James Cridland

I'm Editor of Podnews and co-host of the Podnews Weekly Review

Public Key

npub1gg3zv8wydfcrfytr9c3keyxhp4ju8ntgyqefcclfh3ztzflg0peqrlq4cg

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsyyg3xrhzx5up5j93jugmvjrts6ewre45zqv5uv05mc393yl58suspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsagnr3t

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1gg3zv8wydfcrfytr9c3keyxhp4ju8ntgyqefcclfh3ztzflg0peqrlq4cg

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Last Notes

2025-09-06 09:00:10 UTC

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The best, you say?

2025-07-06 03:13:29 UTC

I write a newsletter every week about international trends in radio. It’s called Radioland. And here’s this week - with new information about how we’ll be able to listen to the BBC later this month.
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2025/bbc-radio-overseas-a-new-plan/

2025-07-03 00:42:30 UTC

There must be a knack to getting those pod coffee machines not to taste like shit, but I’ve still not discovered it.

2025-07-03 00:27:29 UTC

BBC’s international strategy continues to confuse. In the US, they plan to put BBC News behind a paywall. A magnificent approach to hastening irrelevance.
This report says live radio will continue to be free. But that’s not the true position.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jun/26/bbc-usa-paid-subscription-news?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-06-28 07:19:18 UTC

Interesting to have written this back in 2020 (though updated it since) and still seeing people reading this little post and using the affiliate link it contains. Wasn’t really the reason I wrote it, but it’s always nice to see.
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2020/up-bank---a-long-term-review-of-an-aussie-neo-bank/

2025-06-26 01:06:46 UTC

A dumb question: Podnews has over 500 citations on Wikipedia (yay!) but has no Wikipedia page. That might be nice. Are there any Podnews supporters who might be able to help there?

2025-06-25 14:36:06 UTC

An INDIGNANT email from a PR person, after I linked to a live story on a client’s website. “This story isn’t live! It’s going to be published on Friday! Take it down!”
Have calmly told them that a) the client published it; b) I can’t take 32,000 emails back; c) I’m in bed and not getting out.

2025-06-24 03:51:15 UTC

Amazing. The man who wrote the BBC News theme has put lots of mixes onto your favourite streaming platform. Search for “BBC News: Official Themes” in Spotify, Apple, YT Music etc.
https://davidlowemusic.com/product/bbc-news-official-themes/

2025-06-23 01:06:13 UTC

Wow. News out of the blue.
https://podnews.net/press-release/greg-glenday-cao-acast

2025-06-22 09:41:27 UTC

A great new radio station in Canada, and a week of big numbers in Australia. Radioland, my radio newsletter, this week.
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2025/infinite-dial-australia-2025/

2025-06-22 02:05:38 UTC

When there is news, there’s always https://livenow.news

2025-06-19 11:27:25 UTC

I may have had a little too much fun with the Podnews Daily podcast today. Sorry, #Australia. (Especial sorry to Joe Hildebrand for 3:15. Though not really).
https://truefans.fm/podnews-daily/6853f308e8d5bc26ec51b75b

2025-06-19 03:35:28 UTC

Apple Podcasts appears not to be ingesting transcripts over the last 24 hours. Podnews Daily is just one of those shows which is affected. Hmm.

2025-06-19 03:26:39 UTC

Is anyone else seeing the BBC app not show images on its front page? It’s been doing this for the last month or so. Kill it and reload it, and all the images work. (I’m on the iOS beta, but this is unrelated - it was happening for a few weeks before that, on both iOS and iPadOS). https://cdn.nostrcheck.me/4222261dc46a703491632e236c90d70d65c3cd6820329c63e9bc44b127e87872/491e7370464f1faf42fc4899e30b75bdf3586ff41653e9ce2b3cec68b7d2ade8.webp

2025-06-18 02:37:56 UTC

Ah, fun. Remembering 2006, where I managed to sneak in (third from bottom) “make everyone a nice cup of tea” into the job requirements of my team. Best bit of bamboozling HR that I achieved. https://cdn.nostrcheck.me/4222261dc46a703491632e236c90d70d65c3cd6820329c63e9bc44b127e87872/fbe806a36c48bb0b7247ae5a897d23cfc4497d60e014edacff6307adaf278324.webp

2025-06-16 00:17:20 UTC

Over the weekend, I learnt that websites ought to have an accessibility statement. I wasn’t aware of that, though particularly the EU is requiring it. Anyway, now linked from every page is this.
https://podnews.net/accessibility

2025-06-15 11:19:21 UTC

Do people really listen to the #radio during emergencies? New data from Spain appears to show us. Plus, some impressive bits of voicetracking, and promo codes don’t work.
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2025/spanish-radio-figures/

2025-05-16 11:28:32 UTC

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Thanks for the feedback, and for the sats. Please continue with your feedback - send one of these every day!

2024-01-01 21:39:20 UTC

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How does a small number of relays offer either of those things? Posts are centralised through the relays; and can be censored or even deleted by the relay operators.
ActivityPub is wholly decentralised, and is just as resistant to censorship.
So is a blog that uses RSS.
Why is Nostr better?

2024-01-01 20:50:14 UTC

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What does Nostr offer that ActivityPub does not?

2024-01-01 16:43:48 UTC

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That's a very bad drawing that makes my point. It shows Nostr clients posting to separate relays, none of which talk to each other. In order to read a post, you have to connect to a relay that carries that post. But unlike ActivityPub's instance-based infrastructure, it isn't immediately obvious how to find out what relays this post is on, or where I post on Nostr.
Every time I come here it's clear that Nostriches are wilfully ignoring how poor this system is, and how the entire power of the platform is hanging off a few big, censorable, relays.

2023-12-31 16:54:52 UTC

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Your caps lock is on.
#helpfulpost

2023-11-27 13:37:40 UTC

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It was 27° here this morning, too. 27°C, that is; or 80°F. Quite a hot humid day...

2023-11-27 13:17:51 UTC

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The hidden power of Mastodon is that you can follow hashtags in exactly the same way as people. So follow #podcasting and you see every post that people add that hashtag to. A great way to broaden your follow list.

2023-11-27 13:11:47 UTC

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"can" isn't the same as "do".

2023-11-27 13:09:27 UTC

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Exactly - some relays sync between them, but even if you follow me, you might not see my messages if I'm not being synced, or don't post, on the relays you use.
I still fail to really understand how this is decentralised. Mastodon's model is; but Nostr seems to be entirely based on a few relays.

2023-11-27 02:43:02 UTC

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There isn't a centralised blocklist. Each instance can choose whatever it wants to block. The closest to a centralised blocklist is that admins can choose to share a blocklist with others if they wish.
I'm an admin of a Mastodon server. There's the option to "import" a blocklist as a CSV, but no more defined method of blocking instances exists in Mastodon.

2023-11-27 02:25:00 UTC

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"the fediverse model is confusing people" is a far cry from "it's a single app on a vertical platform", as you say in your original post.
Meanwhile, I only see content from the Nostr relays I'm using, and not others. Surely, this is *much* more confusing - I have one username that works everywhere on Nostr, but if people aren't subscribed to the same relays as I am, they won't see my messages. This is "the future"?

2023-11-27 00:18:34 UTC

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> This conversation has led me to believe that we should proactively share the Nostr story, positioning it as the future of social networking.
It's the future of social networking if the only thing you want to talk about is Bitcoin or Nostr. The technology isn't the problem: it's the lack of any discussion here about anything other than these two topics. This needs fixing before anything else.
> This approach will also help us differentiate from platforms like Threads, Pixelfed, Mastodon, and Bluesky. While these platforms are based on open protocols, they operate as single-app, vertical silos.
Mastodon is not single-app, nor is it a vertical silo. The interop with Pixelfed is excellent - it's the same underlying protocol - and there are hundreds of apps out there for it and thousands of servers running ActivityPub. What's the deal with pretending otherwise?

2023-11-27 00:00:08 UTC

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> It can be difficult to communicate that each nostr app is a interface onto a single common database, rather than a separate silo.
But this isn't the case, is it? Each relay is a separate silo. Nostr's website says: "Clients fetch data from relays of their choice and publish data to relays of their choice. Relays don't talk to one another, only directly to users."
Or have I misunderstood?

2023-11-26 10:31:19 UTC

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"the majority of podcasts" - I mean, there are 4.3mn podcasts available. I'm glad you've managed to listen to them all. Even the D&D play-by-play ones.
Tip: go find a podcast called "New Podcast Trailers", which is a set of new shows every day. I curate it, but you'll never hear me there!

2023-10-12 11:48:10 UTC

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2023-10-11 20:46:15 UTC

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Impressive argument you got there

2023-10-11 12:53:43 UTC

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The "right" way to fix this is to not allow any edits to any post once it has been interacted with in any way - if it's had a like or a zap or a reply. It's the way sensible discussion systems work, and it would make sense to have it do the same here. This is a definite problem, and without any obvious "edited" indicator, it's quite a concern.

2023-10-08 13:40:54 UTC

Seeing a flood of posts saying "GM".
Is this short for "Good Morning"?
And does this mean that the only people on here are Americans? It's 11.40pm where I am, and I should be turning off this mobile phone and going to bed.
GN

2023-10-08 13:24:19 UTC

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There's a tag - podcast:socialInteract - specifically for this in podcasting 2.0. We've been looking at activitypub, but if Nostr is a better way to go (and I'm not convinced it is) then worthwhile chiming into the discussions.
Fountain achieves public comments with a 1% value split for all zaps ("boosts") received. Seems another way round it, and has the benefit of opt-in by creators.

2023-10-08 13:19:38 UTC

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IPFS Podcasting, with volunteer-run http gateways, already exist for this, and are used for millions of downloads a month already.
ipfspodcasting.net

2023-10-08 13:17:59 UTC

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Zaps go right to the creators in RSS-based podcasts, if they use the new podcasting namespace. I've earnt more than two million sats so far for the podcasts I do. And splits are baked in to the standard, for multiple show hosts and guests already - and even music played on shows.
Not just zaps ("boosts" in podcast parlance), we also earn sats for people listening, if they turn on streaming sats in Fountain or other similar apps.

2023-10-08 13:15:31 UTC

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What problem are you trying to fix? What is the issue with the current RSS system?

2023-10-08 08:13:11 UTC

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How does this work? My posts are only on the relays I post to, right? And my followers have to follow me on one of the relays, yes? So why isn't that number accurate (for me, looking at my own account)? Surely I'm looking at the full global state of my own following on Nostr?
But, for you (for example), I'm not seeing the full global state, because you're being followed on relays that I'm not on.
Have I got this right? The relays thing confuses me.

2023-10-01 07:40:32 UTC

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In 2019 I made a special trip to the Fry's in Las Vegas, because I had heard how amazing the store was. It was a junkyard of outdated, cheap, bad electrical goods and was clearly just waiting to be shut down. Some aisles were literally all the same product that they presumably had once bought in bulk. Not a great experience.

2023-09-23 11:12:24 UTC

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Ah, there's now an optional relays attribute for a NIP-05. That was the bit I was missing - I'm relatively sure when I set this up, that wasn't a thing.

2023-09-23 11:09:58 UTC

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I can't tell you my nprofile or how to get it, but it seems that it's an impenetrable hex key which seems totally unsuited to giving someone on a printed business card. But that *does* have relay information.
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/19.md

2023-09-23 11:09:32 UTC

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So, a NIP-05 address - james@crid.land - doesn't appear to have any relay information. It's just a mapping from my humanly-readable name to my NPUB, according to the spec. So, people still can't follow me unless they use the same relays as I do.
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/05.md

2023-09-23 11:03:02 UTC

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NIP-07 appears to be a JavaScript object for a browser.
Do you mean a NIP-05 address? Like (for humans) james@crid.land ?

2023-09-23 04:32:33 UTC

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Nostr's relay architecture means, though, that nobody can say "find me on Nostr at xxx@xxx.x" because you need to also know the relays that the person is using. This seems an Achilles heel for this network, and makes it entirely unsuitable as an alternative to Masto/Twitter/BlueSky etc.

2023-09-23 04:29:24 UTC

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You can set a well-known so that you can use your email address in Mastodon, at least for searching purposes.
I would prefer that it didn't look like an email address, though. Here as well.

2023-09-22 23:11:22 UTC

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In a Samuel Adams glass? Come on.

2023-09-20 03:29:17 UTC

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Why would you want to do that?
You'd break 100% of existing podcast apps; and you'd need people to understand which relays to subscribe to in order to get their favourite shows (there's no "Nostr", just a random list of relays).
RSS is extendable to add new features - and right now is the biggest use of Lightning payments. Nostr is tiny in comparison. And you want to kill that for... why, exactly?

2023-09-20 03:23:57 UTC

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The Vorläufiges Biergesetz is the law these days. It also allows fining agents and stabilisation agents; and sugars for top-fermented beer.
"Superior" is quite the claim - but if your claim is that all German beer tastes really quite similar to each other and quite boring, then that's definitely a claim that I can stand by.
I'm in Munich in October, but thankfully, missing the awful beer tourists.

2023-09-18 00:09:53 UTC

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Why would they? What on earth is in it for Twitter to add Nostr? What does it offer that their closed platform does not? Surely Twitter already has more than 300 Bitcoin bros arguing about nsec custody already?

2023-09-18 00:04:24 UTC

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Either this is a problem with ZBD for holding keys... or its a fundamental problem with Nostr.
Surely it's the latter, not the former? A key that I *have* to put into an app in order to post messages here, but that is impossible to change or retract later? That seems very naïve.

2023-09-15 12:47:33 UTC

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One slightly left-field suggestion...
Change the up/down icons to something that communicates the category of payment. A zap, or a podcast payment, or a purchase, etc.
You're already communicating whether it's an increase or decrease with the colour of the sats amount on the right hand side, so you don't need additional cues on the left. You could add a visual cue with a subtle background colour to that entry as well.
My (fancy online) bank does something similar.

2023-09-14 11:36:57 UTC

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There's an excellent podcast (and book) about the whole thing. Well worth a listen (or a read).
https://podnews.net/podcast/ii4v

2023-09-10 12:18:40 UTC

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What am I supposed to be scanning this with? Bluewallet did nothing...

2023-09-09 02:06:07 UTC

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Worth reading up about it. But if you "zap" my show (it's not called that), then the zap goes to 49% me, 49% my co-host, 1% the podcast index, and 1% fountain (who do comments and help promote it). I'm 100% in charge of that split.
It gets more exciting when you use wallet-switching tech to support a music artist I play in my show, so "zaps" during that song are split further to the artists I'm playing.

2023-09-09 02:01:50 UTC

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Curry talks sense (at least in this one note, he adds, hurriedly)
#note1etf…7pkj

2023-09-09 01:56:30 UTC

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For many people outside the US, the "wow" moment is a "is that it?" moment. I can put money into my wife's bank account from my (different) bank account here in Australia for free and instantly. I can put money into my business partner's bank account in the UK from here in Australia instantly, too. Money transmission without any issue at all - and certainly without PayPal.
I have an API to my bank account to do it all programmatically, too. The speed of payment really isn't a selling point for most of the planet. We probably need a better way of promoting it.

2023-09-01 01:25:00 UTC

https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_8928943025707757811693531467.webp Good job, Alby, with your fancy progressive web app. Looks swanky in my Android apps list.

2023-08-31 09:27:54 UTC

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It's impossible not to see IP addresses if you use a website. Impossible. It's literally how the internet works.

2023-08-12 09:39:54 UTC

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If more people were using Lightning-powered podcast apps, they'd "get it" almost immediately. Apps like Fountain, Podverse or Castamatic really help this education, I reckon.

2023-08-06 08:17:02 UTC

I was on the radio today talking about the future of, um, radio. https://www.4bc.com.au/podcast/is-the-future-bright-for-radio/

2023-08-02 12:53:49 UTC

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If you still have it, it works just great with the Lineage ROM. Everything looks just like the latest Android. Very quick little device.

2023-08-02 12:52:19 UTC

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Actual stereo!

2023-08-01 09:59:47 UTC

I'm earning sats by hosting podcasts on my Umbrel.
The new episode of Podnews Daily, just published, is the first show of mine be wholly delivered via IPFS (with the exception of the alternate enclosures). After 15 minutes, it's hosted in 11 different places and has been downloaded 146 times.
a) It's now a 6MB show - much higher quality than you've heard it before (and in stereo!)
b) Volunteer hosters even get paid for hosting the show, as a share of the total sats earnt by the show.
Fascinatingly different distribution model.
https://ipfspodcasting.net/ to get started.

2023-07-27 03:42:49 UTC

Dear folks at @npub1pls…kx8j - any chance of an adaptive icon in your Android app? https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_9949165257123725081690429340.webp

2023-07-23 11:15:22 UTC

Would anyone like to see a note on Nostr containing a thread containing a skeet of a toot?
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_9450331348902664241690110824.webp

2023-07-22 08:46:30 UTC

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I wonder how quickly the DRM-free files will be thrown on the internet somewhere. I enjoy the magazine, and would like it to succeed.
(Also, I'd rather have a subscription to *both* PDF and EPUB, or at least a way of switching between them.)

2023-07-21 12:12:23 UTC

https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_8258188381204675421689941499.webp
What a splendid little thing this is. The Playdate is just a little bright yellow box of fun.

2023-07-20 13:31:00 UTC

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There are a number of open source podcast players; some are web-based, some are (like AntennaPod) native apps. The Pocket Casts player is open source, but the server it links to is not. Also see Podfriend and Podverse (I think).
But I don't see anything broken with RSS feeds that specifically Nostr can fix. Incessant polling is fixed with either websub or a blockchain solution like podping - unsure of what else needs fixing.

2023-07-20 13:22:48 UTC

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Hate to argue, but that's simply not right. RSS includes exactly that - it's the GUID in the item tag. It's a required element for listing in any podcast directory, including Apple, Spotify and Podcast Index.
What is true is that there is no standard way of linking to a podcast episode, since both Apple and Spotify use proprietary IDs for both the podcast itself and the episode. But that isn't RSS's fault - closed platforms don't want to have open links to them.

2023-07-16 09:23:35 UTC

In the Monet in Paris exhibition in #Brisbane. Impressive redesign of an art gallery, with a set of digital screens and music accompaniment.
https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_3310572848499410411689499360.webp

2023-07-15 10:54:16 UTC

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I still don't quite understand how Nostr is "decentralised" if it has individual relays that you need to subscribe to (which don't federate) - that seems pretty centralised to me. I wonder if I understand it properly.

2023-07-15 10:40:27 UTC

Spent 18888 SATs on access to the Nostr Wine relay, so that's exciting. No real understanding of why this is a good thing, but I'm learning...

2023-07-09 02:50:31 UTC

New podcast that everyone should listen to - Search Engine. Very good - PJ Vogt channeling the bits of ReplyAll that everyone liked, once more. Yay. https://podnews.net/podcast/i9ykt

2023-07-02 12:32:24 UTC

Super impressed with plebstr as an Android app for Nostr. It seems to work brilliantly.

2023-07-02 12:31:39 UTC

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Well yes, but also Zeus doesn't include the button you have in your documentation, so you reach a dead end quite fast.
Want me to write up how to achieve it in BlueWallet? It's a case of copy/pasting one thing.

2023-07-02 08:04:54 UTC

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I think that was certainly the case a few years ago. PWAs today are (can be) just as fluid.

2023-07-02 06:24:24 UTC

@npub1get…0nfm @npub1xv8…lk3x Your "how to set up a wallet" instructions are a bit outdated, it seems. Much, much simpler with BlueWallet - the import function works super easily. Worth updating this? https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_8008822083711270841688279004.webp https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_5915469625268152121688279012.webp

2023-07-02 05:31:32 UTC

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On the other hand... browsers are so powerful now, and iOS now treats a PWA as a first-class citizen, if we can get more people installing PWAs and less apps, then Apple can't slap a 30% tax on it all.

2023-07-02 05:27:29 UTC

I'm not sure I really want articial intelligence on a rice cooker, but thanks, Tefal.
https://nostr.build/i/0a42a9c7a2b8c6c1206ea2cf4a5e106756aa5c7a9b90b006d23cf8ae746eb4d1.jpg

2023-04-30 12:45:48 UTC

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Mine's super stable. But then again, now I've said that, it'll probably crash tomorrow...

2023-04-30 12:44:43 UTC

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Since moving to Australia, one of the few things I miss is a decent UK pub (and Wetherspoons, quite apart from the management, are a decent UK pub).

2023-04-21 17:48:03 UTC

I just joined the live stream chat at: https://chat.podcastindex.org/?cid=WBVa8U752YSqh
#testing #podcasting20 #mkultra