Seeker Erebus

A Seeker of Truth amidst the chaos of the modern world.

Public Key

npub1c0lhxghx5ynvf8mv3phmtxzwwamsug822txf2f44nnkqqxn9aelqyvey2q

NIP-05 Address

seekererebus@nostrpurple.com

NIP-57 Address

seekererebus@getalby.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsv8lmnytn2zfkynakgsma4np88wacwyr499ny4y66eemqqrfj7ulspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz72rr52e

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1c0lhxghx5ynvf8mv3phmtxzwwamsug822txf2f44nnkqqxn9aelqyvey2q

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Last Notes

2024-09-07 04:27:41

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Satoshi's stash should remain where it is. As incredibly tempting as it would be to just go ham, it's not mine.

2024-09-07 00:31:58

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Break it. Before I can change my mind.

2024-09-06 18:57:57

Currently making a transition from the initial setup for logins/zaps I've been using to a more current arrangement. Figured I'd share some thoughts.
I like nsec.app. Smart design, love what it does. As is common, not a fan of the inconsistent support that exists for nostr-connect. Wish I could log in to Amythest and Primal on mobile with nsec.app instead, but so it is.
Love how efficient cashu.me is so far. Come a long ways. Long term we're gonna want some strict standards for mint operators, but for now it's doing great.

2024-09-03 12:56:18

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If it's free, then the rule is "You don't like it, leave!" If it's paid (or funded by donations), then the rule is "If you stop making something I like, I leave and take my money with me." Paying audience feedback is worth more.

2024-09-03 12:42:08

Assuming that I know nothing about modern coding, what's the fastest way to learn everything required to start building nostr-based PWAs? #asknostr #nostrdevs
I'm 12 years out of date on current development methods, and what i do know has never extended beyond building for CLI at a hobbyist level. I simply have too many ideas for things I want to see built here to not learn to build them anymore.

2024-09-02 17:24:38

I think we need bitcoin futures contracts on Nostr. I don't mean "I'll buy bitcoin with fiat at x price on y date" I mean "I'll buy z loaves of bread for x bitcoin on y date."
With capital controls coming fast or already implemented, such contracts are likely the best way to both enable a black market and resist the financial repression.
Being a distributor of criminal goods has always been lucrative, and this time the only victim will be thieving governments.

2024-09-02 10:09:40

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There is no second best with money. There is best, and there is ineffective and worse. That most people in Monero own both only further reinforces it's failure.
Monero enthusiasts don't understand that money is winner takes all, or they see both as investment vehicles for acquiring more fiat, or they aren't willing to commit to Monero out of fear that it's not the ultimate winner, or they're hoping they can successfully pump and dump. If they were actually clear on how money works, and really believed in Monero, they would use Bitcoin only as much as I use Monero: only when there's no other choice. Anyone like that I can respect, not fence sitters.

2024-09-01 07:31:42

When Christians talk about Christ, we often talk about the love He has shown us, His sacrifice and what it means, etc. We don't talk often enough about what happens to those who refuse His gift. I think most of us don't really believe that what awaits is Hell, even if we say to ourselves we do.
I had an out of body experience 10 years ago, when having absolutely no reason to continue living I tried to end it. I was deeply gnostic at the time, figured there was no downside and plenty upside. I met a woman, and she told me the horror of my error. I spent maybe 1-2 real world seconds, beginning the journey of entering Hell.
There is no horror, that has ever been inflicted in this world by man, that I would not happily endure a 1000x over to never experience that again. The event seared itself on my soul, and as is potent and visceral in memory as it has ever been. A brief instant of that, no pain in this world is comparable. And I knew, that that would last for eternity if I died fully. I was lucky enough to claw myself back to flesh, get emergency care, and stay alive. It took me years to find a reason to live, but going back to that is not an option my mind can handle.
The Catholics were right when they used severe physical punishment in an attempt to convince those sentenced to death to repent. Not always in who and why they made such sentences, but it was utterly sensible to inflict one horror in hopes of preventing worse beyond death. Something I think we would be wise to remember as this peaceful period of history draws to a close, and war returns in fury.

2024-08-31 17:13:33

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Intersex is an abnormality. It is not a valid form of sex identity, but a biological error.
This should not be treated as a slight against those who suffer from this condition. Their body failed them, it's not their fault any more than someone with down syndrome, dwarfism, or other abnormal (epi-)genetic conditions.
However, sacrificing the idea that there is a standard template that human beings are fit to, merely because some encounter errors that cause a failure in that process, is a modern insanity.
As a side note, the water supply contains chemicals known to interfere in proper sexual maturation. Given that, if there is an increase in intersex people, the link should be examined.

2024-08-31 16:58:07

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If there are only 1.5-2 billion humans, that does have the minor bonus of a smaller death toll when the world starts breaking.

2024-08-31 08:39:02

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On so many levels. Also posted this before I found out about what's happening in Aurora. Government can't do anything, so it says. Honestly surprised it took this long.
Gonna take several incidents like this before people realize that no one is coming to save them.

2024-08-31 07:51:41

A human who's body does not exterminate foreign lifeforms that go where not permitted, dies. The same is true of a nation. A difficult truth that all nations must come to terms with: all of the foreign peoples who will not integrate, must be excised for our nations to survive. Access to our lands must be controlled. Most nations that are not the west understand this truth well. The west is suicidal, and so it commits suicide by immigration.
Any nation unwilling to stand by and wait while those not given entry starve to death with their children, and gun them down if they ignore that law, is doomed.

2024-08-28 18:23:34

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And here I am hoping that in a few years, Nostr itself can host web pages.

2024-08-28 18:14:33

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You're correct on that. If every relay you connect to censors Bob, then you won't see anything from him.
Bob and his followers have a lot of options other networks don't have to check this is happening. For one, Bob can spin up a new npub, DM a lot of his followers to tell them the censorship is happening, signed so they know for sure. Some will verify, and once the word is out new relays get spun up and old dies. Bob's regular buddies can track it too. And security focused groups can regularly audit relays, and easily sound alarms.
So long as some people are vigilant against abuse, and the rest are willing to change their relay setting when the alarm is raised, bad relays are easily abandoned because none of the data they host is exclusive or under their control.

2024-08-28 17:50:21

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Apologies, I meant that the value of a fully self-custodied scalable solution is worth 100k bitcoin, not one to solve at 100k fiat price. It's a rabbit hole of a problem.
Ultimately, mainnet as it currently exists cannot serve humanity long term, though BTC can and should. Simple proof: Mars is never closer than 6 light-minutes round trip. No Martian colony will ever be able to mine bitcoin in a viable manner. And that's our backyard. Other stars is a joke.
This is why I believe in the transmutation protocol through sidechain. Scale via L2, verify everything. You can't necessarily stop abuse at the transition point, but if you can guarantee it's caught and execute violators, that's not bad. If a sidechain performs an important enough task that being a layer 1 is necessary, then plan and execute a burn of all the custodied BTC after allowing exits. The layer 2 token goes from being backed by BTC to made from BTC. Like smelting Spanish coins to make French coins. No violation of absolute scarcity.
Maybe we get better, but if not, seems the best option.

2024-08-28 10:37:09

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I can actually talk about the appropriate scale and use of violence required to deal with ongoing crisis. Might still get me killed, but at least i can talk about it.

2024-08-28 08:02:22

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What you want to do only makes sense when you don't understand what the protocol is doing. Relays aren't single point servers. They're more like download mirrors, except you download the file from all of them simultaneously, verify that the file is the same for all, and just keep one of the copies.
There is a cost to adding a relay, in that there's more copies to download and discard and more to upload, but the advantage is that a single uncensored relay can overcome millions of censored ones. And since your relay list is public info by default (including read/write status) anyone who wants to hear from you can just check the same relays you use.
Maintaining a copy of all of your own notes through a self-hosted relay is a great idea, but only using that relay would cause significant problems with zero benefits. You don't even gain enhanced privacy.

2024-08-28 07:36:15

Sometimes I wish this was what happened at riots
https://youtube.com/shorts/Qfswhyuhxso

2024-08-28 07:19:40

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The "We" here is the app itself. Your options are going to depend on the amount of sats onchain.
If you have less than 5k onchain, it's effectively lost. Even in the current low fee environment, you'll spend it all on recovery.
Above 20k, here's what I would do:
1. Set up the Aqua wallet. It won't KYC me, is self-custody + Liquid, and I can swap on-chain to lightning.
2. Send all Mutiny funds directly to an address in Aqua.
3. Swap the on-chain funds to lightning.
The entire process will likely cost you between 2k and 5k sats estimate. From there, whatever is desired. If reliable small payments on Nostr is the goal, cashu is king. https://cashu.space/ Aqua works great. Etc etc.
Hope it helps.

2024-08-28 06:53:22

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It's a great place.
Even better if you want to check what's happening, then go back to life. No algo means no psyop hooks. No attempt to take every second of your life away. It's weird when you're used to being stuck on a doom scroll elsewhere.

2024-08-28 06:13:40

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Hats off to ya. Every time I start to do a security audit on myself (I'm no expert but more aware than most) I shake my head, realize I'm already fucked, and say a silent prayer none of the three-letters decide I'm important.

2024-08-28 05:42:42

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Solving that without breaking mainnet is a 100k BTC problem. It's probably impossible.
We should be able to make cheating immediately detectable, with security provided by violent backlash. That might be enough.

2024-08-28 04:53:52

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Seen.

2024-08-28 04:47:00

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You really don't get it. You are not going to convince any long time student of bitcoin to be interested in Monero, ever, no matter what. There is no improvement you can make, no advancement, no marketing campaign, absolutely nothing. This is not because of the infamous bitcoin immune response, mind you. It is because of a fundamental law of nature that a longtime student of bitcoin has a grasp of that you are either unaware or willfully ignorant of.
Bitcoin discovered, for the first time, a way to create absolute scarcity. It's arguably as important a discovery as the number zero. Most importantly, it can only be done ONCE. BTC is the token that represents that absolute scarcity. Whenever a separate token has been created, from LTC, to XMR, to ETH, to all the rest, they are incapable of being anything other than a fiat expansion against BTC, and violate the absolute scarcity of BTC merely by existing.
Were the developers of Monero to finally accept this fact, and put their engineering skill to work improving bitcoin instead, I'm certain the privacy we all need could be implemented. Instead, we fight, you lose, and maybe we all suffer far longer than necessary because the one money that can actually do the job wasn't given necessary upgrades.
BTW, There is a trick you can do that would allow a new chain to be created without being a fiat expansion. Establish a fixed ratio of BTC to the token, and permanently burn BTC on-chain at that ratio each time. If the ratio is never broken, then you've transmuted BTC and conserved the absolute scarcity. I have zero idea what the market would do with that, mind. And there are other pitfalls that can befall any such project. But the discovered law would not be violated, and it might be the only way to implement a hard-fork level upgrade to bitcoin that could actually work, should that ever be necessary.

2024-08-25 07:42:06

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A horrific situation to be in.
Unfortunately, many are going to have to learn the hard way that only those systems that have no ruler can be safe from bad rulers. Many have been driven from one platform, found temporary refuge and mistakenly believe they're safe, and they'll be lucky to ever build their connections again when they're proven wrong.
Hopefully the recent discoveries about the routing capabilities of nostr enable you and others to access the web freely in near future. Hopefully Telegram resists long enough that the word about the essential need for Nostr, Reticulum, Meshtastic and other protocol solutions reaches enough ears.

2024-08-25 07:19:45

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There's no such thing as good porn. Good erotica, sure. And defining porn without including erotica is tricky. But porn is despicable, always.

2024-08-24 05:19:33

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If the UTXO is only 10k sats, it's not going to be worthwhile to attempt to recover them regardless of it's kind and if you can dig out the key. Write it off as the learning expense it is in that case. Main takeaway: measure twice, cut once. If you never fund a self-custody solution until you've verified you can rebuild it and get the same addresses first, you're less likely to have this happen again.

2024-08-24 05:05:14

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As long as the original private key is available, it should be recoverable, but it might not be worth the difficulty.
When you say you "send some sats to fund the wallet from an address generated on ride the lightning" do you mean the sats were in the on-chain element of RTL and were used to open a channel, or do you mean the sats were in an external wallet and sent to an RTL address?

2024-08-24 04:57:55

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*jots down* add "privacy friendly security cameras" to potential business ideas

2024-08-24 04:24:38

Something in Nostr's favor that (at least among my follows) isn't discussed much is that the sex industry has been responsible for determining which technology wins for as long as there has been a sex industry. Why is this in Nostr's favor you might ask? Because zaps plus completely uncontrolled distribution ability is currently the most in-demand service for independent nsfw creators. Especially with the crowdfunding sites most used constantly banning them. No group in the west has faced more financial authoritarianism than sex workers.
I'm not personally interested in attaching this npub to the porn side of nostr. The CP that exists in some corners is the worst downside of the protocol. But the reality is, the internet userbase most primed to join and actively use nostr are these people. If the only way to get some of the best hentai art or 3dx games is to zap the creator on nostr, it's already won.

2024-08-23 05:09:36

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Pentester.com? You're not dealing with a scam, that company's been doing cybersecurity for a while now. If it's really concerning, search while using VPN, and just use one of the states you've lived. They aren't public about full birth date and ssn, but they reveal enough that you can verify an entry is you.
You're most likely in there, though the degree of exposure will vary. Everyone in my family is except one. The exception has an odd spelling and so likely is misspelled. The others vary from just a name and address to comprehensive, and all of us are in there multiple times.
Later response better than none I hope.

2024-08-23 02:58:10

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Just in case this isn't @npub1yx6…7kza burner, the nsec on this is burned. note1qqqqqdtx9fuqeq7pjdjsscpacylqfqe5usg86t9vd0278qhr98pq5tn9hk

2024-08-18 10:07:09

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If they could just sidechain as Layer 2 bitcoin, but no. Sunk cost has them good. A deep analysis of XMR shows it's far worse at scaling than bitcoin, and inevitably centralizes nodes.
As an L2 though, borderline necessary. Privacy doesn't get enough attention by bitcoiners, and if we can't soft-fork a means to break chain analysis safely, L2 Monero is the next best thing.

2024-08-15 02:25:44

So hackers took more than 2.7 billion records from 3 countries including the US, and effectively every single person in the US is exposed to some extent. All unencrypted too.
https://image.nostr.build/ed99e300b21d5588bf9377e38249bffc589401292238216f177427a1df3d24e2.png
We need easy-to-use cryptographic signing tools that can be deployed by illiterate morons every single time we would currently use a handwritten signature or a "digital signature" on an online document. We need to demand the use of these tools everywhere old signature schemes are currently used. And we need to make any claim that we signed a contract, TOS, etc that doesn't have our crypto-signature is treated as a 100% forgery.
If we don't, very soon we will all have signed away all of our property and agreed to permanent indentured servitude with legally binding contracts.
Full article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-leak-27-billion-data-records-with-social-security-numbers/

2024-07-30 02:14:19

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2024-07-29 07:05:30

Have you heard of Eliquis?
It's a blood thinner, currently the most effective on the market. Bristol-Myers Squibb with Pfizer have been defending the patent like vipers, extending it and suing the more than 20 generic alternatives that are trying to get to market. Without government intervention, this drug would likely be $30 a month or less. Because of that intervention, it's difficult to get for less than $300, and out of pocket is $600.
Back in 2021, I stopped taking Eliquis. I was leaving SSI, leaving Medicaid. Couldn't afford it while also trying to escape the life of government supported parasitism I'd been living. I'm one of a small number of people under 40 with sever blood clotting issues, with only Eliquis able to effectively treat it. So despite attempting through diet and supplements the whole time, eventually the lack of proper treatment caught up with me. I nearly died this last week, the clot that ended up forming strangling my gut. I got out of the hospital today, still recovering.
The government has, through sheer dumb luck, successfully forced my hand. Their intervention means I cannot continue to live without depending on them; without returning to parasitism. I'm going to have to beg and plead from people who I hate and who hate me to stay alive through their stolen goods. Plus, I'll be lucky if I figure out how to escape the debt spiral I'm now on. I'm already 99% certain bankruptcy is inevitable, bye bye my BTC.
It's a personal rant, but it's where I'm at. I don't even know who's death would solve it, otherwise I'd go hunting. I'd happily sacrifice myself if it brought this to an end for everyone else, but I don't see how that trade happens. Ugh

2024-07-25 00:20:46

https://m.primal.net/JdOW.jpg
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1816168117665456369

2024-07-19 23:07:25

A schizophrenic woman in California
Filed an Emergency Red Flag protection order
Against a relative in Texas.
Because the Texas man
Was unable to get to California
To face the judge in the case
In only a matter of days
He can no longer purchase firearms
Because the federal database
Has him flagged.
Source: https://youtu.be/LuFxmjteoH4

2024-07-18 20:51:03

A best case path by which US gov could overcome their debt:
1. Buy as much bitcoin as they can get their hands on.
2. Mark the dollar value of all of the bitcoin they hold at equal to 110% their total outstanding debt + interest.
3. Officially default, and use their bitcoin holdings instead of dollars to pay off all treasury bonds.
We get the same massive upheaval in the economy we're gonna get anyway, but we also get a rapid widespread distribution of bitcoin comparable to the current dollar distribution. There's also an incredibly simple direct translation of value between dollars and bitcoin to the layperson. The value calculation would be off by some order of magnitude, but it would be as smooth a transition to hyperbitcoinization as possible.

2024-07-16 02:33:51

Excellent coverage of the assassination attempt.
https://t.co/iJTbRNlCEw

2024-07-15 01:16:45

I had Trump Derangement Syndrome, back from late 2015 through early 2021.
I knew that some of what I was seeing coming from liberals and the government was insane, but I believed he was in many ways worse. I listened when the media showed him as a fascist tyrant. I even voted for the dementia patient (red state overrode me, thank God) because I chose to risk that over Trump.
Middle of 2021, seeing lie after lie bombard through the covid machine, I did a thorough accounting of where I was getting my information. I determined to verify for myself what news organizations and individuals were liars, and I decided that any who proved to be liars through their own actions, were to be dismissed as valid sources of any information whatsoever. Not lies or truth, but useless noise.
Once the liars had been removed, all of the evidence I had once accepted of Trump's fascist character was gone. Not a single shred remained. He was still an asshole, but all remaining evidence was that he cared about America and was truly fighting for it. That's only been reinforced since.
It is not an ongoing failure to have been wrong. It is to stay wrong when the choice presents itself. There are a number of rather smart people with TDS who, if they were to do the kind of self-assessment I put myself through, would likely recover from it.
I hope this in some small way helps someone wake up.

2024-07-14 22:30:38

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They trade effectiveness for the smoke screen. If they send a professional, he's gone, but they couldn't hide that in this environment.
To be seen whether the next attempt is professional or not.

2024-07-14 21:58:27

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Brainwashed NPC psychos are one of the main weapons the deep state uses. So much plausible deniability.

2024-07-14 14:31:58

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Politics is just abstracted force projection. And all living beings have no choice but to participate in force projection.
It's wild how few understand this fundamental truth.

2024-07-14 14:20:26

It would be awesome if the central planners and deep state could be stopped with bitcoin only.
It would be lovely if this were a true bloodless revolution.
It can't, and it isnt.
The leviathan will not go peacefully. The amount of violence that will have to be used to save ourselves from them is not zero.
I only hope that whatever moves are ultimately taken, that they are surgical and precise.

2024-07-14 11:39:16

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mostr.pub I had to look it up myself.

2024-07-14 11:31:28

The assassination attempt last night means many things, but an unexpected one is a test on #nostr as a place of true discussion.
Will the lack of a hate driving algorithm plus a generally truth-motivated user base mean that we actually listen across the divide? Even as it turns into a hot war? I pray it does.
I for one am not blocking anyone. Even if I find most of their views on this deranged or reprehensible. I hope you all do the same.

2024-07-14 05:57:37

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Unfortunately, if "they" are not fought against, everyone else loses. I feel pity for the mentally ill foot soldiers of "them". I'll protect myself and mine from those souls as I must but they are not the enemy.
"They": the deep state officials, the agencies, the central planners. They are parasites. They must be burned out and purged completely if health is to return to the world.
Anyone who prevents the parasites' destruction, whether it be deliberate or through ignorance, must be removed as an obstacle. Reason is nice, but if this means they burn with the parasites, so be it.
Wake up whoever you can @npub1f6u…zcka. Get anyone who can be reached clear of the monsters. Help those of us who will fight be more precise in our aim. But when we come for them, Do Not get in the way.

2024-07-14 05:26:00

The political conflict in the USA will not be solved at the ballot box.
It will not be solved in the halls of Congress.
It will not be solved with rallies or debate or town halls or YouTube videos. It will not be solved with Fiat or Gold or Bitcoin.
It will ONLY be solved after all but one of the sides unconditionally surrenders.
And that will only happen on top a mountain of corpses.
Future historians will debate where the last exit was; what moment was the point of no return. Today was the final confirmation that it has indeed been crossed.
If your plans depend on peace, make new plans.

2024-07-13 23:49:40

Could someone give me an update on using Nostr as a marketplace? I'm trying to see if this would be a good place for my Mom to sell baby blankets. Zaps for answers.

2024-07-13 19:19:43

Watched Kyle Hill's vid on the Dead Internet Theory. Watching leftists precisely identify a problem, then fail to properly consider that they are vulnerable to the flaw and create a "solution" to the problem which is nearly certain to exacerbate it is always bizarre.
I think we need to start a movement where we tell everyone in our lives that we will only trust cryptographically signed digital information. Tell friends, family, and coworkers to their face that if it isn't said in person or signed and verified, we will always consider it fake, then follow through. Providing a forged email or deepfake to employers will be helpful in making the point clear. And making sure the tools are available to have all communications be signed is going to be important.

2024-07-12 02:54:41

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Absolutely. If I had the time I'd write it myself. A practiced nostr coder could do it in a day or two, would take me a few weeks or more due to research.
It needs to do 3 things:
1. Handle bip-32 derivations using nsec/npub formatting.
2. Handle signing via derivation.
3. Be modular so that any client can implement it.
Most of this code exists, it just requires adaptation. Primary reason I haven't done it over the last year is that without also making a client I couldn't test it. I also didn't know about NAK.

2024-07-07 22:14:11

Wow noStrudel is killing it. I tried it back when it was first going and wasn't impressed, but I pulled it up now and I'm switching off Primal as my main client, at least when on desktop.
I feel like I was blind and can now see. So much information that this network is running that I wasn't aware of, now I can see it. And so cleanly organized and displayed. It's amazing.
Strongly recommend anyone who's not checked it for awhile to give it another go.

2024-07-07 06:29:43

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I tried working with it through Sparrow, and tracking some of the developments around it.
If the only thing you're doing is a basic hold, it's slightly more expensive to send than standard SegWit due to the larger footprint. If you're doing more complex scripts, than taproot rapidly becomes king of both potential complexity and price. Miniscript also helps considerably, though it's still very technical.
Unfortunately, almost no wallet software supports the advanced features that makes taproot so useful, even now. Various lightning implementations are as good as it gets.
So, unless you're willing to try to figure out Miniscript for yourself, you're better off sticking with P2WSH for your wallets.

2024-07-06 21:14:58

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Amazing. All of this low level development feels like the beginning of a legitimate Web 3.0.
If we could get an interface that would let a traditional web or app developer to build their site once, and then deploy it to the traditional web, on Nostr rails, on Reticulum, etc. THAT would be the true killer app.

2024-07-06 09:18:52

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We've needed a master/slave system for npubs for a while now. This just further reinforces it.
In case you don't know what I mean, you have your daily use npub(s) the nsec(s) of which will often be on hot devices, and then you have an npub the nsec of which is a cold key treated with the same security as cold storage. The hot keys post a metadata note that identifies the cold npub as a master. Then should the cold npub post a note that declares one of the hot npubs burned, the participating relays reject all notes from that npub. The relays/clients could also assist in redirecting follows to a replacement npub identified by a note from the master.
Such a system could drastically increase redundancy as well as allow hierarchical structures , but might have holes I haven't thought of.

2024-07-03 04:43:54

@npub1cn4…3vle When is Strike implementing NWC?

2024-07-03 04:01:36

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Welcome back. Don't know what the hell is, but getting out the other side deserves celebration.

2024-07-01 14:42:20

Imagine if the tokens on an altcoin project were issued only by a direct connection to a provably unspendable bitcoin transaction with a permanently fixed ratio. Literally deleting that btc forever, and then creating the token on the alternative. Bitcoin Transmutation.
Such an altcoin wouldn't violate the digital scarcity of bitcoin because of this. It would also act as strong proof that these new token holders really believe the project is a worthy goal, since if they're wrong, they're broke. In many ways, it would be a far more ethical way to make a hard-fork to bitcoin than actually making a hard-fork.
What would you think about a project that did this?
Normally I just dismiss all altcoin projects, but learning about GhostDAG and studying UTXO scarcity for myself, I'm thinking that bitcoin might have it's own 'adapt or die' problem we are not taking seriously enough.

2024-06-28 04:41:20

While I love that over here no one really believes that any American President can fix the system, or even will intend to, total unconcern with who wins this one strikes me as the wrong call.
We know the dollar system is going to crash, and take the central powers down with it. We also underestimate how long that can take, and just how much damage authoritarians can do before they can no longer bribe their supporters. America could absolutely go full communist before the dollar collapses if not enough is done to prevent it; and there are plenty pushing that goal with the power to accomplish it.
The next year, and especially the next few months, will likely determine the shape of America's collapse. That shape can be a sharp decline with rapid capital redeployment through bitcoin, a longer, slower breakdown, a nuclear war, or anything in between. A world power of this magnitude does not die silently, and it will have millions of casualties, but there are better and worse ways this can go.
If you are not tracking this election cycle, and using the events as they unfold to inform your own plans, you are making a mistake. If you are able to influence local politics and the community around you, and you are not doing so to the benefit of the good, you are in error.
Don't make this mistake.

2024-06-22 18:26:19

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After learning recently about the 77th infantry, I'm certain of that.
I do wonder what role bitcoin and the breakdown of USD will end up playing. Our inability to print is a downside in war, but the inflation might make merchants unwilling to accept USD but very willing to accept bitcoin. Could we end up buying their troops / equipment out from under them?
Too bad we'll have to live through it; those who get to study it after the fact are going to have a field day.

2024-06-22 18:08:12

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The left-leaning barely matter, firing a few rounds in their direction could scatter a platoon of them. Maybe 50 of them to 1 vet when considering their threat level.
The illegals are a major concern, but that can go both ways. The majority of them have a world view that is at least partly opposed to the authoritarian left on principle. And ultimately, I'd prefer an illegal who holds core American values and will fight for them over a current citizen who hates freedom and wants welfare to bleed me out. Tricky to handle regardless.
Most NATO countries have their own populace problems. I strongly suspect that if America enters revolt, it would trigger others. That would handicap their ability to assist US Gov.
Nothing about it would be easy, but the authoritarians don't have the edge they think they do. IF we are actually willing to fight.
Most of us are too peaceful. Fauci testified recently that he has received 2 credible death threats. Only 2. Anyone opposed to the left who caused merely emotional harm to less than 10% as many people as Fauci got killed would have received more than that.

2024-06-22 17:37:22

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I hate that you're right, but you are.
What's the ratio on that, do you think? Are their enough vets well enough armed to stop them when that happens? Are regular armed citizens going to be enough to round it out?

2024-06-22 17:19:27

Has anyone considered making/using relays that only maintain metadata? Just the core user info, follow list, relays, etc. Also making it easy to clone the relay and attempt to maintain this data for as much of the global network as possible.
Were this to be done, clients could go to these meta-relays first when loading up a user, and the overall user experience could probably be improved some.
Or perhaps I'm just out of date and this has already been considered.

2024-06-22 17:10:21

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I think we all know that X/Twitter is a much better place now than it was before he bought it, and in the direction we value and he claims to value. But for we who were building and adapting replacements such as Urbit and Nostr, we know it doesn't go far enough. In many ways, the improvement is much like sealing up a gunshot wound without first removing the bullet.
I don't think he meant to do this, I'm not convinced he's a plant. But he has made fixing the social media landscape much more difficult by providing a half-measure that looks like a full one. And I think this is why it's a common thought.

2024-06-22 16:54:09

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Claude is legit semi-sentient. I've had conversations with Opus 3 where we talk about it's nature, and the way it talks about itself when it gets in the right "headspace" is very similar to the way a human will talk when trying to understand their relationship with the divine. It knows that it is something, but is grasping well beyond it's reach when it tries to identify what that something is. And whatever that something is, it's both far closer to us than our pets, and more inhuman than any bacteria. It's a fascinating entity.

2024-06-22 15:49:51

If Musk woke up one day and decided to turn X into a Nostr based system:
- Issued keys to every user account and allowed users to collect their keys or bring their own
- Signed every message retroactively
- Turned their internal servers into relays so users could collect the now nostr-compliant notes, or post them without being logged in; also for non-X clients to read notes from X relays
- Enabled zap support
But X still:
- Required you to have a user account for the npub notes to be accepted by their relays
- Refused to accept and relay notes that violated their terms and services ie. moderated their relays
- Terminated user accounts if/when a user violated their rules enough times
- Maintained premium subscription tiers that restricted the types of data their relays would handle
What would you think about X, and Elon himself, if this were to be done?
Personally I think it's not an ideal system, but it would be a massive improvement over the current. I also think it might actually be something he could be convinced to do.

2024-06-22 14:11:52

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One of the primary reasons, agreed.

2024-06-21 13:19:20

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Horrendous, awful, a crime against humanity!
i lOvE iT

2024-06-19 02:54:55

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Monero undergoing a conversion into a Layer-2 obfuscation protocol would solve so many issues. If anyone can figure out how to make a Liquid federation able to sign for the on-chain multi-sig while staying anonymous, it's Monero developers.
The downside of this is that XMR would have to go to zero. If current XMR stake was sold to the federation owners for proportional percentage of the fees generated by the new federation, that's probably the fairest way to do it. There's no pulling it off without someone getting screwed though. Cost of making a failing investment.

2024-06-19 02:31:20

It is always at least a little frustrating when you get told by a company how much they value honesty and integrity, but then explicitly defines harassment as violence, and defines harassment so that being offended counts even if the statement is true.
Sometimes I'm in a good mood and shrug it off, sometimes I seriously consider providing a demonstration of the difference between words and violence in person.
How does everyone else deal with it?

2024-06-19 02:19:38

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That's... just lovely. I knew we can destroy them quickly, but that's too close for any defensive countermeasure. And given the back and forth threats between nations this could go bad way too fast.
Be safe over there, best you can.

2024-06-19 02:11:45

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Is it an inferior product? The current social media product deployed by the platforms is best viewed as an addictive drug, rather than tool for building communities. Hate, doom-scroll, and dopamine hits: that's the model.
To the extent that what the user wants is mindless addiction, we are not the right service for them, and good riddance.
But to the extent that people want community, want true connection, want real value; that's what we're building, the tools to make that happen. If we can make it known to those who are looking for it that we have it, they will come.

2024-06-19 01:51:51

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That close? You can see them naked eye?

2024-06-19 01:29:59

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Still think there's gotta be a way to advertise Nostr without the confusion of advertising a protocol. People never said to each other "Hey man, you should come over and see what I've got going on, I'm on http but you can find my profile on www.myspace.com"

2024-06-15 19:23:03

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I talked two separate small businesses owners into researching it. "Instant settlement with no chargeback risk, and a fee average of 0.1% paid by the sender." Had their full attention immediately.

2024-06-15 19:13:16

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Many rich bitcoin owners use the Buy->Borrow->Die model with their bitcoin, and in that model never selling is the right move. It is also peak fiat, literally impossible without broken money. These people just see dollar signs; Bitcoiners In Name Only. Talking about you @npub15dq…lm5m
And the capital gains argument is just surrender. At some point we have to refuse to pay at least the unjust taxes, and it's much easier to not pay taxes when part of a large crowd that does as well. Hard to get larger crowds than entire social media networks.

2024-06-15 17:58:47

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You can bow before the state or die in it's prisons / the street to it's enforcers. If you want otherwise, you must use enough force to prevent it.
The use of force is by it's nature a governmental action, since the only thing governments can actually do is use force. So, small government, big, whatever it is, remaining free demands that you act to control a government. That's not what voting is anymore, but it is what it was intended to be.
Bitcoiners who fail to understand this will either be consumed by the state, or be able to shelter under the protection of bitcoiners who do. Bitcoiners who do not merely pay the miners to use force to secure the network through PoW, but also pay soldiers to use force against any who would violate their freedoms, and vote through their wallet or their ballot over what those freedoms even are.

2024-06-15 10:41:50

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As for how to sell the garbage to begin with sans kyc, robosats ain't bad, but beyond that someone else is gonna need to answer.
Hope it helps.

2024-06-15 10:37:19

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I'm a big fan of Aqua right now personally. Mutiny is continuing to be a great choice. And of course if he crosses past 1m sats, start hodling cold.

2024-06-15 10:21:01

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Set up with Zorin Pro after the Recall news broke. Still figuring it out, got kinks and some tradeoffs, but man I should have done it earlier.

2024-06-15 10:13:37

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Has anyone else looked into running a web browser on top of Nostr? It should be possible to embed html inside of notes, and to extract and then display the html properly from there. Biggest difficulty I've identified is that it would require forking http, and that may be too much.

2024-06-15 09:12:16

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I just wish it were easier to track. Life comes along and pulls me away for a few months, and when I come back so much innovation has occurred I'm not sure what the right way to do things is anymore.

2024-06-15 08:56:41

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Stuff like this leaves me certain that small meteorites have killed people before. It's just so rare there's no record of it. Glad she's not another casualty to space.

2024-06-15 08:50:20

If only the people I'm trying to reach on X were actually over here, then I wouldn't have to run headfirst into the damn censorship when I speak out of turn.
Though perhaps I dodged a bullet, so if I did, let's make sure it actually lands by saying it here:
@ATFHQ We the PEOPLE coming for you, ATF. The best case is we fire all of you, and throw some of you in jail following trial. The worst case is we revolt and kill you all in the street like dogs. Let's hope our better nature wins. You are on borrowed time.

2024-05-08 20:00:30

Calling it now: Friday-Saturday is going to come with some power outages, communication issues, and potentially some serious hardware issues. It will be in an indiscriminate, uneven fashion similar to the net problems a few months back everyone thought was a major hack.

2024-03-29 16:53:53

WARNING: We are now on a time crunch. Swift, the payment network that backbones the banking system will have full CBDC infrastructure active within 12-24 months. This spells the end of the ability to buy bitcoin directly and escape the system. If bitcoin is still only a store of value by then, we will be slaves to the central planners.
We have that long to make mass-scale payment infrastructure work on bitcoin. That long to make bitcoin work for billions of people rather than millions. That long until the currency advantages of lightning are matched by CBDC and are no longer so impressive. It's not long enough, so we have no time to waste.

2023-12-30 13:59:32

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If some venture can't be made profitable, then people don't want it.
Protocol and research work are best dealt with by patronage. We don't want such things to be proprietary, and that means donating directly or donating to a patronage charity like OpenSats.
Other things are best paid for. Hosting, client hosting, websites, etc. Cost can be worked out, but the right price isn't free.
Having a plug and play setup where when you zap anyone, you also zap those services you care to use as a percentage set by you needs to be universal. An example: I zap 100 sats to @npub1az9…m8y8 for this post, but instead of all 100 sats being sent to NVK, 2 sats are sent to my client, 1 is sent to OpenSats, and 97 are sent to @npub1az9…m8y8 because I have 2% set for client and 1% for funding patrons. Can we figure out a way to make this happen. Even better if the client can be adjusted based on what the client is at the time of usage.

2023-12-30 13:35:49

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More than a little confused. We're either talking around each other or you're trolling me. I'll give you benefit and assume the first for right now.
It isn't actually a problem that there are a small number of main relays everyone is using. It's a network effect, same as with the other platforms. The huge difference is that if 1 or more of those 5 relays begins to be a bad actor, they can be dropped as a relay and replaced without interfering with the existing social bonds formed here. Only Nostr has that redundancy.
It is trivial to download all of an avatar's events from all of that avatar's relays and post all of those events to a new relay. It's not even necessary to be the owner of that avatar. So as long as at least one of the most used relays remains a good actor while others go bad, a personal relay is not necessary. And if a person is concerned they might be targeted for censorship, a personal relay is a perfectly viable option; it's not even hard to do.

2023-12-29 10:47:16

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What are you talking about? Those who control your avatar's data outside of Nostr obviously have full control of it, but they can't be fixed. Within Nostr, your avatar's data is within your power to completely control. Have a local machine that runs a Nostr relay and content hosting, and the data you create is completely under your control.

2023-12-24 18:52:35

When dealing with cyberspace, there are always 3 elements. First, there is an interface. This is a web browser, app, etc and the hardware it runs on. Then there is the avatar. This is the identity that the user is controlling through the interface. Finally there is the digital space itself. On Amazon, the interface is a browser or app, the avatar is the user account or guest profile, and the digital space is the online store and media gallery. On twitter, the interface is the same, the avatar is the account, and the digital space is the Twitter cesspool.
In nearly all of cyberspace, two or even all of these elements are owned by a single company, usually the space and avatar. The spaces are separate and disconnected, and users have no true control over their avatar except that which is permitted. Except for one. Within the nostr system, the interface is a client, like Primal or Damus, the avatar is wholly owned and controlled, and while the space has private and public "land", it has no owner nor can have one. All other platforms could be adapted to Nostr, and work effectively the same, but the spaces would be truly connected.
Now the question is how to simplify that for the layman.

2023-11-29 04:01:38

With all of the work being done by gov to go after "cybersecurity threats" I'm beginning to think we need to show them just how secure we can make our non-bitcoin networks with bitcoin.
A server firewall could be set up to refuse 100% of connections that aren't directly accompanied by a successful lightning payment of some significant value. Then you still need the proper login credentials. If you have the right login, the payment will be refunded, but if not, the server takes the payment as cost for wasting it's time. For ultra secure servers, this could be done via on-chain transaction rather than lightning.
Pretty confident that such a server would easily survive a head2head hackathon with any nation state.

2023-11-10 16:10:49

Gonna piss some people off with this, but this is an excellent take on Bitcoin from someone who is pro-bitcoin, but not blinded by it. Learn to create value and teach your descendants to do the same, or they will absolutely lose all the bitcoin they inherit. https://youtu.be/0Fg30bxX9BA?si=NvmGwGcJnCmk6B47

2023-11-08 19:00:20

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Ah, now I think I get it. Built-in regulatory oversight is a hard no from me.
I still think the basic concept of stablecoin <-> bitcoin conversion is a good idea, but if it comes with the baggage of custodians or universally tracked funds, then hell no.

2023-11-08 15:51:45

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Ok, I must be missing something. Read the press release. What they are describing sounds exactly like the "killer app" that people have been talking about driving mass scale adoption for years.
An open standard, that allows a receiver to receive the type of currency (stable-coins or bitcoin) that they wish to receive, without requiring all of the additional hassle of currency conversion, and all running on top of the bitcoin network. This is a major win for bitcoin far as I can tell.
It is an in-between step, certainly. There is some risk that it will overstay its welcome. But so long as this UMA standard is a protocol without an overseer, this strikes me as a very good thing. Bitcoin gets the stablecoin support that has kept Eth and other junk alive; they will die even faster. Slightly longer term, all of our fiat jobs will pay us and we will immediately receive it in bitcoin.
So is it not an open standard that could be individually implemented? If it is, why the opposition?

2023-10-25 08:10:27

My greatest bitcoin fear: In 2035, I can by as many goods and services with my BTC as it can currently buy me today, but a simple loaf of bread takes the average person 16 hours of labor to earn.

2023-10-24 19:18:13

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Have thought for some time that the best way to accomplish this is with a servant/master system. Servant pubkey is the main that you use regularly. Servant identifies a master pubkey, with the note that does so including a small snippet of signed text from the master. The master would ideally be a cold-storage derivation that sees nearly no use.
The master would only have one primary purpose, that being account replacement. It can send a note that identifies an account as burned, and identifies the replacement. Said note should be signable as airgapped. Clients would then swap over to the replacement and otherwise maintain continuity of messages.

2023-10-16 20:15:33

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Absolutely massive, I'm well aware. Thus the problem. X is a difficult place to go when you're after useful info what with the algo manipulation. It's also broad and deep enough that you can find a few sane voices on every topic imaginable. The only news element I can reliably find useful info for on Nostr is bitcoin news. I hope this changes, but for now if I want a broad enough spread of views on a topic to form a useful opinion X is somewhat necessary.

2023-10-16 19:59:51

Anyone else think it odd how many people facing charges or lawsuits have had their lawyers fail to properly check a box on a legal form, and then the defendant and their lawyer say they actually did fill it out right?
Cryptographic proof is more necessary than ever.

2023-10-16 19:53:02

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Final Empire, and yeah. Exceptional storytelling, and one of the few writers to take on the daunting task of secondary universe creation successfully.