soil not just drought-resistant but actively water-efficient, improving over time with each rain and dry spell.

3. Microbial Ecosystems\ Comfrey enriches soil with organic matter, feeding microbial life. Biochar provides a home for these microbes, protecting them and creating a stable environment for them to multiply. Together, they build a thriving soil ecosystem that becomes more fertile and resilient with each passing season.

Resilient systems can withstand shocks, but anti-fragile systems actively use those shocks to grow stronger. Comfrey and biochar together form an anti-fragile system. Each addition of biochar enhances water and nutrient retention, while comfrey regenerates biomass and enriches the soil. Over time, the system becomes more productive, less dependent on external inputs, and better equipped to handle challenges.

This synergy demonstrates the power of designing systems that don’t just survive—they thrive.

Lessons Beyond the Soil

The partnership of comfrey and biochar offers a valuable lesson for our own lives. Resilience is an admirable trait, but anti-fragility takes us further. By combining complementary strengths and leveraging stress as an opportunity, we can create systems—whether in soil, business, or society—that improve under pressure.

Nature shows us that resilience isn’t the end goal. When we pair resilient tools like comfrey and biochar, we unlock a system that evolves, regenerates, and becomes anti-fragile. By designing with anti-fragility in mind, we don’t just bounce back, we bounce forward.

By designing with anti-fragility in mind, we don’t just bounce back, we bounce forward.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

The problem with ION

ION is a DID method based on a thing called "Sidetree".

I can't say for sure what is the problem with ION, because I don't understand the design, even though I have read all I could and asked everybody I knew. All available information only touches on the high-level aspects of it (and of course its amazing wonders) and no one has ever bothered to explain the details. I've also asked the main designer of the protocol, Daniel Buchner, but he may have thought I was trolling him on Twitter and refused to answer, instead pointing me to an incomplete spec on the Decentralized Identity Foundation website that I had already read before. I even tried to join the DIF as a member so I could join their closed community calls and hear what they say, maybe eventually ask a question, so I could understand it, but my entrance was ignored, then after many months and a nudge from another member I was told I had to do a KYC process to be admitted, which I refused.

One thing I know is:

• ION is supposed to provide a way to rotate keys seamlessly and automatically without losing the main identity (and the ION proponents also claim there are no "master" keys because these can also be rotated).
• ION is also not a blockchain, i.e. it doesn't have a deterministic consensus mechanism and it is decentralized, i.e. anyone can publish data to it, doesn't have to be a single central server, there may be holes in the available data and the protocol doesn't treat that as a problem.
• From all we know about years of attempts to scale Bitcoins and develop offchain protocols it is clear that you can't solve the double-spend problem without a central authority or a kind of blockchain (i.e. a decentralized system with deterministic consensus).
• Rotating keys also suffer from the double-spend problem: whenever you rotate a key it is as if it was "spent", you aren't supposed to be able to use it again.

The logic conclusion of the 4 assumptions above is that ION is flawed: it can't provide the key rotation it says it can if it is not a blockchain.

See also

• Excerpt of discussion about DIDs and ION

@ e6817453:b0ac3c39

I started a long series of articles about how to model different types of knowledge graphs in the relational model, which makes on-device memory models for AI agents possible.

We model-directed graphs

Also, graphs of entities

We even model hypergraphs

Last time, we discussed why classical triple and simple knowledge graphs are insufficient for AI agents and complex memory, especially in the domain of time-aware or multi-model knowledge.

So why do we need metagraphs, and what kind of challenge could they help us to solve?

• complex and nested event and temporal context and temporal relations as edges
• multi-mode and multilingual knowledge
• human-like memory for AI agents that has multiple contexts and relations between knowledge in neuron-like networks

MetaGraphs

A meta graph is a concept that extends the idea of a graph by allowing edges to become graphs. Meta Edges connect a set of nodes, which could also be subgraphs. So, at some level, node and edge are pretty similar in properties but act in different roles in a different context.
Also, in some cases, edges could be referenced as nodes.
This approach enables the representation of more complex relationships and hierarchies than a traditional graph structure allows. Let’s break down each term to understand better metagraphs and how they differ from hypergraphs and graphs.

Graph Basics

• A standard graph has a set of nodes (or vertices) and edges (connections between nodes).
• Edges are generally simple and typically represent a binary relationship between two nodes.
• For instance, an edge in a social network graph might indicate a “friend” relationship between two people (nodes).

Hypergraph

• A hypergraph extends the concept of an edge by allowing it to connect any number of nodes, not just two.
• Each connection, called a hyperedge, can link multiple nodes.
• This feature allows hypergraphs to model more complex relationships involving multiple entities simultaneously. For example, a hyperedge in a hypergraph could represent a project team, connecting all team members in a single relation.
• Despite its flexibility, a hypergraph doesn’t capture hierarchical or nested structures; it only generalizes the number of connections in an edge.

Metagraph

• A metagraph allows the edges to be graphs themselves. This means each edge can contain its own nodes and edges, creating nested, hierarchical structures.
• In a meta graph, an edge could represent a relationship defined by a graph. For instance, a meta graph could represent a network of organizations where each organization’s structure (departments and connections) is represented by its own internal graph and treated as an edge in the larger meta graph.
• This recursive structure allows metagraphs to model complex data with multiple layers of abstraction. They can capture multi-node relationships (as in hypergraphs) and detailed, structured information about each relationship.

Named Graphs and Graph of Graphs

As you can notice, the structure of a metagraph is quite complex and could be complex to model in relational and classical RDF setups. It could create a challenge of luck of tools and software solutions for your problem.
If you need to model nested graphs, you could use a much simpler model of Named graphs, which could take you quite far.

The concept of the named graph came from the RDF community, which needed to group some sets of triples. In this way, you form subgraphs inside an existing graph. You could refer to the subgraph as a regular node. This setup simplifies complex graphs, introduces hierarchies, and even adds features and properties of hypergraphs while keeping a directed nature.

It looks complex, but it is not so hard to model it with a slight modification of a directed graph.
So, the node could host graphs inside. Let's reflect this fact with a location for a node. If a node belongs to a main graph, we could set the location to null or introduce a main node . it is up to you

Nodes could have edges to nodes in different subgraphs. This structure allows any kind of nesting graphs. Edges stay location-free

Meta Graphs in Relational Model

Let’s try to make several attempts to model different meta-graphs with some constraints.

Directed Metagraph where edges are not used as nodes and could not contain subgraphs

In this case, the edge always points to two sets of nodes. This introduces an overhead of creating a node set for a single node. In this model, we can model empty node sets that could require application-level constraints to prevent such cases.

Directed Metagraph where edges are not used as nodes and could contain subgraphs

Adding a node set that could model a subgraph located in an edge is easy but could be separate from in-vertex or out-vert.
I also do not see a direct need to include subgraphs to a node, as we could just use a node set interchangeably, but it still could be a case.

Directed Metagraph where edges are used as nodes and could contain subgraphs

As you can notice, we operate all the time with node sets. We could simply allow the extension node set to elements set that include node and edge IDs, but in this case, we need to use uuid or any other strategy to differentiate node IDs from edge IDs. In this case, we have a collision of ephemeral edges or ephemeral nodes when we want to change the role and purpose of the node as an edge or vice versa.

A full-scale metagraph model is way too complex for a relational database.
So we need a better model.

Now, we have more flexibility but loose structural constraints. We cannot show that the element should have one vertex, one vertex, or both. This type of constraint has been moved to the application level. Also, the crucial question is about query and retrieval needs.
Any meta-graph model should be more focused on domain and needs and should be used in raw form. We did it for a pure theoretical purpose.

@ 592295cf:413a0db9

New things this week 04-11

Mutestr show 10000 events update link mutestr.com

Notice this "Convert electricity into read friendly nostr npub"

github link

A note from "Nostr Relay finder"

nostr:nevent1qqsy2x5q7aky9a75t67judgkwzavz49x6sfn96kr4xaa3zxd2sejskszyqll4saxepv7425vmhdjcuqz5msskvl0awfdqfd3f6kklz3dv4n9wqcyqqqqqqgppamhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5spnxjf

have you tried given the 30 most used relays, how many people I'm not reading, and if they cover outbox they don't have a list in 3, last time I checked 50% of those I follow had a 10002 kind event

Oh Omnivore did one thing, the usual thing about these products, beautiful but then I abandon you, people have to migrate to another platform that will continue.

Self-Hosted-List

Building the protocol or Building the social media. People are angry. Is it a dilemma?

My dream seemed real, a bus but it had a cabin for the driver fell into a ravine. A girl in the city was waiting for her parents to hug her, maybe they were on that bus, truck. On the pedonal strips, it looked like Tokyo. I'm watching too many videos from Japan. An Italian youtuber made a trip to Japan three months and every two three days there is a new video, and after the algorithm selects other similar ones. It's very difficult to tell the algorithm now I don't want to see this kind of video anymore, but maybe you can do an algorithm prompt based on your considerations, Topics, video numbers, news, news, topicality. I think the artificial intelligence used so makes sense, will or is already a pay feature, the algorithm chosen by you to be 100% addicted.

New grants from Opensats, formstr totally deserve, Is a rock, keep fighting 🤞

So in yakihonne mobile if you look at the comments you long press button and show the comment, i found the comment of the captain🧢 mini app

Reminder don't open in meantime Yakihonne and 0xchat will be join in yakichat

A new AI Nostr App, short video mini app, animalsunset

New kind of project link a note

The new version of rust-nostr came out. I only updated last week... Says that the 37 will also be pretty tough. This morning I was able to do the easiest thing in the world that in theory seemed very difficult, list[::-1] reverse the order, so I can create text as if it were a chat.

You can edit in next.nostrudel and show only the corrections in the main site Nostrudel. No one seems to know, much they claim to use Nostrudel, maybe it's just a trend.

Nostr is not for your enemy, because you can close your Relay.

If you don't want a feature in Nostr is very simple there is a version that you're discussing write two more, sorry Fiatjaf if you came to mind, but who knows? 😂 Edit mode. One thing that clients can do and show you that that post has been modified, increasing a kind search I do not think that the weight less than hell-thread-edit changes means mind, but maybe Utxo can do a Relay with the best editing on Nostr ..

1010 Reasons to Kill Nostr:

1. Trump wins
2. There are no communists on Nostr, so less clash.
3. Elon Musk won the election
4. All clients are becoming Nip-29 client and all new projects are Nip-29 client
5. There is only one NPs see previous note
6. Maybe users on Nostr break spaghetti 😉
7. There is no good client for Desktop
8. There is no good client for IOS
9. There is no good client for Android
10. There is no good client for Linux

This is a cool thing of the week nostr:note1afvdt55s0q3w63ky79ggsz2ljd5ktjsyx3ma4y89nnvnqwdzrktstqqykl

Oh, when you onboard someone to Bitcoin, you suggest a wallet, when you onboard someone to Nostr, you suggest a wallet… No lie, noticed. 😕 The problem is that a different social system, because maybe there's what's on Twitter, what's not on social media, various types of interaction with people. While in the end Bitcoin is a usually binary choice, fiat not fiat. Nostr is a fluid choice...

When you weren't accidentally tagged into hell-thread, that means you're doing things right. Of racing if you're finished in one of these I'm close to you, but I've got a little bit of pain for you.

Only Nip29 need to be entireperability, but if it was done by Pablo and Fiatjaf will surely be of that vision. Verbiricha created a new client, another received funds from Opensats, Flotilla and another iOS whose name I do not remember. ("Seer") You can additional 3 or 4 clients that support it, 0xchat, highlighter, nostrmo

Fiatjaf post on edit too late. Annotations are good but do not have the same appeal. You can snap now, so there's no problem.

@ e6817453:b0ac3c39

Hey folks! Today, let’s dive into the intriguing world of neurosymbolic approaches, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and personal knowledge graphs (PKGs). Together, these concepts hold much potential for bringing true reasoning capabilities to large language models (LLMs). So, let’s break down how symbolic logic, knowledge graphs, and modern AI can come together to empower future AI systems to reason like humans.

The Neurosymbolic Approach: What It Means ?

Neurosymbolic AI combines two historically separate streams of artificial intelligence: symbolic reasoning and neural networks. Symbolic AI uses formal logic to process knowledge, similar to how we might solve problems or deduce information. On the other hand, neural networks, like those underlying GPT-4, focus on learning patterns from vast amounts of data — they are probabilistic statistical models that excel in generating human-like language and recognizing patterns but often lack deep, explicit reasoning.

While GPT-4 can produce impressive text, it’s still not very effective at reasoning in a truly logical way. Its foundation, transformers, allows it to excel in pattern recognition, but the models struggle with reasoning because, at their core, they rely on statistical probabilities rather than true symbolic logic. This is where neurosymbolic methods and knowledge graphs come in.

Symbolic Calculations and the Early Vision of AI

If we take a step back to the 1950s, the vision for artificial intelligence was very different. Early AI research was all about symbolic reasoning — where computers could perform logical calculations to derive new knowledge from a given set of rules and facts. Languages like Lisp emerged to support this vision, enabling programs to represent data and code as interchangeable symbols. Lisp was designed to be homoiconic, meaning it treated code as manipulatable data, making it capable of self-modification — a huge leap towards AI systems that could, in theory, understand and modify their own operations.

Lisp: The Earlier AI-Language

Lisp, short for “LISt Processor,” was developed by John McCarthy in 1958, and it became the cornerstone of early AI research. Lisp’s power lay in its flexibility and its use of symbolic expressions, which allowed developers to create programs that could manipulate symbols in ways that were very close to human reasoning. One of the most groundbreaking features of Lisp was its ability to treat code as data, known as homoiconicity, which meant that Lisp programs could introspect and transform themselves dynamically. This ability to adapt and modify its own structure gave Lisp an edge in tasks that required a form of self-awareness, which was key in the early days of AI when researchers were exploring what it meant for machines to “think.”

Lisp was not just a programming language—it represented the vision for artificial intelligence, where machines could evolve their understanding and rewrite their own programming. This idea formed the conceptual basis for many of the self-modifying and adaptive algorithms that are still explored today in AI research. Despite its decline in mainstream programming, Lisp’s influence can still be seen in the concepts used in modern machine learning and symbolic AI approaches.

Prolog: Formal Logic and Deductive Reasoning

In the 1970s, Prolog was developed—a language focused on formal logic and deductive reasoning. Unlike Lisp, based on lambda calculus, Prolog operates on formal logic rules, allowing it to perform deductive reasoning and solve logical puzzles. This made Prolog an ideal candidate for expert systems that needed to follow a sequence of logical steps, such as medical diagnostics or strategic planning.

Prolog, like Lisp, allowed symbols to be represented, understood, and used in calculations, creating another homoiconic language that allows reasoning. Prolog’s strength lies in its rule-based structure, which is well-suited for tasks that require logical inference and backtracking. These features made it a powerful tool for expert systems and AI research in the 1970s and 1980s.

The language is declarative in nature, meaning that you define the problem, and Prolog figures out how to solve it. By using formal logic and setting constraints, Prolog systems can derive conclusions from known facts, making it highly effective in fields requiring explicit logical frameworks, such as legal reasoning, diagnostics, and natural language understanding. These symbolic approaches were later overshadowed during the AI winter — but the ideas never really disappeared. They just evolved.

Solvers and Their Role in Complementing LLMs

One of the most powerful features of Prolog and similar logic-based systems is their use of solvers. Solvers are mechanisms that can take a set of rules and constraints and automatically find solutions that satisfy these conditions. This capability is incredibly useful when combined with LLMs, which excel at generating human-like language but need help with logical consistency and structured reasoning.

For instance, imagine a scenario where an LLM needs to answer a question involving multiple logical steps or a complex query that requires deducing facts from various pieces of information. In this case, a solver can derive valid conclusions based on a given set of logical rules, providing structured answers that the LLM can then articulate in natural language. This allows the LLM to retrieve information and ensure the logical integrity of its responses, leading to much more robust answers.

Solvers are also ideal for handling constraint satisfaction problems — situations where multiple conditions must be met simultaneously. In practical applications, this could include scheduling tasks, generating optimal recommendations, or even diagnosing issues where a set of symptoms must match possible diagnoses. Prolog’s solver capabilities and LLM’s natural language processing power can make these systems highly effective at providing intelligent, rule-compliant responses that traditional LLMs would struggle to produce alone.

By integrating neurosymbolic methods that utilize solvers, we can provide LLMs with a form of deductive reasoning that is missing from pure deep-learning approaches. This combination has the potential to significantly improve the quality of outputs for use-cases that require explicit, structured problem-solving, from legal queries to scientific research and beyond. Solvers give LLMs the backbone they need to not just generate answers but to do so in a way that respects logical rigor and complex constraints.

Graph of Rules for Enhanced Reasoning

Another powerful concept that complements LLMs is using a graph of rules. A graph of rules is essentially a structured collection of logical rules that interconnect in a network-like structure, defining how various entities and their relationships interact. This structured network allows for complex reasoning and information retrieval, as well as the ability to model intricate relationships between different pieces of knowledge.

In a graph of rules, each node represents a rule, and the edges define relationships between those rules — such as dependencies or causal links. This structure can be used to enhance LLM capabilities by providing them with a formal set of rules and relationships to follow, which improves logical consistency and reasoning depth. When an LLM encounters a problem or a question that requires multiple logical steps, it can traverse this graph of rules to generate an answer that is not only linguistically fluent but also logically robust.

For example, in a healthcare application, a graph of rules might include nodes for medical symptoms, possible diagnoses, and recommended treatments. When an LLM receives a query regarding a patient’s symptoms, it can use the graph to traverse from symptoms to potential diagnoses and then to treatment options, ensuring that the response is coherent and medically sound. The graph of rules guides reasoning, enabling LLMs to handle complex, multi-step questions that involve chains of reasoning, rather than merely generating surface-level responses.

Graphs of rules also enable modular reasoning, where different sets of rules can be activated based on the context or the type of question being asked. This modularity is crucial for creating adaptive AI systems that can apply specific sets of logical frameworks to distinct problem domains, thereby greatly enhancing their versatility. The combination of neural fluency with rule-based structure gives LLMs the ability to conduct more advanced reasoning, ultimately making them more reliable and effective in domains where accuracy and logical consistency are critical.

By implementing a graph of rules, LLMs are empowered to perform deductive reasoning alongside their generative capabilities, creating responses that are not only compelling but also logically aligned with the structured knowledge available in the system. This further enhances their potential applications in fields such as law, engineering, finance, and scientific research — domains where logical consistency is as important as linguistic coherence.

Enhancing LLMs with Symbolic Reasoning

Now, with LLMs like GPT-4 being mainstream, there is an emerging need to add real reasoning capabilities to them. This is where neurosymbolic approaches shine. Instead of pitting neural networks against symbolic reasoning, these methods combine the best of both worlds. The neural aspect provides language fluency and recognition of complex patterns, while the symbolic side offers real reasoning power through formal logic and rule-based frameworks.

Personal Knowledge Graphs (PKGs) come into play here as well. Knowledge graphs are data structures that encode entities and their relationships — they’re essentially semantic networks that allow for structured information retrieval. When integrated with neurosymbolic approaches, LLMs can use these graphs to answer questions in a far more contextual and precise way. By retrieving relevant information from a knowledge graph, they can ground their responses in well-defined relationships, thus improving both the relevance and the logical consistency of their answers.

Imagine combining an LLM with a graph of rules that allow it to reason through the relationships encoded in a personal knowledge graph. This could involve using deductive databases to form a sophisticated way to represent and reason with symbolic data — essentially constructing a powerful hybrid system that uses LLM capabilities for language fluency and rule-based logic for structured problem-solving.

My Research on Deductive Databases and Knowledge Graphs

I recently did some research on modeling knowledge graphs using deductive databases, such as DataLog — which can be thought of as a limited, data-oriented version of Prolog. What I’ve found is that it’s possible to use formal logic to model knowledge graphs, ontologies, and complex relationships elegantly as rules in a deductive system. Unlike classical RDF or traditional ontology-based models, which sometimes struggle with complex or evolving relationships, a deductive approach is more flexible and can easily support dynamic rules and reasoning.

Prolog and similar logic-driven frameworks can complement LLMs by handling the parts of reasoning where explicit rule-following is required. LLMs can benefit from these rule-based systems for tasks like entity recognition, logical inferences, and constructing or traversing knowledge graphs. We can even create a graph of rules that governs how relationships are formed or how logical deductions can be performed.

The future is really about creating an AI that is capable of both deep contextual understanding (using the powerful generative capacity of LLMs) and true reasoning (through symbolic systems and knowledge graphs). With the neurosymbolic approach, these AIs could be equipped not just to generate information but to explain their reasoning, form logical conclusions, and even improve their own understanding over time — getting us a step closer to true artificial general intelligence.

Why It Matters for LLM Employment

Using neurosymbolic RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) in conjunction with personal knowledge graphs could revolutionize how LLMs work in real-world applications. Imagine an LLM that understands not just language but also the relationships between different concepts — one that can navigate, reason, and explain complex knowledge domains by actively engaging with a personalized set of facts and rules.

This could lead to practical applications in areas like healthcare, finance, legal reasoning, or even personal productivity — where LLMs can help users solve complex problems logically, providing relevant information and well-justified reasoning paths. The combination of neural fluency with symbolic accuracy and deductive power is precisely the bridge we need to move beyond purely predictive AI to truly intelligent systems.

Let's explore these ideas further if you’re as fascinated by this as I am. Feel free to reach out, follow my YouTube channel, or check out some articles I’ll link below. And if you’re working on anything in this field, I’d love to collaborate!

Until next time, folks. Stay curious, and keep pushing the boundaries of AI!

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

lnurl-auth explained

You may have seen the lnurl-auth spec or heard about it, but might not know how it works or what is its relationship with other lnurl protocols. This document attempts to solve that.

Relationship between lnurl-auth and other lnurl protocols

First, what is the relationship of lnurl-auth with other lnurl protocols? The answer is none, except the fact that they all share the lnurl format for specifying https URLs.

In fact, lnurl-auth is very unique in the sense that it doesn't even need a Lightning wallet to work, it is a standalone authentication protocol that can work anywhere.

How does it work

Now, how does it work? The basic idea is that each wallet has a seed, which is a random value (you may think of the BIP39 seed words, for example). Usually from that seed different keys are derived, each of these yielding a Bitcoin address, and also from that same seed may come the keys used to generate and manage Lightning channels.

What lnurl-auth does is to generate a new key from that seed, and from that a new key for each service (identified by its domain) you try to authenticate with.

That way, you effectively have a new identity for each website. Two different services cannot associate your identities.

The flow goes like this: When you visit a website, the website presents you with a QR code containing a callback URL and a challenge. The challenge should be a random value.

When your wallet scans or opens that QR code it uses the domain in the callback URL plus the main lnurl-auth key to derive a key specific for that website, uses that key to sign the challenge and then sends both the public key specific for that for that website plus the signed challenge to the specified URL.

When the service receives the public key it checks it against the challenge signature and start a session for that user. The user is then identified only by its public key. If the service wants it can, of course, request more details from the user, associate it with an internal id or username, it is free to do anything. lnurl-auth's goals end here: no passwords, maximum possible privacy.

FAQ

• What is the advantage of tying this to Bitcoin and Lightning?

  One big advantage is that your wallet is already keeping track of one seed, it is already a precious thing. If you had to keep track of a separate auth seed it would be arguably worse, more difficult to bootstrap the protocol, and arguably one of the reasons similar protocols, past and present, weren't successful.

• Just signing in to websites? What else is this good for?

  No, it can be used for authenticating to installable apps and physical places, as long as there is a service running an HTTP server somewhere to read the signature sent from the wallet. But yes, signing in to websites is the main problem to solve here.

• Phishing attack! Can a malicious website proxy the QR from a third website and show it to the user to it will steal the signature and be able to login on the third website?

  No, because the wallet will only talk to the the callback URL, and it will either be controlled by the third website, so the malicious won't see anything; or it will have a different domain, so the wallet will derive a different key and frustrate the malicious website's plan.

• I heard SQRL had that same idea and it went nowhere.

  Indeed. SQRL in its first version was basically the same thing as lnurl-auth, with one big difference: it was vulnerable to phishing attacks (see above). That was basically the only criticism it got everywhere, so the protocol creators decided to solve that by introducing complexity to the protocol. While they were at it they decided to add more complexity for managing accounts and so many more crap that in the the spec which initially was a single page ended up becoming 136 pages of highly technical gibberish. Then all the initial network effect it had, libraries and apps were trashed and nowadays no one can do anything with it (but, see, there are still people who love the protocol writing in a 90's forum with no clue of anything besides their own Java).

• We don't need this, we need WebAuthn!

  WebAuthn is essentially the same thing as lnurl-auth, but instead of being simple it is complex, instead of being open and decentralized it is centralized in big corporations, and instead of relying on a key generated by your own device it requires an expensive hardware HSM you must buy and trust the manufacturer. If you like WebAuthn and you like Bitcoin you should like lnurl-auth much more.

• What about BitID?

  This is another one that is very similar to lnurl-auth, but without the anti-phishing prevention and extra privacy given by making one different key for each service.

• What about LSAT?

  It doesn't compete with lnurl-auth. LSAT, as far as I understand it, is for when you're buying individual resources from a server, not authenticating as a user. Of course, LSAT can be repurposed as a general authentication tool, but then it will lack features that lnurl-auth has, like the property of having keys generated independently by the user from a common seed and a standard way of passing authentication info from one medium to another (like signing in to a website at the desktop from the mobile phone, for example).

@ 7d3e7ac0:90e6f183

Read the paper.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

A Causa

o Princípios de Economia Política de Menger é o único livro que enfatiza a CAUSA o tempo todo. os cientistas todos parecem não saber, ou se esquecer sempre, que as coisas têm causa, e que o conhecimento verdadeiro é o conhecimento da causa das coisas.

a causa é uma categoria metafísica muito superior a qualquer correlação ou resultado de teste de hipótese, ela não pode ser descoberta por nenhum artifício econométrico ou reduzida à simples antecedência temporal estatística. a causa dos fenômenos não pode ser provada cientificamente, mas pode ser conhecida.

o livro de Menger conta para o leitor as causas de vários fenômenos econômicos e as interliga de forma que o mundo caótico da economia parece adquirir uma ordem no momento em que você lê. é uma sensação mágica e indescritível.

quando eu te o recomendei, queria é te imbuir com o espírito da busca pela causa das coisas. depois de ler aquilo, você está apto a perceber continuidade causal nos fenômenos mais complexos da economia atual, enxergar as causas entre toda a ação governamental e as suas várias consequências na vida humana. eu faço isso todos os dias e é a melhor sensação do mundo quando o caos das notícias do caderno de Economia do jornal -- que para o próprio jornalista que as escreveu não têm nenhum sentido (tanto é que ele escreve tudo errado) -- se incluem num sistema ordenado de causas e consequências.

provavelmente eu sempre erro em alguns ou vários pontos, mas ainda assim é maravilhoso. ou então é mais maravilhoso ainda quando eu descubro o erro e reinsiro o acerto naquela racionalização bela da ordem do mundo econômico que é a ordem de Deus.

em scrap para T.P.

@ e6817453:b0ac3c39

Introduction: Personal Knowledge Graphs and Linked Data

We will explore the world of personal knowledge graphs and discuss how they can be used to model complex information structures. Personal knowledge graphs aren’t just abstract collections of nodes and edges—they encode meaningful relationships, contextualizing data in ways that enrich our understanding of it. While the core structure might be a directed graph, we layer semantic meaning on top, enabling nuanced connections between data points.

The origin of knowledge graphs is deeply tied to concepts from linked data and the semantic web, ideas that emerged to better link scattered pieces of information across the web. This approach created an infrastructure where data islands could connect — facilitating everything from more insightful AI to improved personal data management.

In this article, we will explore how these ideas have evolved into tools for modeling AI’s semantic memory and look at how knowledge graphs can serve as a flexible foundation for encoding rich data contexts. We’ll specifically discuss three major paradigms: RDF (Resource Description Framework), property graphs, and a third way of modeling entities as graphs of graphs. Let’s get started.

Intro to RDF

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) has been one of the fundamental standards for linked data and knowledge graphs. RDF allows data to be modeled as triples: subject, predicate, and object. Essentially, you can think of it as a structured way to describe relationships: “X has a Y called Z.” For instance, “Berlin has a population of 3.5 million.” This modeling approach is quite flexible because RDF uses unique identifiers — usually URIs — to point to data entities, making linking straightforward and coherent.

RDFS, or RDF Schema, extends RDF to provide a basic vocabulary to structure the data even more. This lets us describe not only individual nodes but also relationships among types of data entities, like defining a class hierarchy or setting properties. For example, you could say that “Berlin” is an instance of a “City” and that cities are types of “Geographical Entities.” This kind of organization helps establish semantic meaning within the graph.

RDF and Advanced Topics

Lists and Sets in RDF

RDF also provides tools to model more complex data structures such as lists and sets, enabling the grouping of nodes. This extension makes it easier to model more natural, human-like knowledge, for example, describing attributes of an entity that may have multiple values. By adding RDF Schema and OWL (Web Ontology Language), you gain even more expressive power — being able to define logical rules or even derive new relationships from existing data.

Graph of Graphs

A significant feature of RDF is the ability to form complex nested structures, often referred to as graphs of graphs. This allows you to create “named graphs,” essentially subgraphs that can be independently referenced. For example, you could create a named graph for a particular dataset describing Berlin and another for a different geographical area. Then, you could connect them, allowing for more modular and reusable knowledge modeling.

Property Graphs

While RDF provides a robust framework, it’s not always the easiest to work with due to its heavy reliance on linking everything explicitly. This is where property graphs come into play. Property graphs are less focused on linking everything through triples and allow more expressive properties directly within nodes and edges.

For example, instead of using triples to represent each detail, a property graph might let you store all properties about an entity (e.g., “Berlin”) directly in a single node. This makes property graphs more intuitive for many developers and engineers because they more closely resemble object-oriented structures: you have entities (nodes) that possess attributes (properties) and are connected to other entities through relationships (edges).

The significant benefit here is a condensed representation, which speeds up traversal and queries in some scenarios. However, this also introduces a trade-off: while property graphs are more straightforward to query and maintain, they lack some complex relationship modeling features RDF offers, particularly when connecting properties to each other.

Graph of Graphs and Subgraphs for Entity Modeling

A third approach — which takes elements from RDF and property graphs — involves modeling entities using subgraphs or nested graphs. In this model, each entity can be represented as a graph. This allows for a detailed and flexible description of attributes without exploding every detail into individual triples or lump them all together into properties.

For instance, consider a person entity with a complex employment history. Instead of representing every employment detail in one node (as in a property graph), or as several linked nodes (as in RDF), you can treat the employment history as a subgraph. This subgraph could then contain nodes for different jobs, each linked with specific properties and connections. This approach keeps the complexity where it belongs and provides better flexibility when new attributes or entities need to be added.

Hypergraphs and Metagraphs

When discussing more advanced forms of graphs, we encounter hypergraphs and metagraphs. These take the idea of relationships to a new level. A hypergraph allows an edge to connect more than two nodes, which is extremely useful when modeling scenarios where relationships aren’t just pairwise. For example, a “Project” could connect multiple “People,” “Resources,” and “Outcomes,” all in a single edge. This way, hypergraphs help in reducing the complexity of modeling high-order relationships.

Metagraphs, on the other hand, enable nodes and edges to themselves be represented as graphs. This is an extremely powerful feature when we consider the needs of artificial intelligence, as it allows for the modeling of relationships between relationships, an essential aspect for any system that needs to capture not just facts, but their interdependencies and contexts.

Balancing Structure and Properties

One of the recurring challenges when modeling knowledge is finding the balance between structure and properties. With RDF, you get high flexibility and standardization, but complexity can quickly escalate as you decompose everything into triples. Property graphs simplify the representation by using attributes but lose out on the depth of connection modeling. Meanwhile, the graph-of-graphs approach and hypergraphs offer advanced modeling capabilities at the cost of increased computational complexity.

So, how do you decide which model to use? It comes down to your use case. RDF and nested graphs are strong contenders if you need deep linkage and are working with highly variable data. For more straightforward, engineer-friendly modeling, property graphs shine. And when dealing with very complex multi-way relationships or meta-level knowledge, hypergraphs and metagraphs provide the necessary tools.

The key takeaway is that only some approaches are perfect. Instead, it’s all about the modeling goals: how do you want to query the graph, what relationships are meaningful, and how much complexity are you willing to manage?

Conclusion

Modeling AI semantic memory using knowledge graphs is a challenging but rewarding process. The different approaches — RDF, property graphs, and advanced graph modeling techniques like nested graphs and hypergraphs — each offer unique strengths and weaknesses. Whether you are building a personal knowledge graph or scaling up to AI that integrates multiple streams of linked data, it’s essential to understand the trade-offs each approach brings.

In the end, the choice of representation comes down to the nature of your data and your specific needs for querying and maintaining semantic relationships. The world of knowledge graphs is vast, with many tools and frameworks to explore. Stay connected and keep experimenting to find the balance that works for your projects.

@ 88cc134b:5ae99079

Hello 1

Hello 2

Hello 3

Hello 4

Hello 5

Hello 6

This is a test by nostr:npub13rxpxjc6vh65aay2eswlxejsv0f7530sf64c4arydetpckhfjpustsjeaf that is testing various interoperability of the markdown rendering and NOSTR specific synatx, just to make sure they play nice.

nostr:npub13rxpxjc6vh65aay2eswlxejsv0f7530sf64c4arydetpckhfjpustsjeaf

npub13rxpxjc6vh65aay2eswlxejsv0f7530sf64c4arydetpckhfjpustsjeaf

nostr:npub13rxpxjc6vh65aay2eswlxejsv0f7530sf64c4arydetpckhfjpustsjeaf

here is a link to somewhere so as to see how it would render and here it is bare-bone https://duckduckgo.com/ just to make sure it is nicely parsed.

here is a mention of another article nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpzxvzd935e04fm6g4nqa7dn9qc7nafzlqn4t3t6xgmjkr3dwnyreqqxnzde38qmnsdfk8qmrqwp405km0k and here is a short note: nostr:note1vnqnwzjllzxxufg5e9thz2xspetlplsjq0cn570jswujnmynxjnqmea576

and another one: nostr:note1kyrnyan4hfpn978akv2eqsv8r7rlplaq4j65uxlk3hz5ujk7ehzshwtfmd

and one more foe good mesure: nostr:note1dyrd05nt0tapgye3xn4nssfdasskfr3dm2yqz8e8vdtslpgw3ypsa8e7fh

one like this: note1dyrd05nt0tapgye3xn4nssfdasskfr3dm2yqz8e8vdtslpgw3ypsa8e7fh

here is an event: nostr:nevent1qqsg39vpzl4dz8kwnaerheuavgtqgg6exc4caz8argh6p6jqg549ppqprdmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuam9wd6x2unwvf6xxtnrdakj7hknh7l

Images

and here is one in the middle of the text that continues right after. Just to see how this will render

Some markdown stuff

Emphasis

This is bold text

This is bold text

This is italic text

This is italic text

~~Strikethrough~~

Blockquotes

Blockquotes can also be nested...

...by using additional greater-than signs right next to each other...

...or with spaces between arrows.

Lists

Unordered

• Create a list by starting a line with +, -, or *
• Sub-lists are made by indenting 2 spaces:
• Marker character change forces new list start:
  • Ac tristique libero volutpat at
  • Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet
  • Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
• Very easy!

Ordered

1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
2. Consectetur adipiscing elit

3. Integer molestie lorem at massa

4. You can use sequential numbers...

5. ...or keep all the numbers as 1.

Start numbering with offset:

1. foo
2. bar

Code

Inline code

Indented code

// Some comments
line 1 of code
line 2 of code
line 3 of code

Block code "fences"

Sample text here...

Syntax highlighting

js var foo = function (bar) { return bar++; }; var veryVeryVeryLongVariableNameWithALongValueAsWell = 123456789012345678901234567890; console.log(foo(5));

Tables

| Option | Description | | ------ | ----------- | | data | path to data files to supply the data that will be passed into templates. | | engine | engine to be used for processing templates. Handlebars is the default. | | ext | extension to be used for dest files. |

Right aligned columns

| Option | Description | | ------:| -----------:| | data | path to data files to supply the data that will be passed into templates. | | engine | engine to be used for processing templates. Handlebars is the default. | | ext | extension to be used for dest files. |

[Footnotes]

Footnote 1 link[^first].

Footnote 2 link[^second].

Duplicated footnote reference[^second].

[^first]: Footnote can have markup

and multiple paragraphs.

[^second]: Footnote text.

@ 188302bb:9052db11

I took a brief look and saw it was only used to buy drugs. I didn't have a use for that so I dismissed it. Around 2012 I started buying once I understood the implications. Had i known earlier I'd be a billlioinaire today.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/824601

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Who will build the roads?

Who will build the roads? Em Lagoa Santa, as mais novas e melhores ruas -- que na verdade acabam por formar enormes teias de bairros que se interligam -- são construídas pelos loteadores que querem as ruas para que seus lotes valham mais -- e querem que outras pessoas usem as ruas também. Também são esses mesmos loteadores que colocam os postes de luz e os encanamentos de água, não sem antes terem que se submeter a extorsões de praxe praticadas por COPASA e CEMIG.

Se ao abrir um loteamento, condomínio, prédio um indivíduo ou uma empresa consegue sem muito problema passar rua, eletricidade, água e esgoto, por que não seria possível existir livre-concorrência nesses mercados? Mesmo aquela velha estória de que é ineficiente passar cabos de luz duplicados para que companhias elétricas possam competir já me parece bobagem.

@ ee90543f:9363457f

В Москве стартовало тестирование амбициозного проекта "Умные улицы", который обещает значительно изменить облик городской инфраструктуры и повысить качество жизни москвичей. Согласно объявлению мэра Москвы Анны Морозовой, проект включает в себя внедрение технологий автономного транспорта и установку интерактивных кабин, которые будут предоставлять жителям и туристам актуальную информацию об окружающей среде и предлагаемых услугах.

Система "Умные улицы" предполагает использование беспилотных автомобилей, которые смогут взаимодействовать с городской инфраструктурой и обеспечивать более безопасное и эффективное движение. Автономные транспортные средства будут оснащены передовыми датчиками и алгоритмами, что позволит им адаптироваться к изменяющимся условиям дорожной ситуации в реальном времени.

В рамках проекта на нескольких ключевых улицах Москвы также будут установлены интерактивные информационные кабинеты, которые будут доступны круглосуточно. Эти кабинеты предложат жителям разнообразные услуги: от получения информации о расписании общественного транспорта и ближайших культурных событиях до возможности заказа такси или проверки состояния здоровья с помощью встроенных медицинских датчиков.

"Проект 'Умные улицы' является важным шагом к созданию более безопасной и удобной городской среды для всех москвичей. Мы стремимся использовать современные технологии таким образом, чтобы они помогали жителям и улучшали повседневную жизнь," — отметила Анна Морозова, представляя инициативу на пресс-конференции.

Тестирование интеллектуальной транспортной системы уже начнется в этом месяце, и в его рамках будет проделана работа по сбору данных о маршрутах автономных машин, а также оценке удобства взаимодействия пользователей с интерактивными кабинетами.

Ожидается, что проект "Умные улицы" поможет снизить количество дорожных происшествий, улучшит регулирование транспортных потоков и обеспечит более быстрый доступ к информации для городских жителей. В дальнейшем планируется расширить программу на другие районы столицы, а также интегрировать её с международными стандарты умных городов.

Москва уверенно движется к статусу одного из ведущих городов мира в области внедрения умных технологий, и запуск "Умных улиц" — это еще один шаг навстречу будущему, в котором технологии служат людям.

@ 7d3e7ac0:90e6f183

Read the paper.

@ ee90543f:9363457f

В Москве состоялось официальное открытие первого в мире интернет-музея, который предлагает пользователям уникальную возможность погрузиться в богатство искусства и истории, не выходя из дома. Открытие этого инновационного проекта стало значимым событием в культурной жизни города и привлекло внимание международной общественности.

Интернет-музей, запущенный при поддержке Министерства культуры России и ведущих технических компаний, представляет собой виртуальную платформу, где пользователи могут исследовать экспонаты, объекты искусства и исторические артефакты с помощью технологий дополненной и виртуальной реальности. Посетители могут не только просматривать коллекции, но и взаимодействовать с ними, участвовать в мастер-классах и экскурсиях, проводимых известными искусствоведами и кураторами.

Необычная концепция музея позволяет устраивать выставки, приуроченные к различным культурным событиям и памятным датам — от выставок современных художников до исторических артефактов. Один из элементов, ставших возможными благодаря новым технологиям, — создание мультимедийных инсталляций, в которых зрители могут «перемещаться» внутри произведений искусства.

Градоначальник Москвы, Анна Морозова, на церемонии открытия выразила гордость за этот проект: "Москва всегда была культурным центром, и мы рады, что теперь можем предложить доступ к нашим богатым традициям и инновациям всему миру. Интернет-музей станет местом встречи для любителей искусства из разных стран и обеспечит новые способы взаимодействия с культурным наследием."

Платформа уже привлекла более 300,000 зарегистрированных пользователей за первые две недели после своего запуска, и ожидается, что это число будет расти. Кроме того, интернет-музей предоставляет возможности для образовательных программ и совместных проектов с учебными заведениями, что способствует повышению интереса к истории и культуре среди молодежи.

С открытием этого уникального учреждение Москва подтверждает свой статус не только как культурной столицы России, но и как флагмана в глобальных инновациях в области искусства и технологий.

@ 7d3e7ac0:90e6f183

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Why IPFS cannot work, again

Imagine someone comes up with a solution for P2P content-addressed data-sharing that involves storing all the files' contents in all computers of the network. That wouldn't work, right? Too much data, if you think this can work then you're a BSV enthusiast.

Then someone comes up with the idea of not storing everything in all computers, but only some things on some computers, based on some algorithm to determine what data a node would store given its pubkey or something like that. Still wouldn't work, right? Still too much data no matter how much you spread it, but mostly incentives not aligned, would implode in the first day.

Now imagine someone says they will do the same thing, but instead of storing the full contents each node would only store a pointer to where each data is actually available. Does that make it better? Hardly so. Still, you're just moving the problem.

This is IPFS.

Now you have less data on each computer, but on a global scale that is still a lot of data.

No incentives.

And now you have the problem of finding the data. First if you have some data you want the world to access you have to broadcast information about that, flooding the network -- and everybody has to keep doing this continuously for every single file (or shard of file) that is available.

And then whenever someone wants some data they must find the people who know about that, which means they will flood the network with requests that get passed from peer to peer until they get to the correct peer.

The more you force each peer to store the worse it becomes to run a node and to store data on behalf of others -- but the less your force each peer to store the more flooding you'll have on the global network, and the slower will be for anyone to actually get any file.

---

But if everybody just saves everything to Infura or Cloudflare then it works, magic decentralized technology.

Related

• How IPFS is broken

@ 7d3e7ac0:90e6f183

@ 79a7270b:d61d9067

Fifteen years after its creation, Bitcoin continues to break paradigms and solidify its role in the global economic landscape. In 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender, marking a significant turning point. Three years later, its acceptance has advanced considerably, with Wall Street embracing Bitcoin ETFs and U.S. political debates focusing on its adoption as a strategic reserve.

With its portability, scarcity, accessibility, and liquidity in a 24/7 open market, Bitcoin distinguishes itself as an asset that transcends the limitations of traditional resources like gold and oil. Unlike these assets, which often face logistical challenges and market constraints, Bitcoin’s digital nature allows for seamless global transactions without physical barriers. Its scarcity mirrors that of gold, preserving its value over time, while its accessibility and round-the-clock liquidity make it an appealing choice for investors and policymakers alike. This unique combination of attributes positions Bitcoin as a versatile and strategic tool, increasingly relevant to advancing national interests in a rapidly digitizing world.

The expansion of the BRICS block, whose combined GDP now surpasses that of the G7, has heightened pressures on Western hegemony. These countries are exploring Bitcoin as a neutral and government-independent currency. They are considering denominating international transactions in Bitcoin as part of their broader goal: to create a de-dollarized, independent financial system resilient to Western-imposed sanctions.

Game theory sheds light on how Bitcoin adoption creates powerful incentives for nations. If the BRICS use Bitcoin as a strategic asset, Western nations would be compelled to accumulate it to influence the market and counteract sanctions circumvention, making Bitcoin critical for national security. In a scenario where major powers hold Bitcoin, it would be unfeasible to remain competitive without it.

This logic extends to Bitcoin mining, the process that validates transactions. By deciding what is confirmed, nations dominating mining operations gain significant influence over transaction flows. Consequently, Bitcoin-accumulating countries will prioritize investing in domestic mining infrastructure, enhancing the network's decentralization and security. For instance, Russia reportedly funds regional initiatives to develop AI and Bitcoin mining infrastructure within the BRICS framework through its Sovereign Wealth Fund.

This dynamic triggers a chain reaction: as one nation adopts Bitcoin, others are pressured to follow suit to avoid competitive disadvantages. This cycle embodies the essence of game theory, where each player's choices shape the strategies of others, positioning Bitcoin as a critical asset in the global geopolitical arena.

@ e6817453:b0ac3c39

The temporal semantics and temporal and time-aware knowledge graphs. We have different memory models for artificial intelligence agents. We all try to mimic somehow how the brain works, or at least how the declarative memory of the brain works. We have the split of episodic memory and semantic memory. And we also have a lot of theories, right?

Declarative Memory of the Human Brain

How is the semantic memory formed? We all know that our brain stores semantic memory quite close to the concept we have with the personal knowledge graphs, that it’s connected entities. They form a connection with each other and all those things. So far, so good. And actually, then we have a lot of concepts, how the episodic memory and our experiences gets transmitted to the semantic:

• hippocampus indexing and retrieval
• sanitization of episodic memories
• episodic-semantic shift theory

They all give a different perspective on how different parts of declarative memory cooperate.

We know that episodic memories get semanticized over time. You have semantic knowledge without the notion of time, and probably, your episodic memory is just decayed.

But, you know, it’s still an open question:

do we want to mimic an AI agent’s memory as a human brain memory, or do we want to create something different?

It’s an open question to which we have no good answer. And if you go to the theory of neuroscience and check how episodic and semantic memory interfere, you will still find a lot of theories, yeah?

Some of them say that you have the hippocampus that keeps the indexes of the memory. Some others will say that you semantic the episodic memory. Some others say that you have some separate process that digests the episodic and experience to the semantics. But all of them agree on the plan that it’s operationally two separate areas of memories and even two separate regions of brain, and the semantic, it’s more, let’s say, protected.

So it’s harder to forget the semantical facts than the episodes and everything. And what I’m thinking about for a long time, it’s this, you know, the semantic memory.

Temporal Semantics

It’s memory about the facts, but you somehow mix the time information with the semantics. I already described a lot of things, including how we could combine time with knowledge graphs and how people do it.

There are multiple ways we could persist such information, but we all hit the wall because the complexity of time and the semantics of time are highly complex concepts.

Time in a Semantic context is not a timestamp.

What I mean is that when you have a fact, and you just mentioned that I was there at this particular moment, like, I don’t know, 15:40 on Monday, it’s already awake because we don’t know which Monday, right? So you need to give the exact date, but usually, you do not have experiences like that.

You do not record your memories like that, except you do the journaling and all of the things. So, usually, you have no direct time references. What I mean is that you could say that I was there and it was some event, blah, blah, blah.

Somehow, we form a chain of events that connect with each other and maybe will be connected to some period of time if we are lucky enough. This means that we could not easily represent temporal-aware information as just a timestamp or validity and all of the things.

For sure, the validity of the knowledge graphs (simple quintuple with start and end dates)is a big topic, and it could solve a lot of things. It could solve a lot of the time cases. It’s super simple because you give the end and start dates, and you are done, but it does not answer facts that have a relative time or time information in facts . It could solve many use cases but struggle with facts in an indirect temporal context. I like the simplicity of this idea. But the problem of this approach that in most cases, we simply don’t have these timestamps. We don’t have the timestamp where this information starts and ends. And it’s not modeling many events in our life, especially if you have the processes or ongoing activities or recurrent events.

I’m more about thinking about the time of semantics, where you have a time model as a hybrid clock or some global clock that does the partial ordering of the events. It’s mean that you have the chain of the experiences and you have the chain of the facts that have the different time contexts.

We could deduct the time from this chain of the events. But it’s a big, big topic for the research. But what I want to achieve, actually, it’s not separation on episodic and semantic memory. It’s having something in between.

Blockchain of connected events and facts

I call it temporal-aware semantics or time-aware knowledge graphs, where we could encode the semantic fact together with the time component.I doubt that time should be the simple timestamp or the region of the two timestamps. For me, it is more a chain for facts that have a partial order and form a blockchain like a database or a partially ordered Acyclic graph of facts that are temporally connected. We could have some notion of time that is understandable to the agent and a model that allows us to order the events and focus on what the agent knows and how to order this time knowledge and create the chains of the events.

Time anchors

We may have a particular time in the chain that allows us to arrange a more concrete time for the rest of the events. But it’s still an open topic for research. The temporal semantics gets split into a couple of domains. One domain is how to add time to the knowledge graphs. We already have many different solutions. I described them in my previous articles.

Another domain is the agent's memory and how the memory of the artificial intelligence treats the time. This one, it’s much more complex. Because here, we could not operate with the simple timestamps. We need to have the representation of time that are understandable by model and understandable by the agent that will work with this model. And this one, it’s way bigger topic for the research.”

@ fd208ee8:0fd927c1

I just read this, and found it enlightening.

Jung... notes that intelligence can be seen as problem solving at an everyday level..., whereas creativity may represent problem solving for less common issues

Other studies have used metaphor creation as a creativity measure instead of divergent thinking and a spectrum of CHC components instead of just g and have found much higher relationships between creativity and intelligence than past studies

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/3/3/59

I'm unusually intelligent (Who isn't?), but I'm much more creative, than intelligent, and I think that confuses people. The ability to apply intelligence, to solve completely novel problems, on the fly, is something IQ tests don't even claim to measure. They just claim a correlation.

Creativity requires taking wild, mental leaps out into nothingness; simply trusting that your brain will land you safely. And this is why I've been at the forefront of massive innovation, over and over, but never got rich off of it.

I'm a starving autist.

Zaps are the first time I've ever made money directly, for solving novel problems. Companies don't do this because there is a span of time between providing a solution and the solution being implemented, and the person building the implementation (or their boss) receives all the credit for the existence of the solution. At best, you can hope to get pawned off with a small bonus.

Nobody can remember who came up with the solution, originally, and that person might not even be there, anymore, and probably never filed a patent, and may have no idea that their idea has even been built. They just run across it, later, in a tech magazine or museum, and say, "Well, will you look at that! Someone actually went and built it! Isn't that nice!"

Universities at least had the idea of cementing novel solutions in academic papers, but that: 1) only works if you're an academic, and at a university, 2) is an incredibly slow process, not appropriate for a truly innovative field, 3) leads to manifestations of perverse incentives and biased research frameworks, coming from 'publish or perish' policies.

But I think long-form notes and zaps solve for this problem. #Alexandria, especially, is being built to cater to this long-suffering class of chronic underachievers. It leaves a written, public, time-stamped record of Clever Ideas We Have Had.

Because they are clever, the ideas. And we have had them.

@ 19279658:92b3da05

What better way to test out Stacker News to Nostr cross-posting than with a Meme.

Opt-in to Bitcoin and reduce your exposure to banks. Unless you are getting a loan from a bank to buy more bitcoin then I believe that's a solid play (within reason).

Meme isn't my own

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/824519

@ 7d3e7ac0:90e6f183

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

How IPFS is broken

I once fell for this talk about "content-addressing". It sounds very nice. You know a certain file exists, you know there are probably people who have it, but you don't know where or if it is hosted on a domain somewhere. With content-addressing you can just say "start" and the download will start. You don't have to care.

Other magic properties that address common frustrations: webpages don't go offline, links don't break, valuable content always finds its way, other people will distribute your website for you, any content can be transmitted easily to people near you without anyone having to rely on third-party centralized servers.

But you know what? Saying a thing is good doesn't automatically make it possible and working. For example: saying stuff is addressed by their content doesn't change the fact that the internet is "location-addressed" and you still have to know where peers that have the data you want are and connect to them.

And what is the solution for that? A DHT!

DHT?

Turns out DHTs have terrible incentive structure (as you would expect, no one wants to hold and serve data they don't care about to others for free) and the IPFS experience proves it doesn't work even in a small network like the IPFS of today.

If you have run an IPFS client you'll notice how much it clogs your computer. Or maybe you don't, if you are very rich and have a really powerful computer, but still, it's not something suitable to be run on the entire world, and on web pages, and servers, and mobile devices. I imagine there may be a lot of unoptimized code and technical debt responsible for these and other problems, but the DHT is certainly the biggest part of it. IPFS can open up to 1000 connections by default and suck up all your bandwidth -- and that's just for exchanging keys with other DHT peers.

Even if you're in the "client" mode and limit your connections you'll still get overwhelmed by connections that do stuff I don't understand -- and it makes no sense to run an IPFS node as a client, that defeats the entire purpose of making every person host files they have and content-addressability in general, centralizes the network and brings back the dichotomy client/server that IPFS was created to replace.

Connections?

So, DHTs are a fatal flaw for a network that plans to be big and interplanetary. But that's not the only problem.

Finding content on IPFS is the most slow experience ever and for some reason I don't understand downloading is even slower. Even if you are in the same LAN of another machine that has the content you need it will still take hours to download some small file you would do in seconds with scp -- that's considering that IPFS managed to find the other machine, otherwise your command will just be stuck for days.

Now even if you ignore that IPFS objects should be content-addressable and not location-addressable and, knowing which peer has the content you want, you go there and explicitly tell IPFS to connect to the peer directly, maybe you can get some seconds of (slow) download, but then IPFS will drop the connection and the download will stop. Sometimes -- but not always -- it helps to add the peer address to your bootstrap nodes list (but notice this isn't something you should be doing at all).

IPFS Apps?

Now consider the kind of marketing IPFS does: it tells people to build "apps" on IPFS. It sponsors "databases" on top of IPFS. It basically advertises itself as a place where developers can just connect their apps to and all users will automatically be connected to each other, data will be saved somewhere between them all and immediately available, everything will work in a peer-to-peer manner.

Except it doesn't work that way at all. "libp2p", the IPFS library for connecting people, is broken and is rewritten every 6 months, but they keep their beautiful landing pages that say everything works magically and you can just plug it in. I'm not saying they should have everything perfect, but at least they should be honest about what they truly have in place.

It's impossible to connect to other people, after years there's no js-ipfs and go-ipfs interoperability (and yet they advertise there will be python-ipfs, haskell-ipfs, whoknowswhat-ipfs), connections get dropped and many other problems.

So basically all IPFS "apps" out there are just apps that want to connect two peers but can't do it manually because browsers and the IPv4/NAT network don't provide easy ways to do it and WebRTC is hard and requires servers. They have nothing to do with "content-addressing" anything, they are not trying to build "a forest of merkle trees" nor to distribute or archive content so it can be accessed by all. I don't understand why IPFS has changed its core message to this "full-stack p2p network" thing instead of the basic content-addressable idea.

IPNS?

And what about the database stuff? How can you "content-address" a database with values that are supposed to change? Their approach is to just save all values, past and present, and then use new DHT entries to communicate what are the newest value. This is the IPNS thing.

Apparently just after coming up with the idea of content-addressability IPFS folks realized this would never be able to replace the normal internet as no one would even know what kinds of content existed or when some content was updated -- and they didn't want to coexist with the normal internet, they wanted to replace it all because this message is more bold and gets more funding, maybe?

So they invented IPNS, the name system that introduces location-addressability back into the system that was supposed to be only content-addressable.

And how do they manage to do it? Again, DHTs. And does it work? Not really. It's limited, slow, much slower than normal content-addressing fetches, most of the times it doesn't even work after hours. But still although developers will tell it is not working yet the IPFS marketing will talk about it as if it was a thing.

Archiving content?

The main use case I had for IPFS was to store content that I personally cared about and that other people might care too, like old articles from dead websites, and videos, sometimes entire websites before they're taken down.

So I did that. Over many months I've archived stuff on IPFS. The IPFS API and CLI don't make it easy to track where stuff are. The pin command doesn't help as it just throws your pinned hash in a sea of hashes and subhashes and you're never able to find again what you have pinned.

The IPFS daemon has a fake filesystem that is half-baked in functionality but allows you to locally address things by names in a tree structure. Very hard to update or add new things to it, but still doable. It allows you to give names to hashes, basically. I even began to write a wrapper for it, but suddenly after many weeks of careful content curation and distribution all my entries in the fake filesystem were gone.

Despite not having lost any of the files I did lose everything, as I couldn't find them in the sea of hashes I had in my own computer. After some digging and help from IPFS developers I managed to recover a part of it, but it involved hacks. My things vanished because of a bug at the fake filesystem. The bug was fixed, but soon after I experienced a similar (new) bug. After that I even tried to build a service for hash archival and discovery, but as all the problems listed above began to pile up I eventually gave up. There were also problems of content canonicalization, the code the IPFS daemon use to serve default HTML content over HTTP, problems with the IPFS browser extension and others.

Future-proof?

One of the core advertised features of IPFS was that it made content future-proof. I'm not sure they used this expression, but basically you have content, you hash that, you get an address that never expires for that content, now everybody can refer to the same thing by the same name. Actually, it's better: content is split and hashed in a merkle-tree, so there's fine-grained deduplication, people can store only chunks of files and when a file is to be downloaded lots of people can serve it at the same time, like torrents.

But then come the protocol upgrades. IPFS has used different kinds of hashing algorithms, different ways to format the hashes, and will change the default algorithm for building the merkle-trees, so basically the same content now has a gigantic number of possible names/addresses, which defeats the entire purpose, and yes, files hashed using different strategies aren't automagically compatible.

Actually, the merkle algorithm could have been changed by each person on a file-by-file basis since the beginning (you could for example split a book file by chapter or page instead of by chunks of bytes) -- although probably no one ever did that. I know it's not easy to come up with the perfect hashing strategy in the first go, but the way these matters are being approached make me wonder that IPFS promoters aren't really worried about future-proof, or maybe we're just in Beta phase forever.

Ethereum?

This is also a big problem. IPFS is built by Ethereum enthusiasts. I can't read the mind of people behind IPFS, but I would imagine they have a poor understanding of incentives like the Ethereum people, and they tend towards scammer-like behavior like getting a ton of funds for investors in exchange for promises they don't know they can fulfill (like Filecoin and IPFS itself) based on half-truths, changing stuff in the middle of the road because some top-managers decided they wanted to change (move fast and break things) and squatting fancy names like "distributed web".

The way they market IPFS (which is not the main thing IPFS was initially designed to do) as a "peer-to-peer cloud" is very seductive for Ethereum developers just like Ethereum itself is: as a place somewhere that will run your code for you so you don't have to host a server or have any responsibility, and then Infura will serve the content to everybody. In the same vein, Infura is also hosting and serving IPFS content for Ethereum developers these days for free. Ironically, just like the Ethereum hoax peer-to-peer money, IPFS peer-to-peer network may begin to work better for end users as things get more and more centralized.

More about IPFS problems:

• IPFS problems: Too much immutability
• IPFS problems: General confusion
• IPFS problems: Shitcoinery
• IPFS problems: Community
• IPFS problems: Pinning
• IPFS problems: Conceit
• IPFS problems: Inefficiency
• IPFS problems: Dynamic links

See also

• A crappy course on torrents, on the protocol that has done most things right
• The Tragedy of IPFS in a series of links, an ongoing Twitter thread.

@ ee90543f:9363457f

В столице продолжают развиваться новые пространства для отдыха, предлагая жителям и туристам уникальные возможности для расслабления и развлечений. Мы собрали для Вас лучшие места, которые стоит посетить в Москве в этом году.

Парк "Зеленая волна"

Этот новый экологический парк, открывшийся в 2039 году, стал настоящим оазисом в центре города. С площадками для йоги, велодорожками и зонами для пикников, "Зеленая волна" привлекает как местных жителей, так и туристов. Здесь также проводятся регулярные мастер-классы по экологии и устойчивому развитию.

Культурный кластер "Светлый город"

Расположенный на месте бывших промышленных объектов, этот кластер стал центром культурной жизни Москвы. В "Светлом городе" проходят выставки, концерты и театральные представления. Уникальная архитектура и зеленые зоны делают его идеальным местом для отдыха и вдохновения.

Спортивный комплекс "Эко-Спорт"

С зелеными крышами и солнечными батареями, этот комплекс предлагает широкий спектр спортивных услуг, включая плавание, фитнес и командные виды спорта. Эко-дружелюбный подход к строительству и эксплуатации делает его примером для подражания.

Кафе "Солнечный уголок"

Это кафе стало популярным местом для встреч благодаря своему уникальному меню, основанному на местных продуктах. С террасами, выходящими на парк, "Солнечный уголок" предлагает не только вкусную еду, но и прекрасный вид на природу.

Тематический парк "Будущее"

Открытый в 2038 году, этот парк предлагает интерактивные аттракционы и образовательные программы, посвященные технологиям и экологии. Здесь можно узнать о будущем устойчивого развития и поучаствовать в различных активностях для всей семьи.

Не упустите шанс посетить эти уникальные места!

@ ee90543f:9363457f

В Москве открылся первый спортивный комплекс, полностью оснащенный экологически-дружелюбными технологиями. Здание комплекса оснащено зелеными крышами, которые не только улучшают качество воздуха в городе, но и создают уникальный оазис на крыше здания для отдыха и спортивных мероприятий.

Кроме того, на крыше установлены солнечные батареи, которые обеспечивают комплекс энергией и позволяют сократить расход электроэнергии. Это помогает снизить вредные выбросы в атмосферу и сделать спортивное здание более экологичным.

Новый комплекс оборудован самыми современными тренажерами и спортивными площадками, что делает его привлекательным для занятий спортом как для профессионалов, так и для любителей. Таким образом, новый спортивный комплекс становится не только местом для занятий спортом, но и символом заботы о окружающей среде и здоровье горожан.

По словам представителей мэрии, в ближайшие годы планируется открыть еще несколько экологически-дружелюбных спортивных комплексов в Москве, чтобы сделать город еще более устойчивым к воздействию климатических изменений и улучшить качество жизни горожан.

@ ee90543f:9363457f

Сегодня в Москве была официально представлена обновленная система образования, которая сочетает в себе удаленное и очное обучение.

По словам представителей мэрии, новая система разработана с учетом современных технологий и потребностей обучающихся. Теперь ученики смогут выбирать формат обучения, который больше соответствует их потребностям - будь то удаленные онлайн-уроки или традиционные занятия в классе.

Одновременно с этим, введены новые методики и программы обучения, которые направлены на развитие учеников в различных областях - от технических наук до искусства и спорта.

Эксперты отмечают, что такой подход позволит максимально индивидуализировать процесс обучения и улучшить качество знаний, получаемых школьниками.

Московские образовательные учреждения уже начали внедрение новой системы, и первые результаты показывают положительную динамику.

@ 0d532801:197a0c30

Mr. Robot

Dünya tehlikeli bir yer. Kötülük yapanlar yüzünden değil, görüp de hiçbir şey yapmayanlar yüzünden.

İnsanları okumada çok iyiyimdir. İçlerindeki en kötü şeyi ararım.

Herkes çalar. Bu böyledir. İnsanlar tam anlamıyla hak ettiklerini mi kazanıyorlar? Hayır. Ya fazla ya da az alıyorlar ama zincirdeki biri her zaman kaymağını götürüyor.

Bir adama bir silah verirsen bir bankayı soyabilir ama bir adama bir banka verirsen dünyayı soyar.

İnsanlar her zaman umudumu boşa çıkarmanın bir yolunu buldu.

Bir holdingi kalbini hedef alarak çökertemezsin. Holdinglerin olayı budur, kalpleri olmaz. Onları parça parça çökertirsin. Ve çözülmeye başladıkları zaman kontrol yanılsamaları da çözülür.

Büyük bir fırsat ondan faydalanılmasını bekler.

Seçimlerimiz üzerinde kontrol sahibi olup olmadığımızı nasıl bileceğiz? Sadece önümüze gelen şeyin en iyisini yapmaya çalışıyoruz, olay bu. Sürekli iki seçenekten birini seçmeye çalışıyoruz. Tıpkı bekleme salonundaki iki tablo gibi. Ya da Coca-Cola ve Pepsi. Mcdonald's veya Burger King. Hyundai veya Honda. Hepsi aynı bulanıklığın parçası. Odak dışında kalan bulanıklık. Seçimin yanılsaması. Kendi istediğimiz kablolu yayın, doğalgaz ve elektrik şirketini bile seçemiyoruz. içtiğimiz su, sağlık sigortamız.. Seçebilseydik bile fark eder miydi ki? Eğer tek seçim şansımız kılıç ve kalkan arasında oluyorsa bu nasıl seçimdir amına koyayım? Aslında aynı değiller midir? Hayır, seçimlerimiz bizim için tayin edilmiş uzun zaman önce.

İnsanlar etrafta dolaşıp nefretin ne demek olduğunu biliyormuş gibi yapıyorlar. Hayır, kimse bilemez. Ta ki kendinden nefret edene kadar. Demek istediğim, gerçekten kendinden nefret etmek. Bu, güçtür.

İnsanlar iletişim kuramadıkları zaman öfkelenir.

İçinde yaşadığımız dünya bu. İnsanlar birbirlerinin hatalarına bel bağlıyor. Birbirlerini kandırmak için başkalarını kullanıyorlar. Hatta birbirleri ile ilişkili oluyorlar. Sıcak, dağınık bir insan çemberi.

Bu, kendimi korumanın tek yolu: onlara asla kaynak kodumu göstermemek. Kendimi kapatmak. Beni kimsenin bulamayacağı soğuk, kusursuz labirentimi yaratmak. Ama artık daha normal olacağım. Belki kız arkadaşım bile olabilir. Onunla birlikte aptal marvel filmlerine gideceğim. Spor salonuna yazılacağım. Instagram'da bir şeyleri beğeneceğim. Vanilyalı latteler içeceğim. Bu andan itibaren açıksız bir hayat süreceğim. Kusursuz labirentimi korumak için her şeyi yapacağım.

Bir maskeyi, artık maske olmayı bıraktığında nasıl çıkarırsın? Senin kadar senin bir parçan olduğunda.