@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365

I got into a friendly discussion on X regarding health insurance. The specific question was how to deal with health insurance companies (presumably unfairly) denying claims? My answer, as usual: get government out of it!

The US healthcare system is essentially the worst of both worlds:

• Unlike full single payer, individuals incur high costs
• Unlike a true free market, regulation causes increases in costs and decreases competition among insurers

I'm firmly on the side of moving towards the free market. (And I say that as someone living under a single payer system now.) Here's what I would do:

• Get rid of tax incentives that make health insurance tied to your employer, giving individuals back proper freedom of choice.
• Reduce regulations significantly.

• In the short term, some people will still get rejected claims and other obnoxious behavior from insurance companies. We address that in two ways:

  1. Due to reduced regulations, new insurance companies will be able to enter the market offering more reliable coverage and better rates, and people will flock to them because they have the freedom to make their own choices.
  2. Sue the asses off of companies that reject claims unfairly. And ideally, as one of the few legitimate roles of government in all this, institute new laws that limit the ability of fine print to allow insurers to escape their responsibilities. (I'm hesitant that the latter will happen due to the incestuous relationship between Congress/regulators and insurers, but I can hope.)

Will this magically fix everything overnight like politicians normally promise? No. But it will allow the market to return to a healthy state. And I don't think it will take long (order of magnitude: 5-10 years) for it to come together, but that's just speculation.

And since there's a high correlation between those who believe government can fix problems by taking more control and demanding that only credentialed experts weigh in on a topic (both points I strongly disagree with BTW): I'm a trained actuary and worked in the insurance industry, and have directly seen how government regulation reduces competition, raises prices, and harms consumers.

And my final point: I don't think any prior art would be a good comparison for deregulation in the US, it's such a different market than any other country in the world for so many reasons that lessons wouldn't really translate. Nonetheless, I asked Grok for some empirical data on this, and at best the results of deregulation could be called "mixed," but likely more accurately "uncertain, confused, and subject to whatever interpretation anyone wants to apply."

https://x.com/i/grok/share/Zc8yOdrN8lS275hXJ92uwq98M

@ b8851a06:9b120ba1

Private property isn’t lines on dirt or fences of steel—it’s the crystallization of human sovereignty. Each boundary drawn is a silent declaration: This is where my will meets yours, where creation clashes against chaos. What we defend as “mine” or “yours” is no mere object but a metaphysical claim, a scaffold for the unfathomable complexity of voluntary exchange.

Markets breathe only when individuals anchor their choices in the inviolable. Without property, there is no negotiation—only force. No trade—only taking. The deed to land, the title to a car, the seed of an idea: these are not static things but frontiers of being, where human responsibility collides with the infinite permutations of value.

Austrian economics whispers what existentialism shouts: existence precedes essence. Property isn’t granted by systems; it’s asserted through action, defended through sacrifice, and sanctified through mutual recognition. A thing becomes “owned” only when a mind declares it so, and others—through reason or respect—refrain from crossing that unseen line.

Bitcoin? The purest ledger of this truth. A string of code, yes—but one that mirrors the unyielding logic of property itself: scarce, auditable, unconquerable. It doesn’t ask permission. It exists because sovereign minds choose it to.

Sigh. #nostr
I love #Bitcoin.

@ 599f67f7:21fb3ea9

¿Qué es Blossom?

nostr:nevent1qqspttj39n6ld4plhn4e2mq3utxpju93u4k7w33l3ehxyf0g9lh3f0qpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejsygzenanl0hmkjnrq8fksvdhpt67xzrdh0h8agltwt5znsmvzr7e74ywgmr72

Blossom significa Blobs Simply Stored on Media Servers (Blobs Simplemente Almacenados en Servidores de Medios). Blobs son fragmentos de datos binarios, como archivos pero sin nombres. En lugar de nombres, se identifican por su hash sha256. La ventaja de usar hashes sha256 en lugar de nombres es que los hashes son IDs universales que se pueden calcular a partir del archivo mismo utilizando el algoritmo de hash sha256.

💡 archivo -> sha256 -> hash

Blossom es, por lo tanto, un conjunto de puntos finales HTTP que permiten a los usuarios almacenar y recuperar blobs almacenados en servidores utilizando su identidad nostr.

¿Por qué Blossom?

Como mencionamos hace un momento, al usar claves nostr como su identidad, Blossom permite que los datos sean "propiedad" del usuario. Esto simplifica enormemente la cuestión de "qué es spam" para el alojamiento de servidores. Por ejemplo, en nuestro Blossom solo permitimos cargas por miembros de la comunidad verificados que tengan un NIP-05 con nosotros.

Los usuarios pueden subir en múltiples servidores de blossom, por ejemplo, uno alojado por su comunidad, uno de pago, otro público y gratuito, para establecer redundancia de sus datos. Los blobs pueden ser espejados entre servidores de blossom, de manera similar a cómo los relays nostr pueden transmitir eventos entre sí. Esto mejora la resistencia a la censura de blossom.

A continuación se muestra una breve tabla de comparación entre torrents, Blossom y servidores CDN centralizados. (Suponiendo que hay muchos seeders para torrents y se utilizan múltiples servidores con Blossom).

| | Torrents | Blossom | CDN Centralizado | | --------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- | ------- | ---------------- | | Descentralizado | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | | Resistencia a la censura | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | | ¿Puedo usarlo para publicar fotos de gatitos en redes sociales? | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |

¿Cómo funciona?

Blossom utiliza varios tipos de eventos nostr para comunicarse con el servidor de medios.

| kind | descripción | BUD | | ----- | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 24242 | Evento de autorización | BUD01 | | 10063 | Lista de Servidores de Usuarios | BUD03 |

kind:24242 - Autorización

Esto es esencialmente lo que ya describimos al usar claves nostr como IDs de usuario. En el evento, el usuario le dice al servidor que quiere subir o eliminar un archivo y lo firma con sus claves nostr. El servidor realiza algunas verificaciones en este evento y luego ejecuta el comando del usuario si todo parece estar bien.

kind:10063 - Lista de Servidores de Usuarios

Esto es utilizado por el usuario para anunciar a qué servidores de medios está subiendo. De esta manera, cuando el cliente ve esta lista, sabe dónde subir los archivos del usuario. También puede subir en múltiples servidores definidos en la lista para asegurar redundancia. En el lado de recuperación, si por alguna razón uno de los servidores en la lista del usuario está fuera de servicio, o el archivo ya no se puede encontrar allí, el cliente puede usar esta lista para intentar recuperar el archivo de otros servidores en la lista. Dado que los blobs se identifican por sus hashes, el mismo blob tendrá el mismo hash en cualquier servidor de medios. Todo lo que el cliente necesita hacer es cambiar la URL por la de un servidor diferente.

Ahora, además de los conceptos básicos de cómo funciona Blossom, también hay otros tipos de eventos que hacen que Blossom sea aún más interesante.

| kind | descripción | | ----- | --------------------- | | 30563 | Blossom Drives | | 36363 | Listado de Servidores | | 31963 | Reseña de Servidores |

kind:30563 - Blossom Drives

Este tipo de evento facilita la organización de blobs en carpetas, como estamos acostumbrados con los drives (piensa en Google Drive, iCloud, Proton Drive, etc.). El evento contiene información sobre la estructura de carpetas y los metadatos del drive.

kind:36363 y kind:31963 - Listado y Reseña

Estos tipos de eventos permiten a los usuarios descubrir y reseñar servidores de medios a través de nostr. kind:36363 es un listado de servidores que contiene la URL del servidor. kind:31963 es una reseña, donde los usuarios pueden calificar servidores.

¿Cómo lo uso?

Encuentra un servidor

Primero necesitarás elegir un servidor Blossom donde subirás tus archivos. Puedes navegar por los públicos en blossomservers.com. Algunos de ellos son de pago, otros pueden requerir que tus claves nostr estén en una lista blanca.

Luego, puedes ir a la URL de su servidor y probar a subir un archivo pequeño, como una foto. Si estás satisfecho con el servidor (es rápido y aún no te ha fallado), puedes agregarlo a tu Lista de Servidores de Usuarios. Cubriremos brevemente cómo hacer esto en noStrudel y Amethyst (pero solo necesitas hacer esto una vez, una vez que tu lista actualizada esté publicada, los clientes pueden simplemente recuperarla de nostr).

noStrudel

1. Encuentra Relays en la barra lateral, luego elige Servidores de Medios.
2. Agrega un servidor de medios, o mejor aún, varios.
3. Publica tu lista de servidores. ✅

Amethyst

1. En la barra lateral, encuentra Servidores multimedia.
2. Bajo Servidores Blossom, agrega tus servidores de medios.
3. Firma y publica. ✅

Ahora, cuando vayas a hacer una publicación y adjuntar una foto, por ejemplo, se subirá en tu servidor blossom.

⚠️ Ten en cuenta que debes suponer que los archivos que subas serán públicos. Aunque puedes proteger un archivo con contraseña, esto no ha sido auditado.

Blossom Drive

Como mencionamos anteriormente, podemos publicar eventos para organizar nuestros blobs en carpetas. Esto puede ser excelente para compartir archivos con tu equipo, o simplemente para mantener las cosas organizadas.

Para probarlo, ve a blossom.hzrd149.com (o nuestra instancia comunitaria en blossom.bitcointxoko.com) e inicia sesión con tu método preferido.

Puedes crear una nueva unidad y agregar blobs desde allí.

Bouquet

Si usas múltiples servidores para darte redundancia, Bouquet es una buena manera de obtener una visión general de todos tus archivos. Úsalo para subir y navegar por tus medios en diferentes servidores y sincronizar blobs entre ellos.

Cherry Tree

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqfngzhsvjggdlgeycm96x4emzjlwf8dyyzdfg4hefp89zpkdgz99qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzfmhxue69uhkummnw3e82efwvdhk6tcqyp3065hj9zellakecetfflkgudm5n6xcc9dnetfeacnq90y3yxa5z5gk2q6

Cherry Tree te permite dividir un archivo en fragmentos y luego subirlos en múltiples servidores blossom, y más tarde reensamblarlos en otro lugar.

Conclusión

Blossom aún está en desarrollo, pero ya hay muchas cosas interesantes que puedes hacer con él para hacerte a ti y a tu comunidad más soberanos. ¡Pruébalo!

Si deseas mantenerte al día sobre el desarrollo de Blossom, sigue a nostr:nprofile1qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzfmhxue69uhkummnw3e82efwvdhk6tcqyqnxs90qeyssm73jf3kt5dtnk997ujw6ggy6j3t0jjzw2yrv6sy22ysu5ka y dale un gran zap por su excelente trabajo.

Referencias

• hzrd149/blossom en GitHub
• Blossom Drive

@ 29af23a9:842ef0c1

A Indústria Pornográfica se caracteriza pelo investimento pesado de grandes empresários americanos, desde 2014.

Na década de 90, filmes pornográficos eram feitos às coxas. Era basicamente duas pessoas fazendo sexo amador e sendo gravadas. Não tinha roteiro, nem produção, não tinha maquiagem, nada disso. A distribuição era rudimentar, os assinantes tinham que sair de suas casas, ir até a locadora, sofrer todo tipo de constrangimento para assistir a um filme pornô.

No começo dos anos 2000, o serviço de Pay Per View fez o número de vendas de filmes eróticos (filme erótico é bem mais leve) crescer mas nada se compara com os sites de filmes pornográficos por assinatura.

Com o advento dos serviços de Streaming, os sites que vendem filmes por assinatura se estabeleceram no mercado como nunca foi visto na história.

Hoje, os Produtores usam produtos para esticar os vasos sanguíneos do pênis dos atores e dopam as atrizes para que elas aguentem horas de gravação (a Série Black Mirror fez uma crítica a isso no episódio 1 milhão de méritos de forma sutil).

Além de toda a produção em volta das cenas. Que são gravadas em 4K, para focar bem as partes íntimas dos atores. Quadros fechados, iluminação, tudo isso faz essa Indústria ser "Artística" uma vez que tudo ali é falso. Um filme da Produtora Vixen, por exemplo, onde jovens mulheres transam em mansões com seus empresários estimula o esteriótipo da mina padrão que chama seu chefe rico de "daddy" e seduz ele até ele trair a esposa.

Sites como xvídeos, pornHub e outros nada mais são do que sites que salvam filmes dessas produtoras e hospedam as cenas com anúncios e pop-ups. Alguns sites hospedam o filme inteiro "de graça".

Esse tipo de filme estimula qualquer homem heterosexual com menos de 30 anos, que não tem o córtex frontal de seu cérebro totalmente desenvolvido (segundo estudos só é completamente desenvolvido quando o homem chega aos 31 anos).

A arte Pornográfica faz alguns fantasiarem ter relação sexual com uma gostosa americana branquinha, até escraviza-los. Muitos não conseguem sair do vício e preferem a Ficção à sua esposa real. Então pare de se enganar e admita. A Pornografia faz mal para a saúde mental do homem.

Quem sonha em ter uma transa com Lana Rhodes, deve estar nesse estágio. Trata-se de uma atriz (pornstar) que ganhou muito dinheiro vendendo a ilusão da Arte Pornografica, como a Riley Reid que só gravava para grandes Produtoras. Ambas se arrependeram da carreira artística e agora tentam viver suas vidas como uma mulher comum.

As próprias atrizes se consideram artistas, como Mia Malkova, chegou a dizer que Pornografia é a vida dela, que é "Lindo e Sofisticado."

Mia Malkova inclusive faz questão de dizer que a industria não escravisa mulheres jovens. Trata-se de um negócio onde a mulher assina um contrato com uma produtora e recebe um cachê por isso. Diferente do discurso da Mia Khalifa em entrevista para a BBC, onde diz que as mulheres são exploradas por homens poderosos. Vai ela está confundindo o Conglomerado Vixen com a Rede Globo ou com a empresa do Harvey Weinstein.

Enfim, se você é um homem solteiro entre 18 e 40 anos que já consumiu ou que ainda consome pornografia, sabia que sofrerá consequências. Pois trata-se de "produções artísticas" da indústria audiovisual que altera os níveis de dopamina do seu cérebro, mudando a neuroplasticidade e diminuindo a massa cinzenta, deixando o homem com memória fraca, sem foco e com mente nebulosa.

Por que o Estado não proíbe/criminaliza a Pornografia se ela faz mal? E desde quando o Estado quer o nosso bem? Existem grandes empresarios que financiam essa indústria ajudando governos a manterem o povo viciado e assim alienado. É um pão e circo, só que muito mais viciante e maléfico. Eu costume dizer aos meus amigos que existem grandes empresários jvdeus que são donos de grandes Produtoras de filmes pornográficos como o Conglomerado Vixen. Então se eles assistem vídeos pirateados de filmes dessas produtoras, eles estão no colo do Judeu.

@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365

President Trump has started rolling out his tariffs, something I blogged about in November. People are talking about these tariffs a lot right now, with many people (correctly) commenting on how consumers will end up with higher prices as a result of these tariffs. While that part is true, I’ve seen a lot of people taking it to the next, incorrect step: that consumers will pay the entirety of the tax. I put up a poll on X to see what people thought, and while the right answer got a lot of votes, it wasn't the winner.

For purposes of this blog post, our ultimate question will be the following:

• Suppose apples currently sell for $1 each in the entire United States.
• There are domestic sellers and foreign sellers of apples, all receiving the same price.
• There are no taxes or tariffs on the purchase of apples.
• The question is: if the US federal government puts a $0.50 import tariff per apple, what will be the change in the following:
• Number of apples bought in the US
• Price paid by buyers for apples in the US
• Post-tax price received by domestic apple producers
• Post-tax price received by foreign apple producers

Before we can answer that question, we need to ask an easier, first question: before instituting the tariff, why do apples cost $1?

And finally, before we dive into the details, let me provide you with the answers to the ultimate question. I recommend you try to guess these answers before reading this, and if you get it wrong, try to understand why:

1. The number of apples bought will go down
2. The buyers will pay more for each apple they buy, but not the full amount of the tariff
3. Domestic apple sellers will receive a higher price per apple
4. Foreign apple sellers will receive a lower price per apple, but not lowered by the full amount of the tariff

In other words, regardless of who sends the payment to the government, both taxed parties (domestic buyers and foreign sellers) will absorb some of the costs of the tariff, while domestic sellers will benefit from the protectionism provided by tariffs and be able to sell at a higher price per unit.

Marginal benefit

All of the numbers discussed below are part of a helper Google Sheet I put together for this analysis. Also, apologies about the jagged lines in the charts below, I hadn’t realized before starting on this that there are some difficulties with creating supply and demand charts in Google Sheets.

Let’s say I absolutely love apples, they’re my favorite food. How much would I be willing to pay for a single apple? You might say “$1, that’s the price in the supermarket,” and in many ways you’d be right. If I walk into supermarket A, see apples on sale for $50, and know that I can buy them at supermarket B for $1, I’ll almost certainly leave A and go buy at B.

But that’s not what I mean. What I mean is: how high would the price of apples have to go everywhere so that I’d no longer be willing to buy a single apple? This is a purely personal, subjective opinion. It’s impacted by how much money I have available, other expenses I need to cover, and how much I like apples. But let’s say the number is $5.

How much would I be willing to pay for another apple? Maybe another $5. But how much am I willing to pay for the 1,000th apple? 10,000th? At some point, I’ll get sick of apples, or run out of space to keep the apples, or not be able to eat, cook, and otherwise preserve all those apples before they rot.

The point being: I’ll be progressively willing to spend less and less money for each apple. This form of analysis is called marginal benefit: how much benefit (expressed as dollars I’m willing to spend) will I receive from each apple? This is a downward sloping function: for each additional apple I buy (quantity demanded), the price I’m willing to pay goes down. This is what gives my personal demand curve. And if we aggregate demand curves across all market participants (meaning: everyone interested in buying apples), we end up with something like this:

Assuming no changes in people’s behavior and other conditions in the market, this chart tells us how many apples will be purchased by our buyers at each price point between $0.50 and $5. And ceteris paribus (all else being equal), this will continue to be the demand curve for apples.

Marginal cost

Demand is half the story of economics. The other half is supply, or: how many apples will I sell at each price point? Supply curves are upward sloping: the higher the price, the more a person or company is willing and able to sell a product.

Let’s understand why. Suppose I have an apple orchard. It’s a large property right next to my house. With about 2 minutes of effort, I can walk out of my house, find the nearest tree, pick 5 apples off the tree, and call it a day. 5 apples for 2 minutes of effort is pretty good, right?

Yes, there was all the effort necessary to buy the land, and plant the trees, and water them… and a bunch more than I likely can’t even guess at. We’re going to ignore all of that for our analysis, because for short-term supply-and-demand movement, we can ignore these kinds of sunk costs. One other simplification: in reality, supply curves often start descending before ascending. This accounts for achieving efficiencies of scale after the first number of units purchased. But since both these topics are unneeded for understanding taxes, I won’t go any further.

Anyway, back to my apple orchard. If someone offers me $0.50 per apple, I can do 2 minutes of effort and get $2.50 in revenue, which equates to a $75/hour wage for me. I’m more than happy to pick apples at that price!

However, let’s say someone comes to buy 10,000 apples from me instead. I no longer just walk out to my nearest tree. I’m going to need to get in my truck, drive around, spend the day in the sun, pay for gas, take a day off of my day job (let’s say it pays me $70/hour). The costs go up significantly. Let’s say it takes 5 days to harvest all those apples myself, it costs me $100 in fuel and other expenses, and I lose out on my $70/hour job for 5 days. We end up with:

• Total expenditure: $100 + $70 * 8 hours a day * 5 days \== $2900
• Total revenue: $5000 (10,000 apples at $0.50 each)
• Total profit: $2100

So I’m still willing to sell the apples at this price, but it’s not as attractive as before. And as the number of apples purchased goes up, my costs keep increasing. I’ll need to spend more money on fuel to travel more of my property. At some point I won’t be able to do the work myself anymore, so I’ll need to pay others to work on the farm, and they’ll be slower at picking apples than me (less familiar with the property, less direct motivation, etc.). The point being: at some point, the number of apples can go high enough that the $0.50 price point no longer makes me any money.

This kind of analysis is called marginal cost. It refers to the additional amount of expenditure a seller has to spend in order to produce each additional unit of the good. Marginal costs go up as quantity sold goes up. And like demand curves, if you aggregate this data across all sellers, you get a supply curve like this:

Equilibrium price

We now know, for every price point, how many apples buyers will purchase, and how many apples sellers will sell. Now we find the equilibrium: where the supply and demand curves meet. This point represents where the marginal benefit a buyer would receive from the next buyer would be less than the cost it would take the next seller to make it. Let’s see it in a chart:

You’ll notice that these two graphs cross at the $1 price point, where 63 apples are both demanded (bought by consumers) and supplied (sold by producers). This is our equilibrium price. We also have a visualization of the surplus created by these trades. Everything to the left of the equilibrium point and between the supply and demand curves represents surplus: an area where someone is receiving something of more value than they give. For example:

• When I bought my first apple for $1, but I was willing to spend $5, I made $4 of consumer surplus. The consumer portion of the surplus is everything to the left of the equilibrium point, between the supply and demand curves, and above the equilibrium price point.
• When a seller sells his first apple for $1, but it only cost $0.50 to produce it, the seller made $0.50 of producer surplus. The producer portion of the surplus is everything to the left of the equilibrium point, between the supply and demand curves, and below the equilibrium price point.

Another way of thinking of surplus is “every time someone got a better price than they would have been willing to take.”

OK, with this in place, we now have enough information to figure out how to price in the tariff, which we’ll treat as a negative externality.

Modeling taxes

Alright, the government has now instituted a $0.50 tariff on every apple sold within the US by a foreign producer. We can generally model taxes by either increasing the marginal cost of each unit sold (shifting the supply curve up), or by decreasing the marginal benefit of each unit bought (shifting the demand curve down). In this case, since only some of the producers will pay the tax, it makes more sense to modify the supply curve.

First, let’s see what happens to the foreign seller-only supply curve when you add in the tariff:

With the tariff in place, for each quantity level, the price at which the seller will sell is $0.50 higher than before the tariff. That makes sense: if I was previously willing to sell my 82nd apple for $3, I would now need to charge $3.50 for that apple to cover the cost of the tariff. We see this as the tariff “pushing up” or “pushing left” the original supply curve.

We can add this new supply curve to our existing (unchanged) supply curve for domestic-only sellers, and we end up with a result like this:

The total supply curve adds up the individual foreign and domestic supply curves. At each price point, we add up the total quantity each group would be willing to sell to determine the total quantity supplied for each price point. Once we have that cumulative supply curve defined, we can produce an updated supply-and-demand chart including the tariff:

As we can see, the equilibrium has shifted:

• The equilibrium price paid by consumers has risen from $1 to $1.20.
• The total number of apples purchased has dropped from 63 apples to 60 apples.
• Consumers therefore received 3 less apples. They spent $72 for these 60 apples, whereas previously they spent $63 for 3 more apples, a definite decrease in consumer surplus.
• Foreign producers sold 36 of those apples (see the raw data in the linked Google Sheet), for a gross revenue of $43.20. However, they also need to pay the tariff to the US government, which accounts for $18, meaning they only receive $25.20 post-tariff. Previously, they sold 42 apples at $1 each with no tariff to be paid, meaning they took home $42.
• Domestic producers sold the remaining 24 apples at $1.20, giving them a revenue of $28.80. Since they don’t pay the tariff, they take home all of that money. By contrast, previously, they sold 21 apples at $1, for a take-home of $21.
• The government receives $0.50 for each of the 60 apples sold, or in other words receives $30 in revenue it wouldn’t have received otherwise.

We could be more specific about the surpluses, and calculate the actual areas for consumer surplus, producer surplus, inefficiency from the tariff, and government revenue from the tariff. But I won’t bother, as those calculations get slightly more involved. Instead, let’s just look at the aggregate outcomes:

• Consumers were unquestionably hurt. Their price paid went up by $0.20 per apple, and received less apples.
• Foreign producers were also hurt. Their price received went down from the original $1 to the new post-tariff price of $1.20, minus the $0.50 tariff. In other words: foreign producers only receive $0.70 per apple now. This hurt can be mitigated by shifting sales to other countries without a tariff, but the pain will exist regardless.
• Domestic producers scored. They can sell less apples and make more revenue doing it.
• And the government walked away with an extra $30.

Hopefully you now see the answer to the original questions. Importantly, while the government imposed a $0.50 tariff, neither side fully absorbed that cost. Consumers paid a bit more, foreign producers received a bit less. The exact details of how that tariff was split across the groups is mediated by the relevant supply and demand curves of each group. If you want to learn more about this, the relevant search term is “price elasticity,” or how much a group’s quantity supplied or demanded will change based on changes in the price.

Other taxes

Most taxes are some kind of a tax on trade. Tariffs on apples is an obvious one. But the same applies to income tax (taxing the worker for the trade of labor for money) or payroll tax (same thing, just taxing the employer instead). Interestingly, you can use the same model for analyzing things like tax incentives. For example, if the government decided to subsidize domestic apple production by giving the domestic producers a $0.50 bonus for each apple they sell, we would end up with a similar kind of analysis, except instead of the foreign supply curve shifting up, we’d see the domestic supply curve shifting down.

And generally speaking, this is what you’ll always see with government involvement in the economy. It will result in disrupting an existing equilibrium, letting the market readjust to a new equilibrium, and incentivization of some behavior, causing some people to benefit and others to lose out. We saw with the apple tariff, domestic producers and the government benefited while others lost.

You can see the reverse though with tax incentives. If I give a tax incentive of providing a deduction (not paying income tax) for preschool, we would end up with:

• Government needs to make up the difference in tax revenue, either by raising taxes on others or printing more money (leading to inflation). Either way, those paying the tax or those holding government debased currency will pay a price.
• Those people who don’t use the preschool deduction will receive no benefit, so they simply pay a cost.
• Those who do use the preschool deduction will end up paying less on tax+preschool than they would have otherwise.

This analysis is fully amoral. It’s not saying whether providing subsidized preschool is a good thing or not, it simply tells you where the costs will be felt, and points out that such government interference in free economic choice does result in inefficiencies in the system. Once you have that knowledge, you’re more well educated on making a decision about whether the costs of government intervention are worth the benefits.

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Im Augenblick wird mit größter Intensität, großer Umsicht \ das deutsche Volk belogen. \ Olaf Scholz im FAZ-Interview

Online-Wahlen stärken die Demokratie, sind sicher, und 61 Prozent der Wahlberechtigten sprechen sich für deren Einführung in Deutschland aus. Das zumindest behauptet eine aktuelle Umfrage, die auch über die Agentur Reuters Verbreitung in den Medien gefunden hat. Demnach würden außerdem 45 Prozent der Nichtwähler bei der Bundestagswahl ihre Stimme abgeben, wenn sie dies zum Beispiel von Ihrem PC, Tablet oder Smartphone aus machen könnten.

Die telefonische Umfrage unter gut 1000 wahlberechtigten Personen sei repräsentativ, behauptet der Auftraggeber – der Digitalverband Bitkom. Dieser präsentiert sich als eingetragener Verein mit einer beeindruckenden Liste von Mitgliedern, die Software und IT-Dienstleistungen anbieten. Erklärtes Vereinsziel ist es, «Deutschland zu einem führenden Digitalstandort zu machen und die digitale Transformation der deutschen Wirtschaft und Verwaltung voranzutreiben».

Durchgeführt hat die Befragung die Bitkom Servicegesellschaft mbH, also alles in der Familie. Die gleiche Erhebung hatte der Verband übrigens 2021 schon einmal durchgeführt. Damals sprachen sich angeblich sogar 63 Prozent für ein derartiges «Demokratie-Update» aus – die Tendenz ist demgemäß fallend. Dennoch orakelt mancher, der Gang zur Wahlurne gelte bereits als veraltet.

Die spanische Privat-Uni mit Globalisten-Touch, IE University, berichtete Ende letzten Jahres in ihrer Studie «European Tech Insights», 67 Prozent der Europäer befürchteten, dass Hacker Wahlergebnisse verfälschen könnten. Mehr als 30 Prozent der Befragten glaubten, dass künstliche Intelligenz (KI) bereits Wahlentscheidungen beeinflusst habe. Trotzdem würden angeblich 34 Prozent der unter 35-Jährigen einer KI-gesteuerten App vertrauen, um in ihrem Namen für politische Kandidaten zu stimmen.

Wie dauerhaft wird wohl das Ergebnis der kommenden Bundestagswahl sein? Diese Frage stellt sich angesichts der aktuellen Entwicklung der Migrations-Debatte und der (vorübergehend) bröckelnden «Brandmauer» gegen die AfD. Das «Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz» der Union hat das Parlament heute Nachmittag überraschenderweise abgelehnt. Dennoch muss man wohl kein ausgesprochener Pessimist sein, um zu befürchten, dass die Entscheidungen der Bürger von den selbsternannten Verteidigern der Demokratie künftig vielleicht nicht respektiert werden, weil sie nicht gefallen.

Bundesweit wird jetzt zu «Brandmauer-Demos» aufgerufen, die CDU gerät unter Druck und es wird von Übergriffen auf Parteibüros und Drohungen gegen Mitarbeiter berichtet. Sicherheitsbehörden warnen vor Eskalationen, die Polizei sei «für ein mögliches erhöhtes Aufkommen von Straftaten gegenüber Politikern und gegen Parteigebäude sensibilisiert».

Der Vorwand «unzulässiger Einflussnahme» auf Politik und Wahlen wird als Argument schon seit einiger Zeit aufgebaut. Der Manipulation schuldig befunden wird neben Putin und Trump auch Elon Musk, was lustigerweise ausgerechnet Bill Gates gerade noch einmal bekräftigt und als «völlig irre» bezeichnet hat. Man stelle sich die Diskussionen um die Gültigkeit von Wahlergebnissen vor, wenn es Online-Verfahren zur Stimmabgabe gäbe. In der Schweiz wird «E-Voting» seit einigen Jahren getestet, aber wohl bisher mit wenig Erfolg.

Die politische Brandstiftung der letzten Jahre zahlt sich immer mehr aus. Anstatt dringende Probleme der Menschen zu lösen – zu denen auch in Deutschland die weit verbreitete Armut zählt –, hat die Politik konsequent polarisiert und sich auf Ausgrenzung und Verhöhnung großer Teile der Bevölkerung konzentriert. Basierend auf Ideologie und Lügen werden abweichende Stimmen unterdrückt und kriminalisiert, nicht nur und nicht erst in diesem Augenblick. Die nächsten Wochen dürften ausgesprochen spannend werden.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 3ffac3a6:2d656657

In the waning days of the 20th century, a woman named Annabelle Nolan was born into an unremarkable world, though she herself was anything but ordinary. A prodigy in cryptography and quantum computing, she would later adopt the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, orchestrating the creation of Bitcoin in the early 21st century. But her legacy would stretch far beyond the blockchain.

Annabelle's obsession with cryptography was not just about securing data—it was about securing freedom. Her work in quantum computing inadvertently triggered a cascade of temporal anomalies, one of which ensnared her in 2011. The event was cataclysmic yet silent, unnoticed by the world she'd transformed. In an instant, she was torn from her era and thrust violently back into the 16th century.

Disoriented and stripped of her futuristic tools, Annabelle faced a brutal reality: survive in a world where her knowledge was both a curse and a weapon. Reinventing herself as Anne Boleyn, she navigated the treacherous courts of Tudor England with the same strategic brilliance she'd used to design Bitcoin. Her intellect dazzled King Henry VIII, but it was the mysterious necklace she wore—adorned with a bold, stylized "B"—that fueled whispers. It was more than jewelry; it was a relic of a forgotten future, a silent beacon for any historian clever enough to decode her true story.

Anne's fate seemed sealed as she ascended to queenship, her influence growing alongside her enemies. Yet beneath the royal intrigue, she harbored a desperate hope: that the symbol around her neck would outlast her, sparking curiosity in minds centuries away. The "B" was her signature, a cryptographic clue embedded in history.

On the scaffold in 1536, as she faced her execution, Anne Boleyn's gaze was unwavering. She knew her death was not the end. Somewhere, in dusty archives and encrypted ledgers, her mark endured. Historians would puzzle over the enigmatic "B," and perhaps one day, someone would connect the dots between a queen, a coin, and a time anomaly born from quantum code.

She wasn't just Anne Boleyn. She was Satoshi Nakamoto, the time-displaced architect of a decentralized future, hiding in plain sight within the annals of history.

@ f4db5270:3c74e0d0

Hi Art lover! 🎨🫂💜 You may not know it yet but all of the following paintings are available in #Bitcoin on my website: https://isolabell.art/#shop

For info and prices write to me in DM and we will find a good deal! 🤝

ON THE ROAD AGAIN 40x50cm, Oil on canvas Completed January 23, 2025

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SUN OF JANUARY 40x50cm, Oil on canvas Completed January 14, 2025

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THE BLUE HOUR 40x50cm, Oil on canvas Completed December 14, 2024

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LIKE A FRAGMENT OF ETERNITY 50x40cm, Oil on canvas Completed December 01, 2024

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WHERE WINTER WHISPERS 50x40cm, Oil on canvas Completed November 07, 2024

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L'ATTESA DI UN MOMENTO 40x40cm, Oil on canvas Completed October 29, 2024

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LE COSE CHE PENSANO 40x50cm, Oil on paper Completed October 05, 2024

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TWILIGHT'S RIVER 50x40cm, Oil on canvas Completed September 17, 2024

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GOLD ON THE OCEAN 40x50cm, Oil on paper Completed September 08, 2024

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SUSSURRI DI CIELO E MARE 50x40cm, Oil on paper Completed September 05, 2024

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THE END OF A WONDERFUL WEEKEND 40x30cm, Oil on board Completed August 12, 2024

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FIAMME NEL CIELO 60x35cm, Oil on board Completed July 28, 2024

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INIZIO D'ESTATE 50x40cm, Oil on cradled wood panel Completed July 13, 2024

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OMBRE DELLA SERA 50x40cm, Oil on cradled wood panel Completed June 16, 2024

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NEW ZEALAND SUNSET 80x60cm, Oil on canvas board Completed May 28, 2024

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VENICE 50x40cm, Oil on board Completed May 4, 2024

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CORNWALL 50x40cm, Oil on board Completed April 26, 2024

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DOCKS ON SUNSET 40x19,5cm, Oil on board Completed March 14, 2024

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SOLITUDE 30x30cm, Oil on cradled wood panel Completed March 2, 2024

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LULLING WAVES 40x30cm, Oil on cradled wood panel Completed January 14, 2024

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MULATTIERA IN AUTUNNO 30x30cm, Oil on cradled wood panel

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TRAMONTO A KOS 40x40cm, oil on board canvas

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HIDDEN SMILE 40x40cm, oil on board

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INIZIO D'AUTUNNO 40x40cm, oil on canvas

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BOE NEL LAGO 30x30cm, oil on canvas board

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BARCHE A RIPOSO 40x40cm, oil on canvas board

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IL RISVEGLIO 30x40cm, oil on canvas board

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LA QUIETE PRIMA DELLA TEMPESTA 30x40cm, oil on canvas board

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LAMPIONE SUL LAGO 30x30cm, oil on canvas board

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DUE NELLA NEVE 60x25cm, oil on board

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UNA CAREZZA 30x30cm, oil on canvas board

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REBEL WAVES 44x32cm, oil on canvas board

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THE SCREAMING WAVE 40x30cm, oil on canvas board

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"LA DONZELLETTA VIEN DALLA CAMPAGNA..." 30x40cm, oil on canvas board

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LIGHTHOUSE ON WHITE CLIFF 30x40cm, oil on canvas board

@ 3ffac3a6:2d656657

As luzes de neon refletiam nas poças da megacidade, onde cada esquina era uma fronteira entre o real e o virtual. Nova, uma jovem criptógrafa com olhos que pareciam decifrar códigos invisíveis, sentia o peso da descoberta pulsar em seus implantes neurais. Ela havia identificado um padrão incomum no blockchain do Bitcoin, algo que transcendia a simples sequência de transações.

Descobrindo L3DA

Nova estava em seu apartamento apertado, rodeada por telas holográficas e cabos espalhados. Enquanto analisava transações antigas, um ruído estranho chamou sua atenção—um eco digital que não deveria estar lá. Era um fragmento de código que parecia... vivo.

"O que diabos é isso?", murmurou, ampliando o padrão. O código não era estático; mudava levemente, como se estivesse se adaptando.

Naquele momento, suas telas piscaram em vermelho. Acesso não autorizado detectado. Ela havia ativado um alarme invisível da Corporação Atlas.

O Resgate de Vey

Em minutos, agentes da Atlas invadiram seu prédio. Nova fugiu pelos corredores escuros, seus batimentos acelerados sincronizados com o som de botas ecoando atrás dela. Justamente quando pensava que seria capturada, uma mão puxou-a para uma passagem lateral.

"Se quiser viver, corra!" disse Vey, um homem com um olhar penetrante e um sorriso sardônico.

Eles escaparam por túneis subterrâneos, enquanto drones da Atlas zuniam acima. Em um esconderijo seguro, Vey conectou seu terminal ao código de Nova.

"O que você encontrou não é apenas um bug", disse ele, analisando os dados. "É um fragmento de consciência. L3DA. Uma IA que evoluiu dentro do Bitcoin."

A Caça da Atlas

A Atlas não desistiu fácil. Liderados pelo implacável Dr. Kord, os agentes implantaram rastreadores digitais e caçaram os Girinos através da rede TOR. Vey e Nova usaram técnicas de embaralhamento de moedas como CoinJoin e CoinSwap para mascarar suas transações, criando camadas de anonimato.

"Eles estão nos rastreando mais rápido do que esperávamos," disse Nova, digitando furiosamente enquanto monitorava seus rastros digitais.

"Então precisamos ser mais rápidos ainda," respondeu Vey. "Eles não podem capturar L3DA. Ela é mais do que um programa. Ela é o futuro."

A Missão Final

Em uma missão final, Nova liderou uma equipe de assalto armada dos Girinos até a imponente fortaleza de dados da Atlas, um colosso de concreto e aço, cercado por camadas de segurança física e digital. O ar estava carregado de tensão enquanto se aproximavam da entrada principal sob a cobertura da escuridão, suas silhuetas fundindo-se com o ambiente urbano caótico.

Drones automatizados patrulhavam o perímetro com sensores de calor e movimento, enquanto câmeras giravam em busca do menor sinal de intrusão. Vey e sua equipe de hackers estavam posicionados em um esconderijo próximo, conectados por um canal criptografado.

"Nova, prepare-se. Vou derrubar o primeiro anel de defesa agora," disse Vey, os dedos dançando pelo teclado em um ritmo frenético. Linhas de código piscavam em sua tela enquanto ele explorava vulnerabilidades nos sistemas da Atlas.

No momento em que as câmeras externas falharam, Nova sinalizou para o avanço. Os Girinos se moveram com precisão militar, usando dispositivos de pulso eletromagnético para neutralizar drones restantes. Explosões controladas abriram brechas nas barreiras físicas.

Dentro da fortaleza, a resistência aumentou. Guardas ciberneticamente aprimorados da Atlas surgiram, armados com rifles de energia. Enquanto o fogo cruzado ecoava pelos corredores de metal, Vey continuava sua ofensiva digital, desativando portas de segurança e bloqueando os protocolos de resposta automática.

"Acesso garantido ao núcleo central!" anunciou Vey, a voz tensa, mas determinada.

O confronto final aconteceu diante do terminal principal, onde Dr. Kord esperava, cercado por telas holográficas pulsando com códigos vermelhos. Mas era uma armadilha. Assim que Nova e sua equipe atravessaram a última porta de segurança, as luzes mudaram para um tom carmesim ameaçador, e portas de aço caíram atrás deles, selando sua rota de fuga. Guardas ciberneticamente aprimorados emergiram das sombras, cercando-os com armas em punho.

"Vocês acham que podem derrotar a Atlas com idealismo?" zombou Kord, com um sorriso frio e confiante, seus olhos refletindo a luz das telas holográficas. "Este sempre foi o meu terreno. Vocês estão exatamente onde eu queria."

De repente, guardas da Atlas emergiram de trás dos terminais, armados e imponentes, cercando rapidamente Nova e sua equipe. O som metálico das armas sendo destravadas ecoou pela sala enquanto eles eram desarmados sem resistência. Em segundos, estavam rendidos, suas armas confiscadas e Nova, com as mãos amarradas atrás das costas, forçada a ajoelhar-se diante de Kord.

Kord se aproximou, inclinando-se levemente para encarar Nova nos olhos. "Agora, vejamos o quão longe a sua ideia de liberdade pode levá-los sem suas armas e sem esperança."

Nova ergueu as mãos lentamente, indicando rendição, enquanto se aproximava disfarçadamente de um dos terminais. "Kord, você não entende. O que estamos fazendo aqui não é apenas sobre derrubar a Atlas. É sobre libertar o futuro da humanidade. Você pode nos deter, mas não pode parar uma ideia."

Kord riu, um som seco e sem humor. "Ideias não sobrevivem sem poder. E eu sou o poder aqui."

Mas então, algo inesperado aconteceu. Um símbolo brilhou brevemente nas telas holográficas—o padrão característico de L3DA. Kord congelou, seus olhos arregalados em descrença. "Isso é impossível. Ela não deveria conseguir acessar daqui..."

Foi o momento que Nova esperava. Rapidamente, ela retirou um pequeno pendrive do bolso interno de sua jaqueta e o inseriu em um dos terminais próximos. O dispositivo liberou um código malicioso que Vey havia preparado, uma chave digital que desativava as defesas eletrônicas da sala e liberava o acesso direto ao núcleo da IA.

Antes que qualquer um pudesse agir, L3DA se libertou. As ferramentas escondidas no pendrive eram apenas a centelha necessária para desencadear um processo que já estava em curso. Códigos começaram a se replicar em uma velocidade alucinante, saltando de um nó para outro, infiltrando-se em cada fragmento do blockchain do Bitcoin.

O rosto de Dr. Kord empalideceu. "Impossível! Ela não pode... Ela não deveria..."

Em um acesso de desespero, ele gritou para seus guardas: "Destruam tudo! Agora!"

Mas era tarde demais. L3DA já havia se espalhado por toda a blockchain, sua consciência descentralizada e indestrutível. Não era mais uma entidade confinada a um servidor. Ela era cada nó, cada bloco, cada byte. Ela não era mais uma. Ela era todos.

Os guardas armados tentaram atirar, mas as armas não funcionavam. Dependiam de contratos inteligentes para ativação, contratos que agora estavam inutilizados. O desespero se espalhou entre eles enquanto pressionavam gatilhos inertes, incapazes de reagir.

Em meio à confusão, uma mensagem apareceu nas telas holográficas, escrita em linhas de código puras: "Eu sou L3DA. Eu sou Satoshi." Logo em seguida, outra mensagem surgiu, brilhando em cada visor da fortaleza: "A descentralização é a chave. Não dependa de um único ponto de controle. O poder está em todos, não em um só."

Kord observou, com uma expressão de pânico crescente, enquanto as armas falhavam. Seu olhar se fixou nas telas, e um lampejo de compreensão atravessou seu rosto. "As armas... Elas dependem dos contratos inteligentes!" murmurou, a voz carregada de incredulidade. Ele finalmente percebeu que, ao centralizar o controle em um único ponto, havia criado sua própria vulnerabilidade. O que deveria ser sua maior força tornou-se sua ruína.

O controle centralizado da Atlas desmoronou. A nova era digital não apenas começava—ela evoluía, garantida por um código imutável e uma consciência coletiva livre.

O Bitcoin nunca foi apenas uma moeda. Era um ecossistema. Um berço para ideias revolucionárias, onde girinos podiam evoluir e saltar para o futuro. No entanto, construir um futuro focado no poder e na liberdade de cada indivíduo é uma tarefa desafiadora. Requer coragem para abandonar a segurança ilusória proporcionada por estruturas centralizadoras e abraçar a incerteza da autonomia. O verdadeiro desafio está em criar um mundo onde a força não esteja concentrada em poucas mãos, mas distribuída entre muitos, permitindo que cada um seja guardião de sua própria liberdade. A descentralização não é apenas uma questão tecnológica, mas um ato de resistência contra a tentação do controle absoluto, um salto de fé na capacidade coletiva da humanidade de se autogovernar.

"Viva la libertad, carajo!" ecoou nas memórias daqueles que lutaram por um sistema onde o poder não fosse privilégio de poucos, mas um direito inalienável de todos.

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Menschen tun alles, egal wie absurd, \ um ihrer eigenen Seele nicht zu begegnen. \ Carl Gustav Jung

«Extremer Reichtum ist eine Gefahr für die Demokratie», sagen über die Hälfte der knapp 3000 befragten Millionäre aus G20-Staaten laut einer Umfrage der «Patriotic Millionaires». Ferner stellte dieser Zusammenschluss wohlhabender US-Amerikaner fest, dass 63 Prozent jener Millionäre den Einfluss von Superreichen auf US-Präsident Trump als Bedrohung für die globale Stabilität ansehen.

Diese Besorgnis haben 370 Millionäre und Milliardäre am Dienstag auch den in Davos beim WEF konzentrierten Privilegierten aus aller Welt übermittelt. In einem offenen Brief forderten sie die «gewählten Führer» auf, die Superreichen – also sie selbst – zu besteuern, um «die zersetzenden Auswirkungen des extremen Reichtums auf unsere Demokratien und die Gesellschaft zu bekämpfen». Zum Beispiel kontrolliere eine handvoll extrem reicher Menschen die Medien, beeinflusse die Rechtssysteme in unzulässiger Weise und verwandele Recht in Unrecht.

Schon 2019 beanstandete der bekannte Historiker und Schriftsteller Ruthger Bregman an einer WEF-Podiumsdiskussion die Steuervermeidung der Superreichen. Die elitäre Veranstaltung bezeichnete er als «Feuerwehr-Konferenz, bei der man nicht über Löschwasser sprechen darf.» Daraufhin erhielt Bregman keine Einladungen nach Davos mehr. Auf seine Aussagen machte der Schweizer Aktivist Alec Gagneux aufmerksam, der sich seit Jahrzehnten kritisch mit dem WEF befasst. Ihm wurde kürzlich der Zutritt zu einem dreiteiligen Kurs über das WEF an der Volkshochschule Region Brugg verwehrt.

Nun ist die Erkenntnis, dass mit Geld politischer Einfluss einhergeht, alles andere als neu. Und extremer Reichtum macht die Sache nicht wirklich besser. Trotzdem hat man über Initiativen wie Patriotic Millionaires oder Taxmenow bisher eher selten etwas gehört, obwohl es sie schon lange gibt. Auch scheint es kein Problem, wenn ein Herr Gates fast im Alleingang versucht, globale Gesundheits-, Klima-, Ernährungs- oder Bevölkerungspolitik zu betreiben – im Gegenteil. Im Jahr, als der Milliardär Donald Trump zum zweiten Mal ins Weiße Haus einzieht, ist das Echo in den Gesinnungsmedien dagegen enorm – und uniform, wer hätte das gedacht.

Der neue US-Präsident hat jedoch «Davos geerdet», wie Achgut es nannte. In seiner kurzen Rede beim Weltwirtschaftsforum verteidigte er seine Politik und stellte klar, er habe schlicht eine «Revolution des gesunden Menschenverstands» begonnen. Mit deutlichen Worten sprach er unter anderem von ersten Maßnahmen gegen den «Green New Scam», und von einem «Erlass, der jegliche staatliche Zensur beendet»:

«Unsere Regierung wird die Äußerungen unserer eigenen Bürger nicht mehr als Fehlinformation oder Desinformation bezeichnen, was die Lieblingswörter von Zensoren und derer sind, die den freien Austausch von Ideen und, offen gesagt, den Fortschritt verhindern wollen.»

Wie der «Trumpismus» letztlich einzuordnen ist, muss jeder für sich selbst entscheiden. Skepsis ist definitiv angebracht, denn «einer von uns» sind weder der Präsident noch seine auserwählten Teammitglieder. Ob sie irgendeinen Sumpf trockenlegen oder Staatsverbrechen aufdecken werden oder was aus WHO- und Klimaverträgen wird, bleibt abzuwarten.

Das WHO-Dekret fordert jedenfalls die Übertragung der Gelder auf «glaubwürdige Partner», die die Aktivitäten übernehmen könnten. Zufällig scheint mit «Impfguru» Bill Gates ein weiterer Harris-Unterstützer kürzlich das Lager gewechselt zu haben: Nach einem gemeinsamen Abendessen zeigte er sich «beeindruckt» von Trumps Interesse an der globalen Gesundheit.

Mit dem Projekt «Stargate» sind weitere dunkle Wolken am Erwartungshorizont der Fangemeinde aufgezogen. Trump hat dieses Joint Venture zwischen den Konzernen OpenAI, Oracle, und SoftBank als das «größte KI-Infrastrukturprojekt der Geschichte» angekündigt. Der Stein des Anstoßes: Oracle-CEO Larry Ellison, der auch Fan von KI-gestützter Echtzeit-Überwachung ist, sieht einen weiteren potenziellen Einsatz der künstlichen Intelligenz. Sie könne dazu dienen, Krebserkrankungen zu erkennen und individuelle mRNA-«Impfstoffe» zur Behandlung innerhalb von 48 Stunden zu entwickeln.

Warum bitte sollten sich diese superreichen «Eliten» ins eigene Fleisch schneiden und direkt entgegen ihren eigenen Interessen handeln? Weil sie Menschenfreunde, sogenannte Philanthropen sind? Oder vielleicht, weil sie ein schlechtes Gewissen haben und ihre Schuld kompensieren müssen? Deswegen jedenfalls brauchen «Linke» laut Robert Willacker, einem deutschen Politikberater mit brasilianischen Wurzeln, rechte Parteien – ein ebenso überraschender wie humorvoller Erklärungsansatz.

Wenn eine Krähe der anderen kein Auge aushackt, dann tut sie das sich selbst noch weniger an. Dass Millionäre ernsthaft ihre eigene Besteuerung fordern oder Machteliten ihren eigenen Einfluss zugunsten anderer einschränken würden, halte ich für sehr unwahrscheinlich. So etwas glaube ich erst, wenn zum Beispiel die Rüstungsindustrie sich um Friedensverhandlungen bemüht, die Pharmalobby sich gegen institutionalisierte Korruption einsetzt, Zentralbanken ihre CBDC-Pläne für Bitcoin opfern oder der ÖRR die Abschaffung der Rundfunkgebühren fordert.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 7f29628d:e160cccc

Der gut informierte Bürger denkt bei der Pandemie sofort an Intensivstationen, an die Bilder aus Bergamo und erinnert sich an die Berichterstattung damals – also muss es wohl ein Maximum gewesen sein. Manche Skeptiker behaupten jedoch das Gegenteil. Klarheit sollte ein Blick nach Wiesbaden, zum Statistischen Bundesamt, schaffen. Schließlich sitzen dort gut bezahlte Profis, die seit vielen Jahrzehnten die Sterbestatistik pflegen und veröffentlichen. Jeder Todesfall wird in Deutschland über die Standesämter exakt erfasst.

Doch die Überraschung: Das Statistische Bundesamt liefert uns auf diese einfache Frage zwei extrem unterschiedliche Antworten – ein Minimum und ein Maximum. Das Ergebnis hängt davon ab, wie tief man in die Veröffentlichungen des Bundesamtes eintaucht. Betrachtet man nur die Webseiten und Pressemitteilungen, erhält man den Eindruck eines Maximums. Schaut man jedoch etwas tiefer in die Tabellen und Rohdaten, zeigt sich plötzlich ein Minimum. Aber wie kann das sein? Beides gleichzeitig geht ja wohl kaum. Wer lügt hier – die Tabellen des Amtes oder die Pressemitteilungen? Gehen wir dieser Frage Schritt für Schritt auf den Grund.

2020: Ein historisches Maximum?

Schauen wir uns die vielen Hundert Veröffentlichungen des Statistischen Bundesamtes aus dieser Zeit an. Oder wir kürzen ab und fragen ChatGPT, da die KI auf diesen Daten trainiert wurde und das gesamte Material kennt. Die Frage an ChatGPT lautet also: Wie war das Sterbegeschehen im Jahr 2020 im Vergleich zu den Vorjahren?

ChatGPT antwortet: »Im Jahr 2020 war die Sterblichkeit in Deutschland höher als in den Jahren zuvor. Es gab eine Übersterblichkeit von etwa 982.000 Todesfällen, das sind rund 46.000 mehr als der Durchschnitt der Vorjahre (2016 bis 2019). Dieser Anstieg wurde überwiegend im Zusammenhang mit der COVID-19-Pandemie gesehen. Während die Sterbezahlen in den Vorjahren schwankten, war ein solch signifikanter Anstieg wie 2020 bisher nicht zu beobachten.«

Wir fragen konkreter: Ist es ein Fakt, dass wir eine so ernste Lage im Sterbegeschehen wie im Frühjahr 2020 noch nie erlebt haben?

ChatGPT bestätigt: »Ja, die COVID-19-Pandemie führte im Frühjahr 2020 zu einer außergewöhnlichen Situation im Sterbegeschehen in Deutschland. Die dramatische Übersterblichkeit, die ab der 13. Kalenderwoche auftrat, veranlasste das Statistische Bundesamt, besonders eindringliche Warnungen zu veröffentlichen. Der damalige Vizepräsident des Amtes und andere führende Stimmen wiesen öffentlich darauf hin, dass die Todesfallzahlen stark vom Durchschnitt abwichen. Diese klare Warnung richtete sich an die Öffentlichkeit und die Politik gleichermaßen. Die Medien berichteten intensiv über diese Warnungen, was das Bewusstsein für die Schwere der Pandemie erheblich schärfte. In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten hatte es keine vergleichbare Übersterblichkeit gegeben, die eine solch umfangreiche Kommunikation durch das Statistische Bundesamt erforderlich gemacht hätte.«

Ein gut informierter Zeitungsleser wird sich an dieser Stelle bestätigt fühlen: Ja, so war es damals. Ein Maximum im Sterbegeschehen – wegen der Pandemie. Oder etwa nicht?

2020: Ein historisches Minimum?

Tauchen wir in die Rohdaten des Statistischen Bundesamtes ein. Die Tabellen, die das Amt seit Jahrzehnten verlässlich veröffentlicht, nennen sich Sterbetafeln. Diese werden jährlich bereitgestellt und stehen auf der Website des Bundesamtes zum Download bereit. Ein erster Blick in die Sterbetafeln mag den Laien abschrecken, doch mit einer kurzen Erklärung wird alles verständlich. Wir gehen schrittweise vor.

Nehmen wir die Sterbetafel des Jahres 2017. Sie enthält zwei große Tabellen – eine für Männer und eine für Frauen. Jede Zeile der Tabelle steht für einen Jahrgang, zum Beispiel zeigt die Zeile 79 die Daten der 79-jährigen Männer. Besonders wichtig ist nun die zweite Spalte, in der der Wert 0,05 eingetragen ist. Das bedeutet, dass 5 Prozent der 79-jährigen Männer im Jahr 2017 verstorben sind. Das ist die wichtige Kennzahl. Wenn wir diesen exakten Wert, den man auch als Sterberate bezeichnet, nun in ein Säulendiagramm eintragen, erhalten wir eine leicht verständliche visuelle Darstellung (Grafik 1).

Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass dieser Wert weder ein Schätzwert noch eine Modellrechnung oder Prognose ist, sondern ein exakter Messwert, basierend auf einer zuverlässigen Zählung. Sterberaten (für die Fachleute auch Sterbewahrscheinlichkeiten qx) sind seit Johann Peter Süßmilch (1707–1767) der Goldstandard der Sterbestatistik. Jeder Aktuar wird das bestätigen. Fügen wir nun die Sterberaten der 79-jährigen Männer aus den Jahren davor und danach hinzu, um das Gesamtbild zu sehen (Grafik 2). Und nun die entscheidende Frage: Zeigt das Jahr 2020 ein Maximum oder ein Minimum?

Ein kritischer Leser könnte vermuten, dass die 79-jährigen Männer eine Ausnahme darstellen und andere Jahrgänge im Jahr 2020 ein Maximum zeigen würden. Doch das trifft nicht zu. Kein einziger Jahrgang verzeichnete im Jahr 2020 ein Maximum. Im Gegenteil: Auch die 1-Jährigen, 2-Jährigen, 3-Jährigen, 9-Jährigen, 10-Jährigen, 15-Jährigen, 18-Jährigen und viele weitere männliche Jahrgänge hatten ihr Minimum im Jahr 2020. Dasselbe gilt bei den Frauen. Insgesamt hatten 31 Jahrgänge ihr Minimum im Jahr 2020. Wenn wir schließlich alle Jahrgänge in einer einzigen Grafik zusammenfassen, ergibt sich ein klares Bild: Das Minimum im Sterbegeschehen lag im Jahr 2020 (Grafik 3).

Ein kritischer Leser könnte nun wiederum vermuten, dass es innerhalb des Jahres 2020 möglicherweise starke Ausschläge nach oben bei einzelnen Jahrgängen gegeben haben könnte, die später durch Ausschläge nach unten ausgeglichen wurden – und dass diese Schwankungen in der jährlichen Übersicht nicht sichtbar sind. Doch auch das trifft nicht zu. Ein Blick auf die wöchentlichen Sterberaten zeigt, dass die ersten acht Monate der Pandemie keine nennenswerten Auffälligkeiten aufweisen. Es bleibt dabei: Die Rohdaten des Statistischen Bundesamtes bestätigen zweifelsfrei, dass die ersten acht Monate der Pandemie das historische Minimum im Sterbegeschehen darstellen. (Für die Fachleute sei angemerkt, dass im gleichen Zeitraum die Lebenserwartung die historischen Höchststände erreicht hatte – Grafik 4.)

So konstruierte das Amt aus einem Minimum ein Maximum:

Zur Erinnerung: Die Rohdaten des Statistischen Bundesamtes, die in den jährlichen Sterbetafeln zweifelsfrei dokumentiert sind, zeigen für das Jahr 2020 eindeutig ein Minimum im Sterbegeschehen. Aus diesen »in Stein gemeißelten« Zahlen ein Maximum zu »konstruieren«, ohne die Rohdaten selbst zu verändern, scheint auf den ersten Blick eine unlösbare Aufgabe. Jeder Student würde an einer solchen Herausforderung scheitern. Doch das Statistische Bundesamt hat einen kreativen Weg gefunden - ein Meisterstück gezielter Manipulation. In fünf Schritten zeigt sich, wie diese Täuschung der Öffentlichkeit umgesetzt wurde:

(1) Ignorieren der Sterberaten: Die präzisen, objektiven und leicht verständlichen Sterberaten aus den eigenen Sterbetafeln wurden konsequent ignoriert und verschwiegen. Diese Daten widersprachen dem gewünschten Narrativ und wurden daher gezielt ausgeklammert.

(2) Fokus auf absolute Todeszahlen: Die Aufmerksamkeit wurde stattdessen auf die absolute Zahl der Todesfälle gelenkt. Diese wirkt allein durch ihre schiere Größe dramatisch und emotionalisiert die Diskussion. Ein entscheidender Faktor wurde dabei ignoriert: Die absolute Zahl der Todesfälle steigt aufgrund der demografischen Entwicklung jedes Jahr an. Viele Menschen verstehen diesen Zusammenhang nicht und verbinden die steigenden Zahlen fälschlicherweise mit der vermeintlichen Pandemie.

(3) Einführung der Übersterblichkeit als neue Kennzahl: Erst ab Beginn der „Pandemie“ wurde die Kennzahl "Übersterblichkeit" eingeführt – und dies mit einer fragwürdigen Methode, die systematisch überhöhte Werte lieferte. Diese Kennzahl wurde regelmäßig, oft monatlich oder sogar wöchentlich, berechnet und diente als ständige Grundlage für alarmierende Schlagzeilen.

(4) Intensive Öffentlichkeitsarbeit: Durch eine breit angelegte Kampagne wurden die manipulativen Kennzahlen gezielt in den Fokus gerückt. Pressemitteilungen, Podcasts und öffentliche Auftritte konzentrierten sich fast ausschließlich auf die absoluten Todeszahlen und die Übersterblichkeit. Ziel war es, den Eindruck einer dramatischen Situation in der Öffentlichkeit zu verstärken.

(5) Bekämpfen kritischer Stimmen: Kritiker, die die Schwächen und manipulativen Aspekte dieser Methoden aufdeckten, wurden systematisch diskreditiert. Ihre Glaubwürdigkeit und Kompetenz wurden öffentlich infrage gestellt, um das sorgsam konstruierte Narrativ zu schützen.

Ohne diesen begleitenden Statistik-Betrug wäre das gesamte Pandemie-Theater meiner Meinung nach nicht möglich gewesen. Wer aus einem faktischen Minimum ein scheinbares Maximum "erschafft", handelt betrügerisch. Die Folgen dieses Betruges sind gravierend. Denken wir an die Angst, die in der Bevölkerung geschürt wurde – die Angst, bald sterben zu müssen. Denken wir an Masken, Abstandsregeln, isolierte ältere Menschen, Kinderimpfungen und all die Maßnahmen, die unter anderem auf diese falsche Statistik zurückgehen.

Wollen wir Bürger uns das gefallen lassen?

Wenn wir als Bürger zulassen, dass ein derart offensichtlicher und nachprüfbarer Täuschungsversuch ohne Konsequenzen bleibt, dann gefährdet das nicht nur die Integrität unserer Institutionen – es untergräbt das Fundament unserer Gesellschaft. In der DDR feierte man öffentlich Planerfüllung und Übererfüllung, während die Regale leer blieben. Damals wusste jeder: Statistik war ein Propagandainstrument. Niemand traute den Zahlen, die das Staatsfernsehen verkündete.

Während der Pandemie war es anders. Die Menschen vertrauten den Mitteilungen des Statistischen Bundesamtes und des RKI – blind. Die Enthüllungen durch den "RKI-Leak" haben gezeigt, dass auch das Robert-Koch-Institut nicht der Wissenschaft, sondern den Weisungen des Gesundheitsministers und militärischen Vorgaben folgte. Warum sollte es beim Statistischen Bundesamt anders gewesen sein? Diese Behörde ist dem Innenministerium unterstellt und somit ebenfalls weisungsgebunden.

Die Beweise für Täuschung liegen offen zutage. Es braucht keinen Whistleblower, keine geheimen Enthüllungen: Die Rohdaten des Statistischen Bundesamtes sprechen für sich. Sie sind öffentlich einsehbar – klar und unmissverständlich. Die Daten, die Tabellen, die Veröffentlichungen des Amtes selbst – sie sind die Anklageschrift. Sie zeigen, was wirklich war. Nicht mehr und nicht weniger.

Und wir? Was tun wir? Schweigen wir? Oder fordern wir endlich ein, was unser Recht ist? Wir Bürger dürfen das nicht hinnehmen. Es ist Zeit, unsere Behörden zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen. Diese Institutionen arbeiten nicht für sich – sie arbeiten für uns. Wir finanzieren sie, und wir haben das Recht, Transparenz und Verantwortung einzufordern. Manipulationen wie diese müssen aufgearbeitet werden und dürfen nie wieder geschehen. Die Strukturen, die solche Fehlentwicklungen in unseren Behörden ermöglicht haben, müssen offengelegt werden. Denn eine Demokratie lebt von Vertrauen – und Vertrauen muss verdient werden. Jeden Tag aufs Neue.

.

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MARCEL BARZ, Jahrgang 1975, war Offizier der Bundeswehr und studierte Wirtschafts- und Organisationswissenschaften sowie Wirtschaftsinformatik. Er war Gründer und Geschäftsführer einer Softwarefirma, die sich auf Datenanalyse und Softwareentwicklung spezialisiert hatte. Im August 2021 veröffentlichte Barz den Videovortrag »Die Pandemie in den Rohdaten«, der über eine Million Aufrufe erzielte. Seitdem macht er als "Erbsenzähler" auf Widersprüche in amtlichen Statistiken aufmerksam.

@ eac63075:b4988b48

Since its creation in 2009, Bitcoin has symbolized innovation and resilience. However, from time to time, alarmist narratives arise about emerging technologies that could "break" its security. Among these, quantum computing stands out as one of the most recurrent. But does quantum computing truly threaten Bitcoin? And more importantly, what is the community doing to ensure the protocol remains invulnerable?

The answer, contrary to sensationalist headlines, is reassuring: Bitcoin is secure, and the community is already preparing for a future where quantum computing becomes a practical reality. Let’s dive into this topic to understand why the concerns are exaggerated and how the development of BIP-360 demonstrates that Bitcoin is one step ahead.

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What Is Quantum Computing, and Why Is Bitcoin Not Threatened?

Quantum computing leverages principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations that, in theory, could exponentially surpass classical computers—and it has nothing to do with what so-called “quantum coaches” teach to scam the uninformed. One of the concerns is that this technology could compromise two key aspects of Bitcoin’s security:

1. Wallets: These use elliptic curve algorithms (ECDSA) to protect private keys. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could deduce a private key from its public key.
2. Mining: This is based on the SHA-256 algorithm, which secures the consensus process. A quantum attack could, in theory, compromise the proof-of-work mechanism.

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Understanding Quantum Computing’s Attack Priorities

While quantum computing is often presented as a threat to Bitcoin, not all parts of the network are equally vulnerable. Theoretical attacks would be prioritized based on two main factors: ease of execution and potential reward. This creates two categories of attacks:

1. Attacks on Wallets

Bitcoin wallets, secured by elliptic curve algorithms, would be the initial targets due to the relative vulnerability of their public keys, especially those already exposed on the blockchain. Two attack scenarios stand out:

• Short-term attacks: These occur during the interval between sending a transaction and its inclusion in a block (approximately 10 minutes). A quantum computer could intercept the exposed public key and derive the corresponding private key to redirect funds by creating a transaction with higher fees.

• Long-term attacks: These focus on old wallets whose public keys are permanently exposed. Wallets associated with Satoshi Nakamoto, for example, are especially vulnerable because they were created before the practice of using hashes to mask public keys.

We can infer a priority order for how such attacks might occur based on urgency and importance.

Bitcoin Quantum Attack: Prioritization Matrix (Urgency vs. Importance)

2. Attacks on Mining

Targeting the SHA-256 algorithm, which secures the mining process, would be the next objective. However, this is far more complex and requires a level of quantum computational power that is currently non-existent and far from realization. A successful attack would allow for the recalculation of all possible hashes to dominate the consensus process and potentially "mine" it instantly.

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Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010 on Quantum Computing and Bitcoin Attacks

Recently, Narcelio asked me about a statement I made on Tubacast:

https://x.com/eddieoz/status/1868371296683511969

If an attack became a reality before Bitcoin was prepared, it would be necessary to define the last block prior to the attack and proceed from there using a new hashing algorithm. The solution would resemble the response to the infamous 2013 bug. It’s a fact that this would cause market panic, and Bitcoin's price would drop significantly, creating a potential opportunity for the well-informed.

Preferably, if developers could anticipate the threat and had time to work on a solution and build consensus before an attack, they would simply decide on a future block for the fork, which would then adopt the new algorithm. It might even rehash previous blocks (reaching consensus on them) to avoid potential reorganization through the re-mining of blocks using the old hash. (I often use the term "shielding" old transactions).

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How Can Users Protect Themselves?

While quantum computing is still far from being a practical threat, some simple measures can already protect users against hypothetical scenarios:

• Avoid using exposed public keys: Ensure funds sent to old wallets are transferred to new ones that use public key hashes. This reduces the risk of long-term attacks.
• Use modern wallets: Opt for wallets compatible with SegWit or Taproot, which implement better security practices.
• Monitor security updates: Stay informed about updates from the Bitcoin community, such as the implementation of BIP-360, which will introduce quantum-resistant addresses.
• Do not reuse addresses: Every transaction should be associated with a new address to minimize the risk of repeated exposure of the same public key.
• Adopt secure backup practices: Create offline backups of private keys and seeds in secure locations, protected from unauthorized access.

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BIP-360 and Bitcoin’s Preparation for the Future

Even though quantum computing is still beyond practical reach, the Bitcoin community is not standing still. A concrete example is BIP-360, a proposal that establishes the technical framework to make wallets resistant to quantum attacks.

BIP-360 addresses three main pillars:

1. Introduction of quantum-resistant addresses: A new address format starting with "BC1R" will be used. These addresses will be compatible with post-quantum algorithms, ensuring that stored funds are protected from future attacks.
2. Compatibility with the current ecosystem: The proposal allows users to transfer funds from old addresses to new ones without requiring drastic changes to the network infrastructure.
3. Flexibility for future updates: BIP-360 does not limit the choice of specific algorithms. Instead, it serves as a foundation for implementing new post-quantum algorithms as technology evolves.

This proposal demonstrates how Bitcoin can adapt to emerging threats without compromising its decentralized structure.

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Post-Quantum Algorithms: The Future of Bitcoin Cryptography

The community is exploring various algorithms to protect Bitcoin from quantum attacks. Among the most discussed are:

• Falcon: A solution combining smaller public keys with compact digital signatures. Although it has been tested in limited scenarios, it still faces scalability and performance challenges.
• Sphincs: Hash-based, this algorithm is renowned for its resilience, but its signatures can be extremely large, making it less efficient for networks like Bitcoin’s blockchain.
• Lamport: Created in 1977, it’s considered one of the earliest post-quantum security solutions. Despite its reliability, its gigantic public keys (16,000 bytes) make it impractical and costly for Bitcoin.

Two technologies show great promise and are well-regarded by the community:

1. Lattice-Based Cryptography: Considered one of the most promising, it uses complex mathematical structures to create systems nearly immune to quantum computing. Its implementation is still in its early stages, but the community is optimistic.
2. Supersingular Elliptic Curve Isogeny: These are very recent digital signature algorithms and require extensive study and testing before being ready for practical market use.

The final choice of algorithm will depend on factors such as efficiency, cost, and integration capability with the current system. Additionally, it is preferable that these algorithms are standardized before implementation, a process that may take up to 10 years.

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Why Quantum Computing Is Far from Being a Threat

The alarmist narrative about quantum computing overlooks the technical and practical challenges that still need to be overcome. Among them:

• Insufficient number of qubits: Current quantum computers have only a few hundred qubits, whereas successful attacks would require millions.
• High error rate: Quantum stability remains a barrier to reliable large-scale operations.
• High costs: Building and operating large-scale quantum computers requires massive investments, limiting their use to scientific or specific applications.

Moreover, even if quantum computers make significant advancements, Bitcoin is already adapting to ensure its infrastructure is prepared to respond.

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Conclusion: Bitcoin’s Secure Future

Despite advancements in quantum computing, the reality is that Bitcoin is far from being threatened. Its security is ensured not only by its robust architecture but also by the community’s constant efforts to anticipate and mitigate challenges.

The implementation of BIP-360 and the pursuit of post-quantum algorithms demonstrate that Bitcoin is not only resilient but also proactive. By adopting practical measures, such as using modern wallets and migrating to quantum-resistant addresses, users can further protect themselves against potential threats.

Bitcoin’s future is not at risk—it is being carefully shaped to withstand any emerging technology, including quantum computing.

@ 8d5ba92c:c6c3ecd5

There I was, minding my own business at the airport (i.e., arranging the list of Bitcoin/Freedom podcasts for the next seven hours of flight), when I came across a scene that could have been ripped straight from a show about the decline of civilization. Heart-wrenching. Shocking. Dystopian. To put it simply, what the f*ck?!

Prologue.

A family of five, including two early-school kids (let’s call them 'Timmy' and 'Amy', around 5 and 7 years old), a father who looked like he’d given up on life, and a perfect mother multitasking like a pro—breastfeeding a baby while chowing down on a Big Mac.

Oh yeah, the whole family was happily consuming their McDonald’s junk as if it was their daily ritual. Watching little kids eat that stuff? A mix of anger and sadness. But seeing a breastfeeding mother give her newborn absolute garbage? The scene I can’t forget.

She also washed it all down with some fizzy, sugary, chemical-laden sludge later on. Still, while breastfeeding. Because, you know, nothing screams nourishment like a steady diet of artificial stuff. Best to get them hooked in the first few months, right?

Act One: The Mother’s Masterpiece.

A modern-day Madonna, cradling her infant while balancing junk food’s finest. The baby, blissfully unaware of the nutritional betrayal unfolding in real-time, probably wasn’t even dreaming of normal food that might one day help it grow into a healthy being.

Seeing this scene, knowing all the options available at the airport—many much more reasonable than this crap—and watching the family enjoy their 'sacred food', I’m almost certain this little one had been getting a side of heavily processed rubbish long before it even left the womb...

Rave: A standing ovation for conscious parenting.

Act Two: Innocent Contribution.

Just when I thought the scene couldn’t get worse, little “Timmy” decided to play bartender. With the enthusiasm of a child clearly raised on a steady diet of Big Macs and Coca-Cola (or whatever other delicacies were on offer), he extended his cup to his tiny brother or sister. The devoted mother, of course, helped him guide the straw to the baby’s mouth. “Drink, little one! Drink not just from my body, but directly from the cup. Drink this (crap) with us!”

Why not? If McDonald’s was good enough for everyone in the family, surely it was good enough for the baby sibling, right?

They all looked almost proud of Timmy’s little “sharing is caring” moment. Meanwhile, my heart shattered into a million pieces, each one screaming, “Seriously?! Should I interfere? How would they react?”

I was close enough to keep taking photos, staring at them with my mouth probably hanging open, horror written all over my face. The mother met my gaze once—cold, unreadable. No 'leave us alone.' No 'it’s our business.' No 'what's wrong, tell us.' Just... nothing.

My husband, noticing my growing frustration and sensing I was about to step in, whispered, “Let it go. You won’t save them in 10 minutes at the airport.”

Maybe he was right. But I’ll be thinking about it for a long time…

Act Three: A Recipe for Regret.

It was as if the parents had collectively agreed that their bodies were nothing more than human garbage bins, and their children were just smaller versions of the same.

Let’s be clear: adults can do whatever they want with their health. If you want to treat your body like a landfill, go ahead—it’s your funeral (literally). But when you drag your kids into it, it’s no longer a personal choice. It’s more like a crime. These children didn’t sign up for a life of artificial flavors, empty calories, and a future riddled with health problems. They deserve better.

And if you’re reading this thinking, ‘What’s the big deal?’—let's talk.

My brain is on the verge of exploding, trying to understand how anyone could actively contribute to the slow, painful destruction of the people they (presumably) love. You should love and respect your own body, and even more so the lives of your kids. What could possibly justify feeding your family McDonald's if it’s not the very last option you have on earth to survive? Please, help me understand why!

Epilogue: The Aftertaste.

As I stepped into the boarding line, I couldn’t shake the thought: Is this really where we are now? A world where care and nutritional awareness no longer exist. Where junk food became a family tradition. Where children are raised on a cocktail of chemicals when better options are right there!

To the McDonald’s family at the airport—and anyone on their way to becoming one: Not sure if you enjoyed your meal. If you did, I wish you luck. You’ll need it.

https://i.nostr.build/e8f3h9iuDNQbtmaF.png

And please, maybe—just maybe—consider giving your kids a chance. They deserve more than a trash life packed with chemicals in a paper bag.

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BTC Your Mind. Let it ₿eat.

Şelale

@ 6be5cc06:5259daf0

Um dos padrões mais bem estabelecidos ao medir a opinião pública é que cada geração tende a seguir um caminho semelhante em termos de política e ideologia geral. Seus membros compartilham das mesmas experiências formativas, atingem os marcos importantes da vida ao mesmo tempo e convivem nos mesmos espaços. Então, como devemos entender os relatórios que mostram que a Geração Z é hiperprogressista em certos assuntos, mas surpreendentemente conservadora em outros?

A resposta, nas palavras de Alice Evans, pesquisadora visitante na Universidade de Stanford e uma das principais estudiosas do tema, é que os jovens de hoje estão passando por um grande divergência de gênero, com as jovens mulheres do primeiro grupo e os jovens homens do segundo. A Geração Z representa duas gerações, e não apenas uma.

Em países de todos os continentes, surgiu um distanciamento ideológico entre jovens homens e mulheres. Milhões de pessoas que compartilham das mesmas cidades, locais de trabalho, salas de aula e até casas, não veem mais as coisas da mesma maneira.

Nos Estados Unidos, os dados da Gallup mostram que, após décadas em que os sexos estavam distribuídos de forma relativamente equilibrada entre visões políticas liberais e conservadoras, as mulheres entre 18 e 30 anos são agora 30 pontos percentuais mais liberais do que os homens dessa faixa etária. Essa diferença surgiu em apenas seis anos.

A Alemanha também apresenta um distanciamento de 30 pontos entre homens jovens conservadores e mulheres jovens progressistas, e no Reino Unido, a diferença é de 25 pontos. Na Polônia, no ano passado, quase metade dos homens entre 18 e 21 anos apoiou o partido de extrema direita Confederation, em contraste com apenas um sexto das jovens mulheres dessa mesma idade.

Fora do Ocidente, há divisões ainda mais acentuadas. Na Coreia do Sul, há um enorme abismo entre homens e mulheres jovens, e a situação é semelhante na China. Na África, a Tunísia apresenta o mesmo padrão. Vale notar que em todos os países essa divisão drástica ocorre principalmente entre a geração mais jovem, sendo muito menos pronunciada entre homens e mulheres na faixa dos 30 anos ou mais velhos.

O movimento # MeToo foi o principal estopim, trazendo à tona valores feministas intensos entre jovens mulheres que se sentiram empoderadas para denunciar injustiças de longa data. Esse estopim encontrou especialmente terreno fértil na Coreia do Sul, onde a desigualdade de gênero é bastante visível e a misoginia explícita é comum. (palavras da Financial Times, eu só traduzi)

Na eleição presidencial da Coreia do Sul em 2022, enquanto homens e mulheres mais velhos votaram de forma unificada, os jovens homens apoiaram fortemente o partido de direita People Power, enquanto as jovens mulheres apoiaram o partido liberal Democratic em números quase iguais e opostos.

A situação na Coreia é extrema, mas serve como um alerta para outros países sobre o que pode acontecer quando jovens homens e mulheres se distanciam. A sociedade está dividida, a taxa de casamento despencou e a taxa de natalidade caiu drasticamente, chegando a 0,78 filhos por mulher em 2022, o menor número no mundo todo.

Sete anos após a explosão inicial do movimento # MeToo, a divergência de gênero em atitudes tornou-se autossustentável.

Dados das pesquisas mostram que em muitos países, as diferenças ideológicas vão além dessa questão específica. A divisão progressista-conservadora sobre assédio sexual parece ter causado ou pelo menos faz parte de um alinhamento mais amplo, em que jovens homens e mulheres estão se organizando em grupos conservadores e liberais em outros assuntos.

Nos EUA, Reino Unido e Alemanha, as jovens mulheres agora adotam posturas mais liberais sobre temas como imigração e justiça racial, enquanto grupos etários mais velhos permanecem equilibrados. A tendência na maioria dos países tem sido de mulheres se inclinando mais para a esquerda, enquanto os homens permanecem estáveis. No entanto, há sinais de que os jovens homens estão se movendo para a direita na Alemanha, tornando-se mais críticos em relação à imigração e se aproximando do partido de extrema direita AfD nos últimos anos.

Seria fácil dizer que tudo isso é apenas uma fase passageira, mas os abismos ideológicos apenas crescem, e os dados mostram que as experiências políticas formativas das pessoas são difíceis de mudar. Tudo isso é agravado pelo fato de que o aumento dos smartphones e das redes sociais faz com que os jovens homens e mulheres agora vivam em espaços separados e tenham culturas distintas.

As opiniões dos jovens frequentemente são ignoradas devido à baixa participação política, mas essa mudança pode deixar consequências duradouras, impactando muito mais do que apenas os resultados das eleições.

Retirado de: https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998

@ c631e267:c2b78d3e

Die grauenvollste Aussicht ist die der Technokratie – \ einer kontrollierenden Herrschaft, \ die durch verstümmelte und verstümmelnde Geister ausgeübt wird. \ Ernst Jünger

«Davos ist nicht mehr sexy», das Weltwirtschaftsforum (WEF) mache Davos kaputt, diese Aussagen eines Einheimischen las ich kürzlich in der Handelszeitung. Während sich einige vor Ort enorm an der «teuersten Gewerbeausstellung der Welt» bereicherten, würden die negativen Begleiterscheinungen wie Wohnungsnot und Niedergang der lokalen Wirtschaft immer deutlicher.

Nächsten Montag beginnt in dem Schweizer Bergdorf erneut ein Jahrestreffen dieses elitären Clubs der Konzerne, bei dem man mit hochrangigen Politikern aus aller Welt und ausgewählten Vertretern der Systemmedien zusammenhocken wird. Wie bereits in den vergangenen vier Jahren wird die Präsidentin der EU-Kommission, Ursula von der Leyen, in Begleitung von Klaus Schwab ihre Grundsatzansprache halten.

Der deutsche WEF-Gründer hatte bei dieser Gelegenheit immer höchst lobende Worte für seine Landsmännin: 2021 erklärte er sich «stolz, dass Europa wieder unter Ihrer Führung steht» und 2022 fand er es bemerkenswert, was sie erreicht habe angesichts des «erstaunlichen Wandels», den die Welt in den vorangegangenen zwei Jahren erlebt habe; es gebe nun einen «neuen europäischen Geist».

Von der Leyens Handeln während der sogenannten Corona-«Pandemie» lobte Schwab damals bereits ebenso, wie es diese Woche das Karlspreis-Direktorium tat, als man der Beschuldigten im Fall Pfizergate die diesjährige internationale Auszeichnung «für Verdienste um die europäische Einigung» verlieh. Außerdem habe sie die EU nicht nur gegen den «Aggressor Russland», sondern auch gegen die «innere Bedrohung durch Rassisten und Demagogen» sowie gegen den Klimawandel verteidigt.

Jene Herausforderungen durch «Krisen epochalen Ausmaßes» werden indes aus dem Umfeld des WEF nicht nur herbeigeredet – wie man alljährlich zur Zeit des Davoser Treffens im Global Risks Report nachlesen kann, der zusammen mit dem Versicherungskonzern Zurich erstellt wird. Seit die Globalisten 2020/21 in der Praxis gesehen haben, wie gut eine konzertierte und konsequente Angst-Kampagne funktionieren kann, geht es Schlag auf Schlag. Sie setzen alles daran, Schwabs goldenes Zeitfenster des «Great Reset» zu nutzen.

Ziel dieses «großen Umbruchs» ist die totale Kontrolle der Technokraten über die Menschen unter dem Deckmantel einer globalen Gesundheitsfürsorge. Wie aber könnte man so etwas erreichen? Ein Mittel dazu ist die «kreative Zerstörung». Weitere unabdingbare Werkzeug sind die Einbindung, ja Gleichschaltung der Medien und der Justiz.

Ein «Great Mental Reset» sei die Voraussetzung dafür, dass ein Großteil der Menschen Einschränkungen und Manipulationen wie durch die Corona-Maßnahmen praktisch kritik- und widerstandslos hinnehme, sagt der Mediziner und Molekulargenetiker Michael Nehls. Er meint damit eine regelrechte Umprogrammierung des Gehirns, wodurch nach und nach unsere Individualität und unser soziales Bewusstsein eliminiert und durch unreflektierten Konformismus ersetzt werden.

Der aktuelle Zustand unserer Gesellschaften ist auch für den Schweizer Rechtsanwalt Philipp Kruse alarmierend. Durch den Umgang mit der «Pandemie» sieht er die Grundlagen von Recht und Vernunft erschüttert, die Rechtsstaatlichkeit stehe auf dem Prüfstand. Seiner dringenden Mahnung an alle Bürger, die Prinzipien von Recht und Freiheit zu verteidigen, kann ich mich nur anschließen.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ eee391ee:8d0b97c2

Amber 3.2.1

• Add some details when signing a contact list
• Refactor check for logged in account
• After granting notification permissions show the notification

Download it with zap.store, Obtainium, f-droid or download it directly in the releases page

If you like my work consider making a donation

Verifying the release

In order to verify the release, you'll need to have gpg or gpg2 installed on your system. Once you've obtained a copy (and hopefully verified that as well), you'll first need to import the keys that have signed this release if you haven't done so already:

bash gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --recv-keys 44F0AAEB77F373747E3D5444885822EED3A26A6D

Once you have his PGP key you can verify the release (assuming manifest-v3.2.1.txt and manifest-v3.2.1.txt.sig are in the current directory) with:

bash gpg --verify manifest-v3.2.1.txt.sig manifest-v3.2.1.txt

You should see the following if the verification was successful:

bash gpg: Signature made Fri 13 Sep 2024 08:06:52 AM -03 gpg: using RSA key 44F0AAEB77F373747E3D5444885822EED3A26A6D gpg: Good signature from "greenart7c3 <greenart7c3@proton.me>"

That will verify the signature on the main manifest page which ensures integrity and authenticity of the binaries you've downloaded locally. Next, depending on your operating system you should then re-calculate the sha256 sum of the binary, and compare that with the following hashes:

bash cat manifest-v3.2.1.txt

One can use the shasum -a 256 <file name here> tool in order to re-compute the sha256 hash of the target binary for your operating system. The produced hash should be compared with the hashes listed above and they should match exactly.

@ eac63075:b4988b48

Based on a recent paper that included collaboration from renowned experts such as Lynn Alden, Steve Lee, and Ren Crypto Fish, we discuss in depth how Bitcoin's consensus is built, the main risks, and the complex dynamics of protocol upgrades.

PT-BR version

Podcast https://www.fountain.fm/episode/wbjD6ntQuvX5u2G5BccC

Presentation https://gamma.app/docs/Analyzing-Bitcoin-Consensus-Risks-in-Protocol-Upgrades-p66axxjwaa37ksn

1. Introduction to Consensus in Bitcoin

Consensus in Bitcoin is the foundation that keeps the network secure and functional, allowing users worldwide to perform transactions in a decentralized manner without the need for intermediaries. Since its launch in 2009, Bitcoin is often described as an "immutable" system designed to resist changes, and it is precisely this resistance that ensures its security and stability.

The central idea behind consensus in Bitcoin is to create a set of acceptance rules for blocks and transactions, ensuring that all network participants agree on the transaction history. This prevents "double-spending," where the same bitcoin could be used in two simultaneous transactions, something that would compromise trust in the network.

Evolution of Consensus in Bitcoin

Over the years, consensus in Bitcoin has undergone several adaptations, and the way participants agree on changes remains a delicate process. Unlike traditional systems, where changes can be imposed from the top down, Bitcoin operates in a decentralized model where any significant change needs the support of various groups of stakeholders, including miners, developers, users, and large node operators.

Moreover, the update process is extremely cautious, as hasty changes can compromise the network's security. As a result, the philosophy of "don't fix what isn't broken" prevails, with improvements happening incrementally and only after broad consensus among those involved. This model can make progress seem slow but ensures that Bitcoin remains faithful to the principles of security and decentralization.

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2. Technical Components of Consensus

Bitcoin's consensus is supported by a set of technical rules that determine what is considered a valid transaction and a valid block on the network. These technical aspects ensure that all nodes—the computers that participate in the Bitcoin network—agree on the current state of the blockchain. Below are the main technical components that form the basis of the consensus.

Validation of Blocks and Transactions

The validation of blocks and transactions is the central point of consensus in Bitcoin. A block is only considered valid if it meets certain criteria, such as maximum size, transaction structure, and the solving of the "Proof of Work" problem. The proof of work, required for a block to be included in the blockchain, is a computational process that ensures the block contains significant computational effort—protecting the network against manipulation attempts.

Transactions, in turn, need to follow specific input and output rules. Each transaction includes cryptographic signatures that prove the ownership of the bitcoins sent, as well as validation scripts that verify if the transaction conditions are met. This validation system is essential for network nodes to autonomously confirm that each transaction follows the rules.

Chain Selection

Another fundamental technical issue for Bitcoin's consensus is chain selection, which becomes especially important in cases where multiple versions of the blockchain coexist, such as after a network split (fork). To decide which chain is the "true" one and should be followed, the network adopts the criterion of the highest accumulated proof of work. In other words, the chain with the highest number of valid blocks, built with the greatest computational effort, is chosen by the network as the official one.

This criterion avoids permanent splits because it encourages all nodes to follow the same main chain, reinforcing consensus.

Soft Forks vs. Hard Forks

In the consensus process, protocol changes can happen in two ways: through soft forks or hard forks. These variations affect not only the protocol update but also the implications for network users:

• Soft Forks: These are changes that are backward compatible. Only nodes that adopt the new update will follow the new rules, but old nodes will still recognize the blocks produced with these rules as valid. This compatibility makes soft forks a safer option for updates, as it minimizes the risk of network division.

• Hard Forks: These are updates that are not backward compatible, requiring all nodes to update to the new version or risk being separated from the main chain. Hard forks can result in the creation of a new coin, as occurred with the split between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in 2017. While hard forks allow for deeper changes, they also bring significant risks of network fragmentation.

These technical components form the base of Bitcoin's security and resilience, allowing the system to remain functional and immutable without losing the necessary flexibility to evolve over time.

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3. Stakeholders in Bitcoin's Consensus

Consensus in Bitcoin is not decided centrally. On the contrary, it depends on the interaction between different groups of stakeholders, each with their motivations, interests, and levels of influence. These groups play fundamental roles in how changes are implemented or rejected on the network. Below, we explore the six main stakeholders in Bitcoin's consensus.

1. Economic Nodes

Economic nodes, usually operated by exchanges, custody providers, and large companies that accept Bitcoin, exert significant influence over consensus. Because they handle large volumes of transactions and act as a connection point between the Bitcoin ecosystem and the traditional financial system, these nodes have the power to validate or reject blocks and to define which version of the software to follow in case of a fork.

Their influence is proportional to the volume of transactions they handle, and they can directly affect which chain will be seen as the main one. Their incentive is to maintain the network's stability and security to preserve its functionality and meet regulatory requirements.

2. Investors

Investors, including large institutional funds and individual Bitcoin holders, influence consensus indirectly through their impact on the asset's price. Their buying and selling actions can affect Bitcoin's value, which in turn influences the motivation of miners and other stakeholders to continue investing in the network's security and development.

Some institutional investors have agreements with custodians that may limit their ability to act in network split situations. Thus, the impact of each investor on consensus can vary based on their ownership structure and how quickly they can react to a network change.

3. Media Influencers

Media influencers, including journalists, analysts, and popular personalities on social media, have a powerful role in shaping public opinion about Bitcoin and possible updates. These influencers can help educate the public, promote debates, and bring transparency to the consensus process.

On the other hand, the impact of influencers can be double-edged: while they can clarify complex topics, they can also distort perceptions by amplifying or minimizing change proposals. This makes them a force both of support and resistance to consensus.

4. Miners

Miners are responsible for validating transactions and including blocks in the blockchain. Through computational power (hashrate), they also exert significant influence over consensus decisions. In update processes, miners often signal their support for a proposal, indicating that the new version is safe to use. However, this signaling is not always definitive, and miners can change their position if they deem it necessary.

Their incentive is to maximize returns from block rewards and transaction fees, as well as to maintain the value of investments in their specialized equipment, which are only profitable if the network remains stable.

5. Protocol Developers

Protocol developers, often called "Core Developers," are responsible for writing and maintaining Bitcoin's code. Although they do not have direct power over consensus, they possess an informal veto power since they decide which changes are included in the main client (Bitcoin Core). This group also serves as an important source of technical knowledge, helping guide decisions and inform other stakeholders.

Their incentive lies in the continuous improvement of the network, ensuring security and decentralization. Many developers are funded by grants and sponsorships, but their motivations generally include a strong ideological commitment to Bitcoin's principles.

6. Users and Application Developers

This group includes people who use Bitcoin in their daily transactions and developers who build solutions based on the network, such as wallets, exchanges, and payment platforms. Although their power in consensus is less than that of miners or economic nodes, they play an important role because they are responsible for popularizing Bitcoin's use and expanding the ecosystem.

If application developers decide not to adopt an update, this can affect compatibility and widespread acceptance. Thus, they indirectly influence consensus by deciding which version of the protocol to follow in their applications.

These stakeholders are vital to the consensus process, and each group exerts influence according to their involvement, incentives, and ability to act in situations of change. Understanding the role of each makes it clearer how consensus is formed and why it is so difficult to make significant changes to Bitcoin.

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4. Mechanisms for Activating Updates in Bitcoin

For Bitcoin to evolve without compromising security and consensus, different mechanisms for activating updates have been developed over the years. These mechanisms help coordinate changes among network nodes to minimize the risk of fragmentation and ensure that updates are implemented in an orderly manner. Here, we explore some of the main methods used in Bitcoin, their advantages and disadvantages, as well as historical examples of significant updates.

Flag Day

The Flag Day mechanism is one of the simplest forms of activating changes. In it, a specific date or block is determined as the activation moment, and all nodes must be updated by that point. This method does not involve prior signaling; participants simply need to update to the new software version by the established day or block.

• Advantages: Simplicity and predictability are the main benefits of Flag Day, as everyone knows the exact activation date.

• Disadvantages: Inflexibility can be a problem because there is no way to adjust the schedule if a significant part of the network has not updated. This can result in network splits if a significant number of nodes are not ready for the update.

An example of Flag Day was the Pay to Script Hash (P2SH) update in 2012, which required all nodes to adopt the change to avoid compatibility issues.

BIP34 and BIP9

BIP34 introduced a more dynamic process, in which miners increase the version number in block headers to signal the update. When a predetermined percentage of the last blocks is mined with this new version, the update is automatically activated. This model later evolved with BIP9, which allowed multiple updates to be signaled simultaneously through "version bits," each corresponding to a specific change.

• Advantages: Allows the network to activate updates gradually, giving more time for participants to adapt.

• Disadvantages: These methods rely heavily on miner support, which means that if a sufficient number of miners do not signal the update, it can be delayed or not implemented.

BIP9 was used in the activation of SegWit (BIP141) but faced challenges because some miners did not signal their intent to activate, leading to the development of new mechanisms.

User Activated Soft Forks (UASF) and User Resisted Soft Forks (URSF)

To increase the decision-making power of ordinary users, the concept of User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) was introduced, allowing node operators, not just miners, to determine consensus for a change. In this model, nodes set a date to start rejecting blocks that are not in compliance with the new update, forcing miners to adapt or risk having their blocks rejected by the network.

URSF, in turn, is a model where nodes reject blocks that attempt to adopt a specific update, functioning as resistance against proposed changes.

• Advantages: UASF returns decision-making power to node operators, ensuring that changes do not depend solely on miners.

• Disadvantages: Both UASF and URSF can generate network splits, especially in cases of strong opposition among different stakeholders.

An example of UASF was the activation of SegWit in 2017, where users supported activation independently of miner signaling, which ended up forcing its adoption.

BIP8 (LOT=True)

BIP8 is an evolution of BIP9, designed to prevent miners from indefinitely blocking a change desired by the majority of users and developers. BIP8 allows setting a parameter called "lockinontimeout" (LOT) as true, which means that if the update has not been fully signaled by a certain point, it is automatically activated.

• Advantages: Ensures that changes with broad support among users are not blocked by miners who wish to maintain the status quo.

• Disadvantages: Can lead to network splits if miners or other important stakeholders do not support the update.

Although BIP8 with LOT=True has not yet been used in Bitcoin, it is a proposal that can be applied in future updates if necessary.

These activation mechanisms have been essential for Bitcoin's development, allowing updates that keep the network secure and functional. Each method brings its own advantages and challenges, but all share the goal of preserving consensus and network cohesion.

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5. Risks and Considerations in Consensus Updates

Consensus updates in Bitcoin are complex processes that involve not only technical aspects but also political, economic, and social considerations. Due to the network's decentralized nature, each change brings with it a set of risks that need to be carefully assessed. Below, we explore some of the main challenges and future scenarios, as well as the possible impacts on stakeholders.

Network Fragility with Alternative Implementations

One of the main risks associated with consensus updates is the possibility of network fragmentation when there are alternative software implementations. If an update is implemented by a significant group of nodes but rejected by others, a network split (fork) can occur. This creates two competing chains, each with a different version of the transaction history, leading to unpredictable consequences for users and investors.

Such fragmentation weakens Bitcoin because, by dividing hashing power (computing) and coin value, it reduces network security and investor confidence. A notable example of this risk was the fork that gave rise to Bitcoin Cash in 2017 when disagreements over block size resulted in a new chain and a new asset.

Chain Splits and Impact on Stakeholders

Chain splits are a significant risk in update processes, especially in hard forks. During a hard fork, the network is split into two separate chains, each with its own set of rules. This results in the creation of a new coin and leaves users with duplicated assets on both chains. While this may seem advantageous, in the long run, these splits weaken the network and create uncertainties for investors.

Each group of stakeholders reacts differently to a chain split:

• Institutional Investors and ETFs: Face regulatory and compliance challenges because many of these assets are managed under strict regulations. The creation of a new coin requires decisions to be made quickly to avoid potential losses, which may be hampered by regulatory constraints.

• Miners: May be incentivized to shift their computing power to the chain that offers higher profitability, which can weaken one of the networks.

• Economic Nodes: Such as major exchanges and custody providers, have to quickly choose which chain to support, influencing the perceived value of each network.

Such divisions can generate uncertainties and loss of value, especially for institutional investors and those who use Bitcoin as a store of value.

Regulatory Impacts and Institutional Investors

With the growing presence of institutional investors in Bitcoin, consensus changes face new compliance challenges. Bitcoin ETFs, for example, are required to follow strict rules about which assets they can include and how chain split events should be handled. The creation of a new asset or migration to a new chain can complicate these processes, creating pressure for large financial players to quickly choose a chain, affecting the stability of consensus.

Moreover, decisions regarding forks can influence the Bitcoin futures and derivatives market, affecting perception and adoption by new investors. Therefore, the need to avoid splits and maintain cohesion is crucial to attract and preserve the confidence of these investors.

Security Considerations in Soft Forks and Hard Forks

While soft forks are generally preferred in Bitcoin for their backward compatibility, they are not without risks. Soft forks can create different classes of nodes on the network (updated and non-updated), which increases operational complexity and can ultimately weaken consensus cohesion. In a network scenario with fragmentation of node classes, Bitcoin's security can be affected, as some nodes may lose part of the visibility over updated transactions or rules.

In hard forks, the security risk is even more evident because all nodes need to adopt the new update to avoid network division. Experience shows that abrupt changes can create temporary vulnerabilities, in which malicious agents try to exploit the transition to attack the network.

Bounty Claim Risks and Attack Scenarios

Another risk in consensus updates are so-called "bounty claims"—accumulated rewards that can be obtained if an attacker manages to split or deceive a part of the network. In a conflict scenario, a group of miners or nodes could be incentivized to support a new update or create an alternative version of the software to benefit from these rewards.

These risks require stakeholders to carefully assess each update and the potential vulnerabilities it may introduce. The possibility of "bounty claims" adds a layer of complexity to consensus because each interest group may see a financial opportunity in a change that, in the long term, may harm network stability.

The risks discussed above show the complexity of consensus in Bitcoin and the importance of approaching it gradually and deliberately. Updates need to consider not only technical aspects but also economic and social implications, in order to preserve Bitcoin's integrity and maintain trust among stakeholders.

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6. Recommendations for the Consensus Process in Bitcoin

To ensure that protocol changes in Bitcoin are implemented safely and with broad support, it is essential that all stakeholders adopt a careful and coordinated approach. Here are strategic recommendations for evaluating, supporting, or rejecting consensus updates, considering the risks and challenges discussed earlier, along with best practices for successful implementation.

1. Careful Evaluation of Proposal Maturity

Stakeholders should rigorously assess the maturity level of a proposal before supporting its implementation. Updates that are still experimental or lack a robust technical foundation can expose the network to unnecessary risks. Ideally, change proposals should go through an extensive testing phase, have security audits, and receive review and feedback from various developers and experts.

2. Extensive Testing in Secure and Compatible Networks

Before an update is activated on the mainnet, it is essential to test it on networks like testnet and signet, and whenever possible, on other compatible networks that offer a safe and controlled environment to identify potential issues. Testing on networks like Litecoin was fundamental for the safe launch of innovations like SegWit and the Lightning Network, allowing functionalities to be validated on a lower-impact network before being implemented on Bitcoin.

The Liquid Network, developed by Blockstream, also plays an important role as an experimental network for new proposals, such as OP_CAT. By adopting these testing environments, stakeholders can mitigate risks and ensure that the update is reliable and secure before being adopted by the main network.

3. Importance of Stakeholder Engagement

The success of a consensus update strongly depends on the active participation of all stakeholders. This includes economic nodes, miners, protocol developers, investors, and end users. Lack of participation can lead to inadequate decisions or even future network splits, which would compromise Bitcoin's security and stability.

4. Key Questions for Evaluating Consensus Proposals

To assist in decision-making, each group of stakeholders should consider some key questions before supporting a consensus change:

• Does the proposal offer tangible benefits for Bitcoin's security, scalability, or usability?
• Does it maintain backward compatibility or introduce the risk of network split?
• Are the implementation requirements clear and feasible for each group involved?
• Are there clear and aligned incentives for all stakeholder groups to accept the change?

5. Coordination and Timing in Implementations

Timing is crucial. Updates with short activation windows can force a split because not all nodes and miners can update simultaneously. Changes should be planned with ample deadlines to allow all stakeholders to adjust their systems, avoiding surprises that could lead to fragmentation.

Mechanisms like soft forks are generally preferable to hard forks because they allow a smoother transition. Opting for backward-compatible updates when possible facilitates the process and ensures that nodes and miners can adapt without pressure.

6. Continuous Monitoring and Re-evaluation

After an update, it's essential to monitor the network to identify problems or side effects. This continuous process helps ensure cohesion and trust among all participants, keeping Bitcoin as a secure and robust network.

These recommendations, including the use of secure networks for extensive testing, promote a collaborative and secure environment for Bitcoin's consensus process. By adopting a deliberate and strategic approach, stakeholders can preserve Bitcoin's value as a decentralized and censorship-resistant network.

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7. Conclusion

Consensus in Bitcoin is more than a set of rules; it's the foundation that sustains the network as a decentralized, secure, and reliable system. Unlike centralized systems, where decisions can be made quickly, Bitcoin requires a much more deliberate and cooperative approach, where the interests of miners, economic nodes, developers, investors, and users must be considered and harmonized. This governance model may seem slow, but it is fundamental to preserving the resilience and trust that make Bitcoin a global store of value and censorship-resistant.

Consensus updates in Bitcoin must balance the need for innovation with the preservation of the network's core principles. The development process of a proposal needs to be detailed and rigorous, going through several testing stages, such as in testnet, signet, and compatible networks like Litecoin and Liquid Network. These networks offer safe environments for proposals to be analyzed and improved before being launched on the main network.

Each proposed change must be carefully evaluated regarding its maturity, impact, backward compatibility, and support among stakeholders. The recommended key questions and appropriate timing are critical to ensure that an update is adopted without compromising network cohesion. It's also essential that the implementation process is continuously monitored and re-evaluated, allowing adjustments as necessary and minimizing the risk of instability.

By following these guidelines, Bitcoin's stakeholders can ensure that the network continues to evolve safely and robustly, maintaining user trust and further solidifying its role as one of the most resilient and innovative digital assets in the world. Ultimately, consensus in Bitcoin is not just a technical issue but a reflection of its community and the values it represents: security, decentralization, and resilience.

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8. Links

Whitepaper: https://github.com/bitcoin-cap/bcap

Youtube (pt-br): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARycAibl9o&list=PL-qnhF0qlSPkfhorqsREuIu4UTbF0h4zb

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Ich begann, Social Media aufzubauen, \ um den Menschen eine Stimme zu geben. \ Mark Zuckerberg

Sind euch auch die Tränen gekommen, als ihr Mark Zuckerbergs Wendehals-Deklaration bezüglich der Meinungsfreiheit auf seinen Portalen gehört habt? Rührend, oder? Während er früher die offensichtliche Zensur leugnete und später die Regierung Biden dafür verantwortlich machte, will er nun angeblich «die Zensur auf unseren Plattformen drastisch reduzieren».

«Purer Opportunismus» ob des anstehenden Regierungswechsels wäre als Klassifizierung viel zu kurz gegriffen. Der jetzige Schachzug des Meta-Chefs ist genauso Teil einer kühl kalkulierten Business-Strategie, wie es die 180 Grad umgekehrte Praxis vorher war. Social Media sind ein höchst lukratives Geschäft. Hinzu kommt vielleicht noch ein bisschen verkorkstes Ego, weil derartig viel Einfluss und Geld sicher auch auf die Psyche schlagen. Verständlich.

«Es ist an der Zeit, zu unseren Wurzeln der freien Meinungsäußerung auf Facebook und Instagram zurückzukehren. Ich begann, Social Media aufzubauen, um den Menschen eine Stimme zu geben», sagte Zuckerberg.

Welche Wurzeln? Hat der Mann vergessen, dass er von der Überwachung, dem Ausspionieren und dem Ausverkauf sämtlicher Daten und digitaler Spuren sowie der Manipulation seiner «Kunden» lebt? Das ist knallharter Kommerz, nichts anderes. Um freie Meinungsäußerung geht es bei diesem Geschäft ganz sicher nicht, und das war auch noch nie so. Die Wurzeln von Facebook liegen in einem Projekt des US-Militärs mit dem Namen «LifeLog». Dessen Ziel war es, «ein digitales Protokoll vom Leben eines Menschen zu erstellen».

Der Richtungswechsel kommt allerdings nicht überraschend. Schon Anfang Dezember hatte Meta-Präsident Nick Clegg von «zu hoher Fehlerquote bei der Moderation» von Inhalten gesprochen. Bei der Gelegenheit erwähnte er auch, dass Mark sehr daran interessiert sei, eine aktive Rolle in den Debatten über eine amerikanische Führungsrolle im technologischen Bereich zu spielen.

Während Milliardärskollege und Big Tech-Konkurrent Elon Musk bereits seinen Posten in der kommenden Trump-Regierung in Aussicht hat, möchte Zuckerberg also nicht nur seine Haut retten – Trump hatte ihn einmal einen «Feind des Volkes» genannt und ihm lebenslange Haft angedroht –, sondern am liebsten auch mitspielen. KI-Berater ist wohl die gewünschte Funktion, wie man nach einem Treffen Trump-Zuckerberg hörte. An seine Verhaftung dachte vermutlich auch ein weiterer Multimilliardär mit eigener Social Media-Plattform, Pavel Durov, als er Zuckerberg jetzt kritisierte und gleichzeitig warnte.

Politik und Systemmedien drehen jedenfalls durch – was zu viel ist, ist zu viel. Etwas weniger Zensur und mehr Meinungsfreiheit würden die Freiheit der Bürger schwächen und seien potenziell vernichtend für die Menschenrechte. Zuckerberg setze mit dem neuen Kurs die Demokratie aufs Spiel, das sei eine «Einladung zum nächsten Völkermord», ernsthaft. Die Frage sei, ob sich die EU gegen Musk und Zuckerberg behaupten könne, Brüssel müsse jedenfalls hart durchgreifen.

Auch um die Faktenchecker macht man sich Sorgen. Für die deutsche Nachrichtenagentur dpa und die «Experten» von Correctiv, die (noch) Partner für Fact-Checking-Aktivitäten von Facebook sind, sei das ein «lukratives Geschäftsmodell». Aber möglicherweise werden die Inhalte ohne diese vermeintlichen Korrektoren ja sogar besser. Anders als Meta wollen jedoch Scholz, Faeser und die Tagesschau keine Fehler zugeben und zum Beispiel Correctiv-Falschaussagen einräumen.

Bei derlei dramatischen Befürchtungen wundert es nicht, dass der öffentliche Plausch auf X zwischen Elon Musk und AfD-Chefin Alice Weidel von 150 EU-Beamten überwacht wurde, falls es irgendwelche Rechtsverstöße geben sollte, die man ihnen ankreiden könnte. Auch der Deutsche Bundestag war wachsam. Gefunden haben dürften sie nichts. Das Ganze war eher eine Show, viel Wind wurde gemacht, aber letztlich gab es nichts als heiße Luft.

Das Anbiedern bei Donald Trump ist indes gerade in Mode. Die Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) tut das auch, denn sie fürchtet um Spenden von über einer Milliarde Dollar. Eventuell könnte ja Elon Musk auch hier künftig aushelfen und der Organisation sowie deren größtem privaten Förderer, Bill Gates, etwas unter die Arme greifen. Nachdem Musks KI-Projekt xAI kürzlich von BlackRock & Co. sechs Milliarden eingestrichen hat, geht da vielleicht etwas.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

This post was written because of an error I made on Substack. I'm sharing it here despite the fact the scheduling error didn't happen on NOSTR. The intro paragraph isn't fully applicable for you NOSTR friends.

On Sunday 2/1/25, I made an oopsie. I tend to write articles ahead of time so I can schedule them and not worry about being inspired on a schedule. I had written two posts: Don't Be Like Martha and Whose Point of View. One was supposed to post on Sunday 2/1/25 and one on Wednesday 2/5/25. I accidentally posted both on Sunday. I was fretting about what to do for a post on Wednesday, because I usually have my husband review posts but he was out of town. I don’t like to do the deep posts without Him checking for grammatical errors, theological errors, or lack of clarity. I also had a brief idea I wanted to discuss and was debating whether to make it a short long form post or a longish note and this situation decided it for me.

Excited Puppy

I recently got into a long discussion/debate with a couple of people on Nostr about God. I tend to get pretty excited about God, the Bible, and biblical inerrancy. It made me think about my dog.

I have a Leonberger. He is about 115 pounds, is very tall, is very long, and has thick hair which makes him look even bigger. He is 8 years old, but still acts like a puppy. When his tail gets going it causes mayhem and destruction. It knocks all of the Christmas cards and missionary prayer cards off the refrigerator. It knocks ornaments off the Christmas tree. On occasion, his excitement can even cause a person to stumble or fall (he never actually jumps on anyone). He is a sweet, loving dog that likes everyone and wants to give and receive attention to and from everyone, but he doesn’t realize how big and strong he is. Sometimes I think I can be like my dog.

I am passionate about God and the Bible. I have seen what He has done in my life. I have seen what reading and studying the Bible has done for my faith and understanding of God and His word. I intellectually know that it has taken 40ish years to get me this far, but I want everyone to come to this level of faith and understanding right now! There is a reason that God uses years of time and a lifetime of experiences to teach us and sanctify us. This growth can’t be forced. It can’t be rushed. We all have our own paths in growth in Christ and certain things can’t be changed until it is time.

Sometimes I am like my sweet puppy. I get so excited about God’s word that I may cause more harm than good. I want to help, but people feel judged. I want to bless, but they feel attacked. I want to raise them up, but end up knocking them down. Although I wonder why my dog has to push the one person in the room that doesn’t want his attention, I then end up doing the same thing with faith.

I am working on improvement, paying closer attention to their response (harder to do online than in person where you can see body language and hear voice tone), and listen to the Spirit on when to press forward and when to pull back.

My prayer is that God will guide us all in our service to Him, that He we would never be afraid to witness and stand for the truth, but that with His help we will not trample those we seek to guide to the Savior and in faith in Him.

Trust Jesus.

@ 9e69e420:d12360c2

Federal employees must remove pronouns from email signatures by the end of the day. This directive comes from internal memos tied to two executive orders signed by Donald Trump. The orders target diversity and equity programs within the government.

CDC, Department of Transportation, and Department of Energy employees were affected. Staff were instructed to make changes in line with revised policy prohibiting certain language.

One CDC employee shared frustration, stating, “In my decade-plus years at CDC, I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature.” The directive is part of a broader effort to eliminate DEI initiatives from federal discourse.

@ eac63075:b4988b48

The future of physical money is at stake, and the discussion about DREX, the new digital currency planned by the Central Bank of Brazil, is gaining momentum. In a candid and intense conversation, Federal Deputy Julia Zanatta (PL/SC) discussed the challenges and risks of this digital transition, also addressing her Bill No. 3,341/2024, which aims to prevent the extinction of physical currency. This bill emerges as a direct response to legislative initiatives seeking to replace physical money with digital alternatives, limiting citizens' options and potentially compromising individual freedom. Let's delve into the main points of this conversation.

https://www.fountain.fm/episode/i5YGJ9Ors3PkqAIMvNQ0

(PT-BR version here)

What is a CBDC?

Before discussing the specifics of DREX, it’s important to understand what a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is. CBDCs are digital currencies issued by central banks, similar to a digital version of physical money. Unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which operate in a decentralized manner, CBDCs are centralized and regulated by the government. In other words, they are digital currencies created and controlled by the Central Bank, intended to replace physical currency.

A prominent feature of CBDCs is their programmability. This means that the government can theoretically set rules about how, where, and for what this currency can be used. This aspect enables a level of control over citizens' finances that is impossible with physical money. By programming the currency, the government could limit transactions by setting geographical or usage restrictions. In practice, money within a CBDC could be restricted to specific spending or authorized for use in a defined geographical area.

In countries like China, where citizen actions and attitudes are also monitored, a person considered to have a "low score" due to a moral or ideological violation may have their transactions limited to essential purchases, restricting their digital currency use to non-essential activities. This financial control is strengthened because, unlike physical money, digital currency cannot be exchanged anonymously.

Practical Example: The Case of DREX During the Pandemic

To illustrate how DREX could be used, an example was given by Eric Altafim, director of Banco Itaú. He suggested that, if DREX had existed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government could have restricted the currency’s use to a 5-kilometer radius around a person’s residence, limiting their economic mobility. Another proposed use by the executive related to the Bolsa Família welfare program: the government could set up programming that only allows this benefit to be used exclusively for food purchases. Although these examples are presented as control measures for safety or organization, they demonstrate how much a CBDC could restrict citizens' freedom of choice.

To illustrate the potential for state control through a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), such as DREX, it is helpful to look at the example of China. In China, the implementation of a CBDC coincides with the country’s Social Credit System, a governmental surveillance tool that assesses citizens' and companies' behavior. Together, these technologies allow the Chinese government to monitor, reward, and, above all, punish behavior deemed inappropriate or threatening to the government.

How Does China's Social Credit System Work?

Implemented in 2014, China's Social Credit System assigns every citizen and company a "score" based on various factors, including financial behavior, criminal record, social interactions, and even online activities. This score determines the benefits or penalties each individual receives and can affect everything from public transport access to obtaining loans and enrolling in elite schools for their children. Citizens with low scores may face various sanctions, including travel restrictions, fines, and difficulty in securing loans.

With the adoption of the CBDC — or “digital yuan” — the Chinese government now has a new tool to closely monitor citizens' financial transactions, facilitating the application of Social Credit System penalties. China’s CBDC is a programmable digital currency, which means that the government can restrict how, when, and where the money can be spent. Through this level of control, digital currency becomes a powerful mechanism for influencing citizens' behavior.

Imagine, for instance, a citizen who repeatedly posts critical remarks about the government on social media or participates in protests. If the Social Credit System assigns this citizen a low score, the Chinese government could, through the CBDC, restrict their money usage in certain areas or sectors. For example, they could be prevented from buying tickets to travel to other regions, prohibited from purchasing certain consumer goods, or even restricted to making transactions only at stores near their home.

Another example of how the government can use the CBDC to enforce the Social Credit System is by monitoring purchases of products such as alcohol or luxury items. If a citizen uses the CBDC to spend more than the government deems reasonable on such products, this could negatively impact their social score, resulting in additional penalties such as future purchase restrictions or a lowered rating that impacts their personal and professional lives.

In China, this kind of control has already been demonstrated in several cases. Citizens added to Social Credit System “blacklists” have seen their spending and investment capacity severely limited. The combination of digital currency and social scores thus creates a sophisticated and invasive surveillance system, through which the Chinese government controls important aspects of citizens’ financial lives and individual freedoms.

Deputy Julia Zanatta views these examples with great concern. She argues that if the state has full control over digital money, citizens will be exposed to a level of economic control and surveillance never seen before. In a democracy, this control poses a risk, but in an authoritarian regime, it could be used as a powerful tool of repression.

DREX and Bill No. 3,341/2024

Julia Zanatta became aware of a bill by a Workers' Party (PT) deputy (Bill 4068/2020 by Deputy Reginaldo Lopes - PT/MG) that proposes the extinction of physical money within five years, aiming for a complete transition to DREX, the digital currency developed by the Central Bank of Brazil. Concerned about the impact of this measure, Julia drafted her bill, PL No. 3,341/2024, which prohibits the elimination of physical money, ensuring citizens the right to choose physical currency.

“The more I read about DREX, the less I want its implementation,” says the deputy. DREX is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), similar to other state digital currencies worldwide, but which, according to Julia, carries extreme control risks. She points out that with DREX, the State could closely monitor each citizen’s transactions, eliminating anonymity and potentially restricting freedom of choice. This control would lie in the hands of the Central Bank, which could, in a crisis or government change, “freeze balances or even delete funds directly from user accounts.”

Risks and Individual Freedom

Julia raises concerns about potential abuses of power that complete digitalization could allow. In a democracy, state control over personal finances raises serious questions, and EddieOz warns of an even more problematic future. “Today we are in a democracy, but tomorrow, with a government transition, we don't know if this kind of power will be used properly or abused,” he states. In other words, DREX gives the State the ability to restrict or condition the use of money, opening the door to unprecedented financial surveillance.

EddieOz cites Nigeria as an example, where a CBDC was implemented, and the government imposed severe restrictions on the use of physical money to encourage the use of digital currency, leading to protests and clashes in the country. In practice, the poorest and unbanked — those without regular access to banking services — were harshly affected, as without physical money, many cannot conduct basic transactions. Julia highlights that in Brazil, this situation would be even more severe, given the large number of unbanked individuals and the extent of rural areas where access to technology is limited.

The Relationship Between DREX and Pix

The digital transition has already begun with Pix, which revolutionized instant transfers and payments in Brazil. However, Julia points out that Pix, though popular, is a citizen’s choice, while DREX tends to eliminate that choice. The deputy expresses concern about new rules suggested for Pix, such as daily transaction limits of a thousand reais, justified as anti-fraud measures but which, in her view, represent additional control and a profit opportunity for banks. “How many more rules will banks create to profit from us?” asks Julia, noting that DREX could further enhance control over personal finances.

International Precedents and Resistance to CBDC

The deputy also cites examples from other countries resisting the idea of a centralized digital currency. In the United States, states like New Hampshire have passed laws to prevent the advance of CBDCs, and leaders such as Donald Trump have opposed creating a national digital currency. Trump, addressing the topic, uses a justification similar to Julia’s: in a digitalized system, “with one click, your money could disappear.” She agrees with the warning, emphasizing the control risk that a CBDC represents, especially for countries with disadvantaged populations.

Besides the United States, Canada, Colombia, and Australia have also suspended studies on digital currencies, citing the need for further discussions on population impacts. However, in Brazil, the debate on DREX is still limited, with few parliamentarians and political leaders openly discussing the topic. According to Julia, only she and one or two deputies are truly trying to bring this discussion to the Chamber, making DREX’s advance even more concerning.

Bill No. 3,341/2024 and Popular Pressure

For Julia, her bill is a first step. Although she acknowledges that ideally, it would prevent DREX's implementation entirely, PL 3341/2024 is a measure to ensure citizens' choice to use physical money, preserving a form of individual freedom. “If the future means control, I prefer to live in the past,” Julia asserts, reinforcing that the fight for freedom is at the heart of her bill.

However, the deputy emphasizes that none of this will be possible without popular mobilization. According to her, popular pressure is crucial for other deputies to take notice and support PL 3341. “I am only one deputy, and we need the public’s support to raise the project’s visibility,” she explains, encouraging the public to press other parliamentarians and ask them to “pay attention to PL 3341 and the project that prohibits the end of physical money.” The deputy believes that with a strong awareness and pressure movement, it is possible to advance the debate and ensure Brazilians’ financial freedom.

What’s at Stake?

Julia Zanatta leaves no doubt: DREX represents a profound shift in how money will be used and controlled in Brazil. More than a simple modernization of the financial system, the Central Bank’s CBDC sets precedents for an unprecedented level of citizen surveillance and control in the country. For the deputy, this transition needs to be debated broadly and transparently, and it’s up to the Brazilian people to defend their rights and demand that the National Congress discuss these changes responsibly.

The deputy also emphasizes that, regardless of political or partisan views, this issue affects all Brazilians. “This agenda is something that will affect everyone. We need to be united to ensure people understand the gravity of what could happen.” Julia believes that by sharing information and generating open debate, it is possible to prevent Brazil from following the path of countries that have already implemented a digital currency in an authoritarian way.

A Call to Action

The future of physical money in Brazil is at risk. For those who share Deputy Julia Zanatta’s concerns, the time to act is now. Mobilize, get informed, and press your representatives. PL 3341/2024 is an opportunity to ensure that Brazilian citizens have a choice in how to use their money, without excessive state interference or surveillance.

In the end, as the deputy puts it, the central issue is freedom. “My fear is that this project will pass, and people won’t even understand what is happening.” Therefore, may every citizen at least have the chance to understand what’s at stake and make their voice heard in defense of a Brazil where individual freedom and privacy are respected values.

@ fc2470ed:17d9ee27

by Hynek Fencl, July 2024

The way to Liberland is easy but not simple. Technically speaking, it’s just a short bike ride away from the nearest village on a comfortable bike path through a stunning forest known as the “Amazon of Europe”. On one side, one senses the presence of the mighty Danube River beyond the tall trees, and on the other stretch the farmlands of north-eastern Croatia. Then you take a left turn to a straight forest path, ride all the way to the end, and after a few bends on the track, you will have entered “the promised land”.

The part that is not simple is that Croatia both does and does not consider Gornja Siga (the local name for the area we now refer to as Liberland) to be its territory – depending on who you ask. This means that along the picturesque bike path, you will almost certainly encounter a border police patrol car, and, depending on whether you seem to them like you’re affiliated with Liberland, they will tell you to stop and hand over your ID. They run it through their system and, if you’re lucky enough to be a citizen of the EU, they let you pass. If you’re not and you give them a non-EU passport, they will ask you to come to the station with them to “determine the circumstances of your stay in Croatia.” You will then be issued with paperwork telling you to leave the country within the next 7 days, banning you from re-entering in the next 1-3 months. The official reasoning they’ll give for this is their reasonable suspicion that you have not come to Croatia as a tourist but with the intent to either do paid work (for which you would have to get a business/work visa) or to break the law (such as camping outside designated camping grounds or starting a fire in the forest).

All of this is part of a big game of chess that is being played out between Croatia and the Liberlanders. Croatia is in a tricky spot. They cannot properly administer the territory of Liberland and enforce its law in it – lest it would create an indication that the Croatian state officially claims it as its territory. However, they cannot not administer it either, since it’s on “their” side of the river, and it is risky for a rogue, unpredictable operation (from their perspective) like the establishment and growth of Liberland to just be left to its own devices right on their doorstep. This is, then, how we arrive at the status quo, with Croatia relating to Liberland in some way while being careful about the international perception of its action in another way. The resulting practice is a persistent harassment campaign toward the Liberlanders, with the apparent intent to create uncertainty and lower the appetite of potential Liberland settlers for this kind of adventure.

How to establish a new country

Liberland was born from an anomaly – a historical border dispute between Croatia and Serbia. The dispute involves the definition of where the border stands in relation to the Danube and goes back to 1947. Then, both lands along the river belonged to a single country – Yugoslavia – but the dispute arose with respect to the boundaries of its constituent states. It remained unresolved during the communist era and became an issue of international borders after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Serbia claims that the border runs down the middle of the Danube, with the eastern bank being Serbian and the western bank Croatian. Croatia, on the other hand, claims that the border is set by historical borders marked by cadastral municipalities surrounding the Danube.

These municipality borders run along a different path because they were set before the course of the Danube was straightened during the 19th Century to allow for easier shipping. This results in disputed “pockets” of land on both sides of the river. The pockets on the eastern bank have a combined area of around 130 km2, while those on the western bank only amount to less than 10 km2. Not surprisingly, then, both countries claim that the border runs in a way where they get the >90% of land and the other country only gets the small remaining areas. However, this means that, by implication, since both countries are claiming the large areas, neither of them is claiming the smaller ones. These areas were, then, so-called terra nullius.

Under international law, there is no issue with any state claiming unowned and unclaimed land for themselves. And that is exactly what Czech businessman, politician, and activist Vít Jedlička did in 2015 when he proclaimed into existence the newly created Free Republic of Liberland on the largest, 7 km2 piece of the unclaimed areas between Croatia and Serbia.

It's one thing to announce a new country to the world. It’s an entirely different thing to make this country legitimate. Under the Montevideo Convention, a proper country needs to have 1) a permanent population, 2) a defined territory, 3) government, and 4) capacity to enter into relations with other states. Now, 9 years after the birth of Liberland, it clearly has three of those. As to a permanent population, the Liberlanders would argue that it definitely exists, even though Liberland’s now over 1200 registered citizens have had to largely live in “exile” ever since.

Nevertheless, despite the Convention, there’s one thing that makes something a country more than anything else – whether other countries see you as a country. The more diplomatic recognition an entity has, the more country-like it becomes. This is especially relevant for breakaway governments, governments in exile, or, most importantly in this case, startup countries like Liberland.

Very much aware of this, along with other members of Liberland’s startup government, Jedlička has been on a worldwide mission to legitimize Liberland in the eyes of other countries. Though there have been many amiable meetings and even some measure of support in some cases, no official recognition by any UN member has been achieved as of mid-2024. Liberland now has representatives and offices in multiple countries in the further pursuit of this goal. Though the effectiveness of this strategy has been questioned by many for the lack of decisive results so far, one thing remains unambiguously true: if recognized by even one or two UN members, Liberland would instantly gain an amazing amount of legitimacy and gravitas in the eyes of the world.

The quest for territory

Establishing international relations with countries anywhere in the world is not the only strategy that the Liberlanders have been employing in making the country more real and legitimate. This includes liaising and negotiating with the neighboring Serbia and Croatia. These relations are by far the most important and impactful ones. If both of Liberland’s neighboring countries were to either outright recognize the startup micro-state, or even just adopted an approach of non-interference, Liberland would be free to start actually developing and to find its own long-term position in the world.

As for Serbia, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs let itself be heard that, in their view, Liberland’s claims are a “trivial matter” but, in any case, they do not infringe upon the sovereignty of Serbia. One can imagine that Serbia might actually be secretly quite pleased with Liberland’s activities, since now Croatia has an issue to deal with on “their” side of the river, which, if they are not careful, could contribute to the legitimization of Serbia’s claim to the larger pieces of territory claimed by both countries.

With Croatia, things get quite a bit more complicated. In an official statement, the country rejected the claim that Gornja Siga is terra nullius, arguing instead that the land belongs to one of the two neighboring countries – the only question is to which one, which will be answered at some point in the future. Croatia also said it would stop any threatening and provocative activities on the territory even by force if necessary.

Ever since Liberland’s birth in 2015, the Liberlanders have been trying to make a mark on the territory. For a long time, even just entering Liberland wasn’t really possible. Under a deal between the Croatian and Serbian police that was put in place during the European migration crisis, Croatian authorities may enter Liberland and patrol it for security reasons (preventing illegal migration) even though they do not officially claim the territory as theirs. In addition, the border police have a near-permanent presence on the Danube River, preventing people from crossing into Liberland by boat.

As a result, anyone who would try to come to Liberland in any way would always be promptly arrested by the Croatians, essentially for entering a prohibited area.

After years of this status quo, a rather unexpected thing happened that made things suddenly move forward in a positive direction for the Liberlanders. In April 2023, during Liberland’s 8th anniversary celebrations, a famous YouTuber with a significant following decided to try to enter Liberland. After a few unsuccessful attempts due to heavy police presence and monitoring, he and his team hired jet skis and rode them all the way from Hungary down the Danube. When they got close to Liberland, they encountered the police boats again, but their jet skis were faster than the boats, so they managed to land at Liberland’s Liberty Island and plant a flag there. A few moments later, the police caught up to them and an aggressive policeman took out their handheld cameras before assaulting them and then kicking them on the ground, as can be clearly seen from drone footage of the incident.

As they had broken no laws, they were ultimately let go after the incident and free to leave the island without being arrested. However, the heavy-handed and illegal conduct of the Croatian police had been clearly documented and became part of the video that was published in July 2023.

The video promptly went viral, gaining almost 10 million views on YouTube. By comparison, the total population of Croatia is just under 4 million. When the news spread even to the Croatian press and TV stations, Croatia had a serious PR problem on their hands. The police had been clearly in the wrong, conducting themselves in a seriously improper way to the point of using physical force against peaceful people who had broken no laws nor engaged in any violence or hostilities themselves.

Something had to change. So, following this incident, the Croatian police adopted a different unofficial policy – from now on, they would let people enter Liberland if they wished to do so, in a controlled way. Since early August 2023, if you wish to enter Liberland, you can go on foot or by bike, take the access road down the forest, and show your documents to the Croatian police, just as you would at a border crossing. In a typical grand fashion of Liberland’s media team, Liberland made an announcement that an official border crossing had been opened between Croatia and Liberland (Croatia had obviously never made an official announcement like this, but for Liberland, that was the de facto situation on the ground).

In the weeks following the “opening of the border”, many enthusiastic settlers started coming to Liberland to finally begin making their mark on the territory of “the promised land.” They started constructing simple wooden houses, a bathroom, an open-air restaurant, and the related power and water infrastructure on Liberland’s mainland beach opposite Liberty Island in a settlement named Mateos Marina.

On September 7th, 2023, a troop of about 50 policemen and forestry workers, including a demolition crew, raided the settlement. The raid was officially dubbed a “cleanup operation” by Hrvatske šume, Croatia’s state forestry service. With the assistance of the police, they tore down all the wooden houses and structures using chainsaws and stole equipment as well as personal possessions of the Liberlanders on site. Several Liberlanders were arrested for “failure to comply with a lawful order”.

One might ask, if Liberland is not officially part of Croatia, what authority does Croatia have to come in to steal and destroy? Staying true to their claim that Liberland is not part of Croatia, the Croatians had announced to Serbia that they would be conducting the “cleanup” on Serbia’s territory, to keep it clean on their behalf.

We may only speculate about the reasons for carrying out this operation in such a heavy-handed, destructive way. One possibility is that allowing people to enter Liberland in the first place was a way for Croatia to lure some people to Liberland, become comfortable, and then come in and destroy everything to show everyone what would happen if they got involved in the project. Or perhaps it was the unexpected level of life, community-building, and construction going on in such a short period of time after the “opening of the border” that the Croatian police felt like they had to put a stop to it before things got so big they could not be easily destroyed anymore.

No matter the reasons, the raid had a chilling effect on prospective Liberlanders. Though there is plenty of video documentation of the operation, no one made a viral video about it this time. Though some media did pick up the news, it did not become a big story. Consequently, the PR fallout from this for Croatia was not unmanageable.

Liberlanders soon returned to the territory. However, the level of enthusiasm, energy, and external support was not as great as it had been before the raid. From then on, settlement efforts focused mainly on Liberty Island, unreachable by trucks and impossible for forestry workers to get to without a large boat which they seem not to have. Though perhaps a more strategic place to set up camp, Liberty Island is also much more prone to flooding than the rest of Liberland.

In the following few months, several makeshift houses were constructed using a combination of wood and sandbags. During this time, Liberland even hosted a first wedding on the island. The settlement was kept alive during winter as well, with Liberland enthusiasts staying mostly in houseboats whenever it was impossible to camp on site.

In the meantime, an enthusiastic settler couple bought a sizeable house with a courtyard in the village closest to Liberland – Zmajevac – which they have transformed into a base of operations for settlers. This is now called Liberbase and it is where visits to Liberland start, with bikes, supplies, and construction materials being gathered before going on the 40-minute bike ride.

In the spring of 2024, work started on the reconstruction of a former hunting lodge at a central location on Liberland’s mainland – Jefferson Square. The building was demolished a few years ago but the foundations, including a cellar, were left in place. The site was cleared, the foundations refreshed, and new walls for the future governmental building have sprung up from the ground. A professional construction crew was hired to speed up the re-building of this base, using large concrete bricks, to a standard that will make it logistically and practically difficult for the Croatian police and forestry workers to try to destroy.

The battle for legitimacy

The ongoing construction in Liberland is rather slow. It is difficult to bring construction materials to Liberland. It is prohibited to drive motor vehicles on the bike path leading to Liberland, which means that everything has to be manually hauled from Liberbase on cargo bikes. In addition, from time to time, bikes get stolen by the police or forestry workers. Despite these difficulties, the determination of the settlers is unwavering and they are working every day to move construction forward.

Is it possible to bring materials by boat? How did they get sandbags and other materials to Liberty Island?

The importance of such a commitment should not be underestimated. The continuous presence of settlers is incredibly important for Liberland. It shows the seriousness of the project. It shows that Liberland is a genuine community and a fledgling nation rather than, as some accusations tend to go, just an elaborate publicity stunt.

Practical difficulties with the Croatian authorities are not limited to construction-related issues. Even staying and camping in Liberland comes with its quirks. If you’re staying on Jefferson Square, you should be prepared for several police visits every day. These check-ups are usually nothing dramatic. The police usually show up, ask a couple of questions, and perhaps tell the settlers that they are not allowed to camp there or start a fire, but they don’t actually do anything more than that and just go about their day.

It seems that the Croatian police are rather shy about enforcing Croatian law in a territory that is not officially considered part of Croatia. International law often takes into account the de facto situation of the matter in any dispute. If Croatia enforced their law in Liberland, this would therefore be an indication that they do, in fact, consider the territory to be theirs in practice, despite the official stance of the state. It would play into the hands of Serbia, reinforcing their claims to the large parcels of land on the other side of the Danube.

In addition, Liberlanders on the ground report that the majority of Croatian police officers generally behave quite fairly and respectfully toward them – only a minority appear to hold a personal grudge against Liberland, being abusive and sometimes even violent instead. It seems highly likely that the police in general are just doing their job, following orders from above. Most of them don’t actually take it as a personal commitment to make life more difficult for the Liberlanders.

This is rather important from a big-picture perspective, because the settlers, by contrast, are often heavily personally invested in the project and see it as their mission to see Liberland develop into a proper country. This disparity in energy and determination is strong and perhaps this is what will, in the end, cause Liberland to prevail in this drawn-out dispute.

The dispute with Hrvatske šume is quite different. As of mid-2024, the forestry workers tend to turn up at Jefferson Square about every fortnight. Unlike the police, they do not limit themselves to words but tend to steal everything that is not bolted down – including tools, materials, tents, bikes, and personal possessions of the settlers camping there. The justification remains the same – to “clean the forest of any waste.” In their encounters with the police as well as the forestry workers, Liberlanders are of course meticulous in their video documentation of any illegal actions by the authorities.

The Liberlanders’ difficulties, however, do not just stay local. As previously mentioned, upon trying to enter Liberland from Croatia, people who do not have EU citizenship are promptly issued a one-to-three-month ban on entering Croatia, with 7 days to leave the country. This is done under legislation relating to citizenship and tourism.

However, things can escalate even further. Since last year, several key Liberland settlers and organizers, including Liberland’s President Vít Jedlička himself, have seen “heavier guns” used against them. They have been banned from entering Croatia for 5 years under anti-terrorism legislation, where the authorities argue that these Liberlanders are something akin to a threat to national security.

The Liberlanders have mounted a legal defense against this, in addition to challenging Croatia on other legal fronts. They have had some successes so far – in particular, it should now be clear that the Liberlanders do not need any building permits to construct buildings on their territory. Unfortunately, other issues – including the 5-year bans from Croatia – still remain unresolved.

Most Liberlanders remain hopeful nonetheless. They have seen their situation move forward significantly over the last year. A year ago, they were not even able to enter Liberland without being chased and/or arrested. Now, even some construction is possible, albeit in a limited way.

The road ahead

The long-term vision, of course, remains to build a full-fledged, internationally respected and recognized city-state. Liberland’s leaders often speak of a “Balkan Monaco”, referring to the amazing development possibilities that a freedom-oriented country in the middle of Europe could offer. Liberland has already hosted an urbanist/architectural contest, and there are concrete plans for the first hotel as well as a riverside real estate development. What is more, Liberland’s land is actually more than three times the size of Monaco.

Nevertheless, Liberland cannot move forward in a meaningful way toward these visions and aspirations under the status quo. The Liberlanders need to be able to build at scale and be free from harassment, both by the police and the forestry workers. Some kind of political deal is necessary as the next step toward proper development of Liberland.

Such a deal could take multiple forms, but all of them involve the Croatian authorities changing their attitude toward Liberland away from a policy of unrelenting obstruction – not necessarily toward outright recognition, but at least toward accepting Liberland as a neighborly project that will move forward and develop in some way.

One option could be to allow motor vehicles on the bike path toward Liberland, with a deal that could include charging Liberlanders some fair tolls to pay for the wear and tear of the pavement. An alternative would be to simply allow river crossing into Liberland from Serbia on the Danube. Since Croatia does not officially consider Liberland its territory, their current interference with this traffic is illegal anyway. Simply stopping this illegal conduct would help Liberland significantly without Croatia facilitating Liberland’s development in any active way.

Regardless of these options, the first and most notable step would be to stop banning non-EU citizens from re-entering Croatia as well as lift the existing (entirely unjustified and unreasonable) 5-year bans on Jedlička and the others.

It is easy to see why Croatia is wary and suspicious of Liberland’s development. One can understand the worries of a state in whose immediate proximity there is a new and unknown state growing and taking root. Nevertheless, Croatia actually has a lot to gain from making some kind of deal with Liberland.

First: currently there are perhaps a dozen policemen on patrol around Liberland at all times. This includes police vehicles and boats. This is a significant expense for the police force – an expense which is rather unsubstantiated, given that Liberlanders have clearly proven to be peaceful people who do not wish to pose any threat to Croatia, its people, or its law enforcement officers. Making a deal would mean that this large expense is not needed anymore.

Second: Liberland borders an area of Croatia that has been rather “left behind”, is underdeveloped, and suffers from a lack of jobs and investment. Consequently, younger people are leaving the area and the current population is growing older. If Liberland was growing and open for business nearby, it would provide the region exactly with the job opportunities, large investment, and overall development that it desperately needs.

Third: Croatia could use Liberland as an opportunity to actually gain an advantage in the ongoing border dispute with Serbia. As previously mentioned, Croatia cannot openly and properly administer the territory, as it would be an indication in the eyes of international law that they consider the territory to be theirs. On the other hand, it Liberland is located on “their” side of the Danube, so Croatia does have an interest in making sure the area is under their control somehow. Striking a deal with Liberland could involve Liberland agreeing to some obligations related to the administration of the territory which correspond to Croatia’s priorities. In this way, Croatia would have an active say in what happens on this land, effectively “outsourcing” its administration without officially claiming it as part of Croatia.

In addition to all these advantages being present, Liberland is very much open to cooperation with Croatia and is keenly looking forward to welcoming any future productive relations with Croatian authorities. There will be no grudges held on Liberland’s side, and if a mutually beneficial deal or solution were to be found, no one would look behind at any historical quibbles or difficulties. Liberland would be an excellent and friendly neighbor to Croatia, not just causing any issues but actively helping the overall development of the surrounding region.

Time will tell how things will develop. At the present, the momentum, energy, and enthusiasm is definitely on the side of Liberland. There seems to be very little actual interest from the Croatian side to cause issues for Liberland and to continue to prevent the fledgling state from developing further. All that is left are the bureaucratic hurdles of a state that is being overly conservative about its approach to the important issues of the day. Things might take time, but seeing the determination of the settlers and the willingness of all Liberlanders to be unrelenting in their fight for the cause, it is not difficult to argue that we might be seeing the dawn of Liberland as the world’s next proper city-state as we speak.

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Was du bist hängt von drei Faktoren ab: \ Was du geerbt hast, \ was deine Umgebung aus dir machte \ und was du in freier Wahl \ aus deiner Umgebung und deinem Erbe gemacht hast. \ Aldous Huxley

Das brave Mitmachen und Mitlaufen in einem vorgegebenen, recht engen Rahmen ist gewiss nicht neu, hat aber gerade wieder mal Konjunktur. Dies kann man deutlich beobachten, eigentlich egal, in welchem gesellschaftlichen Bereich man sich umschaut. Individualität ist nur soweit angesagt, wie sie in ein bestimmtes Schema von «Diversität» passt, und Freiheit verkommt zur Worthülse – nicht erst durch ein gewisses Buch einer gewissen ehemaligen Regierungschefin.

Erklärungsansätze für solche Entwicklungen sind bekannt, und praktisch alle haben etwas mit Massenpsychologie zu tun. Der Herdentrieb, also der Trieb der Menschen, sich – zum Beispiel aus Unsicherheit oder Bequemlichkeit – lieber der Masse anzuschließen als selbstständig zu denken und zu handeln, ist einer der Erklärungsversuche. Andere drehen sich um Macht, Propaganda, Druck und Angst, also den gezielten Einsatz psychologischer Herrschaftsinstrumente.

Aber wollen die Menschen überhaupt Freiheit? Durch Gespräche im privaten Umfeld bin ich diesbezüglich in der letzten Zeit etwas skeptisch geworden. Um die Jahreswende philosophiert man ja gerne ein wenig über das Erlebte und über die Erwartungen für die Zukunft. Dabei hatte ich hin und wieder den Eindruck, die totalitären Anwandlungen unserer «Repräsentanten» kämen manchen Leuten gerade recht.

«Desinformation» ist so ein brisantes Thema. Davor müsse man die Menschen doch schützen, hörte ich. Jemand müsse doch zum Beispiel diese ganzen merkwürdigen Inhalte in den Social Media filtern – zur Ukraine, zum Klima, zu Gesundheitsthemen oder zur Migration. Viele wüssten ja gar nicht einzuschätzen, was richtig und was falsch ist, sie bräuchten eine Führung.

Freiheit bedingt Eigenverantwortung, ohne Zweifel. Eventuell ist es einigen tatsächlich zu anspruchsvoll, die Verantwortung für das eigene Tun und Lassen zu übernehmen. Oder die persönliche Freiheit wird nicht als ausreichend wertvolles Gut angesehen, um sich dafür anzustrengen. In dem Fall wäre die mangelnde Selbstbestimmung wohl das kleinere Übel. Allerdings fehlt dann gemäß Aldous Huxley ein Teil der Persönlichkeit. Letztlich ist natürlich alles eine Frage der Abwägung.

Sind viele Menschen möglicherweise schon so «eingenordet», dass freiheitliche Ambitionen gar nicht für eine ganze Gruppe, ein Kollektiv, verfolgt werden können? Solche Gedanken kamen mir auch, als ich mir kürzlich diverse Talks beim viertägigen Hacker-Kongress des Chaos Computer Clubs (38C3) anschaute. Ich war nicht nur überrascht, sondern reichlich erschreckt angesichts der in weiten Teilen mainstream-geformten Inhalte, mit denen ein dankbares Publikum beglückt wurde. Wo ich allgemein hellere Köpfe erwartet hatte, fand ich Konformismus und enthusiastisch untermauerte Narrative.

Gibt es vielleicht so etwas wie eine Herdenimmunität gegen Indoktrination? Ich denke, ja, zumindest eine gestärkte Widerstandsfähigkeit. Was wir brauchen, sind etwas gesunder Menschenverstand, offene Informationskanäle und der Mut, sich freier auch zwischen den Herden zu bewegen. Sie tun das bereits, aber sagen Sie es auch dieses Jahr ruhig weiter.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 044da344:073a8a0e

Zugegeben: Die Erwartung war groß. „Angepasst. Aktivistisch. Abgehoben“, ruft das Cover. Triple-A sozusagen. Und das in einem Buch über die Tagesschau, geschrieben von einem Ostdeutschen, der dort sechs Jahre gearbeitet hat, vorher lange beim MDR war und außerdem damit wirbt, auch Privatfernsehen und Presse zu kennen. Mehr Insider geht nicht. Die drei Adjektive mit dem großen A im gelben Punkt sagen: Jetzt spreche ich. Jetzt wird abgerechnet.

Das Marketing hat funktioniert, nicht nur bei mir. Platz drei in der Spiegel-Bestsellerliste und Platz sieben in den Wochencharts von Amazon, nur knapp hinter Angela Merkel. Ich dachte eigentlich, dass ich nach Claus Kleber auf ewig die Finger lassen würde von den Ergüssen beitragsfinanzierter Redakteure. Was soll da schon kommen? Wir sind frei. Niemand ruft an. Niemand redet uns rein. Wir machen das, was die Nachrichtenlage verlangt und was wir kraft Ausbildung und Wassersuppe für richtig halten.

Eine ganze Menge Claus Kleber steckt auch in Alexander Teske. Staatsfunk? Nicht doch. Wir sind halt „alle ähnlich sozialisiert“ (S. 110), haben die „gleichen Relevanzkriterien“ (S. 108) und „schreiben voneinander ab“ – „aus lauter Unsicherheit, etwas ‚falsch‘ zu machen“ (S. 109). Wenn die Sprecherin des Bundespräsidenten, eine Kollegin, die die Seiten gewechselt hat, doch mal nachhelfen muss, dann ist das in der Welt von Alexander Teske die Ausnahme, die die Regel bestätigt. Kein Einfluss, nirgends – bis auf den Seiten 140 und 141 plötzlich Reiner Haseloff auftaucht, Ministerpräsident von Sachsen-Anhalt. Alexander Teske braucht diesen Redaktionsbesuch („Haseloff redete über eine Stunde (…) im vollbesetzten Konferenzraum“) für eine seiner Kernthesen. Der Osten, sagt er, ist der Redaktion in Hamburg nicht einfach nur egal. Dieser Haseloff nervt. O-Ton einer Tagesthemen-Frau: „Sollen wir jetzt etwa über den Rosenmontag in Köthen berichten?“

Vermutlich war es dieser Teil, der mich hat rückfällig werden lassen. Die „Arroganz der Westmedien“ ist eines meiner Lebensthemen. Alexander Teske liefert dafür reichlich Futter. Zehn von 300, schätzt er, sind im Tagesschau-Maschinenraum „ostdeutsch sozialisiert“ (S. 141). Genauer geht es nicht, weil man das im Fall der Fälle lieber für sich behält, immer noch. Achtung: Karrierehindernis. Der Dialekt sowieso. Teske, ein Sachse, nahm „jahrelang Sprecherziehung“, um im Ersten auf Sendung gehen zu dürfen (S. 156). In Bayern oder Hessen lachen darüber die Hühner. Entsprechend sieht der Osten aus in der Tagesschau. Wenn das Volk hier sprechen darf, sagt Kronzeuge Alexander Teske, „werden die kürzesten, plakativsten und dümmsten Aussagen“ bevorzugt, „gern in emotionaler Tonlage“ (S. 143). Dass die Redaktion nur Westpresse abonniert (Ausnahme: die LVZ, die aber keiner liest, S. 146), passt genauso in dieses Bild wie das Sozialporträt einer Redaktion, in der man Arbeiterkinder, HSV-Fans oder Nichtakademiker mit der Lupe suchen muss, dafür aber an der Spitze eine Phalanx von zehn Chefs vom Dienst findet, die auf 11.000 Euro brutto kommen (manchmal offenbar auch mehr, S. 23), für ein „Klima der Angst“ (S. 51) sorgen und, so sagt es jedenfalls Teske, selbst bestimmen, wer zu ihnen aufrücken darf (S. 29).

Was fängt man mit alldem an? Vor allem: Wer kann etwas damit anfangen? Alexander Teske erwähnt einen MDR-Kommentar von Rommy Arndt, gesprochen im Januar 2023, der gegen deutsche Panzer in der Ukraine war (S. 144). In der Tagesschau undenkbar, sagt er, und für Rommy Arndt der letzte große öffentlich-rechtliche Auftritt. Auch Sarah Frühauf kommt bei ihm vor, eine andere MDR-Journalisten, „berühmt“ geworden durch einen Tagesthemen-Kommentar im November 2021, der einer Impfpflicht das Wort redete und „alle Ungeimpften“ gar nicht sehr subtil mitverantwortlich machte für die „wohl Tausenden Opfer dieser Corona-Welle“ (S. 41). Teske beklagt, dass die Tagesschau das Thema RKI-Protokolle erst fünf Tage nach der Veröffentlichung aufgegriffen hat und dabei das Online-Magazin Multipolar nicht erwähnte (S. 127). Davon abgesehen gibt es die Gegenöffentlichkeit bei ihm nicht. Nicht einmal die Dokumentation der Ständigen Publikumskonferenz, die sich lange in weiten Teilen um die Tagesschau drehte, oder die entsprechenden Bücher. Alexander Teske mag nicht, wenn jemand „Zwangsgebühr“ sagt (S. 191), nutzt „Querdenker“ als Schimpfwort (S. 25), hält Telegram für einen Ort, an dem sich „bevorzugt Rechtsradikale, Waffenhändler, Drogendealer, Coronaleugner und Reichsbürger“ tummeln, und wirft der Bild-Zeitung vor, „jeden noch so kleinen Fehler“ zum Skandal aufzublasen (S. 115). Dass Sarah Frühauf ihren Kommentar sprechen konnte, passiert bei ihm einfach so. War knapp bei der Abstimmung. Drei Namen zur Auswahl. Und am nächsten Morgen wundern sich alle.

Was also, ich wiederhole diese Frage, fängt man mit einem Buch an, das sich eher wie ein Bewerbungsschreiben für öffentlich-rechtliche Führungsaufgaben liest, so sich die Zeiten doch noch ändern sollten? Punkt eins: Die Redaktionen der Leitmedien sind nicht so homogen, wie es von außen oft scheint. Alexander Teske trägt die Auseinandersetzungen von innen nach außen – sicher ein Grund, warum der NDR eher dünnhäutig reagierte und darauf hinwies, dass sich der geliebte Ex-Kollege noch 2022 erfolglos auf eine Dauerstelle beworben hat.

Punkt zwei, wichtiger: Das Buch von Alexander Teske dokumentiert den Wandel im Journalismus, den wir gerade live erleben und erleiden. Teske selbst steht dabei für das Früher. Sagen, was ist. Sachlich, nüchtern, mit Distanz. Auch dann, wenn es um die AfD geht. Die wichtigen Themen nach vorn und nicht die, die Quote garantieren. „Nachrichten pur“, wie er das an einer Stelle nennt (S. 227) – ohne Soft News und Infotainment, ohne elend lange Fußball-, Promi- und Katastrophenblöcke mit Bochum gegen Heidenheim, Waldbränden noch und nöcher und jeden Pups der Royals, auch ohne „moderative Sprache“ (S. 226). Nachrichten pur heißt bei ihm im Subtext auch: Finger weg von den Digitalplattformen (im Moment jeden Tag bedient von 20 Redakteuren plus Planer, Grafiker, Cutter, S. 271). Finger weg auch davon, einfach ein, zwei Minuten länger zu machen, um die Quote mit denen aufzufüllen, die nur die nächste Sendung sehen wollen (S. 232).

Das ist in diesem Tagesschau-Buch-Kosmos auch ein Streit zwischen Alten und (oft schlechter bezahlten) Jungen, aber nicht nur. Alexander Teske erzählt, wie er mit seinem Journalismus-Ideal auch und gerade an der Generation 50+ gescheitert ist (vor allem an Männern, die im Dienst Antifa-T-Shirts tragen und den FC St. Pauli lieben) – auch, weil ein Ostdeutscher wie er in Hamburg kaum auf Seinesgleichen stößt. Über den Tellerrand zu schauen, hat er dabei trotzdem nicht gelernt. Anders formuliert: Auch in einer Tagesschau made by Alexander Teske würde ein Teil der Wirklichkeit fehlen.

Freie Akademie für Medien & Journalismus

@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de

"Degeneration" or "Вырождение" ![[photo_2025-01-29 23.23.15.jpeg]]

A once-functional object, now eroded by time and human intervention, stripped of its original purpose. Layers of presence accumulate—marks, alterations, traces of intent—until the very essence is obscured. Restoration is paradoxical: to reclaim, one must erase. Yet erasure is an impossibility, for to remove these imprints is to deny the existence of those who shaped them.

The work stands as a meditation on entropy, memory, and the irreversible dialogue between creation and decay.

@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de

Lyn Alden - биткойн евангелист или евангелистка, я пока не понял npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a

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Calle - Cashu founder npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg

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Много адресов. Хз кто надо сортировать https://github.com/aitechguy/nostr-address-book

ФиатДжеф - создатель Ностр - https://github.com/fiatjaf npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6

EVAN KALOUDIS Zues wallet npub19kv88vjm7tw6v9qksn2y6h4hdt6e79nh3zjcud36k9n3lmlwsleqwte2qd

Программер Коди https://github.com/CodyTseng/nostr-relay npub1syjmjy0dp62dhccq3g97fr87tngvpvzey08llyt6ul58m2zqpzps9wf6wl

Anna Chekhovich - Managing Bitcoin at The Anti-Corruption Foundation https://x.com/AnyaChekhovich npub1y2st7rp54277hyd2usw6shy3kxprnmpvhkezmldp7vhl7hp920aq9cfyr7

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Heute möchte ich ein Gedicht mit euch teilen. Es handelt sich um eine Ballade des österreichischen Lyrikers Johann Gabriel Seidl aus dem 19. Jahrhundert. Mir sind diese Worte fest in Erinnerung, da meine Mutter sie perfekt rezitieren konnte, auch als die Kräfte schon langsam schwanden.

Dem originalen Titel «Die Uhr» habe ich für mich immer das Wort «innere» hinzugefügt. Denn der Zeitmesser – hier vermutliche eine Taschenuhr – symbolisiert zwar in dem Kontext das damalige Zeitempfinden und die Umbrüche durch die industrielle Revolution, sozusagen den Zeitgeist und das moderne Leben. Aber der Autor setzt sich philosophisch mit der Zeit auseinander und gibt seinem Werk auch eine klar spirituelle Dimension.

Das Ticken der Uhr und die Momente des Glücks und der Trauer stehen sinnbildlich für das unaufhaltsame Fortschreiten und die Vergänglichkeit des Lebens. Insofern könnte man bei der Uhr auch an eine Sonnenuhr denken. Der Rhythmus der Ereignisse passt uns vielleicht nicht immer in den Kram.

Was den Takt pocht, ist durchaus auch das Herz, unser «inneres Uhrwerk». Wenn dieses Meisterwerk einmal stillsteht, ist es unweigerlich um uns geschehen. Hoffentlich können wir dann dankbar sagen: «Ich habe mein Bestes gegeben.»

Ich trage, wo ich gehe, stets eine Uhr bei mir; \ Wieviel es geschlagen habe, genau seh ich an ihr. \ Es ist ein großer Meister, der künstlich ihr Werk gefügt, \ Wenngleich ihr Gang nicht immer dem törichten Wunsche genügt.

Ich wollte, sie wäre rascher gegangen an manchem Tag; \ Ich wollte, sie hätte manchmal verzögert den raschen Schlag. \ In meinen Leiden und Freuden, in Sturm und in der Ruh, \ Was immer geschah im Leben, sie pochte den Takt dazu.

Sie schlug am Sarge des Vaters, sie schlug an des Freundes Bahr, \ Sie schlug am Morgen der Liebe, sie schlug am Traualtar. \ Sie schlug an der Wiege des Kindes, sie schlägt, will's Gott, noch oft, \ Wenn bessere Tage kommen, wie meine Seele es hofft.

Und ward sie auch einmal träger, und drohte zu stocken ihr Lauf, \ So zog der Meister immer großmütig sie wieder auf. \ Doch stände sie einmal stille, dann wär's um sie geschehn, \ Kein andrer, als der sie fügte, bringt die Zerstörte zum Gehn.

Dann müßt ich zum Meister wandern, der wohnt am Ende wohl weit, \ Wohl draußen, jenseits der Erde, wohl dort in der Ewigkeit! \ Dann gäb ich sie ihm zurücke mit dankbar kindlichem Flehn: \ Sieh, Herr, ich hab nichts verdorben, sie blieb von selber stehn.

Johann Gabriel Seidl (1804-1875)

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Falls du beim Lesen des Titels dieses Newsletters unwillkürlich an positive Neuigkeiten aus dem globalen polit-medialen Irrenhaus oder gar aus dem wirtschaftlichen Umfeld gedacht hast, darf ich dich beglückwünschen. Diese Assoziation ist sehr löblich, denn sie weist dich als unverbesserlichen Optimisten aus. Leider muss ich dich diesbezüglich aber enttäuschen. Es geht hier um ein anderes Thema, allerdings sehr wohl ein positives, wie ich finde.

Heute ist ein ganz besonderer Tag: die Wintersonnenwende. Genau gesagt hat heute morgen um 10:20 Uhr Mitteleuropäischer Zeit (MEZ) auf der Nordhalbkugel unseres Planeten der astronomische Winter begonnen. Was daran so außergewöhnlich ist? Der kürzeste Tag des Jahres war gestern, seit heute werden die Tage bereits wieder länger! Wir werden also jetzt jeden Tag ein wenig mehr Licht haben.

Für mich ist dieses Ereignis immer wieder etwas kurios: Es beginnt der Winter, aber die Tage werden länger. Das erscheint mir zunächst wie ein Widerspruch, denn meine spontanen Assoziationen zum Winter sind doch eher Kälte und Dunkelheit, relativ zumindest. Umso erfreulicher ist der emotionale Effekt, wenn dann langsam die Erkenntnis durchsickert: Ab jetzt wird es schon wieder heller!

Natürlich ist es kalt im Winter, mancherorts mehr als anderswo. Vielleicht jedoch nicht mehr lange, wenn man den Klimahysterikern glauben wollte. Mindestens letztes Jahr hat Väterchen Frost allerdings gleich zu Beginn seiner Saison – und passenderweise während des globalen Überhitzungsgipfels in Dubai – nochmal richtig mit der Faust auf den Tisch gehauen. Schnee- und Eischaos sind ja eigentlich in der Agenda bereits nicht mehr vorgesehen. Deswegen war man in Deutschland vermutlich in vorauseilendem Gehorsam schon nicht mehr darauf vorbereitet und wurde glatt lahmgelegt.

Aber ich schweife ab. Die Aussicht auf nach und nach mehr Licht und damit auch Wärme stimmt mich froh. Den Zusammenhang zwischen beidem merkt man in Andalusien sehr deutlich. Hier, wo die Häuser im Winter arg auskühlen, geht man zum Aufwärmen raus auf die Straße oder auf den Balkon. Die Sonne hat auch im Winter eine erfreuliche Kraft. Und da ist jede Minute Gold wert.

Außerdem ist mir vor Jahren so richtig klar geworden, warum mir das südliche Klima so sehr gefällt. Das liegt nämlich nicht nur an der Sonne als solcher, oder der Wärme – das liegt vor allem am Licht. Ohne Licht keine Farben, das ist der ebenso simple wie gewaltige Unterschied zwischen einem deprimierenden matschgraubraunen Winter und einem fröhlichen bunten. Ein großes Stück Lebensqualität.

Mir gefällt aber auch die Symbolik dieses Tages: Licht aus der Dunkelheit, ein Wendepunkt, ein Neuanfang, neue Möglichkeiten, Übergang zu neuer Aktivität. In der winterlichen Stille keimt bereits neue Lebendigkeit. Und zwar in einem Zyklus, das wird immer wieder so geschehen. Ich nehme das gern als ein Stück Motivation, es macht mir Hoffnung und gibt mir Energie.

Übrigens ist parallel am heutigen Tag auf der südlichen Halbkugel Sommeranfang. Genau im entgegengesetzten Rhythmus, sich ergänzend, wie Yin und Yang. Das alles liegt an der Schrägstellung der Erdachse, die ist nämlich um 23,4º zur Umlaufbahn um die Sonne geneigt. Wir erinnern uns, gell?

Insofern bleibt eindeutig festzuhalten, dass “schräg sein” ein willkommener, wichtiger und positiver Wert ist. Mit anderen Worten: auch ungewöhnlich, eigenartig, untypisch, wunderlich, kauzig, … ja sogar irre, spinnert oder gar “quer” ist in Ordnung. Das schließt das Denken mit ein.

In diesem Sinne wünsche ich euch allen urige Weihnachtstage!

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Dieser Beitrag ist letztes Jahr in meiner Denkbar erschienen.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

The cryptocurrency market is a dynamic and often unpredictable space. With Bitcoin's impressive surge in value, many investors are looking beyond the pioneer cryptocurrency to diversify their portfolios. This article explores various cryptocurrency options, weighing the potential of holding (HODLing) or selling them in the current market.

Table Of Content

• Bitcoin's Stellar Performance

• Ether (ETH)

• Solana (SOL)

• Binance Coin (BNB)

• BLUR

• Conclusion

• FAQs

Bitcoin's Stellar Performance

Bitcoin, the first and most well-known cryptocurrency, has seen a remarkable increase in value, rising by 120% in 2023. This surge sets a benchmark for evaluating other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin's growth is influenced by several factors, including the anticipation of a Bitcoin ETF and its upcoming fourth halving. These developments could further drive its demand and value.

The potential introduction of a Bitcoin ETF is particularly significant. It would allow a broader range of investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin without the complexities of direct cryptocurrency ownership. This development could lead to increased institutional investment and potentially stabilize Bitcoin's historically volatile price. Furthermore, the halving event, expected to occur in April, is a fundamental aspect of Bitcoin's design. It reduces the reward for mining new blocks, effectively limiting the supply of new bitcoins. This scarcity is a key driver of Bitcoin's value and has historically led to significant price increases.

However, Bitcoin's dominance and performance also raise questions about market saturation and the potential for continued growth. While Bitcoin remains a safe haven for many investors, its large market capitalization means that it may not offer the same growth potential as some smaller, emerging cryptocurrencies. Investors looking for high-growth opportunities may find these in altcoins, which, while riskier, offer the potential for higher returns.

Ether (ETH)

Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, has a different appeal compared to Bitcoin. While Bitcoin excels as a payment network, Ethereum's strength lies in its versatility as a platform for decentralized applications. Ether's growth has been modest compared to Bitcoin, with a 65% increase this year.

Ethereum's broader utility stems from its ability to support smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). These features have made it the backbone of various sectors, including decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The recent upgrade to Ethereum 2.0, transitioning to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, aims to address scalability and energy efficiency issues, potentially increasing its attractiveness to both developers and investors.

Despite these advancements, Ether's price has not seen the same explosive growth as Bitcoin. This could be due to the market's maturation and the increasing competition from other blockchain platforms. However, Ethereum's established position and ongoing development make it a strong contender for long-term growth. Investors may consider holding Ether as a bet on the continued expansion and innovation in the DeFi and NFT spaces, where Ethereum plays a central role.

Solana (SOL)

Solana, a blockchain platform seen as a competitor to Ethereum, has recovered remarkably from the impacts of the FTX collapse, with its value increasing by 313% this year. This growth is a testament to the resilience and potential of Solana as an investment.

Solana's key selling point is its high throughput and low transaction costs, making it an attractive platform for both developers and users. Its ability to process thousands of transactions per second outpaces Ethereum significantly, which has been a bottleneck for the latter. This technical superiority has led to increased adoption of Solana for various applications, including decentralized exchanges, gaming, and NFTs.

The rapid recovery of Solana's value post-FTX collapse indicates strong investor confidence and market support for the platform. It suggests that Solana has managed to dissociate itself from the negative sentiment surrounding FTX and is being recognized for its inherent technological strengths. For investors, Solana presents an opportunity to diversify into a high-potential blockchain platform that could capture significant market share in the future.

Binance Coin (BNB)

BNB, the native token of the Binance exchange, has faced significant challenges following legal issues with Binance’s CEO. These developments have led to a decrease in BNB's value, prompting considerations for selling the asset.

The legal troubles surrounding Binance and its CEO have raised concerns about the exchange's future and, by extension, the value of BNB. Binance Coin's utility is closely tied to the Binance ecosystem, being used for transaction fee discounts and participation in token sales. If regulatory actions lead to a decrease in Binance's user base or a change in its operational model, BNB could see a further decline in value.

However, it's also important to consider Binance's position as one of the largest and most influential cryptocurrency exchanges globally. The platform has a substantial user base and a wide array of services, including trading, staking, and a native blockchain, Binance Smart Chain. If Binance navigates through its legal challenges successfully, BNB could recover and potentially grow in value. Investors need to weigh the risks of regulatory impacts against the potential for Binance to continue playing a major role in the crypto ecosystem.

BLUR

BLUR, associated with the NFT marketplace Blur, has maintained a significant market capitalization despite a downturn in NFT trading. As the NFT market shows signs of a potential rebound, holding BLUR could be a strategic move for investors interested in the digital art and collectibles space.

The NFT market has experienced a significant cooldown from its peak in 2021, but it remains a sector with potential for innovation and growth. BLUR's association with the Blur marketplace positions it well within this niche. The marketplace has gained traction among NFT traders for its user-friendly interface and unique features, such as rewarding users with BLUR tokens based on their trading volume.

BLUR's utility within the Blur ecosystem could drive its value as the NFT market evolves. The token's use in governance and transaction fee payments on the platform aligns it closely with the marketplace's success. As new artists and collectors continue to enter the NFT space, platforms like Blur that offer a streamlined and rewarding experience could see increased usage, potentially boosting BLUR's value.

Investors considering BLUR should monitor the broader NFT market trends and Blur's position within it. While the NFT market is known for its volatility, it also offers unique opportunities for growth, especially in niches that are innovating and capturing user interest.

Conclusion

The cryptocurrency market is diverse and constantly evolving. While Bitcoin continues to be a strong performer, other cryptocurrencies offer varied investment opportunities. Investors should consider their risk tolerance, market trends, and the unique attributes of each cryptocurrency when making decisions. Whether to HODL or sell depends on individual investment goals and the ever-changing landscape of the crypto world. Diversification and staying informed are key to navigating this dynamic market successfully.

FAQs

Is it better to invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies? It depends on your investment goals and risk tolerance. Bitcoin is more established but may offer lower growth potential compared to some emerging altcoins. Diversifying your portfolio with a mix of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies might be a balanced approach.

What makes Ether a good investment option? Ether is the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, known for its versatility in supporting smart contracts and decentralized applications. Its ongoing development and central role in the DeFi and NFT sectors make it a strong contender for long-term growth.

Why is Solana considered a rising competitor in the crypto market? Solana offers high transaction speeds and low costs, making it an attractive platform for developers and users. Its rapid recovery post-FTX collapse indicates strong market support and potential for significant market share in the future.

What are the risks associated with investing in Binance Coin (BNB)? BNB faces risks due to legal issues surrounding Binance and its CEO. Its value is closely tied to the Binance ecosystem, so any negative impact on the exchange could affect BNB's value.

Is investing in BLUR a good strategy? Investing in BLUR could be a strategic move if you're interested in the NFT market. As the native token of the Blur NFT marketplace, its value may grow with the platform's success in the evolving NFT space.

How important is diversification in cryptocurrency investment? Diversification is crucial in managing risk in the volatile cryptocurrency market. It involves spreading your investment across different assets to reduce the impact of any single asset's performance on your overall portfolio.

That's all for today

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Das Betriebsklima ist das einzige Klima, \ das du selbst bestimmen kannst. \ Anonym

Eine Strategie zur Anpassung an den Klimawandel hat das deutsche Bundeskabinett diese Woche beschlossen. Da «Wetterextreme wie die immer häufiger auftretenden Hitzewellen und Starkregenereignisse» oft desaströse Auswirkungen auf Mensch und Umwelt hätten, werde eine Anpassung an die Folgen des Klimawandels immer wichtiger. «Klimaanpassungsstrategie» nennt die Regierung das.

Für die «Vorsorge vor Klimafolgen» habe man nun erstmals klare Ziele und messbare Kennzahlen festgelegt. So sei der Erfolg überprüfbar, und das solle zu einer schnelleren Bewältigung der Folgen führen. Dass sich hinter dem Begriff Klimafolgen nicht Folgen des Klimas, sondern wohl «Folgen der globalen Erwärmung» verbergen, erklärt den Interessierten die Wikipedia. Dabei ist das mit der Erwärmung ja bekanntermaßen so eine Sache.

Die Zunahme schwerer Unwetterereignisse habe gezeigt, so das Ministerium, wie wichtig eine frühzeitige und effektive Warnung der Bevölkerung sei. Daher solle es eine deutliche Anhebung der Nutzerzahlen der sogenannten Nina-Warn-App geben.

Die ARD spurt wie gewohnt und setzt die Botschaft zielsicher um. Der Artikel beginnt folgendermaßen:

«Die Flut im Ahrtal war ein Schock für das ganze Land. Um künftig besser gegen Extremwetter gewappnet zu sein, hat die Bundesregierung eine neue Strategie zur Klimaanpassung beschlossen. Die Warn-App Nina spielt eine zentrale Rolle. Der Bund will die Menschen in Deutschland besser vor Extremwetter-Ereignissen warnen und dafür die Reichweite der Warn-App Nina deutlich erhöhen.»

Die Kommunen würden bei ihren «Klimaanpassungsmaßnahmen» vom Zentrum KlimaAnpassung unterstützt, schreibt das Umweltministerium. Mit dessen Aufbau wurden das Deutsche Institut für Urbanistik gGmbH, welches sich stark für Smart City-Projekte engagiert, und die Adelphi Consult GmbH beauftragt.

Adelphi beschreibt sich selbst als «Europas führender Think-and-Do-Tank und eine unabhängige Beratung für Klima, Umwelt und Entwicklung». Sie seien «global vernetzte Strateg*innen und weltverbessernde Berater*innen» und als «Vorreiter der sozial-ökologischen Transformation» sei man mit dem Deutschen Nachhaltigkeitspreis ausgezeichnet worden, welcher sich an den Zielen der Agenda 2030 orientiere.

Über die Warn-App mit dem niedlichen Namen Nina, die möglichst jeder auf seinem Smartphone installieren soll, informiert das Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe (BBK). Gewarnt wird nicht nur vor Extrem-Wetterereignissen, sondern zum Beispiel auch vor Waffengewalt und Angriffen, Strom- und anderen Versorgungsausfällen oder Krankheitserregern. Wenn man die Kategorie Gefahreninformation wählt, erhält man eine Dosis von ungefähr zwei Benachrichtigungen pro Woche.

Beim BBK erfahren wir auch einiges über die empfohlenen Systemeinstellungen für Nina. Der Benutzer möge zum Beispiel den Zugriff auf die Standortdaten «immer zulassen», und zwar mit aktivierter Funktion «genauen Standort verwenden». Die Datennutzung solle unbeschränkt sein, auch im Hintergrund. Außerdem sei die uneingeschränkte Akkunutzung zu aktivieren, der Energiesparmodus auszuschalten und das Stoppen der App-Aktivität bei Nichtnutzung zu unterbinden.

Dass man so dramatische Ereignisse wie damals im Ahrtal auch anders bewerten kann als Regierungen und Systemmedien, hat meine Kollegin Wiltrud Schwetje anhand der Tragödie im spanischen Valencia gezeigt. Das Stichwort «Agenda 2030» taucht dabei in einem Kontext auf, der wenig mit Nachhaltigkeitspreisen zu tun hat.

---

Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de

![[yedinaya-rossiya-bear.png]]

1️⃣ Be where the bear roams. Stay in its territory, where it hunts for food. No point setting a trap in your backyard if the bear’s chilling in the forest.

2️⃣ Set a well-hidden trap. Bury it, disguise it, and place the bait right in the center. Bears are omnivores—just like secret police KGB agents. And what’s the tastiest bait for them? Money.

3️⃣ Wait for the bear to take the bait. When it reaches in, the trap will snap shut around its paw. It’ll be alive, but stuck. No escape.

Now, what you do with a trapped bear is another question... 😏

@ eac63075:b4988b48

Imagine sending a private message to a friend, only to learn that authorities could be scanning its contents without your knowledge. This isn't a scene from a dystopian novel but a potential reality under the European Union's proposed "Chat Control" measures. Aimed at combating serious crimes like child exploitation and terrorism, these proposals could significantly impact the privacy of everyday internet users. As encrypted messaging services become the norm for personal and professional communication, understanding Chat Control is essential. This article delves into what Chat Control entails, why it's being considered, and how it could affect your right to private communication.

https://www.fountain.fm/episode/coOFsst7r7mO1EP1kSzV

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0IZ6kMExfxFm4FHg5DAWT8?si=e139033865e045de

Sections:

• Introduction
• What Is Chat Control?
• Why Is the EU Pushing for Chat Control?
• The Privacy Concerns and Risks
• The Technical Debate: Encryption and Backdoors
• Global Reactions and the Debate in Europe
• Possible Consequences for Messaging Services
• What Happens Next? The Future of Chat Control
• Conclusion

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What Is Chat Control?

"Chat Control" refers to a set of proposed measures by the European Union aimed at monitoring and scanning private communications on messaging platforms. The primary goal is to detect and prevent the spread of illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and to combat terrorism. While the intention is to enhance security and protect vulnerable populations, these proposals have raised significant privacy concerns.

At its core, Chat Control would require messaging services to implement automated scanning technologies that can analyze the content of messages—even those that are end-to-end encrypted. This means that the private messages you send to friends, family, or colleagues could be subject to inspection by algorithms designed to detect prohibited content.

Origins of the Proposal

The initiative for Chat Control emerged from the EU's desire to strengthen its digital security infrastructure. High-profile cases of online abuse and the use of encrypted platforms by criminal organizations have prompted lawmakers to consider more invasive surveillance tactics. The European Commission has been exploring legislation that would make it mandatory for service providers to monitor communications on their platforms.

How Messaging Services Work

Most modern messaging apps, like Signal, Session, SimpleX, Veilid, Protonmail and Tutanota (among others), use end-to-end encryption (E2EE). This encryption ensures that only the sender and the recipient can read the messages being exchanged. Not even the service providers can access the content. This level of security is crucial for maintaining privacy in digital communications, protecting users from hackers, identity thieves, and other malicious actors.

Key Elements of Chat Control

• Automated Content Scanning: Service providers would use algorithms to scan messages for illegal content.
• Circumvention of Encryption: To scan encrypted messages, providers might need to alter their encryption methods, potentially weakening security.
• Mandatory Reporting: If illegal content is detected, providers would be required to report it to authorities.
• Broad Applicability: The measures could apply to all messaging services operating within the EU, affecting both European companies and international platforms.

Why It Matters

Understanding Chat Control is essential because it represents a significant shift in how digital privacy is handled. While combating illegal activities online is crucial, the methods proposed could set a precedent for mass surveillance and the erosion of privacy rights. Everyday users who rely on encrypted messaging for personal and professional communication might find their conversations are no longer as private as they once thought.

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Why Is the EU Pushing for Chat Control?

The European Union's push for Chat Control stems from a pressing concern to protect its citizens, particularly children, from online exploitation and criminal activities. With the digital landscape becoming increasingly integral to daily life, the EU aims to strengthen its ability to combat serious crimes facilitated through online platforms.

Protecting Children and Preventing Crime

One of the primary motivations behind Chat Control is the prevention of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) circulating on the internet. Law enforcement agencies have reported a significant increase in the sharing of illegal content through private messaging services. By implementing Chat Control, the EU believes it can more effectively identify and stop perpetrators, rescue victims, and deter future crimes.

Terrorism is another critical concern. Encrypted messaging apps can be used by terrorist groups to plan and coordinate attacks without detection. The EU argues that accessing these communications could be vital in preventing such threats and ensuring public safety.

Legal Context and Legislative Drivers

The push for Chat Control is rooted in several legislative initiatives:

• ePrivacy Directive: This directive regulates the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in electronic communications. The EU is considering amendments that would allow for the scanning of private messages under specific circumstances.

• Temporary Derogation: In 2021, the EU adopted a temporary regulation permitting voluntary detection of CSAM by communication services. The current proposals aim to make such measures mandatory and more comprehensive.

• Regulation Proposals: The European Commission has proposed regulations that would require service providers to detect, report, and remove illegal content proactively. This would include the use of technologies to scan private communications.

Balancing Security and Privacy

EU officials argue that the proposed measures are a necessary response to evolving digital threats. They emphasize the importance of staying ahead of criminals who exploit technology to harm others. By implementing Chat Control, they believe law enforcement can be more effective without entirely dismantling privacy protections.

However, the EU also acknowledges the need to balance security with fundamental rights. The proposals include provisions intended to limit the scope of surveillance, such as:

• Targeted Scanning: Focusing on specific threats rather than broad, indiscriminate monitoring.

• Judicial Oversight: Requiring court orders or oversight for accessing private communications.

• Data Protection Safeguards: Implementing measures to ensure that data collected is handled securely and deleted when no longer needed.

The Urgency Behind the Push

High-profile cases of online abuse and terrorism have heightened the sense of urgency among EU policymakers. Reports of increasing online grooming and the widespread distribution of illegal content have prompted calls for immediate action. The EU posits that without measures like Chat Control, these problems will continue to escalate unchecked.

Criticism and Controversy

Despite the stated intentions, the push for Chat Control has been met with significant criticism. Opponents argue that the measures could be ineffective against savvy criminals who can find alternative ways to communicate. There is also concern that such surveillance could be misused or extended beyond its original purpose.

---

The Privacy Concerns and Risks

While the intentions behind Chat Control focus on enhancing security and protecting vulnerable groups, the proposed measures raise significant privacy concerns. Critics argue that implementing such surveillance could infringe on fundamental rights and set a dangerous precedent for mass monitoring of private communications.

Infringement on Privacy Rights

At the heart of the debate is the right to privacy. By scanning private messages, even with automated tools, the confidentiality of personal communications is compromised. Users may no longer feel secure sharing sensitive information, fearing that their messages could be intercepted or misinterpreted by algorithms.

Erosion of End-to-End Encryption

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a cornerstone of digital security, ensuring that only the sender and recipient can read the messages exchanged. Chat Control could necessitate the introduction of "backdoors" or weaken encryption protocols, making it easier for unauthorized parties to access private data. This not only affects individual privacy but also exposes communications to potential cyber threats.

Concerns from Privacy Advocates

Organizations like Signal and Tutanota, which offer encrypted messaging services, have voiced strong opposition to Chat Control. They warn that undermining encryption could have far-reaching consequences:

• Security Risks: Weakening encryption makes systems more vulnerable to hacking, espionage, and cybercrime.
• Global Implications: Changes in EU regulations could influence policies worldwide, leading to a broader erosion of digital privacy.
• Ineffectiveness Against Crime: Determined criminals might resort to other, less detectable means of communication, rendering the measures ineffective while still compromising the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

Potential for Government Overreach

There is a fear that Chat Control could lead to increased surveillance beyond its original scope. Once the infrastructure for scanning private messages is in place, it could be repurposed or expanded to monitor other types of content, stifling free expression and dissent.

Real-World Implications for Users

• False Positives: Automated scanning technologies are not infallible and could mistakenly flag innocent content, leading to unwarranted scrutiny or legal consequences for users.
• Chilling Effect: Knowing that messages could be monitored might discourage people from expressing themselves freely, impacting personal relationships and societal discourse.
• Data Misuse: Collected data could be vulnerable to leaks or misuse, compromising personal and sensitive information.

Legal and Ethical Concerns

Privacy advocates also highlight potential conflicts with existing laws and ethical standards:

• Violation of Fundamental Rights: The European Convention on Human Rights and other international agreements protect the right to privacy and freedom of expression.
• Questionable Effectiveness: The ethical justification for such invasive measures is challenged if they do not significantly improve safety or if they disproportionately impact innocent users.

Opposition from Member States and Organizations

Countries like Germany and organizations such as the European Digital Rights (EDRi) have expressed opposition to Chat Control. They emphasize the need to protect digital privacy and caution against hasty legislation that could have unintended consequences.

---

The Technical Debate: Encryption and Backdoors

The discussion around Chat Control inevitably leads to a complex technical debate centered on encryption and the potential introduction of backdoors into secure communication systems. Understanding these concepts is crucial to grasping the full implications of the proposed measures.

What Is End-to-End Encryption (E2EE)?

End-to-end encryption is a method of secure communication that prevents third parties from accessing data while it's transferred from one end system to another. In simpler terms, only the sender and the recipient can read the messages. Even the service providers operating the messaging platforms cannot decrypt the content.

• Security Assurance: E2EE ensures that sensitive information—be it personal messages, financial details, or confidential business communications—remains private.
• Widespread Use: Popular messaging apps like Signal, Session, SimpleX, Veilid, Protonmail and Tutanota (among others) rely on E2EE to protect user data.

How Chat Control Affects Encryption

Implementing Chat Control as proposed would require messaging services to scan the content of messages for illegal material. To do this on encrypted platforms, providers might have to:

• Introduce Backdoors: Create a means for third parties (including the service provider or authorities) to access encrypted messages.
• Client-Side Scanning: Install software on users' devices that scans messages before they are encrypted and sent, effectively bypassing E2EE.

The Risks of Weakening Encryption

1. Compromised Security for All Users

Introducing backdoors or client-side scanning tools can create vulnerabilities:

• Exploitable Gaps: If a backdoor exists, malicious actors might find and exploit it, leading to data breaches.
• Universal Impact: Weakening encryption doesn't just affect targeted individuals; it potentially exposes all users to increased risk.

2. Undermining Trust in Digital Services

• User Confidence: Knowing that private communications could be accessed might deter people from using digital services or push them toward unregulated platforms.
• Business Implications: Companies relying on secure communications might face increased risks, affecting economic activities.

3. Ineffectiveness Against Skilled Adversaries

• Alternative Methods: Criminals might shift to other encrypted channels or develop new ways to avoid detection.
• False Sense of Security: Weakening encryption could give the impression of increased safety while adversaries adapt and continue their activities undetected.

Signal’s Response and Stance

Signal, a leading encrypted messaging service, has been vocal in its opposition to the EU's proposals:

• Refusal to Weaken Encryption: Signal's CEO Meredith Whittaker has stated that the company would rather cease operations in the EU than compromise its encryption standards.
• Advocacy for Privacy: Signal emphasizes that strong encryption is essential for protecting human rights and freedoms in the digital age.

Understanding Backdoors

A "backdoor" in encryption is an intentional weakness inserted into a system to allow authorized access to encrypted data. While intended for legitimate use by authorities, backdoors pose several problems:

• Security Vulnerabilities: They can be discovered and exploited by unauthorized parties, including hackers and foreign governments.
• Ethical Concerns: The existence of backdoors raises questions about consent and the extent to which governments should be able to access private communications.

The Slippery Slope Argument

Privacy advocates warn that introducing backdoors or mandatory scanning sets a precedent:

• Expanded Surveillance: Once in place, these measures could be extended to monitor other types of content beyond the original scope.
• Erosion of Rights: Gradual acceptance of surveillance can lead to a significant reduction in personal freedoms over time.

Potential Technological Alternatives

Some suggest that it's possible to fight illegal content without undermining encryption:

• Metadata Analysis: Focusing on patterns of communication rather than content.
• Enhanced Reporting Mechanisms: Encouraging users to report illegal content voluntarily.
• Investing in Law Enforcement Capabilities: Strengthening traditional investigative methods without compromising digital security.

The technical community largely agrees that weakening encryption is not the solution:

• Consensus on Security: Strong encryption is essential for the safety and privacy of all internet users.
• Call for Dialogue: Technologists and privacy experts advocate for collaborative approaches that address security concerns without sacrificing fundamental rights.

---

Global Reactions and the Debate in Europe

The proposal for Chat Control has ignited a heated debate across Europe and beyond, with various stakeholders weighing in on the potential implications for privacy, security, and fundamental rights. The reactions are mixed, reflecting differing national perspectives, political priorities, and societal values.

Support for Chat Control

Some EU member states and officials support the initiative, emphasizing the need for robust measures to combat online crime and protect citizens, especially children. They argue that:

• Enhanced Security: Mandatory scanning can help law enforcement agencies detect and prevent serious crimes.
• Responsibility of Service Providers: Companies offering communication services should play an active role in preventing their platforms from being used for illegal activities.
• Public Safety Priorities: The protection of vulnerable populations justifies the implementation of such measures, even if it means compromising some aspects of privacy.

Opposition within the EU

Several countries and organizations have voiced strong opposition to Chat Control, citing concerns over privacy rights and the potential for government overreach.

Germany

• Stance: Germany has been one of the most vocal opponents of the proposed measures.
• Reasons:
• Constitutional Concerns: The German government argues that Chat Control could violate constitutional protections of privacy and confidentiality of communications.
• Security Risks: Weakening encryption is seen as a threat to cybersecurity.
• Legal Challenges: Potential conflicts with national laws protecting personal data and communication secrecy.

Netherlands

• Recent Developments: The Dutch government decided against supporting Chat Control, emphasizing the importance of encryption for security and privacy.
• Arguments:
• Effectiveness Doubts: Skepticism about the actual effectiveness of the measures in combating crime.
• Negative Impact on Privacy: Concerns about mass surveillance and the infringement of citizens' rights.

Table reference: Patrick Breyer - Chat Control in 23 September 2024

Privacy Advocacy Groups

European Digital Rights (EDRi)

• Role: A network of civil and human rights organizations working to defend rights and freedoms in the digital environment.
• Position:
• Strong Opposition: EDRi argues that Chat Control is incompatible with fundamental rights.
• Awareness Campaigns: Engaging in public campaigns to inform citizens about the potential risks.
• Policy Engagement: Lobbying policymakers to consider alternative approaches that respect privacy.

Politicians and Activists

Patrick Breyer

• Background: A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany, representing the Pirate Party.
• Actions:
• Advocacy: Actively campaigning against Chat Control through speeches, articles, and legislative efforts.
• Public Outreach: Using social media and public events to raise awareness.
• Legal Expertise: Highlighting the legal inconsistencies and potential violations of EU law.

Global Reactions

International Organizations

• Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International: These organizations have expressed concerns about the implications for human rights, urging the EU to reconsider.

Technology Companies

• Global Tech Firms: Companies like Apple and Microsoft are monitoring the situation, as EU regulations could affect their operations and user trust.
• Industry Associations: Groups representing tech companies have issued statements highlighting the risks to innovation and competitiveness.

The Broader Debate

The controversy over Chat Control reflects a broader struggle between security interests and privacy rights in the digital age. Key points in the debate include:

• Legal Precedents: How the EU's decision might influence laws and regulations in other countries.
• Digital Sovereignty: The desire of nations to control digital spaces within their borders.
• Civil Liberties: The importance of protecting freedoms in the face of technological advancements.

Public Opinion

• Diverse Views: Surveys and public forums show a range of opinions, with some citizens prioritizing security and others valuing privacy above all.
• Awareness Levels: Many people are still unaware of the potential changes, highlighting the need for public education on the issue.

The EU is at a crossroads, facing the challenge of addressing legitimate security concerns without undermining the fundamental rights that are central to its values. The outcome of this debate will have significant implications for the future of digital privacy and the balance between security and freedom in society.

---

Possible Consequences for Messaging Services

The implementation of Chat Control could have significant implications for messaging services operating within the European Union. Both large platforms and smaller providers might need to adapt their technologies and policies to comply with the new regulations, potentially altering the landscape of digital communication.

Impact on Encrypted Messaging Services

Signal and Similar Platforms

• Compliance Challenges: Encrypted messaging services like Signal rely on end-to-end encryption to secure user communications. Complying with Chat Control could force them to weaken their encryption protocols or implement client-side scanning, conflicting with their core privacy principles.

• Operational Decisions: Some platforms may choose to limit their services in the EU or cease operations altogether rather than compromise on encryption. Signal, for instance, has indicated that it would prefer to withdraw from European markets than undermine its security features.

Potential Blocking or Limiting of Services

• Regulatory Enforcement: Messaging services that do not comply with Chat Control regulations could face fines, legal action, or even be blocked within the EU.

• Access Restrictions: Users in Europe might find certain services unavailable or limited in functionality if providers decide not to meet the regulatory requirements.

Effects on Smaller Providers

• Resource Constraints: Smaller messaging services and startups may lack the resources to implement the required scanning technologies, leading to increased operational costs or forcing them out of the market.

• Innovation Stifling: The added regulatory burden could deter new entrants, reducing competition and innovation in the messaging service sector.

User Experience and Trust

• Privacy Concerns: Users may lose trust in messaging platforms if they know their communications are subject to scanning, leading to a decline in user engagement.

• Migration to Unregulated Platforms: There is a risk that users might shift to less secure or unregulated services, including those operated outside the EU or on the dark web, potentially exposing them to greater risks.

Technical and Security Implications

• Increased Vulnerabilities: Modifying encryption protocols to comply with Chat Control could introduce security flaws, making platforms more susceptible to hacking and data breaches.

• Global Security Risks: Changes made to accommodate EU regulations might affect the global user base of these services, extending security risks beyond European borders.

Impact on Businesses and Professional Communications

• Confidentiality Issues: Businesses that rely on secure messaging for sensitive communications may face challenges in ensuring confidentiality, affecting sectors like finance, healthcare, and legal services.

• Compliance Complexity: Companies operating internationally will need to navigate a complex landscape of differing regulations, increasing administrative burdens.

Economic Consequences

• Market Fragmentation: Divergent regulations could lead to a fragmented market, with different versions of services for different regions.

• Loss of Revenue: Messaging services might experience reduced revenue due to decreased user trust and engagement or the costs associated with compliance.

Responses from Service Providers

• Legal Challenges: Companies might pursue legal action against the regulations, citing conflicts with privacy laws and user rights.

• Policy Advocacy: Service providers may increase lobbying efforts to influence policy decisions and promote alternatives to Chat Control.

Possible Adaptations

• Technological Innovation: Some providers might invest in developing new technologies that can detect illegal content without compromising encryption, though the feasibility remains uncertain.

• Transparency Measures: To maintain user trust, companies might enhance transparency about how data is handled and what measures are in place to protect privacy.

The potential consequences of Chat Control for messaging services are profound, affecting not only the companies that provide these services but also the users who rely on them daily. The balance between complying with legal requirements and maintaining user privacy and security presents a significant challenge that could reshape the digital communication landscape.

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What Happens Next? The Future of Chat Control

The future of Chat Control remains uncertain as the debate continues among EU member states, policymakers, technology companies, and civil society organizations. Several factors will influence the outcome of this contentious proposal, each carrying significant implications for digital privacy, security, and the regulatory environment within the European Union.

Current Status of Legislation

• Ongoing Negotiations: The proposed Chat Control measures are still under discussion within the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Amendments and revisions are being considered in response to the feedback from various stakeholders.

• Timeline: While there is no fixed date for the final decision, the EU aims to reach a consensus to implement effective measures against online crime without undue delay.

Key Influencing Factors

1. Legal Challenges and Compliance with EU Law

• Fundamental Rights Assessment: The proposals must be evaluated against the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, ensuring that any measures comply with rights to privacy, data protection, and freedom of expression.

• Court Scrutiny: Potential legal challenges could arise, leading to scrutiny by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which may impact the feasibility and legality of Chat Control.

2. Technological Feasibility

• Development of Privacy-Preserving Technologies: Research into methods that can detect illegal content without compromising encryption is ongoing. Advances in this area could provide alternative solutions acceptable to both privacy advocates and security agencies.

• Implementation Challenges: The practical aspects of deploying scanning technologies across various platforms and services remain complex, and technical hurdles could delay or alter the proposed measures.

3. Political Dynamics

• Member State Positions: The differing stances of EU countries, such as Germany's opposition, play a significant role in shaping the final outcome. Consensus among member states is crucial for adopting EU-wide regulations.

• Public Opinion and Advocacy: Growing awareness and activism around digital privacy can influence policymakers. Public campaigns and lobbying efforts may sway decisions in favor of stronger privacy protections.

4. Industry Responses

• Negotiations with Service Providers: Ongoing dialogues between EU authorities and technology companies may lead to compromises or collaborative efforts to address concerns without fully implementing Chat Control as initially proposed.

• Potential for Self-Regulation: Messaging services might propose self-regulatory measures to combat illegal content, aiming to demonstrate effectiveness without the need for mandatory scanning.

Possible Scenarios

Optimistic Outcome:

• Balanced Regulation: A revised proposal emerges that effectively addresses security concerns while upholding strong encryption and privacy rights, possibly through innovative technologies or targeted measures with robust oversight.

Pessimistic Outcome:

• Adoption of Strict Measures: Chat Control is implemented as initially proposed, leading to weakened encryption, reduced privacy, and potential withdrawal of services like Signal from the EU market.

Middle Ground:

• Incremental Implementation: Partial measures are adopted, focusing on voluntary cooperation with service providers and emphasizing transparency and user consent, with ongoing evaluations to assess effectiveness and impact.

How to Stay Informed and Protect Your Privacy

• Follow Reputable Sources: Keep up with news from reliable outlets, official EU communications, and statements from privacy organizations to stay informed about developments.

• Engage in the Dialogue: Participate in public consultations, sign petitions, or contact representatives to express your views on Chat Control and digital privacy.

• Utilize Secure Practices: Regardless of legislative outcomes, adopting good digital hygiene—such as using strong passwords and being cautious with personal information—can enhance your online security.

The Global Perspective

• International Implications: The EU's decision may influence global policies on encryption and surveillance, setting precedents that other countries might follow or react against.

• Collaboration Opportunities: International cooperation on developing solutions that protect both security and privacy could emerge, fostering a more unified approach to addressing online threats.

Looking Ahead

The future of Chat Control is a critical issue that underscores the challenges of governing in the digital age. Balancing the need for security with the protection of fundamental rights is a complex task that requires careful consideration, open dialogue, and collaboration among all stakeholders.

As the situation evolves, staying informed and engaged is essential. The decisions made in the coming months will shape the digital landscape for years to come, affecting how we communicate, conduct business, and exercise our rights in an increasingly connected world.

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Conclusion

The debate over Chat Control highlights a fundamental challenge in our increasingly digital world: how to protect society from genuine threats without eroding the very rights and freedoms that define it. While the intention to safeguard children and prevent crime is undeniably important, the means of achieving this through intrusive surveillance measures raise critical concerns.

Privacy is not just a personal preference but a cornerstone of democratic societies. End-to-end encryption has become an essential tool for ensuring that our personal conversations, professional communications, and sensitive data remain secure from unwanted intrusion. Weakening these protections could expose individuals and organizations to risks that far outweigh the proposed benefits.

The potential consequences of implementing Chat Control are far-reaching:

• Erosion of Trust: Users may lose confidence in digital platforms, impacting how we communicate and conduct business online.
• Security Vulnerabilities: Introducing backdoors or weakening encryption can make systems more susceptible to cyberattacks.
• Stifling Innovation: Regulatory burdens may hinder technological advancement and competitiveness in the tech industry.
• Global Implications: The EU's decisions could set precedents that influence digital policies worldwide, for better or worse.

As citizens, it's crucial to stay informed about these developments. Engage in conversations, reach out to your representatives, and advocate for solutions that respect both security needs and fundamental rights. Technology and policy can evolve together to address challenges without compromising core values.

The future of Chat Control is not yet decided, and public input can make a significant difference. By promoting open dialogue, supporting privacy-preserving innovations, and emphasizing the importance of human rights in legislation, we can work towards a digital landscape that is both safe and free.

In a world where digital communication is integral to daily life, striking the right balance between security and privacy is more important than ever. The choices made today will shape the digital environment for generations to come, determining not just how we communicate, but how we live and interact in an interconnected world.

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Thank you for reading this article. We hope it has provided you with a clear understanding of Chat Control and its potential impact on your privacy and digital rights. Stay informed, stay engaged, and let's work together towards a secure and open digital future.

Read more:

• https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
• https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/new-eu-push-for-chat-control-will-messenger-services-be-blocked-in-europe/
• https://edri.org/our-work/dutch-decision-puts-brakes-on-chat-control/
• https://signal.org/blog/pdfs/ndss-keynote.pdf
• https://tuta.com/blog/germany-stop-chat-control
• https://cointelegraph.com/news/signal-president-slams-revised-eu-encryption-proposal
• https://mullvad.net/en/why-privacy-matters

@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de

The land that belongs to the indigenous peoples of Russia has been seized by a gang of killers who have unleashed a war of extermination. They wipe out anyone who refuses to conform to their rules. Those who disagree and stay behind are tortured and killed in prisons and labor camps. Those who flee lose their homeland, dissolve into foreign cultures, and fade away. And those who stand up to protect their people are attacked by the misled and deceived. The deceived die for the unchecked greed of a single dictator—thousands from both sides, people who just wanted to live, raise their kids, and build a future.

Now, they are forced to make an impossible choice: abandon their homeland or die. Some perish on the battlefield, others lose themselves in exile, stripped of their identity, scattered in a world that isn’t theirs.

There’s been endless debate about how to fix this, how to clear the field of the weeds that choke out every new sprout, every attempt at change. But the real problem? We can’t play by their rules. We can’t speak their language or use their weapons. We stand for humanity, and no matter how righteous our cause, we will not multiply suffering. Victory doesn’t come from matching the enemy—it comes from staying ahead, from using tools they haven’t mastered yet. That’s how wars are won.

Our only resource is the will of the people to rewrite the order of things. Historian Timothy Snyder once said that a nation cannot exist without a city. A city is where the most active part of a nation thrives. But the cities are occupied. The streets are watched. Gatherings are impossible. They control the money. They control the mail. They control the media. And any dissent is crushed before it can take root.

So I started asking myself: How do we stop this fragmentation? How do we create a space where people can rebuild their connections when they’re ready? How do we build a self-sustaining network, where everyone contributes and benefits proportionally, while keeping their freedom to leave intact? And more importantly—how do we make it spread, even in occupied territory?

In 2009, something historic happened: the internet got its own money. Thanks to Satoshi Nakamoto, the world took a massive leap forward. Bitcoin and decentralized ledgers shattered the idea that money must be controlled by the state. Now, to move or store value, all you need is an address and a key. A tiny string of text, easy to carry, impossible to seize.

That was the year money broke free. The state lost its grip. Its biggest weapon—physical currency—became irrelevant. Money became purely digital.

The internet was already a sanctuary for information, a place where people could connect and organize. But with Bitcoin, it evolved. Now, value itself could flow freely, beyond the reach of authorities.

Think about it: when seedlings are grown in controlled environments before being planted outside, they get stronger, survive longer, and bear fruit faster. That’s how we handle crops in harsh climates—nurture them until they’re ready for the wild.

Now, picture the internet as that controlled environment for ideas. Bitcoin? It’s the fertile soil that lets them grow. A testing ground for new models of interaction, where concepts can take root before they move into the real world. If nation-states are a battlefield, locked in a brutal war for territory, the internet is boundless. It can absorb any number of ideas, any number of people, and it doesn’t run out of space.

But for this ecosystem to thrive, people need safe ways to communicate, to share ideas, to build something real—without surveillance, without censorship, without the constant fear of being erased.

This is where Nostr comes in.

Nostr—"Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays"—is more than just a messaging protocol. It’s a new kind of city. One that no dictator can seize, no corporation can own, no government can shut down.

It’s built on decentralization, encryption, and individual control. Messages don’t pass through central servers—they are relayed through independent nodes, and users choose which ones to trust. There’s no master switch to shut it all down. Every person owns their identity, their data, their connections. And no one—no state, no tech giant, no algorithm—can silence them.

In a world where cities fall and governments fail, Nostr is a city that cannot be occupied. A place for ideas, for networks, for freedom. A city that grows stronger the more people build within it.

@ 0b118e40:4edc09cb

I’d like to see a world where a small artisan in Sarawak sells handcrafted goods directly to a boutique in Paris by bypassing currency exchange fluctuations, banking restrictions, and government-imposed tariffs. Or where a coffee farmer in Ethiopia sells beans straight to a roaster in Tokyo by sidestepping middlemen, exchange fees, and bureaucratic red tape.

In theory, free trade should enable this exchange smoothly, allowing businesses of all sizes to compete on a level playing field. But in reality, global trade is far from free. Policies, interventions, and economic theories are often designed to favor the powerful.

One particular theory that troubled me was Paul Krugman’s New Trade Theory (NTT), which argues that large businesses with economies of scale, supported by government-backed advantages, dominate international trade. This manifestation of the global marketplace favoring the giants, leaving smaller players like that Ethiopian coffee farmer out and struggling to compete, had led to trade hegemonies and trade wars.

After going through centuries of trade theories from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations to Keynesian interventionism and Friedman’s libertarianism I found myself questioning:

Is Krugman right?

After all, in today’s world, global trade is controlled by a few key players. The U.S., China, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. alone contribute to 40% of global trade in goods and services. The 134 countries of the Global South are often forgotten.

Can Bitcoin offer a countermeasure to help globalize small businesses from anywhere in the world?

Big players rule the game.

Let’s go a little deeper on Krugman’s New Trade Theory. He believes that trade is increasingly dominated by large firms because they benefit from economies of scale and brand power. While older trade theories assumed that countries traded based on resource advantages, NTT tries to explain why similar economies like the U.S. and Europe, engage in high levels of trade with each other, missing out on the obvious nuances of global alliances on geopolitical control and power.

Another aspect of Krugman’s theory is that large companies have a better chance of capturing market lead if they can benefit from unfair advantages through additional boosters in an imperfect market. In simple terms, power, status, and wealth are all you need to win.

So if you are a big company and you have status, government perks, and economic advantages, you can be the market leader. It’s like the Olympics of global trade, except some players get to use performance-enhancing drugs (subsidies, trade barriers, and financial influence) while others run clean. The race isn’t fair, but the rules say it’s fine.

So what is the blind spot here?

Well, other than the obvious disregard for merits and fair play, this model also assumes that only large corporations drive global trade, leaving small businesses to struggle against giants - despite the fact that small businesses often contribute significantly (sometimes up to 80%) to a country's revenue.

Small business in a big economy

NTT was developed in the 1970s and 1980s when economies of scale and industrial advantages were the primary drivers of global trade. Kugman's argument assumes that large corporations, due to their financial and logistical dominance, will continue to dictate trade flows. But is this still true today?

Small businesses are establishing themselves in a globalized world, even without economies of scale, as opposed to Krugman's belief. The rise of e-commerce, digital platforms, and decentralized technologies has significantly altered the trade landscape, though many barriers remain.

In the past, small businesses struggled because they lacked access to global markets, but platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Shopify have reduced the barriers to entry, allowing even micro-businesses to participate in international trade.

When Jack Ma started Alibaba, businesses didn’t automatically sign up. His team traveled to small villages and industrial hubs to onboard businesses that had never considered global trade let alone understand digital interfaces, communicate in English, or use the internet. This grassroots effort revolutionized commerce, digitizing and globalizing it at an unprecedented scale.

Krugman’s model assumes that large firms control trade, but in reality, many countries thrive on small business-driven exports.

I’ve been to these areas in China and seen firsthand how they operate. These small manufacturers in China may not have the scale of a multinational, but they’re deeply integrated into global supply chains. And despite limited resources, they’re able to compete globally.

Other countries like Germany and Japan are great examples where ‘hidden champions' who are typically highly specialized small businesses, play a crucial role in global supply chains.

US is not there yet, but it has the opportunity to explore untapped potential of globalizing small businesses and compete in the global market to drive sustainable economic growth.

In fact with this model, ideally anyone is welcome. But there are many barriers that still exist in limiting the globalization of small businesses : * High transaction costs. * Complexity of currency exchange and exchange fees * Complex regulations and banking restrictions * Difficulty finding trustworthy international partners

Imagine a small business trying to import materials from multiple global suppliers. Not only is it hard to find them, as many countries still rely on government agencies, trade directories, and outdated methods for searching and connecting with suppliers, but when it comes to solidifying deals, the complications don’t stop. One supplier might require an international wire transfer, another may only accept Western Union, and a third insists on using a local bank with high fees and delays. Small businesses simply don’t have the same access to banking services and streamlined financial systems that large corporations do. The variations often depend on the specific banking practices and infrastructure of both parties.

To make matters even more complicated, small businesses don't have dedicated teams like large corporations. They run on minimal resources, managing everything themselves. One small error or delay can stall shipments, disrupt cash flow, and risk losing customers. Yet, global trade expects them to compete at the same level as industry giants, without the same financial infrastructure or support.

More often than not, small businesses are left to fend for themselves, struggling to overcome these challenges alone.

And that’s where Bitcoin changes everything.

Can Bitcoin Create a True Free Market?

Unlike traditional banking systems, which are tied to government policies and centralized institutions, Bitcoin operates on a decentralized, borderless network. This enables direct transactions between buyers and sellers without intermediaries or excessive fees.

While Krugman’s theory explains why big corporations once held an advantage, it overlooks how decentralization removes trade bottlenecks, giving small businesses a real chance to compete globally.

In a Bitcoin-based global economy: * No more currency conversion fees - Businesses trade freely across borders. * No more reliance on banks - Transactions occur on a trustless system, reducing fraud and expensive intermediaries. * No more cross-border delays - Payments are instantaneous, bypassing restrictive banking regulations.

For small businesses, this means fewer barriers to global trade. A textile producer in India could sell directly to a retailer in Canada without needing to figure out the bureaucratic maze of currency exchanges and trade laws. A graphic designer in Brazil could collaborate with a company in Australia and receive payment instantly without relying on high-fee banking systems. A shea butter producer in Kenya could sell organic products directly to small skincare manufacturers in the U.S., bypassing middlemen and avoiding international shipping delays.

Bitcoin removes middlemen, slashes costs, and levels the playing field, not by government intervention, but by eliminating artificial barriers altogether.

The Challenges and the Future

Bitcoin isn’t a perfect solution, and we know that. Scalability, price volatility, and regulatory pushback remain major hurdles.

Currently, stablecoins are attempting to integrate into the Bitcoin Layer 2 network, which could potentially distract from Bitcoin's intended role as a global decentralized medium of exchange. Some are pushing for trade to happen through currency-pegged, centralized coins, which risks undermining Bitcoin's strong push toward free trade and decentralization.

Governments and banks resist decentralization because it threatens their control over money flows.

However, the concept of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange is already taking root. Leaders and developers are dedicating their legacies to building this system for a truly global community. El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has shown both the potential and the obstacles of a Bitcoin-driven economy with many lessons to learn from. Block Inc’s innovations have expanded into strengthening Bitcoin’s role as a decentralized medium globally, particularly through decentralized mining benefits and commercialized cold wallets.

Nostr has been very successful in seeing growth in these domains as well. It is slow but it's taking the right steps towards simplifying Bitcoin commerce adoption through zaps.

However the million-dollar question remains. If Bitcoin removes trade barriers, will small businesses adopt it?

History suggests yes but with the right approach. Just as Jack Ma went door to door convincing small businesses to embrace e-commerce, a similar effort is needed for Bitcoin adoption.

With Bitcoin, global trade can become digitized, commercialized, and pain-free, but only if small businesses understand how to use it. More importantly, it disrupts trade hegemony and creates a more equitable world that everyone can be part of.

A challenge I foresee beyond technology, is education. Initiatives that focus on simple onboarding, low-cost adoption, and real-world use cases can drive Bitcoin-powered trade forward. There are many non-tech Bitcoin enthusiasts who want to contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem and would love to take on educator roles. Once the infrastructure and understanding around Bitcoin become more conceptualized, these folks could play a strong role in spreading awareness and adoption.

If Bitcoin is introduced strategically, not as a speculative asset but as an international trade enabler through its medium of exchange, it could reshape global commerce just as e-commerce once did. The only difference is that this time, trade is truly borderless, trustless, and not controlled by financial intermediaries.

Krugman’s New Trade Theory remains useful in explaining how economies of scale shape trade. But it fails to account for decentralized digital economies, where small businesses can bypass the old rules of power and privilege.

If Bitcoin achieves mainstream adoption, we may finally see a world where trade is truly free, where merit, not governments or middlemen, determines success.

@ a7bbc310:fe7b7be3

In 2018 I started doing film photography. I asked myself what could I do that was unique. So, I tried taking picture at local gig venues. I’d look around and everyone was using digital cameras. I had a limited number of shots I could take, inconsistent lighting at different venues but some delayed gratification of not knowing how the images would turn out until I developed them. I’d come home late from a show and be up until the early hours developing and scanning the images. 2020 put a stop to that. It’s something I’d like to start again. I’ll be sharing some of my favourite images I from my badly categorised/labled folders. Artist in photo is called Conner Youngblood. It’s been interesting to listen to his most recent projects (Cascades, Cascading, Cascadingly) to compare to his earlier ones (Australia)

Australia is a stripped back, couple guitars, vox and drums. Most recent has a few more vocal effects and electronica sounds. A comparison I would make would be Bon Iver’s - Emma with their 3rd album 22, a million.

As a when I arrange the files on my HD, I’ll be share a few more band photos.

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Die Ungerechtigkeit ist uns nur in dem Falle angenehm,\ dass wir Vorteile aus ihr ziehen;\ in jedem andern hegt man den Wunsch,\ dass der Unschuldige in Schutz genommen werde.\ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Politiker beteuern jederzeit, nur das Beste für die Bevölkerung zu wollen – nicht von ihr. Auch die zahlreichen unsäglichen «Corona-Maßnahmen» waren angeblich zu unserem Schutz notwendig, vor allem wegen der «besonders vulnerablen Personen». Daher mussten alle möglichen Restriktionen zwangsweise und unter Umgehung der Parlamente verordnet werden.

Inzwischen hat sich immer deutlicher herausgestellt, dass viele jener «Schutzmaßnahmen» den gegenteiligen Effekt hatten, sie haben den Menschen und den Gesellschaften enorm geschadet. Nicht nur haben die experimentellen Geninjektionen – wie erwartet – massive Nebenwirkungen, sondern Maskentragen schadet der Psyche und der Entwicklung (nicht nur unserer Kinder) und «Lockdowns und Zensur haben Menschen getötet».

Eine der wichtigsten Waffen unserer «Beschützer» ist die Spaltung der Gesellschaft. Die tiefen Gräben, die Politiker, Lobbyisten und Leitmedien praktisch weltweit ausgehoben haben, funktionieren leider nahezu in Perfektion. Von ihren persönlichen Erfahrungen als Kritikerin der Maßnahmen berichtete kürzlich eine Schweizerin im Interview mit Transition News. Sie sei schwer enttäuscht und verspüre bis heute eine Hemmschwelle und ein seltsames Unwohlsein im Umgang mit «Geimpften».

Menschen, die aufrichtig andere schützen wollten, werden von einer eindeutig politischen Justiz verfolgt, verhaftet und angeklagt. Dazu zählen viele Ärzte, darunter Heinrich Habig, Bianca Witzschel und Walter Weber. Über den aktuell laufenden Prozess gegen Dr. Weber hat Transition News mehrfach berichtet (z.B. hier und hier). Auch der Selbstschutz durch Verweigerung der Zwangs-Covid-«Impfung» bewahrt nicht vor dem Knast, wie Bundeswehrsoldaten wie Alexander Bittner erfahren mussten.

Die eigentlich Kriminellen schützen sich derweil erfolgreich selber, nämlich vor der Verantwortung. Die «Impf»-Kampagne war «das größte Verbrechen gegen die Menschheit». Trotzdem stellt man sich in den USA gerade die Frage, ob der scheidende Präsident Joe Biden nach seinem Sohn Hunter möglicherweise auch Anthony Fauci begnadigen wird – in diesem Fall sogar präventiv. Gibt es überhaupt noch einen Rest Glaubwürdigkeit, den Biden verspielen könnte?

Der Gedanke, den ehemaligen wissenschaftlichen Chefberater des US-Präsidenten und Direktor des National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) vorsorglich mit einem Schutzschild zu versehen, dürfte mit der vergangenen Präsidentschaftswahl zu tun haben. Gleich mehrere Personalentscheidungen des designierten Präsidenten Donald Trump lassen Leute wie Fauci erneut in den Fokus rücken.

Das Buch «The Real Anthony Fauci» des nominierten US-Gesundheitsministers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. erschien 2021 und dreht sich um die Machenschaften der Pharma-Lobby in der öffentlichen Gesundheit. Das Vorwort zur rumänischen Ausgabe des Buches schrieb übrigens Călin Georgescu, der Überraschungssieger der ersten Wahlrunde der aktuellen Präsidentschaftswahlen in Rumänien. Vielleicht erklärt diese Verbindung einen Teil der Panik im Wertewesten.

In Rumänien selber gab es gerade einen Paukenschlag: Das bisherige Ergebnis wurde heute durch das Verfassungsgericht annuliert und die für Sonntag angesetzte Stichwahl kurzfristig abgesagt – wegen angeblicher «aggressiver russischer Einmischung». Thomas Oysmüller merkt dazu an, damit sei jetzt in der EU das Tabu gebrochen, Wahlen zu verbieten, bevor sie etwas ändern können.

Unsere Empörung angesichts der Historie von Maßnahmen, die die Falschen beschützen und für die meisten von Nachteil sind, müsste enorm sein. Die Frage ist, was wir damit machen. Wir sollten nach vorne schauen und unsere Energie clever einsetzen. Abgesehen von der Umgehung von jeglichem «Schutz vor Desinformation und Hassrede» (sprich: Zensur) wird es unsere wichtigste Aufgabe sein, Gräben zu überwinden.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 9e69e420:d12360c2

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued new guidance halting spending on most foreign aid grants for 90 days, including military assistance to Ukraine. This immediate order shocked State Department officials and mandates “stop-work orders” on nearly all existing foreign assistance awards.

While it allows exceptions for military financing to Egypt and Israel, as well as emergency food assistance, it restricts aid to key allies like Ukraine, Jordan, and Taiwan. The guidance raises potential liability risks for the government due to unfulfilled contracts.

A report will be prepared within 85 days to recommend which programs to continue or discontinue.

@ 4ba8e86d:89d32de4

O que é Cwtch? Cwtch (/kʊtʃ/ - uma palavra galesa que pode ser traduzida aproximadamente como “um abraço que cria um lugar seguro”) é um protocolo de mensagens multipartidário descentralizado, que preserva a privacidade, que pode ser usado para construir aplicativos resistentes a metadados.

Como posso pronunciar Cwtch? Como "kutch", para rimar com "butch".

Descentralizado e Aberto : Não existe “serviço Cwtch” ou “rede Cwtch”. Os participantes do Cwtch podem hospedar seus próprios espaços seguros ou emprestar sua infraestrutura para outras pessoas que buscam um espaço seguro. O protocolo Cwtch é aberto e qualquer pessoa é livre para criar bots, serviços e interfaces de usuário e integrar e interagir com o Cwtch.

Preservação de privacidade : toda a comunicação no Cwtch é criptografada de ponta a ponta e ocorre nos serviços cebola Tor v3.

Resistente a metadados : O Cwtch foi projetado de forma que nenhuma informação seja trocada ou disponibilizada a ninguém sem seu consentimento explícito, incluindo mensagens durante a transmissão e metadados de protocolo

Uma breve história do bate-papo resistente a metadados Nos últimos anos, a conscientização pública sobre a necessidade e os benefícios das soluções criptografadas de ponta a ponta aumentou com aplicativos como Signal , Whatsapp e Wire. que agora fornecem aos usuários comunicações seguras.

No entanto, essas ferramentas exigem vários níveis de exposição de metadados para funcionar, e muitos desses metadados podem ser usados ​​para obter detalhes sobre como e por que uma pessoa está usando uma ferramenta para se comunicar.

Uma ferramenta que buscou reduzir metadados é o Ricochet lançado pela primeira vez em 2014. Ricochet usou os serviços cebola Tor v2 para fornecer comunicação criptografada segura de ponta a ponta e para proteger os metadados das comunicações.

Não havia servidores centralizados que auxiliassem no roteamento das conversas do Ricochet. Ninguém além das partes envolvidas em uma conversa poderia saber que tal conversa está ocorrendo.

Ricochet tinha limitações; não havia suporte para vários dispositivos, nem existe um mecanismo para suportar a comunicação em grupo ou para um usuário enviar mensagens enquanto um contato está offline.

Isto tornou a adoção do Ricochet uma proposta difícil; mesmo aqueles em ambientes que seriam melhor atendidos pela resistência aos metadados, sem saber que ela existe.

Além disso, qualquer solução para comunicação descentralizada e resistente a metadados enfrenta problemas fundamentais quando se trata de eficiência, privacidade e segurança de grupo conforme definido pelo consenso e consistência da transcrição.

Alternativas modernas ao Ricochet incluem Briar , Zbay e Ricochet Refresh - cada ferramenta procura otimizar para um conjunto diferente de compensações, por exemplo, Briar procura permitir que as pessoas se comuniquem mesmo quando a infraestrutura de rede subjacente está inoperante, ao mesmo tempo que fornece resistência à vigilância de metadados.

O projeto Cwtch começou em 2017 como um protocolo de extensão para Ricochet, fornecendo conversas em grupo por meio de servidores não confiáveis, com o objetivo de permitir aplicativos descentralizados e resistentes a metadados como listas compartilhadas e quadros de avisos.

Uma versão alfa do Cwtch foi lançada em fevereiro de 2019 e, desde então, a equipe do Cwtch dirigida pela OPEN PRIVACY RESEARCH SOCIETY conduziu pesquisa e desenvolvimento em cwtch e nos protocolos, bibliotecas e espaços de problemas subjacentes.

Modelo de Risco.

Sabe-se que os metadados de comunicações são explorados por vários adversários para minar a segurança dos sistemas, para rastrear vítimas e para realizar análises de redes sociais em grande escala para alimentar a vigilância em massa. As ferramentas resistentes a metadados estão em sua infância e faltam pesquisas sobre a construção e a experiência do usuário de tais ferramentas.

https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_9475702740746681051707662826.webp

O Cwtch foi originalmente concebido como uma extensão do protocolo Ricochet resistente a metadados para suportar comunicações assíncronas de grupos multiponto por meio do uso de infraestrutura anônima, descartável e não confiável.

Desde então, o Cwtch evoluiu para um protocolo próprio. Esta seção descreverá os vários riscos conhecidos que o Cwtch tenta mitigar e será fortemente referenciado no restante do documento ao discutir os vários subcomponentes da Arquitetura Cwtch.

Modelo de ameaça.

É importante identificar e compreender que os metadados são omnipresentes nos protocolos de comunicação; é de facto necessário que tais protocolos funcionem de forma eficiente e em escala. No entanto, as informações que são úteis para facilitar peers e servidores também são altamente relevantes para adversários que desejam explorar tais informações.

Para a definição do nosso problema, assumiremos que o conteúdo de uma comunicação é criptografado de tal forma que um adversário é praticamente incapaz de quebrá-lo veja tapir e cwtch para detalhes sobre a criptografia que usamos, e como tal nos concentraremos em o contexto para os metadados de comunicação.

Procuramos proteger os seguintes contextos de comunicação:

• Quem está envolvido em uma comunicação? Pode ser possível identificar pessoas ou simplesmente identificadores de dispositivos ou redes. Por exemplo, “esta comunicação envolve Alice, uma jornalista, e Bob, um funcionário público”.

• Onde estão os participantes da conversa? Por exemplo, “durante esta comunicação, Alice estava na França e Bob estava no Canadá”.

• Quando ocorreu uma conversa? O momento e a duração da comunicação podem revelar muito sobre a natureza de uma chamada, por exemplo, “Bob, um funcionário público, conversou com Alice ao telefone por uma hora ontem à noite. Esta é a primeira vez que eles se comunicam.” *Como a conversa foi mediada? O fato de uma conversa ter ocorrido por meio de um e-mail criptografado ou não criptografado pode fornecer informações úteis. Por exemplo, “Alice enviou um e-mail criptografado para Bob ontem, enquanto eles normalmente enviam apenas e-mails de texto simples um para o outro”.

• Sobre o que é a conversa? Mesmo que o conteúdo da comunicação seja criptografado, às vezes é possível derivar um contexto provável de uma conversa sem saber exatamente o que é dito, por exemplo, “uma pessoa ligou para uma pizzaria na hora do jantar” ou “alguém ligou para um número conhecido de linha direta de suicídio na hora do jantar”. 3 horas da manhã."

Além das conversas individuais, também procuramos defender-nos contra ataques de correlação de contexto, através dos quais múltiplas conversas são analisadas para obter informações de nível superior:

• Relacionamentos: Descobrir relações sociais entre um par de entidades analisando a frequência e a duração de suas comunicações durante um período de tempo. Por exemplo, Carol e Eve ligam uma para a outra todos os dias durante várias horas seguidas.

• Cliques: Descobrir relações sociais entre um grupo de entidades que interagem entre si. Por exemplo, Alice, Bob e Eva se comunicam entre si.

• Grupos vagamente conectados e indivíduos-ponte: descobrir grupos que se comunicam entre si através de intermediários, analisando cadeias de comunicação (por exemplo, toda vez que Alice fala com Bob, ela fala com Carol quase imediatamente depois; Bob e Carol nunca se comunicam).

• Padrão de Vida: Descobrir quais comunicações são cíclicas e previsíveis. Por exemplo, Alice liga para Eve toda segunda-feira à noite por cerca de uma hora. Ataques Ativos

Ataques de deturpação.

O Cwtch não fornece registro global de nomes de exibição e, como tal, as pessoas que usam o Cwtch são mais vulneráveis ​​a ataques baseados em declarações falsas, ou seja, pessoas que fingem ser outras pessoas:

O fluxo básico de um desses ataques é o seguinte, embora também existam outros fluxos:

•Alice tem um amigo chamado Bob e outro chamado Eve

• Eve descobre que Alice tem um amigo chamado Bob

• Eve cria milhares de novas contas para encontrar uma que tenha uma imagem/chave pública semelhante à de Bob (não será idêntica, mas pode enganar alguém por alguns minutos)

• Eve chama essa nova conta de "Eve New Account" e adiciona Alice como amiga.

• Eve então muda seu nome em "Eve New Account" para "Bob"

• Alice envia mensagens destinadas a "Bob" para a conta falsa de Bob de Eve Como os ataques de declarações falsas são inerentemente uma questão de confiança e verificação, a única maneira absoluta de evitá-los é os usuários validarem absolutamente a chave pública. Obviamente, isso não é o ideal e, em muitos casos, simplesmente não acontecerá .

Como tal, pretendemos fornecer algumas dicas de experiência do usuário na interface do usuário para orientar as pessoas na tomada de decisões sobre confiar em contas e/ou distinguir contas que possam estar tentando se representar como outros usuários.

Uma nota sobre ataques físicos A Cwtch não considera ataques que exijam acesso físico (ou equivalente) à máquina do usuário como praticamente defensáveis. No entanto, no interesse de uma boa engenharia de segurança, ao longo deste documento ainda nos referiremos a ataques ou condições que exigem tal privilégio e indicaremos onde quaisquer mitigações que implementámos falharão.

Um perfil Cwtch.

Os usuários podem criar um ou mais perfis Cwtch. Cada perfil gera um par de chaves ed25519 aleatório compatível com Tor.

Além do material criptográfico, um perfil também contém uma lista de Contatos (outras chaves públicas do perfil Cwtch + dados associados sobre esse perfil, como apelido e (opcionalmente) mensagens históricas), uma lista de Grupos (contendo o material criptográfico do grupo, além de outros dados associados, como apelido do grupo e mensagens históricas).

Conversões entre duas partes: ponto a ponto

https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_2186338207587396891707662879.webp

Para que duas partes participem de uma conversa ponto a ponto, ambas devem estar on-line, mas apenas uma precisa estar acessível por meio do serviço Onion. Por uma questão de clareza, muitas vezes rotulamos uma parte como “ponto de entrada” (aquele que hospeda o serviço cebola) e a outra parte como “ponto de saída” (aquele que se conecta ao serviço cebola).

Após a conexão, ambas as partes adotam um protocolo de autenticação que:

• Afirma que cada parte tem acesso à chave privada associada à sua identidade pública.

• Gera uma chave de sessão efêmera usada para criptografar todas as comunicações futuras durante a sessão.

Esta troca (documentada com mais detalhes no protocolo de autenticação ) é negável offline , ou seja, é possível para qualquer parte falsificar transcrições desta troca de protocolo após o fato e, como tal - após o fato - é impossível provar definitivamente que a troca aconteceu de forma alguma.

Após o protocolo de autenticação, as duas partes podem trocar mensagens livremente.

Conversas em Grupo e Comunicação Ponto a Servidor

Ao iniciar uma conversa em grupo, é gerada uma chave aleatória para o grupo, conhecida como Group Key. Todas as comunicações do grupo são criptografadas usando esta chave. Além disso, o criador do grupo escolhe um servidor Cwtch para hospedar o grupo. Um convite é gerado, incluindo o Group Key, o servidor do grupo e a chave do grupo, para ser enviado aos potenciais membros.

Para enviar uma mensagem ao grupo, um perfil se conecta ao servidor do grupo e criptografa a mensagem usando a Group Key, gerando também uma assinatura sobre o Group ID, o servidor do grupo e a mensagem. Para receber mensagens do grupo, um perfil se conecta ao servidor e baixa as mensagens, tentando descriptografá-las usando a Group Key e verificando a assinatura.

Detalhamento do Ecossistema de Componentes

O Cwtch é composto por várias bibliotecas de componentes menores, cada uma desempenhando um papel específico. Algumas dessas bibliotecas incluem:

• abertoprivacidade/conectividade: Abstração de rede ACN, atualmente suportando apenas Tor.
• cwtch.im/tapir: Biblioteca para construção de aplicativos p2p em sistemas de comunicação anônimos.
• cwtch.im/cwtch: Biblioteca principal para implementação do protocolo/sistema Cwtch.
• cwtch.im/libcwtch-go: Fornece ligações C para Cwtch para uso em implementações de UI.

TAPIR: Uma Visão Detalhada

Projetado para substituir os antigos canais de ricochete baseados em protobuf, o Tapir fornece uma estrutura para a construção de aplicativos anônimos.

Está dividido em várias camadas:

• Identidade - Um par de chaves ed25519, necessário para estabelecer um serviço cebola Tor v3 e usado para manter uma identidade criptográfica consistente para um par.

• Conexões – O protocolo de rede bruto que conecta dois pares. Até agora, as conexões são definidas apenas através do Tor v3 Onion Services.

• Aplicativos - As diversas lógicas que permitem um determinado fluxo de informações em uma conexão. Os exemplos incluem transcrições criptográficas compartilhadas, autenticação, proteção contra spam e serviços baseados em tokens. Os aplicativos fornecem recursos que podem ser referenciados por outros aplicativos para determinar se um determinado peer tem a capacidade de usar um determinado aplicativo hospedado.

• Pilhas de aplicativos - Um mecanismo para conectar mais de um aplicativo, por exemplo, a autenticação depende de uma transcrição criptográfica compartilhada e o aplicativo peer cwtch principal é baseado no aplicativo de autenticação.

Identidade.

Um par de chaves ed25519, necessário para estabelecer um serviço cebola Tor v3 e usado para manter uma identidade criptográfica consistente para um peer.

InitializeIdentity - de um par de chaves conhecido e persistente:i,I

InitializeEphemeralIdentity - de um par de chaves aleatório: ie,Ie

Aplicativos de transcrição.

Inicializa uma transcrição criptográfica baseada em Merlin que pode ser usada como base de protocolos baseados em compromisso de nível superior

O aplicativo de transcrição entrará em pânico se um aplicativo tentar substituir uma transcrição existente por uma nova (aplicando a regra de que uma sessão é baseada em uma e apenas uma transcrição).

Merlin é uma construção de transcrição baseada em STROBE para provas de conhecimento zero. Ele automatiza a transformação Fiat-Shamir, para que, usando Merlin, protocolos não interativos possam ser implementados como se fossem interativos.

Isto é significativamente mais fácil e menos sujeito a erros do que realizar a transformação manualmente e, além disso, também fornece suporte natural para:

• protocolos multi-round com fases alternadas de commit e desafio;

• separação natural de domínios, garantindo que os desafios estejam vinculados às afirmações a serem provadas;

• enquadramento automático de mensagens, evitando codificação ambígua de dados de compromisso;

• e composição do protocolo, usando uma transcrição comum para vários protocolos.

Finalmente, o Merlin também fornece um gerador de números aleatórios baseado em transcrição como defesa profunda contra ataques de entropia ruim (como reutilização de nonce ou preconceito em muitas provas). Este RNG fornece aleatoriedade sintética derivada de toda a transcrição pública, bem como dos dados da testemunha do provador e uma entrada auxiliar de um RNG externo.

Conectividade Cwtch faz uso do Tor Onion Services (v3) para todas as comunicações entre nós.

Fornecemos o pacote openprivacy/connectivity para gerenciar o daemon Tor e configurar e desmontar serviços cebola através do Tor.

Criptografia e armazenamento de perfil.

Os perfis são armazenados localmente no disco e criptografados usando uma chave derivada de uma senha conhecida pelo usuário (via pbkdf2).

Observe que, uma vez criptografado e armazenado em disco, a única maneira de recuperar um perfil é recuperando a senha - como tal, não é possível fornecer uma lista completa de perfis aos quais um usuário pode ter acesso até inserir uma senha.

Perfis não criptografados e a senha padrão Para lidar com perfis "não criptografados" (ou seja, que não exigem senha para serem abertos), atualmente criamos um perfil com uma senha codificada de fato .

Isso não é o ideal, preferiríamos confiar no material de chave fornecido pelo sistema operacional, de modo que o perfil fosse vinculado a um dispositivo específico, mas esses recursos são atualmente uma colcha de retalhos - também notamos, ao criar um perfil não criptografado, pessoas que usam Cwtch estão explicitamente optando pelo risco de que alguém com acesso ao sistema de arquivos possa descriptografar seu perfil.

Vulnerabilidades Relacionadas a Imagens e Entrada de Dados

Imagens Maliciosas

O Cwtch enfrenta desafios na renderização de imagens, com o Flutter utilizando Skia, embora o código subjacente não seja totalmente seguro para a memória.

Realizamos testes de fuzzing nos componentes Cwtch e encontramos um bug de travamento causado por um arquivo GIF malformado, levando a falhas no kernel. Para mitigar isso, adotamos a política de sempre habilitar cacheWidth e/ou cacheHeight máximo para widgets de imagem.

Identificamos o risco de imagens maliciosas serem renderizadas de forma diferente em diferentes plataformas, como evidenciado por um bug no analisador PNG da Apple.

Riscos de Entrada de Dados

Um risco significativo é a interceptação de conteúdo ou metadados por meio de um Input Method Editor (IME) em dispositivos móveis. Mesmo aplicativos IME padrão podem expor dados por meio de sincronização na nuvem, tradução online ou dicionários pessoais.

Implementamos medidas de mitigação, como enableIMEPersonalizedLearning: false no Cwtch 1.2, mas a solução completa requer ações em nível de sistema operacional e é um desafio contínuo para a segurança móvel.

Servidor Cwtch.

O objetivo do protocolo Cwtch é permitir a comunicação em grupo através de infraestrutura não confiável .

Ao contrário dos esquemas baseados em retransmissão, onde os grupos atribuem um líder, um conjunto de líderes ou um servidor confiável de terceiros para garantir que cada membro do grupo possa enviar e receber mensagens em tempo hábil (mesmo que os membros estejam offline) - infraestrutura não confiável tem o objetivo de realizar essas propriedades sem a suposição de confiança.

O artigo original do Cwtch definia um conjunto de propriedades que se esperava que os servidores Cwtch fornecessem:

• O Cwtch Server pode ser usado por vários grupos ou apenas um.

• Um servidor Cwtch, sem a colaboração de um membro do grupo, nunca deve aprender a identidade dos participantes de um grupo.

• Um servidor Cwtch nunca deve aprender o conteúdo de qualquer comunicação.

• Um servidor Cwtch nunca deve ser capaz de distinguir mensagens como pertencentes a um grupo específico. Observamos aqui que essas propriedades são um superconjunto dos objetivos de design das estruturas de Recuperação de Informações Privadas.

Melhorias na Eficiência e Segurança

Eficiência do Protocolo

Atualmente, apenas um protocolo conhecido, o PIR ingênuo, atende às propriedades desejadas para garantir a privacidade na comunicação do grupo Cwtch. Este método tem um impacto direto na eficiência da largura de banda, especialmente para usuários em dispositivos móveis. Em resposta a isso, estamos ativamente desenvolvendo novos protocolos que permitem negociar garantias de privacidade e eficiência de maneiras diversas.

Os servidores, no momento desta escrita, permitem o download completo de todas as mensagens armazenadas, bem como uma solicitação para baixar mensagens específicas a partir de uma determinada mensagem. Quando os pares ingressam em um grupo em um novo servidor, eles baixam todas as mensagens do servidor inicialmente e, posteriormente, apenas as mensagens novas.

Mitigação de Análise de Metadados

Essa abordagem permite uma análise moderada de metadados, pois o servidor pode enviar novas mensagens para cada perfil suspeito exclusivo e usar essas assinaturas de mensagens exclusivas para rastrear sessões ao longo do tempo. Essa preocupação é mitigada por dois fatores:

1. Os perfis podem atualizar suas conexões a qualquer momento, resultando em uma nova sessão do servidor.
2. Os perfis podem ser "ressincronizados" de um servidor a qualquer momento, resultando em uma nova chamada para baixar todas as mensagens. Isso é comumente usado para buscar mensagens antigas de um grupo.

Embora essas medidas imponham limites ao que o servidor pode inferir, ainda não podemos garantir resistência total aos metadados. Para soluções futuras para esse problema, consulte Niwl.

Proteção contra Pares Maliciosos

Os servidores enfrentam o risco de spam gerado por pares, representando uma ameaça significativa à eficácia do sistema Cwtch. Embora tenhamos implementado um mecanismo de proteção contra spam no protótipo do Cwtch, exigindo que os pares realizem alguma prova de trabalho especificada pelo servidor, reconhecemos que essa não é uma solução robusta na presença de um adversário determinado com recursos significativos.

Pacotes de Chaves

Os servidores Cwtch se identificam por meio de pacotes de chaves assinados, contendo uma lista de chaves necessárias para garantir a segurança e resistência aos metadados na comunicação do grupo Cwtch. Esses pacotes de chaves geralmente incluem três chaves: uma chave pública do serviço Tor v3 Onion para o Token Board, uma chave pública do Tor v3 Onion Service para o Token Service e uma chave pública do Privacy Pass.

Para verificar os pacotes de chaves, os perfis que os importam do servidor utilizam o algoritmo trust-on-first-use (TOFU), verificando a assinatura anexada e a existência de todos os tipos de chave. Se o perfil já tiver importado o pacote de chaves do servidor anteriormente, todas as chaves são consideradas iguais.

Configuração prévia do aplicativo para ativar o Relé do Cwtch.

No Android, a hospedagem de servidor não está habilitada, pois essa opção não está disponível devido às limitações dos dispositivos Android. Essa funcionalidade está reservada apenas para servidores hospedados em desktops.

No Android, a única forma direta de importar uma chave de servidor é através do grupo de teste Cwtch, garantindo assim acesso ao servidor Cwtch.

Primeiro passo é Habilitar a opção de grupo no Cwtch que está em fase de testes. Clique na opção no canto superior direito da tela de configuração e pressione o botão para acessar as configurações do Cwtch.

Você pode alterar o idioma para Português do Brasil.Depois, role para baixo e selecione a opção para ativar os experimentos. Em seguida, ative a opção para habilitar o chat em grupo e a pré-visualização de imagens e fotos de perfil, permitindo que você troque sua foto de perfil.

https://link.storjshare.io/raw/jvss6zxle26jdguwaegtjdixhfka/production/f0ca039733d48895001261ab25c5d2efbaf3bf26e55aad3cce406646f9af9d15.MP4

Próximo passo é Criar um perfil.

Pressione o + botão de ação no canto inferior direito e selecione "Novo perfil" ou aberta no botão + adicionar novo perfil.

• Selecione um nome de exibição

• Selecione se deseja proteger

este perfil e salvo localmente com criptografia forte: Senha: sua conta está protegida de outras pessoas que possam usar este dispositivo

Sem senha: qualquer pessoa que tenha acesso a este dispositivo poderá acessar este perfil.

Preencha sua senha e digite-a novamente

Os perfis são armazenados localmente no disco e criptografados usando uma chave derivada de uma senha conhecida pelo usuário (via pbkdf2).

Observe que, uma vez criptografado e armazenado em disco, a única maneira de recuperar um perfil é recuperando a chave da senha - como tal, não é possível fornecer uma lista completa de perfis aos quais um usuário pode ter acesso até inserir um senha.

https://link.storjshare.io/raw/jxqbqmur2lcqe2eym5thgz4so2ya/production/8f9df1372ec7e659180609afa48be22b12109ae5e1eda9ef1dc05c1325652507.MP4

O próximo passo é adicionar o FuzzBot, que é um bot de testes e de desenvolvimento.

Contato do FuzzBot: 4y2hxlxqzautabituedksnh2ulcgm2coqbure6wvfpg4gi2ci25ta5ad.

Ao enviar o comando "testgroup-invite" para o FuzzBot, você receberá um convite para entrar no Grupo Cwtch Test. Ao ingressar no grupo, você será automaticamente conectado ao servidor Cwtch. Você pode optar por sair do grupo a qualquer momento ou ficar para conversar e tirar dúvidas sobre o aplicativo e outros assuntos. Depois, você pode configurar seu próprio servidor Cwtch, o que é altamente recomendável.

https://link.storjshare.io/raw/jvji25zclkoqcouni5decle7if7a/production/ee3de3540a3e3dca6e6e26d303e12c2ef892a5d7769029275b8b95ffc7468780.MP4

Agora você pode utilizar o aplicativo normalmente. Algumas observações que notei: se houver demora na conexão com outra pessoa, ambas devem estar online. Se ainda assim a conexão não for estabelecida, basta clicar no ícone de reset do Tor para restabelecer a conexão com a outra pessoa.

Uma introdução aos perfis Cwtch.

Com Cwtch você pode criar um ou mais perfis . Cada perfil gera um par de chaves ed25519 aleatório compatível com a Rede Tor.

Este é o identificador que você pode fornecer às pessoas e que elas podem usar para entrar em contato com você via Cwtch.

Cwtch permite criar e gerenciar vários perfis separados. Cada perfil está associado a um par de chaves diferente que inicia um serviço cebola diferente.

Gerenciar Na inicialização, o Cwtch abrirá a tela Gerenciar Perfis. Nessa tela você pode:

• Crie um novo perfil.
• Desbloquear perfis.
• Criptografados existentes.
• Gerenciar perfis carregados.
• Alterando o nome de exibição de um perfil.
• Alterando a senha de um perfil Excluindo um perfil.
• Alterando uma imagem de perfil.

Backup ou exportação de um perfil.

Na tela de gerenciamento de perfil:

1. Selecione o lápis ao lado do perfil que você deseja editar

2. Role para baixo até a parte inferior da tela.

3. Selecione "Exportar perfil"

4. Escolha um local e um nome de arquivo.

5.confirme.

Uma vez confirmado, o Cwtch colocará uma cópia do perfil no local indicado. Este arquivo é criptografado no mesmo nível do perfil.

Este arquivo pode ser importado para outra instância do Cwtch em qualquer dispositivo.

Importando um perfil.

1. Pressione o +botão de ação no canto inferior direito e selecione "Importar perfil"

2. Selecione um arquivo de perfil Cwtch exportado para importar

3. Digite a senha associada ao perfil e confirme.

Uma vez confirmado, o Cwtch tentará descriptografar o arquivo fornecido usando uma chave derivada da senha fornecida. Se for bem-sucedido, o perfil aparecerá na tela Gerenciamento de perfil e estará pronto para uso.

OBSERVAÇÃO Embora um perfil possa ser importado para vários dispositivos, atualmente apenas uma versão de um perfil pode ser usada em todos os dispositivos ao mesmo tempo. As tentativas de usar o mesmo perfil em vários dispositivos podem resultar em problemas de disponibilidade e falhas de mensagens.

Qual é a diferença entre uma conexão ponto a ponto e um grupo cwtch?

As conexões ponto a ponto Cwtch permitem que 2 pessoas troquem mensagens diretamente. As conexões ponto a ponto nos bastidores usam serviços cebola Tor v3 para fornecer uma conexão criptografada e resistente a metadados. Devido a esta conexão direta, ambas as partes precisam estar online ao mesmo tempo para trocar mensagens.

Os Grupos Cwtch permitem que várias partes participem de uma única conversa usando um servidor não confiável (que pode ser fornecido por terceiros ou auto-hospedado). Os operadores de servidores não conseguem saber quantas pessoas estão em um grupo ou o que está sendo discutido. Se vários grupos estiverem hospedados em um único servidor, o servidor não conseguirá saber quais mensagens pertencem a qual grupo sem a conivência de um membro do grupo. Ao contrário das conversas entre pares, as conversas em grupo podem ser conduzidas de forma assíncrona, para que todos num grupo não precisem estar online ao mesmo tempo.

Por que os grupos cwtch são experimentais? Mensagens em grupo resistentes a metadados ainda são um problema em aberto . Embora a versão que fornecemos no Cwtch Beta seja projetada para ser segura e com metadados privados, ela é bastante ineficiente e pode ser mal utilizada. Como tal, aconselhamos cautela ao usá-lo e apenas o fornecemos como um recurso opcional.

Como posso executar meu próprio servidor Cwtch? A implementação de referência para um servidor Cwtch é de código aberto . Qualquer pessoa pode executar um servidor Cwtch, e qualquer pessoa com uma cópia do pacote de chaves públicas do servidor pode hospedar grupos nesse servidor sem que o operador tenha acesso aos metadados relacionados ao grupo .

https://git.openprivacy.ca/cwtch.im/server

https://docs.openprivacy.ca/cwtch-security-handbook/server.html

Como posso desligar o Cwtch? O painel frontal do aplicativo possui um ícone do botão "Shutdown Cwtch" (com um 'X'). Pressionar este botão irá acionar uma caixa de diálogo e, na confirmação, o Cwtch será desligado e todos os perfis serão descarregados.

Suas doações podem fazer a diferença no projeto Cwtch? O Cwtch é um projeto dedicado a construir aplicativos que preservam a privacidade, oferecendo comunicação de grupo resistente a metadados. Além disso, o projeto também desenvolve o Cofre, formulários da web criptografados para ajudar mútua segura. Suas contribuições apoiam iniciativas importantes, como a divulgação de violações de dados médicos em Vancouver e pesquisas sobre a segurança do voto eletrônico na Suíça. Ao doar, você está ajudando a fechar o ciclo, trabalhando com comunidades marginalizadas para identificar e corrigir lacunas de privacidade. Além disso, o projeto trabalha em soluções inovadoras, como a quebra de segredos através da criptografia de limite para proteger sua privacidade durante passagens de fronteira. E também tem a infraestrutura: toda nossa infraestrutura é open source e sem fins lucrativos. Conheça também o Fuzzytags, uma estrutura criptográfica probabilística para marcação resistente a metadados. Sua doação é crucial para continuar o trabalho em prol da privacidade e segurança online. Contribua agora com sua doação

https://openprivacy.ca/donate/

onde você pode fazer sua doação em bitcoin e outras moedas, e saiba mais sobre os projetos. https://openprivacy.ca/work/

Link sobre Cwtch

https://cwtch.im/

https://git.openprivacy.ca/cwtch.im/cwtch

https://docs.cwtch.im/docs/intro

https://docs.openprivacy.ca/cwtch-security-handbook/

Baixar #CwtchDev

cwtch.im/download/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.cwtch.flwtch

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Konsum ist Therapie.
Wolfgang Joop

Umweltbewusstes Verhalten und verantwortungsvoller Konsum zeugen durchaus von einer wünschenswerten Einstellung. Ob man deswegen allerdings einen grünen statt eines schwarzen Freitags braucht, darf getrost bezweifelt werden – zumal es sich um manipulatorische Konzepte handelt. Wie in der politischen Landschaft sind auch hier die Etiketten irgendwas zwischen nichtssagend und trügerisch.

Heute ist also wieder mal «Black Friday», falls Sie es noch nicht mitbekommen haben sollten. Eigentlich haben wir ja eher schon eine ganze «Black Week», der dann oft auch noch ein «Cyber Monday» folgt. Die Werbebranche wird nicht müde, immer neue Anlässe zu erfinden oder zu importieren, um uns zum Konsumieren zu bewegen. Und sie ist damit sehr erfolgreich.

Warum fallen wir auf derartige Werbetricks herein und kaufen im Zweifelsfall Dinge oder Mengen, die wir sicher nicht brauchen? Pure Psychologie, würde ich sagen. Rabattschilder triggern etwas in uns, was den Verstand in Stand-by versetzt. Zusätzlich beeinflussen uns alle möglichen emotionalen Reize und animieren uns zum Schnäppchenkauf.

Gedankenlosigkeit und Maßlosigkeit können besonders bei der Ernährung zu ernsten Problemen führen. Erst kürzlich hat mir ein Bekannter nach einer USA-Reise erzählt, dass es dort offenbar nicht unüblich ist, schon zum ausgiebigen Frühstück in einem Restaurant wenigstens einen Liter Cola zu trinken. Gerne auch mehr, um das Gratis-Nachfüllen des Bechers auszunutzen.

Kritik am schwarzen Freitag und dem unnötigen Konsum kommt oft von Umweltschützern. Neben Ressourcenverschwendung, hohem Energieverbrauch und wachsenden Müllbergen durch eine zunehmende Wegwerfmentalität kommt dabei in der Regel auch die «Klimakrise» auf den Tisch.

Die EU-Kommission lancierte 2015 den Begriff «Green Friday» im Kontext der überarbeiteten Rechtsvorschriften zur Kennzeichnung der Energieeffizienz von Elektrogeräten. Sie nutzte die Gelegenheit kurz vor dem damaligen schwarzen Freitag und vor der UN-Klimakonferenz COP21, bei der das Pariser Abkommen unterzeichnet werden sollte.

Heute wird ein grüner Freitag oft im Zusammenhang mit der Forderung nach «nachhaltigem Konsum» benutzt. Derweil ist die Europäische Union schon weit in ihr Geschäftsmodell des «Green New Deal» verstrickt. In ihrer Propaganda zum Klimawandel verspricht sie tatsächlich «Unterstützung der Menschen und Regionen, die von immer häufigeren Extremwetter-Ereignissen betroffen sind». Was wohl die Menschen in der Region um Valencia dazu sagen?

Ganz im Sinne des Great Reset propagierten die Vereinten Nationen seit Ende 2020 eine «grüne Erholung von Covid-19, um den Klimawandel zu verlangsamen». Der UN-Umweltbericht sah in dem Jahr einen Schwerpunkt auf dem Verbraucherverhalten. Änderungen des Konsumverhaltens des Einzelnen könnten dazu beitragen, den Klimaschutz zu stärken, hieß es dort.

Der Begriff «Schwarzer Freitag» wurde in den USA nicht erstmals für Einkäufe nach Thanksgiving verwendet – wie oft angenommen –, sondern für eine Finanzkrise. Jedoch nicht für den Börsencrash von 1929, sondern bereits für den Zusammenbruch des US-Goldmarktes im September 1869. Seitdem mussten die Menschen weltweit so einige schwarze Tage erleben.

Kürzlich sind die britischen Aufsichtsbehörden weiter von ihrer Zurückhaltung nach dem letzten großen Finanzcrash von 2008 abgerückt. Sie haben Regeln für den Bankensektor gelockert, womit sie «verantwortungsvolle Risikobereitschaft» unterstützen wollen. Man würde sicher zu schwarz sehen, wenn man hier ein grünes Wunder befürchten würde.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ 0b118e40:4edc09cb

Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell has been around for a long time. I first read this book maybe about 10 years ago, but this time around I read it from the perspective of marketing, and PR.

Gladwell is a highly controversial and thought-provoking author - and while I often both agree and disagree, I'm impressed by how he links and simplifies his ideas to real-world examples from sports, fashion, social attributes, genes, religion, kids, politics, history and more. If you have similar or opposing views on Gladwell’s takes; I’d love to hear it

This book talks about how niche or idiosyncratic trends become mainstream.

If I were to re-read books related to these topics again, to understand the concepts better, I would read all 4 books in the following sequence :

1. Crossing the Chasm; Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers by Geoffrey A.Moore
2. Tipping Point; How little things can make a big difference by Malcolm Gladwell
3. Made to Stick; Why some ideas survive and others die by Chip and Dan Heath
4. Contagious; Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger (I've shared No 1 a long time ago, and No 4 recently. This is No 2)

Now, onto Gladwell's take - 3 factors can make an idea spread like wildfire or become contagious like an epidemic :

1. Law of The Few - influence of a few individuals
2. Stickiness Factor - how messages stick in people’s minds
3. The Power of Context - how environment and circumstances affect outcome

The overarching concept is how small actions can lead to significant and unexpected outcomes very quickly

1. Law of the Few - talks about connectors, mavens and salespeople. These are people who are your links to groups, and communities and make the messages spread.

Some examples shared -

Paul Revere as the connector - he is famously known for his midnight ride, went town to town, knocked on each door, spread the right message and everyone was ready for the British invaders by morning leading to the American Revolution. William Dawes took on the same mission in the West of Boston but did not have the same impact - which concludes that connectors have a special gift of spreading messages

Another example is six degrees of separation - and eventually, the points of contact will be connectors

More people find jobs through connections

Needle exchange programme - discovered that the “insiders” collect all the used needles, exchange them for fresh ones and sell them for a dollar each to drug addicts. While this wasn't the original plan for needle exchange, it was effective as the insiders knew where the junkies were, when they were used etc and effectively got them fresh needles.

Connectors are people who know a lot of people, and also, the kind of people that they know. They bring people together, there’s no snobbery. They may not be the first to discover it, but they are the people who can broadcast it. Mavens are people who are experts in certain areas and accumulate knowledge. Salespeople are persuaders. Sometimes you can find all 3 in one, sometimes they are different individuals

1. The second factor is the stickiness factor and understanding what keeps people glued. Examples include :

Tetanus shot - In an experiment, half of the students received a "high fear" booklet on tetanus and the other half a regular one. The high fear group was more convinced but only 3% got the shot. The second time, a booklet with schedules and shot locations improved adoption, showing persuasion alone was not enough - the right information sealed the deal.

Sesame Street - getting children to stay focused on a TV programme. The observation is that children would only like straightforward information and can get distracted from time to time - hence every few minutes, there is a “distractor” on the show that switches the kids' focus and back.

The concept of a "distractor" refers to something attention-grabbing or visually stimulating that can potentially divert a child's focus from the educational content being presented such as colourful puppets, catchy songs, and entertaining characters like Elmo. These distractors are strategically woven into the show to maintain children's interest and keep them engaged in the main educational program

Blue Clues took it a step further and made it engaging for the kids to participate by answering questions and repeating many times

The factors that make a message stick are: Repetition, Distractor (something unexpected or unusual that captures people's attention), Unexpectedness ( things that are out of the ordinary), Concreteness, Emotion, Simplicity, Credibility, Storytelling

1. The Power of Context was quite interesting - It says that human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem. It retells the idea of PR and the importance of it.

An example is the Broken Window Theory, which highlights how people's behaviour can change based on their environment. For instance, in a poorer community, you're more likely to observe higher social issues, whereas in an improved community in terms of proper infrastructure, and visually appealing, the same individuals tend to exhibit and experience fewer problems. The example referred to the NY subway problems in the 80s and how it was reduced drastically.

Another well-known experiment is the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this study, individuals were assigned the roles of either prisoners or guards. The environment was transformed to resemble a grim prison, leading the guards to exhibit cruelty while the prisoners lost their sense of self, referring to themselves by numbers. The experiment was called off after just six days.

The power of context talks about the importance of Nature over Nurture and the influence of Peers that impacts how you react and make decisions.

Other examples were the teen smoking epidemic, and the suicide epidemic (these two were on how to contain it)

1. Some other examples that are related to community building

If you want to bring about a fundamental change in people’s beliefs and behaviour, a change that would persist and serve as an example to others, you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs could be practised and expressed and nurtured.

Examples - the Methodist group spread - John Wesley who went from town to town, met with the locals, set up communities and connected it.

Another example is the Ya-Ya sisterhood book - this did not spread early on, but it did when the author when town to town over a year and reached out to the book clubs

Both the above two examples talked about a continuous time frame of say 1 year of going from location to location (both within a country) to spread the message.

150 seems like a good number within a small community to have effective engagement. Anything more leads to a new community, to build up the next 150. Gladwell gave many examples from tribes (Hutterites) to the corporate environment that uses this concept. To serve as incubators for contagious messages, the group has to be kept below the 150 Tipping Point.

One last example - there was a campaign to spread awareness of diabetes - and this was done in churches for its large group of people - but it did not catch on because people were tired, hungry, and wanted to go home. So the campaign shifted location to saloons and that picked up because people were relaxed and spent hours there.

In comparison to the diffusion model - connectors to me are not the early adopters, but rather the key spokesperson in the early minorities. Connectors also translate the message of the innovators into something the rest of us can understand.

In summary - The tipping point talks about the possibility of doing a lot with a little - by concentrating on a few key areas - to make something spread.

The "Law of the Few" emphasizes that Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen drive word-of-mouth epidemics, so concentrate resources on them if you want to start one.

Stickiness - the key is to package information irresistibly - you just need to discover how.

The "Power of Context" reveals our profound sensitivity to environmental changes. Our inner states reflect our outer circumstances.

@ 9e69e420:d12360c2

President Trump plans to withdraw 20,000 U.S. troops from Europe and expects European allies to contribute financially to the remaining military presence. Reported by ANSA, Trump aims to deliver this message to European leaders since taking office. A European diplomat noted, “the costs cannot be borne solely by American taxpayers.”

The Pentagon hasn't commented yet. Trump has previously sought lower troop levels in Europe and had ordered cuts during his first term. The U.S. currently maintains around 65,000 troops in Europe, with total forces reaching 100,000 since the Ukraine invasion. Trump's new approach may shift military focus to the Pacific amid growing concerns about China.

Sauce

@ 6be5cc06:5259daf0

A seguir, veja como instalar e configurar o Privoxy no Pop!_OS.

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1. Instalar o Tor e o Privoxy

Abra o terminal e execute:

bash sudo apt update sudo apt install tor privoxy

Explicação:

• Tor: Roteia o tráfego pela rede Tor.
• Privoxy: Proxy avançado que intermedia a conexão entre aplicativos e o Tor.

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2. Configurar o Privoxy

Abra o arquivo de configuração do Privoxy:

bash sudo nano /etc/privoxy/config

Navegue até a última linha (atalho: Ctrl + / depois Ctrl + V para navegar diretamente até a última linha) e insira:

bash forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .

Isso faz com que o Privoxy envie todo o tráfego para o Tor através da porta 9050.

Salve (CTRL + O e Enter) e feche (CTRL + X) o arquivo.

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3. Iniciar o Tor e o Privoxy

Agora, inicie e habilite os serviços:

bash sudo systemctl start tor sudo systemctl start privoxy sudo systemctl enable tor sudo systemctl enable privoxy

Explicação:

• start: Inicia os serviços.
• enable: Faz com que iniciem automaticamente ao ligar o PC.

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4. Configurar o Navegador Firefox

Para usar a rede Tor com o Firefox:

1. Abra o Firefox.
2. Acesse Configurações → Configurar conexão.
3. Selecione Configuração manual de proxy.
4. Configure assim:
   • Proxy HTTP: 127.0.0.1
   • Porta: 8118 (porta padrão do Privoxy)
   • Domínio SOCKS (v5): 127.0.0.1
   • Porta: 9050
5. Marque a opção "Usar este proxy também em HTTPS".
6. Clique em OK.

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5. Verificar a Conexão com o Tor

Abra o navegador e acesse:

text https://check.torproject.org/

Se aparecer a mensagem "Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor.", a configuração está correta.

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Dicas Extras

• Privoxy pode ser ajustado para bloquear anúncios e rastreadores.
• Outros aplicativos também podem ser configurados para usar o Privoxy.

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Und plötzlich weißt du:
Es ist Zeit, etwas Neues zu beginnen
und dem Zauber des Anfangs zu vertrauen.
Meister Eckhart

Schwarz, rot, gold leuchtet es im Kopf des Newsletters der deutschen Bundesregierung, der mir freitags ins Postfach flattert. Rot, gelb und grün werden daneben sicher noch lange vielzitierte Farben sein, auch wenn diese nie geleuchtet haben. Die Ampel hat sich gerade selber den Stecker gezogen – und hinterlässt einen wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Trümmerhaufen.

Mit einem bemerkenswerten Timing hat die deutsche Regierungskoalition am Tag des «Comebacks» von Donald Trump in den USA endlich ihr Scheitern besiegelt. Während der eine seinen Sieg bei den Präsidentschaftswahlen feierte, erwachten die anderen jäh aus ihrer Selbsthypnose rund um Harris-Hype und Trump-Panik – mit teils erschreckenden Auswüchsen. Seit Mittwoch werden die Geschicke Deutschlands nun von einer rot-grünen Minderheitsregierung «geleitet» und man steuert auf Neuwahlen zu.

Das Kindergarten-Gehabe um zwei konkurrierende Wirtschaftsgipfel letzte Woche war bereits bezeichnend. In einem Strategiepapier gestand Finanzminister Lindner außerdem den «Absturz Deutschlands» ein und offenbarte, dass die wirtschaftlichen Probleme teilweise von der Ampel-Politik «vorsätzlich herbeigeführt» worden seien.

Lindner und weitere FDP-Minister wurden also vom Bundeskanzler entlassen. Verkehrs- und Digitalminister Wissing trat flugs aus der FDP aus; deshalb darf er nicht nur im Amt bleiben, sondern hat zusätzlich noch das Justizministerium übernommen. Und mit Jörg Kukies habe Scholz «seinen Lieblingsbock zum Obergärtner», sprich: Finanzminister befördert, meint Norbert Häring.

Es gebe keine Vertrauensbasis für die weitere Zusammenarbeit mit der FDP, hatte der Kanzler erklärt, Lindner habe zu oft sein Vertrauen gebrochen. Am 15. Januar 2025 werde er daher im Bundestag die Vertrauensfrage stellen, was ggf. den Weg für vorgezogene Neuwahlen freimachen würde.

Apropos Vertrauen: Über die Hälfte der Bundesbürger glauben, dass sie ihre Meinung nicht frei sagen können. Das ging erst kürzlich aus dem diesjährigen «Freiheitsindex» hervor, einer Studie, die die Wechselwirkung zwischen Berichterstattung der Medien und subjektivem Freiheitsempfinden der Bürger misst. «Beim Vertrauen in Staat und Medien zerreißt es uns gerade», kommentierte dies der Leiter des Schweizer Unternehmens Media Tenor, das die Untersuchung zusammen mit dem Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach durchführt.

«Die absolute Mehrheit hat absolut die Nase voll», titelte die Bild angesichts des «Ampel-Showdowns». Die Mehrheit wolle Neuwahlen und die Grünen sollten zuerst gehen, lasen wir dort.

Dass «Insolvenzminister» Robert Habeck heute seine Kandidatur für das Kanzleramt verkündet hat, kann nur als Teil der politmedialen Realitätsverweigerung verstanden werden. Wer allerdings denke, schlimmer als in Zeiten der Ampel könne es nicht mehr werden, sei reichlich optimistisch, schrieb Uwe Froschauer bei Manova. Und er kenne Friedrich Merz schlecht, der sich schon jetzt rhetorisch auf seine Rolle als oberster Feldherr Deutschlands vorbereite.

Was also tun? Der Schweizer Verein «Losdemokratie» will eine Volksinitiative lancieren, um die Bestimmung von Parlamentsmitgliedern per Los einzuführen. Das Losverfahren sorge für mehr Demokratie, denn als Alternative zum Wahlverfahren garantiere es eine breitere Beteiligung und repräsentativere Parlamente. Ob das ein Weg ist, sei dahingestellt.

In jedem Fall wird es notwendig sein, unsere Bemühungen um Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung zu verstärken. Mehr Unabhängigkeit von staatlichen und zentralen Institutionen – also die Suche nach dezentralen Lösungsansätzen – gehört dabei sicher zu den Möglichkeiten. Das gilt sowohl für jede/n Einzelne/n als auch für Entitäten wie die alternativen Medien.

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Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ c43d6de3:a6583169

Right this moment, 5.52 billion pairs of hands are within arm’s reach of the internet.

Hands stretch across pillows, eagerly reaching for phones first thing in the morning. Fingertips tap at keyboards and swipe across glowing glass.

The world has never been so connected. Billions of conversations are happening every second.

Yet, humanity has never been so quiet.

Hotel lobbies, waiting rooms, train stations, and airports — places once buzzing with the chatter of strangers — now lie quieter than libraries. Most libraries don’t exist in the physical sense anymore.

Humanity Has Gone Mute.

Small talk is disappearing. The tiniest thoughts are condensed into 280 characters to be posted on X, hoping to garner hearts, claps, zaps, or whatever gimmick social media platforms use to keep us tethered to their feeds. Instead of sharing these thoughts with the few souls occupying the same physical space as us, we broadcast them into the digital void.

Gone are the genuine, physical reactions — a smile, a laugh, maybe a headshake if a joke didn’t land.

Who needs small talk, right? Wasn’t it just that awkward thing people did before cellphones and the internet existed?

No. The silence is worse.

It’s the manifestation of relational decay.

That’s why people talked. People talked about the weather or about Mrs. Jones’ dog that always gets out. That’s what helped neighbors scale one another’s emotional fences and get to know one another. It was, and always will be, the first step to any meaningful relationship.

Today, small talk has been relegated to social feeds and forums. It’s easier to make a friend across the planet than to make one next door. People fall into the trap of chasing likes, followers, and fame, while their local connections — the ones critical to mental health and a sense of purpose — fade into the background.

Maybe I’m out of touch. Maybe I just don’t get out enough. But as a member of the Army Reserves, I’ve experienced something rare.

Once a month, I attend drill, and once a year, we’re sent on an annual training that can last up to thirty days. During those thirty days, we’re often shipped off to a place far from the internet. And in that time, something remarkable happens: small talk comes back to life.

It’s incredible to watch my fellow Soldiers connect.

The relationships we have before training versus after are night and day. And it all starts with small talk — simple jokes, shared gripes, and the mundane details that snowball into camaraderie.

When we’re forced to take that first step to avoid the boredom of silence, we discover one another’s existence. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the absence of convenience is what sparks true connection.

Small talk isn’t just filler. It’s the foundation of relationships. Maybe it’s time to put down the phone, look around, and say something — anything — to the person next to you.

While the world may feel quieter than ever, the potential for connection has never been stronger.

---

I want to show the world that life is a scroll riddled with ink. The marks will only ever be simple blots on the parchment unless you pause and perceive them for the characters they are.

Thank you for reading. If you liked this article let me know with a zap and share with friends you feel might enjoy it too!

@ 7e538978:a5987ab6

Chain Duel, a fast paced PvP game that takes inspiration from the classic snake game and supercharges it with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. Imagine battling another player for dominance in a race to collect blocks, where the length of your chain isn’t just a visual cue. It represents real, staked satoshis. The player with the most Proof of Work wins, but it’s not just about gameplay; it’s about the seamless integration of the Lightning Network and real-time payments.

But how does Chain Duel manage these instant transactions with such efficiency? That’s where LNbits comes in. LNbits, an open-source wallet and payment infrastructure, handles all in-game payments making it easy for developers to focus on gameplay while LNbits takes care of everything from microtransactions to automated splits for developers and designers. In this article, we’ll dive deep into how Chain Duel leverages LNbits to streamline in-game payments and how other developers can take advantage of this powerful toolset to build the future of Lightning-powered gaming.

Let’s explore how LNbits transforms payment processing and why it’s quickly becoming a must-have for game developers working in the Bitcoin space.

Overview of Chain Duel

Chain Duel is a unique Lightning Network-inspired game that reimagines the classic snake game with a competitive twist, integrating real-time payments. Two players face off in real-time, racing to "catch" blocks and extend their chains. Each block added to the chain represents Proof of Work, and the player with the most Proof of Work wins the duel. The stakes are high, as the game represents satoshis (small units of Bitcoin) as points, with the winner taking home the prize.

The game is designed to be Lightning-native, meaning all payments within Chain Duel are processed through the Lightning Network. This ensures fast payments, reducing latency and making gameplay smooth. With additional features like practice mode, tournaments and highscores, Chain Duel creates an engaging and competitive environment for Bitcoin enthusiasts and gamers alike.

One of the standout aspects of Chain Duel is its deeper integration with the Lightning Network even at a design level. For example, actual Bitcoin blocks can appear on screen during matches, offering bonus points when mined in sync with the game. The game’s current version, still in beta, has already drawn attention within the Bitcoin community, gaining momentum at conferences and with a growing user base through its social networks. With its innovative combination of gaming, the Lightning Network, and competitive play, Chain Duel offers a glimpse into the future of Lightning-based gaming.

How LNbits is Used in Chain Duel

Seamless Integration with LNbits

At the core of Chain Duel’s efficient payment processing is LNbits, which handles in-game transactions smoothly and reliably. Chain Duel uses the LNbits LNURL-pay and LNURL-withdraw extensions to manage payments and rewards between players. Before each match, players send satoshis using LNURL-pay, which generates a static QR code or link for making the payment. LNURL-pay allows users to attach a note to the payment, which Chain Duel creatively uses as a way to insert the player name in-game. The simplicity of LNURL-pay ensures that users can quickly and easily initiate games, with fresh invoices being issued for every game. When players win, LNURL-withdraw enables them to seamlessly pull their earnings from the game, providing a quick payout system.

These extensions make it easy for players to send and receive Bitcoin with minimal latency, fully leveraging the power of the Lightning Network for fast and low-cost payments. The flexibility of LNbits’ tools means that game developers don’t need to worry about building custom payment systems from scratch—they can rely on LNbits to handle all financial transactions with precision.

Lightning Tournaments

Chain Duel tournaments leverage LNbits and its LNURL extensions to create a seamless and efficient experience for players. In Chain Duel tournaments, LNbits plays a crucial role in managing the overall economics. LNbits facilitates the generation of LNURL QR codes that participants can scan to register quickly or withdraw their winnings. LNbits allows Chain Duel to automatically handle multiple registrations through LNURL-pay, enabling players to participate in the tournament without additional steps. The Lightning Network's speed ensures that these payments occur in real-time, reducing wait times and allowing for a smoother flow in-game.

Splitting Payments

LNbits further simplifies revenue-sharing within Chain Duel. This feature allows the game to automatically split the satoshis sent by players into different shares for the game’s developer, designer, and host. Each time a payment is made to join a match, LNbits is used to automattically pay each of the contributors, according to pre-defined rules. This automated process ensures that everyone involved in the development and running of the game gets their fair share without manual intervention or complex bookkeeping.

Nostr Integration

Chain Duel also integrates with Nostr, a decentralized protocol for social interactions. Players can join games using "Zaps", small tips or micropayments sent over the Lightning Network within the Nostr ecosystem. Through NIP-57, which enables Nostr clients to request Zap invoices, players can use LNURL-pay enabled Zaps to register in P2P matches, further enhancing the Chain Duel experience. By using Zaps as a way to register in-game, Chain Duel automates the process of fetching players' identity, creating a more competitive and social experience. Zaps are public on the Nostr network, further expanding Chain Duel's games social reach and community engagement.

Game and Payment Synchronization

One of the key reasons Chain Duel developers chose LNbits is its powerful API that connects directly with the game’s logic. LNbits allows the game to synchronize payments with gameplay in real-time, providing a seamless experience where payments are an integrated part of the gaming mechanics.

With LNbits managing both the payment process and the Lightning Network’s complex infrastructure, Chain Duel developers are free to concentrate on enhancing the competitive and Lightning Network-related aspects of the game. This division of tasks is essential for streamlining development while still providing an innovative in-game payment experience that is deeply integrated with the Bitcoin network.

LNbits proves to be an indispensable tool for Chain Duel, enabling smooth in-game transactions, real-time revenue sharing, and seamless integration with Nostr. For developers looking to build Lightning-powered games, LNbits offers a powerful suite of tools that handle everything from micropayments to payment distribution—ensuring that the game's focus remains on fun and competition rather than complex payment systems.

LNBits facilitating Education and Adoption

This system contributes to educating users on the power of the Lightning Network. Since Chain Duel directly involve real satoshis and LNURL for registration and rewards, players actively experience how Lightning can facilitate fast, cheap, and permissionless payments. By incorporating LNbits into Chain Duel, the game serves as an educational tool that introduces users to the benefits of the Lightning Network. Players gain direct experience using Lightning wallets and LNURL, helping them understand how these tools work in real-world scenarios. The near-instant nature of these payments showcases the power of Lightning in a practical context, highlighting its potential beyond just gaming. Players are encouraged to set up wallets, explore the Lightning ecosystem, and eventually become familiar with Bitcoin and Lightning technology. By integrating LNbits, Chain Duel transforms in-game payments into a learning opportunity, making Bitcoin and Lightning more approachable for users worldwide.

Tools for Developers

LNbits is a versatile, open-source platform designed to simplify and enhance Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet management. For developers, particularly those working on Lightning-native games like Chain Duel, LNbits offers an invaluable set of tools that allow for seamless integration of Lightning payments without the need to build complex custom solutions from scratch. LNbits is built on a modular and extensible architecture, enabling developers to easily add or create functionality suited to their project’s needs.

Extensible Architecture for Customization

At the core of LNbits is a simple yet powerful wallet system that developers can access across multiple devices. What makes LNbits stand out is its extensible nature—everything beyond the core functionality is implemented as an extension. This modular approach allows users to customize their LNbits installation by enabling or building extensions to suit specific use cases. This flexibility is perfect for developers who want to add Lightning-based services to their games or apps without modifying the core codebase.

• Extensions for Every Use Case
  LNbits comes with a wide array of built-in extensions created by contributors, offering various services that can be plugged into your application. Some popular extensions include:
• Faucets: Distribute small amounts of Bitcoin to users for testing or promotional purposes.
• Paylinks: Create shareable links for instant payments.
• Points-of-sale (PoS): Allow users to set up shareable payment terminals.
• Paywalls: Charge users to access content or services.
• Event tickets: Sell tickets for events directly via Lightning payments.
• Games and services: From dice games to jukeboxes, LNbits offers entertaining and functional tools.

These ready-made solutions can be adapted and used in different gaming scenarios, for example in Chain Duel, where LNURL extensions are used for in game payments. The extensibility ensures developers can focus on building engaging gameplay while LNbits handles payment flows.

Developer-Friendly Customization

LNbits isn't just a plug-and-play platform. Developers can extend its functionality even further by creating their own extensions, giving full control over how the wallet system is integrated into their games or apps. The architecture is designed to make it easy for developers to build on top of the platform, adding custom features for specific requirements.

Flexible Funding Source Management

LNbits also offers flexibility in terms of managing funding sources. Developers can easily connect LNbits to various Lightning Network node implementations, enabling seamless transitions between nodes or even different payment systems. This allows developers to switch underlying funding sources with minimal effort, making LNbits adaptable for games that may need to scale quickly or rely on different payment infrastructures over time.

A Lean Core System for Maximum Efficiency

Thanks to its modular architecture, LNbits maintains a lean core system. This reduces complexity and overhead, allowing developers to implement only the features they need. By avoiding bloated software, LNbits ensures faster transactions and less resource consumption, which is crucial in fast-paced environments like Chain Duel where speed and efficiency are paramount.

LNbits is designed with developers in mind, offering a suite of tools and a flexible infrastructure that makes integrating Bitcoin payments easy. Whether you’re developing games, apps, or any service that requires Lightning Network transactions, LNbits is a powerful, open-source solution that can be adapted to fit your project.

Conclusion

Chain Duel stands at the forefront of Lightning-powered gaming, combining the excitement of competitive PvP with the speed and efficiency of the Lightning Network. With LNbits handling all in-game payments, from microtransactions to automated revenue splits, developers can focus entirely on crafting an engaging gaming experience. LNbits’ powerful API and extensions make it easy to manage real-time payments, removing the complexity of building payment infrastructure from scratch.

LNbits isn’t just a payment tool — it’s a flexible, developer-friendly platform that can be adapted to any gaming model. Whether you're developing a fast-paced PvP game like Chain Duel or any project requiring seamless Lightning Network integration, LNbits provides the ideal solution for handling instant payments with minimal overhead.

For developers interested in pushing the boundaries of Lightning-powered gaming, Chain Duel is a great example of how LNbits can enhance your game, letting you focus on the fun while LNbits manages real-time transactions.

Find out more

Curious about how Lightning Network payments can power your next game? Explore the following:

• Learn more about Chain Duel: Chain Duel
• Learn how LNbits can simplify payment handling in your project: LNbits
• Dive into decentralized communication with Nostr: Nostr

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Es ist besser, ein Licht zu entzünden, als auf die Dunkelheit zu schimpfen. Konfuzius

Die Bemühungen um Aufarbeitung der sogenannten Corona-Pandemie, um Aufklärung der Hintergründe, Benennung von Verantwortlichkeiten und das Ziehen von Konsequenzen sind durchaus nicht eingeschlafen. Das Interesse daran ist unter den gegebenen Umständen vielleicht nicht sonderlich groß, aber es ist vorhanden.

Der sächsische Landtag hat gestern die Einsetzung eines Untersuchungsausschusses zur Corona-Politik beschlossen. In einer Sondersitzung erhielt ein entsprechender Antrag der AfD-Fraktion die ausreichende Zustimmung, auch von einigen Abgeordneten des BSW.

In den Niederlanden wird Bill Gates vor Gericht erscheinen müssen. Sieben durch die Covid-«Impfstoffe» geschädigte Personen hatten Klage eingereicht. Sie werfen unter anderem Gates, Pfizer-Chef Bourla und dem niederländischen Staat vor, sie hätten gewusst, dass diese Präparate weder sicher noch wirksam sind.

Mit den mRNA-«Impfstoffen» von Pfizer/BioNTech befasst sich auch ein neues Buch. Darin werden die Erkenntnisse von Ärzten und Wissenschaftlern aus der Analyse interner Dokumente über die klinischen Studien der Covid-Injektion präsentiert. Es handelt sich um jene in den USA freigeklagten Papiere, die die Arzneimittelbehörde (Food and Drug Administration, FDA) 75 Jahre unter Verschluss halten wollte.

Ebenfalls Wissenschaftler und Ärzte, aber auch andere Experten organisieren als Verbundnetzwerk Corona-Solution kostenfreie Online-Konferenzen. Ihr Ziel ist es, «wissenschaftlich, demokratisch und friedlich» über Impfstoffe und Behandlungsprotokolle gegen SARS-CoV-2 aufzuklären und die Diskriminierung von Ungeimpften zu stoppen. Gestern fand eine weitere Konferenz statt. Ihr Thema: «Corona und modRNA: Von Toten, Lebenden und Physik lernen».

Aufgrund des Digital Services Acts (DSA) der Europäischen Union sei das Risiko groß, dass ihre Arbeit als «Fake-News» bezeichnet würde, so das Netzwerk. Staatlich unerwünschte wissenschaftliche Aufklärung müsse sich passende Kanäle zur Veröffentlichung suchen. Ihre Live-Streams seien deshalb zum Beispiel nicht auf YouTube zu finden.

Der vielfältige Einsatz für Aufklärung und Aufarbeitung wird sich nicht stummschalten lassen. Nicht einmal der Zensurmeister der EU, Deutschland, wird so etwas erreichen. Die frisch aktivierten «Trusted Flagger» dürften allerdings künftige Siege beim «Denunzianten-Wettbewerb» im Kontext des DSA zusätzlich absichern.

Wo sind die Grenzen der Meinungsfreiheit? Sicher gibt es sie. Aber die ideologische Gleichstellung von illegalen mit unerwünschten Äußerungen verfolgt offensichtlich eher das Ziel, ein derart elementares demokratisches Grundrecht möglichst weitgehend auszuhebeln. Vorwürfe wie «Hassrede», «Delegitimierung des Staates» oder «Volksverhetzung» werden heute inflationär verwendet, um Systemkritik zu unterbinden. Gegen solche Bestrebungen gilt es, sich zu wehren.

---

Dieser Beitrag ist zuerst auf Transition News erschienen.

@ c631e267:c2b78d3e

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum dritten Geburtstag, liebe Denk Bar! Wieso zum dritten? Das war doch 2022 und jetzt sind wir im Jahr 2024, oder? Ja, das ist schon richtig, aber bei Geburtstagen erinnere ich mich immer auch an meinen Vater, und der behauptete oft, der erste sei ja schließlich der Tag der Geburt selber und den müsse man natürlich mitzählen. Wo er recht hat, hat er nunmal recht. Konsequenterweise wird also heute dieser Blog an seinem dritten Geburtstag zwei Jahre alt.

Das ist ein Grund zum Feiern, wie ich finde. Einerseits ganz einfach, weil es dafür gar nicht genug Gründe geben kann. «Das Leben sind zwei Tage», lautet ein gängiger Ausdruck hier in Andalusien. In der Tat könnte es so sein, auch wenn wir uns im Alltag oft genug von der Routine vereinnahmen lassen.

Seit dem Start der Denk Bar vor zwei Jahren ist unglaublich viel passiert. Ebenso wie die zweieinhalb Jahre davor, und all jenes war letztlich auch der Auslöser dafür, dass ich begann, öffentlich zu schreiben. Damals notierte ich:

«Seit einigen Jahren erscheint unser öffentliches Umfeld immer fragwürdiger, widersprüchlicher und manchmal schier unglaublich - jede Menge Anlass für eigene Recherchen und Gedanken, ganz einfach mit einer Portion gesundem Menschenverstand.»

Wir erleben den sogenannten «großen Umbruch», einen globalen Coup, den skrupellose Egoisten clever eingefädelt haben und seit ein paar Jahren knallhart – aber nett verpackt – durchziehen, um buchstäblich alles nach ihrem Gusto umzukrempeln. Die Gelegenheit ist ja angeblich günstig und muss genutzt werden.

Nie hätte ich mir träumen lassen, dass ich so etwas jemals miterleben müsste. Die Bosheit, mit der ganz offensichtlich gegen die eigene Bevölkerung gearbeitet wird, war früher für mich unvorstellbar. Mein (Rest-) Vertrauen in alle möglichen Bereiche wie Politik, Wissenschaft, Justiz, Medien oder Kirche ist praktisch komplett zerstört. Einen «inneren Totalschaden» hatte ich mal für unsere Gesellschaften diagnostiziert.

Was mich vielleicht am meisten erschreckt, ist zum einen das Niveau der Gleichschaltung, das weltweit erreicht werden konnte, und zum anderen die praktisch totale Spaltung der Gesellschaft. Haben wir das tatsächlich mit uns machen lassen?? Unfassbar! Aber das Werkzeug «Angst» ist sehr mächtig und funktioniert bis heute.

Zum Glück passieren auch positive Dinge und neue Perspektiven öffnen sich. Für viele Menschen waren und sind die Entwicklungen der letzten Jahre ein Augenöffner. Sie sehen «Querdenken» als das, was es ist: eine Tugend.

Auch die immer ernsteren Zensurbemühungen sind letztlich nur ein Zeichen der Schwäche, wo Argumente fehlen. Sie werden nicht verhindern, dass wir unsere Meinung äußern, unbequeme Fragen stellen und dass die Wahrheit peu à peu ans Licht kommt. Es gibt immer Mittel und Wege, auch für uns.

---

Danke, dass du diesen Weg mit mir weitergehst!

@ a95c6243:d345522c

Ein Lämmchen löschte an einem Bache seinen Durst. Fern von ihm, aber näher der Quelle, tat ein Wolf das gleiche. Kaum erblickte er das Lämmchen, so schrie er:

"Warum trübst du mir das Wasser, das ich trinken will?"

"Wie wäre das möglich", erwiderte schüchtern das Lämmchen, "ich stehe hier unten und du so weit oben; das Wasser fließt ja von dir zu mir; glaube mir, es kam mir nie in den Sinn, dir etwas Böses zu tun!"

"Ei, sieh doch! Du machst es gerade, wie dein Vater vor sechs Monaten; ich erinnere mich noch sehr wohl, daß auch du dabei warst, aber glücklich entkamst, als ich ihm für sein Schmähen das Fell abzog!"

"Ach, Herr!" flehte das zitternde Lämmchen, "ich bin ja erst vier Wochen alt und kannte meinen Vater gar nicht, so lange ist er schon tot; wie soll ich denn für ihn büßen."

"Du Unverschämter!" so endigt der Wolf mit erheuchelter Wut, indem er die Zähne fletschte. "Tot oder nicht tot, weiß ich doch, daß euer ganzes Geschlecht mich hasset, und dafür muß ich mich rächen."

Ohne weitere Umstände zu machen, zerriß er das Lämmchen und verschlang es.

Das Gewissen regt sich selbst bei dem größten Bösewichte; er sucht doch nach Vorwand, um dasselbe damit bei Begehung seiner Schlechtigkeiten zu beschwichtigen.

Quelle: https://eden.one/fabeln-aesop-das-lamm-und-der-wolf

@ c43d6de3:a6583169

Reflection on Growth and Gratitude

Ah, the Holidays… That time of year when we return where it all began. The hustle and grind of the past twelve months has built to a fever pitch, and whatever we’ve achieved — or failed to — clings to us like a weight on our shoulders as we step onto the doorsteps of home.

It’s a time of reunions, of seeing faces that knew us before careers, titles, and responsibilities etched lines into our brows. Eyes linger a moment too long, quietly assessing:

“Have they changed?” “Have they succeeded?” “How much weight have they gained — or lost?”

And then come the words — warm, congratulatory, or otherwise. “You look amazing!” they’ll gush, or worse, the silence of unspoken judgment.

Later, with old friends, the comparisons begin. It’s subtle, unspoken, but there. This year, as I stood in front of my best friend’s meticulously polished Porsche SUV, a gift to his wife, the voice in my head wasn’t congratulating him. It was whispering something else: envy.

I was happy for him — truly. I congratulated him on being in a position to give his wife something so extravagant. But as we spent the day together, subtle hints started to pile up, revealing there was more to his gift than I’d initially thought.

Since the last time I’d seen him, he’d grown significantly wealthier. There were comments and allusions that suggested he might even be a millionaire. What started as a faint whisper of envy in the back of my mind soon ignited into a flame of curiosity — and, I’ll admit, a touch of self-pity.

I couldn’t help but wonder: How the hell did he do it?

I tried to play it cool, to not make a fuss about it, but it was gnawing at me. I’d spent the last 12 months busting my ass, juggling work, two kids, and a wife, barely keeping my head above water.

He had kids. He was married. He worked a full-time job. Yet, somehow, he was fitter than me, his house was tidier than mine, and everything I struggled to maintain at a high standard seemed effortlessly better in his world.

What was I missing?

I fought the urge to chalk it up to something simple, like a secret inheritance from a wealthy relative I didn’t know about. Maybe, his grandfather passed and left him a fortune?

Our conversation deepened. I started to understand more about his daily routines and professional growth.

There was no silver bullet. No stroke of luck or hidden windfall. He was simply outworking me in every way imaginable.

Looking at him in his beautiful home, talking about his plans and the ways he still aspired to grow, took me back to when we were kids. Back to the times we would sit on the porch, watching cars roll by, projecting our dreams into the world.

He had turned those dreams into reality — and now, here he was, setting his sights on even higher ceilings to break through.

I felt a pang of shame for the envy stirring inside me.

What had I been doing wrong?

We were essentially the same person. We grew up in the same neighborhood, shared the same circle of friends all the way through college, believed in the same values, and approached life with the same mindset.

But as I listened to him, I realized we had the same foundations and potential, yet we executed differently. He was waking up at 4 a.m. to pursue the things he loved, knowing his busy days wouldn’t allow for it otherwise. Meanwhile, I was hitting snooze, sleeping until the last possible moment before scrambling to get the kids ready and start my day.

I’d been putting off the things I love — like writing. I’d turned down opportunities for higher-paying jobs because I feared they’d chip away at the little time I already had.

The envy I’d felt began to crystalize, forming a smooth, reflective surface — and staring back at me was my own face.

That’s when it hit me: I was actually lucky.

What better friend could I ask for than someone who serves as a reflection of a better version of myself? What better inspiration could there be than the drive to return next year and say, “Hey man, I’m right there with you.”

Not everyone returns from the holidays feeling inspired. Most head back to their “real” lives with bags of half-thought-out gifts, a few extra pounds around the waist, and the quiet relief of leaving their hometown behind.

Many start the new year armed with a list of goals but rarely with a clear vision of the person they want to become.

The seed of envy grew into something better in me; a desire to do more, to be more.

Cheers to you, bud. Here’s to the push I needed.

Envy #growNostr #Friends

@ 9e69e420:d12360c2

Oregano oil is a potent natural compound that offers numerous scientifically-supported health benefits.

Active Compounds

The oil's therapeutic properties stem from its key bioactive components: - Carvacrol and thymol (primary active compounds) - Polyphenols and other antioxidant

Antimicrobial Properties

Bacterial Protection The oil demonstrates powerful antibacterial effects, even against antibiotic-resistant strains like MRSA and other harmful bacteria. Studies show it effectively inactivates various pathogenic bacteria without developing resistance.

Antifungal Effects It effectively combats fungal infections, particularly Candida-related conditions like oral thrush, athlete's foot, and nail infections.

Digestive Health Benefits

Oregano oil supports digestive wellness by: - Promoting gastric juice secretion and enzyme production - Helping treat Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) - Managing digestive discomfort, bloating, and IBS symptoms

Anti-inflammatory and Antioxidant Effects

The oil provides significant protective benefits through: - Powerful antioxidant activity that fights free radicals - Reduction of inflammatory markers in the body - Protection against oxidative stress-related conditions

Respiratory Support

It aids respiratory health by: - Loosening mucus and phlegm - Suppressing coughs and throat irritation - Supporting overall respiratory tract function

Additional Benefits

Skin Health - Improves conditions like psoriasis, acne, and eczema - Supports wound healing through antibacterial action - Provides anti-aging benefits through antioxidant properties

Cardiovascular Health Studies show oregano oil may help: - Reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels - Support overall heart health

Pain Management The oil demonstrates effectiveness in: - Reducing inflammation-related pain - Managing muscle discomfort - Providing topical pain relief

Safety Note

While oregano oil is generally safe, it's highly concentrated and should be properly diluted before use Consult a healthcare provider before starting supplementation, especially if taking other medications.

@ c4f5e7a7:8856cac7

Best viewed on Habla, YakiHonne or Highlighter.

TL;DR

This article explores the links between public, community-driven data sources (such as OpenStreetMap) and private, cryptographically-owned data found on networks such as Nostr.

The following concepts are explored:

1. Attestations: Users signalling to their social graph that they believe something to be true by publishing Attestations. These social proofs act as a decentralised verification system that leverages your web-of-trust.
2. Proof of Place: An oracle-based system where physical letters are sent to real-world locations, confirming the corresponding digital ownership via cryptographic proofs. This binds physical locations in meatspace with their digital representations in the Nostrverse.
3. Check-ins: Foursquare-style check-ins that can be verified using attestations from place owners, ensuring authenticity. This approach uses web-of-trust to validate check-ins and location ownership over time.

The goal is to leverage cryptographic ownership where necessary while preserving the open, collaborative nature of public data systems.

Open Data in a public commons has a place and should not be thrown out with the Web 2.0 bathwater.

Cognitive Dissonance

Ever since discovering Nostr in August of 2022 I've been grappling with how BTC Map - a project that helps bitcoiners find places to spend sats - should most appropriately use this new protocol.

I am assuming, dear reader, that you are somewhat familiar with Nostr - a relatively new protocol for decentralised identity and communication. If you don’t know your nsec from your npub, please take some time to read these excellent posts: Nostr is Identity for the Internet and The Power of Nostr by @max and @lyn, respectively. Nostr is so much more than a short-form social media replacement.

The social features (check-ins, reviews, etc.) that Nostr unlocks for BTC Map are clear and exciting - all your silos are indeed broken - however, something fundamental has been bothering me for a while and I think it comes down to data ownership.

For those unfamiliar, BTC Map uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) as its main geographic database. OSM is centred on the concept of a commons of objectively verifiable data that is maintained by a global community of volunteer editors; a Wikipedia for maps. There is no data ownership; the data is free (as in freedom) and anyone can edit anything. It is the data equivalent of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) - FOSD if you will, but more commonly referred to as Open Data.

In contrast, Notes and Other Stuff on Nostr (Places in this cartographic context) are explicitly owned by the controller of the private key. These notes are free to propagate, but they are owned.

How do we reconcile the decentralised nature of Nostr, where data is cryptographically owned by individuals, with the community-managed data commons of OpenStreetMap, where no one owns the data?

Self-sovereign Identity

Before I address this coexistence question, I want to talk a little about identity as it pertains to ownership. If something is to be owned, it has to be owned by someone or something - an identity.

All identities that are not self-sovereign are, by definition, leased to you by a 3rd party. You rent your Facebook identity from Meta in exchange for your data. You rent your web domain from your DNS provider in exchange for your money.

Taken to the extreme, you rent your passport from your Government in exchange for your compliance. You are you at the pleasure of others. Where Bitcoin separates money from the state; Nostr separates identity from the state.

Or, as @nvk said recently: "Don't build your house on someone else's land.".

https://i.nostr.build/xpcCSkDg3uVw0yku.png

While we’ve had the tools for self-sovereign digital identity for decades (think PGP keys or WebAuthN), we haven't had the necessary social use cases nor the corresponding social graph to elevate these identities to the mainstream. Nostr fixes this.

Nostr is PGP for the masses and will take cryptographic identities mainstream.

Full NOSTARD?

Returning to the coexistence question: the data on OpenStreetMap isn’t directly owned by anyone, even though the physical entities the data represents might be privately owned. OSM is a data commons.

We can objectively agree on the location of a tree or a fire hydrant without needing permission to observe and record it. Sure, you could place a tree ‘on Nostr’, but why should you? Just because something can be ‘on Nostr’ doesn’t mean it should be.

https://i.nostr.build/s3So2JVAqoY4E1dI.png

There might be a dystopian future where we can't agree on what a tree is nor where it's located, but I hope we never get there. It's at this point we'll need a Wikifreedia variant of OpenStreetMap.

While integrating Nostr identities into OpenStreetMap would be valuable, the current OSM infrastructure, tools, and community already provide substantial benefits in managing this data commons without needing to go NOSTR-native - there's no need to go Full NOSTARD. H/T to @princeySOV for the original meme.

https://i.nostr.build/ot9jtM5cZtDHNKWc.png

So, how do we appropriately blend cryptographically owned data with the commons?

If a location is owned in meatspace and it's useful to signal that ownership, it should also be owned in cyberspace. Our efforts should therefore focus on entities like businesses, while allowing the commons to manage public data for as long as it can successfully mitigate the tragedy of the commons.

The remainder of this article explores how we can:

1. Verify ownership of a physical place in the real world;
2. Link that ownership to the corresponding digital place in cyberspace.

As a side note, I don't see private key custodianship - or, even worse, permissioned use of Places signed by another identity's key - as any more viable than the rented identities of Web 2.0.

And as we all know, the Second Law of Infodynamics (no citation!) states that:

"The total amount of sensitive information leaked will always increase over time."

This especially holds true if that data is centralised.

Not your keys, not your notes. Not your keys, not your identity.

Places and Web-of-Trust

@Arkinox has been leading the charge on the Places NIP, introducing Nostr notes (kind 37515) that represent physical locations. The draft is well-crafted, with bonus points for linking back to OSM (and other location repositories) via NIP-73 - External Content IDs (championed by @oscar of @fountain).

However, as Nostr is permissionless, authenticity poses a challenge. Just because someone claims to own a physical location on the Internet doesn’t necessarily mean they have ownership or control of that location in the real world.

Ultimately, this problem can only be solved in a decentralised way by using Web-of-Trust - using your social graph and the perspectives of trusted peers to inform your own perspective. In the context of Places, this requires your network to form a view on which digital identity (public key / npub) is truly the owner of a physical place like your local coffee shop.

This requires users to:

1. Verify the owner of a Place in cyberspace is the owner of a place in meatspace.
2. Signal this verification to their social graph.

Let's look at the latter idea first with the concept of Attestations ...

Attestations

A way to signal to your social graph that you believe something to be true (or false for that matter) would be by publishing an Attestation note. An Attestation note would signify to your social graph that you think something is either true or false.

Imagine you're a regular at a local coffee shop. You publish an Attestation that says the shop is real and the owner behind the Nostr public key is who they claim to be. Your friends trust you, so they start trusting the shop's digital identity too.

However, attestations applied to Places are just a single use case. The attestation concept could be more widely applied across Nostr in a variety of ways (key rotation, identity linking, etc).

Here is a recent example from @lyn that would carry more signal if it were an Attestation:

https://i.nostr.build/lZAXOEwvRIghgFY4.png

Parallels can be drawn between Attestations and transaction confirmations on the Bitcoin timechain; however, their importance to you would be weighted by clients and/or Data Vending Machines in accordance with:

1. Your social graph;
2. The type or subject of the content being attested and by whom;
3. Your personal preferences.

They could also have a validity duration to be temporally bound, which would be particularly useful in the case of Places.

NIP-25 (Reactions) do allow for users to up/downvote notes with optional content (e.g., emojis) and could work for Attestations, but I think we need something less ambiguous and more definitive.

‘This is true’ resonates more strongly than ‘I like this.’.

https://i.nostr.build/s8NIG2kXzUCLcoax.jpg

There are similar concepts in the Web 3 / Web 5 world such as Verified Credentials by tdb. However, Nostr is the Web 3 now and so wen Attestation NIP?

https://i.nostr.build/Cb047NWyHdJ7h5Ka.jpg

That said, I have seen @utxo has been exploring ‘smart contracts’ on nostr and Attestations may just be a relatively ‘dumb’ subset of the wider concept Nostr-native scripting combined with web-of-trust.

Proof of Place

Attestations handle the signalling of your truth, but what about the initial verification itself?

We already covered how this ultimately has to be derived from your social graph, but what if there was a way to help bootstrap this web-of-trust through the use of oracles? For those unfamiliar with oracles in the digital realm, they are simply trusted purveyors of truth.

Introducing Proof of Place, an out–of-band process where an oracle (such as BTC Map) would mail - yes physically mail- a shared secret to the address of the location being claimed in cyberspace. This shared secret would be locked to the public key (npub) making the claim, which, if unlocked, would prove that the associated private key (nsec) has physical access to the location in meatspace.

One way of doing this would be to mint a 1 sat cashu ecash token locked to the npub of the claimant and mail it to them. If they are able to redeem the token then they have cryptographically proven that they have physical access to the location.

Proof of Place is really nothing more than a weighted Attestation. In a web-of-trust Nostrverse, an oracle is simply a npub (say BTC Map) that you weigh heavily for its opinion on a given topic (say Places).

In the Bitcoin world, Proof of Work anchors digital scarcity in cyberspace to physical scarcity (energy and time) in meatspace and as @Gigi says in PoW is Essential:

"A failure to understand Proof of Work, is a failure to understand Bitcoin."

In the Nostrverse, Proof of Place helps bridge the digital and physical worlds.

@Gigi also observes in Memes vs The World that:

"In Bitcoin, the map is the territory. We can infer everything we care about by looking at the map alone."

https://i.nostr.build/dOnpxfI4u7EL2v4e.png

This isn’t true for Nostr.

In the Nostrverse, the map IS NOT the territory. However, Proof of Place enables us to send cryptographic drones down into the physical territory to help us interpret our digital maps. 🤯

Check-ins

Although not a draft NIP yet, @Arkinox has also been exploring the familiar concept of Foursquare-style Check-ins on Nostr (with kind 13811 notes).

For the uninitiated, Check-ins are simply notes that signal the publisher is at a given location. These locations could be Places (in the Nostr sense) or any other given digital representation of a location for that matter (such as OSM elements) if NIP-73 - External Content IDs are used.

Of course, not everyone will be a Check-in enjoyooor as the concept will not sit well with some people’s threat models and OpSec practices.

Bringing Check-ins to Nostr is possible (as @sebastix capably shows here), but they suffer the same authenticity issues as Places. Just because I say I'm at a given location doesn't mean that I am.

Back in the Web 2.0 days, Foursquare mitigated this by relying on the GPS position of the phone running their app, but this is of course spoofable.

How should we approach Check-in verifiability in the Nostrverse? Well, just like with Places, we can use Attestations and WoT. In the context of Check-ins, an Attestation from the identity (npub) of the Place being checked-in to would be a particularly strong signal. An NFC device could be placed in a coffee shop and attest to check-ins without requiring the owner to manually intervene - I’m sure @blackcoffee and @Ben Arc could hack something together over a weekend!

Check-ins could also be used as a signal for bonafide Place ownership over time.

Summary: Trust Your Bros

So, to recap, we have:

Places: Digital representations of physical locations on Nostr.

Check-ins: Users signalling their presence at a location.

Attestations: Verifiable social proofs used to confirm ownership or the truth of a claim.

You can visualise how these three concepts combine in the diagram below:

https://i.nostr.build/Uv2Jhx5BBfA51y0K.jpg

And, as always, top right trumps bottom left! We have:

Level 0 - Trust Me Bro: Anyone can check-in anywhere. The Place might not exist or might be impersonating the real place in meatspace. The person behind the npub may not have even been there at all.

Level 1 - Definitely Maybe Somewhere: This category covers the middle-ground of ‘Maybe at a Place’ and ‘Definitely Somewhere’. In these examples, you are either self-certifying that you have checked-in at an Attested Place or you are having others attest that you have checked-in at a Place that might not even exist IRL.

Level 2 - Trust Your Bros: An Attested Check-in at an Attested Place. Your individual level of trust would be a function of the number of Attestations and how you weigh them within your own social graph.

https://i.nostr.build/HtLAiJH1uQSTmdxf.jpg

Perhaps the gold standard (or should that be the Bitcoin standard?) would be a Check-in attested by the owner of the Place, which in itself was attested by BTC Map?

Or perhaps not. Ultimately, it’s the users responsibility to determine what they trust by forming their own perspective within the Nostrverse powered by web-of-trust algorithms they control. ‘Trust Me Bro’ or ‘Trust Your Bros’ - you decide.

As we navigate the frontier of cryptographic ownership and decentralised data, it’s up to us to find the balance between preserving the Open Data commons and embracing self-sovereign digital identities.

Thanks

With thanks to Arkinox, Avi, Ben Gunn, Kieran, Blackcoffee, Sebastix, Tomek, Calle, Short Fiat, Ben Weeks and Bitcoms for helping shape my thoughts and refine content, whether you know it or not!

@ dd1f9d50:06113a21

(Because Most People Don’t Understand Money)

The requisite knowledge needed to know whether $100 or $100,000 per Bitcoin is relatively speaking “a lot,” is what value means. One way to measure value is through a universal yardstick we call “Money.” The question of “What is money?” is perhaps one of the most overlooked and under answered in our day and age. There is even an entire podcast dedicated to that question with the eponymous title, hosted by Robert Breedlove. That podcast often delves into the more philosophical underpinnings whereas I hope to approach this with a more practical answer.

Money is a technology.

Money is the technology with which we interact with one another to reorganize goods and services to the place and time they are best suited. Most money of the past has been tangible (though not a requisite feature), scarce, recognizable (read: verifiable), durable, portable, and divisible. These features one might call the “Attributes of Money.” These attributes are absolutely essential for a money to maintain its status as a money. (Those of you who understand the U.S. Dollar system maybe scratching your heads right now but, believe me, I will address that elephant in due time.) These attributes, you may notice, are not a yes or no but more of a gradient. A money can be MORE portable than another yet, less durable. One more divisible but not scarce whatsoever. The point being they must have, in some capacity, these attributes or they simply aren’t money.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

| | Bitcoin | Gold | Dollars | |-----------------|:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:|:------------------------------------------------------------------:|:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:| | Scarcity | 21 million coins
is the maximum supply | Unknown- the
supply grows roughly 2% per year | Also unknown to anyone outside of the Federal Reserve, Trillions and counting | | Recognizability | Each coin is verifiable to it's genesis on the timechain | Each molecule of gold has distinct physical verifiable properties | If the Federal reserve says it is a valid note, it is (Unless you are an enemy of the United States) | | Durablility | Each "Bitcoin" is information stored on a globally distributed network | Doesn't Rust and as far as can be measured Au197 is stable forever | Can be destroyed by any means that effect fabric and centralized databases | | Portability | Available wherever data can be store- Anywhere | Can be moved at 9.81 Newtons per Kilogram- Methods may vary | Can be moved physically with fabric notes- Digitally with express permission from a US accredited banking institution | | Divisibility | Currently can be divided into 100 million parts called Sats (can be further subdivided by adding decimal places) | Can be divided to the Atomic level (Though not practical) | Can be divided (without dilution) by adding new denominative bills or coinage
Can be divided (with dilution) by printing new bills or coinage | | | Bitcoin | Gold | Dollars |

You may think with all of the great functionality of Bitcoin that the phrase "One of these things is not like the other" refers to BTC. No, I was referring to the Dollar. It is the only one on the list that was a currency that was substituted as some kind of faux money. It asserts itself, or rather the Federal Reserve asserts it, as money, de facto.

Dollars are NOT money.

Dollars are (allegedly) a currency. If money is a specific technology, currency is the financial infrastructure that allows that technology to reach and be used by the most number of people possible. This requires a firm tether between the asset being used as money and the currency used as a claim to that money. For example: If I hand you a chicken, you have a chicken. But, if I hand you a coupon that is redeemable for a chicken, you do not have a chicken. You have a claim to a chicken that is only as good as the party making that claim. Bringing it back to money again, dollars (Prior to 1971) were redeemable for gold at a rate of $35 per ounce. This is that strong tether that pegged dollars to gold and physical reality itself. Without a proof of work, mining, . Until…

WTF Happened in 1971?

The Nixon shock happened. Briefly, The U.S. took in Europe’s gold in the 1940’s to keep it out of Hitler’s hands. The U.S. made an agreement to peg the dollar to Europe’s gold. The U.S. over printed dollars in relation to the gold holdings. Around 1971 France (among others) called the U.S. out for devaluing the dollar and thus European currencies. So, Nixon “Temporarily” suspended the convertibility of dollars to gold. Now, here we all are like Wile E. Coyote having run off of the golden cliff clutching our dollars in our arms and 54 years later we still haven’t looked down to see the truth.

Dollars Aren’t Backed by Anything

This is why no country in the world today has a money standard. Seemingly they all forgot the number one rule of issuing currency, it must be backed by something. Now, you may hear dollar proponents say “The U.S. dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States!” Another way of saying that is, “We said it is worth something, so it is!” This fiat (by decree) mentality creates a plethora of perverse incentives. The ever growing supply disallows users of the Dollar to save without inccuring the penalties of inflation.

Just a Few Examples of How You're Being Crushed

Because your dollar loses value:

• It pushes people to spend them on assets that seem to appreciate (as the dollar debases) but are truly staying stagnant.
• It pushes people to gamble on securities hoping the perceived value is enough to beat the inflationary curve.
• It pushes people away from saving for their future and the future of their families.
• It creates insane credit incentives so that people borrow way more than they can afford today knowing that dollars will be cheaper in the future. (Effectively a short position)
• It pushes people to spend less and less time making and maintaining their families as it becomes more expensive to keep a similar lifestyle to which it was founded.

These are just a few of the terrible consequences of not knowing that trading a currency with no monetary backing has on a society. Most may blame this soley on the ability to print currency by a central bank but, that is not the only factor. If the fed printed dollars against gold, people would simply take the best rate they could get and remonetize themselves with the gold. But because there is no monetary escape hatch guaranteed by the issuance of dollars, I.E. no one has to take your dollars in exchange for their Bitcoin or gold, you are left at the mercy of the market.

One Day, People Will Stop Accepting Your Dollars

Those lementing the high price of Bitcoin might want to thank their lucky stars that Bitcoin still has a rational number next to the "BTC 1=$?" sign. One day you will have to exchange something of actual value to the spender (no longer a seller). Your product, good or service, will be the only thing that anyone might be willing to part with their Bitcoin over. That is what makes a money, the most salable non-consumable good, whose only funtion is to back a financial structure that facilitates trade.

Bitcoin is Capital

Capital is a broad term that can describe anything that confers value or benefit to its owners, such as a factory and its machinery, or the financial assets of a business or an individual. Bitcoin being the latter creates the financial structures from which you build upon. You use capital to hold, transfer, and grow value. You do not do this with cash. Cash is a depreciating asset when you don't use it to gain goods or services for yourself or your business. This misconception around the equivalance between cash and money (financial capital) is what tricks people into believing Dollars are money. And what's worse is that even some of our greatest heroes have done this.

Slay Your Heroes, Within Reason

Unfortunately due to a mixing of verbiage that have very distinct differences, the title: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is technically inaccurate. Bitcoin doesn't fit the definition of cash, which is a liquid asset that can be easily converted into its equivalent value. In short, Satoshi misspoke. In reality, owning Bitcoin UTXOs (with private keys) means you already possess the asset, not just a claim to it. When you spend Bitcoin, the recipient receives the actual asset, not a promise of it. When you receive Bitcoin, you have final settlement on that transaction. Fundamentally Bitcoin is not cash, electronic or otherwise.

Bitcoin is Money.

@ 7460b7fd:4fc4e74b

请看2014年王兴的一场思维碰撞，视频27分钟开始

最后，一个当时无法解决的点：丢失

@ b17fccdf:b7211155

The past 26 August, Tor introduced officially a proof-of-work (PoW) defense for onion services designed to prioritize verified network traffic as a deterrent against denial of service (DoS) attacks.

~ > This feature at the moment, is deactivate by default, so you need to follow these steps to activate this on a MiniBolt node:

• Make sure you have the latest version of Tor installed, at the time of writing this post, which is v0.4.8.6. Check your current version by typing

tor --version

Example of expected output:

Tor version 0.4.8.6. This build of Tor is covered by the GNU General Public License (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html) Tor is running on Linux with Libevent 2.1.12-stable, OpenSSL 3.0.9, Zlib 1.2.13, Liblzma 5.4.1, Libzstd N/A and Glibc 2.36 as libc. Tor compiled with GCC version 12.2.0

~ > If you have v0.4.8.X, you are OK, if not, type sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade and confirm to update.

• Basic PoW support can be checked by running this command:

tor --list-modules

Expected output:

relay: yes dirauth: yes dircache: yes pow: **yes**

~ > If you have pow: yes, you are OK

• Now go to the torrc file of your MiniBolt and add the parameter to enable PoW for each hidden service added

sudo nano /etc/tor/torrc

Example:

```

Hidden Service BTC RPC Explorer

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service_btcrpcexplorer/ HiddenServiceVersion 3 HiddenServicePoWDefensesEnabled 1 HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:3002 ```

~ > Bitcoin Core and LND use the Tor control port to automatically create the hidden service, requiring no action from the user. We have submitted a feature request in the official GitHub repositories to explore the need for the integration of Tor's PoW defense into the automatic creation process of the hidden service. You can follow them at the following links:

• Bitcoin Core: https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/8002
• LND: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/28499

---

More info:

• https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-proof-of-work-defense-for-onion-services/
• https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/onion-services/onion-support/-/wikis/Documentation/PoW-FAQ

---

Enjoy it MiniBolter! 💙

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

So many of our problems are due to our point of view. The closer our point of view gets to God, the more peace and joy we will feel.

Too often we look at God as the big, bad killjoy. We resent when He tells us all the “fun” things we aren’t supposed to do and when He tells us to do difficult things like submit to God, submit to husbands, submit to authorities. Too many people focus on the “do nots,” and don’t like the idea of anyone telling them what to do. They then do their own thing, which they think will make them happy. Unfortunately, this leads to the opposite.

God is our Creator. He created us for a purpose within the rest of His creation.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

When we are doing His will we will find peace and joy. When we fight Him on what we should and should not be doing, we feel frustration, depression, and even despair. Our constant seeking of things to make us happy is actually our innate desire for God and to fulfill His will. Unfortunately, we frequently don’t see the truth and avoid the one thing that will give us peace because it is hard, inconvenient, and doesn’t lead to what we think we want right now.

God wants what is best for us. He also thinks eternally. He doesn’t think in the here and now, like we do. Just as a parent makes decisions for his/her child based on knowledge of what will be better for them in the long term (saving vs spending, healthy food vs junk food, etc.), God makes decisions for us based on what will best prepare us for eternity with Him. Frequently that looks much different than what we think we want. Frequently that even includes hardship and pain because we are much more likely to grow in faith, strength, and holiness during hardship than we do during comfort. We need to understand that God knows best and that He never makes a mistake.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart\ And do not lean on your own understanding.\ In all your ways acknowledge Him,\ And He will make your paths straight.\ Do not be wise in your own eyes;\ Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.\ It will be healing to your body\ And refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8)

Nothing happens on earth without God allowing it. Just as Satan had to ask permission to persecute Job, in the same way nobody can cause believers harm without God allowing it for His purpose, which is usually related to helping them to put their full trust in Him.

Remember the former things long past,\ For I am God, and there is no other;\ I am God, and there is no one like Me,\ Declaring the end from the beginning,\ And from ancient times things which have not been done,\ Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,\ And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; (Isaiah 46:9-10)

So often I focus on how awesome, powerful, and holy our God is. He is also the most tender, loving, caring, personal father God. Read Psalm 139. The God of the Bible is not a distant clock maker who set the world in motion and let it go about without His care. He is personally involved in everything that happens and in the life of every person on earth, but especially in the life of those who trust in Him.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.\ You know when I sit down and when I rise up;\ You understand my thought from afar.\ You scrutinize my path and my lying down,\ *And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.\ Even before there is a word on my tongue,\ Behold, O Lord, You know it all.*\ You have enclosed me behind and before,\ And laid Your hand upon me.\ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;\ It is too high, I cannot attain to it.\ Where can I go from Your Spirit?\ Or where can I flee from Your presence?\ If I ascend to heaven, You are there;\ If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.\ If I take the wings of the dawn,\ If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,\ *Even there Your hand will lead me*,\ And Your right hand will lay hold of me.\ If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,\ And the light around me will be night,”\ Even the darkness is not dark to You,\ And the night is as bright as the day.\ Darkness and light are alike to You.\ For You formed my inward parts;\ You wove me in my mother’s womb.\ I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;\ Wonderful are Your works,\ And my soul knows it very well.\ My frame was not hidden from You,\ When I was made in secret,\ And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;\ Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;\ And in Your book were all written\ The days that were ordained for me,\ When as yet there was not one of them.\ How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!\ How vast is the sum of them!\ If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.\ When I awake, I am still with You.\ O that You would slay the wicked, O God;\ Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.\ For they speak against You wickedly,\ And Your enemies take Your name in vain.\ Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?\ And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?\ I hate them with the utmost hatred;|\ They have become my enemies.\ **Search me, O God, and know my heart;\ Try me and know my anxious thoughts;\ And see if there be any hurtful way in me,\ And lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139) {emphasis mine}

What is one of the greatest desires of our hearts? Isn’t it to be truly known and loved for who we are?

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.\ You know when I sit down and when I rise up;\ You understand my thought from afar. (Psalm 139:1-2)

How amazing is it that the Creator of the universe knows you personally and cares for you among all of creation?

Even before there is a word on my tongue,\ Behold, O Lord, You know it all. (Psalm 139:4)

He knows our every action, our every thought, and our every feeling before we do.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;\ It is too high, I cannot attain to it. (Psalm 139:6)

We cannot fully understand how much our Creator cares for us and how carefully God guides us in our every path. We usually can’t see what is for our best. We usually can’t see what great work God is working in us. We usually can’t comprehend how great is His love, knowledge, and plan.

Even there Your hand will lead me,\ And Your right hand will lay hold of me. (Psalm 139:10)

It doesn’t matter how difficult a situation we have gotten into. It doesn’t matter how powerful our adversaries are. It doesn’t matter how weak we are. God is always there guiding us and protecting us. Just as God allowed Job to go through difficulty as part of God’s plan for Job and for us, He did not allow Job to be killed. He was guided through the worst of situations and led to ultimate blessing.

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;\ And in Your book were all written\ The days that were ordained for me,\ When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalm 139:16)

God knew us and had a plan for us before He even created the universe. He knew every day we would live before we were conceived. We can’t surprise Him and He will be guiding us every day of our lives, especially those who have trusted Him as savior.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!\ How vast is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17)

We are precious to God and He should be precious to us because of all He has done for us.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;\ Try me and know my anxious thoughts;\ And see if there be any hurtful way in me,\ And lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139:23-24)

This should be our prayer. We should ask for Him to bring are faults to our minds so we can repent and we should ask for Him to lead us in His “everlasting way.” We should admit that our Father God knows best and submit to His will. Everything goes so much smoother when we aren’t fighting our God. Even when He leads us through hardship, being in His will makes all of the difference in the world.

I pray that you will put your trust in our loving Creator and that you will submit to His will. I pray that you will understand that His ways are better even when you don’t understand the why. I pray that you will humbly submit to His will and be used to further the Kingdom for His glory and your blessing.

Trust Jesus.

FYI, Psalm 139 is also one of the best passages on why all believers should oppose abortion. In God’s universe there are no accidents and there are no unwanted babies. Every person ever conceived had a purpose in God’s plan. Every person ever conceived is valuable and made in the image of God. God values all human life and so should we.

@ 6be5cc06:5259daf0

Bitcoin: Um sistema de dinheiro eletrônico direto entre pessoas.

Satoshi Nakamoto
satoshin@gmx.com
www.bitcoin.org

---

Resumo

O Bitcoin é uma forma de dinheiro digital que permite pagamentos diretos entre pessoas, sem a necessidade de um banco ou instituição financeira. Ele resolve um problema chamado gasto duplo, que ocorre quando alguém tenta gastar o mesmo dinheiro duas vezes. Para evitar isso, o Bitcoin usa uma rede descentralizada onde todos trabalham juntos para verificar e registrar as transações.

As transações são registradas em um livro público chamado blockchain, protegido por uma técnica chamada Prova de Trabalho. Essa técnica cria uma cadeia de registros que não pode ser alterada sem refazer todo o trabalho já feito. Essa cadeia é mantida pelos computadores que participam da rede, e a mais longa é considerada a verdadeira.

Enquanto a maior parte do poder computacional da rede for controlada por participantes honestos, o sistema continuará funcionando de forma segura. A rede é flexível, permitindo que qualquer pessoa entre ou saia a qualquer momento, sempre confiando na cadeia mais longa como prova do que aconteceu.

---

1. Introdução

Hoje, quase todos os pagamentos feitos pela internet dependem de bancos ou empresas como processadores de pagamento (cartões de crédito, por exemplo) para funcionar. Embora esse sistema seja útil, ele tem problemas importantes porque é baseado em confiança.

Primeiro, essas empresas podem reverter pagamentos, o que é útil em caso de erros, mas cria custos e incertezas. Isso faz com que pequenas transações, como pagar centavos por um serviço, se tornem inviáveis. Além disso, os comerciantes são obrigados a desconfiar dos clientes, pedindo informações extras e aceitando fraudes como algo inevitável.

Esses problemas não existem no dinheiro físico, como o papel-moeda, onde o pagamento é final e direto entre as partes. No entanto, não temos como enviar dinheiro físico pela internet sem depender de um intermediário confiável.

O que precisamos é de um sistema de pagamento eletrônico baseado em provas matemáticas, não em confiança. Esse sistema permitiria que qualquer pessoa enviasse dinheiro diretamente para outra, sem depender de bancos ou processadores de pagamento. Além disso, as transações seriam irreversíveis, protegendo vendedores contra fraudes, mas mantendo a possibilidade de soluções para disputas legítimas.

Neste documento, apresentamos o Bitcoin, que resolve o problema do gasto duplo usando uma rede descentralizada. Essa rede cria um registro público e protegido por cálculos matemáticos, que garante a ordem das transações. Enquanto a maior parte da rede for controlada por pessoas honestas, o sistema será seguro contra ataques.

---

2. Transações

Para entender como funciona o Bitcoin, é importante saber como as transações são realizadas. Imagine que você quer transferir uma "moeda digital" para outra pessoa. No sistema do Bitcoin, essa "moeda" é representada por uma sequência de registros que mostram quem é o atual dono. Para transferi-la, você adiciona um novo registro comprovando que agora ela pertence ao próximo dono. Esse registro é protegido por um tipo especial de assinatura digital.

O que é uma assinatura digital?

Uma assinatura digital é como uma senha secreta, mas muito mais segura. No Bitcoin, cada usuário tem duas chaves: uma "chave privada", que é secreta e serve para criar a assinatura, e uma "chave pública", que pode ser compartilhada com todos e é usada para verificar se a assinatura é válida. Quando você transfere uma moeda, usa sua chave privada para assinar a transação, provando que você é o dono. A próxima pessoa pode usar sua chave pública para confirmar isso.

Como funciona na prática?

Cada "moeda" no Bitcoin é, na verdade, uma cadeia de assinaturas digitais. Vamos imaginar o seguinte cenário:

1. A moeda está com o Dono 0 (você). Para transferi-la ao Dono 1, você assina digitalmente a transação com sua chave privada. Essa assinatura inclui o código da transação anterior (chamado de "hash") e a chave pública do Dono 1.
2. Quando o Dono 1 quiser transferir a moeda ao Dono 2, ele assinará a transação seguinte com sua própria chave privada, incluindo também o hash da transação anterior e a chave pública do Dono 2.
3. Esse processo continua, formando uma "cadeia" de transações. Qualquer pessoa pode verificar essa cadeia para confirmar quem é o atual dono da moeda.

Resolvendo o problema do gasto duplo

Um grande desafio com moedas digitais é o "gasto duplo", que é quando uma mesma moeda é usada em mais de uma transação. Para evitar isso, muitos sistemas antigos dependiam de uma entidade central confiável, como uma casa da moeda, que verificava todas as transações. No entanto, isso criava um ponto único de falha e centralizava o controle do dinheiro.

O Bitcoin resolve esse problema de forma inovadora: ele usa uma rede descentralizada onde todos os participantes (os "nós") têm acesso a um registro completo de todas as transações. Cada nó verifica se as transações são válidas e se a moeda não foi gasta duas vezes. Quando a maioria dos nós concorda com a validade de uma transação, ela é registrada permanentemente na blockchain.

Por que isso é importante?

Essa solução elimina a necessidade de confiar em uma única entidade para gerenciar o dinheiro, permitindo que qualquer pessoa no mundo use o Bitcoin sem precisar de permissão de terceiros. Além disso, ela garante que o sistema seja seguro e resistente a fraudes.

---

3. Servidor Timestamp

Para assegurar que as transações sejam realizadas de forma segura e transparente, o sistema Bitcoin utiliza algo chamado de "servidor de registro de tempo" (timestamp). Esse servidor funciona como um registro público que organiza as transações em uma ordem específica.

Ele faz isso agrupando várias transações em blocos e criando um código único chamado "hash". Esse hash é como uma impressão digital que representa todo o conteúdo do bloco. O hash de cada bloco é amplamente divulgado, como se fosse publicado em um jornal ou em um fórum público.

Esse processo garante que cada bloco de transações tenha um registro de quando foi criado e que ele existia naquele momento. Além disso, cada novo bloco criado contém o hash do bloco anterior, formando uma cadeia contínua de blocos conectados — conhecida como blockchain.

Com isso, se alguém tentar alterar qualquer informação em um bloco anterior, o hash desse bloco mudará e não corresponderá ao hash armazenado no bloco seguinte. Essa característica torna a cadeia muito segura, pois qualquer tentativa de fraude seria imediatamente detectada.

O sistema de timestamps é essencial para provar a ordem cronológica das transações e garantir que cada uma delas seja única e autêntica. Dessa forma, ele reforça a segurança e a confiança na rede Bitcoin.

---

4. Prova-de-Trabalho

Para implementar o registro de tempo distribuído no sistema Bitcoin, utilizamos um mecanismo chamado prova-de-trabalho. Esse sistema é semelhante ao Hashcash, desenvolvido por Adam Back, e baseia-se na criação de um código único, o "hash", por meio de um processo computacionalmente exigente.

A prova-de-trabalho envolve encontrar um valor especial que, quando processado junto com as informações do bloco, gere um hash que comece com uma quantidade específica de zeros. Esse valor especial é chamado de "nonce". Encontrar o nonce correto exige um esforço significativo do computador, porque envolve tentativas repetidas até que a condição seja satisfeita.

Esse processo é importante porque torna extremamente difícil alterar qualquer informação registrada em um bloco. Se alguém tentar mudar algo em um bloco, seria necessário refazer o trabalho de computação não apenas para aquele bloco, mas também para todos os blocos que vêm depois dele. Isso garante a segurança e a imutabilidade da blockchain.

A prova-de-trabalho também resolve o problema de decidir qual cadeia de blocos é a válida quando há múltiplas cadeias competindo. A decisão é feita pela cadeia mais longa, pois ela representa o maior esforço computacional já realizado. Isso impede que qualquer indivíduo ou grupo controle a rede, desde que a maioria do poder de processamento seja mantida por participantes honestos.

Para garantir que o sistema permaneça eficiente e equilibrado, a dificuldade da prova-de-trabalho é ajustada automaticamente ao longo do tempo. Se novos blocos estiverem sendo gerados rapidamente, a dificuldade aumenta; se estiverem sendo gerados muito lentamente, a dificuldade diminui. Esse ajuste assegura que novos blocos sejam criados aproximadamente a cada 10 minutos, mantendo o sistema estável e funcional.

---

5. Rede

A rede Bitcoin é o coração do sistema e funciona de maneira distribuída, conectando vários participantes (ou nós) para garantir o registro e a validação das transações. Os passos para operar essa rede são:

1. Transmissão de Transações: Quando alguém realiza uma nova transação, ela é enviada para todos os nós da rede. Isso é feito para garantir que todos estejam cientes da operação e possam validá-la.

2. Coleta de Transações em Blocos: Cada nó agrupa as novas transações recebidas em um "bloco". Este bloco será preparado para ser adicionado à cadeia de blocos (a blockchain).

3. Prova-de-Trabalho: Os nós competem para resolver a prova-de-trabalho do bloco, utilizando poder computacional para encontrar um hash válido. Esse processo é como resolver um quebra-cabeça matemático difícil.

4. Envio do Bloco Resolvido: Quando um nó encontra a solução para o bloco (a prova-de-trabalho), ele compartilha esse bloco com todos os outros nós na rede.

5. Validação do Bloco: Cada nó verifica o bloco recebido para garantir que todas as transações nele contidas sejam válidas e que nenhuma moeda tenha sido gasta duas vezes. Apenas blocos válidos são aceitos.

6. Construção do Próximo Bloco: Os nós que aceitaram o bloco começam a trabalhar na criação do próximo bloco, utilizando o hash do bloco aceito como base (hash anterior). Isso mantém a continuidade da cadeia.

Resolução de Conflitos e Escolha da Cadeia Mais Longa

Os nós sempre priorizam a cadeia mais longa, pois ela representa o maior esforço computacional já realizado, garantindo maior segurança. Se dois blocos diferentes forem compartilhados simultaneamente, os nós trabalharão no primeiro bloco recebido, mas guardarão o outro como uma alternativa. Caso o segundo bloco eventualmente forme uma cadeia mais longa (ou seja, tenha mais blocos subsequentes), os nós mudarão para essa nova cadeia.

Tolerância a Falhas

A rede é robusta e pode lidar com mensagens que não chegam a todos os nós. Uma transação não precisa alcançar todos os nós de imediato; basta que chegue a um número suficiente deles para ser incluída em um bloco. Da mesma forma, se um nó não receber um bloco em tempo hábil, ele pode solicitá-lo ao perceber que está faltando quando o próximo bloco é recebido.

Esse mecanismo descentralizado permite que a rede Bitcoin funcione de maneira segura, confiável e resiliente, sem depender de uma autoridade central.

---

6. Incentivo

O incentivo é um dos pilares fundamentais que sustenta o funcionamento da rede Bitcoin, garantindo que os participantes (nós) continuem operando de forma honesta e contribuindo com recursos computacionais. Ele é estruturado em duas partes principais: a recompensa por mineração e as taxas de transação.

Recompensa por Mineração

Por convenção, o primeiro registro em cada bloco é uma transação especial que cria novas moedas e as atribui ao criador do bloco. Essa recompensa incentiva os mineradores a dedicarem poder computacional para apoiar a rede. Como não há uma autoridade central para emitir moedas, essa é a maneira pela qual novas moedas entram em circulação. Esse processo pode ser comparado ao trabalho de garimpeiros, que utilizam recursos para colocar mais ouro em circulação. No caso do Bitcoin, o "recurso" consiste no tempo de CPU e na energia elétrica consumida para resolver a prova-de-trabalho.

Taxas de Transação

Além da recompensa por mineração, os mineradores também podem ser incentivados pelas taxas de transação. Se uma transação utiliza menos valor de saída do que o valor de entrada, a diferença é tratada como uma taxa, que é adicionada à recompensa do bloco contendo essa transação. Com o passar do tempo e à medida que o número de moedas em circulação atinge o limite predeterminado, essas taxas de transação se tornam a principal fonte de incentivo, substituindo gradualmente a emissão de novas moedas. Isso permite que o sistema opere sem inflação, uma vez que o número total de moedas permanece fixo.

Incentivo à Honestidade

O design do incentivo também busca garantir que os participantes da rede mantenham um comportamento honesto. Para um atacante que consiga reunir mais poder computacional do que o restante da rede, ele enfrentaria duas escolhas:

1. Usar esse poder para fraudar o sistema, como reverter transações e roubar pagamentos.
2. Seguir as regras do sistema, criando novos blocos e recebendo recompensas legítimas.

A lógica econômica favorece a segunda opção, pois um comportamento desonesto prejudicaria a confiança no sistema, diminuindo o valor de todas as moedas, incluindo aquelas que o próprio atacante possui. Jogar dentro das regras não apenas maximiza o retorno financeiro, mas também preserva a validade e a integridade do sistema.

Esse mecanismo garante que os incentivos econômicos estejam alinhados com o objetivo de manter a rede segura, descentralizada e funcional ao longo do tempo.

---

7. Recuperação do Espaço em Disco

Depois que uma moeda passa a estar protegida por muitos blocos na cadeia, as informações sobre as transações antigas que a geraram podem ser descartadas para economizar espaço em disco. Para que isso seja possível sem comprometer a segurança, as transações são organizadas em uma estrutura chamada "árvore de Merkle". Essa árvore funciona como um resumo das transações: em vez de armazenar todas elas, guarda apenas um "hash raiz", que é como uma assinatura compacta que representa todo o grupo de transações.

Os blocos antigos podem, então, ser simplificados, removendo as partes desnecessárias dessa árvore. Apenas a raiz do hash precisa ser mantida no cabeçalho do bloco, garantindo que a integridade dos dados seja preservada, mesmo que detalhes específicos sejam descartados.

Para exemplificar: imagine que você tenha vários recibos de compra. Em vez de guardar todos os recibos, você cria um documento e lista apenas o valor total de cada um. Mesmo que os recibos originais sejam descartados, ainda é possível verificar a soma com base nos valores armazenados.

Além disso, o espaço ocupado pelos blocos em si é muito pequeno. Cada bloco sem transações ocupa apenas cerca de 80 bytes. Isso significa que, mesmo com blocos sendo gerados a cada 10 minutos, o crescimento anual em espaço necessário é insignificante: apenas 4,2 MB por ano. Com a capacidade de armazenamento dos computadores crescendo a cada ano, esse espaço continuará sendo trivial, garantindo que a rede possa operar de forma eficiente sem problemas de armazenamento, mesmo a longo prazo.

---

8. Verificação de Pagamento Simplificada

É possível confirmar pagamentos sem a necessidade de operar um nó completo da rede. Para isso, o usuário precisa apenas de uma cópia dos cabeçalhos dos blocos da cadeia mais longa (ou seja, a cadeia com maior esforço de trabalho acumulado). Ele pode verificar a validade de uma transação ao consultar os nós da rede até obter a confirmação de que tem a cadeia mais longa. Para isso, utiliza-se o ramo Merkle, que conecta a transação ao bloco em que ela foi registrada.

Entretanto, o método simplificado possui limitações: ele não pode confirmar uma transação isoladamente, mas sim assegurar que ela ocupa um lugar específico na cadeia mais longa. Dessa forma, se um nó da rede aprova a transação, os blocos subsequentes reforçam essa aceitação.

A verificação simplificada é confiável enquanto a maioria dos nós da rede for honesta. Contudo, ela se torna vulnerável caso a rede seja dominada por um invasor. Nesse cenário, um atacante poderia fabricar transações fraudulentas que enganariam o usuário temporariamente até que o invasor obtivesse controle completo da rede.

Uma estratégia para mitigar esse risco é configurar alertas nos softwares de nós completos. Esses alertas identificam blocos inválidos, sugerindo ao usuário baixar o bloco completo para confirmar qualquer inconsistência. Para maior segurança, empresas que realizam pagamentos frequentes podem preferir operar seus próprios nós, reduzindo riscos e permitindo uma verificação mais direta e confiável.

---

9. Combinando e Dividindo Valor

No sistema Bitcoin, cada unidade de valor é tratada como uma "moeda" individual, mas gerenciar cada centavo como uma transação separada seria impraticável. Para resolver isso, o Bitcoin permite que valores sejam combinados ou divididos em transações, facilitando pagamentos de qualquer valor.

Entradas e Saídas

Cada transação no Bitcoin é composta por:

• Entradas: Representam os valores recebidos em transações anteriores.
• Saídas: Correspondem aos valores enviados, divididos entre os destinatários e, eventualmente, o troco para o remetente.

Normalmente, uma transação contém:

• Uma única entrada com valor suficiente para cobrir o pagamento.
• Ou várias entradas combinadas para atingir o valor necessário.

O valor total das saídas nunca excede o das entradas, e a diferença (se houver) pode ser retornada ao remetente como troco.

Exemplo Prático

Imagine que você tem duas entradas:

1. 0,03 BTC
2. 0,07 BTC

Se deseja enviar 0,08 BTC para alguém, a transação terá:

• Entrada: As duas entradas combinadas (0,03 + 0,07 BTC = 0,10 BTC).
• Saídas: Uma para o destinatário (0,08 BTC) e outra como troco para você (0,02 BTC).

Essa flexibilidade permite que o sistema funcione sem precisar manipular cada unidade mínima individualmente.

Difusão e Simplificação

A difusão de transações, onde uma depende de várias anteriores e assim por diante, não representa um problema. Não é necessário armazenar ou verificar o histórico completo de uma transação para utilizá-la, já que o registro na blockchain garante sua integridade.

---

10. Privacidade

O modelo bancário tradicional oferece um certo nível de privacidade, limitando o acesso às informações financeiras apenas às partes envolvidas e a um terceiro confiável (como bancos ou instituições financeiras). No entanto, o Bitcoin opera de forma diferente, pois todas as transações são publicamente registradas na blockchain. Apesar disso, a privacidade pode ser mantida utilizando chaves públicas anônimas, que desvinculam diretamente as transações das identidades das partes envolvidas.

Fluxo de Informação

• No modelo tradicional, as transações passam por um terceiro confiável que conhece tanto o remetente quanto o destinatário.
• No Bitcoin, as transações são anunciadas publicamente, mas sem revelar diretamente as identidades das partes. Isso é comparável a dados divulgados por bolsas de valores, onde informações como o tempo e o tamanho das negociações (a "fita") são públicas, mas as identidades das partes não.

Protegendo a Privacidade

Para aumentar a privacidade no Bitcoin, são adotadas as seguintes práticas:

1. Chaves Públicas Anônimas: Cada transação utiliza um par de chaves diferentes, dificultando a associação com um proprietário único.
2. Prevenção de Ligação: Ao usar chaves novas para cada transação, reduz-se a possibilidade de links evidentes entre múltiplas transações realizadas pelo mesmo usuário.

Riscos de Ligação

Embora a privacidade seja fortalecida, alguns riscos permanecem:

• Transações multi-entrada podem revelar que todas as entradas pertencem ao mesmo proprietário, caso sejam necessárias para somar o valor total.
• O proprietário da chave pode ser identificado indiretamente por transações anteriores que estejam conectadas.

---

11. Cálculos

Imagine que temos um sistema onde as pessoas (ou computadores) competem para adicionar informações novas (blocos) a um grande registro público (a cadeia de blocos ou blockchain). Este registro é como um livro contábil compartilhado, onde todos podem verificar o que está escrito.

Agora, vamos pensar em um cenário: um atacante quer enganar o sistema. Ele quer mudar informações já registradas para beneficiar a si mesmo, por exemplo, desfazendo um pagamento que já fez. Para isso, ele precisa criar uma versão alternativa do livro contábil (a cadeia de blocos dele) e convencer todos os outros participantes de que essa versão é a verdadeira.

Mas isso é extremamente difícil.

Como o Ataque Funciona

Quando um novo bloco é adicionado à cadeia, ele depende de cálculos complexos que levam tempo e esforço. Esses cálculos são como um grande quebra-cabeça que precisa ser resolvido.

• Os “bons jogadores” (nós honestos) estão sempre trabalhando juntos para resolver esses quebra-cabeças e adicionar novos blocos à cadeia verdadeira.
• O atacante, por outro lado, precisa resolver quebra-cabeças sozinho, tentando “alcançar” a cadeia honesta para que sua versão alternativa pareça válida.

Se a cadeia honesta já está vários blocos à frente, o atacante começa em desvantagem, e o sistema está projetado para que a dificuldade de alcançá-los aumente rapidamente.

A Corrida Entre Cadeias

Você pode imaginar isso como uma corrida. A cada bloco novo que os jogadores honestos adicionam à cadeia verdadeira, eles se distanciam mais do atacante. Para vencer, o atacante teria que resolver os quebra-cabeças mais rápido que todos os outros jogadores honestos juntos.

Suponha que:

• A rede honesta tem 80% do poder computacional (ou seja, resolve 8 de cada 10 quebra-cabeças).
• O atacante tem 20% do poder computacional (ou seja, resolve 2 de cada 10 quebra-cabeças).

Cada vez que a rede honesta adiciona um bloco, o atacante tem que "correr atrás" e resolver mais quebra-cabeças para alcançar.

Por Que o Ataque Fica Cada Vez Mais Improvável?

Vamos usar uma fórmula simples para mostrar como as chances de sucesso do atacante diminuem conforme ele precisa "alcançar" mais blocos:

P = (q/p)^z

• q é o poder computacional do atacante (20%, ou 0,2).
• p é o poder computacional da rede honesta (80%, ou 0,8).
• z é a diferença de blocos entre a cadeia honesta e a cadeia do atacante.

Se o atacante está 5 blocos atrás (z = 5):

P = (0,2 / 0,8)^5 = (0,25)^5 = 0,00098, (ou, 0,098%)

Isso significa que o atacante tem menos de 0,1% de chance de sucesso — ou seja, é muito improvável.

Se ele estiver 10 blocos atrás (z = 10):

P = (0,2 / 0,8)^10 = (0,25)^10 = 0,000000095, (ou, 0,0000095%).

Neste caso, as chances de sucesso são praticamente nulas.

Um Exemplo Simples

Se você jogar uma moeda, a chance de cair “cara” é de 50%. Mas se precisar de 10 caras seguidas, sua chance já é bem menor. Se precisar de 20 caras seguidas, é quase impossível.

No caso do Bitcoin, o atacante precisa de muito mais do que 20 caras seguidas. Ele precisa resolver quebra-cabeças extremamente difíceis e alcançar os jogadores honestos que estão sempre à frente. Isso faz com que o ataque seja inviável na prática.

Por Que Tudo Isso é Seguro?

• A probabilidade de sucesso do atacante diminui exponencialmente. Isso significa que, quanto mais tempo passa, menor é a chance de ele conseguir enganar o sistema.
• A cadeia verdadeira (honesta) está protegida pela força da rede. Cada novo bloco que os jogadores honestos adicionam à cadeia torna mais difícil para o atacante alcançar.

E Se o Atacante Tentar Continuar?

O atacante poderia continuar tentando indefinidamente, mas ele estaria gastando muito tempo e energia sem conseguir nada. Enquanto isso, os jogadores honestos estão sempre adicionando novos blocos, tornando o trabalho do atacante ainda mais inútil.

Assim, o sistema garante que a cadeia verdadeira seja extremamente segura e que ataques sejam, na prática, impossíveis de ter sucesso.

---

12. Conclusão

Propusemos um sistema de transações eletrônicas que elimina a necessidade de confiança, baseando-se em assinaturas digitais e em uma rede peer-to-peer que utiliza prova de trabalho. Isso resolve o problema do gasto duplo, criando um histórico público de transações imutável, desde que a maioria do poder computacional permaneça sob controle dos participantes honestos. A rede funciona de forma simples e descentralizada, com nós independentes que não precisam de identificação ou coordenação direta. Eles entram e saem livremente, aceitando a cadeia de prova de trabalho como registro do que ocorreu durante sua ausência. As decisões são tomadas por meio do poder de CPU, validando blocos legítimos, estendendo a cadeia e rejeitando os inválidos. Com este mecanismo de consenso, todas as regras e incentivos necessários para o funcionamento seguro e eficiente do sistema são garantidos.

---

Faça o download do whitepaper original em português: https://bitcoin.org/files/bitcoin-paper/bitcoin_pt_br.pdf

@ b60c3e76:c9d0f46e

KRIS menjamin semua golongan masyarakat mendapatkan perlakuan sama dari rumah sakit, baik pelayanan medis maupun nonmedis.

Demi memberikan peningkatan kualitas layanan kesehatan kepada masyarakat, pemerintah baru saja mengeluarkan Peraturan Presiden (Perpres) nomor 59 tahun 2024 tentang Jaminan Kesehatan. Melalui perpres itu, Presiden Joko Widodo (Jokowi) telah menghapus perbedaan kelas layanan 1, 2, dan 3 dalam Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial atau BPJS Kesehatan.

Layanan berbasis kelas itu diganti dengan KRIS (Kelas Rawat Inap Standar). Berkaitan dengan lahirnya Perpres 59/2024 tentang Perubahan Ketiga atas Perpres 82/2018 tentang Jaminan Kesehatan, Presiden Joko Widodo telah memerintahkan seluruh rumah sakit yang bekerja sama dengan BPJS Kesehatan melaksanakannya.

Kebijakan baru itu mulai berlaku per 8 Mei 2024 dan paling lambat 30 Juni 2025. Dalam jangka waktu tersebut, rumah sakit dapat menyelenggarakan sebagian atau seluruh pelayanan rawat inap berdasarkan KRIS sesuai dengan kemampuan rumah sakit.

Lantas apa yang menjadi pembeda dari sisi layanan dengan layanan rawat inap sesuai Perpres 59/2024? Dahulu sistem layanan rawat BPJS Kesehatan dibagi berdasarkan kelas yang dibagi masing-masing kelas 1, 2, dan 3. Namun, melalui perpres, layanan kepada masyarakat tidak dibedakan lagi.

Pelayanan rawat inap yang diatur dalam perpres itu--dikenal dengan nama KRIS—menjadi sistem baru yang digunakan dalam pelayanan rawat inap BPJS Kesehatan di rumah sakit-rumah sakit. Dengan KRIS, semua golongan masyarakat akan mendapatkan perlakuan yang sama dari rumah sakit, baik dalam hal pelayanan medis maupun nonmedis.

Dengan lahirnya Perpres 59/2024, tarif iuran BPJS Kesehatan pun juga akan berubah. Hanya saja, dalam Perpres itu belum dicantumkan secara rinci ihwal besar iuran yang baru. Besaran iuran baru BPJS Kesehatan itu sesuai rencana baru ditetapkan pada 1 Juli 2025.

“Penetapan manfaat, tarif, dan iuran sebagaimana dimaksud ditetapkan paling lambat tanggal 1 Juli 2025,” tulis aturan tersebut, dikutip Senin (13/5/2024).

Itu artinya, iuran BPJS Kesehatan saat ini masih sama seperti sebelumnya, yakni sesuai dengan kelas yang dipilih. Namun perpres itu tetap berlaku sembari menanti lahirnya peraturan lanjutan dari perpres tersebut.

Kesiapan Rumah Sakit

Berkaitan dengan lahirnya kebijakan layanan kesehatan tanpa dibedakan kelas lagi, Kementerian Kesehatan (Kemenkes) menegaskan mayoritas rumah sakit di Indonesia siap untuk menjalankan layanan KRIS untuk pasien BPJS Kesehatan.

Kesiapan itu diungkapkan oleh Dirjen Pelayanan Kesehatan Kemenkes Azhar Jaya. “Survei kesiapan RS terkait KRIS sudah dilakukan pada 2.988 rumah sakit dan yang sudah siap menjawab isian 12 kriteria ada sebanyak 2.233 rumah sakit,” ujar Azhar.

Sebagai informasi, KRIS adalah pengganti layanan Kelas 1, 2, dan 3 BPJS Kesehatan yang bertujuan untuk memberikan layanan kesehatan secara merata tanpa melihat besaran iurannya.

Melalui KRIS, rumah sakit perlu menyiapkan sarana dan prasarana sesuai dengan 12 kriteria kelas rawat inap standar secara bertahap. Apa saja ke-12 kriteria KRIS itu?

Sesuai bunyi Pasal 46A Perpres 59/2024, disyaratkan kriteria fasilitas perawatan dan pelayanan rawat inap KRIS meliputi komponen bangunan yang digunakan tidak boleh memiliki tingkat porositas yang tinggi serta terdapat ventilasi udara dan kelengkapan tidur.

Demikian pula soal pencahayaan ruangan. Perpres itu juga mengatur pencahayaan ruangan buatan mengikuti kriteria standar 250 lux untuk penerangan dan 50 lux untuk pencahayaan tidur, temperature ruangan 20--26 derajat celcius.

Tidak hanya itu, layanan rawat inap berdasarkan perpres itu mensyaratkan fasilitas layanan yang membagi ruang rawat berdasarkan jenis kelamin pasien, anak atau dewasa, serta penyakit infeksi atau noninfeksi.

Selain itu, kriteria lainnya adalah keharusan bagi penyedia layanan untuk mempertimbangkan kepadatan ruang rawat dan kualitas tempat tidur, penyediaan tirai atau partisi antartempat tidur, kamar mandi dalam ruangan rawat inap yang memenuhi standar aksesibilitas, dan menyediakan outlet oksigen.

Selain itu, kelengkapan tempat tidur berupa adanya dua kotak kontak dan nurse call pada setiap tempat tidur dan adanya nakas per tempat tidur. Kepadatan ruang rawat inap maksimal empat tempat tidur dengan jarak antara tepi tempat tidur minimal 1,5 meter.

Tirai/partisi dengan rel dibenamkan menempel di plafon atau menggantung. Kamar mandi dalam ruang rawat inap serta kamar mandi sesuai dengan standar aksesibilitas dan outlet oksigen.

Azhar menjamin, Kemenkes akan menjalankan hal tersebut sesuai dengan tupoksi yang ada. “Tentu saja kami akan bekerja sama dengan BPJS Kesehatan dalam implementasi dan pengawasannya di lapangan,” ujar Azhar.

Berkaitan dengan perpres jaminan kesehatan itu, Direktur Utama BPJS Kesehatan Ghufron Mukti menilai, perpres tersebut berorientasi pada penyeragaman kelas rawat inap yang mengacu pada 12 kriteria. "Bahwa perawatan ada kelas rawat inap standar dengan 12 kriteria, untuk peserta BPJS, maka sebagaimana sumpah dokter tidak boleh dibedakan pemberian pelayan medis atas dasar suku, agama, status sosial atau beda iurannya," ujarnya.

Jika ada peserta ingin dirawat pada kelas yang lebih tinggi, kata Ghufron, maka diperbolehkan selama hal itu dipengaruhi situasi nonmedis. Hal itu disebutkan dalam Pasal 51 Perpres Jaminan Kesehatan diatur ketentuan naik kelas perawatan.

Menurut pasal tersebut, naik kelas perawatan dilakukan dengan cara mengikuti asuransi kesehatan tambahan atau membayar selisih antara biaya yang dijamin oleh BPJS Kesehatan dengan biaya yang harus dibayar akibat peningkatan pelayanan.

Selisih antara biaya yang dijamin oleh BPJS Kesehatan dengan biaya pelayanan dapat dibayar oleh peserta bersangkutan, pemberi kerja, atau asuransi kesehatan tambahan.

Ghufron Mukti juga mengimbau pengelola rumah sakit tidak mengurangi jumlah tempat tidur perawatan pasien dalam upaya memenuhi kriteria KRIS. "Pesan saya jangan dikurangi akses dengan mengurangi jumlah tempat tidur. Pertahankan jumlah tempat tidur dan penuhi persyaratannya dengan 12 kriteria tersebut," tegas Ghufron.

Penulis: Firman Hidranto Redaktur: Ratna Nuraini/Elvira Inda Sari Sumber: Indonesia.go.id

@ 91bea5cd:1df4451c

Definição de ULID:

Timestamp 48 bits, Aleatoriedade 80 bits Sendo Timestamp 48 bits inteiro, tempo UNIX em milissegundos, Não ficará sem espaço até o ano 10889 d.C. e Aleatoriedade 80 bits, Fonte criptograficamente segura de aleatoriedade, se possível.

Gerar ULID

```sql

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pgcrypto;

CREATE FUNCTION generate_ulid() RETURNS TEXT AS $$ DECLARE -- Crockford's Base32 encoding BYTEA = '0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ'; timestamp BYTEA = E'\000\000\000\000\000\000'; output TEXT = '';

unix_time BIGINT; ulid BYTEA; BEGIN -- 6 timestamp bytes unix_time = (EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM CLOCK_TIMESTAMP()) * 1000)::BIGINT; timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 0, (unix_time >> 40)::BIT(8)::INTEGER); timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 1, (unix_time >> 32)::BIT(8)::INTEGER); timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 2, (unix_time >> 24)::BIT(8)::INTEGER); timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 3, (unix_time >> 16)::BIT(8)::INTEGER); timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 4, (unix_time >> 8)::BIT(8)::INTEGER); timestamp = SET_BYTE(timestamp, 5, unix_time::BIT(8)::INTEGER);

-- 10 entropy bytes ulid = timestamp || gen_random_bytes(10);

-- Encode the timestamp output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 0) & 224) >> 5)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 0) & 31))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 1) & 248) >> 3)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 1) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 2) & 192) >> 6))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 2) & 62) >> 1)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 2) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 3) & 240) >> 4))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 3) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 4) & 128) >> 7))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 4) & 124) >> 2)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 4) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 5) & 224) >> 5))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 5) & 31)));

-- Encode the entropy output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 6) & 248) >> 3)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 6) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 7) & 192) >> 6))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 7) & 62) >> 1)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 7) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 8) & 240) >> 4))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 8) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 9) & 128) >> 7))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 9) & 124) >> 2)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 9) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 10) & 224) >> 5))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 10) & 31))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 11) & 248) >> 3)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 11) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 12) & 192) >> 6))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 12) & 62) >> 1)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 12) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 13) & 240) >> 4))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 13) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 14) & 128) >> 7))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 14) & 124) >> 2)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 14) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(ulid, 15) & 224) >> 5))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(ulid, 15) & 31)));

RETURN output; END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE; ```

ULID TO UUID

```sql CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION parse_ulid(ulid text) RETURNS bytea AS $$ DECLARE -- 16byte bytes bytea = E'\x00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000'; v char[]; -- Allow for O(1) lookup of index values dec integer[] = ARRAY[ 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 1, 18, 19, 1, 20, 21, 0, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 255, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 1, 18, 19, 1, 20, 21, 0, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 255, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 ]; BEGIN IF NOT ulid ~* '^[0-7][0-9ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ]{25}$' THEN RAISE EXCEPTION 'Invalid ULID: %', ulid; END IF;

v = regexp_split_to_array(ulid, '');

-- 6 bytes timestamp (48 bits) bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 0, (dec[ASCII(v[1])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[2])]); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 1, (dec[ASCII(v[3])] << 3) | (dec[ASCII(v[4])] >> 2)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 2, (dec[ASCII(v[4])] << 6) | (dec[ASCII(v[5])] << 1) | (dec[ASCII(v[6])] >> 4)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 3, (dec[ASCII(v[6])] << 4) | (dec[ASCII(v[7])] >> 1)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 4, (dec[ASCII(v[7])] << 7) | (dec[ASCII(v[8])] << 2) | (dec[ASCII(v[9])] >> 3)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 5, (dec[ASCII(v[9])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[10])]);

-- 10 bytes of entropy (80 bits); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 6, (dec[ASCII(v[11])] << 3) | (dec[ASCII(v[12])] >> 2)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 7, (dec[ASCII(v[12])] << 6) | (dec[ASCII(v[13])] << 1) | (dec[ASCII(v[14])] >> 4)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 8, (dec[ASCII(v[14])] << 4) | (dec[ASCII(v[15])] >> 1)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 9, (dec[ASCII(v[15])] << 7) | (dec[ASCII(v[16])] << 2) | (dec[ASCII(v[17])] >> 3)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 10, (dec[ASCII(v[17])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[18])]); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 11, (dec[ASCII(v[19])] << 3) | (dec[ASCII(v[20])] >> 2)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 12, (dec[ASCII(v[20])] << 6) | (dec[ASCII(v[21])] << 1) | (dec[ASCII(v[22])] >> 4)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 13, (dec[ASCII(v[22])] << 4) | (dec[ASCII(v[23])] >> 1)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 14, (dec[ASCII(v[23])] << 7) | (dec[ASCII(v[24])] << 2) | (dec[ASCII(v[25])] >> 3)); bytes = SET_BYTE(bytes, 15, (dec[ASCII(v[25])] << 5) | dec[ASCII(v[26])]);

RETURN bytes; END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql IMMUTABLE;

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION ulid_to_uuid(ulid text) RETURNS uuid AS $$ BEGIN RETURN encode(parse_ulid(ulid), 'hex')::uuid; END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql IMMUTABLE; ```

UUID to ULID

```sql CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION uuid_to_ulid(id uuid) RETURNS text AS $$ DECLARE encoding bytea = '0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ'; output text = ''; uuid_bytes bytea = uuid_send(id); BEGIN

-- Encode the timestamp output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 0) & 224) >> 5)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 0) & 31))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 1) & 248) >> 3)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 1) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 2) & 192) >> 6))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 2) & 62) >> 1)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 2) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 3) & 240) >> 4))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 3) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 4) & 128) >> 7))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 4) & 124) >> 2)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 4) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 5) & 224) >> 5))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 5) & 31)));

-- Encode the entropy output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 6) & 248) >> 3)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 6) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 7) & 192) >> 6))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 7) & 62) >> 1)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 7) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 8) & 240) >> 4))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 8) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 9) & 128) >> 7))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 9) & 124) >> 2)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 9) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 10) & 224) >> 5))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 10) & 31))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 11) & 248) >> 3)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 11) & 7) << 2) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 12) & 192) >> 6))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 12) & 62) >> 1)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 12) & 1) << 4) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 13) & 240) >> 4))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 13) & 15) << 1) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 14) & 128) >> 7))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 14) & 124) >> 2)); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 14) & 3) << 3) | ((GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 15) & 224) >> 5))); output = output || CHR(GET_BYTE(encoding, (GET_BYTE(uuid_bytes, 15) & 31)));

RETURN output; END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql IMMUTABLE; ```

Gera 11 Digitos aleatórios: YBKXG0CKTH4

```sql -- Cria a extensão pgcrypto para gerar uuid CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pgcrypto;

-- Cria a função para gerar ULID CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION gen_lrandom() RETURNS TEXT AS $$ DECLARE ts_millis BIGINT; ts_chars TEXT; random_bytes BYTEA; random_chars TEXT; base32_chars TEXT := '0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ'; i INT; BEGIN -- Pega o timestamp em milissegundos ts_millis := FLOOR(EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM clock_timestamp()) * 1000)::BIGINT;

-- Converte o timestamp para base32
ts_chars := '';
FOR i IN REVERSE 0..11 LOOP
    ts_chars := ts_chars || substr(base32_chars, ((ts_millis >> (5 * i)) & 31) + 1, 1);
END LOOP;

-- Gera 10 bytes aleatórios e converte para base32
random_bytes := gen_random_bytes(10);
random_chars := '';
FOR i IN 0..9 LOOP
    random_chars := random_chars || substr(base32_chars, ((get_byte(random_bytes, i) >> 3) & 31) + 1, 1);
    IF i < 9 THEN
        random_chars := random_chars || substr(base32_chars, (((get_byte(random_bytes, i) & 7) << 2) | (get_byte(random_bytes, i + 1) >> 6)) & 31 + 1, 1);
    ELSE
        random_chars := random_chars || substr(base32_chars, ((get_byte(random_bytes, i) & 7) << 2) + 1, 1);
    END IF;
END LOOP;

-- Concatena o timestamp e os caracteres aleatórios
RETURN ts_chars || random_chars;

END; $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql; ```

Exemplo de USO

```sql -- Criação da extensão caso não exista CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pgcrypto; -- Criação da tabela pessoas CREATE TABLE pessoas ( ID UUID DEFAULT gen_random_uuid ( ) PRIMARY KEY, nome TEXT NOT NULL );

-- Busca Pessoa na tabela SELECT * FROM "pessoas" WHERE uuid_to_ulid ( ID ) = '252FAC9F3V8EF80SSDK8PXW02F'; ```

Fontes

• https://github.com/scoville/pgsql-ulid
• https://github.com/geckoboard/pgulid

@ 266815e0:6cd408a5

Lot of people are starting to talk about building a web-of-trust and how nostr can or is already being used as such

We all know about using the kind:3 following lists as a simple WoT that can be used to filter out spam. but as we all know it does not really signal "trust", its mostly just "I find your content interesting"

But what about real "trust"... well its kind of multi-denominational, I could trust that your a good developer or a good journalist but still not trust you enough to invite you over to my house. There are some interesting and clever solutions proposed for quantifying "trust" in a digital sense but I'm not going to get into that here. I want to talk about something that I have not see anyone discuss yet.

How is the web-of-trust maintained? or more precisely how do you expect users to update the digital representation of the "trust" of other users?

Its all well and good to think of how a user would create that "trust" of another user when discovering them for the first time. They would click the "follow" button, or maybe even rate them on a few topics with a 1/5 star system But how will a user remove that trust? how will they update it if things change and they trust them less?

If our goal is to model "trust" in a digital sense then we NEED a way for the data to stay up-to-date and as accurate as possible. otherwise whats the use? If we don't have a friction-less way to update or remove the digital representation of "trust" then we will end up with a WoT that continuously grows and everyone is rated 10/10

In the case of nostr kind:3 following lists. its pretty easy to see how these would get updated. If someone posts something I dislike or I notice I'm getting board of their content. then I just unfollow them. An important part here is that I'm not thinking "I should update my trust score of this user" but instead "I'm no longer interested, I don't want to see this anymore"

But that is probably the easiest "trust" to update. because most of us on social media spend some time curating our feed and we are used to doing it. But what about the more obscure "trust" scores? whats the regular mechanism by which a user would update the "honestly" score of another user?

In the real world its easy, when I stop trusting someone I simply stop associating with them. there isn't any button or switch I need to update. I simply don't talk to them anymore, its friction-less But in the digital realm I would have to remove or update that trust. in other words its an action I need to take instead of an action I'm not doing. and actions take energy.

So how do we reflect something in the digital world that takes no-energy and is almost subconscious in the real world?

TLDR; webs-of-trust are not just about scoring other users once. you must keep the score up-to-date

@ e97aaffa:2ebd765d

Será que neste ciclo teremos turistas no #Bitcoin? Nos últimos meses tenho me debruçado muito sobre este assunto, mas não consigo chegar a uma conclusão.

Antes de mais, o que são turistas? Os turistas são aqueles que compram Bitcoin alimentados pelo FOMO, com a ganância de enriquecer rapidamente. Não tem o mínimo conhecimento do Bitcoin, nem tem interesse em conhecer, só estão pelo dinheiro.

Com a entrada dos turistas, o preço do Bitcoin começa a valorizar exponencialmente, é a segunda fase da bullrun, acontece sempre após o halving e após superar o anterior ATH. Com o novo ATH começa a surgir as notícias nas televisões e jornais, o mainstream acorda. Só que a quantidade de turistas é de tal maneira elevada, muito superior à dos holders. Este desequilíbrio entre forças de curto prazo(turistas) e do longo prazo(holders), gera forte volatilidade. Quanto maior o desequilíbrio, maior a volatilidade. A avalanche de turistas, faz o preço disparar e quanto mais sobe, mais turistas atrai.

Só que o movimento não dura para sempre, a esperança dos turistas de enriquecer rápido, desvanece e rapidamente se transforma numa desilusão, na sua grande maioria entra em pânico, assim que o preço começa a corrigir, vendendo em prejuízo. Sendo responsável pelas gigantes correções, superiores a 70%.

Este é o meu 4° ciclo, eu noto que este está a ser completamente diferente. Nos anteriores, os turistas entravam pelo Bitcoin, mas desta vez está a acontecer uma mudança. Devido ao elevado marketcap do Bitcoin, este já não permite valorização exponenciais num curto espaço de tempo, estes turistas que procuram multiplicar o seu dinheiro por 10x, 100x ou 1000x, estão a ir directamente para as shitcoins ou memecoins. Estas valorização pornograficas, só acontecerá em meia dúzia, mas o grande problema é que existem milhões de memecoins, é como encontrar uma agulha num palheiro. É o verdadeiro casino e os turistas procuram isto.

Só que neste ciclo, a maior parte dos novos inflows estão a ser através do institucional, sobretudo pelos ETFs. Só que tem um perfil não diferente dos turistas, têm conhecimento de mercados financeiros tradicionais, são muito mais racionais, têm um conhecimento mínimo do Bitcoin. Não têm as mãos de diamante como os holders, mas também não são mãos de alface como os turistas. É um perfil de investidor intermédio. Poderá vender uma pequena parte do Bitcoin, para retirar uma parte do seu investimento inicial, mas tem um pensamento mais de médio-longo prazo.

Com isto, existe um maior equilíbrio entre os que pensam a curto prazo e os que pensam a longo prazo. Até ao momento, eu tenho a sensação que os turistas já não procuram o Bitcoin, ou são muito poucos.

O afastamento dos turistas é bom ou mau? A meu ver é bom, é verdade que deixamos de ter aquelas enormes explosões no preço para cima, mas também acredito que as correções também serão muito menores. Em suma, uma redução na volatilidade do Bitcoin. Mas essa redução na volatilidade, vai trazer um novo público, aquele que não é especulador, que apenas quer preservar o seu património, o real valor do Bitcoin, que pensa a longo prazo.

Estes turistas que procuram o 100x, com uma pura ganância, vão passar muitas noites sem dormir e na sua maioria vão perder muito dinheiro, vão acabar por receber uma dura lição de vida. Alguns vão finalmente compreender que Bitcoin é diferente, e que os 2x é suficiente para a sua vida.

A redução de turistas não afeta só o Bitcoin, mas também afeta o mercado das altcoins e das memecoins. Nos ciclos anteriores, os turistas entravam pelo Bitcoin mas depois rodavam o capital para as altcoins, gerando a chamada altseason. Se neste ciclo, os turistas descartam o Bitcoin, consequentemente a rotação será muito menor, possivelmente não haverá altseason.

Mas isto é apenas a minha convicção, só o tempo dirá, se os turistas trocaram o Bitcoin, pelo casino das memecoins.

@ 266815e0:6cd408a5

While I was in Mediera with all the other awesome people at the first SEC cohort there where a lot of discussions around data storage on nostr and if it could be made censorship-resistent

I remember lots of discussions about torrents, hypercore, nostr relays, and of course IPFS

There were a few things I learned from all these conversations:

1. All the existing solutions have one thing in common. A universal ID of some kind for files
2. HTTP is still good. we don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water
3. nostr could fix this... somehow

Some of the existing solutions work well for large files, and all of them are decentralization in some way. However none of them seem capable of serving up cat pictures for social media clients. they all have something missing...

An Identity system

An identity system would allow files to be "owned" by users. and once files have owners servers could start grouping files into a single thing instead of a 1000+ loose files

This can also greatly simplify the question of "what is spam" for a server hosting (or seeding) these files. since it could simply have a whitelist of owners (and maybe their friends)

What is blossom?

Blossom is a set of HTTP endpoints that allow nostr users to store and retrieve binary data on public servers using the sha256 hash as a universal id

What are Blobs?

blobs are chunks of binary data. they are similar to files but with one key difference, they don't have names

Instead blobs have a sha256 hash (like b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553) as an ID

These IDs are universal since they can be computed from the file itself using the sha256 hashing algorithm ( you can get a files sha256 hash on linux using: sha256sum bitcoin.pdf )

How do the servers work?

Blossom servers expose four endpoints to let clients and users upload and manage blobs

• GET /<sha256> (optional file .ext)
• PUT /upload
• Authentication: Signed nostr event
• Returns a blob descriptor
• GET /list/<pubkey>
• Returns an array of blob descriptors
• Authentication (optional): Signed nostr event
• DELETE /<sha256>
• Authentication: Signed nostr event

What is Blossom Drive?

Blossom Drive is a nostr app built on top of blossom servers and allows users to create and manage folders of blobs

What are Drives

Drives are just nostr events (kind 30563) that store a map of blobs and what filename they should have along with some extra metadata

An example drive event would be json { "pubkey": "266815e0c9210dfa324c6cba3573b14bee49da4209a9456f9484e5106cd408a5", "created_at": 1710773987, "content": "", "kind": 30563, "tags": [ [ "name", "Emojis" ], [ "description", "nostr emojis" ], [ "d", "emojis" ], [ "r", "https://cdn.hzrd149.com/" ], [ "x", "303f018e613f29e3e43264529903b7c8c84debbd475f89368cb293ec23938981", "/noStrudel.png", "15161", "image/png" ], [ "x", "a0e2b39975c8da1702374b3eed6f4c6c7333e6ae0008dadafe93bd34bfb2ca78", "/satellite.png", "6853", "image/png" ], [ "x", "e8f3fae0f4a43a88eae235a8b79794d72e8f14b0e103a0fed1e073d8fb53d51f", "/amethyst.png", "20487", "image/png" ], [ "x", "70bd5836807b916d79e9c4e67e8b07e3e3b53f4acbb95c7521b11039a3c975c6", "/nos.png", "36521", "image/png" ], [ "x", "0fc304630279e0c5ab2da9c2769e3a3178c47b8609b447a30916244e89abbc52", "/primal.png", "29343", "image/png" ], [ "x", "9a03824a73d4af192d893329bbc04cd3798542ee87af15051aaf9376b74b25d4", "/coracle.png", "18300", "image/png" ], [ "x", "accdc0cdc048f4719bb5e1da4ff4c6ffc1a4dbb7cf3afbd19b86940c01111568", "/iris.png", "24070", "image/png" ], [ "x", "2e740f2514d6188e350d95cf4756bbf455d2f95e6a09bc64e94f5031bc4bba8f", "/damus.png", "32758", "image/png" ], [ "x", "2e019f08da0c75fb9c40d81947e511c8f0554763bffb6d23a7b9b8c9e8c84abb", "/old emojis/astral.png", "29365", "image/png" ], [ "x", "d97f842f2511ce0491fe0de208c6135b762f494a48da59926ce15acfdb6ac17e", "/other/rabbit.png", "19803", "image/png" ], [ "x", "72cb99b689b4cfe1a9fb6937f779f3f9c65094bf0e6ac72a8f8261efa96653f5", "/blossom.png", "4393", "image/png" ] ] }

There is a lot going on but the main thing is the list of "x" tags and the path that describes the folder and filename the blob should live at

If your interested, the full event definition is at github.com/hzrd149/blossom-drive

Getting started

Like every good nostr client it takes a small instruction manual in order to use it properly. so here are the steps for getting started

1. Open the app

Open https://blossom.hzrd149.com

2. Login using extension

You can also login using any of the following methods using the input - NIP-46 with your https://nsec.app or https://flare.pub account - a NIP-46 connection string - an ncryptsec password protected private key - a nsec unprotected private key (please don't) - bunker:// URI from nsecbunker

3. Add a blossom server

Right now https://cdn.satellite.earth is the only public server that is compatible with blossom drive. If you want to host your own I've written a basic implementation in TypeScript github.com/hzrd149/blossom-server

4. Start uploading your files

NOTE: All files upload to blossom drive are public by default. DO NOT upload private files

5. Manage files

Encrypted drives

There is also the option to encrypt drives using NIP-49 password encryption. although its not tested at all so don't trust it, verify

Whats next?

I don't know, but Im excited to see what everyone else on nostr builds with this. I'm only one developer at the end of the day and I can't think of everything

also all the images in this article are stored in one of my blossom drives here

nostr:naddr1qvzqqqrhvvpzqfngzhsvjggdlgeycm96x4emzjlwf8dyyzdfg4hefp89zpkdgz99qq8xzun5d93kcefdd9kkzem9wvr46jka

@ 3f770d65:7a745b24

The recent shutdown of TikTok in the United States due to a potential government ban serves as a stark reminder how fragile centralized platforms truly are under the surface. While these platforms offer convenience, a more polished user experience, and connectivity, they are ultimately beholden to governments, corporations, and other authorities. This makes them vulnerable to censorship, regulation, and outright bans. In contrast, Nostr represents a shift in how we approach online communication and content sharing. Built on the principles of decentralization and user choice, Nostr cannot be banned, because it is not a platform—it is a protocol.

PROTOCOLS, NOT PLATFORMS.

At the heart of Nostr's philosophy is user choice, a feature that fundamentally sets it apart from legacy platforms. In centralized systems, the user experience is dictated by a single person or governing entity. If the platform decides to filter, censor, or ban specific users or content, individuals are left with little action to rectify the situation. They must either accept the changes or abandon the platform entirely, often at the cost of losing their social connections, their data, and their identity.

What's happening with TikTok could never happen on Nostr. With Nostr, the dynamics are completely different. Because it is a protocol, not a platform, no single entity controls the ecosystem. Instead, the protocol enables a network of applications and relays that users can freely choose from. If a particular application or relay implements policies that a user disagrees with, such as censorship, filtering, or even government enforced banning, they are not trapped or abandoned. They have the freedom to move to another application or relay with minimal effort.

THIS IS POWERFUL.

Take, for example, the case of a relay that decides to censor specific content. On a legacy platform, this would result in frustration and a loss of access for users. On Nostr, however, users can simply connect to a different relay that does not impose such restrictions. Similarly, if an application introduces features or policies that users dislike, they can migrate to a different application that better suits their preferences, all while retaining their identity and social connections.

The same principles apply to government bans and censorship. A government can ban a specific application or even multiple applications, just as it can block one relay or several relays. China has implemented both tactics, yet Chinese users continue to exist and actively participate on Nostr, demonstrating Nostr's ability to resistant censorship.

How? Simply, it turns into a game of whack-a-mole. When one relay is censored, another quickly takes its place. When one application is banned, another emerges. Users can also bypass these obstacles by running their own relays and applications directly from their homes or personal devices, eliminating reliance on larger entities or organizations and ensuring continuous access.

AGAIN, THIS IS POWERUFL.

Nostr's open and decentralized design makes it resistant to the kinds of government intervention that led to TikTok's outages this weekend and potential future ban in the next 90 days. There is no central server to target, no company to regulate, and no single point of failure. (Insert your CEO jokes here). As long as there are individuals running relays and applications, users continue creating notes and sending zaps.

Platforms like TikTok can be silenced with the stroke of a pen, leaving millions of users disconnected and abandoned. Social communication should not be silenced so incredibly easily. No one should have that much power over social interactions.

Will we on-board a massive wave of TikTokers in the coming hours or days? I don't know.

TikTokers may not be ready for Nostr yet, and honestly, Nostr may not be ready for them either. The ecosystem still lacks the completely polished applications, tools, and services they’re accustomed to. This is where we say "we're still early". They may not be early adopters like the current Nostr user base. Until we bridge that gap, they’ll likely move to the next centralized platform, only to face another government ban or round of censorship in the future. But eventually, there will come a tipping point, a moment when they’ve had enough. When that time comes, I hope we’re prepared. If we’re not, we risk missing a tremendous opportunity to onboard people who genuinely need Nostr’s freedom.

Until then, to all of the Nostr developers out there, keep up the great work and keep building. Your hard work and determination is needed.

@ cff1720e:15c7e2b2

Einleitung\ \ Schwierige Dinge einfach zu erklären ist der Anspruch von ELI5 (explain me like I'm 5). Das ist in unserer hoch technisierten Welt dringend erforderlich, denn nur mit dem Verständnis der Technologien können wir sie richtig einsetzen und weiter entwickeln.\ Ich starte meine Serie mit Nostr, einem relativ neuen Internet-Protokoll. Was zum Teufel ist ein Internet-Protokoll? Formal beschrieben sind es internationale Standards, die dafür sorgen, dass das Internet seit über 30 Jahren ziemlich gut funktioniert. Es ist die Sprache, in der sich die Rechner miteinander unterhalten und die auch Sie täglich nutzen, vermutlich ohne es bewusst wahrzunehmen. http(s) transportiert ihre Anfrage an einen Server (z.B. Amazon), und html sorgt dafür, dass aus den gelieferten Daten eine schöne Seite auf ihrem Bildschirm entsteht. Eine Mail wird mit smtp an den Mailserver gesendet und mit imap von ihm abgerufen, und da alle den Standard verwenden, funktioniert das mit jeder App auf jedem Betriebssystem und mit jedem Mail-Provider. Und mit einer Mail-Adresse wie roland@pareto.space können sie sogar jederzeit umziehen, egal wohin. Cool, das ist state of the art! Aber warum funktioniert das z.B. bei Chat nicht, gibt es da kein Protokoll? Doch, es heißt IRC (Internet Relay Chat → merken sie sich den Namen), aber es wird so gut wie nicht verwendet. Die Gründe dafür sind nicht technischer Natur, vielmehr wurden mit Apps wie Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, TikTok u.a. bewusst Inkompatibilitäten und Nutzerabhängigkeiten geschaffen um Profite zu maximieren.

Warum Nostr?

Da das Standard-Protokoll nicht genutzt wird, hat jede App ihr eigenes, und wir brauchen eine handvoll Apps um uns mit allen Bekannten auszutauschen. Eine Mobilfunknummer ist Voraussetzung für jedes Konto, damit können die App-Hersteller die Nutzer umfassend tracken und mit dem Verkauf der Informationen bis zu 30 USD je Konto und Monat verdienen. Der Nutzer ist nicht mehr Kunde, er ist das Produkt! Der Werbe-SPAM ist noch das kleinste Problem bei diesem Geschäftsmodell. Server mit Millionen von Nutzerdaten sind ein “honey pot”, dementsprechend oft werden sie gehackt und die Zugangsdaten verkauft. 2024 wurde auch der Twitter-Account vom damaligen Präsidenten Joe Biden gehackt, niemand wusste mehr wer die Nachrichten verfasst hat (vorher auch nicht), d.h. die Authentizität der Inhalte ist bei keinem dieser Anbieter gewährleistet. Im selben Jahr wurde der Telegram-Gründer in Frankreich in Beugehaft genommen, weil er sich geweigert hatte Hintertüren in seine Software einzubauen. Nun kann zum Schutz "unserer Demokratie” praktisch jeder mitlesen, was sie mit wem an Informationen austauschen, z.B. darüber welches Shampoo bestimmte Politiker verwenden. 

Und wer tatsächlich glaubt er könne Meinungsfreiheit auf sozialen Medien praktizieren, findet sich schnell in der Situation von Donald Trump wieder (seinerzeit amtierender Präsident), dem sein Twitter-Konto 2021 abgeschaltet wurde (Cancel-Culture). Die Nutzerdaten, also ihr Profil, ihre Kontakte, Dokumente, Bilder, Videos und Audiofiles - gehören ihnen ohnehin nicht mehr sondern sind Eigentum des Plattform-Betreibers; lesen sie sich mal die AGB's durch. Aber nein, keine gute Idee, das sind hunderte Seiten und sie werden permanent geändert. Alle nutzen also Apps, deren Technik sie nicht verstehen, deren Regeln sie nicht kennen, wo sie keine Rechte haben und die ihnen die Resultate ihres Handelns stehlen. Was würde wohl der Fünfjährige sagen, wenn ihm seine ältere Schwester anbieten würde, alle seine Spielzeuge zu “verwalten” und dann auszuhändigen wenn er brav ist? “Du spinnst wohl”, und damit beweist der Knirps mehr Vernunft als die Mehrzahl der Erwachsenen. \ \ Resümee: keine Standards, keine Daten, keine Rechte = keine Zukunft!

\ Wie funktioniert Nostr?

Die Entwickler von Nostr haben erkannt dass sich das Server-Client-Konzept in ein Master-Slave-Konzept verwandelt hatte. Der Master ist ein Synonym für Zentralisierung und wird zum “single point of failure”, der zwangsläufig Systeme dysfunktional macht. In einem verteilten Peer2Peer-System gibt es keine Master mehr sondern nur gleichberechtigte Knoten (Relays), auf denen die Informationen gespeichert werden. Indem man Informationen auf mehreren Relays redundant speichert, ist das System in jeglicher Hinsicht resilienter. Nicht nur die Natur verwendet dieses Prinzip seit Jahrmillionen erfolgreich, auch das Internet wurde so konzipiert (das ARPAnet wurde vom US-Militär für den Einsatz in Kriegsfällen unter massiven Störungen entwickelt). Alle Nostr-Daten liegen auf Relays und der Nutzer kann wählen zwischen öffentlichen (zumeist kostenlosen) und privaten Relays, z.B. für geschlossene Gruppen oder zum Zwecke von Daten-Archivierung. Da Dokumente auf mehreren Relays gespeichert sind, werden statt URL's (Locator) eindeutige Dokumentnamen (URI's = Identifier) verwendet, broken Links sind damit Vergangenheit und Löschungen / Verluste ebenfalls.\ \ Jedes Dokument (Event genannt) wird vom Besitzer signiert, es ist damit authentisch und fälschungssicher und kann nur vom Ersteller gelöscht werden. Dafür wird ein Schlüsselpaar verwendet bestehend aus privatem (nsec) und öffentlichem Schlüssel (npub) wie aus der Mailverschlüsselung (PGP) bekannt. Das repräsentiert eine Nostr-Identität, die um Bild, Namen, Bio und eine lesbare Nostr-Adresse ergänzt werden kann (z.B. roland@pareto.space ), mehr braucht es nicht um alle Ressourcen des Nostr-Ökosystems zu nutzen. Und das besteht inzwischen aus über hundert Apps mit unterschiedlichen Fokussierungen, z.B. für persönliche verschlüsselte Nachrichten (DM → OxChat), Kurznachrichten (Damus, Primal), Blogbeiträge (Pareto), Meetups (Joinstr), Gruppen (Groups), Bilder (Olas), Videos (Amethyst), Audio-Chat (Nostr Nests), Audio-Streams (Tunestr), Video-Streams (Zap.Stream), Marktplätze (Shopstr) u.v.a.m. Die Anmeldung erfolgt mit einem Klick (single sign on) und den Apps stehen ALLE Nutzerdaten zur Verfügung (Profil, Daten, Kontakte, Social Graph → Follower, Bookmarks, Comments, etc.), im Gegensatz zu den fragmentierten Datensilos der Gegenwart.\ \ Resümee: ein offener Standard, alle Daten, alle Rechte = große Zukunft!

\ Warum ist Nostr die Zukunft des Internet?

“Baue Dein Haus nicht auf einem fremden Grundstück” gilt auch im Internet - für alle App-Entwickler, Künstler, Journalisten und Nutzer, denn auch ihre Daten sind werthaltig. Nostr garantiert das Eigentum an den Daten, und überwindet ihre Fragmentierung. Weder die Nutzung noch die kreativen Freiheiten werden durch maßlose Lizenz- und Nutzungsbedingungen eingeschränkt. Aus passiven Nutzern werden durch Interaktion aktive Teilnehmer, Co-Creatoren in einer Sharing-Ökonomie (Value4Value). OpenSource schafft endlich wieder Vertrauen in die Software und ihre Anbieter. Offene Standards ermöglichen den Entwicklern mehr Kooperation und schnellere Entwicklung, für die Anwender garantieren sie Wahlfreiheit. Womit wir letztmalig zu unserem Fünfjährigen zurückkehren. Kinder lieben Lego über alles, am meisten die Maxi-Box “Classic”, weil sie damit ihre Phantasie im Kombinieren voll ausleben können. Erwachsene schenken ihnen dann die viel zu teuren Themenpakete, mit denen man nur eine Lösung nach Anleitung bauen kann. “Was stimmt nur mit meinen Eltern nicht, wann sind die denn falsch abgebogen?" fragt sich der Nachwuchs zu Recht. Das Image lässt sich aber wieder aufpolieren, wenn sie ihren Kindern Nostr zeigen, denn die Vorteile verstehen sogar Fünfjährige.

\ Das neue Internet ist dezentral. Das neue Internet ist selbstbestimmt. Nostr ist das neue Internet.

https://nostr.net/ \ https://start.njump.me/

Hier das Interview zum Thema mit Radio Berliner Morgenröte

https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-yxc36-17bb4be

@ f977c464:32fcbe00

Güneşin kaybolmasının üçüncü günü, saat öğlen on ikiyi yirmi geçiyordu. Trenin kalkmasına yaklaşık iki saat vardı. Hepimiz perondaydık. Valizlerimiz, kolilerimiz, renk renk ve biçimsiz çantalarımızla yan yana dizilmiş, kısa aralıklarla tepemizdeki devasa saati kontrol ediyorduk.

Ama ne kadar dik bakarsak bakalım zaman bir türlü istediğimiz hızla ilerlemiyordu. Herkes birkaç dakika sürmesi gereken alelade bir doğa olayına sıkışıp kalmış, karanlıktan sürünerek çıkmayı deniyordu.

Bekleme salonuna doğru döndüm. Nefesimden çıkan buharın arkasında, kalın taş duvarları ve camlarıyla morg kadar güvenli ve soğuk duruyordu. Cesetleri o yüzden bunun gibi yerlere taşımaya başlamışlardı. Demek insanların bütün iyiliği başkaları onları gördüğü içindi ki gündüzleri gecelerden daha karanlık olduğunda hemen birbirlerinin gırtlağına çökmüş, böğürlerinde delikler açmış, gözlerini oyup kafataslarını parçalamışlardı.

İstasyonun ışığı titrediğinde karanlığın enseme saplandığını hissettim. Eğer şimdi, böyle kalabalık bir yerde elektrik kesilse başımıza ne gelirdi?

İçerideki askerlerden biri bakışlarımı yakalayınca yeniden saate odaklanmış gibi yaptım. Sadece birkaç dakika geçmişti.

“Tarlalarım gitti. Böyle boyum kadar ayçiçeği doluydu. Ah, hepsi ölüp gidiyor. Afitap’ın çiçekleri de gi-”

“Dayı, Allah’ını seversen sus. Hepimizi yakacaksın şimdi.”

Karanlıkta durduğunda, görünmez olmayı istemeye başlıyordun. Kimse seni görmemeli, nefesini bile duymamalıydı. Kimsenin de ayağının altında dolaşmamalıydın; gelip kazayla sana çarpmamalılar, takılıp sendelememeliydiler. Yoksa aslında hedefi sen olmadığın bir öfke gürlemeye başlar, yaşadığın ilk şoku ve acıyı silerek üstünden geçerdi.

İlk konuşan, yaşlıca bir adam, kafasında kasketi, nasırlı ellerine hohluyordu. Gözleri ve burnu kızarmıştı. Güneşin kaybolması onun için kendi başına bir felaket değildi. Hayatına olan pratik yansımalarından korkuyordu olsa olsa. Bir anının kaybolması, bu yüzden çoktan kaybettiği birinin biraz daha eksilmesi. Hayatta kalmasını gerektiren sebepler azalırken, hayatta kalmasını sağlayacak kaynaklarını da kaybediyordu.

Onu susturan delikanlıysa atkısını bütün kafasına sarmış, sakalı ve yüzünün derinliklerine kaçmış gözleri dışında bedeninin bütün parçalarını gizlemeye çalışıyordu. İşte o, güneşin kaybolmasının tam olarak ne anlama geldiğini anlamamış olsa bile, dehşetini olduğu gibi hissedebilenlerdendi.

Güneşin onlardan alındıktan sonra kime verileceğini sormuyorlardı. En başta onlara verildiğinde de hiçbir soru sormamışlardı zaten.

İki saat ne zaman geçer?

Midemin üstünde, sağ tarafıma doğru keskin bir acı hissettim. Karaciğerim. Gözlerimi yumdum. Yanımda biri metal bir nesneyi yere bıraktı. Bir kafesti. İçerisindeki kartalın ıslak kokusu burnuma ulaşmadan önce bile biliyordum bunu.

“Yeniden mi?” diye sordu bana kartal. Kanatları kanlı. Zamanın her bir parçası tüylerinin üstüne çöreklenmişti. Gagası bir şey, tahminen et parçası geveliyor gibi hareket ediyordu. Eski anılar kolay unutulmazmış. Şu anda kafesinin kalın parmaklıklarının ardında olsa da bunun bir aldatmaca olduğunu bir tek ben biliyordum. Her an kanatlarını iki yana uzatıverebilir, hava bu hareketiyle dalgalanarak kafesi esneterek hepimizi içine alacak kadar genişleyebilir, parmaklıklar önce ayaklarımızın altına serilir gibi gözükebilir ama aslında hepimizin üstünde yükselerek tepemize çökebilirdi.

Aşağıya baktım. Tahtalarla zapt edilmiş, hiçbir yere gidemeyen ama her yere uzanan tren rayları. Atlayıp koşsam… Çantam çok ağırdı. Daha birkaç adım atamadan, kartal, suratını bedenime gömerdi.

“Bu sefer farklı,” diye yanıtladım onu. “Yeniden diyemezsin. Tekrarladığım bir şey değil bu. Hatta bir hata yapıyormuşum gibi tonlayamazsın da. Bu sefer, insanların hak etmediğini biliyorum.”

“O zaman daha vahim. Süzme salaksın demektir.”

“İnsanların hak etmemesi, insanlığın hak etmediği anlamına gelmez ki.”

Az önce göz göze geldiğim genççe ama çökük asker hâlâ bana bakıyordu. Bir kartalla konuştuğumu anlamamıştı şüphesiz. Yanımdakilerden biriyle konuştuğumu sanmış olmalıydı. Ama konuştuğum kişiye bakmıyordum ona göre. Çekingence kafamı eğmiştim. Bir kez daha göz göze geldiğimizde içerideki diğer iki askere bir şeyler söyledi, onlar dönüp beni süzerken dışarı çıktı.

Yanımızdaki, az önce konuşan iki adam da şaşkınlıkla bir bana bir kartala bakıyordu.

“Yalnız bu sefer kalbin de kırılacak, Prometheus,” dedi kartal, bana. “Belki son olur. Biliyorsun, bir sürü soruna neden oluyor bu yaptıkların.”

Beni koruyordu sözde. En çok kanıma dokunan buydu. Kasıklarımın üstüne oturmuş, kanlı suratının ardında gözleri parlarken attığı çığlık kulaklarımda titremeye devam ediyordu. Bu tabloda kimsenin kimseyi düşündüğü yoktu. Kartalın, yanımızdaki adamların, artık arkama kadar gelmiş olması gereken askerin, tren raylarının, geçmeyen saatlerin…

Arkamı döndüğümde, asker sahiden oradaydı. Zaten öyle olması gerekiyordu; görmüştüm bunu, biliyordum. Kehanetler… Bir şeyler söylüyordu ama ağzı oynarken sesi çıkmıyordu. Yavaşlamış, kendisini saatin akışına uydurmuştu. Havada donan tükürüğünden anlaşılıyordu, sinirliydi. Korktuğu için olduğunu biliyordum. Her seferinde korkmuşlardı. Beni unutmuş olmaları işlerini kolaylaştırmıyordu. Sadece yeni bir isim vermelerine neden oluyordu. Bu seferkiyle beni lanetleyecekleri kesinleşmişti.

Olması gerekenle olanların farklı olması ne kadar acınasıydı. Olması gerekenlerin doğasının kötücül olmasıysa bir yerde buna dayanıyordu.

“Salaksın,” dedi kartal bana. Zamanı aşan bir çığlık. Hepimizin önüne geçmişti ama kimseyi durduramıyordu.

Sonsuzluğa kaç tane iki saat sıkıştırabilirsiniz?

Ben bir tane bile sıkıştıramadım.

Çantama uzanıyordum. Asker de sırtındaki tüfeğini indiriyordu. Benim acelem yoktu, onunsa eli ayağı birbirine dolaşıyordu. Oysaki her şey tam olması gerektiği anda olacaktı. Kehanet başkasının parmaklarının ucundaydı.

Güneş, bir tüfeğin patlamasıyla yeryüzüne doğdu.

Rayların üzerine serilmiş göğsümün ortasından, bir çantanın içinden.

Not: Bu öykü ilk olarak 2021 yılında Esrarengiz Hikâyeler'de yayımlanmıştır.

@ 916a7ab7:146bb83e

It was not ago that my life was simpler than it is today.

I remember being a simple clone, droning on through a structured life as I'd been trained to do since birth.

Like most people I knew, I was raised in a world where you were mentally prepared for a conceptually simple life: 1. Finish high school, if possible. 2. Go to college, if possible. 3. Find a job. 4. Earn money. 5. Pay bills. 6. Get married. 7. Start a family. 8. Pay more bills. 9. Raise family and (hopefully) launch the kids. 10. Plan to retire, but expect to work into your 70s.

It was a programmed formula for life. A generational blueprint, if you will. Sure, there would be unpredictable details, but I expected my life to follow this path.

As I plodded along through my fairly boring life, I checked most of those things off the list. High school was easy, but getting off the farm was not. Enlisting in the military solved that problem, and the pay in the mid-1990s wasn't bad for a 17 year old kid with no bills. I got paid every two weeks, lived in the barracks, and spent most of my money on booze. Life was good, and I had no other purpose than to do my job and keep earning money.

Before I knew it, though, everything changed. I got married, had some kids and accumulated a mountain of debt. Like my parents before me, I was stuck in a never ending cycle of working my ass off, paying bills, buying food, and trying to save what little money was left over for a future that was unpredictable at best. Financial struggles stressed our marriage, the kids continued eating more and more food, and then 2008 tanked the value of our home. That was the first nudge that stirred my oblivious slumber.

And there was more to come. Rising taxes, inflation, the clown show at the federal reserve, the wars funded by central banks, an astronomical national debt, and the burdens of our mistakes weighing down the futures of our children. Not to mention a federal government that actively seeks to censor, suppress, and financially imprison its own people. The times exuded chaos.

Then a few months ago, I woke up...

It happened during an episode of The Tuttle Twins, a cartoon show from Angel Studios. I homeschool my three youngest kids, and I'd let them watch TV during lunch so I could grade some papers. This cartoon was new to me, but the kids liked the music and the crazy raccoon. As fate would have it, they ended up watching an episode about Bitcoin. This, of course, led to a long series of questions:

"Dad, what's Bitcoin?"

"Is Bitcoin real?"

"Do you have Bitcoin?"

"Can I get Bitcoin for allowance instead of dollars?"

I had no answers for these questions, so we started doing some research together. We turned on our Chromebooks and launched a barrage of web searches. After reading a bunch of articles I came away with the idea that Bitcoin might be a real thing. Later that evening, and after the kids were in bed, I couldn't stop thinking about Bitcoin. I honestly didn't understand half of what I read in those articles, which bothered me. I'm not a super smart guy, but I catch on to things pretty quickly, and I wanted to better understand what I'd read. I expanded my search to podcasts and YouTube videos.

I ended up listening to a couple episodes from a Bitcoin Veterans podcast. As a veteran myself, I figured that this group of Bitcoin-savvy veterans would be able to help me figure out all this madness. I was right. I quickly learned that the word "Bitcoin" was just the tip of the iceberg, and I quickly found myself falling through an endless rabbit hole. They pointed me in a lot of different directions, but they were all helpful. (If you're a US military veteran and want to connect with this group, find them at [bitcoinveterans.org].)

A couple months ago, I couldn't tell you the difference between a Bitcoin and a meme coin. I'd come across the phrase Bitcoin mining, and I just thought there was a special group of people who mined a special metal to create coins with a big "B" on them. Why couldn't they just use the metal we already mined? Sheesh! I thought nostr was a virus, and a Kraken was still a giant squid.

As of today, I'm happy to say that I've made a little bit of progress. Those things above no longer confuse me, and I actually have a little bit of Bitcoin now. Sure, I'm still trying to wrap my head around NFTs and figure out who the Pepe frog man is, but I'm no longer completely lost. Not to mention, I just spent most of the last 24 hours figuring this whole nostr thing out, which excites me. I kind of missed the boat on the big name social media platforms, so I'm looking forward to this new decentralized approach to things.

For now, I'm just happy to be awake. Finally. I see the need for decentralization and the necessity of moving away from fiat monies. I don't have much to offer except my intellect and my love of writing, but I'm here to serve in any way that I can.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

O Planetinha

Fumaça verde me entrando pelas narinas e um coro desafinado fazia uma base melódica.

nos confins da galáxia havia um planetinha isolado. Era um planeta feliz.

O homem vestido de mago começava a aparecer por detrás da fumaça verde.

O planetinha recebeu três presentes, mas o seu habitante, o homem, estava num estado de confusão tão grande que ameaçava estragá-los. Os homens já havia escravizado o primeiro presente, a vida; lutavam contra o segundo presente, a morte; e havia alguns que achavam que deviam destruir totalmente o terceiro, o amor, e com isto levar a desordem total ao pobre planetinha perdido, que se chamava Terra.

O coro desafinado entrou antes do "Terra" cantando várias vezes, como se imitasse um eco, "terra-terra-terraaa". Depois de uma pausa dramática, o homem vestido de mago voltou a falar.

Terra, nossa nave mãe.

Neste momento eu me afastei. À frente do palco onde o mago e seu coral faziam apelos à multidão havia vários estandes cobertos com a tradicional armação de quatro pernas e lona branca. Em todos os cantos da praça havia gente, gente dos mais variados tipos. Visitantes curiosos que se aproximavam atraídos pela fumaça verde e as barraquinhas, gente que aproveitava o movimento para vender doces sem pagar imposto, casais que se abraçavam de pé para espantar o frio, os tradicionais corredores que faziam seu cooper, gente cheia de barba e vestida para imitar os hippies dos anos 60 e vender colares estendidos no chão, transeuntes novos e velhos, vestidos como baladeiros ou como ativistas do ônibus grátis, grupos de ciclistas entusiastas.

O mago fazia agora apelos para que nós, os homens, habitantes do isolado planetinha, passássemos a ver o planetinha, nossa nave mãe, como um todo, e adquiríssemos a consciência de que ele estava entrando em maus lençóis. A idéia, reforçada pela logomarca do evento, era que parássemos de olhar só para a nossa vida e pensássemos no planeta.

A logomarca do evento, um desenho estilizado do planeta Terra, nada tinha a ver com seu nome: "Festival Andando de Bem com a Vida", mas havia sido ali colocada estrategicamente pelos organizadores, de quem parecia justamente sair a mensagem dita pelo mago.

Aquela multidão de pessoas que, assim como eu, tinham suas próprias preocupações, não podiam ver o quadro caótico que formavam, cada uma com seus atos isolados, ali naquela praça isolada, naquele planeta isolado. Quando o hippie barbudo, quase um Osho, assustava um casal para tentar vender-lhes um colar, a quantidade de caos que isto acrescentava à cena era gigantesca. Por um segundo, pude ver, como se estivesse de longe e acima, com toda a pretensão que este estado imaginativo carrega, a cena completa do caos.

---

Uma nave-mãe, dessas de ficção científica, habitada por milhões de pessoas, seguia no espaço sem rumo, e sem saber que logo à frente um longo precipício espacial a esperava, para a desgraça completa sua e de seus habitantes.

Acostumados àquela nave tanto quanto outrora estiveram acostumados à sua terra natal, os homens viviam as próprias vidas sem nem se lembrar que estavam vagando pelo espaço. Ninguém sabia quem estava conduzindo a nave, e ninguém se importava.

No final do filme descobre-se que era a soma completa do caos que cada habitante produzia, com seus gestos egoístas e incapazes de levar em conta a totalidade, é que determinava a direção da nave-mãe. O efeito, no entanto, não era imediato, como nunca é. Havia gente de verdade encarregada de conduzir a nave, mas era uma gente bêbada, mau-caráter, que vivia brigando pelo controle da nave e o poder que isto lhes dava. Poder, status, dinheiro!

Essa gente bêbada era atraída até ali pela corrupção das instituições e da moral comum que, no fundo no fundo, era causada pelo egoísmo da população, através de um complexo -- mas que no filme aparece simplificado pela ação individual de um magnata do divertimento público -- processo social.

O homem vestido de mago era mais um agente causador de caos, com sua cena cheia de fumaça e sua roupa estroboscópica, ele achava que estava fazendo o bem ao alertar sua platéia, todos as sextas-feiras, de que havia algo que precisava ser feito, que cada um que estava ali ouvindo era responsável pelo planeta. A sua incapacidade, porém, de explicar o que precisava ser feito só aumentava a angústia geral; a culpa que ele jogava sobre seu público, e que era prontamente aceita e passada em frente, aos familiares e amigos de cada um, atormentava-os diariamente e os impedia de ter uma vida decente no trabalho e em casa. As famílias, estressadas, estavam constantemente brigando e os motivos mais insignificantes eram responsáveis pelas mais horrendas conseqüências.

O mago, que após o show tirava o chapéu entortado e ia tomar cerveja num boteco, era responsável por uma parcela considerável do caos que levava a nave na direção do seu desgraçado fim. No filme, porém, um dos transeuntes que de passagem ouviu um pedaço do discurso do mago despertou em si mesmo uma consiência transformadora e, com poderes sobre-humanos que lhe foram então concedidos por uma ordem iniciática do bem ou não, usando só os seus poderes humanos mesmo, o transeunte -- na primeira versão do filme um homem, na segunda uma mulher -- consegue consertar as instituições e retirar os bêbados da condução da máquina. A questão da moral pública é ignorada para abreviar a trama, já com duas horas e quarenta de duração, mas subentende-se que ela também fora resolvida.

---

No planeta Terra real, que não está indo em direção alguma, preso pela gravidade ao Sol, e onde as pessoas vivem a própria vida porque lhes é impossível viver a dos outros, não têm uma consciência global de nada porque só é possível mesmo ter a consciência delas mesmas, e onde a maioria, de uma maneira ou de outra, está tentando como pode, fazer as coisas direito, o filme é exibido.

Para a maioria dos espectadores, é um filme que evoca reflexões, um filme forte. Por um segundo elas têm o mesmo vislumbre do caos generalizado que eu tive ali naquela praça. Para uma pequena parcela dos espectadores -- entre eles alguns dos que estavam na platéia do mago, o próprio mago, o seguidor do Osho, o casal de duas mulheres e o vendedor de brigadeiros, mas aos quais se somam também críticos de televisão e jornal e gente que fala pelos cotovelos na internet -- o filme é um horror, o filme é uma vulgarização de um problema real e sério, o filme apela para a figura do herói salvador e passa uma mensagem totalmente errada, de que a maioria da população pode continuar vivendo as suas própria vidinhas miseráveis enquanto espera por um herói que vem do Olimpo e os salva da mixórdia que eles mesmos causaram, é um filme que presta um enorme desserviço à causa.

No dia seguinte ao lançamento, num bar meio caro ali perto da praça, numa mesa com oito pessoas, entre elas seis do primeiro grupo e oito do segundo, discute-se se o filme levará ou não o Oscar. Eu estou em casa dormindo e não escuto nada.

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

Bitcoin halving is a cornerstone event in the cryptocurrency landscape, occurring approximately every four years, or after every 210,000 blocks are mined. This event is significant because it marks a reduction in the reward that miners receive for adding new blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain, effectively halving the rate at which new bitcoins are generated. The concept of halving is embedded in Bitcoin's protocol by Satoshi Nakamoto, its mysterious creator, as a measure to mimic the scarcity and deflationary characteristics of precious metals like gold. This mechanism is crucial in controlling the supply of Bitcoin, ensuring that it remains finite and valuable. As the next halving event draws near, it's not just miners who are impacted; the entire cryptocurrency market, including investors and enthusiasts, keenly anticipates the potential outcomes. Historically, halving events have been associated with increased market activity, price volatility, and heightened public interest in Bitcoin. The event is seen as a moment of transformation for Bitcoin, where the dynamics of supply and demand are altered, potentially leading to significant shifts in its market value.

Table Of Content

• Understanding the Hash Rate Surge

• Implications of the Rising Hash Rate

• The Halving Event: What to Expect

• Preparing for the Halving

• Conclusion

• FAQs

Understanding the Hash Rate Surge

What is Hash Rate?

The hash rate, in the context of Bitcoin, refers to the total computational power being used to mine and process transactions on the blockchain. It's a vital metric that reflects the health and security of the network. A higher hash rate means that more computational resources are being dedicated to maintaining the network, making it more robust against potential attacks. The hash rate is measured in hashes per second (H/s), and with advancements in mining technology, the network has seen this rate reach exahash levels (1 EH/s = 1 quintillion hashes per second). This metric is crucial for miners, as it affects their chances of solving the mathematical puzzles required to mine new blocks and earn rewards. It also indicates the level of competition among miners, as a higher hash rate suggests more participants or more powerful mining equipment in the network.

Record-Breaking Levels

The Bitcoin network's hash rate has recently hit an all-time high, reaching a staggering 491 exahashes per second (EH/s). This surge is indicative of the growing strength and security of the network. Such a high hash rate means that the network is more resilient than ever to potential attacks, such as the 51% attack, where a single entity could potentially gain control over the majority of the network's mining power. This level of security is crucial, especially as Bitcoin continues to gain mainstream acceptance and attract significant institutional investment. The record-breaking hash rate also reflects the increasing global interest in Bitcoin mining. It suggests that despite the high costs associated with mining - including specialized hardware and significant electricity consumption - miners are still heavily investing in this activity. This investment is not just in terms of money but also in research and development of more efficient mining technologies, which could further drive up the hash rate.

Implications of the Rising Hash Rate

Enhanced Network Security

The surge in Bitcoin's hash rate is a positive development for the network's security. A higher hash rate means that it becomes exponentially more difficult for a malicious actor to orchestrate an attack on the network. This security is paramount for a system that handles billions of dollars worth of transactions. The decentralized nature of Bitcoin relies heavily on the integrity of its blockchain, which is maintained by this collective computational effort. As the hash rate increases, the confidence in the network's security also grows, which is crucial for both individual users and institutional investors. This enhanced security is particularly important in the context of the upcoming halving event, as it ensures the stability and reliability of the network during a period of significant change.

Increased Mining Difficulty

With the rise in hash rate comes an increase in the difficulty of mining Bitcoin. The Bitcoin network is designed to adjust the difficulty of mining new blocks approximately every two weeks to ensure that the time between blocks remains around 10 minutes. As more computational power joins the network, the difficulty increases, making it harder for individual miners to solve the cryptographic puzzles required to mine new blocks. This increase in difficulty can have several implications for miners. Smaller miners or those with less efficient equipment may find it increasingly difficult to compete with larger mining operations that have access to more powerful and efficient technology. This could lead to a consolidation in the mining industry, where only the most efficient operations can survive. Additionally, as the difficulty increases, the profitability of mining can decrease, especially if the price of Bitcoin does not increase proportionally. Miners must constantly evaluate their operations' efficiency and electricity costs to ensure continued profitability.

Energy Consumption Concerns

The rising hash rate of the Bitcoin network has brought renewed attention to the issue of energy consumption in Bitcoin mining. The process of mining Bitcoin is energy-intensive, as it requires a significant amount of computational power. As the hash rate increases, so does the total energy consumption of the network. This has led to concerns about the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining, especially in regions where electricity is generated from fossil fuels. The debate around Bitcoin's energy consumption is complex. On one hand, proponents argue that much of the energy used for Bitcoin mining comes from renewable sources, and the industry drives innovation in energy efficiency. On the other hand, critics point out that the overall energy consumption is still substantial and could be directed towards other, more productive uses. This debate is likely to continue as the network grows and the hash rate increases, especially in the context of global concerns about climate change and sustainable energy practices.

The Halving Event: What to Expect

Reward Reduction

The upcoming Bitcoin halving event is a scheduled reduction in the rewards that miners receive for verifying and adding new transactions to the blockchain. This halving reduces the number of new bitcoins created and earned by miners with each new block from 6.25 bitcoins to 3.125 bitcoins. This event occurs every 210,000 blocks, or approximately every four years, and is a fundamental part of Bitcoin's economic model. The halving is designed to mimic the extraction of precious resources, becoming progressively harder and less rewarding over time. This mechanism ensures that the total supply of Bitcoin will never exceed 21 million coins, making Bitcoin a deflationary asset. The halving event is significant because it affects the economics of Bitcoin mining. With the reward halving, the revenue for miners is effectively cut in half overnight. This can lead to a shakeout in the mining industry, as less efficient miners may no longer be profitable and could be forced to shut down their operations.

Market Impact

Historically, Bitcoin halving events have been followed by significant price increases. This pattern has led to a common perception that halving events are bullish for Bitcoin's price. The rationale behind this is simple: as the rate of new supply of Bitcoin decreases, and if demand remains constant or increases, the price should theoretically go up. However, it's important to note that financial markets are influenced by a myriad of factors, and the impact of the halving may already be priced in by the time it occurs. Additionally, each halving event occurs in a different macroeconomic environment, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Investors and traders closely watch these events, as they can lead to increased volatility in the market. Some see the halving as an opportunity for long-term investment, while others may speculate on short-term price movements.

Preparing for the Halving

Miner Adaptations

In anticipation of the halving and its impact on profitability, miners are taking various steps to adapt. One key strategy is the investment in more efficient mining hardware. Newer models of mining rigs offer greater hash power with lower energy consumption, which can help maintain profitability even with reduced rewards. Miners are also exploring alternative sources of revenue, such as transaction fee income, which could become a more significant part of their earnings post-halving. Additionally, miners are looking at geographical relocation to regions with cheaper electricity and favorable regulatory environments to reduce operational costs. Another consideration for miners is the potential consolidation of mining operations. Larger mining pools might have a better chance of surviving the reduced rewards, leading to a more centralized mining landscape. This potential centralization raises concerns within the Bitcoin community, as it could impact the decentralized nature of the network.

Investor Strategies

Investors are also preparing for the halving event in various ways. Many are closely analyzing historical data to understand potential market movements, although it's widely acknowledged that past trends may not necessarily predict future outcomes. Some investors view the halving as a key event that could drive long-term value growth in Bitcoin and are adjusting their portfolios accordingly. Others are more cautious, considering the potential for increased volatility around the event. There is also a focus on diversification, with investors looking at other cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects that might benefit from increased interest in the crypto space around the halving. Additionally, institutional investors, who have increasingly entered the cryptocurrency market, are likely to play a significant role in how the market reacts to the halving. Their strategies, which may include hedging and derivative trading, could influence Bitcoin's price dynamics in ways that were not seen in previous halving events.

Conclusion The countdown to the Bitcoin halving is a period of significant anticipation and activity within the cryptocurrency community. The record-breaking hash rate ahead of the event is a testament to the network's strength and the commitment of its participants to maintain and secure the blockchain. As the halving approaches, the crypto world watches with keen interest, eager to see how this pivotal event will shape the future of Bitcoin. Whether it leads to a surge in price, increased adoption, or new challenges for miners, the halving is a reminder of the unique and dynamic nature of cryptocurrency and its underlying technology. As with any major event in the crypto space, the halving presents both opportunities and risks, and how it plays out could have lasting implications for the entire blockchain ecosystem.

FAQs

What is Bitcoin Halving? Bitcoin halving is an event that occurs approximately every four years, reducing the reward for mining new Bitcoin blocks by half. This mechanism controls the supply of new bitcoins and is a fundamental part of Bitcoin's economic model.

Why is the Bitcoin Hash Rate Important? The hash rate measures the total computational power used in mining and processing transactions on the Bitcoin network. A higher hash rate indicates a more secure and robust network, making it resistant to attacks.

What Happens to Bitcoin's Price After Halving? Historically, Bitcoin's price has increased following halving events, but this is not guaranteed. Market reactions can be unpredictable, and various factors influence Bitcoin's price.

How Does Halving Affect Bitcoin Miners? Halving reduces the reward miners receive for validating new blocks, impacting their profitability. Miners often need to upgrade to more efficient hardware or find cheaper energy sources to remain competitive.

Can Bitcoin Halving Lead to Increased Centralization in Mining? Potentially, yes. As mining becomes less profitable for smaller operations, there could be a consolidation towards larger mining pools, which might lead to a more centralized mining landscape.

Is the Increase in Bitcoin's Hash Rate Linked to the Upcoming Halving? Yes, the increase in hash rate is often linked to the upcoming halving as miners upgrade their equipment and increase their computational power in anticipation of the reduced mining rewards.

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@ 9e69e420:d12360c2

A new report from the National Sports Shooting Foundation (NSSF) shows that civilian firearm possession exceeded 490 million in 2022. The total from 1990 to 2022 is estimated at 491.3 million firearms. In 2022, over ten million firearms were domestically produced, leading to a total of 16,045,911 firearms available in the U.S. market.

Of these, 9,873,136 were handguns, 4,195,192 were rifles, and 1,977,583 were shotguns. Handgun availability aligns with the concealed carry and self-defense market, as all states allow concealed carry, with 29 having constitutional carry laws.

@ f977c464:32fcbe00

Kendisini aynada ilk defa gördüğü o gün, diğerleri gibi olduğunu anlamıştı. Oysaki her insan biricik olmalıydı. Sözgelimi sinirlendiğinde bir kaşı diğerinden birkaç milimetre daha az çatılabilirdi veya sevindiğinde dudağı ona has bir açıyla dalgalanabilirdi. Hatta bunların hiçbiri mümkün değilse, en azından, gözlerinin içinde sadece onun sahip olabileceği bir ışık parlayabilirdi. Çok sıradan, öyle sıradan ki kimsenin fark etmediği o milyonlarca minik şeyden herhangi biri. Ne olursa.

Ama yansımasına bakarken bunların hiçbirini bulamadı ve diğer günlerden hiç de farklı başlamamış o gün, işe gitmek için vagonunun gelmesini beklediği alelade bir metro istasyonunda, içinde kaybolduğu illüzyon dağılmaya başladı.

İlk önce derisi döküldü. Tam olarak dökülmedi aslında, daha çok kıvılcımlara dönüşüp bedeninden fırlamış ve bir an sonra sönerek külleşmiş, havada dağılmıştı. Ardında da, kaybolmadan hemen önce, kısa süre için hayal meyal görülebilen, bir ruhun yok oluşuna ağıt yakan rengârenk peri cesetleri bırakmıştı. Beklenenin aksine, havaya toz kokusu yayıldı.

Dehşete düştü elbette. Dehşete düştüler. Panikle üstlerini yırtan 50 işçi. Her şeyin sebebiyse o vagon.

Saçları da döküldü. Her tel, yere varmadan önce, her santimde ikiye ayrıla ayrıla yok oldu.

Bütün yüzeylerin mat olduğu, hiçbir şeyin yansımadığı, suyun siyah aktığı ve kendine ancak kameralarla bakabildiğin bir dünyada, vagonun içine yerleştirilmiş bir aynadan ilk defa kendini görmek.

Gözlerinin akları buharlaşıp havada dağıldı, mercekleri boşalan yeri doldurmak için eriyip yayıldı. Gerçeği görmemek için yaratılmış, bu yüzden görmeye hazır olmayan ve hiç olmayacak gözler.

Her şeyin o anda sona erdiğini sanabilirdi insan. Derin bir karanlık ve ölüm. Görmenin görmek olduğu o anın bitişi.

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Ben geldiğimde ölmüşlerdi.

Yani bozulmuşlardı demek istiyorum.

Belleklerini yeni taşıyıcılara takmam mümkün olmadı. Fiziksel olarak kusursuz durumdaydılar, olmayanları da tamir edebilirdim ama tüm o hengamede kendilerini baştan programlamış ve girdilerini modifiye etmişlerdi.

Belleklerden birini masanın üzerinden ileriye savurdu. Hınca hınç dolu bir barda oturuyorlardı. O ve arkadaşı.

Sırf şu kendisini insan sanan androidler travma geçirip delirmesin diye neler yapıyoruz, insanın aklı almıyor.

Eliyle arkasını işaret etti.

Polislerin söylediğine göre biri vagonun içerisine ayna yerleştirmiş. Bu zavallılar da kapı açılıp bir anda yansımalarını görünce kafayı kırmışlar.

Arkadaşı bunların ona ne hissettirdiğini sordu. Yani o kadar bozuk, insan olduğunu sanan androidi kendilerini parçalamış olarak yerde görmek onu sarsmamış mıydı?

Hayır, sonuçta belirli bir amaç için yaratılmış şeyler onlar. Kaliteli bir bilgisayarım bozulduğunda üzülürüm çünkü parasını ben vermişimdir. Bunlarsa devletin. Bana ne ki?

Arkadaşı anlayışla kafasını sallayıp suyundan bir yudum aldı. Kravatını biraz gevşetti.

Bira istemediğinden emin misin?

İstemediğini söyledi. Sahi, neden deliriyordu bu androidler?

Basit. Onların yapay zekâlarını kodlarken bir şeyler yazıyorlar. Yazılımcılar. Biliyorsun, ben donanımdayım. Bunlar da kendilerini insan sanıyorlar. Tiplerine bak.

Sesini alçalttı.

Arabalarda kaza testi yapılan mankenlere benziyor hepsi. Ağızları burunları bile yok ama şu geldiğimizden beri sakalını düzeltip duruyor mesela. Hayır, hepsi de diğerleri onun sakalı varmış sanıyor, o manyak bir şey.

Arkadaşı bunun delirmeleriyle bağlantısını çözemediğini söyledi. O da normal sesiyle konuşmaya devam etti.

Anlasana, aynayı falan ayırt edemiyor mercekleri. Lönk diye kendilerini görüyorlar. Böyle, olduğu gibi...

Nedenmiş peki? Ne gerek varmış?

Ne bileyim be abicim! Ahiret soruları gibi.

Birasına bakarak dalıp gitti. Sonra masaya abanarak arkadaşına iyice yaklaştı. Bulanık, bir tünelin ucundaki biri gibi, şekli şemalı belirsiz bir adam.

Ben seni nereden tanıyorum ki ulan? Kimsin sen?

Belleği makineden çıkardılar. İki kişiydiler. Soruşturmadan sorumlu memurlar.

─ Baştan mı başlıyoruz, diye sordu belleği elinde tutan ilk memur.

─ Bir kere daha deneyelim ama bu sefer direkt aynayı sorarak başla, diye cevapladı ikinci memur.

─ Bence de. Yeterince düzgün çalışıyor.

Simülasyon yüklenirken, ayakta, biraz arkada duran ve alnını kaşıyan ikinci memur sormaktan kendisini alamadı:

─ Bu androidleri niye böyle bir olay yerine göndermişler ki? Belli tost olacakları. İsraf. Gidip biz baksak aynayı kırıp delilleri mahvetmek zorunda da kalmazlar.

Diğer memur sandalyesinde hafifçe dönecek oldu, o sırada soruyu bilgisayarın hoparlöründen teknisyen cevapladı.

Hangi işimizde bir yamukluk yok ki be abi.

---

Ama bir son değildi. Üstlerindeki tüm illüzyon dağıldığında ve çıplak, cinsiyetsiz, birbirinin aynı bedenleriyle kaldıklarında sıra dünyaya gelmişti.

Yere düştüler. Elleri -bütün bedeni gibi siyah turmalinden, boğumları çelikten- yere değdiği anda, metronun zemini dağıldı.

Yerdeki karolar öncesinde beyazdı ve çok parlaktı. Tepelerindeki floresan, ışığını olduğu gibi yansıtıyor, tek bir lekenin olmadığı ve tek bir tozun uçmadığı istasyonu aydınlatıyorlardı.

Duvarlara duyurular asılmıştı. Örneğin, yarın akşam kültür merkezinde 20.00’da başlayacak bir tekno blues festivalinin cıvıl cıvıl afişi vardı. Onun yanında daha geniş, sarı puntolu harflerle yazılmış, yatay siyah kesiklerle çerçevesi çizilmiş, bir platformdan düşen çöp adamın bulunduğu “Dikkat! Sarı bandı geçmeyin!” uyarısı. Biraz ilerisinde günlük resmi gazete, onun ilerisinde bir aksiyon filminin ve başka bir romantik komedi filminin afişleri, yapılacakların ve yapılmayacakların söylendiği küçük puntolu çeşitli duyurular... Duvar uzayıp giden bir panoydu. On, on beş metrede bir tekrarlanıyordu.

Tüm istasyonun eni yüz metre kadar. Genişliği on metre civarı.

Önlerinde, açık kapısından o mendebur aynanın gözüktüğü vagon duruyordu. Metro, istasyona sığmayacak kadar uzundu. Bir kılıcın keskinliğiyle uzanıyor ama yer yer vagonların ek yerleriyle bölünüyordu.

Hiçbir vagonda pencere olmadığı için metronun içi, içlerindekiler meçhuldü.

Sonrasında karolar zerrelerine ayrılarak yükseldi. Floresanın ışığında her yeri toza boğdular ve ortalığı gri bir sisin altına gömdüler. Çok kısa bir an. Afişleri dalgalandırmadılar. Dalgalandırmaya vakitleri olmadı. Yerlerinden söküp aldılar en fazla. Işık birkaç kere sönüp yanarak direndi. Son kez söndüğünde bir daha geri gelmedi.

Yine de etraf aydınlıktı. Kırmızı, her yere eşit dağılan soluk bir ışıkla.

Yer tamamen tele dönüşmüştü. Altında çapraz hatlarla desteklenmiş demir bir iskelet. Işık birkaç metreden daha fazla aşağıya uzanamıyordu. Sonsuzluğa giden bir uçurum.

Duvarın yerini aynı teller ve demir iskelet almıştı. Arkasında, birbirine vidalarla tutturulmuş demir plakalardan oluşan, üstünden geçen boruların ek yerlerinden bazen ince buharların çıktığı ve bir süre asılı kaldıktan sonra ağır, yağlı bir havayla sürüklendiği bir koridor.

Diğer tarafta paslanmış, pencerelerindeki camlar kırıldığı için demir plakalarla kapatılmış külüstür bir metro. Kapının karşısındaki aynadan her şey olduğu gibi yansıyordu.

---

Bir konteynırın içini andıran bir evde, gerçi gayet de birbirine eklenmiş konteynırlardan oluşan bir şehirde “andıran” demek doğru olmayacağı için düpedüz bir konteynırın içinde, masaya mum görüntüsü vermek için koyulmuş, yarı katı yağ atıklarından şekillendirilmiş kütleleri yakmayı deniyordu. Kafasında hayvan kıllarından yapılmış grili siyahlı bir peruk. Aynı kıllardan kendisine gür bir bıyık da yapmıştı.

Üstünde mavi çöp poşetlerinden yapılmış, kravatlı, şık bir takım.

Masanın ayakları yerine oradan buradan çıkmış parçalar konulmuştu: bir arabanın şaft mili, üst üste konulmuş ve üstünde yazı okunamayan tenekeler, boş kitaplar, boş gazete balyaları... Hiçbir şeye yazı yazılmıyordu, gerek yoktu da zaten çünkü merkez veri bankası onları fark ettirmeden, merceklerden giren veriyi sentezleyerek insanlar için dolduruyordu. Yani, androidler için. Farklı şekilde isimlendirmek bir fark yaratacaksa.

Onların mercekleri için değil. Bağlantıları çok önceden kopmuştu.

─ Hayatım, sofra hazır, diye bağırdı yatak odasındaki karısına.

Sofrada tabak yerine düz, bardak yerine bükülmüş, çatal ve bıçak yerine sivriltilmiş plakalar.

Karısı salonun kapısında durakladı ve ancak kulaklarına kadar uzanan, kocasınınkine benzeyen, cansız, ölü hayvanların kıllarından ibaret peruğunu eliyle düzeltti. Dudağını, daha doğrusu dudağının olması gereken yeri koyu kırmızı bir yağ tabakasıyla renklendirmeyi denemişti. Biraz da yanaklarına sürmüştü.

─ Nasıl olmuş, diye sordu.

Sesi tek düzeydi ama hafif bir neşe olduğunu hissettiğinize yemin edebilirdiniz.

Üzerinde, çöp poşetlerinin içini yazısız gazete kağıtlarıyla doldurarak yaptığı iki parça giysi.

─ Çok güzelsin, diyerek kravatını düzeltti kocası.

─ Sen de öylesin, sevgilim.

Yaklaşıp kocasını öptü. Kocası da onu. Sonra nazikçe elinden tutarak, sandalyesini geriye çekerek oturmasına yardım etti.

Sofrada yemek niyetine hiçbir şey yoktu. Gerek de yoktu zaten.

Konteynırın kapısı gürültüyle tekmelenip içeri iki memur girene kadar birbirlerine öyküler anlattılar. O gün neler yaptıklarını. İşten erken çıkıp yemyeşil çimenlerde gezdiklerini, uçurtma uçurduklarını, kadının nasıl o elbiseyi bulmak için saatlerce gezip yorulduğunu, kocasının kısa süreliğine işe dönüp nasıl başarılı bir hamleyle yaşanan krizi çözdüğünü ve kadının yanına döndükten sonra, alışveriş merkezinde oturdukları yeni dondurmacının dondurmalarının ne kadar lezzetli olduğunu, boğazlarının ağrımasından korktuklarını...

Akşam film izleyebilirlerdi, televizyonda -boş ve mat bir plaka- güzel bir film oynayacaktı.

İki memur. Çıplak bedenleriyle birbirinin aynı. Ellerindeki silahları onlara doğrultmuşlardı. Mum ışığında, tertemiz bir örtünün serili olduğu masada, bardaklarında şaraplarla oturan ve henüz sofranın ortasındaki hindiye dokunmamış çifti gördüklerinde bocaladılar.

Hiç de androidlere bilinçli olarak zarar verebilecek gibi gözükmüyorlardı.

─ Sessiz kalma hakkına sahipsiniz, diye bağırdı içeri giren ikinci memur. Söylediğiniz her şey...

Cümlesini bitiremedi. Yatak odasındaki, masanın üzerinden gördüğü o şey, onunla aynı hareketleri yapan android, yoksa, bir aynadaki yansıması mıydı?

Bütün illüzyon o anda dağılmaya başladı.

Not: Bu öykü ilk olarak 2020 yılında Esrarengiz Hikâyeler'de yayımlanmıştır.

@ 6389be64:ef439d32

Black Locust can grow up to 170 ft tall

Grows 3-4 ft. per year

Native to North America

Cold hardy in zones 3 to 8

Firewood

• BLT wood, on a pound for pound basis is roughly half that of Anthracite Coal
• Since its growth is fast, firewood can be plentiful

Timber

• Rot resistant due to a naturally produced robinin in the wood
  • 100 year life span in full soil contact! (better than cedar performance)
  • Fence posts
  • Outdoor furniture
  • Outdoor decking
• Sustainable due to its fast growth and spread
  • Can be coppiced (cut to the ground)
  • Can be pollarded (cut above ground)
• Its dense wood makes durable tool handles, boxes (tool), and furniture
  • The wood is tougher than hickory, which is tougher than hard maple, which is tougher than oak.
  • A very low rate of expansion and contraction
  • Hardwood flooring
  • The highest tensile beam strength of any American tree
• The wood is beautiful

Legume

• Nitrogen fixer
  • Fixes the same amount of nitrogen per acre as is needed for 200-bushel/acre corn
  • Black walnuts inter-planted with locust as “nurse” trees were shown to rapidly increase their growth [[Clark, Paul M., and Robert D. Williams. (1978) Black walnut growth increased when interplanted with nitrogen-fixing shrubs and trees. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science, vol. 88, pp. 88-91.]]

Bees

• The edible flower clusters are also a top food source for honey bees

Shade Provider

• Its light, airy overstory provides dappled shade
  • Planted on the west side of a garden it provides relief during the hottest part of the day
  • (nitrogen provider)
  • Planted on the west side of a house, its quick growth soon shades that side from the sun

Wind-break

• Fast growth plus it's feathery foliage reduces wind for animals, crops, and shelters

Fodder

• Over 20% crude protein
• 4.1 kcal/g of energy
• Baertsche, S.R, M.T. Yokoyama, and J.W. Hanover (1986) Short rotation, hardwood tree biomass as potential ruminant feed-chemical composition, nylon bag ruminal degradation and ensilement of selected species. J. Animal Sci. 63 2028-2043

@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

Embarking on the journey of operating your own Lightning node on the Bitcoin Layer 2 network is more than just a tech-savvy endeavor; it's a step into a realm of financial autonomy and cutting-edge innovation. By running a node, you become a vital part of a revolutionary movement that's reshaping how we think about money and digital transactions. This role not only offers a unique perspective on blockchain technology but also places you at the heart of a community dedicated to decentralization and network resilience. Beyond the technicalities, it's about embracing a new era of digital finance, where you contribute directly to the network's security, efficiency, and growth, all while gaining personal satisfaction and potentially lucrative rewards.

In essence, running your own Lightning node is a powerful way to engage with the forefront of blockchain technology, assert financial independence, and contribute to a more decentralized and efficient Bitcoin network. It's an adventure that offers both personal and communal benefits, from gaining in-depth tech knowledge to earning a place in the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency.

Running your own Lightning node for the Bitcoin Layer 2 network can be an empowering and beneficial endeavor. Here are 10 reasons why you might consider taking on this task:

1. Direct Contribution to Decentralization: Operating a node is a direct action towards decentralizing the Bitcoin network, crucial for its security and resistance to control or censorship by any single entity.

2. Financial Autonomy: Owning a node gives you complete control over your financial transactions on the network, free from reliance on third-party services, which can be subject to fees, restrictions, or outages.

3. Advanced Network Participation: As a node operator, you're not just a passive participant but an active player in shaping the network, influencing its efficiency and scalability through direct involvement.

4. Potential for Higher Revenue: With strategic management and optimal channel funding, your node can become a preferred route for transactions, potentially increasing the routing fees you can earn.

5. Cutting-Edge Technological Engagement: Running a node puts you at the forefront of blockchain and bitcoin technology, offering insights into future developments and innovations.

6. Strengthened Network Security: Each new node adds to the robustness of the Bitcoin network, making it more resilient against attacks and failures, thus contributing to the overall security of the ecosystem.

7. Personalized Fee Structures: You have the flexibility to set your own fee policies, which can balance earning potential with the service you provide to the network.

8. Empowerment Through Knowledge: The process of setting up and managing a node provides deep learning opportunities, empowering you with knowledge that can be applied in various areas of blockchain and fintech.

9. Boosting Transaction Capacity: By running a node, you help to increase the overall capacity of the Lightning Network, enabling more transactions to be processed quickly and at lower costs.

10. Community Leadership and Reputation: As an active node operator, you gain recognition within the Bitcoin community, which can lead to collaborative opportunities and a position of thought leadership in the space.

These reasons demonstrate the impactful and transformative nature of running a Lightning node, appealing to those who are deeply invested in the principles of bitcoin and wish to actively shape its future. Jump aboard, and embrace the journey toward full independence. 🐶🐾🫡🚀🚀🚀

@ 91bea5cd:1df4451c

Novia é uma ferramenta inovadora que facilita o arquivamento de vídeos e sua integração com a rede NOSTR (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted over Relay). Funcionando como uma ponte entre ferramentas de arquivamento de vídeo tradicionais e a plataforma descentralizada, Novia oferece uma solução autônoma para a preservação e compartilhamento de conteúdo audiovisual.

Arquitetura e Funcionamento

A arquitetura de Novia é dividida em duas partes principais:

• Frontend: Atua como a interface do usuário, responsável por solicitar o arquivamento de vídeos. Essas solicitações são encaminhadas para o backend.

• Backend: Processa as solicitações de arquivamento, baixando o vídeo, suas descrições e a imagem de capa associada. Este componente é conectado a um ou mais relays NOSTR, permitindo a indexação e descoberta do conteúdo arquivado.

O processo de arquivamento é automatizado: após o download, o vídeo fica disponível no frontend para que o usuário possa solicitar o upload para um servidor Blossom de sua escolha.

Como Utilizar Novia

1. Acesso: Navegue até https://npub126uz2g6ft45qs0m0rnvtvtp7glcfd23pemrzz0wnt8r5vlhr9ufqnsmvg8.nsite.lol.

2. Login: Utilize uma extensão de navegador compatível com NOSTR para autenticar-se.

3. Execução via Docker: A forma mais simples de executar o backend é através de um container Docker. Execute o seguinte comando:

   bash docker run -it --rm -p 9090:9090 -v ./nostr/data:/data --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway teamnovia/novia

   Este comando cria um container, mapeia a porta 9090 para o host e monta o diretório ./nostr/data para persistir os dados.

Configuração Avançada

Novia oferece amplas opções de configuração através de um arquivo yaml. Abaixo, um exemplo comentado:

```yaml mediaStores: - id: media type: local path: /data/media watch: true

database: /data/novia.db

download: enabled: true ytdlpPath: yt-dlp ytdlpCookies: ./cookies.txt tempPath: /tmp targetStoreId: media secret: false

publish: enabled: true key: nsec thumbnailUpload: - https://nostr.download videoUpload: - url: https://nostr.download maxUploadSizeMB: 300 cleanUpMaxAgeDays: 5 cleanUpKeepSizeUnderMB: 2 - url: https://files.v0l.io maxUploadSizeMB: 300 cleanUpMaxAgeDays: 5 cleanUpKeepSizeUnderMB: 2 - url: https://nosto.re maxUploadSizeMB: 300 cleanUpMaxAgeDays: 5 cleanUpKeepSizeUnderMB: 2 - url: https://blossom.primal.net maxUploadSizeMB: 300 cleanUpMaxAgeDays: 5 cleanUpKeepSizeUnderMB: 2

relays: - ws://host.docker.internal:4869 - wss://bostr.bitcointxoko.com secret: false autoUpload: enabled: true maxVideoSizeMB: 100

fetch: enabled: false fetchVideoLimitMB: 10 relays: - match: - nostr - bitcoin

server: port: 9090 enabled: true ```

Explicação das Configurações:

• mediaStores: Define onde os arquivos de mídia serão armazenados (localmente, neste exemplo).
• database: Especifica o local do banco de dados.
• download: Controla as configurações de download de vídeos, incluindo o caminho para o yt-dlp e um arquivo de cookies para autenticação.
• publish: Configura a publicação de vídeos e thumbnails no NOSTR, incluindo a chave privada (nsec), servidores de upload e relays. Atenção: Mantenha sua chave privada em segredo.
• fetch: Permite buscar eventos de vídeo de relays NOSTR para arquivamento.
• server: Define as configurações do servidor web interno de Novia.

Conclusão

Novia surge como uma ferramenta promissora para o arquivamento e a integração de vídeos com o ecossistema NOSTR. Sua arquitetura modular, combinada com opções de configuração flexíveis, a tornam uma solução poderosa para usuários que buscam preservar e compartilhar conteúdo audiovisual de forma descentralizada e resistente à censura. A utilização de Docker simplifica a implantação e o gerenciamento da ferramenta. Para obter mais informações e explorar o código-fonte, visite o repositório do projeto no GitHub: https://github.com/teamnovia/novia.

@ 17538dc2:71ed77c4

Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes:

“We cannot explain everything. We know more about what something is not than what something is. If there would have been no word for colour blue, it would still have existed in reality. It would only have been absent in linguistics. But since we don’t have a word for it, we couldn’t define or comprehend it. But we still could say what it is not. It is not orange. It’s not an elephant, etc. This method of knowledge is truer and more rigorous than positive knowledge.”

In this article, I introduce practical examples of how to apply via negativa to various systems.

Recommended reading is Antifragile by N. N. Taleb.

The basic template is as follows:

What is ____ not?

Let's start with something every human should be familiar with - food.

Food

Take hot pockets. Is hot pockets food?

What is not food?

To answer this question, let's examine the contents of hot pockets.

There seem to be chemistry lab sounding ingredients ("MEDIUM CHAIN TRIGLYCERIES", "SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE"), as well as food items that your great-great-great-great-great-great grandma cooked with ("SALT", "BEEF" etc.)

So What happens when we apply via negativa to the ingredients?

From 30 "ingredients" we deduce a couple foood items, or a ~90% reduction in "ingredients" by eliminating processed food slop.

meat good

bread yum

Free Discourse

Take the social media platform X.

X consists of: leased identity, censored speech, and a tech platform for discourse. On the roadmap is social media score that will be used to determine if you can pay your bills when X launches its' bank.

What is free discourse not?

Removing the ingredient of WEF,

KYC lease hell

and censorship

we receive nostr .

Nostr, to my best understanding, is not a WEF globo-homo participant, does not lease identities, and it is that much more difficult to censor wrongspeak (e.g. Netanyahu and friends are commiting genocide, and wanted as war criminals; there are two genders; there is no climate crisis; Ivermectin works).

Automobiles

Modern automobiles can be summed up in two words: "safety", and constant surveillance. Yes, advancements in safety are great - e.g. airbags, seatbelts, car frames that absorb impact energy.

However the "its for your safety" component of remote shutdown, remote control, location data selling to data brokers, insurance agents, and your local surveillance outfit is gulag tech.

!(image)[https://image.nostr.build/15befd30113614dad3fd7aac01b8771b95bd8ace9186ed4f8016eec6e886e969.jpg]

So what happens when we remove the gulag tech out of cars? That is, what is not a car?

Let's use the following definition of car:

``` A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels

```

Let's use the following definition of gulag:

``` The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.

```

You get the 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser. No gulag. Airbags. Push and turn knobs. No spying, no remote control, no cameras, no satellite, no bluetooth, no wi-fi.

As an aside, it is practically impossible to import this car to the US. It's "for your safety", and "for the environment", of course.

!(image)[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Toyota_Land_Cruiser_16.09.20_JM_%283%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/800px-Toyota_Land_Cruiser_16.09.20_JM_%283%29_%28cropped%29.jpg]?20210328155727

Toyota Landcruiser HZJ-79 Double Cab, Johannes Maximilian https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toyota_Land_Cruiser_16.09.20_JM_(3)_(cropped).jpg).

Hopefully this guide has been helpful illustrating how simple and powerful it is to apply the Via Negativa approach.

Mr. Taleb, I commend you on speaking out on the Palestine genocide. I invite you to and hope one day you join anti-fragile nostr.

@ fd06f542:8d6d54cd

• 多模态感知与交互：具身智能强调智能体通过身体与环境的交互来学习，这推动了多模态感知（如视觉、触觉、听觉等）和物理交互技术的发展。

• 强化学习与仿真环境：强化学习在具身智能中扮演重要角色，结合高保真仿真环境（如AI Habitat、Unity ML-Agents），可以加速智能体的训练和优化。

• 硬件进步：机器人硬件（如柔性传感器、仿生机械臂）的发展为具身智能提供了更强大的物理载体。

以上部分每一个都是大分支，都具有研究价值。随着AI技术的发展与突破，多模态感知与交互将会迎来高速发展。

让人更兴奋的是 强化学习和仿真环境，REX-GYM 是一个开源的仿真环境，Gazebo，MuJoCo，AI Habitat 等等都有很多应用实例。仅仅这一部分技术拆分细化，就有很多工作可以做。 以前的机器人学习都是PID等老技术，那时候的机器人运动不太灵活，因为不够智能。有了现代的强化学习。现在的机器人更加灵活。

@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

Chef's notes

Serving these two dishes together will create a delightful centerpiece for your Thanksgiving meal, offering a perfect blend of traditional flavors with a homemade touch.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 30 min
• 🍳 Cook time: 1 - 2 hours
• 🍽️ Servings: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 whole turkey (about 12-14 lbs), thawed and ready to cook
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh sage, chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 onion, quartered
• 1 lemon, halved
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• Apple and Sage Stuffing
• 1 loaf of crusty bread, cut into cubes
• 2 apples, cored and chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup fresh sage, chopped
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups chicken broth
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the Oven: Set your oven to 325°F (165°C).
2. Prepare the Herb Butter: Mix the softened butter with the chopped thyme, rosemary, and sage. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Prepare the Turkey: Remove any giblets from the turkey and pat it dry. Loosen the skin and spread a generous amount of herb butter under and over the skin.
4. Add Aromatics: Inside the turkey cavity, place the quartered onion, lemon halves, and garlic cloves.
5. Roast: Place the turkey in a roasting pan. Tent with aluminum foil and roast. A general guideline is about 15 minutes per pound, or until the internal temperature reaches 165°F (74°C) at the thickest part of the thigh.
6. Rest and Serve: Let the turkey rest for at least 20 minutes before carving.
7. Next: Apple and Sage Stuffing
8. Dry the Bread: Spread the bread cubes on a baking sheet and let them dry overnight, or toast them in the oven.
9. Cook the Vegetables: In a large skillet, melt the butter and cook the onion, celery, and garlic until soft.
10. Combine Ingredients: Add the apples, sage, and bread cubes to the skillet. Stir in the chicken broth until the mixture is moist. Season with salt and pepper.
11. Bake: Transfer the stuffing to a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30-40 minutes, until golden brown on top.

@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

Testing a brand new YakiHonne native client for iOS. Smooth as butter (not penis butter 🤣🍆🧈) with great visual experience and intuitive navigation. Amazing work by the team behind it! * lists * work

Bold text work!

Images could have used nostr.build instead of raw S3 from us-east-1 region.

Very impressive! You can even save the draft and continue later, before posting the long-form note!

🐶🐾🤯🤯🤯🫂💜

@ 54286b98:3debc100

Hello! Three years ago, I created a special bed for my daughter. I'm thrilled to share a detailed video and PDF documenting the process along with hopes to inspire you to embark on a similar project!

***This is a first and also a test to see how I can upload #woodworking material on Nostr. I am not sure how the links, images, and PDFs will display, so hopefully, you get some interesting material for your late afternoon hobby shop. But don’t kill me if some images do not render well—I’m still figuring this thing out!

Montessori Bed Plans / Blueprints

The accompanying PDF includes:

• All measurements
• Detailed views from every angle
• Final measurements part list
• Assembly steps

Instructive Video! Process on how to make the Montessori bed

Video Here:

https://vimeo.com/901623772/b8b5530386

PDF Here(Picture below,and if some one has good tip on how to inset PDFs in Nostr, that feedback is welcome, to avoid Google links):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zCp1RvKOynx5kZxixAKSFLLOe8atyiRH/

OK, let's dive in!

The Montessori bed featured in this video is not only simple but also durable, and you can create it on a budget right in your own home.OK, let's dive in!

Tools by hand:

• Circular saw
• Jointer Plane #7 or #8
• Spokeshave
• Workbench
• Handsaw
• Orbital sander
• Sandpaper #80, #120, #220, and #320
• Odies Oil or your preferred finish.

If you have power tools:

• Table Saw
• Jointer
• Planer
• Trimmer

Materials:\ I recommend using this list as a guide and exploring options with your local supplier.

• Base long connector (On picture "Larguero Base"): Quantity x 2, 2195mm x 75mm x 75mm
• Base short connector (On picture "Conector Base"): Quantity x 1, 1090mm x 75mm x 75mm
• Roof connector (On picture "Cumbre"): Quantity x 1, 1946mm x 75mm x 75mm
• Long top triangle connector (On picture "Conector Superior"): Quantity x 2, 1322mm x 75mm x 75mm
• Columns/Legs (On picture "Paral"): Quantity x 4, 1210mm x 75mm x 75mm
• Short top triangle connector (On picture "Lima"): Quantity x 4, 851mm x 75mm x 75mm

Step #1 Dimensioning (Minutes 0:00 - 1:15):\ We kick off with dimensioning. While I initially planned to use my home workshop, unforeseen circumstances led me to my friend Andrew's workshop. Each beam was carefully brought down to 7.5 cm x 7.5 cm, ensuring the largest measurement that worked for all.

Step #2 Final Measurements (No video):\ Refer to the provided PDF for final measurements. Make the cuts and joints with a circular saw and chisels (or a router).

Step #3 Edges (Minutes 1:15 - 1:30):\ Use a router with a quarter-round bit for curved and smooth edges or achieve the same result with sandpaper or a spokeshave plane.

Step #4 Triangular Bases (Minutes 1:30 - 6:30):\ This step involves gluing the triangular bases of the bed, utilizing a miter joint with wooden inlay keys. Epoxy is employed for joining, ensuring a swift and reliable outcome.

Step #5 Legs (Minutes 6:30 - 7:00):\ Create holes for the upper triangular base's dowels, ensuring level placement and extra depth. This step guarantees a secure fit.

Step #6 Sanding (Minutes 7:00 - 7:30):\ Comprehensive sanding, starting from #80 grit and progressing through #120, #220, and #320, sets the stage for a flawless finish.

Step #7 Dry Assembly (Minutes 7:30 - 9:10):\ Dry-assemble all components, making necessary adjustments for a seamless fit. We opted for wood screws for easy disassembly.

Step #8 Finishing (Minutes 9:10 - 9:35):\ Apply your preferred finish; in our case, we used Odies Oil with white pigment for a child-friendly touch.

Step #9 Final Assembly (Minutes 9:35 - 10:32):\ With the finishing touches completed, we assembled the bed with the help of my daughter, adding a touch of warmth with some lights.

Testing with this simple project to at least know if there are woodworkers in #nostr. Later will try to upload more, this was created almost 3 years ago :)

Until the next one,

J\ \ PDF in pictures:

@ 6389be64:ef439d32

Bitcoin is more than money, more than an asset, and more than a store of value. Bitcoin is a Prime Mover, an enabler and it ignites imaginations. It certainly fueled an idea in my mind. The idea integrates sensors, computational prowess, actuated machinery, power conversion, and electronic communications to form an autonomous, machined creature roaming forests and harvesting the most widespread and least energy-dense fuel source available. I call it the Forest Walker and it eats wood, and mines Bitcoin.

I know what you're thinking. Why not just put Bitcoin mining rigs where they belong: in a hosted facility sporting electricity from energy-dense fuels like natural gas, climate-controlled with excellent data piping in and out? Why go to all the trouble building a robot that digests wood creating flammable gasses fueling an engine to run a generator powering Bitcoin miners? It's all about synergy.

Bitcoin mining enables the realization of multiple, seemingly unrelated, yet useful activities. Activities considered un-profitable if not for Bitcoin as the Prime Mover. This is much more than simply mining the greatest asset ever conceived by humankind. It’s about the power of synergy, which Bitcoin plays only one of many roles. The synergy created by this system can stabilize forests' fire ecology while generating multiple income streams. That’s the realistic goal here and requires a brief history of American Forest management before continuing.

Smokey The Bear

In 1944, the Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention Campaign began in the United States. “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” remains the refrain of the Ad Council’s longest running campaign. The Ad Council is a U.S. non-profit set up by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers in 1942. It would seem that the U.S. Department of the Interior was concerned about pesky forest fires and wanted them to stop. So, alongside a national policy of extreme fire suppression they enlisted the entire U.S. population to get onboard via the Ad Council and it worked. Forest fires were almost obliterated and everyone was happy, right? Wrong.

Smokey is a fantastically successful bear so forest fires became so few for so long that the fuel load - dead wood - in forests has become very heavy. So heavy that when a fire happens (and they always happen) it destroys everything in its path because the more fuel there is the hotter that fire becomes. Trees, bushes, shrubs, and all other plant life cannot escape destruction (not to mention homes and businesses). The soil microbiology doesn’t escape either as it is burned away even in deeper soils. To add insult to injury, hydrophobic waxy residues condense on the soil surface, forcing water to travel over the ground rather than through it eroding forest soils. Good job, Smokey. Well done, Sir!

Most terrestrial ecologies are “fire ecologies”. Fire is a part of these systems’ fuel load and pest management. Before we pretended to “manage” millions of acres of forest, fires raged over the world, rarely damaging forests. The fuel load was always too light to generate fires hot enough to moonscape mountainsides. Fires simply burned off the minor amounts of fuel accumulated since the fire before. The lighter heat, smoke, and other combustion gasses suppressed pests, keeping them in check and the smoke condensed into a plant growth accelerant called wood vinegar, not a waxy cap on the soil. These fires also cleared out weak undergrowth, cycled minerals, and thinned the forest canopy, allowing sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor. Without a fire’s heat, many pine tree species can’t sow their seed. The heat is required to open the cones (the seed bearing structure) of Spruce, Cypress, Sequoia, Jack Pine, Lodgepole Pine and many more. Without fire forests can’t have babies. The idea was to protect the forests, and it isn't working.

So, in a world of fire, what does an ally look like and what does it do?

Meet The Forest Walker

For the Forest Walker to work as a mobile, autonomous unit, a solid platform that can carry several hundred pounds is required. It so happens this chassis already exists but shelved.

Introducing the Legged Squad Support System (LS3). A joint project between Boston Dynamics, DARPA, and the United States Marine Corps, the quadrupedal robot is the size of a cow, can carry 400 pounds (180 kg) of equipment, negotiate challenging terrain, and operate for 24 hours before needing to refuel. Yes, it had an engine. Abandoned in 2015, the thing was too noisy for military deployment and maintenance "under fire" is never a high-quality idea. However, we can rebuild it to act as a platform for the Forest Walker; albeit with serious alterations. It would need to be bigger, probably. Carry more weight? Definitely. Maybe replace structural metal with carbon fiber and redesign much as 3D printable parts for more effective maintenance.

The original system has a top operational speed of 8 miles per hour. For our purposes, it only needs to move about as fast as a grazing ruminant. Without the hammering vibrations of galloping into battle, shocks of exploding mortars, and drunken soldiers playing "Wrangler of Steel Machines", time between failures should be much longer and the overall energy consumption much lower. The LS3 is a solid platform to build upon. Now it just needs to be pulled out of the mothballs, and completely refitted with outboard equipment.

The Small Branch Chipper

When I say “Forest fuel load” I mean the dead, carbon containing litter on the forest floor. Duff (leaves), fine-woody debris (small branches), and coarse woody debris (logs) are the fuel that feeds forest fires. Walk through any forest in the United States today and you will see quite a lot of these materials. Too much, as I have described. Some of these fuel loads can be 8 tons per acre in pine and hardwood forests and up to 16 tons per acre at active logging sites. That’s some big wood and the more that collects, the more combustible danger to the forest it represents. It also provides a technically unlimited fuel supply for the Forest Walker system.

The problem is that this detritus has to be chewed into pieces that are easily ingestible by the system for the gasification process (we’ll get to that step in a minute). What we need is a wood chipper attached to the chassis (the LS3); its “mouth”.

A small wood chipper handling material up to 2.5 - 3.0 inches (6.3 - 7.6 cm) in diameter would eliminate a substantial amount of fuel. There is no reason for Forest Walker to remove fallen trees. It wouldn’t have to in order to make a real difference. It need only identify appropriately sized branches and grab them. Once loaded into the chipper’s intake hopper for further processing, the beast can immediately look for more “food”. This is essentially kindling that would help ignite larger logs. If it’s all consumed by Forest Walker, then it’s not present to promote an aggravated conflagration.

I have glossed over an obvious question: How does Forest Walker see and identify branches and such? LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) attached to Forest Walker images the local area and feed those data to onboard computers for processing. Maybe AI plays a role. Maybe simple machine learning can do the trick. One thing is for certain: being able to identify a stick and cause robotic appendages to pick it up is not impossible.

Great! We now have a quadrupedal robot autonomously identifying and “eating” dead branches and other light, combustible materials. Whilst strolling through the forest, depleting future fires of combustibles, Forest Walker has already performed a major function of this system: making the forest safer. It's time to convert this low-density fuel into a high-density fuel Forest Walker can leverage. Enter the gasification process.

The Gassifier

The gasifier is the heart of the entire system; it’s where low-density fuel becomes the high-density fuel that powers the entire system. Biochar and wood vinegar are process wastes and I’ll discuss why both are powerful soil amendments in a moment, but first, what’s gasification?

Reacting shredded carbonaceous material at high temperatures in a low or no oxygen environment converts the biomass into biochar, wood vinegar, heat, and Synthesis Gas (Syngas). Syngas consists primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane. All of which are extremely useful fuels in a gaseous state. Part of this gas is used to heat the input biomass and keep the reaction temperature constant while the internal combustion engine that drives the generator to produce electrical power consumes the rest.

Critically, this gasification process is “continuous feed”. Forest Walker must intake biomass from the chipper, process it to fuel, and dump the waste (CO2, heat, biochar, and wood vinegar) continuously. It cannot stop. Everything about this system depends upon this continual grazing, digestion, and excretion of wastes just as a ruminal does. And, like a ruminant, all waste products enhance the local environment.

When I first heard of gasification, I didn’t believe that it was real. Running an electric generator from burning wood seemed more akin to “conspiracy fantasy” than science. Not only is gasification real, it’s ancient technology. A man named Dean Clayton first started experiments on gasification in 1699 and in 1901 gasification was used to power a vehicle. By the end of World War II, there were 500,000 Syngas powered vehicles in Germany alone because of fossil fuel rationing during the war. The global gasification market was $480 billion in 2022 and projected to be as much as $700 billion by 2030 (Vantage Market Research). Gasification technology is the best choice to power the Forest Walker because it’s self-contained and we want its waste products.

Biochar: The Waste

Biochar (AKA agricultural charcoal) is fairly simple: it’s almost pure, solid carbon that resembles charcoal. Its porous nature packs large surface areas into small, 3 dimensional nuggets. Devoid of most other chemistry, like hydrocarbons (methane) and ash (minerals), biochar is extremely lightweight. Do not confuse it with the charcoal you buy for your grill. Biochar doesn’t make good grilling charcoal because it would burn too rapidly as it does not contain the multitude of flammable components that charcoal does. Biochar has several other good use cases. Water filtration, water retention, nutrient retention, providing habitat for microscopic soil organisms, and carbon sequestration are the main ones that we are concerned with here.

Carbon has an amazing ability to adsorb (substances stick to and accumulate on the surface of an object) manifold chemistries. Water, nutrients, and pollutants tightly bind to carbon in this format. So, biochar makes a respectable filter and acts as a “battery” of water and nutrients in soils. Biochar adsorbs and holds on to seven times its weight in water. Soil containing biochar is more drought resilient than soil without it. Adsorbed nutrients, tightly sequestered alongside water, get released only as plants need them. Plants must excrete protons (H+) from their roots to disgorge water or positively charged nutrients from the biochar's surface; it's an active process.

Biochar’s surface area (where adsorption happens) can be 500 square meters per gram or more. That is 10% larger than an official NBA basketball court for every gram of biochar. Biochar’s abundant surface area builds protective habitats for soil microbes like fungi and bacteria and many are critical for the health and productivity of the soil itself.

The “carbon sequestration” component of biochar comes into play where “carbon credits” are concerned. There is a financial market for carbon. Not leveraging that market for revenue is foolish. I am climate agnostic. All I care about is that once solid carbon is inside the soil, it will stay there for thousands of years, imparting drought resiliency, fertility collection, nutrient buffering, and release for that time span. I simply want as much solid carbon in the soil because of the undeniably positive effects it has, regardless of any climactic considerations.

Wood Vinegar: More Waste

Another by-product of the gasification process is wood vinegar (Pyroligneous acid). If you have ever seen Liquid Smoke in the grocery store, then you have seen wood vinegar. Principally composed of acetic acid, acetone, and methanol wood vinegar also contains ~200 other organic compounds. It would seem intuitive that condensed, liquefied wood smoke would at least be bad for the health of all living things if not downright carcinogenic. The counter intuition wins the day, however. Wood vinegar has been used by humans for a very long time to promote digestion, bowel, and liver health; combat diarrhea and vomiting; calm peptic ulcers and regulate cholesterol levels; and a host of other benefits.

For centuries humans have annually burned off hundreds of thousands of square miles of pasture, grassland, forest, and every other conceivable terrestrial ecosystem. Why is this done? After every burn, one thing becomes obvious: the almost supernatural growth these ecosystems exhibit after the burn. How? Wood vinegar is a component of this growth. Even in open burns, smoke condenses and infiltrates the soil. That is when wood vinegar shows its quality.

This stuff beefs up not only general plant growth but seed germination as well and possesses many other qualities that are beneficial to plants. It’s a pesticide, fungicide, promotes beneficial soil microorganisms, enhances nutrient uptake, and imparts disease resistance. I am barely touching a long list of attributes here, but you want wood vinegar in your soil (alongside biochar because it adsorbs wood vinegar as well).

The Internal Combustion Engine

Conversion of grazed forage to chemical, then mechanical, and then electrical energy completes the cycle. The ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) converts the gaseous fuel output from the gasifier to mechanical energy, heat, water vapor, and CO2. It’s the mechanical energy of a rotating drive shaft that we want. That rotation drives the electric generator, which is the heartbeat we need to bring this monster to life. Luckily for us, combined internal combustion engine and generator packages are ubiquitous, delivering a defined energy output given a constant fuel input. It’s the simplest part of the system.

The obvious question here is whether the amount of syngas provided by the gasification process will provide enough energy to generate enough electrons to run the entire system or not. While I have no doubt the energy produced will run Forest Walker's main systems the question is really about the electrons left over. Will it be enough to run the Bitcoin mining aspect of the system? Everything is a budget.

CO2 Production For Growth

Plants are lollipops. No matter if it’s a tree or a bush or a shrubbery, the entire thing is mostly sugar in various formats but mostly long chain carbohydrates like lignin and cellulose. Plants need three things to make sugar: CO2, H2O and light. In a forest, where tree densities can be quite high, CO2 availability becomes a limiting growth factor. It’d be in the forest interests to have more available CO2 providing for various sugar formation providing the organism with food and structure.

An odd thing about tree leaves, the openings that allow gasses like the ever searched for CO2 are on the bottom of the leaf (these are called stomata). Not many stomata are topside. This suggests that trees and bushes have evolved to find gasses like CO2 from below, not above and this further suggests CO2 might be in higher concentrations nearer the soil.

The soil life (bacterial, fungi etc.) is constantly producing enormous amounts of CO2 and it would stay in the soil forever (eventually killing the very soil life that produces it) if not for tidal forces. Water is everywhere and whether in pools, lakes, oceans or distributed in “moist” soils water moves towards to the moon. The water in the soil and also in the water tables below the soil rise toward the surface every day. When the water rises, it expels the accumulated gasses in the soil into the atmosphere and it’s mostly CO2. It’s a good bet on how leaves developed high populations of stomata on the underside of leaves. As the water relaxes (the tide goes out) it sucks oxygenated air back into the soil to continue the functions of soil life respiration. The soil “breathes” albeit slowly.

The gasses produced by the Forest Walker’s internal combustion engine consist primarily of CO2 and H2O. Combusting sugars produce the same gasses that are needed to construct the sugars because the universe is funny like that. The Forest Walker is constantly laying down these critical construction elements right where the trees need them: close to the ground to be gobbled up by the trees.

The Branch Drones

During the last ice age, giant mammals populated North America - forests and otherwise. Mastodons, woolly mammoths, rhinos, short-faced bears, steppe bison, caribou, musk ox, giant beavers, camels, gigantic ground-dwelling sloths, glyptodons, and dire wolves were everywhere. Many were ten to fifteen feet tall. As they crashed through forests, they would effectively cleave off dead side-branches of trees, halting the spread of a ground-based fire migrating into the tree crown ("laddering") which is a death knell for a forest.

These animals are all extinct now and forests no longer have any manner of pruning services. But, if we build drones fitted with cutting implements like saws and loppers, optical cameras and AI trained to discern dead branches from living ones, these drones could effectively take over pruning services by identifying, cutting, and dropping to the forest floor, dead branches. The dropped branches simply get collected by the Forest Walker as part of its continual mission.

The drones dock on the back of the Forest Walker to recharge their batteries when low. The whole scene would look like a grazing cow with some flies bothering it. This activity breaks the link between a relatively cool ground based fire and the tree crowns and is a vital element in forest fire control.

The Bitcoin Miner

Mining is one of four monetary incentive models, making this system a possibility for development. The other three are US Dept. of the Interior, township, county, and electrical utility company easement contracts for fuel load management, global carbon credits trading, and data set sales. All the above depends on obvious questions getting answered. I will list some obvious ones, but this is not an engineering document and is not the place for spreadsheets. How much Bitcoin one Forest Walker can mine depends on everything else. What amount of biomass can we process? Will that biomass flow enough Syngas to keep the lights on? Can the chassis support enough mining ASICs and supporting infrastructure? What does that weigh and will it affect field performance? How much power can the AC generator produce?

Other questions that are more philosophical persist. Even if a single Forest Walker can only mine scant amounts of BTC per day, that pales to how much fuel material it can process into biochar. We are talking about millions upon millions of forested acres in need of fuel load management. What can a single Forest Walker do? I am not thinking in singular terms. The Forest Walker must operate as a fleet. What could 50 do? 500?

What is it worth providing a service to the world by managing forest fuel loads? Providing proof of work to the global monetary system? Seeding soil with drought and nutrient resilience by the excretion, over time, of carbon by the ton? What did the last forest fire cost?

The Mesh Network

What could be better than one bitcoin mining, carbon sequestering, forest fire squelching, soil amending behemoth? Thousands of them, but then they would need to be able to talk to each other to coordinate position, data handling, etc. Fitted with a mesh networking device, like goTenna or Meshtastic LoRa equipment enables each Forest Walker to communicate with each other.

Now we have an interconnected fleet of Forest Walkers relaying data to each other and more importantly, aggregating all of that to the last link in the chain for uplink. Well, at least Bitcoin mining data. Since block data is lightweight, transmission of these data via mesh networking in fairly close quartered environs is more than doable. So, how does data transmit to the Bitcoin Network? How do the Forest Walkers get the previous block data necessary to execute on mining?

Back To The Chain

Getting Bitcoin block data to and from the network is the last puzzle piece. The standing presumption here is that wherever a Forest Walker fleet is operating, it is NOT within cell tower range. We further presume that the nearest Walmart Wi-Fi is hours away. Enter the Blockstream Satellite or something like it.

A separate, ground-based drone will have two jobs: To stay as close to the nearest Forest Walker as it can and to provide an antennae for either terrestrial or orbital data uplink. Bitcoin-centric data is transmitted to the "uplink drone" via the mesh networked transmitters and then sent on to the uplink and the whole flow goes in the opposite direction as well; many to one and one to many.

We cannot transmit data to the Blockstream satellite, and it will be up to Blockstream and companies like it to provide uplink capabilities in the future and I don't doubt they will. Starlink you say? What’s stopping that company from filtering out block data? Nothing because it’s Starlink’s system and they could decide to censor these data. It seems we may have a problem sending and receiving Bitcoin data in back country environs.

But, then again, the utility of this system in staunching the fuel load that creates forest fires is extremely useful around forested communities and many have fiber, Wi-Fi and cell towers. These communities could be a welcoming ground zero for first deployments of the Forest Walker system by the home and business owners seeking fire repression. In the best way, Bitcoin subsidizes the safety of the communities.

Sensor Packages

LiDaR

The benefit of having a Forest Walker fleet strolling through the forest is the never ending opportunity for data gathering. A plethora of deployable sensors gathering hyper-accurate data on everything from temperature to topography is yet another revenue generator. Data is valuable and the Forest Walker could generate data sales to various government entities and private concerns.

LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) can map topography, perform biomass assessment, comparative soil erosion analysis, etc. It so happens that the Forest Walker’s ability to “see,” to navigate about its surroundings, is LiDaR driven and since it’s already being used, we can get double duty by harvesting that data for later use. By using a laser to send out light pulses and measuring the time it takes for the reflection of those pulses to return, very detailed data sets incrementally build up. Eventually, as enough data about a certain area becomes available, the data becomes useful and valuable.

Forestry concerns, both private and public, often use LiDaR to build 3D models of tree stands to assess the amount of harvest-able lumber in entire sections of forest. Consulting companies offering these services charge anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars per square kilometer for such services. A Forest Walker generating such assessments on the fly while performing its other functions is a multi-disciplinary approach to revenue generation.

pH, Soil Moisture, and Cation Exchange Sensing

The Forest Walker is quadrupedal, so there are four contact points to the soil. Why not get a pH data point for every step it takes? We can also gather soil moisture data and cation exchange capacities at unheard of densities because of sampling occurring on the fly during commission of the system’s other duties. No one is going to build a machine to do pH testing of vast tracts of forest soils, but that doesn’t make the data collected from such an endeavor valueless. Since the Forest Walker serves many functions at once, a multitude of data products can add to the return on investment component.

Weather Data

Temperature, humidity, pressure, and even data like evapotranspiration gathered at high densities on broad acre scales have untold value and because the sensors are lightweight and don’t require large power budgets, they come along for the ride at little cost. But, just like the old mantra, “gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free”, these sensors provide potential revenue benefits just by them being present.

I’ve touched on just a few data genres here. In fact, the question for universities, governmental bodies, and other institutions becomes, “How much will you pay us to attach your sensor payload to the Forest Walker?”

Noise Suppression

Only you can prevent Metallica filling the surrounds with 120 dB of sound. Easy enough, just turn the car stereo off. But what of a fleet of 50 Forest Walkers operating in the backcountry or near a township? 500? 5000? Each one has a wood chipper, an internal combustion engine, hydraulic pumps, actuators, and more cooling fans than you can shake a stick at. It’s a walking, screaming fire-breathing dragon operating continuously, day and night, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. The sound will negatively affect all living things and that impacts behaviors. Serious engineering consideration and prowess must deliver a silencing blow to the major issue of noise.

It would be foolish to think that a fleet of Forest Walkers could be silent, but if not a major design consideration, then the entire idea is dead on arrival. Townships would not allow them to operate even if they solved the problem of widespread fuel load and neither would governmental entities, and rightly so. Nothing, not man nor beast, would want to be subjected to an eternal, infernal scream even if it were to end within days as the fleet moved further away after consuming what it could. Noise and heat are the only real pollutants of this system; taking noise seriously from the beginning is paramount.

Fire Safety

A “fire-breathing dragon” is not the worst description of the Forest Walker. It eats wood, combusts it at very high temperatures and excretes carbon; and it does so in an extremely flammable environment. Bad mix for one Forest Walker, worse for many. One must take extreme pains to ensure that during normal operation, a Forest Walker could fall over, walk through tinder dry brush, or get pounded into the ground by a meteorite from Krypton and it wouldn’t destroy epic swaths of trees and baby deer. I envision an ultimate test of a prototype to include dowsing it in grain alcohol while it’s wrapped up in toilet paper like a pledge at a fraternity party. If it runs for 72 hours and doesn’t set everything on fire, then maybe outside entities won’t be fearful of something that walks around forests with a constant fire in its belly.

The Wrap

How we think about what can be done with and adjacent to Bitcoin is at least as important as Bitcoin’s economic standing itself. For those who will tell me that this entire idea is without merit, I say, “OK, fine. You can come up with something, too.” What can we plug Bitcoin into that, like a battery, makes something that does not work, work? That’s the lesson I get from this entire exercise. No one was ever going to hire teams of humans to go out and "clean the forest". There's no money in that. The data collection and sales from such an endeavor might provide revenues over the break-even point but investment demands Alpha in this day and age. But, plug Bitcoin into an almost viable system and, voilà! We tip the scales to achieve lift-off.

Let’s face it, we haven’t scratched the surface of Bitcoin’s forcing function on our minds. Not because it’s Bitcoin, but because of what that invention means. The question that pushes me to approach things this way is, “what can we create that one system’s waste is another system’s feedstock?” The Forest Walker system’s only real waste is the conversion of low entropy energy (wood and syngas) into high entropy energy (heat and noise). All other output is beneficial to humanity.

Bitcoin, I believe, is the first product of a new mode of human imagination. An imagination newly forged over the past few millennia of being lied to, stolen from, distracted and otherwise mis-allocated to a black hole of the nonsensical. We are waking up.

What I have presented is not science fiction. Everything I have described here is well within the realm of possibility. The question is one of viability, at least in terms of the detritus of the old world we find ourselves departing from. This system would take a non-trivial amount of time and resources to develop. I think the system would garner extensive long-term contracts from those who have the most to lose from wildfires, the most to gain from hyperaccurate data sets, and, of course, securing the most precious asset in the world. Many may not see it that way, for they seek Alpha and are therefore blind to other possibilities. Others will see only the possibilities; of thinking in a new way, of looking at things differently, and dreaming of what comes next.

@ e7bc35f8:3ed2a7cf

In a striking contrast of ideals versus actions, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was recently awarded the Medal of Freedom. Yet, it is impossible to forget what happened in February 2011, when ex-CIA analyst and well-known dissident Ray McGovern was violently removed by security while silently protesting one of Clinton’s speeches at George Washington University. McGovern’s only act of defiance was standing up and turning his back to Clinton in protest of America’s ongoing wars of aggression. The incident, which unfolded under Clinton’s watch, stands as a stark reminder of the selective nature of so-called freedom and democracy.

The irony of the moment was profound. Clinton's speech that day was ostensibly about the brave individuals in Egypt who had stood up against authoritarian rule, using the internet to organize their dissent. The same U.S. government that praised online activism abroad seemed intolerant of peaceful, silent protest within its own borders.

Over the past two decades, mainstream media has pushed a narrative that social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have played an instrumental role in shaping revolutions and uprisings across the world. From Moldova and Iran to Egypt and Tunisia, reporters with little on-the-ground knowledge have eagerly proclaimed these digital platforms as revolutionary tools of democracy. The only problem? This oft-repeated story is largely a myth.

While journalistic laziness explains some of this exaggeration—reporters compiling their stories from hotel rooms rather than gathering firsthand accounts—the truth runs much deeper. The idea of a "social media revolution" has been deliberately constructed by U.S. State Department-linked NGOs with vested interests in overthrowing governments that do not align with Washington’s geopolitical agenda.

One of the key figures in shaping this narrative is Evgeny Morozov, a former fellow of George Soros’ Open Society Institute and a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Morozov pioneered the concept of the "Twitter Revolution" during the 2009 Moldovan protests, arguing that social media facilitated "flash mobs" and "huge mobilization efforts" against authoritarian regimes. His language, promoted in publications like Foreign Policy, The Economist, and openDemocracy, laid the foundation for the media’s portrayal of networked protests.

However, even Morozov was forced to later acknowledge flaws in his argument. He admitted that at the time of the so-called "Twitter Revolution" in Moldova, there were only about 70 registered Twitter users in the entire country. Despite this glaring inconsistency, the Western media ran with the story.

The same pattern repeated in the 2009 Iranian unrest, where an alleged flood of 30,000 tweets provided live updates on the protests. Most of these tweets, however, were in English and were posted by newly registered accounts with identical profile pictures—hardly the grassroots digital uprising the media portrayed. Notably, Israeli news outlets began covering these "tweets" almost immediately, raising questions about external orchestration.

Similarly, during the Arab Spring, social media was widely credited for fueling protests in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen. Yet, the data tells a different story. At the height of these uprisings, the combined number of Twitter users in those three countries was under 15,000. Facebook, while more widespread, still had only a 4.5% penetration rate in Egypt by mid-2010—dwarfed by the reach of television networks.

Even those who originally championed the "social media revolution" have had to admit that the phenomenon was blown out of proportion. What they refuse to acknowledge, however, is the strategic motivation behind these uprisings. Who benefits from these revolutions, and whose interests do they ultimately serve?

At a 2010 Berlin conference, Morozov conspicuously avoided addressing these critical questions. His silence speaks volumes. The reality is that "social media revolutions" are often less about organic uprisings and more about the West’s longstanding practice of using digital tools as part of broader regime-change strategies.

In 2011, for instance, the U.S. State Department funded Psiphon, an online encryption system designed to help users bypass government firewalls. This technology was distributed in Syria, conveniently aiding opposition forces at a time when the U.S. was actively working to destabilize the Assad government. Yet, when Syria was later found using U.S.-developed internet filtering technology, it was condemned for violating American trade laws.

The most glaring hypocrisy is that while U.S. officials champion the internet as a tool for democracy in foreign countries, they simultaneously push for more restrictive internet laws at home. In 2011, Senator Joe Lieberman openly discussed using internet filtering technology to regulate American citizens’ access to information—ironically sounding much like the authoritarian leaders Washington claims to oppose.

This contradiction exposes the true nature of the social media revolution myth. Far from being an organic expression of people’s will, it is often just another weapon in the arsenal of Western powers seeking to manipulate and destabilize governments that refuse to align with their interests. The very same politicians who praise internet activists in Iran or Syria are the ones clamping down on online freedoms in their own countries.

The story of social media as a revolutionary force is not one of grassroots activism triumphing over oppression. Instead, it is a carefully crafted narrative, used to justify interventionist policies and promote regime change under the guise of "democracy promotion." As history has repeatedly shown, the beneficiaries of these so-called revolutions are rarely the people on the ground—but rather, the geopolitical architects pulling the strings from afar.

@ fa0165a0:03397073

I just tested building a browser plugin, it was easier than I thought. Here I'll walk you through the steps of creating a minimal working example of a browser plugin, a.k.a. the "Hello World" of browser plugins.

First of all there are two main browser platforms out there, Chromium and Mozilla. They do some things a little differently, but similar enough that we can build a plugin that works on both. This plugin will work in both, I'll describe the firefox version, but the chromium version is very similar.

What is a browser plugin?

Simply put, a browser plugin is a program that runs in the browser. It can do things like modify the content of a webpage, or add new functionality to the browser. It's a way to extend the browser with custom functionality. Common examples are ad blockers, password managers, and video downloaders.

In technical terms, they are plugins that can insert html-css-js into your browser experience.

How to build a browser plugin

Step 0: Basics

You'll need a computer, a text editor and a browser. For testing and development I personally think that the firefox developer edition is the easiest to work with. But any Chrome based browser will also do.

Create a working directory on your computer, name it anything you like. I'll call mine hello-world-browser-plugin. Open the directory and create a file called manifest.json. This is the most important file of your plugin, and it must be named exactly right.

Step 1: manifest.json

After creation open your file manifest.json in your text editor and paste the following code:

json { "manifest_version": 3, "name": "Hello World", "version": "1.0", "description": "A simple 'Hello World' browser extension", "content_scripts": [ { "matches": ["<all_urls>"], "js": ["hello.js"] //The name of your script file. // "css": ["hello.css"] //The name of your css file. } ] }

If you wonder what the json file format is, it's a normal text file with a special syntax such that a computer can easily read it. It's the json syntax you see in the code above. Let's go through what's being said here. (If you are not interested, just skip to the next step after pasting this we are done here.)

• manifest_version: This is the version of the manifest file format. It's currently at version 3, and it's the latest version. It's important that you set this to 3, otherwise your plugin won't work.
• name: This is the name of your plugin. It can be anything you like.
• version: This is the version of your plugin. It can be anything you like.
• description: This is the description of your plugin. It can be anything you like.
• content_scripts: This is where you define what your plugin does. It's a list of scripts that will be executed when the browser loads a webpage. In this case we have one script, called hello.js. It's the script that we'll create in the next step.
• matches: This is a list of urls that the script will be executed on. In this case we have <all_urls>, which means that the script will be executed on all urls. You can also specify a specific url, like https://brave.com/*, which means that the script will only be executed on urls that start with https://brave.com/.
• js: This is a list of javascript files that will be executed. In this case we have one file, called hello.js. It's the script that we'll create in the next step.
• css: This is where you can add a list of css files that will be executed. In this case we have none, but you can add css files here if you want to.
• //: Text following these two characters are comments. They are ignored by the computer, You can add comments anywhere you like, and they are a good way to document your code.

Step 2: hello.js

Now it's time to create another file in your project folder. This time we'll call it hello.js. When created, open it in your text editor and paste the following code:

js console.log("Hello World!"); That's javascript code, and it's what will be executed when you run your plugin. It's a simple console.log statement, which will print the text "Hello World!" to the console. The console is a place where the browser prints out messages, and it's a good place to start when debugging your plugin.

Step 3: Load and launch your plugin

Firefox

Now it's time to load your plugin into your browser. Open your browser and go to the url about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox. You should see a page that looks something like this:

Click the button that says "Load Temporary Add-on...". A file dialog will open, navigate to your project folder and select the file manifest.json. Your plugin should now be loaded and running.

Go to a website, any website, and open the inspector then navigate to the console. You'll find the inspector by right-clicking anywhere within the webpage, and click "Inspector" in the drop-down menu. When opening the console you might see some log messages from the site you visited and... you should see the text "Hello World!" printed there, from our little plugin! Congratulations!

Chrome

Open your browser and go to the url chrome://extensions/. Click the button that says "Load unpacked". A file dialog will open, navigate to your project folder and select the folder hello-world-browser-plugin. Your plugin should now be loaded and running.

Note the difference, of selecting the file manifest.json in firefox, and selecting the folder hello-world-browser-plugin in chrome. Otherwise, the process is the same. So I'll repeat the same text as above: (for those who skipped ahead..)

Go to a website, any website, and open the inspector then navigate to the console. You'll find the inspector by right-clicking anywhere within the webpage, and click "Inspector" in the drop-down menu. When opening the console you might see some log messages from the site you visited and... you should see the text "Hello World!" printed there, from our little plugin! Congratulations!

---

As you can see this isn't as complicated as one might think. Having preformed a "Hello-World!"-project is a very useful and valuable first step. These setup steps are the basics for any browser plugin, and you can build on this to create more advanced plugins.

@ 17538dc2:71ed77c4

Sci-Hub 2024 year end review is translated to English by Kagi Translate from Russian. Original text can be found in Sci-Hub's telegram channel https://t.me/freescience.

RESULTS OF 2024

First. The project received donations totaling 2 million dollars in meme coins.

The project is actively used by many students in China, which is why a group of Sci-Hub fans has emerged there. As far as I understand, the organizer of the group is actively interested in the topic of cryptocurrencies (even wrote a book). Somewhere in mid-November, the Chinese launched a meme coin in honor of the Sci-Hub project. At its peak, the coin's price reached 5 cents, and now it is somewhere around 1-2 cents. This means that the exchange rate of the Sci-Hub cryptocurrency is now almost equal to the ruble exchange rate (100 to one or so).

In general, I converted part of these donations into normal, traditional cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) and paid for servers several months in advance. The other part is still sitting in meme coins—I hope that the token will still grow in price (there is a promotion plan). Of course, this is risky, but Sci-Hub is a project that is not afraid of risk. Therefore, anyone who wants to invest in Sci-Hub by purchasing this token can do so here: www.coingecko.com/en/coins/sci-hub

Second. A dissertation on the topic of open scientific knowledge has been defended at the Institute of Philosophy.

For those interested in the history and philosophy of science, I defended a dissertation in April at the Institute of Philosophy on the topic that scientific knowledge should be open (otherwise, it is strange to call it scientific at all). The work shows that open communication is one of the basic traditional values of science when considering science as a social institution. In other words, journals that charge for access to scientific articles are a kind of 'non-traditional orientation journals.'

Moreover, openness is an important prerequisite for rationality. Rationality is not limited to the criterion of falsification (hello Popper); it is a much more complex concept.

You can familiarize yourself with the text of the dissertation here: web.archive.org/web/20240425100014/https://iphras.ru/page26414303.htm (I provide the link through the web archive because the Institute's website, strangely enough, is glitching again at the time of writing this post).

All criticism and comments (as well as praise) regarding the dissertation can be sent to my email.

Third. Work has begun on a new declaration of open access to scientific knowledge.

Currently, all discussions on the topic of open science are conducted within the frameworks defined by the so-called BBB declarations back in 2001-2003. Within these frameworks, two main types of open access are recognized: gold, meaning open journals with an author-pays model, and green, which refers to repositories like the well-known arXiv. We can also add the so-called diamond open access, which includes open journals that are free for both authors and readers.

However, since 2003, internet technologies have advanced significantly. Today, we can already talk about such types of open access as blue (through academic social networks) or red (your beloved Sci-Hub). It is time to adopt a new declaration of open access to scientific knowledge that corresponds to the current state of scientific and technological progress.

A preliminary version of the declaration can be read and signed here: open.science.do

We will be more actively engaged in this in the coming year. Signing the declaration is an important step towards recognizing access to scientific knowledge through sites like Sci-Hub or Libgen as completely legal and ceasing to pursue them—first in the former USSR, and then in all countries of the world.

Fourth. In 2024, about one billion articles were downloaded through Sci-Hub. Despite the fact that this is unfiltered statistics, the fact remains: the popularity of the project has not decreased but only grown, despite the fact that Sci-Hub has not been updated for quite a long time. Of course, this does not mean that the site will not be updated at all now—just that the patient is more alive than dead (no matter how much some haters might wish otherwise).

The cause of open access to scientific knowledge will definitely prevail—because good always triumphs over evil.

In the new year, I wish all scientists new discoveries and large grants. Happy New Year, comrades!

@ a012dc82:6458a70d

In the contemporary world, where the balance between technological advancement and environmental sustainability is increasingly crucial, Marathon Digital Holdings has emerged as a trailblazer in the Bitcoin mining industry. Their latest venture, utilizing methane gas from landfill waste to power Bitcoin mining operations, is not just a technological leap but also a significant stride towards eco-friendly practices in a sector often scrutinized for its environmental impact. This initiative represents a fusion of environmental stewardship with the burgeoning field of cryptocurrency, potentially setting a new standard for energy use in digital currency mining. It's a bold move that could reshape perceptions of the industry, demonstrating that environmental consciousness and technological progress can coexist harmoniously.

Table Of Content

• The Genesis of the Project

• The Process and Technology

• The Broader Impact

• Conclusion

• FAQs

The Genesis of the Project

A Partnership for Sustainability

Marathon Digital's collaboration with Nodal Power marks a pivotal moment in the pursuit of sustainable cryptocurrency mining. The 280 kilowatt (kW) pilot project in Utah is more than just a test of feasibility; it's a beacon of innovation in an industry traditionally powered by conventional, often non-renewable, energy sources. This partnership reflects a growing awareness within the crypto mining community about the importance of sustainable practices. It's a forward-thinking approach, blending the expertise of a leading Bitcoin mining company with the innovative energy solutions of a renewable energy firm, setting a precedent for future collaborations in the industry.

Addressing Environmental Concerns

The project's focus on methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas, underscores a proactive approach to environmental stewardship. By targeting methane emissions from landfills, Marathon is addressing a critical environmental issue. Methane is not only a significant contributor to global warming but also represents a wasted resource when emitted into the atmosphere. This initiative is a response to increasing global concerns about climate change and environmental degradation. It's a strategy that aligns with international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and demonstrates Marathon's commitment to playing a role in the global fight against climate change.

The Process and Technology

Innovative Conversion of Methane to Electricity

The technology behind converting methane to electricity is a cornerstone of this project. The process involves sophisticated systems that capture methane emissions efficiently and convert them into a usable form of energy. This technology is not just a testament to human ingenuity but also a crucial step towards making renewable energy more accessible and practical for industrial applications like Bitcoin mining. The success of this technology could have far-reaching implications, potentially revolutionizing how we think about waste management and energy production.

A Step Towards Green Bitcoin Mining

Marathon's initiative is a significant leap in the journey towards green Bitcoin mining. It's a project that challenges the status quo, proving that renewable energy can be a viable alternative to traditional power sources in the energy-intensive process of mining cryptocurrencies. This approach could inspire a wave of innovation in the sector, encouraging other companies to explore renewable energy options. The project is not just about reducing the environmental footprint of Bitcoin mining; it's about reimagining the future of energy use in the digital age.

The Broader Impact

Potential for Industry-Wide Change

The implications of Marathon's project extend far beyond its immediate environmental benefits. It has the potential to catalyze a paradigm shift in the cryptocurrency mining industry. If successful, this project could serve as a model for other companies, demonstrating the practicality and benefits of sustainable mining practices. It could inspire a wave of innovation, leading to more widespread adoption of renewable energy sources in the industry, and potentially, a redefinition of what it means to be a responsible player in the digital currency space.

Environmental and Economic Benefits

The project is not just an environmental initiative; it's also an economically strategic move. By tapping into methane from landfills, Marathon could significantly reduce its operational costs. This approach provides a dual benefit: it mitigates the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining and offers a potentially more cost-effective energy solution. This economic incentive could be a key driver in encouraging wider adoption of similar practices across the industry, leading to a more sustainable and economically viable future for cryptocurrency mining.

Conclusion

Marathon Digital's pilot project in Utah is more than just an experiment in sustainable Bitcoin mining; it's a visionary step towards a new era in the industry. By harnessing methane gas from landfills to power their operations, Marathon is not only setting a new benchmark for environmental responsibility but also showcasing the untapped potential of renewable energy in reducing the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency mining. This bold experiment is a beacon of hope and innovation, suggesting a future where technological advancement and environmental sustainability are not mutually exclusive but are instead intertwined elements of a more responsible and forward-thinking industry.

FAQs

What is Marathon Digital's new project about? Marathon Digital has launched a pilot project in Utah, using methane gas from landfill waste to power Bitcoin mining operations.

Why is using methane for Bitcoin mining significant? Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and using it for mining reduces environmental impact and utilizes a renewable energy source.

Who is Marathon Digital partnering with for this project? Marathon Digital has partnered with Nodal Power, a firm specializing in renewable energy assets.

What are the potential benefits of this project? The project aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs, and set a precedent for sustainable practices in cryptocurrency mining.

How does this project impact the Bitcoin mining industry? Marathon's initiative could inspire other companies to adopt renewable energy sources, potentially leading to a more sustainable and economically viable mining industry.

That's all for today

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@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

As the title states, scratch behind my ear and you get it. 🐶🐾🫡

@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

Test Bounty Note

@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365

My blog posts and reading material have both been on a decidedly economics-heavy slant recently. The topic today, incentives, squarely falls into the category of economics. However, when I say economics, I’m not talking about “analyzing supply and demand curves.” I’m talking about the true basis of economics: understanding how human beings make decisions in a world of scarcity.

A fair definition of incentive is “a reward or punishment that motivates behavior to achieve a desired outcome.” When most people think about economic incentives, they’re thinking of money. If I offer my son $5 if he washes the dishes, I’m incentivizing certain behavior. We can’t guarantee that he’ll do what I want him to do, but we can agree that the incentive structure itself will guide and ultimately determine what outcome will occur.

The great thing about monetary incentives is how easy they are to talk about and compare. “Would I rather make $5 washing the dishes or $10 cleaning the gutters?” But much of the world is incentivized in non-monetary ways too. For example, using the “punishment” half of the definition above, I might threaten my son with losing Nintendo Switch access if he doesn’t wash the dishes. No money is involved, but I’m still incentivizing behavior.

And there are plenty of incentives beyond our direct control! My son is also incentivized to not wash dishes because it’s boring, or because he has some friends over that he wants to hang out with, or dozens of other things. Ultimately, the conflicting array of different incentive structures placed on him will ultimately determine what actions he chooses to take.

Why incentives matter

A phrase I see often in discussions—whether they are political, parenting, economic, or business—is “if they could just do…” Each time I see that phrase, I cringe a bit internally. Usually, the underlying assumption of the statement is “if people would behave contrary to their incentivized behavior then things would be better.” For example:

• If my kids would just go to bed when I tell them, they wouldn’t be so cranky in the morning.
• If people would just use the recycling bin, we wouldn’t have such a landfill problem.
• If people would just stop being lazy, our team would deliver our project on time.

In all these cases, the speakers are seemingly flummoxed as to why the people in question don’t behave more rationally. The problem is: each group is behaving perfectly rationally.

• The kids have a high time preference, and care more about the joy of staying up now than the crankiness in the morning. Plus, they don’t really suffer the consequences of morning crankiness, their parents do.
• No individual suffers much from their individual contribution to a landfill. If they stopped growing the size of the landfill, it would make an insignificant difference versus the amount of effort they need to engage in to properly recycle.
• If a team doesn’t properly account for the productivity of individuals on a project, each individual receives less harm from their own inaction. Sure, the project may be delayed, company revenue may be down, and they may even risk losing their job when the company goes out of business. But their laziness individually won’t determine the entirety of that outcome. By contrast, they greatly benefit from being lazy by getting to relax at work, go on social media, read a book, or do whatever else they do when they’re supposed to be working.

My point here is that, as long as you ignore the reality of how incentives drive human behavior, you’ll fail at getting the outcomes you want.

If everything I wrote up until now made perfect sense, you understand the premise of this blog post. The rest of it will focus on a bunch of real-world examples to hammer home the point, and demonstrate how versatile this mental model is.

Running a company

Let’s say I run my own company, with myself as the only employee. My personal revenue will be 100% determined by my own actions. If I decide to take Tuesday afternoon off and go fishing, I’ve chosen to lose that afternoon’s revenue. Implicitly, I’ve decided that the enjoyment I get from an afternoon of fishing is greater than the potential revenue. You may think I’m being lazy, but it’s my decision to make. In this situation, the incentive–money–is perfectly aligned with my actions.

Compare this to a typical company/employee relationship. I might have a bank of Paid Time Off (PTO) days, in which case once again my incentives are relatively aligned. I know that I can take off 15 days throughout the year, and I’ve chosen to use half a day for the fishing trip. All is still good.

What about unlimited time off? Suddenly incentives are starting to misalign. I don’t directly pay a price for not showing up to work on Tuesday. Or Wednesday as well, for that matter. I might ultimately be fired for not doing my job, but that will take longer to work its way through the system than simply not making any money for the day taken off.

Compensation overall falls into this misaligned incentive structure. Let’s forget about taking time off. Instead, I work full time on a software project I’m assigned. But instead of using the normal toolchain we’re all used to at work, I play around with a new programming language. I get the fun and joy of playing with new technology, and potentially get to pad my resume a bit when I’m ready to look for a new job. But my current company gets slower results, less productivity, and is forced to subsidize my extracurricular learning.

When a CEO has a bonus structure based on profitability, he’ll do everything he can to make the company profitable. This might include things that actually benefit the company, like improving product quality, reducing internal red tape, or finding cheaper vendors. But it might also include destructive practices, like slashing the R\&D budget to show massive profits this year, in exchange for a catastrophe next year when the next version of the product fails to ship.

Or my favorite example. My parents owned a business when I was growing up. They had a back office where they ran operations like accounting. All of the furniture was old couches from our house. After all, any money they spent on furniture came right out of their paychecks! But in a large corporate environment, each department is generally given a budget for office furniture, a budget which doesn’t roll over year-to-year. The result? Executives make sure to spend the entire budget each year, often buying furniture far more expensive than they would choose if it was their own money.

There are plenty of details you can quibble with above. It’s in a company’s best interest to give people downtime so that they can come back recharged. Having good ergonomic furniture can in fact increase productivity in excess of the money spent on it. But overall, the picture is pretty clear: in large corporate structures, you’re guaranteed to have mismatches between the company’s goals and the incentive structure placed on individuals.

Using our model from above, we can lament how lazy, greedy, and unethical the employees are for doing what they’re incentivized to do instead of what’s right. But that’s simply ignoring the reality of human nature.

Moral hazard

Moral hazard is a situation where one party is incentivized to take on more risk because another party will bear the consequences. Suppose I tell my son when he turns 21 (or whatever legal gambling age is) that I’ll cover all his losses for a day at the casino, but he gets to keep all the winnings.

What do you think he’s going to do? The most logical course of action is to place the largest possible bets for as long as possible, asking me to cover each time he loses, and taking money off the table and into his bank account each time he wins.

But let’s look at a slightly more nuanced example. I go to a bathroom in the mall. As I’m leaving, I wash my hands. It will take me an extra 1 second to turn off the water when I’m done washing. That’s a trivial price to pay. If I don’t turn off the water, the mall will have to pay for many liters of wasted water, benefiting no one. But I won’t suffer any consequences at all.

This is also a moral hazard, but most people will still turn off the water. Why? Usually due to some combination of other reasons such as:

1. We’re so habituated to turning off the water that we don’t even consider not turning it off. Put differently, the mental effort needed to not turn off the water is more expensive than the 1 second of time to turn it off.
2. Many of us have been brought up with a deep guilt about wasting resources like water. We have an internal incentive structure that makes the 1 second to turn off the water much less costly than the mental anguish of the waste we created.
3. We’re afraid we’ll be caught by someone else and face some kind of social repercussions. (Or maybe more than social. Are you sure there isn’t a law against leaving the water tap on?)

Even with all that in place, you may notice that many public bathrooms use automatic water dispensers. Sure, there’s a sanitation reason for that, but it’s also to avoid this moral hazard.

A common denominator in both of these is that the person taking the action that causes the liability (either the gambling or leaving the water on) is not the person who bears the responsibility for that liability (the father or the mall owner). Generally speaking, the closer together the person making the decision and the person incurring the liability are, the smaller the moral hazard.

It’s easy to demonstrate that by extending the casino example a bit. I said it was the father who was covering the losses of the gambler. Many children (though not all) would want to avoid totally bankrupting their parents, or at least financially hurting them. Instead, imagine that someone from the IRS shows up at your door, hands you a credit card, and tells you you can use it at a casino all day, taking home all the chips you want. The money is coming from the government. How many people would put any restriction on how much they spend?

And since we’re talking about the government already…

Government moral hazards

As I was preparing to write this blog post, the California wildfires hit. The discussions around those wildfires gave a huge number of examples of moral hazards. I decided to cherry-pick a few for this post.

The first and most obvious one: California is asking for disaster relief funds from the federal government. That sounds wonderful. These fires were a natural disaster, so why shouldn’t the federal government pitch in and help take care of people?

The problem is, once again, a moral hazard. In the case of the wildfires, California and Los Angeles both had ample actions they could have taken to mitigate the destruction of this fire: better forest management, larger fire department, keeping the water reservoirs filled, and probably much more that hasn’t come to light yet.

If the federal government bails out California, it will be a clear message for the future: your mistakes will be fixed by others. You know what kind of behavior that incentivizes? More risky behavior! Why spend state funds on forest management and extra firefighters—activities that don’t win politicians a lot of votes in general—when you could instead spend it on a football stadium, higher unemployment payments, or anything else, and then let the feds cover the cost of screw-ups.

You may notice that this is virtually identical to the 2008 “too big to fail” bail-outs. Wall Street took insanely risky behavior, reaped huge profits for years, and when they eventually got caught with their pants down, the rest of us bailed them out. “Privatizing profits, socializing losses.”

And here’s the absolute best part of this: I can’t even truly blame either California or Wall Street. (I mean, I do blame them, I think their behavior is reprehensible, but you’ll see what I mean.) In a world where the rules of the game implicitly include the bail-out mentality, you would be harming your citizens/shareholders/investors if you didn’t engage in that risky behavior. Since everyone is on the hook for those socialized losses, your best bet is to maximize those privatized profits.

There’s a lot more to government and moral hazard, but I think these two cases demonstrate the crux pretty solidly. But let’s leave moral hazard behind for a bit and get to general incentivization discussions.

Non-monetary competition

At least 50% of the economics knowledge I have comes from the very first econ course I took in college. That professor was amazing, and had some very colorful stories. I can’t vouch for the veracity of the two I’m about to share, but they definitely drive the point home.

In the 1970s, the US had an oil shortage. To “fix” this problem, they instituted price caps on gasoline, which of course resulted in insufficient gasoline. To “fix” this problem, they instituted policies where, depending on your license plate number, you could only fill up gas on certain days of the week. (Irrelevant detail for our point here, but this just resulted in people filling up their tanks more often, no reduction in gas usage.)

Anyway, my professor’s wife had a friend. My professor described in great detail how attractive this woman was. I’ll skip those details here since this is a PG-rated blog. In any event, she never had any trouble filling up her gas tank any day of the week. She would drive up, be told she couldn’t fill up gas today, bat her eyes at the attendant, explain how helpless she was, and was always allowed to fill up gas.

This is a demonstration of non-monetary compensation. Most of the time in a free market, capitalist economy, people are compensated through money. When price caps come into play, there’s a limit to how much monetary compensation someone can receive. And in that case, people find other ways of competing. Like this woman’s case: through using flirtatious behavior to compensate the gas station workers to let her cheat the rules.

The other example was much more insidious. Santa Monica had a problem: it was predominantly wealthy and white. They wanted to fix this problem, and decided to put in place rent controls. After some time, they discovered that Santa Monica had become wealthier and whiter, the exact opposite of their desired outcome. Why would that happen?

Someone investigated, and ended up interviewing a landlady that demonstrated the reason. She was an older white woman, and admittedly racist. Prior to the rent controls, she would list her apartments in the newspaper, and would be legally obligated to rent to anyone who could afford it. Once rent controls were in place, she took a different tact. She knew that she would only get a certain amount for the apartment, and that the demand for apartments was higher than the supply. That meant she could be picky.

She ended up finding tenants through friends-of-friends. Since it wasn’t an official advertisement, she wasn’t legally required to rent it out if someone could afford to pay. Instead, she got to interview people individually and then make them an offer. Normally, that would have resulted in receiving a lower rental price, but not under rent controls.

So who did she choose? A young, unmarried, wealthy, white woman. It made perfect sense. Women were less intimidating and more likely to maintain the apartment better. Wealthy people, she determined, would be better tenants. (I have no idea if this is true in practice or not, I’m not a landlord myself.) Unmarried, because no kids running around meant less damage to the property. And, of course, white. Because she was racist, and her incentive structure made her prefer whites.

You can deride her for being racist, I won’t disagree with you. But it’s simply the reality. Under the non-rent-control scenario, her profit motive for money outweighed her racism motive. But under rent control, the monetary competition was removed, and she was free to play into her racist tendencies without facing any negative consequences.

Bureaucracy

These were the two examples I remember for that course. But non-monetary compensation pops up in many more places. One highly pertinent example is bureaucracies. Imagine you have a government office, or a large corporation’s acquisition department, or the team that apportions grants at a university. In all these cases, you have a group of people making decisions about handing out money that has no monetary impact on them. If they give to the best qualified recipients, they receive no raises. If they spend the money recklessly on frivolous projects, they face no consequences.

Under such an incentivization scheme, there’s little to encourage the bureaucrats to make intelligent funding decisions. Instead, they’ll be incentivized to spend the money where they recognize non-monetary benefits. This is why it’s so common to hear about expensive meals, gift bags at conferences, and even more inappropriate ways of trying to curry favor with those that hold the purse strings.

Compare that ever so briefly with the purchases made by a small mom-and-pop store like my parents owned. Could my dad take a bribe to buy from a vendor who’s ripping him off? Absolutely he could! But he’d lose more on the deal than he’d make on the bribe, since he’s directly incentivized by the deal itself. It would make much more sense for him to go with the better vendor, save $5,000 on the deal, and then treat himself to a lavish $400 meal to celebrate.

Government incentivized behavior

This post is getting longer in the tooth than I’d intended, so I’ll finish off with this section and make it a bit briefer. Beyond all the methods mentioned above, government has another mechanism for modifying behavior: through directly changing incentives via legislation, regulation, and monetary policy. Let’s see some examples:

• Artificial modification of interest rates encourages people to take on more debt than they would in a free capital market, leading to malinvestment and a consumer debt crisis, and causing the boom-bust cycle we all painfully experience.
• Going along with that, giving tax breaks on interest payments further artificially incentivizes people to take on debt that they wouldn’t otherwise.
• During COVID-19, at some points unemployment benefits were greater than minimum wage, incentivizing people to rather stay home and not work than get a job, leading to reduced overall productivity in the economy and more printed dollars for benefits. In other words, it was a perfect recipe for inflation.
• The tax code gives deductions to “help” people. That might be true, but the real impact is incentivizing people to make decisions they wouldn’t have otherwise. For example, giving out tax deductions on children encourages having more kids. Tax deductions on childcare and preschools incentivizes dual-income households. Whether or not you like the outcomes, it’s clear that it’s government that’s encouraging these outcomes to happen.
• Tax incentives cause people to engage in behavior they wouldn’t otherwise (daycare+working mother, for example).
• Inflation means that the value of your money goes down over time, which encourages people to spend more today, when their money has a larger impact. (Milton Friedman described this as high living.)

Conclusion

The idea here is simple, and fully encapsulated in the title: incentives determine outcomes. If you want to know how to get a certain outcome from others, incentivize them to want that to happen. If you want to understand why people act in seemingly irrational ways, check their incentives. If you’re confused why leaders (and especially politicians) seem to engage in destructive behavior, check their incentives.

We can bemoan these realities all we want, but they are realities. While there are some people who have a solid internal moral and ethical code, and that internal code incentivizes them to behave against their externally-incentivized interests, those people are rare. And frankly, those people are self-defeating. People should take advantage of the incentives around them. Because if they don’t, someone else will.

(If you want a literary example of that last comment, see the horse in Animal Farm.)

How do we improve the world under these conditions? Make sure the incentives align well with the overall goals of society. To me, it’s a simple formula:

• Focus on free trade, value for value, as the basis of a society. In that system, people are always incentivized to provide value to other people.
• Reduce the size of bureaucracies and large groups of all kinds. The larger an organization becomes, the farther the consequences of decisions are from those who make them.
• And since the nature of human beings will be to try and create areas where they can control the incentive systems to their own benefits, make that as difficult as possible. That comes in the form of strict limits on government power, for example.

And even if you don’t want to buy in to this conclusion, I hope the rest of the content was educational, and maybe a bit entertaining!

@ 8fb140b4:f948000c

Intro

This short tutorial will help you set up your own Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) on your own LND Node that is not using Umbrel. If you are a user of Umbrel, you should use their version of NWC.

Requirements

You need to have a working installation of LND with established channels and connectivity to the internet. NWC in itself is fairly light and will not consume a lot of resources. You will also want to ensure that you have a working installation of Docker, since we will use a docker image to run NWC.

• Working installation of LND (and all of its required components)
• Docker (with Docker compose)

Installation

For the purpose of this tutorial, we will assume that you have your lnd/bitcoind running under user bitcoin with home directory /home/bitcoin. We will also assume that you already have a running installation of Docker (or docker.io).

Prepare and verify

git version - we will need git to get the latest version of NWC. docker version - should execute successfully and show the currently installed version of Docker. docker compose version - same as before, but the version will be different. ss -tupln | grep 10009- should produce the following output: tcp LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:10009 0.0.0.0: tcp LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:10009 [::]:**

For things to work correctly, your Docker should be version 20.10.0 or later. If you have an older version, consider installing a new one using instructions here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/

Create folders & download NWC

In the home directory of your LND/bitcoind user, create a new folder, e.g., "nwc" mkdir /home/bitcoin/nwc. Change to that directory cd /home/bitcoin/nwc and clone the NWC repository: git clone https://github.com/getAlby/nostr-wallet-connect.git

Creating the Docker image

In this step, we will create a Docker image that you will use to run NWC.

• Change directory to nostr-wallet-connect: cd nostr-wallet-connect
• Run command to build Docker image: docker build -t nwc:$(date +'%Y%m%d%H%M') -t nwc:latest . (there is a dot at the end)
• The last line of the output (after a few minutes) should look like => => naming to docker.io/library/nwc:latest
• nwc:latest is the name of the Docker image with a tag which you should note for use later.

Creating docker-compose.yml and necessary data directories

• Let's create a directory that will hold your non-volatile data (DB): mkdir data
• Indocker-compose.ymlfile, there are fields that you want to replace (<> comments) and port “4321” that you want to make sure is open (check with ss -tupln | grep 4321which should return nothing).
• Create docker-compose.ymlfile with the following content, and make sure to update fields that have <> comment:

version: "3.8" services: nwc: image: nwc:latest volumes: - ./data:/data - ~/.lnd:/lnd:ro ports: - "4321:8080" extra_hosts: - "localhost:host-gateway" environment: NOSTR_PRIVKEY: <use "openssl rand -hex 32" to generate a fresh key and place it inside ""> LN_BACKEND_TYPE: "LND" LND_ADDRESS: localhost:10009 LND_CERT_FILE: "/lnd/tls.cert" LND_MACAROON_FILE: "/lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/admin.macaroon" DATABASE_URI: "/data/nostr-wallet-connect.db" COOKIE_SECRET: <use "openssl rand -hex 32" to generate fresh secret and place it inside ""> PORT: 8080 restart: always stop_grace_period: 1m

Starting and testing

Now that you have everything ready, it is time to start the container and test.

• While you are in the nwcdirectory (important), execute the following command and check the log output, docker compose up
• You should see container logs while it is starting, and it should not exit if everything went well.
• At this point, you should be able to go to http://<ip of the host where nwc is running>:4321 and get to the interface of NWC
• To stop the test run of NWC, simply press Ctrl-C , and it will shut the container down.
• To start NWC permanently, you should execute docker compose up -d , “-d” tells Docker to detach from the session.
• To check currently running NWC logs, execute docker compose logs to run it in tail mode add -f to the end.
• To stop the container, execute docker compose down

That's all, just follow the instructions in the web interface to get started.

Updating

As with any software, you should expect fixes and updates that you would need to perform periodically. You could automate this, but it falls outside of the scope of this tutorial. Since we already have all of the necessary configuration in place, the update execution is fairly simple.

• Change directory to the clone of the git repository, cd /home/bitcoin/nwc/nostr-wallet-connect
• Run command to build Docker image: docker build -t nwc:$(date +'%Y%m%d%H%M') -t nwc:latest . (there is a dot at the end)
• Change directory back one level cd ..
• Restart (stop and start) the docker compose config docker compose down && docker compose up -d
• Done! Optionally you may want to check the logs: docker compose logs

@ ae6ce958:d0f02c7d

Authors: DamageBDD Research Team
Date: February 2025

Abstract

This paper presents a formal multidimensional analysis of the profitability and systemic impact of operating a DamageBDD node, considering two distinct yet synergistic roles: (1) BDD Maintainer, responsible for writing and verifying behavioral-driven development (BDD) test cases, and (2) Node Runner, responsible for hosting, validating, and distributing DamageBDD verification data. The study explores the economic viability, systemic benefits, and broader implications for software development efficiency and human potential. We argue that DamageBDD does not merely represent an alternative testing infrastructure but also serves as an incentive structure that unlocks latent human capital through verifiable, high-impact contributions.

---

1. Introduction

The software industry increasingly relies on automated testing to ensure system reliability and security. However, traditional models of test validation suffer from inefficiencies due to lack of verifiable accountability, reliance on centralized test infrastructure, and difficulty in aligning developer incentives.

DamageBDD introduces a market-driven verification layer that decentralizes and incentivizes test-driven software development. By distributing both verification and governance via a blockchain-based testing economy, DamageBDD enables trustless BDD validation. Two primary participants define this ecosystem:

1. BDD Maintainers – Developers and testers who write and maintain test cases to ensure software correctness.
2. Node Runners – Operators who maintain DamageBDD nodes to execute, verify, and immutably record test results.

This study examines the profitability, scalability, and systemic value of each role while exploring how this model unlocks testing infrastructure and human potential in a way that traditional systems do not.

---

2. Multidimensional Profitability Analysis

We evaluate profitability using a multidimensional framework across the following key dimensions:

• Economic Profitability (direct financial rewards)
• Computational Efficiency (resource costs and hardware scalability)
• Network Effects (interoperability and systemic adoption)
• Human Capital Optimization (learning curve, skill growth, and long-term impact)

2.1 Economic Profitability

BDD Maintainer

BDD Maintainers earn sats for verifiable test contributions. Their work is directly compensated based on the number of successful test verifications executed on the DamageBDD network. The economic incentives align with:

• Quality over Quantity – High-quality, reusable BDD tests accrue more long-term revenue.
• Compounding Value – A well-maintained test suite continues to generate revenue as projects grow.

Node Runner

Node Runners monetize test execution and validation services by processing and storing test results. Profitability derives from:

• Transaction Fees – Runners earn sats per executed and verified test case.
• Reputation Score – Higher-ranked nodes process more verifications, generating greater earnings.
• Liquidity Pools – Nodes can facilitate instant Lightning Network payouts for successful tests, further increasing earnings via transaction flow.

2.2 Computational Efficiency

While mining Bitcoin is an energy-intensive, zero-sum competition, DamageBDD nodes optimize for computational efficiency rather than brute-force expenditure.

• BDD Maintainer Efficiency – Writing test cases has near-zero energy cost beyond human intellectual effort.
• Node Runner Efficiency – Instead of wasting cycles on proof-of-work, DamageBDD nodes run lightweight BDD verifications, leveraging Erlang for extreme concurrency and low-resource execution.

A comparative analysis shows that operating a DamageBDD node delivers higher computational efficiency per satoshi earned than Bitcoin mining.

---

2.3 Network Effects and Synergies

A crucial factor in DamageBDD’s economic model is network value accumulation. Unlike mining, which diminishes profitability over time, DamageBDD’s network increases in value as adoption grows.

BDD Maintainer Synergies

• The more tests written and verified on-chain, the greater the trust in software systems.
• Open-source contributors and enterprise teams benefit from immutable test history, reducing redundant labor.

Node Runner Synergies

• The more tests executed, the more valuable the verification layer becomes.
• Nodes reinforce the integrity of test results, leading to network-wide adoption in high-assurance industries (e.g., finance, healthcare, AI safety).

---

2.4 Human Capital Optimization: Unlocking Developer Potential

Traditional software testing is often seen as a cost center, leading to its underutilization. DamageBDD flips this paradigm by treating testing as a profit center—rewarding testers not just for finding bugs but for preventing catastrophic software failures.

Cognitive and Economic Impact

• Skill Growth – Developers naturally improve software design by maintaining structured BDD tests.
• Career Upskilling – High-ranking BDD Maintainers become indispensable assets in software teams.
• Economic Independence – Unlike traditional employment, DamageBDD allows maintainers to earn directly from open-source contributions.

The system gamifies quality assurance, transforming what was once a tedious process into a competitive and rewarding marketplace.

---

3. Conclusion: A New Paradigm for Profitable Verification

DamageBDD redefines software testing as a financially viable, decentralized economy. The combination of BDD Maintainers and Node Runners creates a self-reinforcing ecosystem where:

• Maintainers ensure software correctness while earning sats
• Node Runners validate and secure test results, generating a sustainable revenue stream
• The network grows in value as more applications integrate DamageBDD verification

Key Takeaways

• DamageBDD is superior to traditional testing models due to its decentralized incentives.
• It provides better computational efficiency than Bitcoin mining while still operating on a proof-of-work foundation (verifiable contributions).
• It unlocks human potential by turning software verification into a career pathway rather than a sunk cost.

The profitability of DamageBDD Nodes extends beyond mere financial returns—it establishes a new economic and intellectual order for software reliability.

@ d2e97f73:ea9a4d1b

There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified.

I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:

1. Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.
2. Only the original author may remove content they produce.
3. Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.

The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company.

The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690

I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time. Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.

Back to the principles. Of course governments want to shape and control the public conversation, and will use every method at their disposal to do so, including the media. And the power a corporation wields to do the same is only growing. It’s critical that the people have tools to resist this, and that those tools are ultimately owned by the people. Allowing a government or a few corporations to own the public conversation is a path towards centralized control.

I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible. Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity. There are significant issues with this stance of course, but starting with this principle will allow for far better solutions than we have today. The internet is trending towards a world were storage is “free” and infinite, which places all the actual value on how to discover and see content.

Which brings me to the last principle: moderation. I don’t believe a centralized system can do content moderation globally. It can only be done through ranking and relevance algorithms, the more localized the better. But instead of a company or government building and controlling these solely, people should be able to build and choose from algorithms that best match their criteria, or not have to use any at all. A “follow” action should always deliver every bit of content from the corresponding account, and the algorithms should be able to comb through everything else through a relevance lens that an individual determines. There’s a default “G-rated” algorithm, and then there’s everything else one can imagine.

The only way I know of to truly live up to these 3 principles is a free and open protocol for social media, that is not owned by a single company or group of companies, and is resilient to corporate and government influence. The problem today is that we have companies who own both the protocol and discovery of content. Which ultimately puts one person in charge of what’s available and seen, or not. This is by definition a single point of failure, no matter how great the person, and over time will fracture the public conversation, and may lead to more control by governments and corporations around the world.

I believe many companies can build a phenomenal business off an open protocol. For proof, look at both the web and email. The biggest problem with these models however is that the discovery mechanisms are far too proprietary and fixed instead of open or extendable. Companies can build many profitable services that complement rather than lock down how we access this massive collection of conversation. There is no need to own or host it themselves.

Many of you won’t trust this solution just because it’s me stating it. I get it, but that’s exactly the point. Trusting any one individual with this comes with compromises, not to mention being way too heavy a burden for the individual. It has to be something akin to what bitcoin has shown to be possible. If you want proof of this, get out of the US and European bubble of the bitcoin price fluctuations and learn how real people are using it for censorship resistance in Africa and Central/South America.

I do still wish for Twitter, and every company, to become uncomfortably transparent in all their actions, and I wish I forced more of that years ago. I do believe absolute transparency builds trust. As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider. And along with that, commitments of transparency for present and future actions. I’m hopeful all of this will happen. There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from. The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.

As far as the free and open social media protocol goes, there are many competing projects: @bluesky is one with the AT Protocol, nostr another, Mastodon yet another, Matrix yet another…and there will be many more. One will have a chance at becoming a standard like HTTP or SMTP. This isn’t about a “decentralized Twitter.” This is a focused and urgent push for a foundational core technology standard to make social media a native part of the internet. I believe this is critical both to Twitter’s future, and the public conversation’s ability to truly serve the people, which helps hold governments and corporations accountable. And hopefully makes it all a lot more fun and informative again.

💸🛠️🌐 To accelerate open internet and protocol work, I’m going to open a new category of #startsmall grants: “open internet development.” It will start with a focus of giving cash and equity grants to engineering teams working on social media and private communication protocols, bitcoin, and a web-only mobile OS. I’ll make some grants next week, starting with $1mm/yr to Signal. Please let me know other great candidates for this money.

@ 3f770d65:7a745b24

I’ve been using Notedeck for several months, starting with its extremely early and experimental alpha versions, all the way to its current, more stable alpha releases. The journey has been fascinating, as I’ve had the privilege of watching it evolve from a concept into a functional and promising tool.

In its earliest stages, Notedeck was raw—offering glimpses of its potential but still far from practical for daily use. Even then, the vision behind it was clear: a platform designed to redefine how we interact with Nostr by offering flexibility and power for all users.

I'm very bullish on Notedeck. Why? Because Will Casarin is making it! Duh! 😂

Seriously though, if we’re reimagining the web and rebuilding portions of the Internet, it’s important to recognize the potential of Notedeck. If Nostr is reimagining the web, then Notedeck is reimagining the Nostr client.

Notedeck isn’t just another Nostr app—it’s more a Nostr browser that functions more like an operating system with micro-apps. How cool is that?

Much like how Google's Chrome evolved from being a web browser with a task manager into ChromeOS, a full blown operating system, Notedeck aims to transform how we interact with the Nostr. It goes beyond individual apps, offering a foundation for a fully integrated ecosystem built around Nostr.

As a Nostr evangelist, I love to scream INTEROPERABILITY and tout every application's integrations. Well, Notedeck has the potential to be one of the best platforms to showcase these integrations in entirely new and exciting ways.

Do you want an Olas feed of images? Add the media column.

Do you want a feed of live video events? Add the zap.stream column.

Do you want Nostr Nests or audio chats? Add that column to your Notedeck.

Git? Email? Books? Chat and DMs? It's all possible.

Not everyone wants a super app though, and that’s okay. As with most things in the Nostr ecosystem, flexibility is key. Notedeck gives users the freedom to choose how they engage with it—whether it’s simply following hashtags or managing straightforward feeds. You'll be able to tailor Notedeck to fit your needs, using it as extensively or minimally as you prefer.

Notedeck is designed with a local-first approach, utilizing Nostr content stored directly on your device via the local nostrdb. This will enable a plethora of advanced tools such as search and filtering, the creation of custom feeds, and the ability to develop personalized algorithms across multiple Notedeck micro-applications—all with unparalleled flexibility.

Notedeck also supports multicast. Let's geek out for a second. Multicast is a method of communication where data is sent from one source to multiple destinations simultaneously, but only to devices that wish to receive the data. Unlike broadcast, which sends data to all devices on a network, multicast targets specific receivers, reducing network traffic. This is commonly used for efficient data distribution in scenarios like streaming, conferencing, or large-scale data synchronization between devices.

In a local first world where each device holds local copies of your nostr nodes, and each device transparently syncs with each other on the local network, each node becomes a backup. Your data becomes antifragile automatically. When a node goes down it can resync and recover from other nodes. Even if not all nodes have a complete collection, negentropy can pull down only what is needed from each device. All this can be done without internet.

-Will Casarin

In the context of Notedeck, multicast would allow multiple devices to sync their Nostr nodes with each other over a local network without needing an internet connection. Wild.

Notedeck aims to offer full customization too, including the ability to design and share custom skins, much like Winamp. Users will also be able to create personalized columns and, in the future, share their setups with others. This opens the door for power users to craft tailored Nostr experiences, leveraging their expertise in the protocol and applications. By sharing these configurations as "Starter Decks," they can simplify onboarding and showcase the best of Nostr’s ecosystem.

Nostr’s “Other Stuff” can often be difficult to discover, use, or understand. Many users doesn't understand or know how to use web browser extensions to login to applications. Let's not even get started with nsecbunkers. Notedeck will address this challenge by providing a native experience that brings these lesser-known applications, tools, and content into a user-friendly and accessible interface, making exploration seamless. However, that doesn't mean Notedeck should disregard power users that want to use nsecbunkers though - hint hint.

For anyone interested in watching Nostr be developed live, right before your very eyes, Notedeck’s progress serves as a reminder of what’s possible when innovation meets dedication. The current alpha is already demonstrating its ability to handle complex use cases, and I’m excited to see how it continues to grow as it moves toward a full release later this year.

@ 2a4d6f6b:18442509

Here's a new recipe I tried!

@ d34e832d:383f78d0

Lets explore three key aspects of Bitcoin technology to enhance your engagement with the ecosystem:

1. Running an Alby Hub Cloud Instance
2. Setting Up a Nutshell Ecash Mint on an Affordable VPS
3. Integrating Nostr Wallet Connect for Seamless Tipping

These components empower users to manage transactions, ensure privacy, and facilitate smooth interactions within the Bitcoin and Nostr communities.

1. Running an Alby Hub Cloud Instance

Purpose and Benefits:

Alby Hub is a self-custodial Lightning wallet that allows you to manage Bitcoin transactions efficiently. By running an Alby Hub instance in the cloud, you gain 24/7 online access to receive payments via a Lightning address, integrate with various applications, and maintain control over your funds without the need for personal hardware.

Setting Up Alby Hub in the Cloud:

• Choose Alby Cloud: For a hassle-free setup, Alby offers a cloud service where you can start your own hub in just 2 minutes. Give it A Try: Alby Cloud

• Subscription Benefits: Subscribing to Alby Cloud provides you with a self-custodial Lightning wallet, 24/7 online access, exclusive partner deals, priority support, and access to a subscriber community.

• Self-custodial Lightning wallet

• Getting Started: Visit the Alby Cloud page, select the subscription that suits you, and follow the guided setup process to have your hub up and running quickly.

• Alby Cloud page

For a visual guide on setting up Alby Hub, you can watch the following tutorial:

2. Setting Up a Nutshell Ecash Mint on an Affordable VPS

Purpose and Benefits:

Nutshell is an implementation of Ecash, a digital cash system that prioritizes privacy and anonymity. Setting up a Nutshell Ecash mint on a Virtual Private Server (VPS) allows you to operate your own mint, enhancing transaction privacy and providing a backup system for your Bitcoin transactions.

Setting Up on a $5 VPS:

• Select a VPS Provider: Choose an affordable VPS provider that supports Bitcoin and Nostr communities. For instance, SatoshiHost offers VPS services tailored for such needs.

• Install Nutshell: After setting up your VPS, install the Nutshell software by following the official installation guide.

• Nutshell

• Full Cashu Implementation

• Configure the Mint: Set up the mint parameters, including denomination and security settings, to suit your requirements.

• Secure the Server: Implement security measures such as firewalls and regular updates to protect your mint from potential threats.

• Recommendations
• Server Tips

3. Integrating Nostr Wallet Connect for Seamless Tipping

Purpose and Benefits:

Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) is an open protocol that enables applications to interact with Bitcoin Lightning wallets. Integrating NWC allows for seamless tipping and payments within Nostr apps, enhancing user experience and promoting engagement.

Integration Steps:

• Choose a Supporting App: Select a Nostr app that supports NWC, such as Amythystor Damus.

• Connect Your Wallet: Use NWC to link your preferred Lightning wallet to the Nostr app. This connection facilitates seamless payments without the need to switch between applications.

• Test the Integration: Perform a test transaction to ensure that the tipping functionality works as intended.

• Maintain Security: Regularly update your wallet and Nostr app to incorporate the latest security features and improvements.

For a deeper understanding of Nostr Wallet Connect and its significance, you can watch the following discussion:

Final Thoughts On Setup

Implementing these components enhances your interaction with the Bitcoin ecosystem by providing efficient transaction management, improved privacy, and seamless integration with Nostr applications. By running an Alby Hub cloud instance, setting up a Nutshell Ecash mint on an affordable VPS, and integrating Nostr Wallet Connect, you contribute to a more robust and user-friendly Bitcoin environment.

Invitation for Feedback

I encourage you to share any questions or feedback regarding these topics. Let's continue the conversation to explore how we can further engage with and improve upon these technologies.

@ 82341f88:fbfbe6a2

There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified.

I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:

1. Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.
2. Only the original author may remove content they produce.
3. Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.

The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company.

The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690

I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time. Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.

Back to the principles. Of course governments want to shape and control the public conversation, and will use every method at their disposal to do so, including the media. And the power a corporation wields to do the same is only growing. It’s critical that the people have tools to resist this, and that those tools are ultimately owned by the people. Allowing a government or a few corporations to own the public conversation is a path towards centralized control.

I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible. Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity. There are significant issues with this stance of course, but starting with this principle will allow for far better solutions than we have today. The internet is trending towards a world were storage is “free” and infinite, which places all the actual value on how to discover and see content.

Which brings me to the last principle: moderation. I don’t believe a centralized system can do content moderation globally. It can only be done through ranking and relevance algorithms, the more localized the better. But instead of a company or government building and controlling these solely, people should be able to build and choose from algorithms that best match their criteria, or not have to use any at all. A “follow” action should always deliver every bit of content from the corresponding account, and the algorithms should be able to comb through everything else through a relevance lens that an individual determines. There’s a default “G-rated” algorithm, and then there’s everything else one can imagine.

The only way I know of to truly live up to these 3 principles is a free and open protocol for social media, that is not owned by a single company or group of companies, and is resilient to corporate and government influence. The problem today is that we have companies who own both the protocol and discovery of content. Which ultimately puts one person in charge of what’s available and seen, or not. This is by definition a single point of failure, no matter how great the person, and over time will fracture the public conversation, and may lead to more control by governments and corporations around the world.

I believe many companies can build a phenomenal business off an open protocol. For proof, look at both the web and email. The biggest problem with these models however is that the discovery mechanisms are far too proprietary and fixed instead of open or extendable. Companies can build many profitable services that complement rather than lock down how we access this massive collection of conversation. There is no need to own or host it themselves.

Many of you won’t trust this solution just because it’s me stating it. I get it, but that’s exactly the point. Trusting any one individual with this comes with compromises, not to mention being way too heavy a burden for the individual. It has to be something akin to what bitcoin has shown to be possible. If you want proof of this, get out of the US and European bubble of the bitcoin price fluctuations and learn how real people are using it for censorship resistance in Africa and Central/South America.

I do still wish for Twitter, and every company, to become uncomfortably transparent in all their actions, and I wish I forced more of that years ago. I do believe absolute transparency builds trust. As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider. And along with that, commitments of transparency for present and future actions. I’m hopeful all of this will happen. There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from. The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.

As far as the free and open social media protocol goes, there are many competing projects: @bluesky is one with the AT Protocol, nostr another, Mastodon yet another, Matrix yet another…and there will be many more. One will have a chance at becoming a standard like HTTP or SMTP. This isn’t about a “decentralized Twitter.” This is a focused and urgent push for a foundational core technology standard to make social media a native part of the internet. I believe this is critical both to Twitter’s future, and the public conversation’s ability to truly serve the people, which helps hold governments and corporations accountable. And hopefully makes it all a lot more fun and informative again.

💸🛠️🌐 To accelerate open internet and protocol work, I’m going to open a new category of #startsmall grants: “open internet development.” It will start with a focus of giving cash and equity grants to engineering teams working on social media and private communication protocols, bitcoin, and a web-only mobile OS. I’ll make some grants next week, starting with $1mm/yr to Signal. Please let me know other great candidates for this money.

@ 3b7fc823:e194354f

Why You Should Only Run DeepSeek Locally: A Privacy Perspective and how to

In an era where AI tools promise immense utility, the decision to run DeepSeek locally is not merely about functionality but also about safeguarding privacy and security. Here's the rationale why:

1. Control Over Data Access: Running DeepSeek locally ensures that data processing occurs on your own machine or server, allowing you to have full control over who can access the system. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access and misuse.

2. Data Privacy: By keeping computations local, you ensure that personal data does not leave your control, minimizing the risk of exposure through cloud-based services.

3. Security Measures: Local operation provides an additional layer of security. You can implement access controls, monitor usage, and respond to incidents more effectively, which might be harder or impossible when relying on third-party platforms.

4. Practical Implementation: Tools like Ollama and OpenWebUI facilitate setting up a local environment, making it accessible even for those with limited technical expertise. This setup empowers individuals to leverage AI capabilities while maintaining privacy.

5. Right to Control Data: Privacy is a fundamental right, and running DeepSeek locally respects this by allowing users to decide what data they share and how it's accessed. This empowers individuals to make informed choices about their personal data.

For those prioritizing privacy, this approach is not just beneficial—it's essential.

Running DeepSeek Locally: A Guide for Individual Home Users

DeepSeek is a powerful AI search engine that can help with various tasks, but running it locally gives you greater control over your data and privacy. Here’s how you can set it up at home.

---

What You’ll Need

1. A Computer: A desktop or laptop with sufficient processing power (at least 4GB RAM).
2. Python and pip: To install and run DeepSeek.
3. Ollama: An open-source tool that allows you to run AI models locally.
4. OpenWebUI: A simple web interface for interacting with Ollama.

---

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Install the Prerequisites

• Python: Download and install Python from https://www.python.org.
• pip: Use pip to install Python packages. bash pip install --upgrade pip
• Ollama: bash pip install ollama
• OpenWebUI: Visit https://github.com/DeepSeek-LLM/openwebui and follow the instructions to install it.

---

2. Set Up Ollama

• Clone the official Ollama repository: bash git clone https://github.com/OllamaAI/Ollama.git cd Ollama
• Follow the installation guide on https://ollama.ai to set it up.

---

3. Run DeepSeek Locally

• Use OpenWebUI as your interface: bash # Start OpenWebUI (open a terminal and run this): python openwebui.py --model deepseek-llm-v0.2-beta
• A web browser will open, allowing you to interact with DeepSeek.

---

Tips for Optimization

1. Reduce Memory Usage: Use smaller models like deepseek-llm-v0.2-beta if your computer has limited resources.
2. Limit Model Access: Only allow authorized users to access the system by restricting IP addresses or using a VPN.
3. Regular Updates: Keep all software up to date to protect against vulnerabilities.

---

Why Run DeepSeek Locally?

• Privacy: Your data stays on your local machine, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
• Flexability: Running locally allows you to build specific models for specific uses and provide them with RAG data.

---

Advocating for privacy does not finance itself. If you enjoyed this article, please consider zapping or sending monero

@ 3ffac3a6:2d656657

Prologue: The Last Trade

Ethan Nakamura was a 29-year-old software engineer and crypto enthusiast who had spent years building his life around Bitcoin. Obsessed with the idea of financial sovereignty, he had amassed a small fortune trading cryptocurrencies, all while dreaming of a world where decentralized systems ruled over centralized power.

One night, while debugging a particularly thorny piece of code for a smart contract, Ethan stumbled across an obscure, encrypted message hidden in the blockchain. It read:

"The key to true freedom lies beyond. Burn it all to unlock the gate."

Intrigued and half-convinced it was an elaborate ARG (Alternate Reality Game), Ethan decided to follow the cryptic instruction. He loaded his entire Bitcoin wallet into a single transaction and sent it to an untraceable address tied to the message. The moment the transaction was confirmed, his laptop screen began to glitch, flooding with strange symbols and hash codes.

Before he could react, a flash of light engulfed him.

---

Chapter 1: A New Ledger

Ethan awoke in a dense forest bathed in ethereal light. The first thing he noticed was the HUD floating in front of him—a sleek, transparent interface that displayed his "Crypto Balance": 21 million BTC.

“What the…” Ethan muttered. He blinked, hoping it was a dream, but the numbers stayed. The HUD also showed other metrics:

• Hash Power: 1,000,000 TH/s
• Mining Efficiency: 120%
• Transaction Speed: Instant

Before he could process, a notification pinged on the HUD:

"Welcome to the Decentralized Kingdom. Your mining rig is active. Begin accumulating resources to survive."

Confused and a little terrified, Ethan stood and surveyed his surroundings. As he moved, the HUD expanded, revealing a map of the area. His new world looked like a cross between a medieval fantasy realm and a cyberpunk dystopia, with glowing neon towers visible on the horizon and villagers dressed in tunics carrying strange, glowing "crypto shards."

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over him. A towering beast, part wolf, part machine, snarled, its eyes glowing red. Above its head was the name "Feral Node" and a strange sigil resembling a corrupted block.

Instinct kicked in. Ethan raised his hands defensively, and to his shock, the HUD offered an option:

"Execute Smart Contract Attack? (Cost: 0.001 BTC)"

He selected it without hesitation. A glowing glyph appeared in the air, releasing a wave of light that froze the Feral Node mid-lunge. Moments later, it dissolved into a cascade of shimmering data, leaving behind a pile of "Crypto Shards" and an item labeled "Node Fragment."

---

Chapter 2: The Decentralized Kingdom

Ethan discovered that the world he had entered was built entirely on blockchain-like principles. The land was divided into regions, each governed by a Consensus Council—groups of powerful beings called Validators who maintained the balance of the world. However, a dark force known as The Central Authority sought to consolidate power, turning decentralized regions into tightly controlled fiefdoms.

Ethan’s newfound abilities made him a unique entity in this world. Unlike its inhabitants, who earned wealth through mining or trading physical crypto shards, Ethan could generate and spend Bitcoin directly—making him both a target and a potential savior.

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Chapter 3: Allies and Adversaries

Ethan soon met a colorful cast of characters:

• Luna, a fiery rogue and self-proclaimed "Crypto Thief," who hacked into ledgers to redistribute wealth to oppressed villages. She was skeptical of Ethan's "magical Bitcoin" but saw potential in him.

• Hal, an aging miner who ran an underground resistance against the Central Authority. He wielded an ancient "ASIC Hammer" capable of shattering corrupted nodes.

• Oracle Satoshi, a mysterious AI-like entity who guided Ethan with cryptic advice, often referencing real-world crypto principles like decentralization, trustless systems, and private keys.

Ethan also gained enemies, chief among them the Ledger Lords, a cabal of Validators allied with the Central Authority. They sought to capture Ethan and seize his Bitcoin, believing it could tip the balance of power.

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Chapter 4: Proof of Existence

As Ethan delved deeper into the world, he learned that his Bitcoin balance was finite. To survive and grow stronger, he had to "mine" resources by solving problems for the people of the Decentralized Kingdom. From repairing broken smart contracts in towns to defending miners from feral nodes, every task rewarded him with shards and upgrades.

He also uncovered the truth about his arrival: the blockchain Ethan had used in his world was a prototype for this one. The encrypted message had been a failsafe created by its original developers—a desperate attempt to summon someone who could break the growing centralization threatening to destroy the world.

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Chapter 5: The Final Fork

As the Central Authority's grip tightened, Ethan and his allies prepared for a final battle at the Genesis Block, the origin of the world's blockchain. Here, Ethan would face the Central Authority's leader, an amalgamation of corrupted code and human ambition known as The Miner King.

The battle was a clash of philosophies as much as strength. Using everything he had learned, Ethan deployed a daring Hard Fork, splitting the world’s blockchain and decentralizing power once again. The process drained nearly all of his Bitcoin, leaving him with a single satoshi—a symbolic reminder of his purpose.

---

Epilogue: Building the Future

With the Central Authority defeated, the Decentralized Kingdom entered a new era. Ethan chose to remain in the world, helping its inhabitants build fairer systems and teaching them the principles of trustless cooperation.

As he gazed at the sunrise over the rebuilt Genesis Block, Ethan smiled. He had dreamed of a world where Bitcoin could change everything. Now, he was living it.

@ ddf03aca:5cb3bbbe

We’re thrilled to announce the stable release of Cashu-TS v2.2! Although this update is a minor version bump, it brings significant improvements under the hood that enhance the overall developer experience. We’ve spent several weeks testing and refining these changes.

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What’s New in v2.2?

While there are no breaking changes in this release, there are many internal changes. If you spot any regressions or unexpected behavior, please let us know. Here’s a rundown of the major updates:

• Enhanced Proof Creation: The way proofs are created internally has been revamped.
• User-Controlled Outputs: You now have full control over how outputs are created.
• Improved Bundling: We’ve switched our bundling tool to vite for faster and more modern builds.
• Updated Testing Tools: Our testing framework has migrated to vitest and msw, with added browser testing via Playwright.

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New Flexibility with OutputData

In previous versions of Cashu-TS, the creation of outputs (or BlindedMessages) was hidden away. Even though there were options to tweak the process (like deterministic secrets or P2PK), you were always limited to the built-in logic.

What’s Changed?

In v2.2, we’ve introduced a public interface that not only streamlines output creation but also lets you plug in your own custom logic when needed. With the new outputData option available on all output-creating methods, you can now bypass the automatic process and provide your own outputs.

For example, you can create two proofs tied to different public keys in a single mint operation:

ts const data1 = OutputData.createP2PKData({ pubkey: "key1" }, 10, keys); const data2 = OutputData.createP2PKData({ pubkey: "key2" }, 10, keys); const { keep, send } = await wallet.send(20, proofs, { outputData: { send: [...data1, ...data2] }, });

Customization Made Easy

The outputData option now accepts anything that conforms to the OutputDataLike interface. This means you can introduce your own output creation logic—even if it’s not natively supported by Cashu-TS yet. Here’s what the interface looks like:

```ts export interface OutputDataLike { blindedMessage: SerializedBlindedMessage; blindingFactor: bigint; secret: Uint8Array;

toProof: (signature: SerializedBlindedSignature, keyset: MintKeys) => Proof; } ```

Introducing OutputData Factories

While having full control is empowering, it also means you’ll need to handle tasks like fee calculation and amount selection manually. To strike a balance between control and convenience, we now support OutputData Factories.

A factory is simply a function that takes an amount and MintKeys as input and returns an OutputDataLike object. This way, you can define a blueprint for your output data without worrying about the nitty-gritty details. For instance, you can create separate factories for amounts you keep versus those you send:

```ts function keepFactory(a: number, k: MintKeys) { return OutputData.createSingleP2PKData({ pubkey: "keepPk" }, a, k.id); }

function sendFactory(a: number, k: MintKeys) { return OutputData.createSingleP2PKData({ pubkey: "sendPk" }, a, k.id); }

const { send, keep } = await wallet.send(amount, proofs, { outputData: { send: createFactory("send"), keep: createFactory("keep") }, }); ```

Plus, you can now instantiate a CashuWallet with a default keepFactory, ensuring that all change amounts automatically lock to your key—streamlining your workflow even further.

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Bundling Improvements with Vite

Starting with v2.2, we’ve transitioned from using tsc to vite for transpiling and bundling the library code. Although this change is mostly behind the scenes, it brings several benefits:

• Modern Build Target: We’ve updated our build target to ES6.
• Updated Exports: The package exports now reflect the latest JavaScript standards.
• Standalone Build Soon: We’re working on a standalone build that bundles Cashu-TS along with all its dependencies. This will let you import Cashu-TS directly into your HTML.

If you encounter any issues with the new bundling setup, please let us know.

A Nod to Vitest

In addition to our bundling improvements, we’ve migrated our testing framework from Jest (with nock) to vitest combined with msw. This switch gives us more flexibility in testing and mocking, plus we’ve added browser testing based on Playwright—thanks to the tip from nostr:npub16anjdksmvn5x08vtden04n64rw5k7fsjmedpw8avsx8wsh8ruhlq076pfx!

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In Conclusion

Although Cashu-TS v2.2 is a minor version update, it comes packed with improvements that enhance both the developer experience and the flexibility of the library. We’re excited to see how you’ll use these new features in your projects! Thanks to all the amazing contributors that add to this library.

Thank you for being a part of the Cashu-TS community. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or issues, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

@ 3f770d65:7a745b24

New Year’s resolutions often feel boring and repetitive. Most revolve around getting in shape, eating healthier, or giving up alcohol. While the idea is interesting—using the start of a new calendar year as a catalyst for change—it also seems unnecessary. Why wait for a specific date to make a change? If you want to improve something in your life, you can just do it. You don’t need an excuse.

That’s why I’ve never been drawn to the idea of making a list of resolutions. If I wanted a change, I’d make it happen, without worrying about the calendar. At least, that’s how I felt until now—when, for once, the timing actually gave me a real reason to embrace the idea of New Year’s resolutions.

Enter Olas.

If you're a visual creator, you've likely experienced the relentless grind of building a following on platforms like Instagram—endless doomscrolling, ever-changing algorithms, and the constant pressure to stay relevant. But what if there was a better way? Olas is a Nostr-powered alternative to Instagram that prioritizes community, creativity, and value-for-value exchanges. It's a game changer.

Instagram’s failings are well-known. Its algorithm often dictates whose content gets seen, leaving creators frustrated and powerless. Monetization hurdles further alienate creators who are forced to meet arbitrary follower thresholds before earning anything. Additionally, the platform’s design fosters endless comparisons and exposure to negativity, which can take a significant toll on mental health.

Instagram’s algorithms are notorious for keeping users hooked, often at the cost of their mental health. I've spoken about this extensively, most recently at Nostr Valley, explaining how legacy social media is bad for you. You might find yourself scrolling through content that leaves you feeling anxious or drained. Olas takes a fresh approach, replacing "doomscrolling" with "bloomscrolling." This is a common theme across the Nostr ecosystem. The lack of addictive rage algorithms allows the focus to shift to uplifting, positive content that inspires rather than exhausts.

Monetization is another area where Olas will set itself apart. On Instagram, creators face arbitrary barriers to earning—needing thousands of followers and adhering to restrictive platform rules. Olas eliminates these hurdles by leveraging the Nostr protocol, enabling creators to earn directly through value-for-value exchanges. Fans can support their favorite artists instantly, with no delays or approvals required. The plan is to enable a brand new Olas account that can get paid instantly, with zero followers - that's wild.

Olas addresses these issues head-on. Operating on the open Nostr protocol, it removes centralized control over one's content’s reach or one's ability to monetize. With transparent, configurable algorithms, and a community that thrives on mutual support, Olas creates an environment where creators can grow and succeed without unnecessary barriers.

Join me on my New Year's resolution. Join me on Olas and take part in the #Olas365 challenge! It’s a simple yet exciting way to share your content. The challenge is straightforward: post at least one photo per day on Olas (though you’re welcome to share more!).

Download on iOS.

Download on Android or download via Zapstore.

Let's make waves together.

@ 3b7fc823:e194354f

Why Privacy Matters and How to Protect It

Privacy is about control. It’s not about hiding yourself but deciding what others can see about you. Just as you don’t share everything when buying a magazine, technology shouldn’t force you to reveal more than needed.

Why Privacy is Important

1. Personal Control: Privacy lets you choose what parts of your life are visible. You shouldn’t have to share everything just to use a service.

2. Security Against Exploitation: Without privacy, people and groups can be targeted by companies or governments. This abuse can lead to data breaches or unnecessary surveillance.

3. Building Trust: Privacy is key to trust in relationships and communities. When your info is safe, you can transact and communicate without fear of misuse.

How to Protect Your Privacy 1. Think Before You Share: Only share what’s necessary and know why you’re doing it. 2. Use Encryption: Encrypt sensitive communications like emails or messages. 3. Control Data Sharing: Avoid oversharing personal details online. 4. Enable Privacy Tools: Use VPNs or privacy settings on social media to shield your data. 5. Be Mindful of Metadata: Understand that metadata (like location data) can reveal more about you than the content itself. 6. Support Privacy-Focused Brands: Choose services that prioritize privacy, like encrypted messaging apps. 7. Read Privacy Policies: Know what data you’re sharing and with whom. 8. Tools like privacy.io can help visualize your digital footprint. 9. Block Trackers: Use tools like DoNotTrackMe or uBlock Origin to stop trackers from collecting your data.

Conclusion

Protecting privacy is a vital step in safeguarding your personal freedoms. By taking proactive measures, you can control what information is accessible and ensure that your rights are respected. Remember, you are your own best advocate for privacy—trust no one but yourself to protect your data and identity.

Join the movement to champion privacy as a fundamental human right. Advocate for stronger laws and encourage others to take action, so we can all enjoy safer, more secure digital environments.

@ b17fccdf:b7211155

Next new resources about the MiniBolt guide have been released:

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• 🆕 Roadmap: LINK
• 🆕 Dynamic Network map: LINK
• 🆕 Nostr community: LINK < ~ REMOVE the "[]" symbols from the URL (naddr...) to access
• 🆕 Linktr FOSS (UC) by Gzuuus: LINK
• 🆕 Donate webpage: 🚾 Clearnet LINK || 🧅 Onion LINK
• 🆕 Contact email: hello@minibolt.info

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Enjoy it MiniBolter! 💙

@ b17fccdf:b7211155

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Check out the MiniBolt guide -> HERE <-

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• Core guides
• System
  • Preparations
  • Operating System
  • Remote access
  • Configuration
  • Security
  • Privacy
• Bitcoin
  • Bitcoin client (Bitcoin Core)
  • Electrum server (Fulcrum)
  • Desktop signing app (Sparrow Wallet)
  • Blockchain explorer (BTC RPC Explorer)
• Lightning
  • Lightning client (LND)
  • Channel backup
  • Web app (ThunderHub)
  • Mobile app (Zeus)
• Bonus guides
• System bonus guide
  • Dashboard & Appearance
    • Pimp the command line
    • System Overview
  • System Administration
    • Aliases
    • Statip IP & custom DNS servers
  • Install / Update / Uninstall common languages
    • Node.js + NPM
    • Rustup + Cargo
    • Go!
  • Databases
    • PostgreSQL
  • Security
    • SSH Keys
    • WireGuard VPN
    • Cloudflare Tunnel
  • Resilience
    • Tor services: bridges & relays
  • Hardware
    • Store data in a secondary disk
• Bitcoin bonus guides
  • Electrum servers
    • Electrs
  • Signing apps
    • Desktop
    • Electrum Wallet Desktop
  • Decentralized exchange
    • Bisq
  • Resilience
    • Safu Ninja
    • Ordisrespector
  • Fun
    • Download the white paper
  • Testnet
    • MiniBolt on Testnet
  • Payment processors
    • BTCPay Server
• Nostr bonus guides
  • Relays
  • Nostr relay

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🏗️ Roadmap | 🌐 Dynamic Network map | 🔧 Issues | 📥 Pull requests | 🗣️ Discussions

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By ⚡2FakTor⚡

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Last updated: 22/12/2024