marc

IT engineer who studied int. politics & conflict research. Love computers & hate dictators.

📖 "Searching the truth - a practical guide" (writing)

Public Key

npub1ql5rx6pqga5xa9a90edml8hv0w5utxmt5nqz3nr8hruxe9v8hhkqvgjxck

NIP-05 Address

marc@logikunsererzeit.ch

NIP-57 Address

marcchehab@getalby.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsq06pndqsyw6rwj7jhukalnmk8h2w9nd46fspge3nm37rvjkrmmmqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsdp0m5n

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1ql5rx6pqga5xa9a90edml8hv0w5utxmt5nqz3nr8hruxe9v8hhkqvgjxck

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Last Notes

2024-06-02 10:04:19

"Why is US politics so unreasonsable?" 🇺🇸 and 🇨🇭 once fancied themselves "sister republics", sharing similar institutions & founding spirits. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, the two countries reformed their electoral systems in markedly different ways. My analysis of this divergence is now available in English in my knowledge garden.
https://m.primal.net/IVuZ.gif
Reasonable feedback is always welcome! There you go: 👇
https://logikunsererzeit.ch/en/USA/us-unreason

2024-03-06 12:03:20

Ahhh yes, that unmistakable E coli taste of Brexit freedom... 💩
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/06/people-in-england-facing-food-poisoning-russian-roulette-as-illnesses-soar?CMP=share_btn_url

2024-01-15 18:02:21

I'm a bit late to this realisation, but, yes, absolutely: The future is digital currencies either way, the only question is which digital currency under whose control. Well but in this interview.
E.g. banks here in Switzerland setup a great payment system you can use for free called Twint - and everybody does. But you're always paying in their book money.
#note1jud…wen7

2024-01-12 12:41:15

Hm, I just remembered Threads exists 🤔
The end.

2024-01-07 17:18:00

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...older... 😒

2024-01-06 00:31:56

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Hmmm, I don't think splitting "person" into mind and body to go on and claim the mind always necessarily owns the body solves the problem. I agree that way you clear my first objection: It's no longer a circle. "You"/"Person" is in the mind owning the body. No circle.
But you now run into the second difficulty with speed. Let's see if you agree to this:
1.) If the body were "normal" property, you'd be able to give it away or sell it like all other property.
2.) So if we want to call it property, there must be some reason to disallow selling it.
3.) Your argument against selling it is that the locus of the mind is in the body. The mind can't leave the body, hence it can't transfer ownership of the body.
4.) Your protection against slavery is as strong as your argument in point 3.
Do you agree to these points? If not, which point not?

2024-01-05 13:11:52

My pupils' notes reflecting what I said in my programming intro 😅
"Important: Always think as stupidly as a computer." https://m.primal.net/HWek.png

2024-01-05 08:47:37

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I don't think the analogy with property holds up, because it's circular and because it'd mean you can give yourself away. It's circular because the definition of property is that it belongs to you. If you are your own property, that means you belong to you belong to you belong to you... leading to an infinite regression. "You" is never actually defined.
If something is your property, you can sell it or give it away. If you regarded people as their own property, that'd be a very thin legal protection against, from the video, slavery or rape. Because you could sell yourself and what the new owner does with her/his new property is none of your business (again: "you" isn't defined anyway).
So those are reasons I think your moral philosophy absolutely shouldn't ever equate people and property.

2024-01-03 15:29:39

...the audacity... 😲
"...the website loads in a special browser built into the app, rather than your phone’s default browser. In 2022, privacy researcher Felix Krause found that Meta injects special “keylogging” JavaScript onto the website you’re visiting that allows the company to monitor everything you type and tap on, including passwords. Other apps including TikTok do the same thing..." https://gizmodo.com/meet-link-history-facebook-s-new-way-to-track-the-we-1851134018
"Meta and TikTok confirmed that the code exists but said they don’t use it to snoop." https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/facebook-instagram-data-privacy/

2024-01-03 01:27:12

Oh wow, Snort/Iris have gotten really smooth. I left for Primal a few months ago, but this is nice! 😊

2024-01-02 17:23:59

Blender is 30 today! 😊 This video gave me watery eyes... It's come soooo incredibly far! I was only 15 when I went to Amsterdam to the Blender conference 2003, knowing nothing about CS, coding... Now I'm almost 37, contributed money and even some code, and Blender looks healthier by the day! Open-source collaboration and the tools that facilitate it are, IMHO, really among the pinnacles of human achievement. It's profoundly awesome.
https://video.blender.org/download/videos/92902058-b049-4877-8171-4910407b6af0-1080.mp4

2024-01-02 08:30:37

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I think in computer science generally the tech gets better if it's made more consumer-friendly (even if only for the resource boost you get through wider adoption).
But for Nostr as a social medium, once parity is achieved broadly speaking (I think we're pretty much there), the ultimate fight isn't on the feature front, but against the network effect. Why should any single person decide to leave networks where they've established themselves with friends, people they follow, followers, etc. and start from scratch? It's a mighty obstacle.
Maybe the way Nostr will take hold is not as a social medium, but with other apps that people interact with. What are things people can't do now that we could enable them to do with Nostr that are of substantial benefit to the user?

2023-12-27 09:35:10

"The West" is making an energetic comeback as the foremost signifier of stupidity in political commentary. 😣

2023-12-21 17:42:58

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congrats!
uploading files to folders doesn't work on my end, btw. (moving them there after doesn't work either)

2023-12-21 12:15:31

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He explains it in the video above

2023-12-17 23:04:11

Found the perfect ending for my block on binary and hex codes: The plates carried by the space probes Pioneer and Voyager!
They use a fundamental measurement of hydrogen amounting to 0.7 nanoseconds and binary code to try to communicate with aliens. Here's an example:
https://m.primal.net/HUKY.png
If you jot down the binary number around the disc, it's 100110000110010000000000000000000. In decimal numbers, that's 5'113'380'864.
If you multiply that with the fundamental measurement of hydrogen (0.7 nanoseconds), you get ~3.6 seconds, which is how long one rotation of the disc should take to hear the sounds properly.
Besides this, it was apparently also upon Carl Sagan's initiative, to turn Voyager 1 around and shoot that picture where earth is just a "pale blue dot".... His take is very moving 🥹
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb4WhNvLRFw

2023-12-15 08:07:00

Why so few gun deaths in Switzerland compared to the US - when we also have many privately-owned guns? Johnny Harris did a video on it. And he nailed it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnBDK-QNZkM

2023-12-14 09:08:42

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no cryptography fans on nostr then.... 🙄

2023-12-14 09:04:28

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Hey wait wait, hehe, logically "nobody interesting but crypto fans" says nothing about how interesting crypto fans are! Have mercy! 🙈

2023-12-14 09:01:00

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"They" is a signal that they don't know what they're talking about 🤷

2023-12-14 08:59:49

This is how Twitter seems to be breaking up for me:
- Bluesky is where my journo friends & academics go
- Mastodon is where my IT tech guys go (have gone a while ago)
- And Nostr is the most exciting tech of them all, I think, but, sadly, nobody interesting is there but crypto fans... 🤷

2023-10-20 10:19:09

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difficult onboarding only to see shitty content

2023-10-07 10:00:22

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Yes true, but in the journo bubble here in Switzerland it sure seems that if they leave Twitter, they go to Bluesky, not Nostr.

2023-10-07 09:39:21

Why are people not flocking to Nostr? Is it that the signup procedure is too techy? Content too shitty? 🤔 It seems journos in Switzerland are more drawn to Bluesky.

2023-10-03 14:53:40

There's a group of men who, upon hearing I studied international politics & wars, feel instantly compelled to tell me how the world works according to their gut... 🤷

2023-09-30 20:03:33

If, like me, you're confident with programming but you don't know much about elegant software architecture, there's a great book we use at university called "Software Design by example" by Greg Wilson. I've not had so much fun coding in a long time 😊
Also: You can access it for free! 🤯 third-bit.com/sdxpy/

2023-09-06 15:08:56

What do you guys think of this combo? Any nays? All ayes? 😅https://m.primal.net/HKjQ.png

2023-08-24 07:46:12

"If former President Trump were convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party's choice? Please raise your hand if you would."
Fuck me, they outright say it: Yes I'd support a felon for President who got caught trying to overturn an election. 🤯
https://m.primal.net/HJgu.png

2023-08-10 08:20:40

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A productive way of analysing "bad" behaviour I found is asking: What would it take me to act this way? It makes you realise that a great deal of "bad" behaviour can be explained by how things are organised and the incentives that arise.
Say clickbait: The vast majority of sites do it for the money they earn for ads on their websites & because they don't have to fear any consequences for doing so. No idea how to fix that, but it gets you closer to identifying a practical remedy.

2023-07-27 09:14:55

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, is best known for his psychological approach that emphasizes meaning in one's life as the primary driving force for human beings (as opposed to power or pleasure or sex). Frankl's work, including his seminal book "Man's Search for Meaning", underlines the idea that purpose and personal responsibility can help individuals overcome suffering and achieve fulfillment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loay2imHq5E

2023-07-26 14:33:41

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jul/26/kevin-spacey-cleared-of-sexually-assaulting-four-men

2023-07-26 14:19:33

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Attention, that's an old one. Refer to the ifl article I posted somewhere👆or 👇

2023-07-26 14:18:27

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Good news article by a physics PhD for those interested: https://www.iflscience.com/first-room-temperature-ambient-pressure-superconductor-achieved-claim-scientists-70001

2023-07-23 09:09:30

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You can't cross the alps from Germany to Switzerland, there aren't any. #justsaying

2023-07-20 20:55:27

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Very cool Jack!

2023-07-20 08:15:42

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The trainride was AMAZING!, leg space, reclining chairs, even an onboard bar, man you should have seen it!
Then we hit a wall at 120km/h...
😅

2023-07-20 07:58:59

First post on YakiHonne about how I'd attack Nostr if I were a dictator. A lovely writing experience, though upon posting, the webapp entered a spiral of death never ended. I fear it didn't land on many relays...
https://yakihonne.com/article/naddr1qq2h2azl2ex5jv2f29jz6ajggffkg6rh24rysq3qql5rx6pqga5xa9a90edml8hv0w5utxmt5nqz3nr8hruxe9v8hhkqxpqqqp65wd099ph

2023-07-19 09:50:04

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Hehe, dude, they cite Switzerland & Lichtenstein? I'm Swiss, Lichtenstein is our neighbor 😅 And our state intervenes HEAVILY to regulate everything from prices to obligating you to get insurance. I know only one private hospital, all others are public.
And why do we do that? Because otherwise profit margins would explode & people would be ripped off.

2023-07-19 09:41:01

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Funny I've done the same a few days back. Just log out. I realized I haven't learnt anything valuable on there for months!
Also: Do you guys sometimes watch people scroll through Twitter, Insta, Tiktok and think to yourself: "Wow, that's clearly not healthy..."

2023-07-18 15:17:00

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Great challenge ❤️
## Here's my ~5 lines:
On Twitter, Facebook/Insta, Tiktok, etc. you're uploading your content to that company's servers. They control and censor the content you see to sell ads. You're their product.
Nostr isn't a company. It's an open protocol like HTTP or email, but for social media. Instead of one company, your profile and content lives on hundreds of independent servers around the globe. No central authority can manipulate your feed & there's free bitcoin lightning transactions.
## Here's my whole draft sorted by priority, so cut off when you want:
On Twitter, Facebook/Insta, Tiktok, etc. you're uploading your content to that company's servers. They act as the central authority that can direct, control, and censor the content you publish and see in your feed. They use this power to make money by selling your attention to advertisers.
Nostr puts an end to this. It's an open protocol for social media that works without any central authority. Your profile and your content live de-centralized on hundreds of independent servers we call "relays" around the globe. That means:
- No central authority manipulates your feed.
- It's integrated with bitcoin lightning, so you can freely send and receive money without intermediaries.
- You can freely change what shows up in your feed.
- You can build anything like Twitter, Reddit, Medium, Twitch and many more things on top of Nostr. So it's definitely an interest place to join now.

2023-07-18 05:35:01

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Well, I agree that if you have a corrupted state, private health care is obviously the thing people have to turn to. E.g. I did some reporting about Venezuela's healthcare system, where the rich turn to the private sector for healthcare. But that's a stopgap and shouldn't be considered a reasonable healthcare policy.
I'm curious: Which country do you have in mind where free market and voluntary charity provide better healthcare than the state?

2023-07-17 14:11:43

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I was wondering... 😅

2023-07-17 12:29:54

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https://primal.net/thread/note1t7vday5jefxwdal35r7uunvgtzsg0k4elf5dp7sn7rgc97qngecqrlrns3

2023-07-17 05:48:21

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You too! Have a lovely day.

2023-07-17 05:29:45

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Carlson & Tate accusing others of "lying" - pretty rich 😅

2023-07-16 21:24:27

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For society as a whole, that's a disastrous policy. Compare ANY country with a health care system run on that principle, and you'll find people struggling and in debt, big pharma making big profits, and health outcomes significantly below par.
The reason the market doesn't work well in health care is that demand is inelastic. If you have a serious illness, you have no choice but to consult a doctor. That's the reason you'll find countries where states regulate / provide health care outperform market-systems in cost and outcomes.
E.g. here's health outcome measured as life expectancy (y) vs expenditure per person (x)
https://cdn.nostr.build/i/595170174aee2593fde7e2fc416c144767000a9fc195444e2982906500c04bb6.pngE
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health-expenditure-per-capita?country=USA~GBR~FRA~ESP~DEU~SWE~CHE

2023-07-16 12:12:00

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That is an amazing idea! 😎

2023-07-16 12:03:27

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The percentages you provided don't say what you probably think... But ok. Judged by the speed with which you shout "Nazi", I think seeing that a small percentage in a population of millions equals a lot of dead people & overrun hospitals is probably too much to ask for. (A point also made in the very study you cite, btw)

2023-07-16 09:59:12

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Ah, answering kindergarten-style, I see... the mark of a true genius 😅

2023-07-16 09:46:58

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No idea which state you live in, but for most Western countries this is utter BS. Governments had to balance liberty & public health, and especially in Europe, tried their damn best with limited info and little to no malicious intent. I must say, I very much resent such naïve, unjustified vitriol towards public servants that worked ridiculously long hours for our public health.

2023-07-14 14:50:04

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Nice! We got house rules with soldiers from Risk so you can destroy villages again 😎 I don't know what it'd do to the family peace 😅

2023-07-14 08:58:38

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Here, love me some Settlers :)

2023-07-13 10:02:14

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Nice, installed and running smoothly so far

2023-07-12 21:30:20

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I was thinking about a similar problem today and my possible answer might overlap:
It'd be great if users could "subscribe" to relay lists someone else provides without having to actively maintain their own relay list. Those lists could probably be made qualitatively much better / updated than each user themselves, including read / write asymmetry you talk about.
I thought about this in the context of authoritarian regimes: Opposition figures could maintain and constantly update a list of their relays. This could even be automated. The list would be distributed and the adversarial government would essentially have to simultaneously shutdown all relays at once. The client would just need to find one copy of the list to then (very probably) find more relays / more recent versions of the list.
Technically afaik it'd be very akin to NIP-65 relay lists in that only a certain user or users could maintain the list. It'd be different in that they would prefereably not have to be the creator, but could be added / removed as maintainers.
Just initial thoughts.

2023-07-12 17:50:01

@npub12vk…pugg i get mentions by "undefined", is there a way of knowing which relays I miss (assuming that's the issue)?
https://m.primal.net/HGJG.png

2023-07-12 16:53:52

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Oh and @npub1xts…kk5s's delivery of the email analogy is epic, too! "Imagine there was just one email company..." That single sentence immediately transmits the idea of why we need Nostr and I'll definitely steal it 😁

2023-07-12 16:49:19

Watching @npub1lel…kvyz's Nostr documentary reminded me of those wonderful times at the beginning of the internet...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-jiiepOrE
When at 12:16 @npub1sg6…f63m talks uses this beautiful phrasing of how monopolies go against "what the internet wants to be... which is that there are no single deciders, there's no one person for all these decisions...", it triggered a memory of Christopher Hitchen's last speech (afaik), and I couldn't help but go watch it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7MtjJFelAE

2023-07-12 16:17:52

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Oh god that's embarrassing 😳 hehe... It switched me to "Follows" feed and I don't follow anybody. That's it.
But yeah, maybe something that shouldn't switch without notice. (I didn't switch it.)

2023-07-12 15:30:33

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Hi there. I have the following issue on habla.
After I post something, all feed content disappears... It's the weirdest thing. Noticed an error in the javascript console.
Am I doing something wrong?
https://m.primal.net/HGIq.png

2023-07-10 17:13:52

Hi @npub1get…0nfm! Is there a way around having to unlock Alby so often? I'm on the verge of picking "aa" as my unlock password 😁

2023-07-07 21:42:10

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I'm very happy about this and might contribute code sometime, let's see how schedule is.

2023-07-07 16:16:58

Nostriches! Would you be interested in animated videos explaining current affairs? Shorter but similar to my explanation of Brexit here from around 30s. Here with this lovely community, Zaps and all, that might be worthwhile!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ufb_lcqETU

2023-07-07 11:34:41

@npub12vk…pugg I love your client and have one suggestion: The way you handle feeds is already EPIC 🏆 What I can't find yet is a way to adjust a feed's time, e.g. my networks most zapped *in the last 5 hours*. Maybe I'm missing it though...?

2023-07-07 11:25:58

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Genes encode RNA and amino acids, not values 😘

2023-07-05 15:39:49

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It's something primal does very well I found: https://primal.net/explore

2023-07-04 11:54:54

Wow, I'm giving primal.net a go and it feels amazing! A bit like elk for Mastodon. Slick, smooth and very responsive.

2023-02-28 16:59:02

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for international news: NZZ (german), Guardian

2023-02-19 16:46:26

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Proud of you 👏😆

2023-02-18 12:25:43

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I stole it n put it on the birdsite 😁 https://twitter.com/marcchehab/status/1626920693450395650

2023-02-18 09:27:33

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https://i.imgur.com/HbJX4lY.jpg

2023-02-18 09:25:23

Könnt ihr das auf Englisch lesen? Ich habe gerade einen chinesischen Post automatisch übersetzt bekommen auf amethyst 😍👌

2023-02-18 09:19:30

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I agree! But nostr desperately needs some actual content. That's what draws me back to Twitter n Mastodon. Journos n OSINT folks mostly stay there as far as I can tell.

2023-02-15 12:30:02

#OSINT friends: Who can break this #fingerprinting demo? I'm on Ubuntu / Brave, aggressively blocking, incognito, on a VPN... and it still identifies me.
If you beat it, please tell me -how- you did it!
https://fingerprint.com/demo/

2023-02-15 00:24:32

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yes,but im on nostr.wine,so no surprise there