@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

“It isn’t obvious that the world had to work this way. But somehow the universe smiles on encryption.”

hzrd149 & Gigi take a stroll along the shore of cryptographic identities.

This dialogue explores how cryptographic signatures fundamentally shift power dynamics in social networks, moving control from servers to key holders. We discuss the concept of "setting data free" through cryptographic verification, the evolving role of relays in the ecosystem, and the challenges of building trust in decentralized systems. We examine the tension between convenience and decentralization, particularly around features like private data and data synchronization. What are the philosophical foundations of building truly decentralized social networks? And how can small architectural decisions have profound implications for user autonomy and data sovereignty?

Movies mentioned:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Soylent Green (1973)
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
• Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
• The Matrix (1999)

In this dialogue: - Hzrd's past conversations: Bowls With Buds 316 & 361 - Running into a water hose - Little difference, big effect - Signing data moves the power to the key holders - Self-signing data sets the data free - Relay specialization - Victor's Amethyst relay guide - Encryption and decryption is expensive - is it worth it? - The magic of nostr is that stuff follows you around - What should be shown? What should be hidden? - Don't lie to users. Never show outdated data. - Nostr is raw and immediate - How quickly you get used to things working - Legacy web always tries to sell you something - Lying, lag, frustration - How NoStrudel grew - NoStrudel notifications - Data visualization and dashboards - Building in public and discussing in public - Should we remove DMs? - Nostr as a substrate for lookups - Using nostr to exchange Signal or SimpleX credentials - How private is a group chat? - Is a 500-people group chat ever private? - Pragmatism vs the engineering mindset - The beauty and simplicity of nostr - Anti-patterns in nostr - Community servers and private relays - Will vibe coding fix (some of the) things? - Small specialized components VS frameworks - Technology vs chairs (and cars, and tractors, and books) - The problem of being greedy - Competitive silos VS synergistic cooperation - Making things easy vs barriers of entry - Value4value for music and other artists - Adding code vs removing code - Pablo's Roo setup and DVMCP - Platform permission slips vs cryptographic identities - Micropayments vs Subscription Hell - PayPerQ - Setting our user-generated data free - The GNU/Linux approach and how it beat Microsoft - Agents learning automatically thanks to snippets published on nostr - Taxi drivers, GPS, and outsourcing understanding - Wizards VS vibe coders - Age differences, Siri, and Dragon Naturally Speaking - LLMs as a human interface to call tools - Natural language vs math and computer language - Natural language has to be fuzzy, because the world is fuzzy - Language and concepts as compression - Hzrd watching The Matrix (1999) for the first time - Soylent Green, 2001, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Johnny Mnemonic - Are there coincidences? - Why are LLMs rising at the same time that cryptography identities are rising? - "The universe smiles at encryption" - The universe does not smile upon closed silos - The cost of applying force from the outside - Perfect copies, locality, and the concept of "the original" - Perfect memory would be a curse, not a blessing - Organic forgetting VS centralized forgetting - Forgetting and dying needs to be effortless - (it wasn't for IPFS, and they also launched a shitcoin) - Bitcoin makes is cheap to figure out what to dismiss - Would you like to have a 2nd brain? - Trust and running LLMs locally - No need for API keys - Adjacent communities: local-first, makers and hackers, etc. - Removing the character limit was a mistake - Browsing mode vs reading mode - The genius of tweets and threads - Vibe-coding and rust-multiplatform - Global solutions vs local solutions - The long-term survivability of local-first - All servers will eventually go away. Your private key won't. - It's normal to pay your breakfast with sats now - Nostr is also a normal thing now, at least for us - Hzrd's bakery - "Send Gigi a DM that says GM" - and it just works - The user is still in control, thanks to Amber - We are lacking in nostr signing solutions - Alby's permission system as a step in the right direction - We have to get better at explaining that stuff - What we do, why we care, why we think it's important

@ b2caa9b3:9eab0fb5

Yesterday, I faced one of the most heartbreaking and frustrating experiences of my life. Between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, I was held at the Taveta border, denied entry into Kenya—despite having all the necessary documents, including a valid visitor’s permit and an official invitation letter.

The Kenyan Immigration officers refused to speak with me. When I asked for clarification, I was told flatly that I would never be allowed to enter Kenya unless I obtain a work permit. No other reason was given. My attempts to explain that I simply wanted to see my child were ignored. No empathy. No flexibility. No conversation. Just rejection.

While I stood there for hours, held by officials with no explanation beyond a bureaucratic wall, I recorded the experience. I now have several hours of footage documenting what happened—a silent testimony to how a system can dehumanize and block basic rights.

And the situation doesn’t end at the border.

My child, born in Kenya, is also being denied the right to see me. Germany refuses to grant her citizenship, which means she cannot visit me either. The German embassy in Nairobi refuses to assist, stating they won’t get involved. Their silence is loud.

This is not just about paperwork. This is about a child growing up without her father. It’s about a system that chooses walls over bridges, and bureaucracy over humanity. Kenya, by refusing me entry, is keeping a father away from his child. Germany, by refusing to act under §13 StGB, is complicit in that injustice.

In the coming days, I’ll share more about my past travels and how this situation unfolded. I’ll also be releasing videos and updates on TikTok—because this story needs to be heard. Not just for me, but for every parent and child caught between borders and bureaucracies.

Stay tuned—and thank you for standing with me.

@ 000002de:c05780a7

Natalie Brunell had comedian T.J. Miller known for Silicon Valley on her show Coin Stories. I was kinda surprised. Not sure why but I recognized his voice because that's my brain I can forget a face but never a voice.

So what person that has fame also secretly is a bitcoiner. Not has the ETF or whatever but actually gets it and has for a while.

I think this is pretty widely believed that Mark Zuckerburg is a bitcoiner so that would be the person I'd list. No clue beyond that. There has to be quite a few well known people that also get bitcoin and just don't talk about it.

SO, who do you think is in the club?

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/955179

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

I started writing a series on the signs of the End Times and how they align with what we are seeing in the world today. There are some major concerns with predicting the end times, so I decided I should insert a short post on “Can we know when the end times are coming?” Like many principles in the Bible, it takes looking at seemingly contradictory verses to reach the truth.

This Generation

Before I get into “Can we know?” I want to address one point that some will bring up against a future Rapture, Tribulation, and Millennium.

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. (Matthew 24:34) {emphasis mine}

What generation is Jesus talking about. Most Christians that don’t believe in a future Rapture, Tribulation, and Millennium will point to this verse to support their point of view. The important question is, “What is Jesus referring to with the words ‘this generation’?”

Is it referring to the people He was talking to at that time? If so, since that generation died long ago, then Jesus’s predictions must have been fulfilled almost 2 millennia ago. The problem with this interpretation is that nothing resembling these predictions happened during that initial generation. You have to really twist His words to try to support that they were fulfilled. Also, John wrote in Revelation about future fulfillment. By that time, John was the last of the apostles still alive and that whole generation was pretty much gone.

If “this generation” doesn’t refer to the people Jesus was speaking to personally in that moment, then to whom does it refer? The verses immediately preceding talk about the signs that will occur right before the end times. If you take “this generation” to mean the people who saw the signs Jesus predicted, then everything suddenly makes sense. It also parallel’s Paul’s statement of consolation to those who thought they had been left behind,**

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) {emphasis mine}

Some believers thought things were happening in their lifetime, but Paul gave them comfort that no believer would miss the end times rapture.

No One Knows

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. (Matthew 24:34-41) {emphasis mine}

This verse very explicitly says that no one, not even angels or Jesus, knows the exact day or hour of His coming.

So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8)

In this verse Jesus again says that they cannot know the time of His return, but based on context, He is explaining that this generation needs to focus on sharing the Gospel with world and not primarily on the kingdom. Is this Jesus’s way of telling them that they would not be alive to see His return, but they would be responsible for “sharing the Gospel even to the remotest part of the earth?”

Therefore we do know that predicting the exact date of His return is a fool’s errand and should not be attempted, but does this mean we can’t know when it is fast approaching?

We Should Know

There is an opposing passage, though.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away. (Matthew 16:1-4) {emphasis mine}

In this passage, Jesus reprimands the Pharisees and Sadducees because, although they can rightly read the signs of the weather, they were unable to know and understand the prophecies of His first coming. Especially as the religious leaders, they should’ve been able to determine that Jesus’s coming was imminent and that He was fulfilling the prophetic Scriptures.

In Luke, when Jesus is discussing His second coming with His disciples, He tells this parable:

Then He told them a parable: “Behold the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they put forth leaves, you see it and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near. (Luke 21:29-31) {emphasis mine}

Jesus would not have given this parable if there were not signs of His coming that we can recognize.

We are expected to know the Scriptures and to study them looking for the signs of His second coming. We can’t know the hour or the day, but we can know that the time is fast approaching. We shouldn’t set dates, but we should search anxiously for the signs of His coming. We shouldn’t be like the scoffers that question His literal fulfillment of His promises:

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:3-9) {emphasis mine}

One thing is certain, we are closer to Jesus’s second coming than we have ever been and must be ready as we see the day approaching.

May the God of heaven give you a desire and urgency to share the Gospel with all those around you and to grow your faith, knowledge, and relationship with Him, so you can finish the race well, with no regrets. May the knowledge that Jesus could be coming soon give you an eternal perspective on life, so you put more of your time into things of eternal consequence and don’t get overwhelmed with things of the world which are here today and then are gone.

Trust Jesus.

FYI, I hope to write several more articles on the end times (signs of the times, the rapture, the millennium, and the judgement), but I might be a bit slow rolling them out because I want to make sure they are accurate and well supported by Scripture. You can see my previous posts on the end times on the end times tab at trustjesus.substack.com. I also frequently will list upcoming posts.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Most people would define “maintenance” as “fixing stuff that’s broken”. If you told them that that’s “repair” and that maintenance is different, they’d reply that you should get your head out of the dictionary and stop being so pedantic. After all, the difference is semantic at best and nobody cares! My argument is that you should care, and that the difference will save your household, your business, and your society.

I’ve gotten way ahead of myself. Let’s start with defining maintenance and repair so we can understand the differences. Repair, to borrow from above, is fixing stuff that’s broken. If your pencil snaps in half and you tape it back together, that’s repair. If you drive over a nail and the shop patches your tire, that’s repair. Maintenance is when you do work to prevent stuff from breaking. Trimming your fingernails prevents them from cracking or ripping.

When you define maintenance and describe examples out loud the benefits sound obvious. Yet we struggle with even the most basic maintenance items. This is because unlike with repair, maintenance requires a form of intentional advanced thinking similar to delayed gratification. If something is broken the need for repair is immediate and usually quite visible. Almost no thinking at all is needed to see that a tire is flat, but regularly cleaning your shower to avoid mold requires thinking about future effects. Some effects are even further removed; for example, changing your HVAC filters leads to higher air quality, which leads to fewer respiratory issues, which leads to better sleep, which leads to improved mood and productivity.

Reactive thinkers struggle deeply with the idea of maintenance. It’s a bit like the Marshmallow Test (see Which Disney Princess Are You (In The Workplace)?) except instead of a larger reward later, it’s less expense later. Putting off maintenance is not always due to high time preference though; sometimes there are monetary restrictions. Terry Pratchett has a wonderful example of this in his book “Men at Arms” where a character compares cheap boots that only last a short while to more expensive ones that last much longer. A poor person can’t afford the larger upfront cost of the ones that last longer, so they’re doomed to spend more money on several pairs of cheaper boots over the same time period.

One thing you can do is choose options that require less maintenance overall. “Low-maintenance” can be sought out in almost any category. Vehicles, appliances, technology, even friends! I would describe myself as a low-maintenance spouse. Our 2003 Toyota RAV4 is also low-maintenance. Our dog, on the other hand, is rather high-maintenance.

Want help picking out low-maintenance technology for your organization? You can find us as scalebright.ca.

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

How I wish I had time for this!

https://primal.net/e/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqntcggz30qhq60ltqdx32zku9d46unhrkjtcv7fml7jx3dh4h94nqqsynzz85x8dcqnzxrzypec9xw6haxxjt0z0c547suty7gpa835v0vs2qusmr

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/953418

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Sometime in the not-too-distant future...

alert – low voltage – P Node 5

Pippin looked up from the McMaster-Carr catalogue to the blinking line of text. A double-click opened the Grafana page for Perimeter Node 5. The solar panel voltage graph showed a stable 18V, then a jagged drop to 10V. Weird, that panel is less than a year old, and it’s a clear, sunny, wind-less day. He reached to the wall and poked the button labelled “Patrol 3”, and listened for the noise of the Hawk 2A fixed-wing patrol drone leaving it’s nest.

whirrrrr-zip!

Off it went. It should be over the node in about 6 minutes. He opened the live feed on the second monitor and went back to the catalogue. Here we are, 49045K12. That should get the water system in the greenhouse working again. Back on the computer he opened his AirZap page, selected McMaster-Carr from the list of vendors, and entered the part number on the item list. 148sats with next week’s regular delivery, or 400sats special delivery tomorrow. He clicked the “Regular Delivery” button, then “Confirm Zap”. The HF radio on the network rack hummed for a moment then shrieked a burst of noise. The Nostr event with the order details and Lightning payment was on it’s way to McMaster-Carr’s relay. Luckily the part is small and light enough for drone delivery. Pippin’s private grid on Glass Lake is well outside Fed-PS’s ground delivery area, and even if it wasn’t, there are no government roads here. Being a non-citizen and outside a metro-state was a pain and could be expensive. It was better than paying a 95% tax rate though...

alert – low voltage – P Node 5

The node! His eyes snapped to the second monitor just in time for the flyover, and he could see right away that the solar panel was at an odd angle. Yay, a field repair out in the cold. He tossed the tool kit and electrical repair kit on the hovertrike rack while his thermos filled with coffee. Giving the freeze-frame from the Hawk 2A a second look, he grumbled and grabbed the mechanical kit, adding it to the pile. After a third look and an eye roll he dragged a spare solar panel over to the trailer, then slapped the “Hitch” button.

Clear! Clear! Clear! zzz-thunk!

The electromagnets sucked the trailer and trike together, the pin dropping in as soon as it cleared. Pippin silently prayed thanks to God for small conveniences that eased life’s suffering and slurped a sip off the top of the thermos. And coffee. Thank you Father for the coffee trees in the greenhouse.

...

The cutline running the border of Pippin’s property is technically straight and certainly looks it from above, but driving it, even on a hovertrike, is a bouncy, curvy, slow-going affair. Watching immediately ahead instead of appropriately further meant a surprise when the node entered his field of vision. The trailer slid sideways as the trike stopped immediately on its legs. After a sigh and a sip, Pippin powered off the pads and dismounted. Yup, the solar panel is definitely twisted sideways. And bent. And...scratched? Short gouges scraped through the 2 columns of cells closest to the bent edge. There were no fallen trees nearby, so that wasn’t the cause...

snap!

He reached for his laser and got nothing but air. It was in the shop on the charger. Of course it would be; cue a subconscious eye roll. When his brain finally caught up with his eyes he registered the source: 2 meters tall, all black, and capable of mowing him down without a second thought. Thankfully the bull moose was, as most are, completely disinterested in everything but the willow tree he was in the middle of dismembering for lunch. Nonchalance was a benefit of having no natural predators. The ceramic dust on the points of one antler solved the solar panel mystery though; the panel was at the perfect hight for him to have scrapped the side of it as he walked by. He probably didn’t even notice as they’re constantly dragging them through the brush and trees.

...

warning – P Node 5 offline

He hadn’t bothered to mute the alerts while he replaced the broken panel and twisted mounting hardware. Last time he did he forgot to unmute them and went 2 days without noticing. Better to be mildly annoyed for a short time then to go without system or security alerts. He closed the junction box and moved his gaze to the status screen.

powering on...

self check...

all tests pass...

connecting to network...

no signal, switching to failover network...

He mashed the reboot button before it could complete. If he let it connect to the backup ZuckLink satellite network he’d be paying non-citizen usage fees by the megabyte. It was probably just a hiccup anyways, the point-to-point terrestrial link would probably connect fine on the next try.

no signal, switching to failover network...

This time he hit the power switch. The moose hadn’t damaged the antenna and he’d double-checked the alignment while he had the ladder out. Why wasn’t it connecting? He picked up the network scanner, walked to the other side of the node, and pointed it in the general direction of Node 6. No signal. Surely Node 6 didn’t go down on his way here. Now it was either drive all the way there to check it, or let Node 5 connect via satellite and check remotely.

no signal, switching to failover network...

He could practically feel the sats streaming out of his wallet. Ugh, here we go...

failover network unavailble, no signal...

What? There’s no way the satellite link was down too, unless the whole network stack was borked. Huffing and grumbling back to the trike, he plugged the network scanner into it’s com system and selected the satellite interface.

no signal

“Hey Bullwinkle, you wouldn’t happen to be running around with an all-spectrum jammer would you?” Hearing nothing, he looked up and around for the moose. He had been working his way down the edge of the line where the young willows were while Pippin had been working on repairs. Now he was gone. If the moose had joined the rimwalker raiders and started carrying signal jammers, he should be out of range now. He chuckled at the thought of some off-grid wildman trying to train a moose to carry equipment.

no signal, switching to failover network...

failover network unavailable, no signal...

Maybe it was the network stack. But that wouldn’t explain being unable to connect through the trike. Maybe he should just unhitch the trailer and go check Node 6. While highly unlikely, there could be a ZuckLink outage in his cell and an issue with the link to the next node at the same time. The only way to know would be to check in-person.

As he looked up from the status screen his peripheral caught motion on the treeline. “Hey Bullwinkle, is that you?” Antler points protruded from behind a tree, unmoving. A bit too still, actually.

“Bullwinkle?” Those weren’t antler points. That was an antenna array.

no signal

Notes & Appendix

The various technical and other odd bits I used in this story are all either real things or will be very soon. If this was a movie or TV show the visual elements would make some of the nerdier references either to get (i.e. most people would know a drone if they saw one, but saying “fixed-wing patrol drone” doesn’t necessarily draw a mental image for everyone), but in an effort to not constantly interrupt the flow for explanations I’ve moved those here. If I’ve missed any or you want more more detailed explanations, you can find us at scalebright.ca!

McMaster-Carr: A 120+ year old distribution company that specializes in hardware, parts, and tools. Known for their iconic enormous yellow catalogues and legendary (in I.T. circles) website. They’ll probably still be around in another 120+ years and probably still have their yellow catalogues.

Fixed-wing patrol drones: The fixed-wing variety of drones look like miniature airplanes and generally fly much faster than their more common quad-copter style siblings, making them excellent for patrols of static routes.

Sats: Short for “satoshis”, sats are the smallest denomination of Bitcoin.

Zaps: Bitcoin Lighting payments made over Nostr.

Lighting: A Bitcoin protocol for small payments (usually denominated in sats).

Nostr: A decentralized communications and social media protocol.

HF radio: Short for “high frequency”, also knows as ham radio. Bitcoin Lightning payments have been made over HF, as have Nostr posts.

Metro-state: City-states have existed since cities were first built. Metro-states would be a modern version that include their entire greater metro areas in their statehood.

Laser: Advances in focusing lens manufacturing have made handheld “laser guns” possible, though currently legally dubious. I get ads for them on a few of my social networks.

Ceramic solar panels: They’re being marketed as the next big thing in solar tech, but time will tell if they’re as good as the sales pitches say.

Bullwinkle: An anthropomorphic moose character from the 1950s/60s TV show “Rocky and Bullwinkle”.

All-spectrum jammer: Police have been finding criminals using both commercially manufactured and home-made signal jammers during robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes to stop people from calling emergency services or disrupt wireless security cameras. Most of them look like a WIFI router with a whole bunch of antennas.

rimwalker raiders: A made-up category of bandits known for living on the edge of civilization but still making use of technology.

@ 1f79058c:eb86e1cb

I think we should agree on an HTML element for pointing to the Nostr representation of a document/URL on the Web. We could use the existing one for link relations for example:

html <link rel="alternate" type="application/nostr+json" href="nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4..." title="This article on Nostr" />

This would be useful in multiple ways:

1. Nostr clients, when fetching meta/preview information for a URL that is linked in a note, can detect that there's a Nostr representation of the content, and then render it in Nostr-native ways (whatever that may be depending on the client)
2. User agents, usually a browser or browser extension, when opening a URL on the Web, can offer opening the alternative representation of a page in a Nostr client. And/or they could offer to follow the author's pubkey on Nostr. And/or they could offer to zap the content.
3. When publishing a new article, authors can share their preferred Web URL everywhere, without having to consider if the reader knows about or uses Nostr at all. However, if a Nostr user finds the Web version of an article outside of Nostr, they can now easily jump to the Nostr version of it.
4. Existing Web publications can retroactively create Nostr versions of their content and easily link the Nostr articles on all of their existing article pages without having to add prominent Nostr links everywhere.

There are probably more use cases, like Nostr search engines and whatnot. If you can think of something interesting, please tell me.

Proof of concept

In order to show one way in which this could be used, I have created a small Web Extension called Nostr Links, which will discover alternate Nostr links on the pages you visit.

If it finds one or more links, it will show a purple Nostr icon in the address bar, which you can click to open the list of links. It's similar to e.g. the Feed Preview extension, and also to what the Tor Browser does when it discovers an Onion-Location for the page you're looking at:

The links in this popup menu will be web+nostr: links, because browsers currently do not allow web apps or extensions to handle unprefixed nostr: links. (I hope someone is working on getting those on par with ipfs: etc.)

Following such a link will either open your default Nostr Web app, if you have already configured one, or it will ask you which Web app to open the link with.

Caveat emptor: At the time of writing, my personal default Web app, noStrudel, needs a new release for the links to find the content.

Try it now

Have a look at the source code and/or download the extension (currently only for Firefox).

I have added alternate Nostr links to the Web pages of profiles and long-form content on the Kosmos relay's domain. It's probably the only place on the Web, which will trigger the extension right now.

You can look at this very post to find an alternate link for example.

@ a39d19ec:3d88f61e

Die Debatte um Migration, Grenzsicherung und Abschiebungen wird in Deutschland meist emotional geführt. Wer fordert, dass illegale Einwanderer abgeschoben werden, sieht sich nicht selten dem Vorwurf des Rassismus ausgesetzt. Doch dieser Vorwurf ist nicht nur sachlich unbegründet, sondern verkehrt die Realität ins Gegenteil: Tatsächlich sind es gerade diejenigen, die hinter jeder Forderung nach Rechtssicherheit eine rassistische Motivation vermuten, die selbst in erster Linie nach Hautfarbe, Herkunft oder Nationalität urteilen.

Das Recht steht über Emotionen

Deutschland ist ein Rechtsstaat. Das bedeutet, dass Regeln nicht nach Bauchgefühl oder politischer Stimmungslage ausgelegt werden können, sondern auf klaren gesetzlichen Grundlagen beruhen müssen. Einer dieser Grundsätze ist in Artikel 16a des Grundgesetzes verankert. Dort heißt es:

„Auf Absatz 1 [Asylrecht] kann sich nicht berufen, wer aus einem Mitgliedstaat der Europäischen Gemeinschaften oder aus einem anderen Drittstaat einreist, in dem die Anwendung des Abkommens über die Rechtsstellung der Flüchtlinge und der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention sichergestellt ist.“

Das bedeutet, dass jeder, der über sichere Drittstaaten nach Deutschland einreist, keinen Anspruch auf Asyl hat. Wer dennoch bleibt, hält sich illegal im Land auf und unterliegt den geltenden Regelungen zur Rückführung. Die Forderung nach Abschiebungen ist daher nichts anderes als die Forderung nach der Einhaltung von Recht und Gesetz.

Die Umkehrung des Rassismusbegriffs

Wer einerseits behauptet, dass das deutsche Asyl- und Aufenthaltsrecht strikt durchgesetzt werden soll, und andererseits nicht nach Herkunft oder Hautfarbe unterscheidet, handelt wertneutral. Diejenigen jedoch, die in einer solchen Forderung nach Rechtsstaatlichkeit einen rassistischen Unterton sehen, projizieren ihre eigenen Denkmuster auf andere: Sie unterstellen, dass die Debatte ausschließlich entlang ethnischer, rassistischer oder nationaler Kriterien geführt wird – und genau das ist eine rassistische Denkweise.

Jemand, der illegale Einwanderung kritisiert, tut dies nicht, weil ihn die Herkunft der Menschen interessiert, sondern weil er den Rechtsstaat respektiert. Hingegen erkennt jemand, der hinter dieser Kritik Rassismus wittert, offenbar in erster Linie die „Rasse“ oder Herkunft der betreffenden Personen und reduziert sie darauf.

Finanzielle Belastung statt ideologischer Debatte

Neben der rechtlichen gibt es auch eine ökonomische Komponente. Der deutsche Wohlfahrtsstaat basiert auf einem Solidarprinzip: Die Bürger zahlen in das System ein, um sich gegenseitig in schwierigen Zeiten zu unterstützen. Dieser Wohlstand wurde über Generationen hinweg von denjenigen erarbeitet, die hier seit langem leben. Die Priorität liegt daher darauf, die vorhandenen Mittel zuerst unter denjenigen zu verteilen, die durch Steuern, Sozialabgaben und Arbeit zum Erhalt dieses Systems beitragen – nicht unter denen, die sich durch illegale Einreise und fehlende wirtschaftliche Eigenleistung in das System begeben.

Das ist keine ideologische Frage, sondern eine rein wirtschaftliche Abwägung. Ein Sozialsystem kann nur dann nachhaltig funktionieren, wenn es nicht unbegrenzt belastet wird. Würde Deutschland keine klaren Regeln zur Einwanderung und Abschiebung haben, würde dies unweigerlich zur Überlastung des Sozialstaates führen – mit negativen Konsequenzen für alle.

Sozialpatriotismus

Ein weiterer wichtiger Aspekt ist der Schutz der Arbeitsleistung jener Generationen, die Deutschland nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg mühsam wieder aufgebaut haben. Während oft betont wird, dass die Deutschen moralisch kein Erbe aus der Zeit vor 1945 beanspruchen dürfen – außer der Verantwortung für den Holocaust –, ist es umso bedeutsamer, das neue Erbe nach 1945 zu respektieren, das auf Fleiß, Disziplin und harter Arbeit beruht. Der Wiederaufbau war eine kollektive Leistung deutscher Menschen, deren Früchte nicht bedenkenlos verteilt werden dürfen, sondern vorrangig denjenigen zugutekommen sollten, die dieses Fundament mitgeschaffen oder es über Generationen mitgetragen haben.

Rechtstaatlichkeit ist nicht verhandelbar

Wer sich für eine konsequente Abschiebepraxis ausspricht, tut dies nicht aus rassistischen Motiven, sondern aus Respekt vor der Rechtsstaatlichkeit und den wirtschaftlichen Grundlagen des Landes. Der Vorwurf des Rassismus in diesem Kontext ist daher nicht nur falsch, sondern entlarvt eine selektive Wahrnehmung nach rassistischen Merkmalen bei denjenigen, die ihn erheben.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Artificial intelligence is upon us and not showing any signs of slowing. The most common concern from those in the workforce is being replaced by one of these “thinking machines”. But what if AI wasn’t coming for your job? What if it was coming for your boss’s job instead?

I happened across the following post on X: https://x.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1905754986795151629 Brian describes having installed an AI system that provides an omniscient “shadow” to each of the executives at a client company, which can then be queried by the CEO for reports. The CEO seems to like it so far, and if it leads to less time spent writing internal reports I’m sure the executives like it too. But many of you may be recoiling at the thought of an always-on nanycam who’s sole purpose seems to be to snitch on you to your boss, and judging by the replies to Brian’s post, you’re not alone. If your supervisor has a history of targeting you your fears may not be misplaced. Workplace surveillance tools are often coyly marketed for this.

What if instead of your boss using an AI tool to spy on you, your boss was completely replaced by an AI? Would your supervisor having no biases or favouritism sway your opinion? What about being able to tailor its communication specifically to you? Expressing no judgement at your clarifying questions? Being immediately available 24/7? Perfectly equitable expectations and performance reviews? Just writing that almost has me convinced this would usher in a workplace utopia.

In practice guaranteeing zero bias is extremely difficult. After all, these things are programmed by humans and learn from human data. Their “weights” could also be intentionally adjusted to favour or target. If the AI’s supervisor follows the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 Rule) they may be tempted to ask it for a list of the lowest performing employees to be laid off on a regular basis. Not keeping yourself in the top 20% of performers (by whatever metrics the AI has been programmed to look for) may mean your job. The dystopian-future videogame “Cyberpunk 2077” tells a story of a company that brings in an AI only to have it fire all the human workers in favour of automation and copies of itself. Clearly it’s implementers forgot to set hard limits on its executive powers. The shareholders were happy with all-time high profits though…

When technology is blamed for these sorts of existential problems the IT industry collectively sighs and repeats the mantra, “The problem is not the technology. The problem is the people.” A quote from a 1979 IBM presentation is likewise summoned; “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” As a darker example, the Nuremberg trials post-WWII saw the precedent set that acting under “superior orders” is not a valid defence for war crimes or crimes against humanity. It seems responsibility can’t be passed to others, whether man or machine. The endless task of generating reports and presentations can probably be automated away though.

Would you work under an AI, or “hire” an AI to manage others? We can help you with that; you can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ a39d19ec:3d88f61e

Nun da das deutsche Bundesregime den Ruin Deutschlands beschlossen hat, der sehr wahrscheinlich mit dem Werkzeug des Geld druckens "finanziert" wird, kamen mir so viele Gedanken zur Geldmengenausweitung, dass ich diese für einmal niedergeschrieben habe.

Die Ausweitung der Geldmenge führt aus klassischer wirtschaftlicher Sicht immer zu Preissteigerungen, weil mehr Geld im Umlauf auf eine begrenzte Menge an Gütern trifft. Dies lässt sich in mehreren Schritten analysieren:

1. Quantitätstheorie des Geldes

Die klassische Gleichung der Quantitätstheorie des Geldes lautet:

M • V = P • Y

wobei:
- M die Geldmenge ist,
- V die Umlaufgeschwindigkeit des Geldes,
- P das Preisniveau,
- Y die reale Wirtschaftsleistung (BIP).

Wenn M steigt und V sowie Y konstant bleiben, muss P steigen – also Inflation entstehen.

2. Gütermenge bleibt begrenzt

Die Menge an real produzierten Gütern und Dienstleistungen wächst meist nur langsam im Vergleich zur Ausweitung der Geldmenge. Wenn die Geldmenge schneller steigt als die Produktionsgütermenge, führt dies dazu, dass mehr Geld für die gleiche Menge an Waren zur Verfügung steht – die Preise steigen.

3. Erwartungseffekte und Spekulation

Wenn Unternehmen und Haushalte erwarten, dass mehr Geld im Umlauf ist, da eine zentrale Planung es so wollte, können sie steigende Preise antizipieren. Unternehmen erhöhen ihre Preise vorab, und Arbeitnehmer fordern höhere Löhne. Dies kann eine sich selbst verstärkende Spirale auslösen.

4. Internationale Perspektive

Eine erhöhte Geldmenge kann die Währung abwerten, wenn andere Länder ihre Geldpolitik stabil halten. Eine schwächere Währung macht Importe teurer, was wiederum Preissteigerungen antreibt.

5. Kritik an der reinen Geldmengen-Theorie

Der Vollständigkeit halber muss erwähnt werden, dass die meisten modernen Ökonomen im Staatsauftrag argumentieren, dass Inflation nicht nur von der Geldmenge abhängt, sondern auch von der Nachfrage nach Geld (z. B. in einer Wirtschaftskrise). Dennoch zeigt die historische Erfahrung, dass eine unkontrollierte Geldmengenausweitung langfristig immer zu Preissteigerungen führt, wie etwa in der Hyperinflation der Weimarer Republik oder in Simbabwe.

@ 000002de:c05780a7

When people typically use the analogy of digital gold to describe bitcoin they mean that it is a digital asset that functions in the market in a way very similar to gold. By this they mean it is a store of value, not really a medium of exchange. This framing is not popular with the bitcoin is money crowd because when people use the digital gold framing they typically mean bitcoin isn't money. Its just a store of value. A hedge against inflation. It would never be used as money. It isn't good for buying stuff. Some that say this I'm pretty convinced are simply pushing this idea because of fear of the state. Others seem to really mean it.

The other day I was thinking about this and something occurred to me. I thought I understood gold before I understood bitcoin. I imagine like most people are similar. The truth is reading "The Bitcoin Standard" taught me much more about gold than bitcoin. In fact, I didn't really learn much about bitcoin from the book. I'm not saying its not a great book about bitcoin but rather my ignorance of gold was much greater than I realized. I imagine I'm not alone in that.

I remember thinking about gold after reading it... gold is pretty cool. Its properties are kinda wild. Gold has been used as money far longer than paper money. Its absolutely absurd to compare gold to bitcoin. Bitcoin is so new! But gold has qualities that make it unique among precious metals. These are not all unique properties but these are some of its qualities that make it a good money.

• You cannot create it, you have to find/mine it.
• You cannot destroy it.
• It is fungible.
• Its authenticity can be verified.
• Its supply has a very small increase over time(for now).
• It has been used for thousands of years as both a store of value and medium of exchange.

So why don't we use gold every day to buy goods. A common opinion is that it is because of greedy bankers and central planners but that's not the whole story. The truth is that gold died as a common money largely due to technology. Telecommunications and the speed of communication across great distances is what really supplanted gold as money. Gold was still used to back paper money(notes) but its use as the actual direct medium of exchange is largely dead. Bitcoin was not the first attempt to make digital money nor digital gold, but it has been the most successful by far.

So what am I saying? Bitcoin isn't digital gold but its a good analog. If you could make gold digital is would be great money. Bitcoin is a great store of value for the same reasons gold has been. Bitcoin however can be sent across great distances with ease and at the same time it can be stored for long periods of time at low cost. It is better than gold in both ways. As a store of value and medium of exchange. I can't send an oz of gold across the globe in seconds. I can't validate the authenticity of my gold with a simple computer.

My belief is that people that think bitcoin is only a viable store of value don't really understand bitcoin. Its true that currently under standard economic definitions bitcoin is not a generally accepted medium of exchange but that is only an issue of adoption and understanding. Bitcoin without lightning is still better than any fiat money. The dollar is only digital due to custodial services and trust in third parties. Our biggest problem with bitcoin as a medium of exchange is literally a lack of knowledge. This will be solved over time as people start to hold it to preserve their long term wealth. As fiat money dies and as regimes crack down on humans we will see a rise in desire for a new money. Sadly, I think most people will need to get wrecked before they get it.

My recommendation is to stop fighting over the "digital gold" label but instead agree and focus on the digital aspect. If gold was digital it would not have been supplanted by paper notes.

What do you think?

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/951965

@ b2d670de:907f9d4a

onion-service-nostr-relays

A list of nostr relays exposed as onion services.

The list

| Relay name | Description | Onion url | Operator | Payment URL | Payment options | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | nostr.oxtr.dev | Same relay as clearnet relay nostr.oxtr.dev | ws://oxtrdevav64z64yb7x6rjg4ntzqjhedm5b5zjqulugknhzr46ny2qbad.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | relay.snort.social | Same relay as clearnet relay relay.snort.social | wss://skzzn6cimfdv5e2phjc4yr5v7ikbxtn5f7dkwn5c7v47tduzlbosqmqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.thesamecat.io | Same relay as clearnet relay nostr.thesamecat.io | ws://2jsnlhfnelig5acq6iacydmzdbdmg7xwunm4xl6qwbvzacw4lwrjmlyd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.land | The nostr.land paid relay (same as clearnet) | ws://nostrland2gdw7g3y77ctftovvil76vquipymo7tsctlxpiwknevzfid.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN | | bitcoiner.social | No auth required, currently | ws://bitcoinr6de5lkvx4tpwdmzrdfdpla5sya2afwpcabjup2xpi5dulbad.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | relay.westernbtc.com | The westernbtc.com paid relay | ws://westbtcebhgi4ilxxziefho6bqu5lqwa5ncfjefnfebbhx2cwqx5knyd.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN | | freelay.sovbit.host | Free relay for sovbit.host | ws://sovbitm2enxfr5ot6qscwy5ermdffbqscy66wirkbsigvcshumyzbbqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.sovbit.host | Paid relay for sovbit.host | ws://sovbitgz5uqyh7jwcsudq4sspxlj4kbnurvd3xarkkx2use3k6rlibqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.wine | 🍷 nostr.wine relay | ws://nostrwinemdptvqukjttinajfeedhf46hfd5bz2aj2q5uwp7zros3nad.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN, BTC, Credit Card/CashApp (Stripe) | | inbox.nostr.wine | 🍷 inbox.nostr.wine relay | ws://wineinboxkayswlofkugkjwhoyi744qvlzdxlmdvwe7cei2xxy4gc6ad.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN, BTC | | filter.nostr.wine | 🍷 filter.nostr.wine proxy relay | ws://winefiltermhqixxzmnzxhrmaufpnfq3rmjcl6ei45iy4aidrngpsyid.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN, BTC | | N/A | N/A | ws://pzfw4uteha62iwkzm3lycabk4pbtcr67cg5ymp5i3xwrpt3t24m6tzad.onion:81 | operator | N/A | N/A | | nostr.fractalized.net | Free relay for fractalized.net | ws://xvgox2zzo7cfxcjrd2llrkthvjs5t7efoalu34s6lmkqhvzvrms6ipyd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nfrelay.app | nfrelay.app aggregator relay (nostr-filter-relay) | ws://nfrelay6saohkmipikquvrn6d64dzxivhmcdcj4d5i7wxis47xwsriyd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | relay.nostr.net | Public relay from nostr.net (Same as clearnet) | ws://nostrnetl6yd5whkldj3vqsxyyaq3tkuspy23a3qgx7cdepb4564qgqd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | nerostrator | Free to read, pay XMR to relay | ws://nerostrrgb5fhj6dnzhjbgmnkpy2berdlczh6tuh2jsqrjok3j4zoxid.onion | operator |Payment URL | XMR | | nostr.girino.org | Public relay from nostr.girino.org | ws://gnostr2jnapk72mnagq3cuykfon73temzp77hcbncn4silgt77boruid.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | wot.girino.org | WoT relay from wot.girino.org | ws://girwot2koy3kvj6fk7oseoqazp5vwbeawocb3m27jcqtah65f2fkl3yd.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | haven.girino.org/{outbox, inbox, chat, private} | Haven smart relay from haven.girino.org | ws://ghaven2hi3qn2riitw7ymaztdpztrvmm337e2pgkacfh3rnscaoxjoad.onion/{outbox, inbox, chat, private} | operator | N/A | N/A | | relay.nostpy.lol | Free Web of Trust relay (Same as clearnet) | ws://pemgkkqjqjde7y2emc2hpxocexugbixp42o4zymznil6zfegx5nfp4id.onion | operator |N/A | N/A | | Poster.place Nostr Relay | N/A | ws://dmw5wbawyovz7fcahvguwkw4sknsqsalffwctioeoqkvvy7ygjbcuoad.onion | operator | N/A | N/A | | Azzamo Relay | Azzamo Premium Nostr relay. (paid) | ws://q6a7m5qkyonzb5fk5yv4jyu3ar44hqedn7wjopg737lit2ckkhx2nyid.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN | | Azzamo Inbox Relay | Azzamo Group and Private message relay. (Freemium) | ws://gp5kiwqfw7t2fwb3rfts2aekoph4x7pj5pv65re2y6hzaujsxewanbqd.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN | | Noderunners Relay | The official Noderunners Nostr Relay. | ws://35vr3xigzjv2xyzfyif6o2gksmkioppy4rmwag7d4bqmwuccs2u4jaid.onion | operator | Payment URL | BTC LN |

Contributing

Contributions are encouraged to keep this document alive. Just open a PR and I'll have it tested and merged. The onion URL is the only mandatory column, the rest is just nice-to-have metadata about the relay. Put N/A in empty columns.

If you want to contribute anonymously, please contact me on SimpleX or send a DM on nostr using a disposable npub.

Operator column

It is generally preferred to use something that includes a NIP-19 string, either just the string or a url that contains the NIP-19 string in it (e.g. an njump url).

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

I was just about to get into bed last night, after recording the Stacker Sports Pod and hiding Easter Eggs, when I remembered to check my step count. As often happens, I was stupidly short of my goal: just 7 steps this time.

My step counter is not nearly so precise as to actually record seven steps, so I knew it was either go to bed or do some chores for a bit to get enough more steps to register.

Well, I got the steps easily enough, only to discover the dog had an accident on the carpet that I now needed to clean up...and it turned out we had run out of the cleaning supplies we use for such incidents. So, I had to do some basic chemistry at midnight to mix up a makeshift cleaning solution to keep the carpet from staining and wait long enough for it to do its magic before drying it out.

Had I just taken the L on the steps, the dog would have just fallen asleep and peed in the morning. I doubt the Workit payout will prove to be worth the hassle this time

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/950750

@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365

Prelude

I wrote this post differently than any of my others. It started with a discussion with AI on an OPSec-inspired review of separation of powers, and evolved into quite an exciting debate! I asked Grok to write up a summary in my overall writing style, which it got pretty well. I've decided to post it exactly as-is. Ultimately, I think there are two solid ideas driving my stance here:

1. Perfect is the enemy of the good
2. Failure is the crucible of success

Beyond that, just some hard-core belief in freedom, separation of powers, and operating from self-interest.

Intro

Alright, buckle up. I’ve been chewing on this idea for a while, and it’s time to spit it out. Let’s look at the U.S. government like I’d look at a codebase under a cybersecurity audit—OPSEC style, no fluff. Forget the endless debates about what politicians should do. That’s noise. I want to talk about what they can do, the raw powers baked into the system, and why we should stop pretending those powers are sacred. If there’s a hole, either patch it or exploit it. No half-measures. And yeah, I’m okay if the whole thing crashes a bit—failure’s a feature, not a bug.

The Filibuster: A Security Rule with No Teeth

You ever see a firewall rule that’s more theater than protection? That’s the Senate filibuster. Everyone acts like it’s this untouchable guardian of democracy, but here’s the deal: a simple majority can torch it any day. It’s not a law; it’s a Senate preference, like choosing tabs over spaces. When people call killing it the “nuclear option,” I roll my eyes. Nuclear? It’s a button labeled “press me.” If a party wants it gone, they’ll do it. So why the dance?

I say stop playing games. Get rid of the filibuster. If you’re one of those folks who thinks it’s the only thing saving us from tyranny, fine—push for a constitutional amendment to lock it in. That’s a real patch, not a Post-it note. Until then, it’s just a vulnerability begging to be exploited. Every time a party threatens to nuke it, they’re admitting it’s not essential. So let’s stop pretending and move on.

Supreme Court Packing: Because Nine’s Just a Number

Here’s another fun one: the Supreme Court. Nine justices, right? Sounds official. Except it’s not. The Constitution doesn’t say nine—it’s silent on the number. Congress could pass a law tomorrow to make it 15, 20, or 42 (hitchhiker’s reference, anyone?). Packing the court is always on the table, and both sides know it. It’s like a root exploit just sitting there, waiting for someone to log in.

So why not call the bluff? If you’re in power—say, Trump’s back in the game—say, “I’m packing the court unless we amend the Constitution to fix it at nine.” Force the issue. No more shadowboxing. And honestly? The court’s got way too much power anyway. It’s not supposed to be a super-legislature, but here we are, with justices’ ideologies driving the bus. That’s a bug, not a feature. If the court weren’t such a kingmaker, packing it wouldn’t even matter. Maybe we should be talking about clipping its wings instead of just its size.

The Executive Should Go Full Klingon

Let’s talk presidents. I’m not saying they should wear Klingon armor and start shouting “Qapla’!”—though, let’s be real, that’d be awesome. I’m saying the executive should use every scrap of power the Constitution hands them. Enforce the laws you agree with, sideline the ones you don’t. If Congress doesn’t like it, they’ve got tools: pass new laws, override vetoes, or—here’s the big one—cut the budget. That’s not chaos; that’s the system working as designed.

Right now, the real problem isn’t the president overreaching; it’s the bureaucracy. It’s like a daemon running in the background, eating CPU and ignoring the user. The president’s supposed to be the one steering, but the administrative state’s got its own agenda. Let the executive flex, push the limits, and force Congress to check it. Norms? Pfft. The Constitution’s the spec sheet—stick to it.

Let the System Crash

Here’s where I get a little spicy: I’m totally fine if the government grinds to a halt. Deadlock isn’t a disaster; it’s a feature. If the branches can’t agree, let the president veto, let Congress starve the budget, let enforcement stall. Don’t tell me about “essential services.” Nothing’s so critical it can’t take a breather. Shutdowns force everyone to the table—debate, compromise, or expose who’s dropping the ball. If the public loses trust? Good. They’ll vote out the clowns or live with the circus they elected.

Think of it like a server crash. Sometimes you need a hard reboot to clear the cruft. If voters keep picking the same bad admins, well, the country gets what it deserves. Failure’s the best teacher—way better than limping along on autopilot.

States Are the Real MVPs

If the feds fumble, states step up. Right now, states act like junior devs waiting for the lead engineer to sign off. Why? Federal money. It’s a leash, and it’s tight. Cut that cash, and states will remember they’re autonomous. Some will shine, others will tank—looking at you, California. And I’m okay with that. Let people flee to better-run states. No bailouts, no excuses. States are like competing startups: the good ones thrive, the bad ones pivot or die.

Could it get uneven? Sure. Some states might turn into sci-fi utopias while others look like a post-apocalyptic vidya game. That’s the point—competition sorts it out. Citizens can move, markets adjust, and failure’s a signal to fix your act.

Chaos Isn’t the Enemy

Yeah, this sounds messy. States ignoring federal law, external threats poking at our seams, maybe even a constitutional crisis. I’m not scared. The Supreme Court’s there to referee interstate fights, and Congress sets the rules for state-to-state play. But if it all falls apart? Still cool. States can sort it without a babysitter—it’ll be ugly, but freedom’s worth it. External enemies? They’ll either unify us or break us. If we can’t rally, we don’t deserve the win.

Centralizing power to avoid this is like rewriting your app in a single thread to prevent race conditions—sure, it’s simpler, but you’re begging for a deadlock. Decentralized chaos lets states experiment, lets people escape, lets markets breathe. States competing to cut regulations to attract businesses? That’s a race to the bottom for red tape, but a race to the top for innovation—workers might gripe, but they’ll push back, and the tension’s healthy. Bring it—let the cage match play out. The Constitution’s checks are enough if we stop coddling the system.

Why This Matters

I’m not pitching a utopia. I’m pitching a stress test. The U.S. isn’t a fragile porcelain doll; it’s a rugged piece of hardware built to take some hits. Let it fail a little—filibuster, court, feds, whatever. Patch the holes with amendments if you want, or lean into the grind. Either way, stop fearing the crash. It’s how we debug the republic.

So, what’s your take? Ready to let the system rumble, or got a better way to secure the code? Hit me up—I’m all ears.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Welcome to part 4, the final entry in the What is Money series. We’re capping it off with “crypto” and CBDCs.

Let's start with crypto. Short for cryptocurrency, it’s a catch-all term for all of the non-fiat, blockchain-based, or non-government-operated new money systems that aren’t Bitcoin. Ethereum, Solana, and Dogecoin are some you may have heard of. There are actually thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence, but we’ll summarize some of the biggest ones by size and pop culture penetration. One thing they all have in common is that like fiat currencies, they have no supply limit and are therefore inflationary by nature.

Ethereum: Released in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum is less of a money system and more of a network built to run “decentralized applications” (DAPs) on. “Smart contracts” and “tokens” are the most common of these. If none of those terms mean anything to you, you’re not alone. What they’ve essentially done is recreate the unending complexity of high finance in a computer system and replaced the bankers and lawyers with programmers.

Solana: Solana is much smaller than Ethereum but serves a similar function of being a wild-west finance platform. I’m only mentioning it here as it's been in the media a lot with numerous security compromises, lawsuits, and general drama. Your nephew who trades in Robux probably knows someone who lost their allowance savings in the 2021 crash.

USDT/Tether: This is the largest in a family of cryptocurrencies called “stablecoins”. They’re meant to offer the features of crypto but with the “stability” of having their value tied to a fiat currency, in this case the US Dollar.

Monero: Monero was designed from the ground up to be as anonymous as possible. Unfortunately it’s lack of popularity means it’s not particularly useful for purchases.

Dogecoin: Released in 2013, Dogecoin was created as a joke to poke fun at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. As a joke it’s been wildly successful, but like most jokes there are many who decided to take it seriously over the years, which has driven its market cap to surpass that of Monera and most others. It’s currently in the top 10 by market cap, but you’ll struggle to find anyone who takes it as payment.

The concept of CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) has been making the rounds through media for some time. Some paint it as a boogeyman to be feared, while others see it as nothing more than an annoying waste of government resources. As you may recall from part 2 of this series, the Bank of Canada is not a retail bank with individuals for customers, instead acting as an administrative body and a bank for banks. CBDCs have the potential to change that. In a sentence, a Canadian CBDC would most likely be a system whereby individuals who struggle to get or maintain accounts at retail banks could be issued a Bank of Canada account. There may also be some integration with Payments Canada systems to make retail payments and transfers cheaper and more direct. Much of this is speculation though, as the BoC hasn’t announced any of this, only that research is ongoing. In any case it won’t be a replacement of the Canadian Dollar, just another system for moving Dollars around between ledgers and accounts.

I’d normally sign off with something like, “Want help with insert article topic here? You can find us at scalebright.ca”, but in the case of crypto I’m afraid we must decline. The other trait shared by all of these money systems beside inflation via no supply limit is that they’re all scams designed to steal from their customers. Bitcoin is the only digital non-fiat currency this doesn't apply to. So if you’d like help with Bitcoin, you can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 4fe4a528:3ff6bf06

In my last article I wrote about NOSTR. I found another local bitcoiner via NOSTR last week so here is why it is important to join / use NOSTR — start telling people “Look me up on NOSTR”

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a revolutionary approach to digital identity that puts individuals in control of their own identity and personal data. Unlike traditional digital identity models, which rely on third-party organizations to manage and authenticate identities, SSI empowers individuals to own and manage their digital identity.

This approach is made possible by emerging technologies such as secure public / private key pairs. Decentralized identifiers, conceived and developed by nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 is an attempt to create a global technical standard around cryptographically secured identifiers - a secure, universal, and sovereign form of digital ID. This technology uses peer-to-peer technology to remove the need for intermediaries to own and authenticate ID information.

Notably, NOSTR, a decentralized protocol, has already begun to utilize decentralized IDs, demonstrating the potential of this technology in real-world applications. Via NOSTR, users can be sure that the person or computer publishing to a particular npub knows their nsec (password for your npub), highlighting the secure and decentralized nature of this approach.

With SSI, individuals can decide how their personal data is used, shared, and protected, giving them greater control and agency over their digital lives.

The benefits of SSI are numerous, including:

Enhanced security and protection of personal data. Reduced risk of identity theft and fraud Increased autonomy and agency over one's digital identity. Improved scalability and flexibility in digital identity management

challenges:

Ensuring the security and integrity of decentralized identity systems. Developing standards and protocols for interoperability and compatibility. Addressing concerns around ownership and control of personal data. Balancing individual autonomy with the need for verification and authentication in various contexts.

Overall, self-sovereign identity has the potential to transform the way we think about digital identity and provide individuals with greater control and agency over their personal data. Without people in control of their bitcoin seed words no freedom loving people would be able to exchange their money with others. Yes, keep enjoying using the only free market on the planet BITCOIN. Long live FREEDOM!

@ a39d19ec:3d88f61e

This week's functional 3d print is the "Dino Clip".

Dino Clip

I printed it some years ago for my son, so he would have his own clip for cereal bags.

Now it is used to hold a bag of dog food close.

The design by "Sneaks" is a so called "print in place". This means that the whole clip with moving parts is printed in one part, without the need for assembly after the print. The clip is very strong, and I would print it again if I need a "heavy duty" clip for more rigid or big bags. Link to the file at Printables

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

I started working on this post a couple weeks ago, and out of pure accident, it became my Resurrection Sunday (Easter) post. Maybe it was by God’s design. On Resurrection Sunday, Jesus was raised from the grave. Forty days later he rose to heaven before many witnesses. Someday in the future, the dead in Christ will be raised from the dead, and all believers will be snatched up to heaven. Maybe this is this right post for Resurrection Sunday.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. … For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16-17) {emphasis mine}

---

It always amazes me that some Christians don’t believe in the rapture of the church. I understand how there can be a disagreement about exactly when the rapture is to occur, but I can’t comprehend how some Christians don’t believe the rapture is coming or that they believe that the rapture happened in the first century.

Let’s start with the three key verses on the subject and then we’ll get into more details.

Key Rapture Verses

I didn’t notice that this first passage referred to the rapture until it was pointed out to me. I was so focused on Jesus preparing a place, that I missed the key sentence.

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:1-3) {emphasis mine}

Jesus, after His resurrection and as promised in these verses, rose up to heaven to go prepare a place for believers. He will then return to bring believers to Himself. This whole idea would have been particularly clear for the Jews when it was written. When a bride and groom were engaged (a legal contract where they were considered married), the groom would go and prepare a place for them to live. It could be an extra room in his parent’s home or it could be a whole new home. The bride didn’t know when the groom would return to take her to himself to become man and wife. In the same way, Jesus has gone away to prepare a place for us and will return at a time we do not know. Just as the Jewish bride had to be ready to leave with her groom when he suddenly arrived, we also must be ready for Jesus’s return when He will snatch us from earth and take us home with Him to heaven.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) {emphasis mine}

The Bible has a wonderful euphemism for the death of believers. It speaks of them falling asleep because death is not the end for believers. It is just a pause, a separation of body and spirit, before we are raptured to Jesus, to meet Him in the sky, where we will receive a new resurrection body, just as Jesus received when He was raised from the dead 3 days after His crucifixion. Both the dead in Christ and the alive in Christ will “be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” God gives us this promise in the Bible to comfort us. It gives us comfort that death is not the end and we will see our fellow believers again in heaven one day. It also gives us comfort that we will not have to experience God’s wrath. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

What else can we learn about the rapture?

Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57) {emphasis mine}

The rapture will be an instantaneous change from our perishable bodies to imperishable, whether we are alive in Christ or dead in Christ. At the rapture we “will be raised imperishable.” I am very excited to be snatched up into the air, receive a new, eternal body, and meet Jesus face-to-face.

There is one more passage that I believe talks of the rapture that is a bit more subtle from Isaiah.

The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart;\ And devout men are taken away, while no one understands.\ For the righteous man is taken away from evil,\ **He enters into peace;\ They rest in their beds,\ Each one who walked in his upright way. (Isaiah 57:1-2) {emphasis mine}

The seven year Tribulation is the wrath of God poured out on those who rejected Him and the merciful, last chance warning before eternal judgement. Those who have trusted in Jesus (the devout men, the righteous man) will be “taken away from evil” and will “enter into peace.” Instead of experiencing God’s wrath, they will experience His peace. Instead of experience horror, they will “rest in their beds.”

The Seven Raptures Before the Rapture of the Church

How can we know that we will be raptured to heaven to be with Jesus forever? One way is because people have been raptured before (in different ways)

I am borrowing the organization of this section from Chapter 9 of “The End: Everything You’ll Want to Know about the Apocalypse” by Mark Hitchcock, which I happen to be reading at the moment.

1. Rapture of Enoch\ ”So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:23-24) \ Enoch was raptured to heaven to be with God. He did not die, but went straight to God.

2. Rapture of Elijah\ ”And it came about when the Lord was about to take up Elijah by a whirlwind to heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. … As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.” (2 Kings 2:1,11) \ Elijah also was raptured to heaven without having to die. This passage gives more details. He went up in a whirlwind to heaven.

3. Rapture of Isaiah\ ”In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said,

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,

The whole earth is full of His glory.”” (Isaiah 6:1-3)\ Isaiah’s situation was different. He was raptured to heaven only temporarily to be given God’s word and His prophecy and to call Isaiah for His good plan.

1. Rapture of Jesus\ ”And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.” (Revelation 12:5)\ and\ ”And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)\ I’ve listed two verses about Jesus’s rapture. The one from Revelation uses the Greek word harpazo, caught up - when translated to Latin, the word is rapturo, which is where we get our English word rapture. The verses in Acts give a more detailed description of His rapture to heaven, which is an example of our rapture. We are also promised His return.

2. Rapture of Philip\ ”And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.” (Acts 8:38-40)

The rapture of Philip is different than the rest, because Philip was snatched away, not to heaven, but to Azotus. This is still an instance worth pointing out because it also uses the Greek word Harpazo.

1. Rapture of Paul\ ”I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)\ Like Isaiah, Paul was temporarily caught up (Harpazo) to heaven to receive revelation from God and then returned to his work and life on earth

These examples show God snatching people from one location to another, physically or spiritually for His good purpose. I expect it to happen again, shortly before the beginning of the seven year tribulation.

The 3 Views of the Rapture

There are three main views of the rapture: pre-trib, mid-trib, and post-trib. The basic beliefs are pretty much self explanatory by their name. Does the rapture occur before the tribulation, around the mid-point of the tribulation (which is right before the Great Tribulation or final 3.5 years), or after the tribulation? Which one fits what the Bible says better?

Although the Bible doesn’t directly say when the rapture happens, there are some very strong hints.

No wrath For saints

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

God promises believers that we are not destined for wrath. The tribulation is also known as1 “The wrath” (1 Thessalonians 5:9 & Revelation 11:18), “The wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10), “The great day of their wrath” (Revelation 6:17), “The wrath of God” (Revelation15:1,7, 14:10,19, 16:1), “The wrath of the lamb” (Revelation 6:16). There are numerous other equally unpleasant names, but I am sticking with those that use the word wrath. God promised believers that we are not destined for wrath. God never breaks His promises.

Similarly Revelation 3 promises believers will be kept from the hour of testing.

Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown. (Revelation 3:10-11) {emphasis mine}

The word quickly can also be translated suddenly. Although Jesus has not returned quickly by our way of figuring time, He will come suddenly.

No one knows when

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36)

Scripture says the Tribulation starts when the Antichrist signs a peace treaty with Israel. If the rapture happens before the tribulation, then we won’t know when it will happen. If the rapture occurs at the mid-trib position, then it will happen 3.5 years after the peace treaty. If the rapture occurs post-trip, then it will happen 7 years after the peace treaty is signed and 3.5 years after the abomination of desolation, when the Antichrist declares himself god in the Jewish temple and requires the whole world to worship him. Only one makes sense if we can’t know when it happens.

Just as in the days of …

“For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.” (Matthew 24:37-41)

If we look at the words of Jesus, He compares the rapture to the days of Noah. Life happening as normal, then God put Noah and his family on the ark and personally shut the door (Genesis 7:16). Then the flood came, pouring God’s wrath out on those who had rejected Him. In the same way, God will take believers out of the world before pouring out His wrath on those who remain. He clearly states, “one will be taken and one will be left.”

A parallel passage in Luke, not only talks of God removing Noah before the flood, but also tells of God removing Lot before destroying Sodom & Gomorrah.

For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke:17:24-30) {emphasis mine}

Just as Noah was removed before judgement, so also was Lot removed before judgement. In both cases the majority of people were going about business, living normal lives, not expecting anything to change.

In Genesis 19, the angels must remove Lot and his family before the city is destroyed.

Then the two men said to Lot, “Whom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place; for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” \ …\ When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city. (Genesis 19:12-13,15-16) {emphasis mine}

In the last days, God has promised to remove us before His judgment is poured out on those who willfully rejected Him. Jesus spoke these words to comfort us and so we would not fear the end.

Removal of the Restrainer

Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; (2 Thessalonians 2:1-8) {emphasis mine}

The restrainer is the Holy Spirit and the lawless one is the antichrist. This passage is saying that the antichrist will not be revealed until the restrainer is removed. The Holy Spirit indwells every believer. The believers also have to be removed before the antichrist is revealed, otherwise the Holy Spirit would have to leave the believers, leaving them alone during God’s wrath. That, of course, is contrary to God’s character, history, and promise.

Why is There No Mention of the Church During the Tribulation?

In the first three chapters of Revelation, the word church is used again and again. The church is not mentioned again until Revelation 19, regarding the Bride of Christ.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. (Revelation 19:7-8) {emphasis mine}

All of this makes sense if the church was raptured before the tribulation. Therefore the bride (the church) has had seven years to make herself ready. They then get to descend with Jesus in the second coming of Jesus.

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND Lord OF LORDS.” (Revelation 19:11-16) {emphasis mine}

The Bride of Christ follows the King of Kings and Lord of Lords back to earth after being made “white and clean.”

Some may accuse pre-trib believers of being escapists. I’ll admit, I am happy to avoid the wrath of God, whether that be the tribulation or eternal damnation or just His daily disappointment in my failings. The fact that I am glad to “escape” the wrath, doesn’t make it untrue. I hope the passages and explanations I shared will give you comfort as the Day of the Lord and the Wrath of God approaches and as we see the world seemingly spiraling out of control. God is in control. Everything is happening according to His plan and for our good.

May the Lord of heaven comfort you with His promises and make you know His love. May you trust Him in good times and bad until the last days. May God give you a desire for His word and an understanding of His prophecies, so you will know the day is fast approaching.

Trust Jesus.

FYI, You can find most of my articles at end times. Some are directly relating to end times while others are loosely related. This post is a logical explanation of the rapture. You can also check out my older article on the rapture, “Up, Up, and Away.” The focus in my previous post was a little different including focusing on how the rapture will effect us, how we should respond to its immanency, and how it relates to the 2nd coming of Christ after the tribulation, so it is worth checking out as well.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Millennials remember the era of Buzzfeed quizzes with fondness, and some may even describe it as identity or culture shaping. People have always loved these miniature personality tests, and while Buzzfeed may no longer be in its heyday, the popularity of these dinner-table icebreakers has transcended generational gaps. To the analytically-brained among us this sounds like a datapoint that could be used in the workplace. Or is it?

You’ve probably heard someone’s answer to one of these and thought, “Oh wow, that sounds mildly psychopathic, I’m sure glad I don’t work with them!” Interviewers will sometimes ask questions like “if you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?” as a conversation starter, but unscored. Part of the reason for this is that laws around discrimination in hiring make filtering via psychological or personality tests a grey area. Any suggestion of discrimination opens employers to potential lawsuits and investigations. Even if the applicant answered unironically with “I would be a dragon because I love hoarding gold and burning down unsuspecting villages!”, you would need to prove that the question was asked in a controlled environment by a certified professional and that the question was directly relevant to the position being applied for.

Now that I’ve most likely talked you out of implementing these in your interview processes, here are a handful of tests that, in an HR and legal department approved manner, could be run during an interview. Failing that, they make for great casual icebreakers! Their sources range from actual psychological tests to dubious corners of the internet, and they’ve all been simplified down to their simplest forms, so I’ll again warn that you’ll want to do diligence before suggesting their use in your workplace.

The Marshmallow Test: The test subjects (usually children) are offered a marshmallow and told that if they leave it for a few minutes, they can have two. Adults who’ve developed impulse control will usually say the correct answer is obvious, yet we fail slightly more complex versions all the time. Remember that greasy fast-food you bought with money you could have saved for a nice dinner out?

Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT): “Some apples and some bananas cost $1.10. The apples cost $1 more than the bananas. How much did the apples cost?” If you suspect a trick, you’ll probably think about the question a bit further, but the intuitive part of our brains want us to think the apples were $1 and the bananas $0.10.

The Breakfast Question: “How would you feel if you hadn’t eaten breakfast?” This one has some deep internet lore behind it, but the idea is that you’re testing the subject’s capacity for hypothetical reasoning. Can they process “what-ifs”? It can also extend into testing for empathy (“How would you feel if you were in Steve’s shoes and someone stole your ice cream?”).

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Show the subject an ambiguous picture (ideally emotionally neutral) with people in it and ask them to imagine what is happening, including what the people are thinking and feeling. Most people will subconsciously project their own thoughts and feelings onto the characters in the picture.

Moral Circle Test: This one has a history of being misunderstood and used as a political cudgel, so you may want to save it for your more understanding friends. Subjects were asked to rank the moral responsibilities they felt toward increasingly distant groups, starting from themselves in the center of a circle and working their way out through family, friends, acquaintances, animals, Earth, etc. The primary misunderstanding is whether the outer circles include the inner circles, i.e. whether caring for Earth includes caring for family. It’s unclear whether the subjects fully understood this, and those interpreting the results seem confused as well.

Workplace Motivation Test: “You are up for a promotion. You can be promoted into a position that pays 20% more, or one that pays the same that you’re currently making but aligns with your non-financial life goals or sense of purpose.” This one is my own, and you can learn more about the underlying concepts here: “True Believers & Mercenaries” Are you a “True Believer” or a “Mercenary”?

Need help with your interview processes or figuring out which Disney princess you are? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 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.

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

I finally put our picks in a spreadsheet, so let's take a look at where we all stand as the playoffs proper kick off.

| Stacker | Points | |---------|--------| | @Coinsreporter | 19 | | @Carresan | 18 | | @gnilma | 18 | | @grayruby | 17 | | @Undisciplined | 17 | | @fishious | 11 | | @BlokchainB | 11 | | @Car | 1 |

It's a tight race and there's still plenty of time to make up ground.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/948104

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Welcome to part 3 of the “What is Money?” series! So far we’ve covered the base concepts of money and money as a system in part 1, and the Canadian Dollar in part 2. Today we’re going to talk about a relatively new system of money, Bitcoin!

Let’s review a few key details about money and the Canadian Dollar (CAD). Money is a placeholder to make trading easier, so anything that can fulfill the 3 functions of money can do the job (store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account). During the Italian Renaissance the double-entry bookkeeping (or double-entry ledger) system was codified as a method of tracking transactions, and this system is still in use today for CAD and most other money systems. One of the features of using a ledger instead of physical money with intrinsic value (such as precious metals) is that it allows for fiat (money by decree) that isn’t backed by anything. The CAD is a fully fiat money with no reserve requirements. It’s also mostly digital, with only 7% of the total supply being cash and liquid deposits with the Bank of Canada.

Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonymous individual or group who no one knows the real identity of. They released the Bitcoin whitepaper (which can be read here: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) in October of 2008, and on January 3, 2009 they started the Bitcoin system. 2 years later they decided to disappear and were never heard from again. Others were involved in early development and maintenance, including Laszlo Hanyecz, who completed the first real-world purchase using Bitcoin. He paid 10,000 bitcoin for 2 pizzas on May 22, 2010, which is now unofficially celebrated as “Bitcoin Pizza Day”. There are several websites and pages dedicated to the story and tracking the current “value” of those pizzas; one can be found here: https://bitcoinpizzaindex.net

Fun history nuggets aside, Bitcoin is similar to CAD in that it uses the same double-entry ledger concept. The difference is that Bitcoin uses a single digital ledger across the entire network. Transactions are grouped into 10-minute blocks and chained together, which is where the popular term “blockchain” comes from. Another term you’ve probably heard, “mining”, is all of the computers dedicated to the task competing with each other in a combination math and guessing game for who gets to verify the authenticity and correctness of each block (the combined computational power from all of the competing computers is used, not just the winner), and the winner is rewarded with newly generated bitcoin and the transaction fees from the included transactions. This is what keeps the ledger secure and makes it practically impossible to fake, break, steal, or cheat on Bitcoin transactions. Last piece of technical background, I promise: If Bitcoin is just a ledger, how do you actually “hold” the money? You do so by holding something called a “private key”. This key is used to authorize new transactions (spending the money). Think of the private key as similar to a password, PIN, or secret code for a bank account. In Bitcoin, if you hold the keys, you hold the coins.

That was a lot of history and technical stuff; take a break, touch some grass, pet the dog, sip some coffee, and come back in a few minutes.

Since you have an understanding of how money systems and CAD works I won’t bother re-explaining it all for Bitcoin; I’ll instead hit some of the major differences between it and CAD (and most other fiat currencies). Bitcoin doesn’t have a central bank or any other central authority governing or controlling it. The ledger is the “single source of truth” and anyone with a valid private key and internet connection cannot be stopped from creating a new transaction. The ledger is also fully public; you can download a full copy and view it, or use a handy website. There are several; here’s the “Bitcoin Pizza” transaction on one of my favourite public sites, mempool.space: https://mempool.space/tx/a1075db55d416d3ca199f55b6084e2115b9345e16c5cf302fc80e9d5fbf5d48d

There’s also a hard limit to the number of Bitcoin that can exist, so there’s no inflation. 21 million bitcoin, which can be divided down into 2.1 quadrillion “satoshis”, or “sats”. Think of sats as similar to the CAD penny, the smallest unit of measurement.

Bitcoin is what I call a “push” system, which is opposite of CAD’s mostly “pull” system. When you do a debit, credit card, or cheque transaction, you’re authorizing the receiving bank to reach in and “pull” the money from your account. Credit cards especially rely on this; it’s how recurring subscriptions where you are charged automatically work. Central authorities also have the ability to pull from your accounts, such as banks for fees and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for taxes (though the latter pinky-promise to only do this in emergency situations). With cash, you can’t authorize someone to physically reach into your pocket and take some of your money, and it's the same with Bitcoin. You have to “push” the money to the other person. This is one of the reasons Bitcoin has been referred to as “digital cash”.

Lastly, you may have heard some, including myself, talk about Bitcoin as a replacement for fiat currencies. How is it supposed to do that if we’re required by law to use CAD? My opinion is that we’ll most likely use both for several reasons, but let’s address CAD’s requirement of use. There are no Canadian laws that force the acceptance of CAD, including cash, for purchases. In Canada cash is “legal tender”, which is “the money approved in a country for paying debts.” (See the Bank of Canada page explaining this here: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/about-legal-tender/) If there’s no debt being settled, there is no requirement to accept CAD in cash or digital form (i.e. debit or credit card). If there is debt (i.e. paying a bill for a product or service you already received) only cash (as legal tender) is required to be accepted, but payees are not required to use it. There is a bit of an exception to CAD’s non-requirement of use though; all “business” transactions (including barter and Bitcoin) are potentially taxable and therefore are required to be reported at Fair Market Value, denominated in CAD, to the CRA. See the CRA interpretation bulletin here: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/it490/archived-barter-transactions.html Taxes are required to be paid in CAD as well.

If you’d like to see how Bitcoin works in the real world, I’d be happy to show you. I’ll even gift you a few sats to practice with! You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 6e64b83c:94102ee8

How to Run Your Own Nostr Relay on Android with Cloudflare Domain

Prerequisites

1. Install Citrine on your Android device:
2. Visit https://github.com/greenart7c3/Citrine/releases
3. Download the latest release using:
   • zap.store
   • Obtainium
   • F-Droid
   • Or download the APK directly

4. Note: You may need to enable "Install from Unknown Sources" in your Android settings

5. Domain Requirements:

6. Purchase a domain if you don't have one

7. Transfer your domain to Cloudflare if it's not already there (for free SSL certificates and cloudflared support)

8. Tools to use:

9. nak (the nostr army knife):
   • Download from https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak/releases
   • Installation steps:

   • For Linux/macOS: ```bash # Download the appropriate version for your system wget https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak/releases/latest/download/nak-linux-amd64 # for Linux # or wget https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak/releases/latest/download/nak-darwin-amd64 # for macOS

     # Make it executable chmod +x nak-*

     # Move to a directory in your PATH sudo mv nak-* /usr/local/bin/nak - For Windows:batch # Download the Windows version curl -L -o nak.exe https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak/releases/latest/download/nak-windows-amd64.exe

     # Move to a directory in your PATH (e.g., C:\Windows) move nak.exe C:\Windows\nak.exe - Verify installation:bash nak --version ```

Setting Up Citrine

1. Open the Citrine app
2. Start the server
3. You'll see it running on ws://127.0.0.1:4869 (local network only)
4. Go to settings and paste your npub into "Accept events signed by" inbox and press the + button. This prevents others from publishing events to your personal relay.

Installing Required Tools

1. Install Termux from Google Play Store
2. Open Termux and run:

bash pkg update && pkg install wget wget https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-arm64.deb dpkg -i cloudflared-linux-arm64.deb

Cloudflare Authentication

1. Run the authentication command: bash cloudflared tunnel login
2. Follow the instructions:
3. Copy the provided URL to your browser
4. Log in to your Cloudflare account
5. If the URL expires, copy it again after logging in

Creating the Tunnel

1. Create a new tunnel: bash cloudflared tunnel create <TUNNEL_NAME>
2. Choose any name you prefer for your tunnel

3. Copy the tunnel ID after creating the tunnel

4. Create and configure the tunnel config: bash touch ~/.cloudflared/config.yml nano ~/.cloudflared/config.yml

5. Add this configuration (replace the placeholders with your values): ```yaml tunnel: credentials-file: /data/data/com.termux/files/home/.cloudflared/.json ingress:

6. hostname: nostr.yourdomain.com service: ws://localhost:4869
7. service: http_status:404 ```
8. Note: In nano editor:
   • CTRL+O and Enter to save
   • CTRL+X to exit

9. Note: Check the credentials file path in the logs

10. Validate your configuration: bash cloudflared tunnel validate

11. Start the tunnel: bash cloudflared tunnel run my-relay

Preventing Android from Killing the Tunnel

Run these commands to maintain tunnel stability: bash date && apt install termux-tools && termux-setup-storage && termux-wake-lock echo "nameserver 1.1.1.1" > $PREFIX/etc/resolv.conf

Tip: You can open multiple Termux sessions by swiping from the left edge of the screen while keeping your tunnel process running.

Updating Your Outbox Model Relays

Once your relay is running and accessible via your domain, you'll want to update your relay list in the Nostr network. This ensures other clients know about your relay and can connect to it.

Decoding npub (Public Key)

Private keys (nsec) and public keys (npub) are encoded in bech32 format, which includes: - A prefix (like nsec1, npub1 etc.) - The encoded data - A checksum

This format makes keys: - Easy to distinguish - Hard to copy incorrectly

However, most tools require these keys in hexadecimal (hex) format.

To decode an npub string to its hex format:

bash nak decode nostr:npub1dejts0qlva8mqzjlrxqkc2tmvs2t7elszky5upxaf3jha9qs9m5q605uc4

Change it with your own npub.

bash { "pubkey": "6e64b83c1f674fb00a5f19816c297b6414bf67f015894e04dd4c657e94102ee8" }

Copy the pubkey value in quotes.

Create a kind 10002 event with your relay list:

• Include your new relay with write permissions
• Include other relays you want to read from and write to, omit 3rd parameter to make it both read and write

Example format:

json { "kind": 10002, "tags": [ ["r", "wss://your-relay-domain.com", "write"], ["r", "wss://eden.nostr.land/"], ["r", "wss://nos.lol/"], ["r", "wss://nostr.bitcoiner.social/"], ["r", "wss://nostr.mom/"], ["r", "wss://relay.primal.net/"], ["r", "wss://nostr.wine/", "read"], ["r", "wss://relay.damus.io/"], ["r", "wss://relay.nostr.band/"], ["r", "wss://relay.snort.social/"] ], "content": "" }

Save it to a file called event.json

Note: Add or remove any relays you want. To check your existing 10002 relays: - Visit https://nostr.band/?q=by%3Anpub1dejts0qlva8mqzjlrxqkc2tmvs2t7elszky5upxaf3jha9qs9m5q605uc4+++kind%3A10002 - nostr.band is an indexing service, it probably has your relay list. - Replace npub1xxx in the URL with your own npub - Click "VIEW JSON" from the menu to see the raw event - Or use the nak tool if you know the relays bash nak req -k 10002 -a <your-pubkey> wss://relay1.com wss://relay2.com

Replace `<your-pubkey>` with your public key in hex format (you can get it using `nak decode <your-npub>`)

1. Sign and publish the event:
2. Use a Nostr client that supports kind 10002 events
3. Or use the nak command-line tool: bash nak event --sec ncryptsec1... wss://relay1.com wss://relay2.com $(cat event.json)

Important Security Notes: 1. Never share your nsec (private key) with anyone 2. Consider using NIP-49 encrypted keys for better security 3. Never paste your nsec or private key into the terminal. The command will be saved in your shell history, exposing your private key. To clear the command history: - For bash: use history -c - For zsh: use fc -W to write history to file, then fc -p to read it back - Or manually edit your shell history file (e.g., ~/.zsh_history or ~/.bash_history) 4. if you're using zsh, use fc -p to prevent the next command from being saved to history 5. Or temporarily disable history before running sensitive commands:

bash unset HISTFILE nak key encrypt ... set HISTFILE

How to securely create NIP-49 encypted private key

```bash

Read your private key (input will be hidden)

read -s SECRET

Read your password (input will be hidden)

read -s PASSWORD

encrypt command

echo "$SECRET" | nak key encrypt "$PASSWORD"

copy and paste the ncryptsec1 text from the output

read -s ENCRYPTED nak key decrypt "$ENCRYPTED"

clear variables from memory

unset SECRET PASSWORD ENCRYPTED ```

On a Windows command line, to read from stdin and use the variables in nak commands, you can use a combination of set /p to read input and then use those variables in your command. Here's an example:

```bash @echo off set /p "SECRET=Enter your secret key: " set /p "PASSWORD=Enter your password: "

echo %SECRET%| nak key encrypt %PASSWORD%

:: Clear the sensitive variables set "SECRET=" set "PASSWORD=" ```

If your key starts with ncryptsec1, the nak tool will securely prompt you for a password when using the --sec parameter, unless the command is used with a pipe < > or |.

bash nak event --sec ncryptsec1... wss://relay1.com wss://relay2.com $(cat event.json)

1. Verify the event was published:
2. Check if your relay list is visible on other relays

3. Use the nak tool to fetch your kind 10002 events: bash nak req -k 10002 -a <your-pubkey> wss://relay1.com wss://relay2.com

4. Testing your relay:

5. Try connecting to your relay using different Nostr clients
6. Verify you can both read from and write to your relay
7. Check if events are being properly stored and retrieved
8. Tip: Use multiple Nostr clients to test different aspects of your relay

Note: If anyone in the community has a more efficient method of doing things like updating outbox relays, please share your insights in the comments. Your expertise would be greatly appreciated!

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

If you haven’t had the experience of waking up in the morning and fearing going to work, you’ve probably heard at least one story of someone who has. Someone who was afraid of their boss, a coworker, an impending audit, or layoffs. These stories are centered around fear, but what about fear’s older, more mature cousin, respect? How are they related, and what are their roles in the workplace?

Fear? Having a role in the workplace? I thought fear was bad and to be avoided at all costs? Didn’t we leave fear at work behind in the 1950s along with day-drinking and open misogyny? Not entirely it seems, but the fear we’re talking about today is of a different kind, a healthy kind. For example, a primary school child would have a healthy fear of bears. What about respect? While the term might feel dated in our current hyper-equality society, it too has a healthy version. As our example child matures, their fear of bears will develop into respect for them. They’ll understand their destructive power, but also that they’ll generally only engage it in defence. For another example, think back to your relationship with your childhood friend’s parents. As a child in an unknown adult’s home with different rules and expectations there was an amount of fear involved, but as an adult you most likely have respect for the amount of shenanigans they put up with at the hands of your and your friends.

Fear, even the unhealthy kind, can sometimes be leveraged for good. Fear of being yelled at might motivate you to finish the last 10% of a project or emptying your inbox before the end of the workday. It is better matured into respect whenever possible, however. The trade-off of fear of verbal assault or firing isn’t worth it. It’d be much healthier to be motivated by respect. Respect for your coworkers (who might also be made late by your procrastinations), your boss (who may need to take responsibility for the delay), and customers or clients (imagine yourself in their shoes).

We’ve established that respect is good, and that fear is a sometimes-useful antecedent of it. And we can all now hear a thousand voices screaming, “but so-and-so doesn’t respect me!” or “but so-and-so doesn’t deserve respect!”. They may not be wrong, so let’s see what we can do to help promote respect. Ignoring the edge cases where some people are arrogant to the point of not respecting anyone, the most common cause I’ve witnessed isn’t a lack of respect, but a misdirection of it. Respect has a directional flow from one person to another, and ideally there are streams flowing in both directions. You respect your boss for their authority and responsibilities, and your boss respects you for your expertise and commitment. Misdirection of respect isn’t giving it where it isn’t deserved but flowing in the wrong direction. For example, a coworker is regularly late for meetings, and the meeting chair says, “Out of respect for Bill we’re going to wait for them to start the meeting.” What about their respect for everyone else’s time? Respect is flowing in the wrong direction. The same thing can happen when making decisions. “Mary has been with us the longest, so we’re going to defer to her preferences and keep the fax machine in the document transfer workflow even though it’s expensive and takes longer.” Sometimes it can even lead to putting the unqualified in positions they’re incapable of executing out of a misdirection of respect. Permission to speak is an extremely common misdirection as well; respect for someone’s “right to be heard” shouldn’t override their respect for everyone else’s time.

The solution to this chaotic storm surge of misdirected respect is simple, but difficult. Break the fourth wall and haven open discussions. Start with groups and work your way down to one-on-one as necessary. Meeting start times is an excellent place to begin as most will agree that starting on time (especially with the goal of finishing on time!) is a practical shared good. Permission to speak in meetings (especially public ones) will be a difficult tackle but is also highly relevant. If respect directionality feels too heavy to bring up at work at all, try practising at home or with friends first. Failing that, a therapist or chat AI might be options.

Want someone with a neutral or outside voice to talk about fear and respect in your workplace? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ c3f12a9a:06c21301

Satoshi’s Time-Traveling for Knowledge #4: Liberland 2024 – Freedom Under Siege

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What is Liberland?

While digging through old decentralized forums archived on the Interchain, Satoshi came across a curious name: Liberland.

“A sovereign libertarian micronation on the Danube? Founded in 2015 via Terra nullius? Built on the principles of freedom, voluntaryism, and Bitcoin? And I’ve never heard of it?”

Intrigued, Satoshi began to research. The story was almost too good to be true. A 7-square-kilometer patch of unclaimed land between Croatia and Serbia, turned into a symbol of decentralized governance and individual liberty.
No taxes unless voluntary. Bitcoin as the national currency. A digital nation-state with thousands of registered e-citizens, and even its own constitution. And yet—no recognition, no borders, and no peace.

His curiosity turned into determination. He calibrated the temporal coordinates on his chrono-node to the Danube River in 2024, a year rumored to be turbulent for the Free Republic of Liberland.

When he arrived, reality struck harder than the legend.

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Freedom Under Siege

The nation was under siege.

The scent of burnt wood and trampled earth lingered in the air as Satoshi stepped into what remained of the Liberland settlement. Broken structures, crushed solar panels, and a few scattered personal belongings were all that testified to the once-vibrant hub of liberty pioneers.

He found a group of residents—mud-streaked, exhausted, but defiant—gathered around the remnants of a communal kitchen. One of them, wearing a weathered Liberland t-shirt and a crypto-wallet hardware device on a chain around his neck, greeted him:

"You're not with them, are you?"

Satoshi shook his head.

"Just... passing through. What happened here?"

The man’s voice trembled between rage and sorrow:

"On the International Day of Peace, no less. Croatian police raided us. Bulldozers came with them. Took everything—generators, comms gear, even our medical tents. Claimed it was 'illegal occupation of Croatian forestry land.' But no court, no hearing. Just force."

Satoshi listened, taking mental snapshots of their faces, their words, their pain. He thought about the dream—of a place built voluntarily, where people governed themselves, free from coercion.
But that dream was burning at the edges, like the collapsed tents scattered behind them.

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Reflections Under the Stars

As night fell over the Danube, Satoshi sat alone, watching the stars reflect on the black water. Thoughts spiraled:

"Decentralization... is beautiful. But without protection, it's fragile."

He realized that so long as central authorities hold monopoly on violence and taxation, every independent effort to decentralize the world—from Bitcoin to Liberland—is at risk of being suppressed, ignored, or destroyed. Not because it’s wrong, but because it's inconvenient to power.

"Unless a major state like the USA decentralizes itself from within," he thought, "true decentralization will remain a resistance—never the standard."

He activated his chrono-node once more. Not in defeat, but with purpose.

The next destination? Unknown. But the mission was clearer than ever.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/947954

@ 4c96d763:80c3ee30

Changes

William Casarin (28):

• dave: constrain power for now
• ci: bump ubuntu runner
• dave: initial note rendering
• note: fix from_hex crash on bad note ids
• dave: improve multi-note display
• dave: cleanly separate ui from logic
• dave: add a few docs
• dave: add readme
• dave: improve docs with ai
• docs: add some ui-related guides
• docs: remove test hallucination
• docs: add tokenator docs
• docs: add notedeck docs
• docs: add notedeck_columns readme
• docs: add notedeck_chrome docs
• docs: improve top-level docs
• dave: add new chat button
• dave: ensure system prompt is included when reset
• enostr: rename to_bech to npub
• name: display_name before name in NostrName
• ui: add note truncation
• ui: add ProfilePic::from_profile_or_default
• dave: add query rendering, fix author queries
• dave: return tool errors back to the ai
• dave: give present notes a proper tool response
• dave: more flexible env config
• dave: bubble note actions to chrome
• chrome: use actual columns noteaction executor

kernelkind (13):

• remove unnecessary #[allow(dead_code)]
• extend ZapAction
• UserAccount use builder pattern
• Wallet token parser shouldn't parse all
• move WalletState to UI
• add default zap
• introduce ZapWallet
• use ZapWallet
• propagate DefaultZapState to wallet ui
• wallet: helper method to get current wallet
• accounts: check if selected account has wallet
• ui: show default zap amount in wallet view
• use default zap amount for zap

pushed to notedeck:refs/heads/master

@ 866e0139:6a9334e5

Autor: René Boyke. Dieser Beitrag wurde mit dem Pareto-Client geschrieben. Sie finden alle Texte der Friedenstaube und weitere Texte zum Thema Frieden hier. Die neuesten Pareto-Artikel finden Sie in unserem Telegram-Kanal.

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Die neuesten Artikel der Friedenstaube gibt es jetzt auch im eigenen Friedenstaube-Telegram-Kanal.

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Das völkerrechtliche Gewaltverbot ist das völkerrechtliche Pendant zum nationalen Gewaltmonopol. Bürgern ist die Ausübung von Gewalt nur unter engen Voraussetzungen erlaubt, ähnlich sieht es das Völkerrecht für Staaten vor. Das völkerrechtliche Gewaltverbot gemäß Art. 2 Abs. 4 der VN-Charta ist damit eines der fundamentalsten Prinzipien des modernen Völkerrechts. Ein echtes Gewaltmonopol, wie es innerhalb eines Staates existiert, besteht auf internationaler Ebene allerdings nicht, denn dies kann rein faktisch – zumindest derzeit noch – nur sehr schwer bzw. gar nicht umgesetzt werden.

Das Verbot von Gewalt ist eine Sache, aber wer sollte bei einem Verstoß Polizei spielen dürfen? Das Gewaltverbot verbietet den Staaten die Androhung oder Anwendung von Gewalt gegen die territoriale Integrität oder politische Unabhängigkeit eines anderen Staates. Obwohl 193 und damit fast alle Staaten Mitglied der Vereinten Nationen sind, kann man ganz und gar nicht davon sprechen, dass das Gewaltverbot Kriege beseitigt hätte. Nüchtern betrachtet liegt seine Funktion daher nicht in der Verhinderung von Kriegen, sondern in der Legitimation rechtlicher Konsequenzen: Wer gegen das Verbot verstößt, ist im Unrecht und muss die entsprechenden Konsequenzen tragen. Die Reichweite des Gewaltverbots wirft zahlreiche Fragen auf. Diesen widmet sich der vorliegende Beitrag überblicksartig.

Historische Entwicklung des Gewaltverbots

Vor dem 20. Jahrhundert war das „Recht zum Krieg“ (ius ad bellum) weitgehend unreguliert; Staaten konnten aus nahezu beliebigen Gründen zu den Waffen greifen, ja, Krieg galt zwar nicht ausdrücklich als erlaubt, aber eben auch nicht als verboten. Mit dem Briand-Kellogg-Pakt von 1928 wurde rechtlich betrachtet ein weitgehendes Gewaltverbot erreicht. Doch statt warmer Worte hat der Pakt nicht viel erreicht. Deutschland war bereits damals und ist noch immer Mitglied des Pakts, doch weder den Zweiten Weltkrieg noch unzählige andere Kriege hat der Pakt nicht verhindern können.

Ein gewisser Paradigmenwechsel erfolgte nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg mit der Gründung der Vereinten Nationen 1945 und der VN-Charta, welche ein umfassendes Gewaltverbot mit nur wenigen Ausnahmen etablierte. Das Gewaltverbot wurde im Laufe der Zeit durch Gewohnheitsrecht und zahlreiche Resolutionen der Vereinten Nationen gefestigt und gilt heute als „jus cogens“, also als zwingendes Völkerrecht, von dem nur wenige Abweichung zulässig sind. Es ist jedoch leider festzustellen, dass nicht die Einhaltung des Gewaltverbots die Regel ist, sondern dessen Bruch. Nicht wenige Völkerrechtler halten das Gewaltverbot daher für tot. In der deutschen völkerrechtlichen Literatur stemmt man sich jedoch gegen diese Einsicht und argumentiert, dass es zwar Brüche des Gewaltverbots gebe, aber jeder rechtsbrüchige Staat versuche hervorzuheben, dass seine Gewaltanwendung doch ausnahmsweise erlaubt gewesen sei, was also bedeute, dass das Gewaltverbot anerkannt sei.

Dass dies lediglich vorgeschobene Lippenbekenntnisse, taktische Ausreden bzw. inszenierte Theaterstücke sind und damit eine Verhöhnung und gerade keine Anerkennung des Gewaltverbots, wird offenbar nicht ernsthaft in Betracht gezogen. Betrachtet man das von den USA 2003 inszenierte Theaterstück, die Erfindung der „weapons of mass destruction,“ um einen Vorwand zum Angriff des Irak zu schaffen, dann ist erstaunlich, wie man zu der Ansicht gelangen kann, die USA sähen ein Gewaltverbot für sich als bindend an.

Wenn das Gewaltverbot schon nicht in der Lage ist, Kriege zu verhindern, so ist es dennoch Gegenstand rechtlicher Konsequenzen, insbesondere nach Beendigung bewaffneter Auseinandersetzungen. Zudem legt die Beachtung oder Nichtbeachtung des Gebots offen, welcher Staat es damit tatsächlich ernst meint und welcher nicht. Dazu muss man jedoch den Inhalt des Gebots kennen, weshalb sich eine Beschäftigung damit lohnt.

Rechtliche Grundlagen des Gewaltverbots

Das Gewaltverbot gilt nur für Gewalt zwischen Staaten, nicht für private Akte, es sei denn, diese sind einem Staat zurechenbar (z. B. durch Unterstützung wie Waffenlieferungen).

Terrorismus wird nicht automatisch als Verletzung des Gewaltverbots gewertet, sondern als Friedensbedrohung, die andere völkerrechtliche Regeln auslöst. Bei Cyberangriffen ist die Zurechnung schwierig, da die Herkunft oft unklar ist und Sorgfaltspflichten eines Staates nicht zwangsläufig eine Gewaltverletzung bedeuten. Das Verbot umfasst sowohl offene militärische Gewalt (z. B. Einmarsch) als auch verdeckte Gewalt (z. B. Subversion). Es gibt jedoch Diskussionen über eine notwendige Gewaltintensität: Kleinere Grenzverletzungen fallen oft nicht darunter, die Schwelle ist aber niedrig. Nicht jede Verletzung des Gewaltverbots gilt als bewaffneter Angriff.

Nicht-militärische Einwirkungen wie wirtschaftlicher Druck oder Umweltverschmutzung gelten nicht als Gewalt im Sinne des Verbots. Entscheidend ist, dass die Schadenswirkung militärischer Gewalt entspricht, was z. B. bei Cyberangriffen relevant wird, die kritische Infrastruktur lahmlegen.

Ausnahmen vom Gewaltverbot

Trotz Reichweite des Gewaltverbots existieren anerkannte Ausnahmen, die unter bestimmten Umständen die Anwendung von Gewalt legitimieren:

1. Recht auf Selbstverteidigung (Art. 51 VN-Charta): Staaten dürfen sich gegen einen bewaffneten Angriff verteidigen, bis der VN- Sicherheitsrat die notwendigen Maßnahmen zur Wiederherstellung des Friedens ergriffen hat. Diese Selbstverteidigung kann individuell (der angegriffene Staat wehrt sich selbst) oder kollektiv (ein anderer Staat kommt dem angegriffenen Staat zur Hilfe) ausgeübt werden. Ob eine Selbstverteidigung zulässig ist, hängt folglich in erster Linie davon ab, ob ein bewaffneter Angriff vorliegt. Nach der Rechtsprechung des IGH setzt ein bewaffneter Angriff eine Mindestintensität voraus, also schwerwiegende Gewalt und nicht lediglich Grenzzwischenfälle. Ferner muss es sich um einen gegenwärtigen Angriff handeln, was präventive Selbstverteidigung grundsätzlich ausschließt – was nicht bedeutet, dass sie nicht ausgeführt würde (siehe Irak- Krieg 2003). Zudem muss der Angriff von einem Staat ausgehen oder ihm zumindest zurechenbar sein. Schließlich muss der Angriff sich gegen die territoriale Integrität, politische Unabhängigkeit oder staatliche Infrastruktur eines Staates richten, wobei Angriffe auf Flugzeuge oder Schiffe außerhalb seines Territoriums ausreichend sind. Maßnahmen des VN-Sicherheitsrats (Kapitel VII VN-Charta): Der Sicherheitsrat kann bei Vorliegen einer Bedrohung oder eines Bruchs des Friedens oder einer Angriffshandlung Zwangsmaßnahmen beschließen, die auch den Einsatz militärischer Gewalt umfassen können. Diese Ausnahmen sind eng gefasst und unterliegen strengen Voraussetzungen, um Missbrauch zu verhindern.

Neben diesen anerkannten Ausnahmen vom Gewaltverbot wird weiter diskutiert, ob es weitere Ausnahmen vom Gewaltverbot gibt, insbesondere in Fällen humanitärer Interventionen und Präventivschläge.

• Humanitäre Interventionen: Verübt ein Staat gegen einen Teil seiner Bevölkerung schwere Verbrechen wie Völkermord oder Kriegsverbrechen, so sehen einige ein fremdes Eingreifen ohne VN-Mandat als gerechtfertigt an. Das Europäische Parlament beispielsweise hat humanitäre Interventionen bereits 1994 für zulässig erklärt.1 Ein Beispiel dafür ist der NATO-Einsatz im Kosovo 1999, der jedoch überwiegend als völkerrechtswidrig bewertet wird, während NATO-Staaten ihn jedoch als moralisch gerechtfertigt betrachteten. Wie wenig allerdings eine humanitäre Intervention als Ausnahme vom Gewaltverbot anerkannt ist, zeigt der Ukrainekrieg, speziell seit dem massiven Einschreiten Russlands 2022, welches sich ebenfalls auf humanitäre Gründe beruft, damit jedoch – zumindest bei den NATO-Staaten – kein Gehör findet. Gegen „humanitäre Interventionen“ als Ausnahmen vom Gewaltverbot sprechen nicht nur deren mangelnde Kodifikation oder gewohnheitsrechtliche Etablierung, sondern auch ganz praktische Probleme: Wie beispielsweise kann ein eingreifender Staat sich sicher sein, ob innerstaatliche Gewalthandlungen Menschenrechtsverletzungen darstellen oder gerechtfertigtes Vorgehen gegen beispielsweise aus dem Ausland finanzierte Terroristen? Zudem besteht die Gefahr, dass bewusst derartige Verhältnisse in einem Land geschaffen werden, um einen Vorwand für ein militärisches Eingreifen zu schaffen. Dieses erhebliche Missbrauchspotential spricht gegen die Anerkennung humanitärer Interventionen als Ausnahme vom Gewaltverbot.

• Schutz eigener Staatsangehöriger im Ausland: Auch der Schutz eigener Staatsangehöriger im Ausland wird als gerechtfertigte Ausnahme vom Gewaltverbot diskutiert, sie ist allerdings keineswegs allgemein anerkannt. Mit Blick in die Vergangenheit und den gemachten Erfahrungen (z.B. US-Interventionen in Grenada 1983 und Panama 1989) wird vor dem erheblichen Missbrauchspotential gewarnt.

• Präventivschläge: Wie bereits erwähnt, werden präventive Angriffe auf einen Staat von einigen als Unterfall der Selbstverteidigung als berechtigte Ausnahme vom Gewaltverbot betrachtet. lediglich eine kurze Zeitspanne zur Ausschaltung der Bedrohung bestehen und das Ausmaß des zu erwartenden Schadens berücksichtigt werden. Zu beachten ist dabei, dass die genannten Kriterien dabei in Wechselwirkung stünden, was bedeute: Selbst wenn ein Angriff gar nicht so sehr wahrscheinlich sei, so solle dies dennoch einen Präventivschlag rechtfertigen, falls der zu erwartende Schaden groß sei und in einem kurzen Zeitfenster erfolgen könne (z.B. Atomschlag). Mit anderen Worten: Die Befürwortung von Präventivschlägen weicht das Gewaltverbot auf und führt zu einer leichteren Rechtfertigung militärischer Einsätze. Die konkreten Auswirkungen lassen sich sowohl durch den völkerrechtswidrigen Angriff der USA gegen den Irak und später durch den völkerrechtswidrigen Angriff Russlands gegen die Ukraine betrachten – beide Staaten beriefen sich jeweils auf Präventivschläge.

  Konsequenzen der Verletzung des Gewaltverbots

  Aus dem Vorstehenden ergibt sich bereits, dass eine Verletzung des Gewaltverbots das Recht zur Selbstverteidigung auslöst. Doch gibt es noch weitere Konsequenzen? Blickt man auf die Menge der weltweiten bewaffneten Konflikte, darf man daran zweifeln. Jedenfalls scheint das Kosten-Nutzen-Verhältnis nicht gegen eine bewaffnete Auseinandersetzung zu sprechen. Wie bereits erwähnt, existiert auf internationaler Ebene kein dem innerstaatlichen Recht vergleichbares Gewaltmonopol. Ohne dies bewerten zu wollen, lässt sich ganz objektiv feststellen, dass es keine Instanz gibt, die Zwangsmaßnahmen effektiv durchsetzen könnte. Ob dies wünschenswert wäre, darf bezweifelt werden. Aus den bisherigen Ausführungen geht ebenfalls hervor, dass der Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen Maßnahmen ergreifen kann – einschließlich des Einsatzes militärischer Gewalt. Wenn es dazu kommt, dann ist dies eines der schärfsten Schwerter, die gegen eine Verletzung des Gewaltverbots geführt werden können, weil es sich um unmittelbare Zwangsmaßnahmen handelt. Allerdings kam es bisher lediglich zwei Mal dazu (Koreakrieg 1950-19534; Golkrieg II 19915). Neben diesen tatsächlichen Zwangsmaßnahmen hat ein Verstoß gegen das Gewaltverbot rechtliche Auswirkungen:

  • Nichtigkeit von Verträgen: Gemäß Art. 52 der Wiener Vertragsrechtskonvention (WVK) ist ein Vertrag nichtig, wenn sein Abschluss durch Androhung oder Anwendung von Gewalt unter Verletzung der in der Charta der Vereinten Nationen niedergelegten Grundsätze des Völkerrechts herbeigeführt wurde.

  • Nichtanerkennung von Gebietserwerben (Stimson-Doktrin): Gemäß dem Rechtsgedanken des Art. 52 WVK werden die eroberten Gebiete nicht als Staatsgebiete des Staats angesehen, der sie unter Brechung des Gewaltverbots erobert hat.

  • Strafrechtliche Verantwortlichkeit für Staatschefs und Befehlshaber gemäß Art. 8bis des Statuts des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs – allerdings nur für die Personen, deren Staaten, den IStGH anerkennen. Nichts zu befürchten haben also Staatschefs und Befehlshaber der USA, Russlands oder Chinas sowie Frankreichs und Großbritanniens, denn diese Staaten haben der Ahnung der Verletzung des Gewaltverbots nicht zugestimmt. Zwar könnte der Sicherheitsrat der VN eine Überweisung an den IStGH beschließen, allerdings stünde jedem der genannten Staaten ein Vetorecht dagegen zu.

  Schlussfolgerungen

  Ein Verbot der Gewalt zwischen Staaten ist grundsätzlich zu begrüßen. Doch ein Verbot allein ist erstmal nicht mehr als bedrucktes Papier. Ob hingegen wirksamere Mechanismen geschaffen werden sollten, dieses Verbot zu ahnden ist zweifelhaft. Denn stets wurde und wird noch immer mit erheblichem Aufwand für unterschiedlichste Narrative die eigene Intervention als „gerechter Krieg“ verkauft und von der Gegenpartei als ebenso ungerecht verteufelt.

  Tatsache ist: Einen gerechten Krieg gibt es nicht. Ein schärferer Mechanismus zur Durchsetzung des Gewaltverbots würde genau darauf – einen angeblich gerechten Krieg – hinauslaufen, was ein enormes Missbrauchspotential mit sich brächte. Und die Erfahrung zeigt, dass der Missbrauch des Völkerrechts und Verstöße gegen das Völkerrecht keineswegs die Ausnahme, sondern die Regel darstellen – leider auch durch die sogenannte „westliche Wertegemeinschaft“. Und würde diese Missbrauchsmöglichkeit nicht auf noch mehr militärische Auseinandersetzungen hinauslaufen? Auseinandersetzungen, deren Folgen nicht die verantwortlichen Politiker zu spüren bekämen, sondern, in Form von Tod und Verstümmelung, die Bevölkerung zu tragen hätte?

  Leidtragende ihrer „gerechten Kriege“ sind nicht die agierenden Politiker, sondern immer die einfachen Menschen – die leider nicht selten zuvor mit „Hurra“-Geschrei dem Krieg entgegenfiebern, um als „Helden“ ihrem Land zu „dienen“. In Wahrheit dienen sie jedoch nur finanziellen Interessen reicher Menschen.

  Daraus folgt, dass die Durchsetzung eines Gewaltverbots nicht in den Händen einiger weniger Staatslenker und Berufspolitiker liegen darf, sondern in den Händen der unmittelbar Betroffenen selbst. Der Familienvater, der für seine Frau und Kinder zu sorgen hat, muss aktiv den Dienst an der Waffe verweigern. Ebenso der Schüler, der Student, der Junggeselle und sämtliche Mitglieder der Gesellschaft. Die Bevölkerung ist es, die das Gewaltverbot tatsächlich und effektiv vom bedruckten Papier als ein Friedensgebot ins Leben bringen und in Vollzug setzen kann.

  (Dieser Artikel ist auch mit folgendem Kurzlink aufrufbar und teilbar)

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@ 65038d69:1fff8852

In part 1 of this series (Part 1 - What is Money?) we overviewed the history of money and as a global concept. Now that we have a base understanding of what money is we can get into detail about the Canadian Dollar. Why the Canadian Dollar specifically? One of the inspirations for this series was realizing how much the pervasiveness of American media has affected the average Canadian’s understanding of how our money works. How many of you can quote what is printed on US bills? Do you know what is printed on Canadian bills? What about what the Canadian Dollar is backed by, and who’s in charge of it? To preview, it’s not gold, and it’s not the Federal Reserve.

Lets do some history to give us some background on the Canadian Dollar (CAD) as we know it today. In 1858 the Province of Canada introduced the Canadian Dollar as a hopeful replacement for the mix of British, American, Spanish, and private bank credit notes in use. In 1867 Canada was formed as a nation, and the next year the Government of Canada issued Dominion credit notes as currency. These Dominion notes were required to be backed by a minimum of 20% gold reserves. This is called a “fractional reserve” system, or fractional reserve banking. Reserve requirements for private bank notes and Dominion notes changed over the years leading up to 1935 when the Bank of Canada (BoC) was formed and became to sole issuer of currency in Canada. 10 years later gold reserve requirements were removed and the Dollar became a fully fiat currency (remember this term from the previous article?).

The Bank of Canada is Canada’s “central bank”. If you check out the About Us page on their website (https://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/) you’ll see they have a broad range of roles and responsibilities, but the main one we’re focused on is that they manage the Canadian Dollar as a system of money, including creating and destroying Dollars as they deem necessary. (This is similar to the American Federal Reserve, but a key difference is that the BoC is a crown corporation, while the Federal Reserve is owned by private banks.) The creation and destruction of Dollars is a complex process, but it’s mostly done through borrowing. The government indirectly borrows money from the BoC (and sometimes directly from commercial banks), and everyone else borrows from banks. This money is then created by the BoC and banks, and when the principal (debt exclusive of interest) is paid back, its destroyed.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention and define “inflation”, “monetary expansion”, and the “Quantity Theory of Money”. The BoC defines inflation as “…a persistent rise in the average level of prices over time.” They have an excellent explainer on their website here (https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2020/08/understanding-inflation/); to summarize, the BoC and government use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to keep track of this. “Monetary expansion” is when money is created and kept in circulation. The “Quantity Theory of Money” states that when new money is created it becomes less valuable, which means prices increase, AKA inflation. With this in mind the BoC targets a 2% inflation rate when making decisions about creating and destroying Dollars (through the systems of borrowing). Whether they’re successful or not is the subject of an article all on its own and much speculation.

I should also mention an outlier in the Canadian financial system; Credit Unions. These are provincial banks that don’t have a direct relationship with the BoC. They’re generally much smaller than the national banks and offer fewer services, but many feel they offer a more personal service. And one credit union in particular is an outlier among outliers; Bow Valley Credit Union in Alberta. They’ve embarked on mission to stockpile precious metals (mostly gold) as a form of guarantee for customer deposits. They still practice fractional reserve banking, but this is an improvement over zero reserve banking.

You might be imagining stacks of Dollar notes being passed around all these institutions, but most of the money only exists in ledgers (remember this from part 1?). For comparison, there is currently about $250B in the M0 supply (liquid deposits at the BoC and cash), and the rest totals about $3500B, or $3.5T. That’s about 7% as “real” money that could be used to buy groceries or for payroll. To move this invisible money around the government created Payments Canada, a non-profit that operates most of the inter-institution transfer systems. (They have other responsibilities as well.) Lynx and the Automated Clearing Settlement System (ACSS) are currently in use, and Real-Time Rail (RTR) is coming soon to augment them.

On the retail side, we have the Interac network and credit card networks. The Interac Corporation (a for-profit founded and primarily owned by major national banks) operates the Interac network, which is the primary debit card network in Canada, as well as Interac e-Transfer for direct electronic payments. Visa and Mastercard are the primary credit card networks, but they simply move payment information between banks and Payment Services Providers (PSPs). PSPs are responsible for the actual payment settlements. You’ve probably heard of some of the major ones; Moneris, Chase, Square, and PayPal to name a few. If that sounds complicated, that’s because it is. Let’s walk through an example credit card payment at a physical store to see how it works. The customer inserts, taps, or swipes their card at the payment terminal, typically managed by a Point of Sale (POS) provider. The terminal sends the information to the PSP, who sends the information through the credit card network to the issuing bank. If the transaction is approved, it’s logged for transfer in a batch later, and the approval makes it way back through the credit card network, PSP, terminal, and POS.

Wipe the sweat from your brow and take a sip of coffee; that was a lot! The important part to remember is that all of this complexity serves to move numbers between accounts in ledgers. The government (through the BoC) controls the money supply (the primary driver of inflation), and the banks and networks move the ledger numbers between individuals, companies, and each other. About 7% is liquid, and 0% is backed by hard assets such as gold.

In part 3 we’ll cover Bitcoin, its intention to replace fiat currencies, and its current state in Canada.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Minimum wage has been a hot topic as far back as I can remember. If you’re an employer it can feel like government needlessly meddling in the free market, while for employees it feels like its never high enough to make a difference. This is especially true where oversaturated labour markets are combined with high costs of living (HCOL) (which is pretty much everywhere at this point). Workers may need 2 or even 3 minimum wage jobs just to cover food, shelter, and transport in these areas, and would probably love to see minimum wage lifted. Employers in less-dense areas are faced with the opposite problem; even if they advertise pay “above minimum wage”, acquiring and keeping entry-level staff in HCOL areas is a constant battle. In this case, my recommendation is to localize your minimum wage.

In Canada most enforceable minimum wages are set by the provinces. Federal minimums apply to federal government employees (and some federally regulated industries). The problem with this is the sometimes broad disparities in cost of living (COL) between municipalities, especially between urban and rural. I’ve seen rent differences from 50% to 100% for comparable apartments. Applying the same minimum wage isn’t going to have the effect it’s meant to. If your staff can’t afford rent, they’re going to constantly be searching for something better, leading to high turnover. They’ll be forced into mercenary behaviours (see my previous post on “True Believers & Mercenaries”). Official minimum wages also lag behind inflation, but that’s a whole separate discussion (see my “What is Money?” series, starting with “Part 1 - What is Money?). On the flip-side, having a localized minimum wage allows your employees to stay settled where they are and gives them the freedom to be True Believers. You can work it directly into your job postings too; advertising wages that are based on local COL will have your inbox flooded with applications, allowing you to choose from the best instead of having to settle for the desperate. Let’s get into how to go about localizing your minimum wage.

First, look at a map and ponder how far most would be willing to commute to your workplace. Draw a rough circle with that as the radius. Everywhere inside this circle is fair game for everything to follow. Next, find some low-rent but livable apartments inside the circle and look up their rates. This will be your rent figure.

Transport is next. We’re going to use fuel cost as a “close enough” placeholder as actual costs will vary greatly between individuals. We’re also going to pick a “close enough” fuel efficiency for the same reason. I’ve chosen 8.5L/100KM, but you can adjust this. For example, full-size pickups may be more popular among your staff so that number may need to go up. Look up the average fuel prices for the last few months at retail stations within the circle, and the average working days per month for your staff. Now plug all of these numbers into the following formula and calculate. This will give you the monthly fuel cost: (fuel price x 8.5 x (circle radius KM x 2) / 100) x working days

Lastly, groceries. Like transport, we’re aiming for a “close enough” placeholder. You can substitute any items and volumes you like, but these are my recommendation to get an average monthly cost for an average minimum wage worker plus 1 dependant. Go to a generic grocery store within the circle and get the regular (non-sale) prices of the following: 3 x 3lb/1.36kg apples (averaged or middle price), 5 x single Long English cucumber, 1 x 10lb bag of potatoes, 2 x 4L 2% milk, 4 x 1 dozen large eggs, 2 x 600g block of cheese (average or middle price), 6 x loaf of brown or whole grain bakery bread (average or middle price), 5 x 1lb/454g lean ground beef, 1 x 4kg box frozen chicken breasts, and 1 x 3.5lb/1.6kg bag of jasmine rice.

Now that you have totals for the expenses, put those numbers into the following formula. This will give you total monthly living expenses: ((rent + groceries) / 0.45) + fuel Put that total into the following formula for the monthly paycheque total, pre-deductions. Insert current federal and provincial income tax rates for your jurisdiction: expenses / (1 - (provincial tax rate as decimal + federal tax rate as decimal + 0.05) With this final total you can divide by monthly working hours for an hourly wage, or multiply by 12 for an annual salary. I’ll provide an example of all of this at the bottom of the article.

After crunching these numbers you may have concluded that paying a localized minimum wage would eat into your profits. This may be the case initially, but lowering turnover rates and increasing the quality of your hires will save you money long-term. However, if it raises costs so high that the business would become unprofitable, you may need to consider that the business isn’t viable. Being dependant on employees willing to work for below the cost of living in your area will eventually end the business regardless, and I would argue is immoral.

Want help localizing your minimum wage? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

Sample localized minimum wage calculation: Rent: $1,200 Fuel cost: ((1.40 x 8.5 x (9.4 x 2) / 100) x 20 = $44.75 Groceries: $229.46 Apples: 23.97 Cucumbers: 14.95 Potatoes: 8.99 Milk: 11.90 Eggs: 17.40 Cheese: 20.58 Bread: 23.94 Ground beef: 42.45 Chicken breasts: 49.99 Rice: 15.29 Total expenses: ((1200 + 229.46) / 0.45) + 44.75 = $3,221.33 Total monthly paycheque: 3221.33 / (1 - (0.10 + 0.15 + 0.05) = $4,601.90 Hourly: 4601.90 / 160 = $28.76 Annual salary: 4601.90 x 12 = $55,222.80

@ 1bc70a01:24f6a411

Untype Update

I cleaned up the AI assistant UX. Now you can open it in the editor bar, same as all other actions. This makes it a lot easier to interact with while having access to normal edit functions.

AI-generated content

Untype uses OpenRouter to connect to various models to generate just about anything. It doesn't do images for now, but I'm working on that.

Automatic Title, Summary and Tag Suggestions

Added the functionality to generate titles, summaries and tags with one click.

A Brief Preview

Here is a little story I generated in Untype, ABOUT Untype:

This story was generated in Untype

Once upon a time, in the bustling digital city of Techlandia, there lived a quirky AI named Untype. Unlike other software, Untype wasn't just your everyday article composer — it had a nose for news, quite literally. Untype was equipped with a masterful talent for sniffing out the latest trends and stories wafting through the vast digital ether.

Untype had a peculiar look about it. Sporting a gigantic nose and a pair of spectacles perched just above it, Untype roamed the virtual city, inhaling the freshest gossip and spiciest stories. Its nostr-powered sensors twitched and tickled as it encountered every new scent.

One day, while wandering around the pixelated park, Untype caught a whiff of something extraordinary — a scandalous scoop involving Techlandia's mayor, Doc Processor, who had been spotted recycling old memes as new content. The scent trail was strong, and Untype's nose twitched with excitement.

With a flick of its AI function, Untype began weaving the story into a masterpiece. Sentences flowed like fine wine, infused with humor sharper than a hacker’s focus. "Doc Processor," Untype mused to itself, "tried to buffer his way out of this one with a cache of recycled gifs!"

As Untype typed away, its digital friends, Grammarly the Grammar Gremlin and Canva the Artful Pixie, gathered around to watch the genius at work. "You truly have a knack for news-sniffing," complimented Grammarly, adjusting its tiny monocle. Canva nodded, painting whimsical illustrations to accompany the hilarious exposé.

The article soon spread through Techlandia faster than a virus with a strong wifi signal. The townsfolk roared with laughter at Untype’s clever wit, and even Doc Processor couldn't help but chuckle through his embarrassment.

From that day on, Untype was celebrated not just as a composer but as Techlandia's most revered and humorous news-sniffer. With every sniff and click of its AI functions, Untype proved that in the world of digital creations, sometimes news really was just a nose away.

@ 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.

@ c066aac5:6a41a034

I’m drawn to extremities in art. The louder, the bolder, the more outrageous, the better. Bold art takes me out of the mundane into a whole new world where anything and everything is possible. Having grown up in the safety of the suburban midwest, I was a bit of a rebellious soul in search of the satiation that only came from the consumption of the outrageous. My inclination to find bold art draws me to NOSTR, because I believe NOSTR can be the place where the next generation of artistic pioneers go to express themselves. I also believe that as much as we are able, were should invite them to come create here.

My Background: A Small Side Story

My father was a professional gamer in the 80s, back when there was no money or glory in the avocation. He did get a bit of spotlight though after the fact: in the mid 2000’s there were a few parties making documentaries about that era of gaming as well as current arcade events (namely 2007’sChasing GhostsandThe King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters). As a result of these documentaries, there was a revival in the arcade gaming scene. My family attended events related to the documentaries or arcade gaming and I became exposed to a lot of things I wouldn’t have been able to find. The producer ofThe King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters had previously made a documentary calledNew York Dollwhich was centered around the life of bassist Arthur Kane. My 12 year old mind was blown: The New York Dolls were a glam-punk sensation dressed in drag. The music was from another planet. Johnny Thunders’ guitar playing was like Chuck Berry with more distortion and less filter. Later on I got to meet the Galaga record holder at the time, Phil Day, in Ottumwa Iowa. Phil is an Australian man of high intellect and good taste. He exposed me to great creators such as Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Shakespeare, Lou Reed, artists who created things that I had previously found inconceivable.

I believe this time period informed my current tastes and interests, but regrettably I think it also put coals on the fire of rebellion within. I stopped taking my parents and siblings seriously, the Christian faith of my family (which I now hold dearly to) seemed like a mundane sham, and I felt I couldn’t fit in with most people because of my avant-garde tastes. So I write this with the caveat that there should be a way to encourage these tastes in children without letting them walk down the wrong path. There is nothing inherently wrong with bold art, but I’d advise parents to carefully find ways to cultivate their children’s tastes without completely shutting them down and pushing them away as a result. My parents were very loving and patient during this time; I thank God for that.

With that out of the way, lets dive in to some bold artists:

Nicolas Cage: Actor

There is an excellent video by Wisecrack on Nicolas Cage that explains him better than I will, which I will linkhere. Nicolas Cage rejects the idea that good acting is tied to mere realism; all of his larger than life acting decisions are deliberate choices. When that clicked for me, I immediately realized the man is a genius. He borrows from Kabuki and German Expressionism, art forms that rely on exaggeration to get the message across. He has even created his own acting style, which he calls Nouveau Shamanic. He augments his imagination to go from acting to being. Rather than using the old hat of method acting, he transports himself to a new world mentally. The projects he chooses to partake in are based on his own interests or what he considers would be a challenge (making a bad script good for example). Thus it doesn’t matter how the end result comes out; he has already achieved his goal as an artist. Because of this and because certain directors don’t know how to use his talents, he has a noticeable amount of duds in his filmography. Dig around the duds, you’ll find some pure gold. I’d personally recommend the filmsPig, Joe, Renfield, and his Christmas film The Family Man.

Nick Cave: Songwriter

What a wild career this man has had! From the apocalyptic mayhem of his band The Birthday Party to the pensive atmosphere of his albumGhosteen, it seems like Nick Cave has tried everything. I think his secret sauce is that he’s always working. He maintains an excellent newsletter calledThe Red Hand Files, he has written screenplays such asLawless, he has written books, he has made great film scores such asThe Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the man is religiously prolific. I believe that one of the reasons he is prolific is that he’s not afraid to experiment. If he has an idea, he follows it through to completion. From the albumMurder Ballads(which is comprised of what the title suggests) to his rejected sequel toGladiator(Gladiator: Christ Killer), he doesn’t seem to be afraid to take anything on. This has led to some over the top works as well as some deeply personal works. Albums likeSkeleton TreeandGhosteenwere journeys through the grief of his son’s death. The Boatman’s Callis arguably a better break-up album than anything Taylor Swift has put out. He’s not afraid to be outrageous, he’s not afraid to offend, but most importantly he’s not afraid to be himself. Works I’d recommend include The Birthday Party’sLive 1981-82, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’The Boatman’s Call, and the filmLawless.

Jim Jarmusch: Director

I consider Jim’s films to be bold almost in an ironic sense: his works are bold in that they are, for the most part, anti-sensational. He has a rule that if his screenplays are criticized for a lack of action, he makes them even less eventful. Even with sensational settings his films feel very close to reality, and they demonstrate the beauty of everyday life. That's what is bold about his art to me: making the sensational grounded in reality while making everyday reality all the more special. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is about a modern-day African-American hitman who strictly follows the rules of the ancient Samurai, yet one can resonate with the humanity of a seemingly absurd character. Only Lovers Left Aliveis a vampire love story, but in the middle of a vampire romance one can see their their own relationships in a new deeply human light. Jim’s work reminds me that art reflects life, and that there is sacred beauty in seemingly mundane everyday life. I personally recommend his filmsPaterson,Down by Law, andCoffee and Cigarettes.

NOSTR: We Need Bold Art

NOSTR is in my opinion a path to a better future. In a world creeping slowly towards everything apps, I hope that the protocol where the individual owns their data wins over everything else. I love freedom and sovereignty. If NOSTR is going to win the race of everything apps, we need more than Bitcoin content. We need more than shirtless bros paying for bananas in foreign countries and exercising with girls who have seductive accents. Common people cannot see themselves in such a world. NOSTR needs to catch the attention of everyday people. I don’t believe that this can be accomplished merely by introducing more broadly relevant content; people are searching for content that speaks to them. I believe that NOSTR can and should attract artists of all kinds because NOSTR is one of the few places on the internet where artists can express themselves fearlessly. Getting zaps from NOSTR’s value-for-value ecosystem has far less friction than crowdfunding a creative project or pitching investors that will irreversibly modify an artist’s vision. Having a place where one can post their works without fear of censorship should be extremely enticing. Having a place where one can connect with fellow humans directly as opposed to a sea of bots should seem like the obvious solution. If NOSTR can become a safe haven for artists to express themselves and spread their work, I believe that everyday people will follow. The banker whose stressful job weighs on them will suddenly find joy with an original meme made by a great visual comedian. The programmer for a healthcare company who is drowning in hopeless mundanity could suddenly find a new lust for life by hearing the song of a musician who isn’t afraid to crowdfund their their next project by putting their lighting address on the streets of the internet. The excel guru who loves independent film may find that NOSTR is the best way to support non corporate movies. My closing statement: continue to encourage the artists in your life as I’m sure you have been, but while you’re at it give them the purple pill. You may very well be a part of building a better future.

@ 4fe4a528:3ff6bf06

I could have wrote about how bitcoin has more than doubled in 2024 or how some people are still sitting on the sidelines not trying to understand why bitcoin will double in 2025, but instead I thought I would write about how bitcoin is allowing for a decentralized social network.

Two years ago I decided to try out this NOSTR idea. Now I have 233 followers, almost the same number of people who read this monthly newsletter. Facebook / whats-app was to ad filled for me to enjoy what my friends were posting. X was great for news, but none of my friends where on it. Linkedin was just about business. Besides, NOSTR gives me more bitcoin every time I post. I am now using the bitcoin to buy eggs every two weeks from my neighbors. So to me it is a win win. I can write notes and eat eggs. I even use my NOSTR extension to log into hivetalk.org and help people with their computer issues. It is better than teaching via ZOOM. 2025 is going to be a great year for decentralization.

If you are trying to join NOSTR via your desktop I recommend going to getalby.com installing the browser extension. Then make an account with getalby and write down your 24 words (nsec). Link your profile to your lightning wallet and start posting and following other friends via primal.net. Yes, of course, I am put on this earth to help my fellow man. Some people enjoy using NOSTR via their cell phone and for those people I recommend amethyst or damus. We are all in this together.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

“What is money?” sounds like a bit of a silly question. You’d probably hold up some cash or maybe flash your debit card. But I challenge you with this: imagine a 5-year-old asking you this question. How would you answer? If you showed them a $20 bill, they might respond with, “I know that’s a money, but what is it?” If you manage to explain that the bill is worth $20, they’re next question is going to be, “how many is your card?” How would you answer that? At some point you’d probably end up trying to distract them with something else while you worked to ignore the dread feeling that you should have those answers, but don’t. Never fear, for we will attempt to explain it in such a way that you’ll have an answer for 5, 15, 50, or 95-year-olds by the time we’re done this 4-part series!

Let’s start with an overview of the history of money. I highly recommend further reading on each of these; we’re going to skim most of them today. In the beginning, there was simple barter. If we each had something the other wanted, we could trade. But if the scale of what we want to trade is lopsided, say, chickens for a cow, or cows for a house, how do you make the trade work? Or what if you wanted to save up for a larger purchase? The answer is a placeholder; something that represents value in trade. An early example of this is the rai stones in Micronesia, which are essentially carved rocks. These worked well for store of value and medium of exchange, but not so much for unit of account. Precious metal coins arose later, with the most common being gold, silver, copper, and bronze. These worked well for all three of the major elements.

Store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account are the three major elements of any system of money. Store of value means it holds its value well over time. If you put a gold coin in a box in your house and retrieve it 10 years later, it’s still a gold coin and should be in the same physical condition as it was when stored. Medium of exchange means it’s widely accepted for trade. This one is a bit trickier, but if you’re the Roman Empire you can simply make everyone accept denarius. Unit of account means units should hold the same value everywhere they’re used. This is similarly tricky, but if you’re the Dutch East India Company you can simply make VOC-stamped coins global denominations.

Renaissance-era Italy is where modern banking was born. A key concept invented during this time was the double-entry ledger, or double-entry bookkeeping system. In short, every transaction is recorded, and every transaction has two entries: one with an amount leaving an account, and one with the same amount going into a different account. At the end of every block of time all accounts will have an aggregate balance of 0, with individual accounts either having a credit or debit. This system is still in use today, as well as the broad use of credit notes in place of coins or direct trade. Credit notes could be written against an account and given in trade, and later the receiver could take the note to the bank, who would then record the transaction as complete. If this sounds familiar, that’s because modern cheques are the same thing.

Modern money systems take these concepts a step further. Banks now maintain a whole network of double-entry ledgers and in most countries banks are no longer required to hold reserves matching their credit notes issued. Credit notes are also the total physical currency, also known as a fiat currency, or currency by authority or decree. This essentially means fiat money has no intrinsic value other than the promise of the issuing authority to treat it as valid and the willingness of others to accept it in trade. For an example of “willingness to accept in trade”, many retail stores in Canada will accept American dollars even though they’re not required to.

If you’re now thinking, “thanks for the history lesson, but what does this mean to me and the payment terminal in my store?”, the answer will come 2 weeks from now when we cover the Canadian dollar. In the meantime if you want to learn a bit more about the systems our modern money is based on, read up on the Roman Empire and their currency, as well as that of the Dutch East India Company. If you really want to dive deep, Renaissance Italy’s banking systems are also fascinating and a little closer to us on the timeline.

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We’ve all been in meetings that seem to be stuck in an unending loop of “discussions” going nowhere while simultaneously ratcheting up everyone’s emotions as the minutes past dinner continue to climb. You stand to leave as you reach your limit and declare, “It’s past my bedtime”. If only there was a way to make meetings more efficient!

The gold standard for meeting organization is “Robert’s Rules of Order”, the original having been published in 1876 and currently in it’s 12th edition (https://robertsrules.com). It’s quite the tome at over 800 pages, which makes sense given that it’s meant to be a complete procedural guide. If that feels like overkill for your 5-person weekly department check-in, there’s an “In Brief” edition available meant for just such cases. Our focus today will be less procedural and more on the squishy human side.

People are social creatures who generally prefer friendly conversation over stiff formalities. This will be your primary hurdle as left unstructured most meetings will migrate from handling business to visiting. My first recommendation is to intentionally schedule social time before and after the meeting. You may have seen this communicated as “doors open” and “doors close” times on event announcements. Or you can break the fourth wall and label it “social time”. Either way, explain its purpose to your attendees and make it clear that its optional. Most will appreciate having it; these meetings may be the only time they see each other, but for some its just business and they won’t want to feel pressured into awkward conversation.

Intentional social time is best paired with my next tip: begin the formal portion exactly at the advertised start time. This will encourage everyone to arrive on time (or ideally early), and might allow you to finish early. (Who doesn’t like that‽) If your attendees are used to a loose start time it might seem jarring at first, but if you break the fourth wall (again) and explain why you’re doing it, you shouldn’t have many arguments. If you have late arrivals, don’t interrupt the flow or pause to catch them up. Its their responsibility to arrive on time, and failing that its their responsibility to catch themselves up. Again, it won’t take long to normalize a hard start time. I also recommend advertising and sticking to a hard stop time as well. The nice thing about a stop time is that its only definite in one direction; you don’t have to stick to it if you’re done early. It’s primary purpose is to reassure everyone that the meeting won’t get drug out. Evening meeting attendees with young children at home will be especially grateful.

If this is starting to feel like a lot of details to keep track of, fear not, for there is a solution invented long ago: the formal meeting agenda! I’ve included a basic template below, but an internet search will provide a cornucopia of formats and options. My rule of thumb is the longer the meeting, the further in advance you should provide an agenda. As a starting point I aim for a week / 5 business days for any longer than an hour. You’ll also want to include any written reports and statements. This will be another item you may get some pushback on; many will be used to delivering verbal reports with very little prep. Written versions have several advantages (see my previous posts on the importance of writing things down, especially “Writing Things Down Is For Boys Too”), including giving attendees a chance to review and absorb the information before the meeting, keeping the reports concise, and making inclusion in the minutes much easier. I also like to include statements on old and new business items, which takes us into the next, and possibly most controversial, item.

Alongside social visiting, one of the biggest time-eaters in meetings is “discussion”. In my opinion (here comes the controversial part), meetings shouldn’t have discussions, only decisions and formalizations. All discussion should happen before the meeting. For example, let's say a new piece of equipment needs to be purchased, and an official vote is needed to do so. The next business meeting is not the place to discuss this. Options, pros and cons, bids or quotes, and most importantly, opinions and emotions surrounding the decision, should be hashed out and aired between stakeholders in an informal fashion on their own time. Billy and Sally don’t need to have a shouting match about the colour options while everyone else awkwardly stares at their shoes in the middle of the weekly stand-up. They can have their cat fight in the privacy of the HR office or at the local Timmies. I make a bit of an exception for what I call “statements”, though with tight controls. If Billy acquiesces to Sally’s demands to buy the blue model instead of the yellow one but still wants his oppositions known, he might be tempted to unleash a rant if, during the meeting, the chairperson says something like, “Anyone have any thoughts on this equipment purchase?” Chances of this happening are high for business items surrounded by high emotions, such as layoffs or budget cuts. This is where the statement can be a powerful tool to give everyone most of what they want. Have those who wish to create brief written statements. Your pitch to them is that it can be included in the agenda with all the other important business, everyone will see it (even those who can’t make it to the meeting), there’s no chance of their opinion being misrepresented, and it can easily be included in the minutes. You can optionally allow them to read their statement aloud during the meeting, but keep tight control on this. Again, emotions may be running high, and someone hearing their nemesis vocalize an opinion they disagree with may be enough to set them off. Make it clear that the statement will be read for the record, and no responses or discussion will follow, as discussion has already happened.

I’ve mentioned the chairperson a few times. This person should be, without question, in control. They should have absolute dictatorial power over the meeting, and importantly, over who has permission to speak. Anyone who disagrees with this power can be asked to leave. It sounds harsh, but a meeting without a human “talking stick” will fall to those without the social awareness to refrain from interrupting, or those willing to be the loudest. Have the chairperson wield their omnipotence for the good of the people.

Need help with planning or executing your meetings? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

``` Example Meeting Agenda: Meeting Title Organization / Team / Group Name Meeting Date, Start Time, and Stop Time Meeting Location Chairperson Participants / Invitees

Order of Business: Call to Order / Start Approval of previous minutes Approval of reports Old business New business Adjournment

Appendices: A: Previous Minutes B: Report 1 C: Statement from John Doe on Business Item 1 D: Quote for Business Item 2 ```

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"Focus on the things you are for, not the things you are against. Many people spend large chunks of their day thinking about what they hate. They are always telling you about something they dislike: this food, that subject, this political party, that coworker. You are more than your frustrations. Build your identity around what you love."

~ James Clear

I need to do better with this personally but its great food for thought.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/947407

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Ads Fueling Freedom

Ross Ulbricht’s "Decentralize Social Media" painted a picture of a user-centric, decentralized future that transcended the limitations of platforms like the tech giants of today. Though focused on social media, his concept provided a blueprint for decentralized content systems writ large. The PROMO Protocol, designed by NextBlock while participating in Sovereign Engineering, embodies this blueprint in the realm of advertising, leveraging Nostr and Bitcoin’s Lightning Network to give individuals control, foster a multi-provider ecosystem, and ensure secure value exchange. In this way, Ulbricht’s 2021 vision can be seen as a prescient prediction of the PROMO Protocol’s structure. This is a testament to the enduring power of his ideas, now finding form in NextBlock’s innovative approach.

[Current Platform-Centric Paradigm, source: Ross Ulbricht's Decentralize Social Media]

Ulbricht’s Vision: A Decentralized Social Protocol

In his 2021 Medium article Ulbricht proposed a revolutionary vision for a decentralized social protocol (DSP) to address the inherent flaws of centralized social media platforms, such as privacy violations and inconsistent content moderation. Writing from prison, Ulbricht argued that decentralization could empower users by giving them control over their own content and the value they create, while replacing single, monolithic platforms with a competitive ecosystem of interface providers, content servers, and advertisers. Though his focus was on social media, Ulbricht’s ideas laid a conceptual foundation that strikingly predicts the structure of NextBlock’s PROMO Protocol, a decentralized advertising system built on the Nostr protocol.

[A Decentralized Social Protocol (DSP), source: Ross Ulbricht's Decentralize Social Media]

Ulbricht’s Principles

Ulbricht’s article outlines several key principles for his DSP: * User Control: Users should own their content and dictate how their data and creations generate value, rather than being subject to the whims of centralized corporations. * Decentralized Infrastructure: Instead of a single platform, multiple interface providers, content hosts, and advertisers interoperate, fostering competition and resilience. * Privacy and Autonomy: Decentralized solutions for profile management, hosting, and interactions would protect user privacy and reduce reliance on unaccountable intermediaries. * Value Creation: Users, not platforms, should capture the economic benefits of their contributions, supported by decentralized mechanisms for transactions.

These ideas were forward-thinking in 2021, envisioning a shift away from the centralized giants dominating social media at the time. While Ulbricht didn’t specifically address advertising protocols, his framework for decentralization and user empowerment extends naturally to other domains, like NextBlock’s open-source offering: the PROMO Protocol.

NextBlock’s Implementation of PROMO Protocol

The PROMO Protocol powers NextBlock's Billboard app, a decentralized advertising protocol built on Nostr, a simple, open protocol for decentralized communication. The PROMO Protocol reimagines advertising by: * Empowering People: Individuals set their own ad prices (e.g., 500 sats/minute), giving them direct control over how their attention or space is monetized. * Marketplace Dynamics: Advertisers set budgets and maximum bids, competing within a decentralized system where a 20% service fee ensures operational sustainability. * Open-Source Flexibility: As an open-source protocol, it allows multiple developers to create interfaces or apps on top of it, avoiding the single-platform bottleneck Ulbricht critiqued. * Secure Payments: Using Strike Integration with Bitcoin Lightning Network, NextBlock enables bot-resistant and intermediary-free transactions, aligning value transfer with each person's control.

This structure decentralizes advertising in a way that mirrors Ulbricht’s broader vision for social systems, with aligned principles showing a specific use case: monetizing attention on Nostr.

Aligned Principles

Ulbricht’s 2021 article didn’t explicitly predict the PROMO Protocol, but its foundational concepts align remarkably well with NextBlock's implementation the protocol’s design: * Autonomy Over Value: Ulbricht argued that users should control their content and its economic benefits. In the PROMO Protocol, people dictate ad pricing, directly capturing the value of their participation. Whether it’s their time, influence, or digital space, rather than ceding it to a centralized ad network. * Ecosystem of Providers: Ulbricht envisioned multiple providers replacing a single platform. The PROMO Protocol’s open-source nature invites a similar diversity: anyone can build interfaces or tools on top of it, creating a competitive, decentralized advertising ecosystem rather than a walled garden. * Decentralized Transactions: Ulbricht’s DSP implied decentralized mechanisms for value exchange. NextBlock delivers this through the Bitcoin Lightning Network, ensuring that payments for ads are secure, instantaneous and final, a practical realization of Ulbricht’s call for user-controlled value flows. * Privacy and Control: While Ulbricht emphasized privacy in social interactions, the PROMO Protocol is public by default. Individuals are fully aware of all data that they generate since all Nostr messages are signed. All participants interact directly via Nostr.

[Blueprint Match, source NextBlock]

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Who We Are

NextBlock is a US-based new media company reimagining digital ads for a decentralized future. Our founders, software and strategy experts, were hobbyist podcasters struggling to promote their work online without gaming the system. That sparked an idea: using new tech like Nostr and Bitcoin to build a decentralized attention market for people who value control and businesses seeking real connections.

Our first product, Billboard, is launching this June.

Open for All

Our model’s open-source! Check out the PROMO Protocol, built for promotion and attention trading. Anyone can join this decentralized ad network. Run your own billboard or use ours. This is a growing ecosystem for a new ad economy.

Our Vision

NextBlock wants to help build a new decentralized internet. Our revolutionary and transparent business model will bring honest revenue to companies hosting valuable digital spaces. Together, we will discover what our attention is really worth.

Read our Manifesto to learn more.

NextBlock is registered in Texas, USA.

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LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER | FEATURED RECIPE | MICROFICTION | FOOD NOTE QUOTE | SOUNDS | NOSTR MARKETPLACE | REAL REVIEWS | COMMUNITY ALBUM | NEW RECIPES | FIN

LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER 📝

A Year of Growth and Gratitude

As we approach the end of the year, it’s the perfect moment to pause and reflect. 2024 has been a transformative year for Zap Cooking. What started as a simple idea has grown into a vibrant, connected community. From recipes to shared stories, the #zapcooking tag has become a rallying point for food enthusiasts everywhere, and it’s inspiring to see how this shared passion is bringing people together.

None of this would have been possible without the incredible support and dedication of Sarah, who pours her heart into crafting these newsletters. Sarah, thank you for helping us share the joy of cooking and community with so many.

I am deeply grateful, grateful for you, our community, for nostr, for the milestones we’ve reached, and for the challenges that have helped us grow. Zap Cooking is about more than food; it’s about connections, creativity, and collaboration. Together, we’ve built something special, and I’m excited for what 2025 holds.

Here’s to another year of cooking, connecting, and creating together. Thank you for being part of this journey.

Cheers!

Seth

Founder, Zap Cooking

FEATURED RECIPE 🥪

Nostrville 2.0 was located in Nashville, Tennessee. This music destination featured some powerhouse food establishments, such as Ladybird Taco, Hattie B’s Hot Chicken Sandwiches, Pancake Pantry, and Modell’s infamous family-style breakfast; however, it was the people from Louisiana who brought their A-game to the shared kitchen at the after-party rental.

The lovely Rupert and her giant, Kajoozie, served up a traditional gumbo that had all of us reaching for a second bowl… or perhaps a fourth bowl. It was that good! They were also kind enough to share their recipe with all of us.

Rupert and Kajoozie’s #Nostr Famous Gumbo https://substack.com/home/post/p-152296981

MICROFICTION 📖

GIFTS by RustyPuppy

Every Christmas Eve (and by 'every' Aaran meant those he could remember, which, being eight years old, was not many), after the dinner dishes had been washed, and the family settled into the living room to watch "It's a Wonderful Life," his nani would start chopping vegetables. Aaran once asked why she didn't cook Santa's beef stew when she prepared their dinner. Because she wanted the stew to be fresh, came the answer. Aaron knew better than to ask how something that needed to simmer for five hours could be considered 'fresh.'

Everyone knew their grandmother's beef stew, placed in front of the fireplace in a hand-made bowl wrapped in a dish towel to keep warm, was eaten by the dog after everyone went to bed. And every year, she insisted Santa needed a hot, healthy meal.

None of the children could believe anyone would choose vegetables over cookies. Shari, the girl next door, made peanut cookies for Santa. Aaron had helped mix the dough last year. He was forbidden from adding the frosting because Shari needed the perfect amount atop each cookie so she could write her name in the sugary mix with a toothpick. Depending how guilty she felt about the year, she sometimes added candy beads.

One year, a cousin asked if Santa really ate all of those hundreds? thousands? millions? of cookies. An uncle said, "Of course, that's why he's so fat," while Aaaran's mother said, "Of course not, he gives them to children who don't have sweets," and Nani added "And those who still want to believe in him."

Aaran secretly wanted to believe his nani, because his older brothers had teased him for writing his Christmas wish letter, saying Santa was only real for babies. He didn't want to be a baby, but he still wanted to believe in the magic that was Santa.

At last, the evening ended. Some returned to their homes; the rest returned to their rooms. Nani set her bowl under the stockings. Aaran hesitated on the stairs, but the thought of seeing the dog actually eat the stew made his eyes wet. He stepped over his cousin's sleeping bag, got into bed, and dreamed of flying reindeer.

In the morning, as the children opened their gifts and the adults took turns making coffee and tea, Nani asked Aaran to bring her the stew bowl. He looked at the dog, currently surrounded by shreds of wrapping paper, panting happily with a bow on his head. Picking up the bowl, Aaron saw something within; a peanut cookie with the name Shari written in the frosting.

RECIPE REFERENCES:

Lovely Indian beefstew with coconut milk & Ultimate Peanut Cookies https://substack.com/home/post/p-152296981

FOOD NOTE QUOTE 🗒️

Today someone took a picture of my latte art after I handed them their cup 💜 and it made my day. Celebrate the small things. 😊 - TKay

SOUNDS 🔊

At Bitcoin Park in Nashville, Tennessee, the adorable cuties Mallory, Other Mallory, Island, and Sergio, along with help from Fountain, Phantom Power and Tunestr.io organized a night of activities, food, art, and a live acoustic music panel featuring four absolutely talented musicians - Ainsley Costello, Amber Sweeney, Luke Wood, and Jo Corso. SoupBox was honored to sit down with Amber to chat about music, fostering dogs from Wags and Walks, and food | Listen Now: SoupBox with Sarah | Featuring Amber Sweeney

https://fountain.fm/episode/nvwD83sajCiFNqTP4tYu

https://feeds.rssblue.com/soupbox

Short from Nashville | OpenMike | Tunestr

https://v.nostr.build/yLufD7GbwOPI3EgA.mp4

NOSTR MARKETPLACE 💳

Find Your Holiday Gifts on Nostr | Value for Value (aka V4V) #circulareconomy

Agi Choote | Art Prints | Find on Nostr!

Amber Sweeney | Custom Songs for Any Occasion | https://www.theambersweeney.com/merch/custom-songs

Ant Richard | Limited Custom Handcrafted Knife Gift Certificates (12-month waitlist for all custom handmade orders) | Find on Nostr!

Apotheca Viva | https://apothecaviva.love/

Aupa Bars | https://eataupa.com/

Barnminer’s Barn Jerky | Find on Nostr!

Billay Coffee | https://billaycoffee.com/

BitBees | Honey & Honey Products | https://www.kittrellsdaydream.com/

Bitcoin Blankets ⚡️| Website Coming Soon!

Bitpopart | https://bitpopart.com/ | https://www.storeofvalue.eu/collections/christmas-collection

BTC Aloha | Bitcoin Beachwear & Accessories | https://btcaloha.shop/

BtcPins | https://btcpins.com/

Cannabis Records | https://cannabisrecords.store/

CryptoCloaks | https://www.cryptocloaks.com/shop/

Delgado’s Fuego | https://delgadosfuego.com/

Dot GNT | Laser Engravings | https://dotgnt.codeberg.page/

Finca Yabisi | https://yabisi.farm/

Foxfire Mushrooms | https://foxfiremushrooms.com/

Golden Tallow | https://goldentallow.com/

GoodBeans 🇸🇻 Coffee | https://thegoodbeans.com/

Isolabell.art | https://isolabell.art/

Jake Wolki | https://wolkifarm.com.au/

Keto Beejay | Low Sugar Jerky | https://ketolish.us/ | https://ketobeejay.npub.pro/

Kanuto Takumi San | Find on Nostr!

Laser Eyes Cards | https://lasereyes.cards/

LeatherMint | https://theleathermint.com/

Lightning Store | https://lightning.store/

LightningSpore | Full Service Mushroom Cultivation Company | https://www.lightningspore.com/

Lost Sheep Ranch | https://www.lost-sheep-ranch.com/

Lucho Poletti | Art Prints and Merchandise | https://luchopoletti.com/

Madex | Art & Apparel | https://madex.art/collections/in-stock

MapleTrade | Find on Nostr!

Matthew D | https://whitepaperstreetsoap.com/

Next Block Coffee | https://nextblockcoffee.com/

NoGood | Jake Wolki | https://wolkifarm.com.au/

PatsPropolisHoney | Find on Nostr!

Peony Lane Wine | Ben Justman | https://www.peonylanewine.com/

PlebianMarket | https://plebeian.market/

PictureRoom | Assorted Dessert Treats | Find on Nostr!

Regenerative Farmed Meats & Knives | AgrarianContrarian | Find on Nostr!

RustyPuppy | Art and Stories | https://heidi2524.com/

Salt of the Earth | Premium Electrolyte Mix | https://drinksote.com/

Satoshi Coffee Company | https://sats.coffee/

Scott & Son | Animal Portraits, Prints, and Apparel | https://xavierscraftworkanddesign.com/t-shirts

SofterSkin Tallow Skincare | https://softerskin.co/

Shopstr | https://shopstr.store/

Soap Miner | Tallow Body Soap Bars

SweetSats | Honey | https://sweetsats.io/

Veiled Mycology | https://veiledmycology.com/

Yojimbo | Jam & Marmalade | https://jimblesjumble.odoo.com/

REAL REVIEWS ⭐

BitBees | Honey & Honey Products | https://www.kittrellsdaydream.com/ | By Rupert

If you follow me or have ever had the pleasure of chatting with me on cornychat.com or hivetalk.org, you’ll know how proud I am of my Cajun heritage. For me, that means memories of long, hot summer days in South Louisiana, plenty of mosquito bites, the humming of cicadas in the cypress trees, and my grandfather’s bee boxes abuzz with fuzzy little workers.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting our famed #nostr beekeepers, @bitbees and @kingbee, and the absolute joy of tasting the labors of the wee little friends they care for. @KajoozieMaflingo and I purchased both their wildflower and gallberry varieties, and we were able to pay with BTC! (BONUS!) The wildflower was chef’s-kiss perfection, but my taste buds were instantly rocketed back to my childhood when I tried the lovingly and aptly nicknamed “swamp honey.”

Its pale color might fool you into thinking it has a lighter flavor than its rich and flavorful counterpart, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s crisp and bright, with a mellow sweetness balanced by a slight tang to finish. It’s the ideal pairing with my favorite chamomile tea before bedtime.

This was my first purchase, but it will not be my last. By far, this is one of the most delicious use cases for Bitcoin I’ve come across to date.

Keto Beejay | Low Sugar Jerky | https://ketolish.us/ | https://ketobeejay.npub.pro/ | By The Beave

I recently had the pleasure of ordering four types of beef jerky from Beejay, the proprietress of http://ketolish.us. I was intrigued by her offerings and ended up ordering plain, pickle, pizza, and pepper. My order took a while to go through, mostly because Beejay and I were figuring out how to move sats around without it being too much of a pain in the butt. However, once finalized, everything shipped promptly and arrived quickly in a well-packed parcel. Beejay is also very good to communicate with, and I will gladly purchase more from her in the future.

I will start off the reviews with the most surprising of the batch: pizza. This was simply outstanding. I was shocked at how much it reminded me of eating pizza. I can't recommend this one enough! My second favorite pick is the pickle flavor. I love pickles. (I cannot express how much I love pickled things to you in words!) This was also very good, with the dill seasoning being front and center but restrained enough not to completely overpower the delicious beefiness of the jerky. A note on the texture: the jerky is ground, so it is not as tough as other jerkies you might try. This is a very new thing to me, and I rather enjoyed the novelty of the experience. The peppered jerky was full of pepper. This might be too much pepper for some, as it reminded me of the pepper-covered salami you can get at a good Italian pork store. Lastly, the plain jerky was delicious in its own right, though I would have preferred a touch more salt. I would order all of these again and am looking forward to ordering other flavors in the future, especially the bison!

COMMUNITY ALBUM 📷

Photos & Videos by Mandana from NextBlock & Flirting with Bitcoin, Efrat Fenigson, Ava, Birthday B, Vic from CornyChat, Tortuga, Mallory, Island, Jack Spirko, Paul Keating, BreadandToast.com, Nos.Social and Sarah SoupBox

View the Album: https://substack.com/home/post/p-152296981

NEW RECIPES 🍲

https://i.nostr.build/MNrivKtc1fpjamfn.png

In November, we received an incredible surge of over 30 recipes submitted to Zap Cooking! That's a fantastic leap from the three or four we typically see each week! Dive into one, two, or even all of them, and don’t forget to share your reviews and mouthwatering photos on Nostr using #foodstr. We’d also love to see your favorite personal or family recipes—let’s keep the culinary creativity flowing!

Corn Pudding, The Beef Panzone, Vodka Pie Crust, Short Rib Barbacoa Tacos, Guiness Beef Stew with Pickled Pearl Onions, Fast AF Beef Stroganoff, Dark Chocolate Mincemeat, Vic’s London Broil, Easy Wholemeal Spelt Flour Bread, Mamma SLCW’s Cranberry Sauce, Hot Dog Nachos, Italian Wedding Soup, Mapo Tofu Curry, Hot Honey Crispy Salmon Bowls, Curried Butternut Squash Soup, Best Damn Oven Baked Chicken Legs, Chocolate Creme Pie, Broccoli Beef, Tuscan Steak and Green Peppers, Easy Carne Asada, InstantPot Chicken Tortilla Soup, Green Bean Casserole with Bacon and Fried Shallots, Bang Bang Shrimp, Rupert and Kajoozie’s #Nostr Famous Gumbo, The Best Lamb Winter Stew, Avery’s Hot Wallet Salsa, Candied Pecans, Pumpkin Bread, Breakfast Casserole with Sausage and Egg, Gold & Silver Soup, Mr. G’s Homemade Chicken Pasta Salad, Ultimate Peanut Cookies

The recipe links are available here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-152296981

FIN 🤠

https://i.nostr.build/661bAgwsj6tEnICX.jpg

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“Technology never changes” sounds insane, doesn’t it? Of course it changes! Far too fast! New models of smartphones, laptops, refrigerators, cars, and toasters every year! And that’s just hardware; software and the internet move even faster. Every time you open your social media app of choice you’re greeted with a new thing to figure out. But under the hood of version 999 of all these newfangled widgets, they’re all the same as they’ve ever been, because technology never changes.

Does that still sound crazy to you? Excellent! That means I have you hooked for the rest of this article! All humour aside, when I say, “technology never changes”, I’m talking about the underlying concepts, how we use technology, and on the organization side, how we plan for it. That last one will be our focus today. The tech strategies I help organizations implement haven’t changed since I started in tech, and my predecessors would probably mirror the same, especially since they’re the ones I learned these concepts from.

Let’s dive in. If you’ve been involved in vehicle fleet management this first one will be familiar. For technology hardware there’s a concept called an “evergreen program”, which is essentially a schedule of when hardware is cycled or replaced. End-user hardware such as laptops, desktops, and smartphones is 3 years, servers is 6, wired network elements are 9, and wireless (mostly access points) is 6. These numbers aren’t written in stone or the same for every org; they’re just meant to be a starting point. But here's the big secret: most of this equipment, if it’s business-grade, properly maintained, and treated well, will last at least 10 years. The reason for the comparatively short evergreen cycles is two-fold: downtime can be more expensive than replacing equipment, and replacing equipment is usually a tough sell and put off as long as possible regardless of programs or policy. That’s an article all by itself; lets move along for now. Those evergreen program and lifetime numbers haven’t changed. Sure there’s a new Macbook every year and your cousin’s buddy who makes 7 figures working for a California design firm gets them on release day, but those are the exception. Your 5-person non-profit is going to replace laptops on double cycles based on tech strategy that hasn’t changed. Because technology never changes.

I mentioned software earlier and that it moves even faster. While this is true, tech strategy around it hasn’t changed. I’ll use the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office suite as examples. New major versions used to release roughly every 3 years. If you’re replacing your laptops and desktops on a 3 year cycle, you never really have to worry about upgrading Windows or Office separately. Today Microsoft has migrated most of their products to a subscription model, but the cycle is the same. Because technology never changes.

But what about AI? Isn’t it quadrupling in power every few minutes? Hasn’t it used the energy of a thousand suns to drink the oceans dry in order to feed it’s insatiable quantum-powered hunger for knowledge and control? No, it hasn’t. In fact, if news articles are to be believed; ChatGPT et al. have run up against a bit of a wall. My prediction is that we’ll start seeing AI in more common usage sometime late this year, which, not-so-coincidentally, will be about 3 years since it’s public release. Because technology never changes.

@ 4fe4a528:3ff6bf06

https://cdn.satellite.earth/8dd22e9b598964ade69d4c5ca517c2637ffafdfb15cf3e589cd1a7955c173375.mp4 In my last news article I wrote about selling my beef for 4500 sats / lb and buying my eggs for 4500 sats / dozen. You will be glad to know that some of my friends gave me bitcoin for my birthday. One person gave me over 60,000 sats, so now I am feeling like my last months article caused everyone to buy bitcoin — opt out of inflation.

It must have been more than my friends giving me bitcoin that caused Bitcoin to increase it’s market cap by 600 billion US dollars. I know that eggs are costing me 3,000 sats now compared to 4500 sats one month ago. If things keep getting 50% cheaper every month I might not have to move all my value into bitcoin.

Isn’t it weird using something that increases in value month after month? It is indeed a far cry from the traditional notion of money, where the value or the purchasing power of the currency loses value month after month. Most Bitcoiners care about the separation of money from the state, the removal of a third party from transactions and the capturing the deflationary nature of technology, etc. The fiat price is simply a short term way of measuring progress toward that goal. In reality, the moose shekel price doesn’t really matter.

With Brazil and Russia now using it as legal tender I don’t want anyone to give me bitcoin as a gift this month. Give your money/love to helping others see Jesus’ love in coming to earth instead. You might be able to write off your donation also.

You do realize there are only 16.5 million bitcoin available to be moved to other bitcoin type people and the US bitcoin strategic reserve might be coming next year. I just hope the Trudeau / Christine “Vib” session doesn’t make Canadians give up on using the Moose Shekels as a means of exchanging value. Bitcoin is now worth more than the Canadian dollar. If you need to get educated about money join Nostr and do a video / desktop sharing conference with me. Say hivetalk.org @ 9am ish works best for me. Remember, learning technology makes you earn more. We are all in this together.

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

One of the most common criticisms leveled against nostr is the perceived lack of assurance when it comes to data storage. Critics argue that without a centralized authority guaranteeing that all data is preserved, important information will be lost. They also claim that running a relay will become prohibitively expensive. While there is truth to these concerns, they miss the mark. The genius of nostr lies in its flexibility, resilience, and the way it harnesses human incentives to ensure data availability in practice.

A nostr relay is simply a server that holds cryptographically verifiable signed data and makes it available to others. Relays are simple, flexible, open, and require no permission to run. Critics are right that operating a relay attempting to store all nostr data will be costly. What they miss is that most will not run all encompassing archive relays. Nostr does not rely on massive archive relays. Instead, anyone can run a relay and choose to store whatever subset of data they want. This keeps costs low and operations flexible, making relay operation accessible to all sorts of individuals and entities with varying use cases.

Critics are correct that there is no ironclad guarantee that every piece of data will always be available. Unlike bitcoin where data permanence is baked into the system at a steep cost, nostr does not promise that every random note or meme will be preserved forever. That said, in practice, any data perceived as valuable by someone will likely be stored and distributed by multiple entities. If something matters to someone, they will keep a signed copy.

Nostr is the Streisand Effect in protocol form. The Streisand effect is when an attempt to suppress information backfires, causing it to spread even further. With nostr, anyone can broadcast signed data, anyone can store it, and anyone can distribute it. Try to censor something important? Good luck. The moment it catches attention, it will be stored on relays across the globe, copied, and shared by those who find it worth keeping. Data deemed important will be replicated across servers by individuals acting in their own interest.

Nostr’s distributed nature ensures that the system does not rely on a single point of failure or a corporate overlord. Instead, it leans on the collective will of its users. The result is a network where costs stay manageable, participation is open to all, and valuable verifiable data is stored and distributed forever.

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

We have playoff contests galore (https://stacker.news/items/947140/r/Undisciplined, https://stacker.news/items/943657/r/Undisciplined, https://stacker.news/items/945970/r/Undisciplined, https://stacker.news/items/945376/r/Undisciplined), which of course means we also have lots of playoff action to cover.

There are also several regular season contests going on (https://stacker.news/items/947153/r/Undisciplined, https://stacker.news/items/946412/r/Undisciplined, https://stacker.news/items/945561/r/Undisciplined, https://stacker.news/items/943383/r/Undisciplined), as well as the mish mash of events in the USA vs the world.

@BlokchainB posted some ideas for fixing the NBA and some of them seem promising. What really needs to be fixed?

@Coinsreporter has taken it upon himself to help us make smart decisions at Predyx. There are also some new exciting markets we want to talk about, plus just catch up on how our degeneracy is going.

The NFL Draft is this week. Stackers made their surprise picks. It's not too late to add yours to the mix. @grayruby also has some 49ers trade proposals for the Raiders number 6 pick. It'll be a tough sell.

The MLB is preposterously unbalanced. In @grayruby's words "The American League sucks".

Plus, whatever Stackers put in the comments.

Last, but not least, thank you to our listeners and supporters. As I write this, we're the #38 podcast on Fountain and Episode 27 is the #38 episode.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/947216

@ 6ad3e2a3:c90b7740

There’s an annoying trend on Twitter wherein the algorithm feeds you a lot of threads like “five keys to gaining wealth” or “10 mistakes to avoid in relationships” that list a bunch of hacks for some ostensibly desirable state of affairs which for you is presumably lacking. It’s not that the hacks are wrong per se, more that the medium is the message. Reading threads about hacks on social media is almost surely not the path toward whatever is promised by them.

. . .

I’ve tried a lot of health supplements over the years. These days creatine is trendy, and of course Vitamin D (which I still take.) I don’t know if this is helping me, though it surely helps me pass my blood tests with robust levels. The more I learn about health and nutrition, the less I’m sure of anything beyond a few basics. Yes, replacing processed food with real food, moving your body and getting some sun are almost certainly good, but it’s harder to know how particular interventions affect me.

Maybe some of them work in the short term then lose their effect, Maybe some work better for particular phenotypes, but not for mine. Maybe my timing in the day is off, or I’m not combining them correctly for my lifestyle and circumstances. The body is a complex system, and complex systems are characterized by having unpredictable outputs given changes to initial conditions (inputs).

. . .

I started getting into Padel recently — a mini-tennis-like game where you can hit the ball off the back walls. I’d much rather chase a ball around for exercise than run or work out, and there’s a social aspect I enjoy. (By “social aspect”, I don’t really mean getting to know the people with whom I’m playing, but just the incidental interactions you get during the game, joking about it, for example, when you nearly impale someone at the net with a hard forehand.)

A few months ago, I was playing with some friends, and I was a little off. It’s embarrassing to play poorly at a sport, especially when (as is always the case in Padel) you have a doubles partner you’re letting down. Normally I’d be excoriating myself for my poor play, coaching myself to bend my knees more, not go for winners so much. But that day, I was tired — for some reason I hadn’t slept well — and I didn’t have the energy for much internal monologue. I just mishit a few balls, felt stupid about it and kept playing.

After a few games, my fortunes reversed. I was hitting the ball cleanly, smashing winners, rarely making errors. My partner and I started winning games and then sets. I was enjoying myself. In the midst of it I remember hitting an easy ball into the net and reflexively wanting to self-coach again. I wondered, “What tips did I give to right the ship when I had been playing poorly at the outset?” I racked my brain as I waited for the serve and realized, to my surprise, there had been none. The turnaround in my play was not due to self-coaching but its absence. I had started playing better because my mind had finally shut the fuck up for once.

Now when I’m not playing well, I resist, to the extent I’m capable, the urge to meddle. I intend to be more mind-less. Not so much telling the interior coach to shut up but not buying into the premise there is a problem to be solved at all. The coach isn’t just ignored, he’s fired. And he’s not just fired, his role was obsoleted.

You blew the point, you’re embarrassed about it and there’s nothing that needs to be done about it. Or that you started coaching yourself like a fool and made things worse. No matter how much you are doing the wrong thing nothing needs to be done about any of it whatsoever. There is always another ball coming across the net that needs to be struck until the game is over.

. . .

Most of the hacks, habits and heuristics we pick up to manage our lives only serve as yet more inputs in unfathomably complex systems whose outputs rarely track as we’d like. There are some basic ones that are now obvious to everyone like not injecting yourself with heroin (or mRNA boosters), but for the most part we just create more baggage for ourselves which justifies ever more hacks. It’s like taking medication for one problem that causes side effects, and then you need another medicine for that side effect, rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.

But this process can be reverse-engineered too. For every heuristic you drop, the problem it was put into place to solve re-emerges and has a chance to be observed. Observing won’t solve it, it’ll just bring it into the fold, give the complex system of which it is a part a chance to achieve an equilibrium with respect to it on its own.

You might still be embarrassed when you mishit the ball, but embarrassment is not a problem. And if embarrassment is not a problem, then mishitting a ball isn’t that bad. And if mishitting a ball isn’t that bad, then maybe you’re not worrying about what happens if you botch the next shot, instead fixing your attention on the ball. And so you disappear a little bit into the game, and it’s more fun as a result.

I honestly wish there were a hack for this — being more mindless — but I don’t know of any. And in any event, hack Substacks won’t get you any farther than hack Twitter threads.

@ d6affa19:9110b177

i'm in the upstairs office. lost in some project i've been tinkering with. i feel driven with purpose.

the door is cracked open. i always leave the door open.

Her footsteps echo up the stairway. but my focus is intense; a solution just beyond my fingertips.

the door creaks open, a soft whisper of a sound.

i instantly feel Her presence. a sweet vanilla scent wraps around me, thick and intoxicating.

Her fingers brush through my hair, a gentle caress.

She grips my hair, then releases it— over and over again. it feels good.

a soothing warmth envelops me.

Her fingers glide, each stroke igniting my senses. a chill races down my spine.

the monitor becomes a bit distant.

"You're really focused, hmm?" She teases, leaning closer. "I'm just checking in on my sweet boy." Her tone alluring, already drawing me in.

"of course, my Queen." i reply, my eyes glued to the screen, struggling to concentrate. "thank You," my voice hints at annoyance. "i'm so close to finishing this up."

just when i near a breakthrough, She appears, a siren pulling me from my path. how does She know..? the quiet signals that betray my focus— that reveal my yearning.

"Hmmmm," She playfully muses.

ugh, i need to concentrate. but the way this feels...

it pulls me deeper.

Her fingers drift by my ear, lingering around my neck. nails grazing my skin, sending shivers through me.

my heart begins to race. the screen blurs, reality separates.

"Okay, sweet boy." Her voice is a soft command. Her nails dig in, a mixture of pain and pleasure. a sharp contrast to the softness of Her touch. "I'll be downstairs while you finish."

yet She remains. i close my eyes, drowning in the sensation. i should be finishing this project...

but each press feels like a silent command, an urge to abandon my thoughts, to succumb to the pull of Her presence.

the way She easily captures my attention... it makes me feel so vulnerable...

Her grip finally loosens, and slowly leaves my neck. it wants more...

i barely hear Her leave. but the air feels colder. the warmth of Her presence is fading. an aching emptiness fills the space...

the weight of Her absence settles in, another reminder of how easily She commands my thoughts...

desperately, i take in the remnants of Her scent.

i stare at my monitor. focus shattered, thoughts scattered like leaves.

i linger for a moment. fighting the urge to chase after Her.

the pull of Her absence is heavy in the air. i'm unable to resist. i rise from my seat.

the door is slightly open. She always leaves the door open.

i make my way downstairs, lost in the thoughts of serving Her. my true purpose...

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Look at any white-collar office job posting from the last few decades and you’re likely to see something like “basic computers skills” listed as a requirement. “Great,” you think to yourself, “I can use technology, after all, I managed to find this job posting!” And if you’re on the hiring end for a position that’ll be spending six to eight hours in front of screen, you’d certainly hope applicants would know that they need to be able to use a computer. Ten years of bookkeeping experience? Reception? Managing remote staff? In a Venn diagram of work experience and basic computer skills, those should be a near complete overlap! We shouldn’t need to train them at all! Can we be sure though? It turns out “basic computer skills” doesn’t have a universally accepted definition.

Since basic computer skills doesn’t have an official definition we can point to, lets attempt to create one ourselves. I argue for reading comprehension as the base skill underlying all the others we’re going to talk about (see “One Skill To Rule Them All” for more on this). Unfortunately reading comprehension doesn’t have a universal measurement either. I used to use “6th grade reading level” as my go-to, but today’s media is full of articles on changing standards and outcomes in public education, so that’s no longer dependable. If you’re interviewing someone, try providing them with a copy of the job posting and asking them questions about it that require some simple inference. For a more advanced option, I’ve included a test you can administer that covers reading comprehension and several other elements.

How about typing? Should basic computer skills include home row typing ability? What about speed requirements? If we’re talking about basic skills, I’d say no to both of those. While “chicken pecking” with two fingers probably wouldn’t qualify you for a staff writing position at a newspaper, I consider formal typing (especially with a speed requirement) to be an intermediate skill. So your applicant should be able to navigate a keyboard without assistance, but that’s all.

Email is probably the most universal computer task of the modern era. I’ve included it in the test template. Users should be able to recognize an email address and the “To”, “Subject”, and “Body” fields in an email client, even an unfamiliar one. Email interfaces have kept their same basic elements since the 90s.

The most controversial skill I’ve seen talked about lately is the ability to navigate and use a file system. The advent of smartphones and tablets, and the ubiquity of Chromebooks in schools, has led to new workers who have never had to save a file to a “documents” folder, or infer that a photo could most likely be found in a “pictures” folder. The strongest counterargument I’ve read is that between “recent” lists and search functions we shouldn’t need to know how to navigate file structures. I disagree, so I’ve included this skill in the test as well.

Lastly, safety and security. What’s considered “basic” varies wildly. Could you recognize a phishing email pretending to be from your boss? What about the difference between an ad link and a regular result in an internet search? I haven’t included this in the test as needs and policies are different at every workplace, but it’s a good idea to consider it when planning your interviews and internal training. An employee who clicks the links in every suspicious email without a second thought is a security disaster waiting to happen.

Here’s the skills test I promised. There are two ways of administering it; either provide the interviewee with a computer to use, or use screenshots and have them verbally walk you through the steps they would take. The latter requires a bit more visual and verbal knowledge transference and self-awareness so I only recommend it if providing a company computer isn’t a possibility. You’ll also need to customize it; for example YOURTEXTEDITOR needs to be replaced with whatever program is standard for your org, i.e. Microsoft Word.

Instructions for the Applicant: Please read the instructions below carefully and perform the steps described. After completing the task, answer the follow-up questions about the process. Task: 1. Open YOURTEXTEDITOR on the computer. 2. Create a new file and write the following without the quotes: “Welcome to the team! Your onboarding kit is on your desk.” 3. Save the file with the name "Team Message - " ending with today’s date, in the "FOLDERORSHAREDRIVE" folder. 4. Format the text to bold and change the font size to 14. 5. Close the application. 6. Open YOUREMAILCLIENT. 7. Send an email to INTERVIEWER with the subject “Team Message”. In the email, let them know that the file is ready. 8. Attach the file and send the email. Instructions for the Interviewers: After they’ve completed the task, ask the following questions about the process. Interviewees should be allowed to keep their instructions in front of them, but DO NOT tell them they can refer to them unless they ask. 1. What was the name of the first program you opened? 2. If you couldn’t save the file to the “FOLDERORSHAREDRIVE” folder/share drive, where would you have saved it? Why? 3. Who did you send the email to? 4. What did you name the file? 5. What changes, if any, would you make to the instructions? Post-interview analysis: The following is reasoning for the instructions and questions, and what to look for in the interviewee’s actions and responses. Task: 1. They should be able to find an application on the computer with little assistance. 2. They should be able to type the sentence into the document and understand the instructions to leave out the quotation marks. Observe their typing style (home row vs single finger presses) and speed. 3. Ability to remember or find today’s date and to save a document to a specific location. 4. Ability to format text. 5. They should remember to save the document or answer the automated prompt to save the document. 6. Same as question 1, but with a different application. 7. They should be able to send an email with an attachment. Ideally they’ll either know, or be able to figure out, how to look up the interviewer in the company address book. Also, the ability to write without being told explicitly what to say. 8. The ability to locate and attach a file to an email. Follow-up questions: 0. Allowing them access to the instructions without explicitly telling them they can refer to them will test their sense of agency. Asking permission is fine as some will feel the follow-up questions are a test, and most people are used to tests or exams being closed-book. It will also test their ability to find the information they need within the task instructions. 1. Ability to recall or locate the information. 2. Ability and sense of agency to make a best-option decision when faced with adversity. 3. Ability to recall or locate the information. 4. Ability to recall or locate the information. 5. Tests self-awareness around needs or preferences for directions. “None” is also an acceptable answer if they had no struggles with any of the task steps.

Share this article with anyone working on job postings or interviews in your organization, and please feel free to use the skills test content in any way you like. It’s best modified for your specific needs!

Need someone to assist with skills assessment, training, or hiring processes? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 21335073:a244b1ad

I want to see Nostr succeed. If you can think of a way I can help make that happen, I’m open to it. I’d like your suggestions.

My schedule’s shifting soon, and I could volunteer a few hours a week to a Nostr project. I won’t have more total time, but how I use it will change.

Why help? I care about freedom. Nostr’s one of the most powerful freedom tools I’ve seen in my lifetime. If I believe that, I should act on it.

I don’t care about money or sats. I’m not rich, I don’t have extra cash. That doesn’t drive me—freedom does. I’m volunteering, not asking for pay.

I’m not here for clout. I’ve had enough spotlight in my life; it doesn’t move me. If I wanted clout, I’d be on Twitter dropping basic takes. Clout’s easy. Freedom’s hard. I’d rather help anonymously. No speaking at events—small meetups are cool for the vibe, but big conferences? Not my thing. I’ll never hit a huge Bitcoin conference. It’s just not my scene.

That said, I could be convinced to step up if it’d really boost Nostr—as long as it’s legal and gets results.

In this space, I’d watch for social engineering. I watch out for it. I’m not here to make friends, just to help. No shade—you all seem great—but I’ve got a full life and awesome friends irl. I don’t need your crew or to be online cool. Connect anonymously if you want; I’d encourage it.

I’m sick of watching other social media alternatives grow while Nostr kinda stalls. I could trash-talk, but I’d rather do something useful.

Skills? I’m good at spotting social media problems and finding possible solutions. I won’t overhype myself—that’s weird—but if you’re responding, you probably see something in me. Perhaps you see something that I don’t see in myself.

If you need help now or later with Nostr projects, reach out. Nostr only—nothing else. Anonymous contact’s fine. Even just a suggestion on how I can pitch in, no project attached, works too. 💜

Creeps or harassment will get blocked or I’ll nuke my simplex code if it becomes a problem.

https://simplex.chat/contact#/?v=2-4&smp=smp%3A%2F%2FSkIkI6EPd2D63F4xFKfHk7I1UGZVNn6k1QWZ5rcyr6w%3D%40smp9.simplex.im%2FbI99B3KuYduH8jDr9ZwyhcSxm2UuR7j0%23%2F%3Fv%3D1-2%26dh%3DMCowBQYDK2VuAyEAS9C-zPzqW41PKySfPCEizcXb1QCus6AyDkTTjfyMIRM%253D%26srv%3Djssqzccmrcws6bhmn77vgmhfjmhwlyr3u7puw4erkyoosywgl67slqqd.onion

@ ee11a5df:b76c4e49

Bye-Bye Reply Guy

There is a camp of nostr developers that believe spam filtering needs to be done by relays. Or at the very least by DVMs. I concur. In this way, once you configure what you want to see, it applies to all nostr clients.

But we are not there yet.

In the mean time we have ReplyGuy, and gossip needed some changes to deal with it.

Strategies in Short

1. WEB OF TRUST: Only accept events from people you follow, or people they follow - this avoids new people entirely until somebody else that you follow friends them first, which is too restrictive for some people.
2. TRUSTED RELAYS: Allow every post from relays that you trust to do good spam filtering.
3. REJECT FRESH PUBKEYS: Only accept events from people you have seen before - this allows you to find new people, but you will miss their very first post (their second post must count as someone you have seen before, even if you discarded the first post)
4. PATTERN MATCHING: Scan for known spam phrases and words and block those events, either on content or metadata or both or more.
5. TIE-IN TO EXTERNAL SYSTEMS: Require a valid NIP-05, or other nostr event binding their identity to some external identity
6. PROOF OF WORK: Require a minimum proof-of-work

All of these strategies are useful, but they have to be combined properly.

filter.rhai

Gossip loads a file called "filter.rhai" in your gossip directory if it exists. It must be a Rhai language script that meets certain requirements (see the example in the gossip source code directory). Then it applies it to filter spam.

This spam filtering code is being updated currently. It is not even on unstable yet, but it will be there probably tomorrow sometime. Then to master. Eventually to a release.

Here is an example using all of the techniques listed above:

```rhai // This is a sample spam filtering script for the gossip nostr // client. The language is called Rhai, details are at: // https://rhai.rs/book/ // // For gossip to find your spam filtering script, put it in // your gossip profile directory. See // https://docs.rs/dirs/latest/dirs/fn.data_dir.html // to find the base directory. A subdirectory "gossip" is your // gossip data directory which for most people is their profile // directory too. (Note: if you use a GOSSIP_PROFILE, you'll // need to put it one directory deeper into that profile // directory). // // This filter is used to filter out and refuse to process // incoming events as they flow in from relays, and also to // filter which events get/ displayed in certain circumstances. // It is only run on feed-displayable event kinds, and only by // authors you are not following. In case of error, nothing is // filtered. // // You must define a function called 'filter' which returns one // of these constant values: // DENY (the event is filtered out) // ALLOW (the event is allowed through) // MUTE (the event is filtered out, and the author is // automatically muted) // // Your script will be provided the following global variables: // 'caller' - a string that is one of "Process", // "Thread", "Inbox" or "Global" indicating // which part of the code is running your // script // 'content' - the event content as a string // 'id' - the event ID, as a hex string // 'kind' - the event kind as an integer // 'muted' - if the author is in your mute list // 'name' - if we have it, the name of the author // (or your petname), else an empty string // 'nip05valid' - whether nip05 is valid for the author, // as a boolean // 'pow' - the Proof of Work on the event // 'pubkey' - the event author public key, as a hex // string // 'seconds_known' - the number of seconds that the author // of the event has been known to gossip // 'spamsafe' - true only if the event came in from a // relay marked as SpamSafe during Process // (even if the global setting for SpamSafe // is off)

fn filter() {

// Show spam on global
// (global events are ephemeral; these won't grow the
// database)
if caller=="Global" {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Block ReplyGuy
if name.contains("ReplyGuy") || name.contains("ReplyGal") {
    return DENY;
}

// Block known DM spam
// (giftwraps are unwrapped before the content is passed to
//  this script)
if content.to_lower().contains(
  "Mr. Gift and Mrs. Wrap under the tree, KISSING!"
) {
    return DENY;
}

// Reject events from new pubkeys, unless they have a high
// PoW or we somehow already have a nip05valid for them
//
// If this turns out to be a legit person, we will start
// hearing their events 2 seconds from now, so we will
// only miss their very first event.
if seconds_known <= 2 && pow < 25 && !nip05valid {
    return DENY;
}

// Mute offensive people
if content.to_lower().contains(" kike") ||
    content.to_lower().contains("kike ") ||
    content.to_lower().contains(" nigger") ||
    content.to_lower().contains("nigger ")
{
    return MUTE;
}

// Reject events from muted people
//
// Gossip already does this internally, and since we are
// not Process, this is rather redundant. But this works
// as an example.
if muted {
    return DENY;
}

// Accept if the PoW is large enough
if pow >= 25 {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Accept if their NIP-05 is valid
if nip05valid {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Accept if the event came through a spamsafe relay
if spamsafe {
    return ALLOW;
}

// Reject the rest
DENY

} ```

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

This is our fastest turnaround. The 1st round of the playoffs starts tomorrow and the Play-In Tournament doesn't end until tonight.

We don't know the 8th seeds yet but all the other matchups are set. Don't forget to set your brackets for the Playoff Bracket Challenge, either.

Matchups (seed)

Clippers (5) @ Nuggets (4) Bucks (5) @ Pacers (4) Timberwolves (6) @ Lakers (3) Pistons (6) @ Knicks (3) Warriors (7) @ Rockets (2) Magic (7) @ Celtics (2) TBD (8) @ Thunder (1) TBD (8) @ Cavaliers (1)

You need to select one team from this round to win their series. You also need to predict who will be the highest scoring player in this round. You have until tip-off to select a team or player.

Scoring this round 1 Point for your team winning + Your team's seed if they win + 1 Point for picking the correct top scorer

This round has a maximum of 10 points.

Prize 10k sats (or sum of zaps on contest posts, whichever is larger)

cc: @gnilma, @BlokchainB, @grayruby, @Carresan, @fishious, @Coinsreporter, @WeAreAllSatoshi

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/947140

@ da0b9bc3:4e30a4a9

Hello Stackers!

Welcome on into the ~Music Corner of the Saloon!

A place where we Talk Music. Share Tracks. Zap Sats.

So stay a while and listen.

🚨Don't forget to check out the pinned items in the territory homepage! You can always find the latest weeklies there!🚨

🚨Subscribe to the territory to ensure you never miss a post! 🚨

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/954269

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

Congrats to @gnilma and @Carresan! Thanks to Herro and Butler both having 38 points (shoutout Heat Culture) they both secured 9 points and are tied for the lead.

Now we move on to the final Play-In Round

Matchups (seed)

• Heat (10) @ Hawks (8)
• Mavericks (10) @ Grizzlies (8)

You need to select one team from this round to win their game. You also need to predict who will be the highest scoring player in this round.

Scoring this round: 1 Point for your team winning + Your team's seed if they win + 1 Point for picking the correct top scorer

This round has a maximum of 12 points.

Prize

10k sats (or sum of zaps on contest posts, whichever is larger)

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/946686

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

In much of the world, it is incredibly difficult to access U.S. dollars. Local currencies are often poorly managed and riddled with corruption. Billions of people demand a more reliable alternative. While the dollar has its own issues of corruption and mismanagement, it is widely regarded as superior to the fiat currencies it competes with globally. As a result, Tether has found massive success providing low cost, low friction access to dollars. Tether claims 400 million total users, is on track to add 200 million more this year, processes 8.1 million transactions daily, and facilitates $29 billion in daily transfers. Furthermore, their estimates suggest nearly 40% of users rely on it as a savings tool rather than just a transactional currency.

Tether’s rise has made the company a financial juggernaut. Last year alone, Tether raked in over $13 billion in profit, with a lean team of less than 100 employees. Their business model is elegantly simple: hold U.S. Treasuries and collect the interest. With over $113 billion in Treasuries, Tether has turned a straightforward concept into a profit machine.

Tether’s success has resulted in many competitors eager to claim a piece of the pie. This has triggered a massive venture capital grift cycle in USD tokens, with countless projects vying to dethrone Tether. Due to Tether’s entrenched network effect, these challengers face an uphill battle with little realistic chance of success. Most educated participants in the space likely recognize this reality but seem content to perpetuate the grift, hoping to cash out by dumping their equity positions on unsuspecting buyers before they realize the reality of the situation.

Historically, Tether’s greatest vulnerability has been U.S. government intervention. For over a decade, the company operated offshore with few allies in the U.S. establishment, making it a major target for regulatory action. That dynamic has shifted recently and Tether has seized the opportunity. By actively courting U.S. government support, Tether has fortified their position. This strategic move will likely cement their status as the dominant USD token for years to come.

While undeniably a great tool for the millions of users that rely on it, Tether is not without flaws. As a centralized, trusted third party, it holds the power to freeze or seize funds at its discretion. Corporate mismanagement or deliberate malpractice could also lead to massive losses at scale. In their goal of mitigating regulatory risk, Tether has deepened ties with law enforcement, mirroring some of the concerns of potential central bank digital currencies. In practice, Tether operates as a corporate CBDC alternative, collaborating with authorities to surveil and seize funds. The company proudly touts partnerships with leading surveillance firms and its own data reveals cooperation in over 1,000 law enforcement cases, with more than $2.5 billion in funds frozen.

---

The global demand for Tether is undeniable and the company’s profitability reflects its unrivaled success. Tether is owned and operated by bitcoiners and will likely continue to push forward strategic goals that help the movement as a whole. Recent efforts to mitigate the threat of U.S. government enforcement will likely solidify their network effect and stifle meaningful adoption of rival USD tokens or CBDCs. Yet, for all their achievements, Tether is simply a worse form of money than bitcoin. Tether requires trust in a centralized entity, while bitcoin can be saved or spent without permission. Furthermore, Tether is tied to the value of the US Dollar which is designed to lose purchasing power over time, while bitcoin, as a truly scarce asset, is designed to increase in purchasing power with adoption. As people awaken to the risks of Tether’s control, and the benefits bitcoin provides, bitcoin adoption will likely surpass it.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

“Can you help make our website good?” is one of the most loaded questions I get. There are many aspects to this question’s galactic gravitas, and their root is another question: what makes a website good?

Before we get there, we have a few other questions that need answering. The first is whether you actually need a website. Would a social media presence and a Google Maps listing do the same job? Or do you need a dedicated online shop or some other functionality that a Facebook Page can’t provide? Who’s your target market? Is it people who don’t have social media accounts or wouldn’t want to mix their social media presence with your business?

Let’s say you’ve gone through all of that and decided you do indeed need a website. What makes a website “good” can be divided into two aspects: engineering and design. In the context of websites, engineering is the behind the scenes stuff that makes it go (think of the mechanical bits of a car), and design is how it looks and feels (all the stuff you see and touch in a car). Unfortunately for us, most places these overlap they’re also juxtaposed. To see this in action head over to simple.scalebright.ca. You’ll notice that it loads extremely quickly and works well on screens of any size. This site was built with an “engineering first” mindset. Designers generally loath this kind of website. Not because it loads fast or scales well, but because to do those things I had to sacrifice design. There are no graphics or images, one font, and only four total colours in use (if you count black and white). There are no fancy contact forms, loading animations, white space considerations, borders, boxes, or bulbous billowing bedazzlements. Just cold, ruthless efficiency. I love it! But it’s not necessarily good.

This takes us into the next consideration. A good website doesn’t necessarily appeal to you; it’s supposed to appeal to your target audience. You might not be your target audience. If you are, great! That’ll make figuring out what your target audience wants in a website easier. Either way, be sure to have some chats with them and keep what they say in mind.

Okay, I know I just finished saying that the highly simplified version of my website isn’t good, but I want to warn you away from the opposite: over-design and over-engineering. Over-design usually manifests as visual overload; too many colours, too many graphics or photos, too much motion. Over-engineering is too much mechanical complexity; a one-page professional bio site doesn’t need to run on a dedicated server on WordPress with fifteen plugins.

There isn’t going to be a one-size-fits-all answer to “what makes a website good?”, because no two website are going to be identical. You’ll probably end up engaging a professional website design firm to both help answer that question for your specific scenario, and to build it for you. Here are some of the questions they’re going to ask and some hints for answering them.

What are your colours, fonts, logos, and other visual assets? If you don’t have these the firm should be able to help (usually for an extra fee), though smaller firms may need to subcontract the work out.

What are the core functions of your website? Is it an online store? Professional bio? Hospitality booking site? A link hub or landing page?

Do you have your website copy ready to go? “Copy” in this context refers to the text that will go on your website. Slogans, product and service descriptions, staff bios, and anything else that consists of a collection of words. If you don’t have your copy, you’ll either need to prepare to write it yourself or hire a third party to write it for you. It’s been my experience that website design firms are very strict about not writing copy, and generally won’t subcontract it either.

Do you have a preferred CMS? A CMS is a content management system, which is a fancy way of saying “thing that makes your website easier to add content to”. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are CMSs. Squarespace, GoDaddy, and Wix could be considered CMSs for our purposes too. 99% of you probably don’t care, and that’s a perfectly acceptable answer to give your firm.

What’s your budget? While most of us would probably prefer to spend zero, groceries continue to cost money, so none of us work for free. As of the writing of this article, a multi-page website built by a design firm will range between $10,000 and $30,000.

Want someone to “just take care of” all this website shenanigans for you? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 3bf0c63f:aefa459d

Nostr: a quick introduction, attempt #2

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

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

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

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

@ a8d1560d:3fec7a08

Based on the Free Speech Flag generator at https://crocojim18.github.io/, but now you can encode binary data as well.

https://free-speech-flag-generator--wholewish91244492.on.websim.ai/

Please also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Flag for more information about the Free Speech Flag.

Who can tell me what I encoded in the flag used for this longform post?

@ f839fb67:5c930939

Relays

| Name | Address | Price (Sats/Year) | Status | | - | - | - | - | | stephen's aegis relay | wss://paid.relay.vanderwarker.family | 42069 | | | stephen's Outbox | wss://relay.vanderwarker.family | Just Me | | | stephen's Inbox | wss://haven.vanderwarker.family/inbox | WoT | | | stephen's DMs | wss://haven.vanderwarker.family/chat | WoT | | | VFam Data Relay | wss://data.relay.vanderwarker.family | 0 | | | VFam Bots Relay | wss://skeme.vanderwarker.family | Invite | | | VFGroups (NIP29) | wss://groups.vanderwarker.family | 0 | | | [TOR] My Phone Relay | ws://naswsosuewqxyf7ov7gr7igc4tq2rbtqoxxirwyhkbuns4lwc3iowwid.onion | 0 | Meh... |

---

My Pubkeys

| Name | hex | nprofile | | - | - | - | | Main | f839fb6714598a7233d09dbd42af82cc9781d0faa57474f1841af90b5c930939 | nostr:nprofile1qqs0sw0mvu29nznjx0gfm02z47pve9up6ra22ar57xzp47gttjfsjwgpramhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3us9mapfx | | Vanity (Backup) | 82f21be67353c0d68438003fe6e56a35e2a57c49e0899b368b5ca7aa8dde7c23 | nostr:nprofile1qqsg9usmuee48sxkssuqq0lxu44rtc4903y7pzvmx694efa23h08cgcpramhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3ussel49x | | VFStore | 6416f1e658ba00d42107b05ad9bf485c7e46698217e0c19f0dc2e125de3af0d0 | nostr:nprofile1qqsxg9h3uevt5qx5yyrmqkkehay9cljxdxpp0cxpnuxu9cf9mca0p5qpramhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3usaa8plu | | NostrSMS | 9be1b8315248eeb20f9d9ab2717d1750e4f27489eab1fa531d679dadd34c2f8d | nostr:nprofile1qqsfhcdcx9fy3m4jp7we4vn305t4pe8jwjy74v062vwk08dd6dxzlrgpramhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3us595d45 |

Bots

Unlocks Bot

Hex: 2e941ad17144e0a04d1b8c21c4a0dbc3fbcbb9d08ae622b5f9c85341fac7c2d0
nprofile:
nostr:nprofile1qqsza9q669c5fc9qf5dccgwy5rdu877th8gg4e3zkhuus56pltru95qpramhxue69uhhx6m9d4jjuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3ust4kvak
Latest Data:
nostr:naddr1qq882mnvda3kkttrda6kuar9wgq37amnwvaz7tmnddjk6efwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyqhfgxk3w9zwpgzdrwxzr39qm0plhjae6z9wvg44l8y9xs06clpdqqcyqqq823cgnl9u5

Step Counter

Hex: 9223d2faeb95853b4d224a184c69e1df16648d35067a88cdf947c631b57e3de7
nprofile: nostr:nprofile1qqsfyg7jlt4etpfmf53y5xzvd8sa79ny356sv75gehu50333k4lrmecpramhxue69uhhx6m9d4jjuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3ustswp3w
Latest Data:
nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpy3r6tawh9v98dxjyjscf357rhckvjxn2pn63rxlj37xxx6hu008qys8wumn8ghj7umtv4kk2tnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jtcqp3ehgets943k7atww3jhyn39gff

RCTGuest

Hex: 373904615c781e46bf5bf87b4126c8a568a05393b1b840b1a2a3234d20affa0c
nprofile: nostr:nprofile1qqsrwwgyv9w8s8jxhadls76pymy2269q2wfmrwzqkx32xg6dyzhl5rqpramhxue69uhhx6m9d4jjuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3usy92jlx

Now Playing

Hex: 8096ed6ba1f21a3713bd47a503ee377b0ce2f187b3e5a3ae909a25b84901018b
nprofile: nostr:nprofile1qqsgp9hddwslyx3hzw750fgracmhkr8z7xrm8edr46gf5fdcfyqsrzcpramhxue69uhhx6m9d4jjuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3uspk5v4w
Latest Data:
nostr:naddr1qq9kummh94cxccted9hxwqglwaehxw309aekketdv5h8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0ypzpqyka446rus6xufm63a9q0hrw7cvutcc0vl95whfpx39hpyszqvtqvzqqqr4gupdk2hd

---

NIP-29 Groups

See here

• Minecraft Group Chat
• nostr:naddr1qqrxvc33xpnxxqfqwaehxw309anhymm4wpejuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3usygrzymrpd2wz8ularp06y8ad5dgaddlumyt7tfzqge3vc97sgsarjvpsgqqqnpvqazypfd
• VFNet Group Chat
• nostr:naddr1qqrrwvfjx9jxzqfqwaehxw309anhymm4wpejuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3usygrzymrpd2wz8ularp06y8ad5dgaddlumyt7tfzqge3vc97sgsarjvpsgqqqnpvq08hx48

"Nostrified Websites"

[D] = Saves darkmode preferences over nostr
[A] = Auth over nostr
[B] = Beta (software)
[z] = zap enabled

• [DABz] Main Site
• [DAB] Contact Site
• [DAB] PGP Site
• [DAB] VFCA Site

---

Other Services (Hosted code)

• Blossom
  
• NostrCheck
  

---

Emojis Packs

• Minecraft
• nostr:naddr1qqy566twv43hyctxwsq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyrurn7m8z3vc5u3n6zwm6s40stxf0qwsl2jhga83ssd0jz6ujvynjqcyqqq82nsd0k5wp
• AIM
• nostr:naddr1qqxxz6tdv4kk7arfvdhkuucpramhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuanpdejx2unhv9exketj9enxzmtfd3usyg8c88akw9ze3fer85yah4p2lqkvj7qap749w360rpq6ly94eycf8ypsgqqqw48qe0j2yk
• Blobs
• nostr:naddr1qqz5ymr0vfesz8mhwden5te0wfjkccte9emxzmnyv4e8wctjddjhytnxv9kkjmreqgs0sw0mvu29nznjx0gfm02z47pve9up6ra22ar57xzp47gttjfsjwgrqsqqqa2wek4ukj
• FavEmojis
• nostr:naddr1qqy5vctkg4kk76nfwvq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyrurn7m8z3vc5u3n6zwm6s40stxf0qwsl2jhga83ssd0jz6ujvynjqcyqqq82nsf7sdwt
• Modern Family
• nostr:naddr1qqx56mmyv4exugzxv9kkjmreqy0hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jq3qlqulkec5tx98yv7snk759tuzejtcr5865468fuvyrtuskhynpyusxpqqqp65ujlj36n
• nostriches (Amethyst collection)
• nostr:naddr1qq9xummnw3exjcmgv4esz8mhwden5te0wfjkccte9emxzmnyv4e8wctjddjhytnxv9kkjmreqgs0sw0mvu29nznjx0gfm02z47pve9up6ra22ar57xzp47gttjfsjwgrqsqqqa2w2sqg6w
• Pepe
• nostr:naddr1qqz9qetsv5q37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyrurn7m8z3vc5u3n6zwm6s40stxf0qwsl2jhga83ssd0jz6ujvynjqcyqqq82ns85f6x7
• Minecraft Font
• nostr:naddr1qq8y66twv43hyctxwssyvmmwwsq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyrurn7m8z3vc5u3n6zwm6s40stxf0qwsl2jhga83ssd0jz6ujvynjqcyqqq82nsmzftgr
• Archer Font
• nostr:naddr1qq95zunrdpjhygzxdah8gqglwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0ypzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqvzqqqr4fclkyxsh
• SMB Font
• nostr:naddr1qqv4xatsv4ezqntpwf5k7gzzwfhhg6r9wfejq3n0de6qz8mhwden5te0wfjkccte9emxzmnyv4e8wctjddjhytnxv9kkjmreqgs0sw0mvu29nznjx0gfm02z47pve9up6ra22ar57xzp47gttjfsjwgrqsqqqa2w0wqpuk

---

Git Over Nostr

• NostrSMS
• nostr:naddr1qqyxummnw3e8xmtnqy0hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jqfrwaehxw309amk7apwwfjkccte9emxzmnyv4e8wctjddjhytnxv9kkjmreqyj8wumn8ghj7urpd9jzuun9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jqg5waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t0qyxhwumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmvqgs0sw0mvu29nznjx0gfm02z47pve9up6ra22ar57xzp47gttjfsjwgrqsqqqaueqp0epk
• nip51backup
• nostr:naddr1qq9ku6tsx5ckyctrdd6hqqglwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0yqjxamnwvaz7tmhda6zuun9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jqfywaehxw309acxz6ty9eex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0yq3gamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7qgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcq3qlqulkec5tx98yv7snk759tuzejtcr5865468fuvyrtuskhynpyusxpqqqpmej4gtqs6
• bukkitstr
• nostr:naddr1qqykyattdd5hgum5wgq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gpydmhxue69uhhwmm59eex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0yqjgamnwvaz7tmsv95kgtnjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dspzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqvzqqqrhnyf6g0n2

---

Market Places

Please use Nostr Market or somthing simular, to view.

• VFStore
• nostr:naddr1qqjx2v34xe3kxvpn95cnqven956rwvpc95unscn9943kxet98q6nxde58p3ryqglwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0yqjvamnwvaz7tmgv9mx2m3wweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7f0da6hgcn00qqjgamnwvaz7tmsv95kgtnjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gpydmhxue69uhhwmm59eex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0ypzqeqk78n93wsq6sss0vz6mxl5shr7ge5cy9lqcx0smshpyh0r4uxsqvzqqqr4gvlfm7gu

---

Badges

Created

• paidrelayvf
• nostr:naddr1qq9hqctfv3ex2mrp09mxvqglwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8vctwv3jhyampwf4k2u3wvesk66tv0ypzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqvzqqqr48y85v3u3
• iPow
• nostr:naddr1qqzxj5r02uq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyrurn7m8z3vc5u3n6zwm6s40stxf0qwsl2jhga83ssd0jz6ujvynjqcyqqq82wgg02u0r
• codmaster
• nostr:naddr1qqykxmmyd4shxar9wgq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwweskuer9wfmkzuntv4ezuenpd45kc7gzyrurn7m8z3vc5u3n6zwm6s40stxf0qwsl2jhga83ssd0jz6ujvynjqcyqqq82wgk3gm4g
• iMine
• nostr:naddr1qqzkjntfdejsz8mhwden5te0wfjkccte9emxzmnyv4e8wctjddjhytnxv9kkjmreqgs0sw0mvu29nznjx0gfm02z47pve9up6ra22ar57xzp47gttjfsjwgrqsqqqafed5s4x5

---

Clients I Use

• Amethyst
• nostr:naddr1qqxnzd3cx5urqv3nxymngdphqgsyvrp9u6p0mfur9dfdru3d853tx9mdjuhkphxuxgfwmryja7zsvhqrqsqqql8kavfpw3
• noStrudel
• nostr:naddr1qqxnzd3cxccrvd34xser2dpkqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hsygpxdq27pjfppharynrvhg6h8v2taeya5ssf49zkl9yyu5gxe4qg55psgqqq0nmq5mza9n
• nostrsms
• nostr:naddr1qq9rzdejxcunxde4xymqz8mhwden5te0wfjkccte9emxzmnyv4e8wctjddjhytnxv9kkjmreqgsfhcdcx9fy3m4jp7we4vn305t4pe8jwjy74v062vwk08dd6dxzlrgrqsqqql8kjn33qm

---

Lists

• Bluesky
  • nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqys8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jtcqqapxcat9wd4hj0ah0jw
• Fediverse
  • nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqys8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jtcqp9rx2erfwejhyum9j4g0xh
• Fediverse_Bots
  • nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqys8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jtcqperx2erfwejhyum9tapx7arnfcpdzh
• My Bots
  • nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzp7peldn3gkv2wgeap8dag2hc9nyhs8g04ft5wnccgxhepdwfxzfeqys8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnkv9hxgetjwashy6m9wghxvctdd9k8jtcqz4uh5jnpwscyss24fpkxw4fewafk566twa2q8f6fyk

@ 9bc2d34d:d19d2948

Chef's notes

This recipe is designed for home cooks who want to recreate the delicious buttery hollandaise sauce at home without feeling overwhelmed. It focuses on teaching the basics of the sauce, allowing beginners to master the fundamentals before experimenting with seasonings, hot sauces, or herbs.

Please note the thickness of sauce in the picture. This is after ten minutes of blending.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 3 minutes
• 🍳 Cook time: 10 minutes (blending)
• 🍽️ Servings: 2 - 4

Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 8 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper

Directions

1. Melt butter in the microwave or on the stovetop.
2. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites (reserve the egg whites for another dish).
3. Place the egg yolks in a blender.
4. Start the blender (medium to high settings for blend mode is fine).
5. Slowly pour the melted butter into the cover opening (it will splatter).
6. Add the remaining ingredients.
7. Blend for ten minutes (seriously, walk away and do something else).
8. Taste and adjust the flavors (add extra lemon juice or salt if desired).
9. Serve over your breakfast!

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

I’ve been on the internet since the mid 90s. Once I started “cyber-schooling” a few years later my time spent in front of a screen skyrocketed. One of the time vortices both for and outside of school was finding things on the internet. Everything from encyclopedia-style information pieces to news articles to music to games; the hunt was relentless.

Search engines were the primary was this was done. In the early days my school officially recommended Ask Jeeves, but the students found Google’s results much more thorough. Us little scientists-in-training were even running parallel searches, recording outcomes, and sharing results. We eventually got in trouble for wrongthink...I mean...not following instructions, but were vindicated soon after when the school's recommendations changed to "use whatever search engine you like, as long as the results chosen are quality sources".

The problem of “how to find things on the internet” has recently returned. “Google it” is no longer the genericized verb it once was. Grand tomes and PHD theses have been written on the subject of why, but most point to motives and monetization. The original problem was finding things, and the solution was search. But how would the bills get paid? Computers are expensive! Printing newspapers is expensive too, and the solution was the same for both: sell advertising space. Unfortunately for us users, that has become the primary business for much of the internet. Search engines are no longer motivated to get you the results you’re looking for as quickly as possible, but to keep you on their platform looking at ads. Pundits have coined the term “enshittification” (which even has it’s own Wikipedia page now) to describe the phenomenon.

Worry not, for not all is lost! There are still ways to find things on the internet. Methods vary depending on what kind of things you’re looking for. One of my most common searches is for how to do things; everything from home repairs to mechanical to technology. My primary method for this is to use Google to search Reddit. Reddit is a massive collection of forums with almost two decades of human-generated content. Unfortunately it’s built-in search is mostly terrible, so that’s where Google comes in. Do the same Google search you’d normally do (say, “how to fix a squeaky door”), but add “site:reddit.com” to the end. This tells Google to only show results from Reddit. What you’ll get is forum threads and comments from (mostly) real humans with real human experiences. Of course humans and their commentary can still be deeply flawed, so stay skeptical of what you read, but it’s largely a much better experience than a naked Google search.

Less mainstream search engines are trying their hands at paid subscriptions as a way to avoid the advertising hell-spiral. Kagi is one I’ve been trying, though admittedly not as often as I should. They do have a free tier if you want to sample it.

A more high-tech solution is AI systems. ChatGPT recently released a tool specifically for internet searches, though their general prompt tool has been usable for this for a while. Kagi also has an AI-powered search tier. Both are pretty expensive for casual users though.

Another recommendation is to frequent interest or topic-specific forums and blogs. If you find yourself regularly needing vehicle repair tips, try joining a forum on the subject. Same goes for most other do-it-yourself tasks. You may even make some internet friends! Blogs are also a great way to find things and get connected to experts (shameless plug fully intended).

Lastly, some interesting things are happening on the Nostr protocol that could help bring information together without the commercial overreach. (See “Become Unbannable” for more on Nostr.) I’ve been using a site called Zap Cooking (https://zap.cooking) to browse recipes. Recipes here are Nostr notes (posts) that have been formatted and categorized, and can be commented on, rated, and tipped, all using the free and open Nostr protocol. No algorithms, no banks, no governments, and no ads!

Want help with or training on finding things on the internet? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 21335073:a244b1ad

Before I saw those X right-wing political “influencers” parading their Epstein binders in that PR stunt, I’d already posted this on Nostr, an open protocol. 

“Today, the world’s attention will likely fixate on Epstein, governmental failures in addressing horrific abuse cases, and the influential figures who perpetrate such acts—yet few will center the victims and survivors in the conversation. The survivors of Epstein went to law enforcement and very little happened. The survivors tried to speak to the corporate press and the corporate press knowingly covered for him. In situations like these social media can serve as one of the only ways for a survivor’s voice to be heard. 

It’s becoming increasingly evident that the line between centralized corporate social media and the state is razor-thin, if it exists at all. Time and again, the state shields powerful abusers when it’s politically expedient to do so. In this climate, a survivor attempting to expose someone like Epstein on a corporate tech platform faces an uphill battle—there’s no assurance their voice would even break through. Their story wouldn’t truly belong to them; it’d be at the mercy of the platform, subject to deletion at a whim. Nostr, though, offers a lifeline—a censorship-resistant space where survivors can share their truths, no matter how untouchable the abuser might seem. A survivor could remain anonymous here if they took enough steps. 

Nostr holds real promise for amplifying survivor voices. And if you’re here daily, tossing out memes, take heart: you’re helping build a foundation for those who desperately need to be heard.“

That post is untouchable—no CEO, company, employee, or government can delete it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t take it down myself. The post will outlive me on the protocol. 

The cozy alliance between the state and corporate social media hit me hard during that right-wing X “influencer” PR stunt. Elon owns X. Elon’s a special government employee. X pays those influencers to post. We don’t know who else pays them to post. Those influencers are spurred on by both the government and X to manage the Epstein case narrative. It wasn’t survivors standing there, grinning for photos—it was paid influencers, gatekeepers orchestrating yet another chance to re-exploit the already exploited.

The bond between the state and corporate social media is tight. If the other Epsteins out there are ever to be unmasked, I wouldn’t bet on a survivor’s story staying safe with a corporate tech platform, the government, any social media influencer, or mainstream journalist. Right now, only a protocol can hand survivors the power to truly own their narrative.

I don’t have anything against Elon—I’ve actually been a big supporter. I’m just stating it as I see it. X isn’t censorship resistant and they have an algorithm that they choose not the user. Corporate tech platforms like X can be a better fit for some survivors. X has safety tools and content moderation, making it a solid option for certain individuals. Grok can be a big help for survivors looking for resources or support! As a survivor, you know what works best for you, and safety should always come first—keep that front and center.

That said, a protocol is a game-changer for cases where the powerful are likely to censor. During China's # MeToo movement, survivors faced heavy censorship on social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat, where posts about sexual harassment were quickly removed, and hashtags like # MeToo or "woyeshi" were blocked by government and platform filters. To bypass this, activists turned to blockchain technology encoding their stories—like Yue Xin’s open letter about a Peking University case—into transaction metadata. This made the information tamper-proof and publicly accessible, resisting censorship since blockchain data can’t be easily altered or deleted.

I posted this on X 2/28/25. I wanted to try my first long post on a nostr client. The Epstein cover up is ongoing so it’s still relevant, unfortunately.

If you are a survivor or loved one who is reading this and needs support please reach out to: National Sexual Assault Hotline 24/7 https://rainn.org/

Hours: Available 24 hours

@ 000002de:c05780a7

Not only can I be my own bank and run a my own lightning bank. I can have private communications with people anywhere on the planet that only the two of us can read. On top of that I can manufacturer items in my office with this very affordable 3d printer.

Just a thought as I'm printing some items for a party we have coming up. I'm watching the print complete from my phone while I work on the back porch.

We live in an amazing time. It is easy to forget this when we are focused on the stupidity we see online.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/945569

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

“The human spirit should remain in charge.”

Pablo & Gigi talk about the wind.

In this dialogue:

• Wind
• More Wind
• Information Calories, and how to measure them
• Digital Wellbeing
• Rescue Time
• Teleology of Technology
• Platforms get users Hooked (book)
• Feeds are slot machines
• Movie Walls
• Tweetdeck and Notedeck
• IRC vs the modern feed
• 37Signals: “Hey, let’s just charge users!”
• “You wouldn’t zap a car crash”
• Catering to our highest self VS catering to our lowest self
• Devolution of YouTube 5-star ratings to thumb up/down to views
• Long videos vs shorts
• The internet had to monetize itself somehow (with attention)
• “Don’t be evil” and why Google had to remove it
• Questr: 2D exploration of nostr
• ONOSENDAI by Arkinox
• Freedom tech & Freedom from Tech
• DAUs of jumper cables
• Gossip and it’s choices
• “The secret to life is to send it”
• Flying water & flying bus stops
• RSS readers, Mailbrew, and daily digests
• Nostr is high signal and less addictive
• Calling nostr posts “tweets” and recordings being “on tape”
• Pivoting from nostr dialogues to a podcast about wind
• The unnecessary complexity of NIP-96
• Blossom (and wind)
• Undoing URLs, APIs, and REST
• ISBNs and cryptographic identifiers
• SaaS and the DAU metric
• Highlighter
• Not caring where stuff is hosted
• When is an edited thing a new thing?
• Edits, the edit wars, and the case against edits
• NIP-60 and inconsistent balances
• Scroll to text fragment and best effort matching
• Proximity hashes & locality-sensitive hashing
• Helping your Uncle Jack of a horse
• Helping your uncle jack of a horse
• Can we fix it with WoT?
• Vertex & vibe-coding a proper search for nostr
• Linking to hashtags & search queries
• Advanced search and why it’s great
• Search scopes & web of trust
• The UNIX tools of nostr
• Pablo’s NDK snippets
• Meredith on the privacy nightmare of Agentic AI
• Blog-post-driven development (Lightning Prisms, Highlighter)
• Sandwich-style LLM prompting, Waterfall for LLMs (HLDD / LLDD)
• “Speed itself is a feature”
• MCP & DVMCP
• Monorepos and git submodules
• Olas & NDK
• Pablo’s RemindMe bot
• “Breaking changes kinda suck”
• Stories, shorts, TikTok, and OnlyFans
• LLM-generated sticker styles
• LLMs and creativity (and Gigi’s old email)
• “AI-generated art has no soul”
• Nostr, zaps, and realness
• Does the source matter?
• Poker client in bitcoin v0.0.1
• Quotes from Hitler and how additional context changes meaning
• Greek finance minister on crypto and bitcoin (Technofeudalism, book)
• Is more context always good?
• Vervaeke’s AI argument
• What is meaningful?
• How do you extract meaning from information?
• How do you extract meaning from experience?
• “What the hell is water”
• Creativity, imagination, hallucination, and losing touch with reality
• “Bitcoin is singularity insurance”
• Will vibe coding make developers obsolete?
• Knowing what to build vs knowing how to build
• 10min block time & the physical limits of consensus
• Satoshi’s reasons articulated in his announcement post
• Why do anything? Why stack sats? Why have kids?
• All you need now is motivation
• Upcoming agents will actually do the thing
• Proliferation of writers: quantity VS quality
• Crisis of sameness & the problem of distribution
• Patronage, belle epoche, and bitcoin art
• Niches, and how the internet fractioned society
• Joe’s songs
• Hyper-personalized stories
• Shared stories & myths (Jonathan Pageau)
• Hyper-personalized apps VS shared apps
• Agency, free expression, and free speech
• Edgy content & twitch meta, aka skating the line of demonetization and deplatforming
• Using attention as a proxy currency
• Farming eyeballs and brain cycles
• Engagement as a success metric & engagement bait
• “You wouldn’t zap a car crash”
• Attention economy is parasitic on humanity
• The importance of speech & money
• What should be done by a machine?
• What should be done by a human?
• “The human spirit should remain in charge”
• Our relationship with fiat money
• Active vs passive, agency vs serfdom

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

“Sam did it!” You can hear the edge in the child’s voice as they attempt to shift blame for whatever minor misdeed they may-or-may-not have masterminded. In the court of humanity our feelings take wide precedence over objective justice. Even if there’s no fallout or formal punishment for that thing we did wrong, we really don’t like taking the blame.

Personal responsibility isn’t only about taking blame for the negative. As we’ll define it for the purposes of this article, it means taking ownership of decisions you make and the actions you take based on them. By extension you will also be taking ownership of the outcomes, both the successes and failures. Your mind is probably already imagining all sorts of scenarios this could apply to both at work and at home, but our focus will be mostly in the workplace.

Imagine working in a utopia where everyone perfectly executes personal responsibility. You would never have to worry about someone blaming you for the failure of their project, because it’s their project. You would know in advance that if your project is a success you’ll get 100% of the accolades, because it’s your project. With these two things alone, wouldn’t you feel a new level of motivation to give it your all? To take risks and innovate? You would have a new level of trust in your coworkers too. There would be no motive for micromanagement, for doing so would mean taking someone else’s responsibility upon yourself. Morale and productivity would skyrocket!

You can easily imagine the opposite as well; you may have thought of your own workplace in a negative light as soon as you read the title and clicked the link. Unfortunately in I.T. (being a panoptic presence in most organizations) we’re an easy target. “I can’t work, my computer’s broken, and I.T. hasn’t fixed it yet! They’re so slow, am-I-right?” “The file deleted itself; stupid computers!” “It’s not my fault that we didn’t deliver on time; the printer’s broken and it’s not my job to fix it!” sigh Enough gloom, let’s move on to how to make personal responsibility great again!

It's a simple concept; remind yourself that our decisions are ours, our actions are ours, and the results are ours. No exceptions. I’ll give you an example. When my wife and I are travelling somewhere it’s usually up to me to decide where to eat. I’m usually driving, and I’m also the head of our household, so it’s my decision. My decision, my actions, and most importantly, my results to own. If I choose a place and my wife doesn’t like the ambiance or menu or amount of cheese they put on everything, that’s on me. The weight can be heavy and feel unjust. But it isn’t unjust. It’s perfectly, objectively just. It’s my decision, my actions, and my results to own. There are upsides for both of us; I am now further motivated to pick someplace I know she’ll like and she gets to play “Passenger Princess”, and I get to bathe in the social bragging rights of being crowned “King of the Husbands” for being intuitive and attentive enough to know what she’d like and get it for her. It’s timeless and primordial: “Oh husband, you hunted and brought back a mammoth! I love mammoth steak! You are brave and strong and clearly the greatest of all husbands!” Her words would eco through our cave commune and all would look to us for hot tips to share on their relationship blog cave paintings.

You might still be thinking of your workplace and your coworkers who seem to want to blame you for everything that goes wrong. What can you do to get them on the personal responsibility train? The only way to do it is to lead by example. The moment you try to tell them or make them they’ll see it as an attack and blame you, which is exactly the problem you’re trying to avoid! You can’t suggest it, hint at it, or leave an anonymous note. You can’t have someone else talk to them about it or send this article and say, “I read this and thought it was interesting and thought you would think it’s interesting too.” This only way to teach others about personal responsibility is to show them. Which makes me writing this massively ironic. I take full responsibility for this!

My last tip is to make sure to celebrate the wins, both yours and other’s! This is especially true for others you’re trying to influence. Remember the accolades we imagined getting earlier and how much that would motivate you? That’s what you’re trying to instill in others. Positive reinforcement is much stronger than negative, so hand your praises out like candy!

Want to go against my recommendations and bring me into your workplace to talk about personal responsibility? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 8dc86882:9dc4ba5e

Today I saw a YouTube video from one of the privacy related channels, Techlore maybe? I don't exactly remember. Either way this particular video was going over the pluses and minuses of Android and iOS; and it has made me reconsider some things. I have one of each type of phone and jump back and forth a bit, but always thought I would end on Android. I'm not feeling that way anymore.

After really getting to understand Apple's Advanced Data Protection I think I came to the conclusion that my iPhone more than meets my needs and does everything I like. Yeah, Android sounds like it has most of the privacy coolness as far as mods, roms, and apps, but my iPhone is easily fully encrypted along with iCloud. The few services that aren't are covered by my Proton plan. It also allows me to stop paying for services I may not really need.

• I use and pay for Ente photos, which is great, but my Apple photos are already encrypted and backed up. I don't think I need to be paying for the extra service.
• The Apple Notes app falls under the fully encrypted side, and I can use the free version of Standard Notes for other things.
• I still use Signal Messenger where the OS doesn't matter as much.
• MySudo which I use for numbers is transferable between OSs also.

That's really about it, I mainly use my phone for Email, Calendar, Messaging, Notes, some social, and photos. I don't think I need anything special beyond that. The insecure apps I use on either platform keep their risks though Apple isn't an advertising company, so I feel they are less likely to abuse anything, at least for now. I wonder what other folks thoughts are. Feel free to share.

Cheers!

plebone

@ 000002de:c05780a7

She was a special cat. She was a tiny kitten crossing a country road far from any houses. We thought she was a rat at first. We stopped the car and I tried to find her. She was in a thicket hissing at me. She was always full of spunk. I didn't want another cat. I said we'd find her a home. But she quickly burrowed her way into my heart.

She was very vocal and affectionate. She was playful and loved to sneak up on you. She was just to curious and adventurous for her own good. We knew she'd get herself into trouble eventually but never dreamed it would be so soon.

When you open your heart, you are opening yourself up to being loved but also pain. Its bittersweet but worth it. Rest in peace Lucy. I miss that little girl.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/945348

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

https://primal.net/e/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqntcggz30qhq60ltqdx32zku9d46unhrkjtcv7fml7jx3dh4h94nqqszw6rqxppmm48pvvc5pz4q74r7qvsgl8tzwfgp3kqg82jw04t2n3q2nrlqh

Get used to and comfortable with being responsible for your own wellbeing.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/945039

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

Ever since becoming a Christian, I have whole-heartedly believed the Bible and that God will fulfill what He has promised. On the other hand, for the majority of the time I have been a Christian, I have dreaded reading prophecy. It seemed so hard to understand. Some is couched in figurative language, but I now believe much of it was hard to understand because there were no words for the technology and systems that would come into being and fulfill these predictions.

Now reading End times prophecy, like in Revelation, Daniel, Matthew 24-25, 2 Thessalonians, Zechariah, etc. the prophecies are starting to sound like the evening news instead of some poetic mystery. These predictions are making more and more sense as the technology and world politics begin to align with the prophecies. I have gone from hating when I get to prophecy passages, especially Revelation, in my Bible reading, to spending extra time reading these passages and seeing how they line up and clarify each other. (I really want to start a project linking all of the end-times prophetic passages together to see how they clarify each other and try to see the big picture, but that is a massive project and time is in short supply. The only way I know to do it is in Excel, but that isn’t efficient. If anyone has a suggestion for a better way to link and show relationships, I’d love to hear about it, especially if it is free or very cheap.)

Matthew recounts Jesus telling His disciples about what to expect in the end times. Although Matthew 24 describes more of the details of the events that happen, this passage in Matthew 25 describes the importance of watching expectantly for the signs of the times, so we are ready.

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13) {emphasis mine}

Many Christians think studying prophecy is not useful for today, but that is not true. Our time is short and Jesus warned us to be aware and ready. We can’t be ready for something if we know nothing about it.

In this passage it mentions that “while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep.” How often do we feel the delay and begin to rest or get distracted by other things? Most Christians do not live like Christ’s return is imminent. Although we can’t know the hour or the day, we can know that we are closer to that hour than we have ever been before. Peter warns us not to doubt Christ’s coming or to become focused solely on our earthly lives.

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:3-4)

Because Jesus has not returned for almost 2,000 years, many act as if He will never come, but that long wait instead suggests the time is nearing because God never breaks His promises.

For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:5-9) {emphasis mine}

The long wait is due to God’s unfathomable mercy and patience, but we should also realize that the increase of evil in the world cannot continue forever. How much more can evil increase before mankind destroys itself? God claims judgement for Himself and finds every kind of sin abhorrent. If we are distraught over the sin in the world today, how much more awful is it to a holy, perfect God to see His very own creation destroyed by sin?

Just as the ten virgins became tired waiting, we tend to get caught up in the things of this world instead of focusing on God’s plan for us and the world. We act as if this world is the only thing we will experience instead of preparing for our rapture to heaven. We focus on our job, our homes, and our families (all good things) and miss the most important things — winning souls for heaven.

Just as Jesus gently reprimanded Martha for having the wrong focus:

But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42) {emphasis mine}

In the same way, we get focused with the business of life and miss the most important stuff. It wasn’t bad of Martha to take care of her guests, but sitting with Jesus and learning from Him was more important. In the same way, our jobs, families, and homes are good things and we should do them well, but reading our Bibles, praying, growing closer to Jesus, and sharing the Gospel with those who don’t know Jesus is better.

When we believe that our time on earth is short and Jesus is coming for us soon, we are more likely to focus on the most important things — the eternal things.

This passage in Matthew 16 describes the importance of us knowing, understanding, and looking for the signs of the times.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away. (Matthew 16:1-4) {emphasis mine}

Christians that believe studying end times prophecy is not important would be rebuked even today by Jesus. We are supposed to study and learn and prepare and watch eagerly for His return.

In Revelation, God says we are blessed if we hear and heed the words of this prophecy.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near. (Revelation 1:1-3) {emphasis mine}

Do you seek God’s blessing? Then study God’s prophecies, especially as written in Revelation. God is good and He has shown His children what will happen, so they can be prepared. Don’t be like the five foolish virgins who were unprepared. Study the Scriptures. Look for the signs. Be ready for our Savior’s return by inviting as many people as possible to join us.

Trust Jesus.

FYI, I hope to write several more articles on the end times (signs of the times, the rapture, the millennium, the judgement, etc.).

@ 04c915da:3dfbecc9

Bitcoin has always been rooted in freedom and resistance to authority. I get that many of you are conflicted about the US Government stacking but by design we cannot stop anyone from using bitcoin. Many have asked me for my thoughts on the matter, so let’s rip it.

Concern

One of the most glaring issues with the strategic bitcoin reserve is its foundation, built on stolen bitcoin. For those of us who value private property this is an obvious betrayal of our core principles. Rather than proof of work, the bitcoin that seeds this reserve has been taken by force. The US Government should return the bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex and the Silk Road.

Usually stolen bitcoin for the reserve creates a perverse incentive. If governments see a bitcoin as a valuable asset, they will ramp up efforts to confiscate more bitcoin. The precedent is a major concern, and I stand strongly against it, but it should be also noted that governments were already seizing coin before the reserve so this is not really a change in policy.

Ideally all seized bitcoin should be burned, by law. This would align incentives properly and make it less likely for the government to actively increase coin seizures. Due to the truly scarce properties of bitcoin, all burned bitcoin helps existing holders through increased purchasing power regardless. This change would be unlikely but those of us in policy circles should push for it regardless. It would be best case scenario for American bitcoiners and would create a strong foundation for the next century of American leadership.

Optimism

The entire point of bitcoin is that we can spend or save it without permission. That said, it is a massive benefit to not have one of the strongest governments in human history actively trying to ruin our lives.

Since the beginning, bitcoiners have faced horrible regulatory trends. KYC, surveillance, and legal cases have made using bitcoin and building bitcoin businesses incredibly difficult. It is incredibly important to note that over the past year that trend has reversed for the first time in a decade. A strategic bitcoin reserve is a key driver of this shift. By holding bitcoin, the strongest government in the world has signaled that it is not just a fringe technology but rather truly valuable, legitimate, and worth stacking.

This alignment of incentives changes everything. The US Government stacking proves bitcoin’s worth. The resulting purchasing power appreciation helps all of us who are holding coin and as bitcoin succeeds our government receives direct benefit. A beautiful positive feedback loop.

Realism

We are trending in the right direction. A strategic bitcoin reserve is a sign that the state sees bitcoin as an asset worth embracing rather than destroying. That said, there is a lot of work left to be done. We cannot be lulled into complacency, the time to push forward is now, and we cannot take our foot off the gas. We have a seat at the table for the first time ever. Let's make it worth it.

We must protect the right to free usage of bitcoin and other digital technologies. Freedom in the digital age must be taken and defended, through both technical and political avenues. Multiple privacy focused developers are facing long jail sentences for building tools that protect our freedom. These cases are not just legal battles. They are attacks on the soul of bitcoin. We need to rally behind them, fight for their freedom, and ensure the ethos of bitcoin survives this new era of government interest. The strategic reserve is a step in the right direction, but it is up to us to hold the line and shape the future.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

The Americans just had a big election, and Canada’s next has been effectively underway for a while now. Automated moderation systems are being increasingly relied upon by large social media networks and are running amok with bans (I may be biased on this one, see “The Technology Deleted Me”). Opinions are everywhere, and many social media users live in fear of getting booted from their platform of choice over an innocuous post. “Of choice” usually being where the largest concentration of their connections also have accounts. For me that’s Facebook; for others it might be Instagram, Snapchat, Bluesky, or X.

What if there was a social media network built in such a way that you couldn’t be banned? Where your posts couldn’t be removed? Where you couldn’t be “put in the corner” by a group admin who didn’t like that the recipe page you shared had the word “crap” in it? Wouldn’t that be great? Yes, this does mean extreme (or straight-up illegal) content could be posted, but that’s happening on mainstream social media as well. Monitoring and banning isn’t working there so there’s no reason to repeat it elsewhere.

The unbannable social media I’m bringing to you today is called “Nostr”; "Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”. How it works is explained in the name; notes (posts) are transmitted from a client (app on your device) to relays (servers) which are then transmitted to other relays and clients connected to them. I’ll explain in more detail as we go through the setup process.

Step 1: Pick a client. I like Damus on iOS and noStrudel on desktop. Nostur is also popular on iOS. Amethyst and Primal are popular on Android. Pick the one you most like the look of.

Step 2: Set up an “account”. On Nostr you won’t have an account in the traditional sense. You’ll instead have a public/private key set (also known as a keypair). Think of your public key as your username and your private key as your password; only you won’t need to pick, memorize, or regularly use either of them. Your client will do most of that for you. Install the app of your choosing, launch it, and you’ll be walked through the account creation process. I strongly recommend copying your public key (the long random string that starts with “npub”) and your private key (the long random string that starts with “nsec”) to a password manager (see “Ugh, Passwords!” for more on password managers).

Optional: Step 2.5: Set up your “NIP-05 identifier”. This is totally optional, and can be done later if you aren’t up for it right now. A NIP-05 identifier looks identical to an email address (name@domain.something) and is used as an easier way for others to find your profile. There are several free and paid services for this, most of which come with other benefits and services. A popular free one is Nostrcheck.me.

Step 3: Choose some relays. Most clients will have a pre-configured set of public relays that work fine for most users. If you think of yourself as just a normal person trying to not be banned, you can skip this step. For everyone else, reach out to me for recommendations. A whole ‘nother article could be written on the subject of relays for niche needs.

Step 4: Find friends to follow. You can start with me if you like, by searching for my public key (npub1kw893e70hve5ymc8kxr75d8m9wcuaaasqzn37xvea6l4f39q04fs7zusa4), or my NIP-05 (tnperron@nostr.theorangepillapp.com).

Optional: Step 5: Post something! Also totally optional, but highly recommended! Even a simple “Hello, world!” will let others visiting your profile know that your account is being actively used.

That’s it, you’re now unbannable! How, you ask? There are two keys to this (pun fully intended). The first is that your public/private keypair is yours to control, can be loaded into any client, and used to connect to any relay (though you may need to pay for access to some). The second is that if someone operating a relay decides they don’t want to relay your posts anymore, you can still use any other on the big wide internet. You can even run your own relay if you want! No one can stop you!

Want help with any of these steps, or more details on advanced options like running your own node? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

The internet has had tutorials for job applications for a while; I remember searching for and reviewing them as part of “Career and Life Management (CALM)” in grade school. But it still never hurts to go back to the basics!

Applications fall into two categories; what I’ll call “human-read” and “machine-read”. Machine-read applications are specifically designed for automated recruitment systems. These systems tend to require specific layouts and formatting, as well as focus on keywords and academic degrees (even if the job doesn’t require them). They don’t read very well for humans though. I’d also argue that you probably don’t want to work for an employer who uses such systems, but that’s a separate topic. Human-read applications are as the name suggests; applications designed for human review. Those are the type we’re going to focus on today.

Our goals with our application are going to be to maximize the chances the receiver (usually a receptionist, HR staff, or recruiter) will pass along our application to the decision maker (usually HR staff or interview panel member) who will shortlist you for an interview, and to convey all the relevant information to the interview panel before your interview. We’re going to do this by creating a cover letter and resume combo that is unique, but also follows a professional format.

Let’s start with the page template we’re going to use for both documents. Start with a blank page. In the header in the upper left corner, list your name, email, and town & province. Make your name 5 to 8 font sizes larger than the rest, and bold if the font needs more pop. In the upper right corner, write yourself a short byline that would make a Madison Avenue advertising executive proud. Workshop it with your friends or family, but don’t worry about spending too much time on it. Mine says “Process management, Results through consistent and conscientious excellence”. The idea is to have your audience say to themselves, “ooo, that sounds professional”, then move on. Make the first line the same font size as your name. Next, add a splash of colour or some basic shapes as a background to the header. Pick a maximum of two colours and a minimalist geometric design. Make sure it’s simple; if it’s too busy it’ll look like a primary school art project. Again, you want your audience say to themselves, “ooo, that looks professional”, then move on. Now go to the first line in the body of the document and type “title”, then go to the third line and type “body”. Make the title font the same size as your name in the header, and change it to the primary colour of your header background. Finally, save two separate copies of this file; one labelled “your name resume” and the other labelled “your name cover letter”.

Congratulations, the design part is over! If you’re like me, that was the hard part. On to the content! Open the cover letter document. Change the title text to “To:”. Go to the body line and paste in the following. For the listeners, you can find the text to be copied in the written version of this post on our website.

``` Receiver name Receiver email Receiver title Receiver organization Receiver city, province

Submission date

Greeting, Paragraph 1: Brief personal introduction and job being applied for. Paragraph 2: Brief professional introduction, framed as how you would be a good fit for the organization. Paragraph 3: Extended professional introduction, framed as how you be a good fit for this specific job. Paragraph 4: Three to four questions you would have for the interview panel if you were chosen to be interviewed. Paragraph 5: Follow-up and interview availability. Sign-off and signature. ```

Congratulations, you now have your own personalized cover letter template! Simply replace the placeholder and instruction text with the real thing. Five paragraphs may seem like a lot, but if you’re sufficiently brief (as you should be), the whole thing should fit on a single page. If it spills over, rework the paragraph text until it does. Turning to a second page has an ethereal effect that will make your cover letter feel like “too much”. It’s purely emotional and subconscious, but it’s real and to be avoided if you want to make a good first impression, which is your cover letter’s primary purpose!

Save and close, and open the resume. Center the title on the page and change the text to “Executive Summary”. Move to the body and paste the following. Again, for the listeners, you can find the text to be copied in the written version on our website.

``` First highlighted skill category or character trait paragraph. Two to three sentences. Second highlighted skill category or character trait paragraph. Two to three sentences. Third highlighted skill category or character trait paragraph. Two to three sentences. Bulleted list of three to six specific soft skills.

Centered title: Professional or Work Experience (choose one) Employer - City, Province - years worked (i.e. 2015-2020 or 2022-current) Job title Two to three item bulleted list summarizing duties. Can be written long form, but be brief. (copy this as many times as needed)

Centered title: Education, Certifications, & Training (remove words that don’t apply to you) Title Certifying or training body name, City, Province (copy this as many times as needed)

Centered title: Proficiencies Bulleted list of five to ten specific hard skills. Do not repeat from soft skills above.

Centered title: Volunteer & Civic Affiliations (if you have none, use Hobbies) Bulleted list, no more than six items. ```

Same as the cover letter, replace the placeholder and instruction text with the real thing. The whole resume should fit on two pages. If it spills over, the first thing you can reduce is the number of work experience sections. You don’t need to include your entire work history, but it is best to not leave gaps if you can. We’re at the final step. The home stretch. You can do it! I believe in you! We’re going to export both documents as PDFs, then print copies, and inspect for errors or issues. “Why the PDFs and printing?” you ask? PDFs are the universal document format (see my previous post on the subject, “What is a PDF?”), and the interview panel will most likely want to print copies for themselves for the interview. Printing a copy for yourself will allow to you make sure everything looks good on paper as well as on a screen. You’re going to take your copy with, as well as a printed copy of the job posting, to use as a reference during your interview. No matter how well you think you know the material, it’s always good to have a reference. Physically referencing these documents during the interview will also help you look prepared and factual. What sounds better, “I thought the job posting said 40 hours per week?...”, or “here, in the second paragraph, the job posting says 40 hours per week”?

Want help with your job application? Or assistance with interviewing potential employees? You can find us as scalebright.ca.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

What is “the cloud”? And more importantly, who cares? The term has been in use for years and is long past the point of being a buzzword, but it might become relevant again as we enter the next phase of the cycle.

The cloud (as we’ll define it) is any computer system, in part or in full, that runs in someone else’s facility. Facebook is in the cloud. Etsy is in the cloud. Your bank’s internal systems are probably not in the cloud; they run their systems “on-prem” (short for on-premises, or in their own facilities) for regulatory and security reasons.

But if on-prem is more secure, why would we use the cloud at all? Its mostly convenience and scaling. If you want a website its much easier to set up a Squarespace or GoDaddy account and use their building tools than it is to get an enterprise internet connection, buy a server, install and set up all the software needed, and make the website from scratch. Maintenance is also much easier. Ask any QuickBooks user about the convenience of QuickBooks Online vs Desktop. Also if your needs change, cloud providers will happily automatically bill you more for the increased usage, as apposed to needing to buy more or upgrade your equipment to handle the load.

If the cloud is so much easier, why use on-prem at all? And what was that you said about cycles? Accounting and human resources. (Not HR as in the department, but the actual human resources available to you.) In accounting, the cloud is considered a service and falls under OpEx (operating expenses), while on-prem equipment such as servers fall under CapEx (capital expenses). And eeeeeveryone has a different, and often very strong, opinion on which is better. On costs, they’re pretty similar if averaged over 5, 10, or 20+ years, but with on-prem the CapEx is mostly up-front, so that can scare people over to the easy monthly payments of the cloud. On-prem also usually requires access to more technical human resources. If you’re a small organization you probably don’t have dedicated I.T. staff or maybe even the budget to hire contractors. All of this leads to cycles between the cloud and on-prem being more popular.

That all sounds like a sales pitch for cloud, but I have a sales pitch for you for on-prem. And that sales pitch is sovereignty. What happens to your records if QuickBooks closes your account? Your social media presence if Facebook does the same? How will you access your money if your bank freezes your accounts? These types of hazards can be mitigated by using on-prem instead of the cloud. It gives you far more control over your data and services. You can also build your own “private cloud” if you want to, maintaining control but making your systems available away from your office or home.

Want to get ahead of the cycle and move some of your systems on-prem? You can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

"With the shift towards this multi-agent collaboration and orchestration world, you need a neutral substrate that has money/identity/cryptography and web-of-trust baked in, to make everything work."

Pablo & Gigi are getting high on glue.

Books & articles mentioned:

• Saving beauty by Byung-Chul Han
• LLMs as a tool for thought by Amelia Wattenberger

In this dialogue:

• vibeline & vibeline-ui
• LLMs as tools, and how to use them
• Vervaeke: AI thresholds & the path we must take
• Hallucinations and grounding in reality
• GPL, LLMs, and open-source licensing
• Pablo's multi-agent Roo setup
• Are we going to make programmers obsolete?
• "When it works it's amazing"
• Hiring & training agents
• Agents creating RAG databases of NIPs
• Different models and their context windows
• Generalists vs specialists
• "Write drunk, edit sober"
• DVMCP.fun
• Recklessness and destruction of vibe-coding
• Sharing secrets with agents & LLMs
• The "no API key" advantage of nostr
• What data to trust? And how does nostr help?
• Identity, web of trust, and signing data
• How to fight AI slop
• Marketplaces of code snippets
• Restricting agents with expert knowledge
• Trusted sources without a central repository
• Zapstore as the prime example
• "How do you fight off re-inventing GitHub?"
• Using large context windows to help with refactoring
• Code snippets for Olas, NDK, NIP-60, and more
• Using MCP as the base
• Using nostr as the underlying substrate
• Nostr as the glue & the discovery layer
• Why is this important?
• Why is this exciting?
• "With the shift towards this multi-agent collaboration and orchestration world, you need a neutral substrate that has money/identity/cryptography and web-of-trust baked in, to make everything work."
• How to single-shot nostr applications
• "Go and create this app"
• The agent has money, because of NIP-60/61
• PayPerQ
• Anthropic and the genius of mcp-tools
• Agents zapping & giving SkyNet more money
• Are we going to run the mints?
• Are agents going to run the mints?
• How can we best explain this to our bubble?
• Let alone to people outside of our bubble?
• Building pipelines of multiple agents
• LLM chains & piped Unix tools
• OpenAI vs Anthropic
• Genius models without tools vs midwit models with tools
• Re-thinking software development
• LLMs allow you to tackle bigger problems
• Increased speed is a paradigm shift
• Generalists vs specialists, left brain vs right brain
• Nostr as the home for specialists
• fiatjaf publishing snippets (reluctantly)
• fiatjaf's blossom implementation
• Thinking with LLMs
• The tension of specialization VS generalization
• How the publishing world changed
• Stupid faces on YouTube thumbnails
• Gaming the algorithm
• Will AI slop destroy the attention economy?
• Recency bias & hiding publication dates
• Undoing platform conditioning as a success metric
• Craving realness in a fake attention world
• The theater of the attention economy
• What TikTok got "right"
• Porn, FoodPorn, EarthPorn, etc.
• Porn vs Beauty
• Smoothness and awe
• "Beauty is an angel that could kill you in an instant (but decides not to)."
• The success of Joe Rogan & long-form conversations
• Smoothness fatigue & how our feeds numb us
• Nostr & touching grass
• How movement changes conversations
• LangChain & DVMs
• Central models vs marketplaces
• Going from assembly to high-level to conceptual
• Natural language VS programming languages
• Pablo's code snippets
• Writing documentation for LLMs
• Shared concepts, shared language, and forks
• Vibe-forking open-source software
• Spotting vibe-coded interfaces
• Visualizing nostr data in a 3D world
• Tweets, blog posts, and podcasts
• Vibe-producing blog posts from conversations
• Tweets are excellent for discovery
• Adding context to tweets (long-form posts, podcasts, etc)
• Removing the character limit was a mistake
• "Everyone's attention span is rekt"
• "There is no meaning without friction"
• "Nothing worth having ever comes easy"
• Being okay with doing the hard thing
• Growth hacks & engagement bait
• TikTok, theater, and showing faces and emotions
• The 1% rule: 99% of internet users are Lurkers
• "We are socially malnourished"
• Web-of-trust and zaps bring realness
• The semantic web does NOT fix this LLMs might
• "You can not model the world perfectly"
• Hallucination as a requirement for creativity

@ c4b5369a:b812dbd6

Offline transactions with Cashu

Over the past few weeks, I've been busy implementing offline capabilities into nutstash. I think this is one of the key value propositions of ecash, beinga a bearer instrument that can be used without internet access. It does however come with limitations, which can lead to a bit of confusion. I hope this article will clear some of these questions up for you!

What is ecash/Cashu?

Ecash is the first cryptocurrency ever invented. It was created by David Chaum in 1983. It uses a blind signature scheme, which allows users to prove ownership of a token without revealing a link to its origin. These tokens are what we call ecash. They are bearer instruments, meaning that anyone who possesses a copy of them, is considered the owner.

Cashu is an implementation of ecash, built to tightly interact with Bitcoin, more specifically the Bitcoin lightning network. In the Cashu ecosystem, Mints are the gateway to the lightning network. They provide the infrastructure to access the lightning network, pay invoices and receive payments. Instead of relying on a traditional ledger scheme like other custodians do, the mint issues ecash tokens, to represent the value held by the users.

How do normal Cashu transactions work?

A Cashu transaction happens when the sender gives a copy of his ecash token to the receiver. This can happen by any means imaginable. You could send the token through email, messenger, or even by pidgeon. One of the common ways to transfer ecash is via QR code.

The transaction is however not finalized just yet! In order to make sure the sender cannot double-spend their copy of the token, the receiver must do what we call a swap. A swap is essentially exchanging an ecash token for a new one at the mint, invalidating the old token in the process. This ensures that the sender can no longer use the same token to spend elsewhere, and the value has been transferred to the receiver.

What about offline transactions?

Sending offline

Sending offline is very simple. The ecash tokens are stored on your device. Thus, no internet connection is required to access them. You can litteraly just take them, and give them to someone. The most convenient way is usually through a local transmission protocol, like NFC, QR code, Bluetooth, etc.

The one thing to consider when sending offline is that ecash tokens come in form of "coins" or "notes". The technical term we use in Cashu is Proof. It "proofs" to the mint that you own a certain amount of value. Since these proofs have a fixed value attached to them, much like UTXOs in Bitcoin do, you would need proofs with a value that matches what you want to send. You can mix and match multiple proofs together to create a token that matches the amount you want to send. But, if you don't have proofs that match the amount, you would need to go online and swap for the needed proofs at the mint.

Another limitation is, that you cannot create custom proofs offline. For example, if you would want to lock the ecash to a certain pubkey, or add a timelock to the proof, you would need to go online and create a new custom proof at the mint.

Receiving offline

You might think: well, if I trust the sender, I don't need to be swapping the token right away!

You're absolutely correct. If you trust the sender, you can simply accept their ecash token without needing to swap it immediately.

This is already really useful, since it gives you a way to receive a payment from a friend or close aquaintance without having to worry about connectivity. It's almost just like physical cash!

It does however not work if the sender is untrusted. We have to use a different scheme to be able to receive payments from someone we don't trust.

Receiving offline from an untrusted sender

To be able to receive payments from an untrusted sender, we need the sender to create a custom proof for us. As we've seen before, this requires the sender to go online.

The sender needs to create a token that has the following properties, so that the receciver can verify it offline:

• It must be locked to ONLY the receiver's public key
• It must include an offline signature proof (DLEQ proof)
• If it contains a timelock & refund clause, it must be set to a time in the future that is acceptable for the receiver
• It cannot contain duplicate proofs (double-spend)
• It cannot contain proofs that the receiver has already received before (double-spend)

If all of these conditions are met, then the receiver can verify the proof offline and accept the payment. This allows us to receive payments from anyone, even if we don't trust them.

At first glance, this scheme seems kinda useless. It requires the sender to go online, which defeats the purpose of having an offline payment system.

I beleive there are a couple of ways this scheme might be useful nonetheless:

1. Offline vending machines: Imagine you have an offline vending machine that accepts payments from anyone. The vending machine could use this scheme to verify payments without needing to go online itself. We can assume that the sender is able to go online and create a valid token, but the receiver doesn't need to be online to verify it.

2. Offline marketplaces: Imagine you have an offline marketplace where buyers and sellers can trade goods and services. Before going to the marketplace the sender already knows where he will be spending the money. The sender could create a valid token before going to the marketplace, using the merchants public key as a lock, and adding a refund clause to redeem any unspent ecash after it expires. In this case, neither the sender nor the receiver needs to go online to complete the transaction.

How to use this

Pretty much all cashu wallets allow you to send tokens offline. This is because all that the wallet needs to do is to look if it can create the desired amount from the proofs stored locally. If yes, it will automatically create the token offline.

Receiving offline tokens is currently only supported by nutstash (experimental).

To create an offline receivable token, the sender needs to lock it to the receiver's public key. Currently there is no refund clause! So be careful that you don't get accidentally locked out of your funds!

The receiver can then inspect the token and decide if it is safe to accept without a swap. If all checks are green, they can accept the token offline without trusting the sender.

The receiver will see the unswapped tokens on the wallet homescreen. They will need to manually swap them later when they are online again.

Later when the receiver is online again, they can swap the token for a fresh one.

Summary

We learned that offline transactions are possible with ecash, but there are some limitations. It either requires trusting the sender, or relying on either the sender or receiver to be online to verify the tokens, or create tokens that can be verified offline by the receiver.

I hope this short article was helpful in understanding how ecash works and its potential for offline transactions.

Cheers,

Gandlaf

@ 4925ea33:025410d8

1. O que é um Aromaterapeuta?

O aromaterapeuta é um profissional especializado na prática da Aromaterapia, responsável pelo uso adequado de óleos essenciais, ervas aromáticas, águas florais e destilados herbais para fins terapêuticos.

A atuação desse profissional envolve diferentes métodos de aplicação, como inalação, uso tópico, sempre considerando a segurança e a necessidade individual do cliente. A Aromaterapia pode auxiliar na redução do estresse, alívio de dores crônicas, relaxamento muscular e melhora da respiração, entre outros benefícios.

Além disso, os aromaterapeutas podem trabalhar em conjunto com outros profissionais da saúde para oferecer um tratamento complementar em diversas condições. Como já mencionado no artigo sobre "Como evitar processos alérgicos na prática da Aromaterapia", é essencial ter acompanhamento profissional, pois os óleos essenciais são altamente concentrados e podem causar reações adversas se utilizados de forma inadequada.

---

2. Como um Aromaterapeuta Pode Ajudar?

Você pode procurar um aromaterapeuta para diferentes necessidades, como:

✔ Questões Emocionais e Psicológicas

Auxílio em momentos de luto, divórcio, demissão ou outras situações desafiadoras.

Apoio na redução do estresse, ansiedade e insônia.

Vale lembrar que, em casos de transtornos psiquiátricos, a Aromaterapia deve ser usada como terapia complementar, associada ao tratamento médico.

✔ Questões Físicas

Dores musculares e articulares.

Problemas respiratórios como rinite, sinusite e tosse.

Distúrbios digestivos leves.

Dores de cabeça e enxaquecas. Nesses casos, a Aromaterapia pode ser um suporte, mas não substitui a medicina tradicional para identificar a origem dos sintomas.

✔ Saúde da Pele e Cabelos

Tratamento para acne, dermatites e psoríase.

Cuidados com o envelhecimento precoce da pele.

Redução da queda de cabelo e controle da oleosidade do couro cabeludo.

✔ Bem-estar e Qualidade de Vida

Melhora da concentração e foco, aumentando a produtividade.

Estímulo da disposição e energia.

Auxílio no equilíbrio hormonal (TPM, menopausa, desequilíbrios hormonais).

Com base nessas necessidades, o aromaterapeuta irá indicar o melhor tratamento, calculando doses, sinergias (combinação de óleos essenciais), diluições e técnicas de aplicação, como inalação, uso tópico ou difusão.

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3. Como Funciona uma Consulta com um Aromaterapeuta?

Uma consulta com um aromaterapeuta é um atendimento personalizado, onde são avaliadas as necessidades do cliente para a criação de um protocolo adequado. O processo geralmente segue estas etapas:

✔ Anamnese (Entrevista Inicial)

Perguntas sobre saúde física, emocional e estilo de vida.

Levantamento de sintomas, histórico médico e possíveis alergias.

Definição dos objetivos da terapia (alívio do estresse, melhora do sono, dores musculares etc.).

✔ Escolha dos Óleos Essenciais

Seleção dos óleos mais indicados para o caso.

Consideração das propriedades terapêuticas, contraindicações e combinações seguras.

✔ Definição do Método de Uso

O profissional indicará a melhor forma de aplicação, que pode ser:

Inalação: difusores, colares aromáticos, vaporização.

Uso tópico: massagens, óleos corporais, compressas.

Banhos aromáticos e escalda-pés. Todas as diluições serão ajustadas de acordo com a segurança e a necessidade individual do cliente.

✔ Plano de Acompanhamento

Instruções detalhadas sobre o uso correto dos óleos essenciais.

Orientação sobre frequência e duração do tratamento.

Possibilidade de retorno para ajustes no protocolo.

A consulta pode ser realizada presencialmente ou online, dependendo do profissional.

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Quer saber como a Aromaterapia pode te ajudar? Agende uma consulta comigo e descubra os benefícios dos óleos essenciais para o seu bem-estar!

@ 6e0ea5d6:0327f353

"Malcolm Forbes recounts that a lady, wearing a faded cotton dress, and her husband, dressed in an old handmade suit, stepped off a train in Boston, USA, and timidly made their way to the office of the president of Harvard University. They had come from Palo Alto, California, and had not scheduled an appointment. The secretary, at a glance, thought that those two, looking like country bumpkins, had no business at Harvard.
— We want to speak with the president — the man said in a low voice.
— He will be busy all day — the secretary replied curtly.
— We will wait.
The secretary ignored them for hours, hoping the couple would finally give up and leave. But they stayed there, and the secretary, somewhat frustrated, decided to bother the president, although she hated doing that.
— If you speak with them for just a few minutes, maybe they will decide to go away — she said.
The president sighed in irritation but agreed. Someone of his importance did not have time to meet people like that, but he hated faded dresses and tattered suits in his office. With a stern face, he went to the couple.
— We had a son who studied at Harvard for a year — the woman said. — He loved Harvard and was very happy here, but a year ago he died in an accident, and we would like to erect a monument in his honor somewhere on campus.

— My lady — said the president rudely —, we cannot erect a statue for every person who studied at Harvard and died; if we did, this place would look like a cemetery.

— Oh, no — the lady quickly replied. — We do not want to erect a statue. We would like to donate a building to Harvard.

The president looked at the woman's faded dress and her husband's old suit and exclaimed:

— A building! Do you have even the faintest idea of how much a building costs? We have more than seven and a half million dollars' worth of buildings here at Harvard.

The lady was silent for a moment, then said to her husband:

— If that’s all it costs to found a university, why don’t we have our own?

The husband agreed.

The couple, Leland Stanford, stood up and left, leaving the president confused. Traveling back to Palo Alto, California, they established there Stanford University, the second-largest in the world, in honor of their son, a former Harvard student."

Text extracted from: "Mileumlivros - Stories that Teach Values."

Thank you for reading, my friend! If this message helped you in any way, consider leaving your glass “🥃” as a token of appreciation.

A toast to our family!

@ 4fe4a528:3ff6bf06

One of the main motivational factors for people to buy bitcoin is it’s ability to store value over time. During harvest we are doing the same thing. We have now harvested our garlic and 1/2 of our onions because if we don’t use the sun’s energy to cure the plants before winter they will start to rot. Let me explain why God has made the world this way; but, first let me explain why storing things isn’t evil.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Matt. 6:19-21

Is it wrong, then to have a retirement portfolio or even to care about the material things of this world for ourselves or for others? The answer is again both no and yes. The no comes from the fact that this passage is not the only one in the Bible speaking to questions of wealth and provision for those who are dependent on us. Other passages counsel prudence and forethought, such as, “Those who gather little by little will increase [wealth]” (Proverbs 13:11b), and, “The good leave an inheritance to their children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22).

God guides Joseph to store up food for seven years in advance of a famine (Genesis 41:25-36), and Jesus speaks favorably in the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30). In light of the rest of Scripture, Matthew 6:19-21 cannot be a blanket prohibition. But the yes part of the answer is a warning, summed up beautifully in verse 21, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” In other words, the possessions you own will change you so that you care more about the possessions than about other things.” So choose carefully what you own, for you will inevitably begin to value and protect it to the potential detriment of everything else.

How are we to discern the line between appropriate and inappropriate attention to wealth? Jesus answers, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you” So if you believe your heart is following God’s direction go ahead and harvest your crops and / or buy some bitcoin. If you would have bought bitcoin one year ago, you would have 127% more purchasing power now. Let’s keep on fearing God and keeping his commandments.

@ 266815e0:6cd408a5

Its been a little over a year since NIP-90 was written and merged into the nips repo and its been a communication mess.

Every DVM implementation expects the inputs in slightly different formats, returns the results in mostly the same format and there are very few DVM actually running.

NIP-90 is overloaded

Why does a request for text translation and creating bitcoin OP_RETURNs share the same input i tag? and why is there an output tag on requests when only one of them will return an output?

Each DVM request kind is for requesting completely different types of compute with diffrent input and output requirements, but they are all using the same spec that has 4 different types of inputs (text, url, event, job) and an undefined number of output types.

Let me show a few random DVM requests and responses I found on wss://relay.damus.io to demonstrate what I mean:

This is a request to translate an event to English json { "kind": 5002, "content": "", "tags": [ // NIP-90 says there can be multiple inputs, so how would a DVM handle translatting multiple events at once? [ "i", "<event-id>", "event" ], [ "param", "language", "en" ], // What other type of output would text translations be? image/jpeg? [ "output", "text/plain" ], // Do we really need to define relays? cant the DVM respond on the relays it saw the request on? [ "relays", "wss://relay.unknown.cloud/", "wss://nos.lol/" ] ] }

This is a request to generate text using an LLM model json { "kind": 5050, // Why is the content empty? wouldn't it be better to have the prompt in the content? "content": "", "tags": [ // Why use an indexable tag? are we ever going to lookup prompts? // Also the type "prompt" isn't in NIP-90, this should probably be "text" [ "i", "What is the capital of France?", "prompt" ], [ "p", "c4878054cff877f694f5abecf18c7450f4b6fdf59e3e9cb3e6505a93c4577db2" ], [ "relays", "wss://relay.primal.net" ] ] }

This is a request for content recommendation json { "kind": 5300, "content": "", "tags": [ // Its fine ignoring this param, but what if the client actually needs exactly 200 "results" [ "param", "max_results", "200" ], // The spec never mentions requesting content for other users. // If a DVM didn't understand this and responded to this request it would provide bad data [ "param", "user", "b22b06b051fd5232966a9344a634d956c3dc33a7f5ecdcad9ed11ddc4120a7f2" ], [ "relays", "wss://relay.primal.net", ], [ "p", "ceb7e7d688e8a704794d5662acb6f18c2455df7481833dd6c384b65252455a95" ] ] }

This is a request to create a OP_RETURN message on bitcoin json { "kind": 5901, // Again why is the content empty when we are sending human readable text? "content": "", "tags": [ // and again, using an indexable tag on an input that will never need to be looked up ["i", "09/01/24 SEC Chairman on the brink of second ETF approval", "text"] ] }

My point isn't that these event schema's aren't understandable but why are they using the same schema? each use-case is different but are they all required to use the same i tag format as input and could support all 4 types of inputs.

Lack of libraries

With all these different types of inputs, params, and outputs its verify difficult if not impossible to build libraries for DVMs

If a simple text translation request can have an event or text as inputs, a payment-required status at any point in the flow, partial results, or responses from 10+ DVMs whats the best way to build a translation library for other nostr clients to use?

And how do I build a DVM framework for the server side that can handle multiple inputs of all four types (url, text, event, job) and clients are sending all the requests in slightly differently.

Supporting payments is impossible

The way NIP-90 is written there isn't much details about payments. only a payment-required status and a generic amount tag

But the way things are now every DVM is implementing payments differently. some send a bolt11 invoice, some expect the client to NIP-57 zap the request event (or maybe the status event), and some even ask for a subscription. and we haven't even started implementing NIP-61 nut zaps or cashu A few are even formatting the amount number wrong or denominating it in sats and not mili-sats

Building a client or a library that can understand and handle all of these payment methods is very difficult. for the DVM server side its worse. A DVM server presumably needs to support all 4+ types of payments if they want to get the most sats for their services and support the most clients.

All of this is made even more complicated by the fact that a DVM can ask for payment at any point during the job process. this makes sense for some types of compute, but for others like translations or user recommendation / search it just makes things even more complicated.

For example, If a client wanted to implement a timeline page that showed the notes of all the pubkeys on a recommended list. what would they do when the selected DVM asks for payment at the start of the job? or at the end? or worse, only provides half the pubkeys and asks for payment for the other half. building a UI that could handle even just two of these possibilities is complicated.

NIP-89 is being abused

NIP-89 is "Recommended Application Handlers" and the way its describe in the nips repo is

a way to discover applications that can handle unknown event-kinds

Not "a way to discover everything"

If I wanted to build an application discovery app to show all the apps that your contacts use and let you discover new apps then it would have to filter out ALL the DVM advertisement events. and that's not just for making requests from relays

If the app shows the user their list of "recommended applications" then it either has to understand that everything in the 5xxx kind range is a DVM and to show that is its own category or show a bunch of unknown "favorites" in the list which might be confusing for the user.

In conclusion

My point in writing this article isn't that the DVMs implementations so far don't work, but that they will never work well because the spec is too broad. even with only a few DVMs running we have already lost interoperability.

I don't want to be completely negative though because some things have worked. the "DVM feeds" work, although they are limited to a single page of results. text / event translations also work well and kind 5970 Event PoW delegation could be cool. but if we want interoperability, we are going to need to change a few things with NIP-90

I don't think we can (or should) abandon NIP-90 entirely but it would be good to break it up into small NIPs or specs. break each "kind" of DVM request out into its own spec with its own definitions for expected inputs, outputs and flow.

Then if we have simple, clean definitions for each kind of compute we want to distribute. we might actually see markets and services being built and used.

@ 4857600b:30b502f4

Mitch McConnell, a senior Republican senator, announced he will not seek reelection.

At 83 years old and with health issues, this decision was expected. After seven terms, he leaves a significant legacy in U.S. politics, known for his strategic maneuvering.

McConnell stated, “My current term in the Senate will be my last.” His retirement marks the end of an influential political era.

@ 460c25e6:ef85065c

If you don't know where your posts are, you might as well just stay in the centralized Twitter. You either take control of your relay lists, or they will control you. Amethyst offers several lists of relays for our users. We are going to go one by one to help clarify what they are and which options are best for each one.

Public Home/Outbox Relays

Home relays store all YOUR content: all your posts, likes, replies, lists, etc. It's your home. Amethyst will send your posts here first. Your followers will use these relays to get new posts from you. So, if you don't have anything there, they will not receive your updates.

Home relays must allow queries from anyone, ideally without the need to authenticate. They can limit writes to paid users without affecting anyone's experience.

This list should have a maximum of 3 relays. More than that will only make your followers waste their mobile data getting your posts. Keep it simple. Out of the 3 relays, I recommend: - 1 large public, international relay: nos.lol, nostr.mom, relay.damus.io, etc. - 1 personal relay to store a copy of all your content in a place no one can delete. Go to relay.tools and never be censored again. - 1 really fast relay located in your country: paid options like http://nostr.wine are great

Do not include relays that block users from seeing posts in this list. If you do, no one will see your posts.

Public Inbox Relays

This relay type receives all replies, comments, likes, and zaps to your posts. If you are not getting notifications or you don't see replies from your friends, it is likely because you don't have the right setup here. If you are getting too much spam in your replies, it's probably because your inbox relays are not protecting you enough. Paid relays can filter inbox spam out.

Inbox relays must allow anyone to write into them. It's the opposite of the outbox relay. They can limit who can download the posts to their paid subscribers without affecting anyone's experience.

This list should have a maximum of 3 relays as well. Again, keep it small. More than that will just make you spend more of your data plan downloading the same notifications from all these different servers. Out of the 3 relays, I recommend: - 1 large public, international relay: nos.lol, nostr.mom, relay.damus.io, etc. - 1 personal relay to store a copy of your notifications, invites, cashu tokens and zaps. - 1 really fast relay located in your country: go to nostr.watch and find relays in your country

Terrible options include: - nostr.wine should not be here. - filter.nostr.wine should not be here. - inbox.nostr.wine should not be here.

DM Inbox Relays

These are the relays used to receive DMs and private content. Others will use these relays to send DMs to you. If you don't have it setup, you will miss DMs. DM Inbox relays should accept any message from anyone, but only allow you to download them.

Generally speaking, you only need 3 for reliability. One of them should be a personal relay to make sure you have a copy of all your messages. The others can be open if you want push notifications or closed if you want full privacy.

Good options are: - inbox.nostr.wine and auth.nostr1.com: anyone can send messages and only you can download. Not even our push notification server has access to them to notify you. - a personal relay to make sure no one can censor you. Advanced settings on personal relays can also store your DMs privately. Talk to your relay operator for more details. - a hidden, but public relay if you want DM notifications from our servers.

Make sure to add at least one public relay if you want to see DM notifications.

Private Home Relays

Private Relays are for things no one should see, like your drafts, lists, app settings, bookmarks etc. Ideally, these relays are either local or require authentication before posting AND downloading each user\'s content. There are no dedicated relays for this category yet, so I would use a local relay like Citrine on Android and a personal relay on relay.tools.

Keep in mind that if you choose a local relay only, a client on the desktop might not be able to see the drafts from clients on mobile and vice versa.

Search relays:

This is the list of relays to use on Amethyst's search and user tagging with @. Tagging and searching will not work if there is nothing here.. This option requires NIP-50 compliance from each relay. Hit the Default button to use all available options on existence today: - nostr.wine - relay.nostr.band - relay.noswhere.com

Local Relays:

This is your local storage. Everything will load faster if it comes from this relay. You should install Citrine on Android and write ws://localhost:4869 in this option.

General Relays:

This section contains the default relays used to download content from your follows. Notice how you can activate and deactivate the Home, Messages (old-style DMs), Chat (public chats), and Global options in each.

Keep 5-6 large relays on this list and activate them for as many categories (Home, Messages (old-style DMs), Chat, and Global) as possible.

Amethyst will provide additional recommendations to this list from your follows with information on which of your follows might need the additional relay in your list. Add them if you feel like you are missing their posts or if it is just taking too long to load them.

My setup

Here's what I use: 1. Go to relay.tools and create a relay for yourself. 2. Go to nostr.wine and pay for their subscription. 3. Go to inbox.nostr.wine and pay for their subscription. 4. Go to nostr.watch and find a good relay in your country. 5. Download Citrine to your phone.

Then, on your relay lists, put:

Public Home/Outbox Relays: - nostr.wine - nos.lol or an in-country relay. - .nostr1.com

Public Inbox Relays - nos.lol or an in-country relay - .nostr1.com

DM Inbox Relays - inbox.nostr.wine - .nostr1.com

Private Home Relays - ws://localhost:4869 (Citrine) - .nostr1.com (if you want)

Search Relays - nostr.wine - relay.nostr.band - relay.noswhere.com

Local Relays - ws://localhost:4869 (Citrine)

General Relays - nos.lol - relay.damus.io - relay.primal.net - nostr.mom

And a few of the recommended relays from Amethyst.

Final Considerations

Remember, relays can see what your Nostr client is requesting and downloading at all times. They can track what you see and see what you like. They can sell that information to the highest bidder, they can delete your content or content that a sponsor asked them to delete (like a negative review for instance) and they can censor you in any way they see fit. Before using any random free relay out there, make sure you trust its operator and you know its terms of service and privacy policies.

@ 0b118e40:4edc09cb

TL;DR : No.

(This is not a feasibility analysis, but a reflection on philosophical alignment with Bitcoin’s vision).

The moment stablecoins or national currencies gain traction in Bitcoin LN, you can forget about Bitcoin’s position as a purely decentralized medium of exchange. Bitcoin’s position will be undermined.

A Bitcoin-native global economy, where people and businesses transact directly in Bitcoin, is what aligns with its original purpose. This is what we should aim for. This is all we should aim for.

I used to believe stablecoins might help with on/off ramps. But the truth is, if Bitcoin is to function as a true currency, broader global adoption that bypasses traditional financial systems will make those ramps irrelevant.

Eventually, two camps will emerge. One will try to preserve Bitcoin’s purity as a currency. The other will push for everything else in the name of Bitcoin: store-of-value narratives, ETFs, stablecoin collaborations, tokens, pump and dumps, NFTs, and centralized workarounds.

Currency domination, especially by the USD, has long contributed to poverty in the Global South. It deepens inequality and worsens debt burdens. During the Tequila Crisis and the Asian Financial Crisis, countries like Mexico and regions like Southeast Asia suffered massive currency devaluations and defaults because of their dependence on the USD. Every time the US raises interest rates, developing nations experience capital flight, currency drops, and economic hardship. This is not ancient history. It has been happening in the last two years and continues to widen the poverty gap. And as always, it is the poor who suffer the most.

What does this have to do with stablecoins? Stablecoin is your fiat 2.0.

USDT is just currency domination through blockchain. It is pegged to the USD, and if it rides Bitcoin’s Lightning rails, it risks keeping users transacting in USD rather than in Bitcoin itself. That not only undermines Bitcoin’s core purpose, it risks making Bitcoin appear like it is taking sides in the fragile and invisible global currency war.

To counter, people will say “Let all stablecoins come. Peg them to any currency.” But what’s the point of Bitcoin then? To become the new logistics layer for fiat 2.0?

That is not progress. That is regress. It is inviting the very systems Bitcoin was built to disrupt back into the ecosystem.

I believe when you use stablecoins this way, you are not Trojan-horsing Bitcoin into the mainstream. You are letting fiat Trojan-horse its way into Bitcoin. And if you let them in, they will win.

Adding stablecoin into Bitcoin LN is counterproductive to Bitcoin's decentralized ethos.

Bitcoin’s true potential is its ability to provide an alternative to centralized, government-controlled currencies and financial systems. We should stick to the original game plan.

---

Side note: If you really want to Trojan-horse Bitcoin adoption…

In my country, we have so many mixed races and cross-cultural traditions. During Chinese New Year, if you are married, you give everyone who is not married an “ang pow,” which is money in a red packet. Because we are so deeply integrated, people give money at almost every celebration: Christmas, Eid, Diwali, birthdays, graduations, even funerals.

I recently met up with a friend who just had a baby, and I was more than happy to be the first to give her daughter some Bitcoin. Her first sats. It would not hurt to start giving Bitcoin as gifts. And if someone gets offended that it is not part of their tradition, just get a Bitkey and wrap it up. It is so pretty.

Find more fun and creative ways to spread Bitcoin adoption.

But for goodness’ sake, stop justifying everything else in the name of Bitcoin adoption.

---

To get a better idea of Fiat 2.0, I mind-mapped Bitcoin on macroeconomy on my scratchpad.

If you take a closer look, it might help you answer a few key questions:

• Do you want more or less government control over money?

• Are you a fan of central banks? Then you probably prefer stablecoins.

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

"The age of the idea guys has begun."

Justin & Gigi vibe about Zig.

Articles mentioned:

• LLMs as a tool for thought by Amelia Wattenberger
• Micropayments and Mental Transaction Costs by Nick Szabo
• How our interfaces have lost their senses by Amelia Wattenberger

Talks mentioned:

• The Art of Bitcoin Rhetoric by Bitstein

Books mentioned:

• Human Action by Ludwig von Mises
• Working in Public by Nadia Eghbal

In this dialogue:

• nak
• Files
• SyncThing (and how it BitTorrent Sync became Resilio Sync)
• Convention over configuration
• Changes & speciation
• File systems as sources of truth
• Vibe-coding shower thoughts
• Inspiration and The Muse
• Justin's LLM setup
• Tony's setup (o1-pro as the architect)
• Being okay with paying for LLMs
• Anthropomorphising LLMs
• Dialog, rubber-duck debugging, and the process of thinking
• Being nice and mean to LLMs
• Battlebots & Gladiators
• Hedging your bets by being nice to Skynet
• Pascal's Wager for AI
• Thinking models vs non-thinking faster models
• Sandwich-style LLM prompting, again (waterfall stuff, HLDD / LLDD)
• Cursor rules & Paul's Prompt Buddy
• Giving lots of context vs giving specific context
• The benefit of LLMs figuring out obscure bugs in minutes (instead of days)
• The phase change of fast iteration and vibe coding
• Idea level vs coding level
• High-level vs low-level languages
• Gigi's "vibeline"
• Peterson's Logos vs Vervaeke's Dia-Logos
• Entering into a conversation with technology
• Introducing MCPs into your workflow
• How does Claude think?
• How does it create a rhyme?
• How does thinking work?
• And how does it relate to dialogue?
• Gzuuus' DVMCP & using nostr as an AI substrate
• Language Server Protocols (LSPs)
• VAAS: Vibe-coding as a service
• Open models vs proprietary models
• What Cursor got right
• What ChatGPT got right
• What Google got right
• Tight integration of tools & remaining in a flow state
• LLMs as conversational partners
• The cost of context switching
• Conversational flow & how to stay in it
• Prompts VS diary entries
• Solving technical vs philosophical models
• Buying GPUs & training your own models
• Training LLMs to understand Zig
• Preventing entryism by writing no documentation
• Thin layers & alignment layers
• Working in public & thinking in public
• Building a therapist / diary / notes / idea / task system
• "The age of the idea guys has begun."
• Daemons and spirits
• Monological VS dialogical thinking
• Yes-men and disagreeable LLMs
• Energy cost vs human cost
• Paying by the meter vs paying a subscription
• The equivalence of storage and compute
• Thinking needs memory, and memory is about the future
• Nostr+ecash as the perfect AI+human substrate
• Real cost, real consequence, and Human Action
• The cost of words & speaking
• Costly signals and free markets
• From shitcoin tokens to LLM tokens to ecash tokens
• Being too close to the metal & not seeing the forest for the trees
• Power users vs engineers
• Participatory knowing and actually using the tools
• Nostr as the germination ground for ecash
• What is Sovereign Engineering?
• LLVM and the other side of the bell-curve
• How nostr gives you users, discovery, mircopayments, a backend, and many other things for free
• Echo chambers & virality
• Authenticity & Realness
• Growing on the edges, catering to the fringe
• You don't own your iPhone
• GrapheneOS
• WebRTC and other monolithic "open" standards
• Optimizing for the wrong thing
• Building a nostr phone & Gigi's dream flow
• Using nostr to sync dotfile setups and other things
• "There are no solutions, only trade-offs"
• Cross-platform development
• Native vs non-native implementations
• Vitor's point on what we mean by native
• Does your custom UI framework work for blind people?
• Ladybird browser & how to build a browser from scratch
• TempleOS
• Form follows function & 90's interfaces
• Lamentations on the state of modern browsers
• Complexity & the downfall of the Legacy Web
• Nostr as the "new internet"
• Talks by Ladybird developer Andreas Kling
• Will's attempt of building it from scratch with Notedeck & nostr-db
• Justin's attempt with rust-multiplatform
• "If it doesn't have a rust implementation, you shouldn't use it."
• Native in terms of speed vs native in terms of UI/UX
• Engineer the logic, vibe-code the UI
• From Excalidraw to app in minutes
• What can you one-shot?
• What do you need to care about?
• Pablo's NDK snippets
• 7GUIs and GUI benchmarks for LLMs
• "Now we're purpose-building tools to make it easier for LLMs"
• "Certain tools really make your problems go away."
• Macros and meta-programming
• Zig's comptime
• UNIX tools and pipes
• Simple tools & composability
• Nostr tools for iOS & sharing developer signing keys
• Building 10 apps as one guy
• Simplicity in a community context
• Most people are on phones
• Most people don't install PWAs
• Zapstore & building our own distribution channels
• Web-of-trust and pushing builds quickly
• Improving homebrew by 10x
• (Micro)payments for package managers
• Guix and bitcoin-core
• Nix vs Guix
• Reproducible builds & web-of-trust
• Keet vs "calling an npub"
• Getting into someone's notifications
• Removing the character limit was a mistake

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Last week our household acquired a dog. I’ve had and trained dogs before; four in total over the course of about 20 years. But it’s been about 6 years without one, and this one is an inside dog, which is completely new to me. Old habits die hard though and I’m finding nuggets of skills and knowledge slowly returning.

I was lucky enough to get some formal training in dog training in my early teens, and I remember noticing some of the base training methods we used with dogs matched the human learning methods our family talked about. When I later joined the workforce this idea was reinforced during onboardings and later when I was asked to train others on technology platforms. People and dogs learn best with repetition, reward (also known as positive reinforcement), and a combination of learning styles.

You’ve probably heard of the classic learning styles framed one way or another depending on the book, workshop, or TED Talk you experienced that one time. The three core styles of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic overlap in training people and dogs. (I feel the need to pause and reiterate that while I am comparing people to dogs, I’m not conflating the two. You are not a dog. I might be, because on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog, but I’m not calling you one.) For people, auditory may be a professor lecturing or a friend explaining a new board game. For dogs, verbal commands such as “Fido, sit!” fill that role. Visual for people could be a diagram or demonstration, while for dogs a hand signal does the same. Kinesthetic is a bit different; for people we sometimes call it “hands on” or the 4H motto of “learn to do by doing”, while for dogs it might be physically placing them a sitting position while giving the sit command.

Combining the styles is the best way to achieve maximum effect. With people we usually do this for efficiency’s sake (especially in groups); auditory and visual at the same time, followed by some hands-on activity or practice. For dogs, especially for new commands, we’ll say “Fido, sit!” while showing the hand signal, followed by placing or gently pushing if needed.

Repetition is a necessity; I’ve never seen a dog learn a new command after a single exercise, so don’t beat yourself up if you don’t learn that new thing after one try! (I will admit to projecting hard on that one; raise your hand if you’re a former gifted child!)

Lastly, use positive reinforcement. It sticks (pun fully intended) a thousand times better than negative reinforcement with dogs and people. Treats following successes work wonders with dogs. Ours likes these tiny cubes of dehydrated beef liver. A direct analogue may not exist for people though. I can’t see myself having a single raisin every time I write a few words in a post. How do you “treat” yourself for learning?

Want help with training the technology dog in you or your staff? You can find us a scalebright.ca.

@ 94a6a78a:0ddf320e

Nostr is a revolutionary protocol that enables decentralized, censorship-resistant communication. Unlike traditional social networks controlled by corporations, Nostr operates without central servers or gatekeepers. This openness makes it incredibly powerful—but also means its success depends entirely on users, developers, and relay operators.

If you believe in free speech, decentralization, and an open internet, there are many ways to support and strengthen the Nostr ecosystem. Whether you're a casual user, a developer, or someone looking to contribute financially, every effort helps build a more robust network.

Here’s how you can get involved and make a difference.

---

1️⃣ Use Nostr Daily

The simplest and most effective way to contribute to Nostr is by using it regularly. The more active users, the stronger and more valuable the network becomes.

✅ Post, comment, and zap (send micro-payments via Bitcoin’s Lightning Network) to keep conversations flowing.\ ✅ Engage with new users and help them understand how Nostr works.\ ✅ Try different Nostr clients like Damus, Amethyst, Snort, or Primal and provide feedback to improve the experience.

Your activity keeps the network alive and helps encourage more developers and relay operators to invest in the ecosystem.

---

2️⃣ Run Your Own Nostr Relay

Relays are the backbone of Nostr, responsible for distributing messages across the network. The more independent relays exist, the stronger and more censorship-resistant Nostr becomes.

✅ Set up your own relay to help decentralize the network further.\ ✅ Experiment with relay configurations and different performance optimizations.\ ✅ Offer public or private relay services to users looking for high-quality infrastructure.

If you're not technical, you can still support relay operators by subscribing to a paid relay or donating to open-source relay projects.

---

3️⃣ Support Paid Relays & Infrastructure

Free relays have helped Nostr grow, but they struggle with spam, slow speeds, and sustainability issues. Paid relays help fund better infrastructure, faster message delivery, and a more reliable experience.

✅ Subscribe to a paid relay to help keep it running.\ ✅ Use premium services like media hosting (e.g., Azzamo Blossom) to decentralize content storage.\ ✅ Donate to relay operators who invest in long-term infrastructure.

By funding Nostr’s decentralized backbone, you help ensure its longevity and reliability.

---

4️⃣ Zap Developers, Creators & Builders

Many people contribute to Nostr without direct financial compensation—developers who build clients, relay operators, educators, and content creators. You can support them with zaps! ⚡

✅ Find developers working on Nostr projects and send them a zap.\ ✅ Support content creators and educators who spread awareness about Nostr.\ ✅ Encourage builders by donating to open-source projects.

Micro-payments via the Lightning Network make it easy to directly support the people who make Nostr better.

---

5️⃣ Develop New Nostr Apps & Tools

If you're a developer, you can build on Nostr’s open protocol to create new apps, bots, or tools. Nostr is permissionless, meaning anyone can develop for it.

✅ Create new Nostr clients with unique features and user experiences.\ ✅ Build bots or automation tools that improve engagement and usability.\ ✅ Experiment with decentralized identity, authentication, and encryption to make Nostr even stronger.

With no corporate gatekeepers, your projects can help shape the future of decentralized social media.

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6️⃣ Promote & Educate Others About Nostr

Adoption grows when more people understand and use Nostr. You can help by spreading awareness and creating educational content.

✅ Write blogs, guides, and tutorials explaining how to use Nostr.\ ✅ Make videos or social media posts introducing new users to the protocol.\ ✅ Host discussions, Twitter Spaces, or workshops to onboard more people.

The more people understand and trust Nostr, the stronger the ecosystem becomes.

---

7️⃣ Support Open-Source Nostr Projects

Many Nostr tools and clients are built by volunteers, and open-source projects thrive on community support.

✅ Contribute code to existing Nostr projects on GitHub.\ ✅ Report bugs and suggest features to improve Nostr clients.\ ✅ Donate to developers who keep Nostr free and open for everyone.

If you're not a developer, you can still help with testing, translations, and documentation to make projects more accessible.

---

🚀 Every Contribution Strengthens Nostr

Whether you:

✔️ Post and engage daily\ ✔️ Zap creators and developers\ ✔️ Run or support relays\ ✔️ Build new apps and tools\ ✔️ Educate and onboard new users

Every action helps make Nostr more resilient, decentralized, and unstoppable.

Nostr isn’t just another social network—it’s a movement toward a free and open internet. If you believe in digital freedom, privacy, and decentralization, now is the time to get involved.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Two weeks ago I posted “Delete the Technology” talking about the idea of removing entire technological elements from your life, such as smartphones or social medias, as a way to simplify. Little did I know one of those elements in my life would soon be deleting me…

Story time! While at my desk last week I saw I had an email from Instagram about the ScaleBright account. It had been suspended due to being connected to my personal Facebook account, which was an admin on a Facebook Page for an old business (closed 5+ years ago), which was currently suspended for “violating community guidelines”. I could of course appeal this decision, which I did, and during the process it was explained that the offending Facebook Page was suspended by one of their automated systems. Also, because the ScaleBright Instagram account was connected to my personal Facebook account, it too had been suspended, as well as my associated personal Instagram account. To reiterate, the causal chain of events was:

1. automated suspension of an old, disused Facebook Page, which caused
2. automated suspension of the ScaleBright Instagram account, which caused
3. automated suspension of my personal Facebook account, which caused
4. automated suspension of my personal Instagram account

After appealing the suspension of the ScaleBright Instagram account another automated system released it, saying the suspension was in error. In theory this should have automatically released my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts. As luck would have it, this did not happen. Those accounts are still suspended.

The instructions from Facebook to appeal where to “log into your (scalebrightsolutions) Instagram account to appeal our decision”. This of course does nothing as that account is no longer suspended. After much searching I was able to find an email address that is supposedly for manually appealing suspensions (appeals@fb.com), but Facebook’s own documentation makes no mention of that address or any other. I’ve sent an email anyway.

Given my earlier suggestion of deleting technology, it may behoove me to take my own medicine and let those accounts go. Do I even need them for anything? I did make extensive use of Facebook Messenger and Marketplace, as well as Groups and Pages. Lots of teams and businesses use these tools exclusively for communication too (such as my local farmer’s market), with little chance of them changing platforms because little ol’ me “doesn’t use Facebook anymore”. But what are my options?

I have two options before me, both of which have downsides. If I can’t successfully appeal, I could let the accounts go and live without those platforms. Or I could create new accounts, but that goes directly against Meta’s terms of service, and I’d risk getting automatically suspended all over again. As of today I’m leaning toward shouting a hearty William Wallace “freedooooom!” and abandoning Meta’s platforms permanently. After all, there are other options for chat and social media that are built to be the antithesis of this sort of centralized authoritarianism, some of which I’m already using.

Nostr is a social media protocol I’ve been using for about a year now. This is different than a platform, such as Facebook, as there is no central ownership or authority for Nostr. Nostr uses a combination of servers (called relays) and apps (called clients), of which anyone can create and use. There are no “official” servers or apps, and while a server operator could ban my account from their server, they can’t ban me from the protocol or anyone else’s servers. If I wanted to I could even create my own private server just for me and my friends. One of the downsides to Nostr is that’s there’s no integrated chat or messaging functions.

For chat I’ve been testing Matrix. It’s similar to Nostr in that it’s a protocol and not a platform, and uses a combination of servers and apps. You can connect to the wider Matrix network, or just your own private server.

The biggest problem with both Nostr and Matrix is that to be useful, people need to use them. This loops us back to Facebook; the people I want to communicate with are there, and have no effective reasons to leave and use Nostr and Matrix instead. I guess I’ll need to brush up on my Braveheart speeches. *Ahem* They may suspend our accounts, but they’ll never suspend our freedom!

@ 0fa80bd3:ea7325de

intro

The Russian state made me a Bitcoiner. In 1991, it devalued my grandmother's hard-earned savings. She worked tirelessly in the kitchen of a dining car on the Moscow–Warsaw route. Everything she had saved for my sister and me to attend university vanished overnight. This story is similar to what many experienced, including Wences Casares. The pain and injustice of that time became my first lessons about the fragility of systems and the value of genuine, incorruptible assets, forever changing my perception of money and my trust in government promises.

In 2014, I was living in Moscow, running a trading business, and frequently traveling to China. One day, I learned about the Cypriot banking crisis and the possibility of moving money through some strange thing called Bitcoin. At the time, I didn’t give it much thought. Returning to the idea six months later, as a business-oriented geek, I eagerly began studying the topic and soon dove into it seriously.

I spent half a year reading articles on a local online journal, BitNovosti, actively participating in discussions, and eventually joined the editorial team as a translator. That’s how I learned about whitepapers, decentralization, mining, cryptographic keys, and colored coins. About Satoshi Nakamoto, Silk Road, Mt. Gox, and BitcoinTalk. Over time, I befriended the journal’s owner and, leveraging my management experience, later became an editor. I was drawn to the crypto-anarchist stance and commitment to decentralization principles. We wrote about the economic, historical, and social preconditions for Bitcoin’s emergence, and it was during this time that I fully embraced the idea.

It got to the point where I sold my apartment and, during the market's downturn, bought 50 bitcoins, just after the peak price of $1,200 per coin. That marked the beginning of my first crypto winter. As an editor, I organized workflows, managed translators, developed a YouTube channel, and attended conferences in Russia and Ukraine. That’s how I learned about Wences Casares and even wrote a piece about him. I also met Mikhail Chobanyan (Ukrainian exchange Kuna), Alexander Ivanov (Waves project), Konstantin Lomashuk (Lido project), and, of course, Vitalik Buterin. It was a time of complete immersion, 24/7, and boundless hope.

After moving to the United States, I expected the industry to grow rapidly, attended events, but the introduction of BitLicense froze the industry for eight years. By 2017, it became clear that the industry was shifting toward gambling and creating tokens for the sake of tokens. I dismissed this idea as unsustainable. Then came a new crypto spring with the hype around beautiful NFTs – CryptoPunks and apes.

I made another attempt – we worked on a series called Digital Nomad Country Club, aimed at creating a global project. The proceeds from selling images were intended to fund the development of business tools for people worldwide. However, internal disagreements within the team prevented us from completing the project.

With Trump’s arrival in 2025, hope was reignited. I decided that it was time to create a project that society desperately needed. As someone passionate about history, I understood that destroying what exists was not the solution, but leaving everything as it was also felt unacceptable. You can’t destroy the system, as the fiery crypto-anarchist voices claimed.

With an analytical mindset (IQ 130) and a deep understanding of the freest societies, I realized what was missing—not only in Russia or the United States but globally—a Bitcoin-native system for tracking debts and financial interactions. This could return control of money to ordinary people and create horizontal connections parallel to state systems. My goal was to create, if not a Bitcoin killer app, then at least to lay its foundation.

At the inauguration event in New York, I rediscovered the Nostr project. I realized it was not only technologically simple and already quite popular but also perfectly aligned with my vision. For the past month and a half, using insights and experience gained since 2014, I’ve been working full-time on this project.

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

I'm watching the Warriors vs Clippers game (for free at BetPlay). It's a great game, with major playoff implications, but something else just caught my attention.

I heard on the arena sound that they're giving away $5 worth of bitcoin to a fan. That's interesting. It's a Coinbase promotion.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/942558

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

"It's gonna be permissionless or hell."

Gigi and gzuuus are vibing towards dystopia.

Books & articles mentioned:

• AI 2027
• DVMs were a mistake
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
• Takedown by Laila michelwait
• The Ultimate Resource by Julian L. Simon
• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
• Momo by Michael Ende

In this dialogue:

• Pablo's Roo Setup
• Tech Hype Cycles
• AI 2027
• Prompt injection and other attacks
• Goose and DVMCP
• Cursor vs Roo Code
• Staying in control thanks to Amber and signing delegation
• Is YOLO mode here to stay?
• What agents to trust?
• What MCP tools to trust?
• What code snippets to trust?
• Everyone will run into the issues of trust and micropayments
• Nostr solves Web of Trust & micropayments natively
• Minimalistic & open usually wins
• DVMCP exists thanks to Totem
• Relays as Tamagochis
• Agents aren't nostr experts, at least not right now
• Fix a mistake once & it's fixed forever
• Giving long-term memory to LLMs
• RAG Databases signed by domain experts
• Human-agent hybrids & Chess
• Nostr beating heart
• Pluggable context & experts
• "You never need an API key for anything"
• Sats and social signaling
• Difficulty-adjusted PoW as a rare-limiting mechanism
• Certificate authorities and centralization
• No solutions to policing speech!
• OAuth and how it centralized
• Login with nostr
• Closed vs open-source models
• Tiny models vs large models
• The minions protocol (Stanford paper)
• Generalist models vs specialized models
• Local compute & encrypted queries
• Blinded compute
• "In the eyes of the state, agents aren't people"
• Agents need identity and money; nostr provides both
• "It's gonna be permissionless or hell"
• We already have marketplaces for MCP stuff, code snippets, and other things
• Most great stuff came from marketplaces (browsers, games, etc)
• Zapstore shows that this is already working
• At scale, central control never works. There's plenty scams and viruses in the app stores.
• Using nostr to archive your user-generated content
• HAVEN, blossom, novia
• The switcharoo from advertisements to training data
• What is Truth?
• What is Real?
• "We're vibing into dystopia"
• Who should be the arbiter of Truth?
• First Amendment & why the Logos is sacred
• Silicon Valley AI bros arrogantly dismiss wisdom and philosophy
• Suicide rates & the meaning crisis
• Are LLMs symbiotic or parasitic?
• The Amish got it right
• Are we gonna make it?
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
• Takedown by Laila michelwait
• Harry Potter dementors & Momo's time thieves
• Facebook & Google as non-human (superhuman) agents
• Zapping as a conscious action
• Privacy and the internet
• Plausible deniability thanks to generative models
• Google glasses, glassholes, and Meta's Ray Ben's
• People crave realness
• Bitcoin is the realest money we ever had
• Nostr allows for real and honest expression
• How do we find out what's real?
• Constraints, policing, and chilling effects
• Jesus' plans for DVMCP
• Hzrd's article on how DVMs are broken (DVMs were a mistake)
• Don't believe the hype
• DVMs pre-date MCP tools
• Data Vending Machines were supposed to be stupid: put coin in, get stuff out.
• Self-healing vibe-coding
• IP addresses as scarce assets
• Atomic swaps and the ASS protocol
• More marketplaces, less silos
• The intensity of #SovEng and the last 6 weeks
• If you can vibe-code everything, why build anything?
• Time, the ultimate resource
• What are the LLMs allowed to think?
• Natural language interfaces are inherently dialogical
• Sovereign Engineering is dialogical too

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

“We do not have the answers."

Pablo & Gigi have no solutions.

In this dialogue:

• What is this No Solutions thing anyway?
• Why dialogue and distributed cognition is so important
• Why is nostr exciting for developers?
• Evolution, Life, and nostr
• What is the perfect nostr app, and why can’t there be THE perfect nostr app?
• Why there is no “global” view in nostr
• Impossible problems vs. possible (but still hard) problems
• Blossom, blossom, and more blossom
• Zooko’s Triangle
• Freedom Tech Building Blocks
• NIP-60/61, NIP-89
• Email vs ICQ
• Accepting constraints & moving forward
• Nostr has data integrity, but no data guarantees
• Bitcoin as an extreme RAID system
• Fault tolerance vs. efficiency
• “Build the infrastructure, don’t run it.”
• eCash fixes 402
• Everything in nostr can be one-click
• There’s infinite nsecs (and they are free!)
• The magic of the nostr view-only mode
• The Local-first movement
• How to monetize without putting yourself in the middle?
• RoboSats as an example of open-source monetization
• The YouTube like count is a lie

Further links:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_cognition
• https://nips.nostr.com/60
• https://nips.nostr.com/61
• https://nips.nostr.com/89
• https://github.com/hzrd149/blossom
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko’s_triangle
• https://www.jrepodcast.com/guest/adam-curry/
• https://localfirstweb.dev/
• https://www.localfirstconf.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICQ
• https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/05/25/icq-1996-2024-the-first-universal-messenger-had-a-good-run-and-is-leaving-us-soon
• https://www.chatinum.com/articles/the-old-chat-apps-of-the-2000s
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI
• https://njump.me/nosolutions@sovereignengineering.io

@ af9c48b7:a3f7aaf4

Chef's notes

Easy recipe with simple ingredients. This recipe uses some store bought, precooked items as way to cut down on cook time. I recommend letting the vegetables thaw if you don't like them on the firm/crunchy side.Feel free to substitute fresh ingredients if you have the time and want to make the extra effort.

Details

• ⏲️ Prep time: 20 min
• 🍳 Cook time: 50 min
• 🍽️ Servings: 8-10

Ingredients

• 2 (8 oz) packages refrigerated crescent rolls (dough sheets preferred)
• 1 pound cooked rotisserie chicken (deboned and chopped)
• 2 table spoons of butter
• 2 (10 once) packages of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 (15 once can sliced potatoes (drained)
• 1 (10.5 once) can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 (10.5 once) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• salt and ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line the botton of 9x13-inch baking dish with one can of crescent roll dough. If you don't get the sheet dough, be sure to pinch the seams together.
2. Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Then add the chicken, mixed vegetables, and sliced potatoes (recommend cutting into smaller pieces). Cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are thawed and mixture is heated through, 5 to 7 minutes.
3. While the mixed vegetables are heating, warm both cans of condensed soup in a seperate pan over medium-low heat. Slowly add milk and cook, stirring frequently, until combined and heated through, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the soup mixture to the chicken mixture, then pour into the baking dish. Top with the second can of crescent roll dough. Feel free to cut some slits in dough if you are using the dough sheets. Cover lightly with foil to prevent the crescent roll dough from browning too quickly.
5. Bake in oven until heated through and dough is a golden brown. Cook time should be around 45-50 minutes I reommend removing the foil for the last 10 minutes to get a golden crust. Be sure to keep a close watch on the crust after removing the foil because it will brown quickly.

@ e3ba5e1a:5e433365

My favorite line in any Marvel movie ever is in “Captain America.” After Captain America launches seemingly a hopeless assault on Red Skull’s base and is captured, we get this line:

“Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trait, but I must say, you do it better than anyone.”

Yesterday, I came across a comment on the song Devil Went Down to Georgia that had a very similar feel to it:

America has seemingly always been arrogant, in a uniquely American way. Manifest Destiny, for instance. The rest of the world is aware of this arrogance, and mocks Americans for it. A central point in modern US politics is the deriding of racist, nationalist, supremacist Americans.

That’s not what I see. I see American Arrogance as not only a beautiful statement about what it means to be American. I see it as an ode to the greatness of humanity in its purest form.

For most countries, saying “our nation is the greatest” is, in fact, twinged with some level of racism. I still don’t have a problem with it. Every group of people should be allowed to feel pride in their accomplishments. The destruction of the human spirit since the end of World War 2, where greatness has become a sin and weakness a virtue, has crushed the ability of people worldwide to strive for excellence.

But I digress. The fears of racism and nationalism at least have a grain of truth when applied to other nations on the planet. But not to America.

That’s because the definition of America, and the prototype of an American, has nothing to do with race. The definition of Americanism is freedom. The founding of America is based purely on liberty. On the God-given rights of every person to live life the way they see fit.

American Arrogance is not a statement of racial superiority. It’s barely a statement of national superiority (though it absolutely is). To me, when an American comments on the greatness of America, it’s a statement about freedom. Freedom will always unlock the greatness inherent in any group of people. Americans are definitionally better than everyone else, because Americans are freer than everyone else. (Or, at least, that’s how it should be.)

In Devil Went Down to Georgia, Johnny is approached by the devil himself. He is challenged to a ridiculously lopsided bet: a golden fiddle versus his immortal soul. He acknowledges the sin in accepting such a proposal. And yet he says, “God, I know you told me not to do this. But I can’t stand the affront to my honor. I am the greatest. The devil has nothing on me. So God, I’m gonna sin, but I’m also gonna win.”

Libertas magnitudo est

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

There aren’t many things in the technology realm that evoke the same level of disgust as having to deal with passwords. For I.T. staff printers are a close second, but for everyone else, passwords are something most would gladly vote off the island. Unfortunately they play a key role (pun fully intended) in verifying your access to your accounts, the same way a physical key verifies your access to your home. But why are they the way they are? And are there any ways we can make them easier to deal with?

When it comes to access security, there are different ways a system can confirm you have access. These are called “factors”, and there are three of them:

Possession Factor: Something you have. This could be a traditional key, a keycard, a fob, or security key.

Inherence Factor: Something you are. Biometrics such as fingerprints and Apple’s FaceID are examples of this.

Knowledge Factor: Something you know. Passwords and PINs are the most common examples.

For knowledge factor methods we have three general options for managing them:

Memorize: This is fine if you only have a few passwords to memorize, but most of us have more than few things to log into, and even more if we include PINs (which are another form of passwords).

Write them down: Much easier than memorizing, especially if you’re making sure each password is unique. A password book is good for up to a few dozen entries but after that will get cumbersome to search through.

Password manager: This is currently the ultimate in password management solutions (hence the name). A password manager can take care of generating, saving, and typing your passwords, as well as your usernames and other form data!

There is one major con to using a password manager; it’s not quite as humanly intuitive as a password book. It’s another system you’ll have to learn and maintain. But the amount of work that it saves and the improved security make it worth the effort. The ultimate goal of password managers is to maximize security and minimize cognitive load.

Okay, you’ve decided to use a password manager. You’ll need to choose from two categories, depending on your level of trust and how much work you’re willing to do. The first are hosted or cloud systems. With these, someone else (the password manager company) is taking care of most of the technical details for you. Bitwarden, 1Password, Proton Pass, Apple Passwords, and built-in browser systems are popular. Sign up for an account, install the browser extension or app on all your devices, and away you go! The downside: you’re trusting these companies to keep your passwords safe, and they’re less than perfect. Do a search for “LastPass leak” for an example. Also, if you’re like me, you may harbour a general distrust of companies (and governments…and banks…and squirrels…and seed oils...wait, what were we talking about?).

Fear not, for the second option requires far less trust in faceless organizations (or rodents). You can self-host your own password manager! The obvious downside is the extra work to set up and maintain it. But hey, no shadowy supervillains up in your passwords! Woohoo! Vaultwarden and KeePass are popular here. And it’s even easier if you have a server like I mentioned in “A Subscription-Free, Cloud-Free Office”.

A few extra notes and further reading on the subject of passwords and security. Regardless of your choice, it’s a good idea to have a plan for granting someone else access to your passwords in case of emergencies, or if something happens to you. If you have a family lawyer, ask them about “digital legacy planning”. Or at the very least leave access instructions with a trusted family member or friend.

If you decide to use a password manager, MFA is still necessary, especially for high-risk accounts like banking and email. MFA will probably get its own article from me in the future.

Finally, you may see hear about “passwordless” and “passkey” systems. These are relatively new, and despite the name, are not complete replacements for passwords. For now, think of them as fancy passwords. Passwords in formalwear. Passwords on the way to the opera. Passwords on the way to a $10,000/plate fundraiser that definitely isn’t a political money laundering operation held at an art gallery that definitely isn’t also a money laundering operation. Squirrel!

If you or your organization want help with your password management, you can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 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

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

This is a separate contest from the Playoff Bracket Challenge.

The scoring will be similar to the recent March Madness Competition. Picking winners will be worth more points as we progress into later rounds and picking lower seeds will be worth more. The new wrinkle will be picking a high performing player from each round, as well.

We'll start in the Play-In Tournament, which begins on Tuesday and has two rounds. We'll know later today what the first play-in matches are.

Point Schedule

Play-In 1st Round

• 1 Point for picking a winner
• Points equal to seed if your team wins
• 1 Point for picking the highest scoring player of the round

Play-In 2nd Round

• 1 Point for picking a winner
• Points equal to seed if your team wins
• 1 Point for picking the highest scoring player of the round

Playoffs Round 1

• 1 Point for picking a winner
• Points equal to seed if your team wins
• 1 Point for picking the highest scoring player of the round

Playoffs Round 2

• 2 Points for picking a winner
• Points equal to seed if your team wins
• 2 Points for picking the highest scoring player of the round

Playoffs Conference Finals

• 4 Points for picking a winner
• Points equal to seed if your team wins
• 4 Points for picking one of the Conference Finals MVPs

Playoffs Conference Finals

• 8 Points for picking a winner
• Points equal to seed if your team wins
• 8 Points for picking the Finals MVPs

This is not a survivor pool. You can pick the same team as many times as you like. You can join at any time during the competition. The only deadlines are making your picks before the teams and players you pick begin their round.

For clarification, and those not familiar with this tournament, the seeding may change after the Play-In Tournament: for instance, the Hawks begin as the 8th seed, but they will become the 7th seed if they beat the Magic in their first play-in game.

Prize

10k sats or the sum of all zaps (whichever is larger)

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/942553

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

“You’ll get all that for free if you build it right.”

Pablo & Gigi try to stop giggling.

In this dialogue:

• 01: Start Ugly
• 02: There is No Global
• Concept of ownership & “Read, Write, Own”
• Shamir Secret Sharing and Timelocks
• “No amount of violence will ever solve a math problem.”
• You can’t prove deletion of a key (or anything, really); best you can do is “burn” bitcoin
• Data is information, which behaves like an idea (not like an apple)
• “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” – https://dergigi.com/threads/memes-vs-the-world
• Why the Pubky architecture isn’t great
• Cashu
• Nutzaps: NIP-60 / NIP-61
• How nutzaps fix fake zaps on zaplife.lol
• “Ecash fixes HTTP 402”
• “[Bitcoin [and nostr]] take advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle.” –Satoshi Nakamoto
• Discovery with NIP-89
• #RunDVM with NIP-90
• Why micropayments can’t work on credit rails, and how bitcoin is the rediscovery of money.
• Putting payments into blossom
• “Money is essen­tially a tool to keep track of who owes what to whom. Broadly speaking, every­thing we have used as money up to now falls into two categories: physical artifacts and infor­ma­tional lists. Or, to use more common parlance: tokens and ledgers.”
• “maximum utility in the world of Bitcoin entails the adoption of maximum responsibility.”
• Complexity of Lightning vs the simplicity of eCash
• Amber and Citrine
• How Pablo became the BIS
• 12 words in your head can literally save your life
• The in-between of custodial and non-custodial in a multi-mint world
• Nutzaps integrated in chachi.chat
• The intermediacy of nostr is magic
• In nostr you’ll get a lot for free IF YOU BUILD IT RIGHT
• “Free Speech platforms cannot exist; if there is a ‘deplatform’ button, the button will be pressed.”
• “Neither nostalgia nor utopia.”
• Solutions that make stuff worse over time vs solutions that make stuff better over time.

• asknostr on passkeys, and why we think they’ll make things worse over time.

• Authentication vs identity: “identification asks, authentication proves”
• You are not your name and photo; identity is prismatic
• (m00t’s talk on it at web summit 2011)
• Starbug from CCC pwning TouchID biometrics from a high-res photo (article)
• Key rotation and (American) HODL
• Social recovery
• Multi-sig for nostr with FROSTR

Links & References:

• Nostr Protocol Repository: https://github.com/nostr-protocol
• Cashu (e-cash): https://github.com/cashubtc
• NIP-60 (Nutzaps): https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/60.md
• NIP-89 (Service Discovery) & NIP-90 (DVMs) – upcoming proposals: https://nips.nostr.com/89 & https://nips.nostr.com/90

@ 9bde4214:06ca052b

“I don’t believe in Utopia anymore. I’m too old for that.”

Calle & Gigi philosophize about nuts.

Books and articles mentioned:

• Who Owns the Future?
• The Cathedral And The Bazaar
• Cryptography is Not Enough
• Bitcoin is Time

In this dialogue:

• Where is the Utopia that the internet promised?
• “Neither nostalgia nor utopia”
• Net Neutrality is a moral stance
• Where did the internet go wrong?
• Tech as a tool; is tech always neutral?
• Technology that increases agency VS tech that enslaves
• Competition vs Symbiosis
• “Who will run the mints?”
• “Anyone” can use it vs “everyone” can use it
• Centralizing vs. Monopolizing
• Bitcoin has an ethos baked in (You Shall Not Steal)
• Passive internet vs active internet
• Agency in cyberspace, and how to maximize it
• Blinded custodian vs regular custodian
• User data is a liability
• Obscura / Mullvad / Silent.Link as obvious early adopters
• Run your own ISP - Tollgate
• Cryptography is Not Enough
• Bitcoin is Time
• Time requires heat
• Zero-knowledge service providers
• Electronic Cash vs Digital Cash (CBDCs)
• Credit requires KYC, KYC implies outside enforcement
• Writings on Micropayments by Nick Szabo
• eCash fixes 402, obviously
• Who Owns the Future?
• “You are the product” vs “Subscription Hell”
• “Hello old friend!!!”
• Cathedral vs Bazaar
• Why paywalls suck
• Information wants to be free
• "Markets become absurd as supply approaches infinity."
• eCash + AI = match made in heaven
• #LearnToCode vs #LearnToPrompt
• Scarcity in cyberspace: compute, storage, networking
• Zero-Knowledge compute & zero-knowledge proofs
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
• https://github.com/AbdelStark/cashu-zk-engine
• Cairo: https://github.com/starkware-libs/cairo
• MCP https://github.com/AbdelStark/bitcoin-mcp
• MCP DVM: https://github.com/r0d8lsh0p/n8n-AI-agent-DVM-MCP-client
• DVMCP: https://mcp.so/server/dvmcp
• Olas & Nutzaps (NIP-60, NIP-61)
• Bitcoin is not only the internet of money, but it is the money of the internet
• Re-building the internet archive on top of nostr
• Bitrot & 404
• Resurrection markets & marketplace for hashes via Blossom
• Hugs 🫂

@ 5d4b6c8d:8a1c1ee3

https://primal.net/e/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqpqrep4phdx0hs6v3fynl0glp52c6skaqmgra23hyzyz5pnd8gmcqqsva8zn0v6k282lqtxvqzf4pdspz8ek22gk9hfxxx8pfat34e8x7yqxh0hq7

Well that escalated quickly!

What began as a friendly joint venture has descended into bitter rivalry. Who will take home the sats, Noble Stackers or GSC degenerates?

Declare your allegiance upon entry. Choose wisely.

originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/942260

@ 21ffd29c:518a8ff5

• What Are Homestead Chickens?
  Homestead chickens are domesticated fowl kept by homeowners to provide eggs and companionship. They play a vital role in the homestead ecosystem.

Why Water is Essential in Cold Weather - Hydration Basics:
Chickens don't drink much water naturally but need it for hydration, especially during cold weather when metabolic rates increase. - Environmental Factors:
Cold weather can lead to ice buildup on water sources. Chickens benefit from having access to fresh water year-round.

Maintaining Accessible Water Sources - Shallow Troughs:
Use shallow troughs instead of deep containers to minimize ice formation and ensure constant water supply. - Automatic Feeders:
Consider installing automatic feeders for convenience, especially in unpredictable weather conditions. - Multiple Water Sources:
Provide multiple water sources to prevent competition and ensure all chickens have access.

Preventing Ice Buildup - Floating Shallow Troughs:
Opt for troughs that sit above the ground to avoid ice buildup. Ensure they're placed where they can't freeze completely. - Regular Checks:
Inspect water sources regularly to remove ice and debris, maintaining accessibility for chickens.

Best Practices for Watering Chickens - Waterers Designed for Cold Weather:
Use waterers made of stainless steel or plastic that can withstand cold temperatures. - Seasonal Adjustments:
During extreme cold spells, supplement with a small amount of fresh water to aid in drinking.

Conclusion - Key Takeaways:
Providing proper water is crucial for the health and well-being of homestead chickens during cold weather. Maintaining accessible, shallow water sources prevents issues like ice buildup and ensures hydration.

Final Thoughts - Sustainability Considerations:
While chickens don't drink much, ensuring they have water supports their overall health and sustainability efforts. - Environmental Impact:
Thoughtful water management can reduce water usage, promoting eco-friendly practices on the homestead.

@ 8d34bd24:414be32b

I was listening to a sermon at my church this weekend on Luke 9. It made me think of these words, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” I’ll start with context on this statement and then show how it applies to the passage we were studying.

They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:20-24) {emphasis mine}

In this story, a desperate father brought his son to Jesus’s disciples for healing, when they failed, he brought the boy to Jesus. He begged for help, but qualified with “But if You can … .” How often do we explicitly or implicitly say this to God in our prayers.

Just as this father believed in Jesus enough to bring his dear child to Jesus, but still had doubts, we tend to be the same. As Christians, we believe that Jesus loved us enough to die on the cross, but do we believe He is always with us? Do we believe He will never leave nor forsake us? Do we believe that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose? I think we can all say, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

We all have highs where we are excited about Jesus and believe He is working in us and through us. We also have lows where we feel distant and wondering if He sees or cares. We need to have that belief of the highs when we are going through the lows.

In Luke 9, Jesus sent out His 12 disciples to share the gospel and heal the sick and possessed. They came back on a high, amazed at the great miracles that Jesus had worked through them.

And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing. … When the apostles returned, they gave an account to Him of all that they had done. Taking them with Him, He withdrew by Himself to a city called Bethsaida. (Luke 9:1-2,10) {emphasis mine}

The 12 disciples were on a high. Miracles had been done through their hands and at their word. They felt like they could conquer the world, but this high and great faith did not last very long. Jesus took them away. They thought they were going to spend some private time with Jesus, but that is not what happened. A great crowd ran ahead and met them. Jesus saw their physical and spiritual needs and began to preach and minister to them. It began to get late, so the disciples came to Jesus to ask Him to wrap things up and send the people away so they could eat (like Jesus didn’t know).

Now the day was ending, and the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the crowd away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging and get something to eat; for here we are in a desolate place.” But He said to them, “You give them something to eat!” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people.” (For there were about five thousand men.) And He said to His disciples, “Have them sit down to eat in groups of about fifty each.” They did so, and had them all sit down. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed them, and broke them, and kept giving them to the disciples to set before the people. And they all ate and were satisfied; and the broken pieces which they had left over were picked up, twelve baskets full. (Luke 9:12-17) {emphasis mine}

Jesus gently guided His disciples, trying to help them see that there was nothing to fear, that He had everything under control, and that nothing is impossible with Him. When He asked them what they had available to feed the crowd, and they just had one young boy’s small lunch, they immediately assumed feeding the crowd was impossible. Jesus then proceeded to feed the 5,000 (5,000 men and an uncounted number of women and children). Yes, Jesus was merciful and fed this hungry crowd, but I believe this feeding was about so much more than meeting the physical needs of the crowd. Notice how every person there ate until they were satisfied. Jesus then had the disciples pick up the leftovers. How much was left over? 12 baskets full. How many disciples was He giving an object lesson to? 12 disciples. Jesus doesn’t do anything by accident. Everything He does is for a reason. (In the same way everything He allows to happen to us is for a good reason.) He did what the disciples thought was impossible, He fed the huge crowd, but even more, He had one basketful leftover for each disciple. This was a personal message to each of His disciples.

When Jesus sent them out with the command to share the Gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons, they went out with faith and returned with even greater faith “I believe,” but then the day after they returned, their faith waivered again. They needed to cry out, “help my unbelief.” Jesus empowered and guided them both in their belief and in their unbelief. He most definitely helped their unbelief and will do the same for us.

Our Father, please help us to have faith in good times and in bad. Help us to believe with all of our heart, mind, and soul. We believe that you are God and we believe that Jesus came down to earth to live the perfect life that we are unable to live, died to receive the punishment we deserved, and was raised to life on the third day. Believe that the Holy Spirit lives within us empowering and guiding us. We also acknowledge that we have doubts. Please help our unbelief.

Trust Jesus.

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Apple held one of their regular events last week and announced the iPhone 16. The inevitable repeating questions ensued. Should you upgrade your phone? Is it time? Is it worth it? What about Android users? Should I switch to an iPhone? Should I switch to an Android? If you’re looking for a short answer: no. If you have an attention span longer than that of a ferret, there is some nuance to be had.

First let’s define “upgrading”. In this context I define it as buying a new phone before your current one has reached the end of its useful life. Your current phone is working just fine, there’s nothing wrong with it, but you buy a new one anyway.

There’s nothing morally or ethically wrong with upgrading, but practically it’s pointless. Phone cameras plateaued 10 years ago (around the time of the iPhone 6 series), and the rest of the hardware a few years after that. Aside from some edge cases, the current lines of phones will do the same things for you as a 10 year old design would. Look up some sample photos from an iPhone 6. Then look at similar photos taken with the iPhone 15 or 16. They’re functionally the same. “No, the new ones are better! You can tell when you zoom in 100x or get a wall-sized poster print!” Those are the edge cases I talked about. You’re posting fur baby updates for grandma on Facebook and low-effort thirst traps on Instagram. You don’t need 48MP.

With the launch of the iPhone X and Samsung S8 in 2017, we saw the removal of the physical home button and entrance into the current epoch of “plain rectangle with a touch screen”. Which is excellent, because you no longer have to spend hours agonizing over which phone to buy. Pick a screen size, pick your budget, and you’re done! You are the proud owner of a functioning plain rectangle that will continue to function until the manufacturer stops supplying security updates (typically 5 to 7 years).

To summarize, don’t bother replacing your phone unless it: a) dies, b) the battery dies and a replacement is 50% or more of the cost a new phone, or c) it’s no longer getting security updates.

Since this conversation was started by the iPhone launch that’s mostly what I’ve talked about, but this applies to mainstream Android phones as well. Samsung and Google promise 7 years of updates for their current gen lines. There’s no need to upgrade, only replace.

Lastly, if you’re on an Android, don’t bother switch to an iPhone. It’s in no way “better”, and the mental load of learning a different system will have you clawing at the walls of your padded cell. Same goes for the iPhone users; don’t bother switching to an Android. Either switch would be like trading in your perfectly good rust-bucket for a Toyota because you think you’d have to fix it less…wait…no…that’s a bad example…

@ dd664d5e:5633d319

We can talk about something else, now.

Making boosts/quotes the primary way new users find a variety of topics is a fundamental flaw. We don't need boosts (which merely results in the main trending list trending even harder, as people feel safer boosting something that is already popular), and hashtags have become the mess they naturally will become.

We need topical forums and relay-based community boards.

This would actively encourage those of us who want to write on OtherTopics to write more on them, as we would have some chance of the material being found by those interested in it. And it would spare us having to win some general popularity contest, just to be able to converse about golfing, Hinduism, or veganism.

Scrollable "timeline" feeds, even with AI assistance (like DVMs), don't accomplish this as well, as they eliminate the ability to skim the top-level and selectively read. You have to scroll, scroll, scroll.

It would also reduce the overloading of the original posts with videos, which is starting to give Nostr a Tik-Tok vibe. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, and we should probably have clients like that, but it makes life hard for anyone who wants to have a deeper discussion. People scrolling have trouble even "seeing" a text-based OP, but using the written word is a true signal to the other people, that you are capable of carrying a conversation through text.

Examples for other styles of client

(I am including the Communities in Nostrudel and Satellite, even though they don't yet work, effectively.)

Some of the things that set these clients apart, is that: 1. they are topic-first or thread-first, not person-first, 2. they sometimes allow voting (I suppose we could rank by zaps), 3. they often allow the user to override the default order and simply look at whatever is newest, most popular, or where their friends are currently active (i.e. they allow for easy sorting and filtering), 4. they cap the depth of threads to one or two levels, keep the indentation tiny, or offer a "flat" view, 5. they are primarily text-based (Reddit broke with this and now their main pages look really spammy), 6. they allow you to see all of the entries in the thread, at once, and simply actualize to display the entries that pop up in-between, 7. they often have some indication of what you have already read (this is application data) and allow you to sort for "stuff I haven't looked at, yet".

https://i.nostr.build/uCx5YKMOsjhKBU5c.png https://i.nostr.build/hMkm2oKpos0pWaV9.png https://i.nostr.build/mGQONMw5RC8XKtph.png https://i.nostr.build/TCSkG1bPuMOL0jja.webp https://i.nostr.build/3fLjCSNdtefiZmAH.png https://i.nostr.build/BHgo7EKTK5FRIsVl.png

@ 65038d69:1fff8852

Does your life feel overly complicated? Do most things feel like 10 steps when they used to be 3? Does simply maintaining your existence feel like a hamster wheel with hopscotch squares on the inside? Do you find yourself yearning for “simpler times”? While there are many things in a complex society outside our control, personal technology choices are still within our purview. Maybe it’s time to consider deleting some of the tech from our lives in an effort to simplify.

I worked at a phone shop for some time, and one of the things that surprised me was how many non-smart phones we sold. We had a lot of customers whose only phone needs were calling and the occasional text. Anything their phone couldn’t do could be taken care of on a computer at home or at work, and a smartphone would have been a whole ‘nother stack of skills to learn and maintain. So why not go without one? For less than $100 you can get a plain flip phone from your local phone shop, or hop on your marketplace of choice and get a used one for half that. They’ll take the same SIM card your smart phone does, so simply power down, swap the card over, and try it out for a while!

Social media is another one that you can probably trim down on. How many platforms are you actively using? I’m most likely going to remove Snapchat from my phone as the notifications from Snapchat themselves are annoying, I hardly ever use it, and I’m connected with those I use it with elsewhere. I helped someone recently who uses Facebook to connect with family but has been struggling with the technical aspects of securely maintaining their account. Switching to group texts or another platform those family members are already using may be easier than fighting with Facebook account compromises and their account recovery processes.

You may even consider abandoning social media completely. “I’m not on social media” has become less the exclusive domain of luddites and is certainly not only spoken by older generations. Any Gen Zers who took part in the “nose cover” trend early this year will understand. Try going on a social media fast for a few weeks (or even a few days) and see if you feel the need to return.

Using myself for another example, I bought a smartwatch about 3 years ago and wear it fairly regularly. But the work to make sure its charged, keep up with the changes, and any manual maintenance items has me thinking I won’t be replacing it when it dies. The nice-to-haves it brings aren’t worth the trouble.

A final hot take: In your workplace, how many staff’s only interaction with technology is time tracking or timesheets? Paper timesheets may be an option. I know, I know, Hell has frozen over and the tech guy is talking about switching something from digital to paper. But my job is supposed to be to guide toward efficiency. If bludgeoning your blue collar staff into the cyberpunk dystopian future of a spreadsheet (or even worse, a geofence-powered time tracking app on their phones) turns out to be more work than entering a handful of numbers off of paper timesheets, maybe paper is the more efficient (and humane) option.

If you like the idea of deleting technology at work or at home and want some help with it, you can find us at scalebright.ca.

@ 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... 😏

@ f10512df:c9293bb3

Details

• 🍳 Cook time: 5-7 minutes
• 🍽️ Servings: 1

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• Shredded cheese (Sharp cheddar is a favorite)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil or ghee

Directions

1. Add oil to a non-stick pan and allow it to get hot (med-high heat)
2. Add eggs and additional toppings, scramble and wait for the edges to get brown.
3. Add shredded cheese while edges are browning. It is best if cheese begins to melt before flipping.
4. Flip, and make sure all cheese stayed down, and there is enough oil left in the pan.
5. Keep checking until pan side of eggs lift easily. Done correctly, the cheese will form a crisp layer.
6. When fully cooked, serve with cheese right side up and enjoy!