Nostr notes by djinoz & √-1 others

Small quibble: s/2025/2026/

2026-02-11T19:00:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…yluh
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Small quibble:

s/2025/2026/

Agree with the frame. Outperform: no. Maybe only on cost of which ...

2026-02-11T10:17:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…ptfg
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Agree with the frame.
Outperform: no. Maybe only on cost of which is minimal unless you have huge text jobs.
Note: that view is cos I've only been able to run local models less than 14b. They can't be main agent cos their tool handling is poor so relegates them to text tasks in a sub-agent which I find the spawning /results process seems slow. I guess they are useful for @alias style tasks (summary etc) but I think if I get a better box then something like llama3.3:70b would be a game changer.

(I use gem2.5/3 flash as the agent routing to these subs but now I'll drop back to haiku for cost reasons)

s/quite/quiet/

2026-02-02T05:08:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…k632
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s/quite/quiet/

yeah this is why I popped back into nostr, it seemed obvious that ...

2026-02-02T05:07:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…m2kv
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yeah this is why I popped back into nostr, it seemed obvious that there should be some moltbot traction here, but I'm surprised its quite (I have only been searching for 5 mins so YMMV).

cheers, have passed to Dominic. As always with these 2-sided ...

2026-01-23T03:55:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…td66
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cheers, have passed to Dominic. As always with these 2-sided market plays, the tech is the easy bit.

Amazfit Active 2 is a good size and 10 days battery. Much better ...

2025-12-01T09:34:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…87jc
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Amazfit Active 2 is a good size and 10 days battery. Much better than ild Galaxy watch that just tried to do too much.

btw I just saw langchain is still getting funding so might be ...

2025-10-29T23:46:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…7fnx
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btw I just saw langchain is still getting funding so might be good alternative plumbing to mcp or what Gzuuus (nprofile…psfv) is doing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjIlj4OAECQ

this is great and am surprised something is not already out ...

2025-10-25T23:12:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…af5x
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this is great and am surprised something is not already out there.

I'm gonna make a "woo" suggestion. In stages there are certain agent attributes you really want. i.e in hand-crafted json I might declare "creativity": 80%. In the coding phase commitment to security might be "defensibility": high. In the QA Agent rigour may be "adversarial": 50%

I watched Interstellar again last night and Cooper keeps adjusting Tars' humour settings (probably the only comic relief in the movie) - so agents need a disposition. Its easy to specify directly into the DSL but how you encourage humans to prompt that consistently might not be so easy. I guess if the workflow designer was conversational...

Darwin award

2025-10-25T08:44:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…thxc
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Darwin award

Can a fairytale skool me on better interactions? (also for fans ...

2025-10-25T06:06:53Z

Can a fairytale skool me on better interactions? (also for fans of Hegel, Vervaeke and of course taichi)

quoting
naddr1qv…tg37

The Beast's Yield: Opponent Processing in an Ancient Tale

This post continues exploring opponent processing and tensegrity from the previous post. If you've arrived midway through this tensegrity series, the core idea: opposing forces—compression and tension—can create structure rather than just conflict. From this, something magical (or dare I say "sacred") happens.

Once upon a time in a far off land before cinema multiplexes and Disney channel lived a humble folktale. A father picks a rose from an enchanted garden. The Beast who owns it demands one of his daughters come live with him as punishment. The youngest (Beauty) acquiesces to honour and protect her father, then finds herself treated with unexpected generosity alongside the Beast's fearsome nature. She gradually comes to care for him, and when she confesses love, the Beast dies to his old form and a prince emerges. Multiple versions here.

Context first: Yes, Beauty and the Beast has been interpreted as hoodwinking young girls into marrying older, monied men (Whose visage has devolved along with the battles of worldly commerce into something beastly). Yes, it may derive from the Roman myth of Psyche and Cupid.[1] These readings do matter, but, the narrative mechanics encode how an adversarial (opponent) setting creates structure for an outcome that is better for all (transcending game mechanics[2].

The Setup

The Beast demonstrates violence and malevolence. He demands— the ownership of Beauty as retribution, he "compresses" her purity with rigid dominance in the cage of his house. The maiden (youngest of three, the purity figure) accepts her imprisonment with vulnerability. But not submission.

The Critical Phase

Beauty and Beast exist in apparent opposition - two dissimilar forces held in a tension.

Over time, the Beast shows generosity—not replacing his beastly overbearing nature but alongside it.

Crucially, they meet daily, talk daily. This isn't passive coexistence; it's sustained engagement. She finds something to love, possibly unconsciously sensing the "prince trapped within." This is key: she doesn't love despite the beast. She loves through him, maintaining tension while perceiving what's compressed inside.

NOTE: Beauty's yielding is not complete submission (collapse), nor is the Beast overbearing, domineering (compression) or exploitative; there is an honourable tensegrity between the protagonists.

The Structural Shift

The Beast "lies down"—explicitly stops forcing the structure. Until now, the spell (surface appearance) was maintained by his rigid enmity but no longer, he too shows vulnerability. Her confession of love acknowledges that their tension created something real. His death-to-old-nature releases the over-bearing grip (compression). The prince emerges not as a third thing but as what was always there when forces properly balanced.

This follows the Hegelian dialectic: the Beast (thesis) and Beauty's resistance (antithesis) don't just compromise or cancel out. Through sustained engagement, they produce a synthesis—the prince and transformed relationship. Neither the original Beast nor the maiden-under-duress remains. Something genuinely new emerges from the opposition.

The magic is that the two created conditions for the prince via their good will, persistence, fortitude and a an attention to what lie beneath surface appearances.

This is a sacred act conjured by both.

Why This Pattern Persists

Stories that encode opponent-process dynamics—where opposing forces create rather than destroy structure—survive across millennia because they map onto lived experience. The same pattern appears (from my earlier prefacing posts) in Taiji's lu (rollback), in tensegrity structures, in how yielding can be strength.

Tensegrity is the perfect balance point of opposing forces. In push hands, the capacity for deep and sensitive ting (listening) is the highest calling—not because it's passive, but because it creates the conditions for synthesis. You can only find the balance point if you're genuinely feeling the other force. You can only yield effectively if you're truly listening to where the compression pushes. You can only listen if you calm your nervous system and mind.

Imagine how frightened a young Beauty would be trapped in a Beast's house. She is operating at some high level of meditative stillness to not freak out completely.

The Constraint That Creates

Notice what happens during the critical phase: Beauty and the Beast spend constrained but deliberate time together. Their relationship after lunch is an "arena" for dialogue and company—dynamic opponent processing in real time.

She[3] doesn't run, hide, dismiss, ghost or strawman him ("he's just a filthy beast"). He doesn't force compliance. They engage in good faith without collapsing their own true natures.

What's the point of all this waffle?

This post may be too far "into the weeds" for the average 2025 attention span, but I do think we have an opportunity to directly experience a sacred process in a very normal (and therefore taken-for-granted) everyday way. Work on ourselves and work with others. For example....

Self-Work and Transformation

Ok, don't roll your eyes, I know Jung is some old codger psychologist to most people, but if you ever get a chance take a look at his "The Red Book", to my eyes is a monumental work of self Opponent Processing. The book documents his intense personal and spiritual journey of confronting the unconscious and clearly qualifies him as a fully qualified mystic.

Through a Jungian lens, this folktale maps onto internal integration as much as external relationships:

The Beast represents masculine consciousness encountering its own anima—the feminine principle compressed within.

Beauty's willingness to see the prince "encapsulated within" mirrors the work every psyche must do: recognising and befriending the parts of ourselves that don't match our surface.

Specifically as an internal work:

The daily dialogue isn't just between two people but between conscious ego and inner opposite.

When the Beast "lies down," it's the masculine principle yielding to its own feminine aspect, allowing what was always internal to emerge.

The synthesis isn't man-meets-woman but psyche-meets-itself, the animus/anima integration that Jung saw as essential to wholeness.

The spell that locks the prince in beast-form is the rigidity that refuses this recognition—the masculine consciousness that can't acknowledge its own receptive, feeling dimension until met with persistent, unflinching feminine presence.

Transformation requires both the strength that demands and the willingness to yield. The beast who never lies down remains monstrous. The maiden who collapses finds no prince. The tension between them is what makes emergence possible.

Your meditation practice

For many of us, meditation might be 15 minutes of thinking and thinking denial and scolding ourselves for thinking. Those are the brave ones. Most people say some variation of "it doesn't work for them", "don't have enough time" or more honestly "its a waste of time".

So you can see that the voice in your head is an admirable opponent for some opponent-processing. We know this voice can make ANYTHING up, it can make me care deeply and emotionally and neurotically about that thought, then 5 minutes later commence torture with another thought.

Thank goodness for distractions of children and family and career, that will keep the voice on less difficult monologs!

So to sit in meditation and resolve to be with the voice and set it aside, let it go is a worthy opponent processing opportunity. There is a tensegrity balance where lots of energy is created and that is when the meditation practice gets very interesting.

Modern Discourse

This is the mechanism modern discourse lacks. The dialectic requires presence—actual time spent with the opposition, not caricatures of it. The ad hominem is lazy. The bad-faith debate is a refusal to sit at the table. The transformative third only emerges when both parties maintain tension while actually engaging - sustained, uncomfortable proximity of genuine opponent processing.

We can start with this kind of opponent processing with our partner/spouse, our close colleagues. Pretty much any person you don't agree with.

Caveat: Maybe don't start with social media, the chance of getting good faith engagement on X would be low. It takes a very high level adept or a sociapath to opponent process here - and only one of those is seeking tensegrity.

We want shortcuts. We want to skip the dinners. But the structure only emerges from the tension, and the tension only works when both sides show up.

Exemplars for our children

Our screen culture overrides good parenting to teach children to be: self-centered, triggered, overly dramatic, combative - where are the exemplars of these finer human qualities? Perhaps I should watch Disney channel more?

I fear that "mindfullness" taught in schools and apps largely has a victim mindset applied to calm down "out of the arena"[[4]](#fn4). We all need training that allows us good faith when engaging with others that we may not agree with (or even the voices in our own head!).

This is part of a series exploring tensegrity, opponent processing, and how structures emerge from opposition. See the links at the top to others in the series.

The tale is traceable to Indo-European roots 2,500-6,000 years old—possibly present in the last common ancestor of Western Indo-European languages. ↩︎

More about this in a later post, but checkout the evolutionary eventuality of dominance in Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander. ↩︎

Beauty's virginal purity lacks the malevolence to behave towards her capture but diminishes her no less. Malevolence is something that the world infects us with over time. As with Cinderella its no coincidence that the youngest is the protagonist.

This comes from "Agent and Arena" afaik from Ep7 of Vervaeke's "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" series as a concept of embodied cognition. Previous posts

A modern folktale #naddr1qq…ju7z

2025-10-24T09:25:48Z

A modern folktale

quoting
naddr1qq…ju7z

Once there was a filmmaker who built labyrinths of time and memory. While his peers reached for enchanted mirrors that could conjure any world with whispered commands, he insisted on grinding his own glass.

“Why paint with light,” he said, “when you can capture it?”

They laughed. “Look how fast we work! Our magic boxes dream entire universes while we sleep.”

He only smiled and loaded another reel of film—70 millimeters wide, each frame a universe of silver halide crystals waiting to ensnare photons into art.

“Your boxes dream their dreams. Mine are vision, sweat, and providence.”

He blew up real buildings. Crashed real planes. Spun real corridors on real gimbals while real actors tumbled through real space. He calculated trajectories with pencil and paper, cut film with razor blades, shunned algorithmic grasp for human hands.

The enchanted mirrors grew more powerful, more seductive. They could do anything now—resurrect the dead, paint impossible physics, smooth every wrinkle reality dared to show.

When his characters fell, you felt the gravity. When his film burned, you saw real flames consuming real celluloid, frame by frame.

But I still don’t understand Tenet.

Forget t-shirts. New market sectors opening up.

2025-10-24T07:59:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…s443
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Forget t-shirts. New market sectors opening up.

Claude says: I'll help clarify what the Bible says about ...

2025-10-22T09:02:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…5eq7
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Claude says:
I'll help clarify what the Bible says about usury.

**Usury** in biblical terms refers to charging interest on loans, particularly to the poor.

**Old Testament:**
- **Exodus 22:25** - Prohibits charging interest to poor Israelites
- **Leviticus 25:35-37** - Forbids taking interest from fellow Israelites in need
- **Deuteronomy 23:19-20** - No interest on loans to fellow Israelites, but allowed for foreigners
- **Ezekiel 18:8, 13** - Condemns charging interest as wicked

**New Testament:**
- **Luke 6:35** - "Lend, expecting nothing in return"
- Less explicit prohibition, more emphasis on generosity

**Historical interpretation:**
The prohibition was primarily about exploiting the poor, not commercial lending. Medieval Christianity banned all interest-charging, but this evolved as economies became more complex. Modern interpretations often distinguish between:
- **Exploitative lending** (what the Bible condemns)
- **Fair interest** for commercial purposes

Islamic finance still maintains strict usury (riba) prohibitions today.

A couple or us were having a conversation about this the other ...

2025-10-18T00:53:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…qrem
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A couple or us were having a conversation about this the other day.
I've been in social since 2008 don't visit Twitter much since covid-v2 - so I don't play too much with "nostr the social" for the reasons you mentioned.

The thread was along the lines that: if nostr can't monetize beyond sat circles jerk then people won't fund relays. So nostr _could_ be great infrastructure for an Application first internet where identity and your reputation is portable between a "nostr airbnb" and a "nostr user" etc. So really using the vibe potential to attack VC funded b2b SaaS hegemony. It's e/acc without the Andreessens.

Nostr is a protocol so nobody needs permission to build whatever they like.

This is already hapoening and what Alex Gleason (nprofile…vdwq) is doing is true leadership. The problem I see now and getting really bad is the lack of curation of hobby projects that are basically broken. Like most OSS its "try 5 before you find the 1 that works". This is where VC funded businesses win. Relentless focus on g2m and onboarding and quality. Nostr needs more QA than developers, Nostr needs a benevolent VP of Product (jk but also serious)

</rant>

I guess the tl;dr might be "nostr the protocol" could be much bigger than the social.

quoting
nevent1q…nn4n
Ignore Frost in the title, I took that bit out (looking forward to playing with my Frostsnap when it arrives.... soon!)

A true shaman. That dunk at 1:50 so good and 3:50 is next level ...

2025-10-17T21:44:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…7qpc
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A true shaman.
That dunk at 1:50 so good and 3:50 is next level genius.
Beautifu liminall stuff, thank you.

Fair enough. I come from startups and it's always "sell ...

2025-10-17T21:36:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…xny5
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Fair enough. I come from startups and it's always "sell the sizzle, not the sausage"
As a tech, I was always getting into the weeds on details so saw a lot of glazed eyes :)

Understanding their threat model helps to find an appropriate ...

2025-10-17T21:28:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…632l
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Understanding their threat model helps to find an appropriate framing. The conversation will likely end the same but you may burn less energy. IIRC GHOST (nprofile…l07j) had a one page on clarifying your own threat model and its super helpful to know where you sit.

I suspect some big problem or reveal on how meta uses WhatsApp will make a seachange but they will logically go to signal. Last time I tried Whitenoise it was a fail.

That's probably how this simulation will end 😀

2025-10-17T20:52:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…0dpt
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That's probably how this simulation will end 😀

and investors. But the nostr system relies on the generosity of ...

2025-10-16T05:50:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…6l5t
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and investors.
But the nostr system relies on the generosity of relay operators who continue to fund the infra (or entities who give grants).
We can hope that their generosity continues because when <0.1% are retained, then usually only 1-10% convert to paid, which means that charity will be needed. Sustainable monetization for relays is needed before the music stops.

Regardless, it's not about worldwide DAUs or MAUs when ...

2025-10-16T05:34:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…ucty
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Regardless, it's not about worldwide DAUs or MAUs when <0.1% 30d retention (chart) of what you can measure. I worked in onboarding/retetnion on mobile, and whilst these reports are probably made up, the numbers matches my experience of what a surviving app needs

https://nudgenow.com/blogs/app-retention-rate-industry-analysis

https://www.tekrevol.com/blogs/app-user-retention-what-it-is-how-to-measure-it-and-strategies/

Ignore Frost in the title, I took that bit out (looking forward ...

2025-10-15T22:51:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…7jzf
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Ignore Frost in the title, I took that bit out (looking forward to playing with my Frostsnap when it arrives.... soon!)

I've drafted a heretical centralized approach that let's ...

2025-10-15T22:22:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…c6mg
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I've drafted a heretical centralized approach that let's the user still be sovereign over their root key

quoting
naddr1qq…p7lg

This is essentially OAuth/OIDC model applied to Nostr keys. It only applies to scenarios where sovereignty is not required. It adds to nostr for use cases that aren't libertarian - lol. So reasonable for enterprise use cases or even teams where centralization within org/project boundaries are acceptable.

I dunno, just an idea.

Main Gotcha

The user's root key remains sovereign so it should be well protected. If it's exploited then the enterprise has to ask the user to rotate. (Outside the scope).

Architecture:

** User root key** - User controls, stays cold

Company key server - Centralized, authoritative for that organization's domain

Derived keys - bip-85 derived from root. Checkout. Registered with "evil centralized key server" via root signature

Heartbeat mechanism - Server publishes via nostr to team relays current valid keys list periodically (e.g., every minute, hour, or event-driven)

Registration flow:

User derives key using BIP-85

Root signs delegation: "Derived key X is authorized for company operations"

Company key server validates root signature, adds to registry

Server begins including X in heartbeat

Revocation flow:

User reports compromise via key-server

UI OR company detects anomaly

Key server removes X from heartbeat immediately

New derived key Y is registered (signed by root)

Next heartbeat only lists Y

App or Client validation:

Receives event signed by derived key X

Checks key server heartbeat: "Is X currently authorized?"

If yes: accept. If no: reject Cache heartbeat with reasonable TTL

Why this works for enterprises:

Fast revocation - No relay propagation delays, single authoritative source

Audit trail - Key server logs all registrations/revocations

Compliance - Company controls authorization, can enforce policies

Scoped trust - Only applies within company context, doesn't affect broader Nostr identity

Hybrid identity:

Same root key for public Nostr (direct signing) and enterprise context (derived keys via key server) Company clients check key server; public clients don't Clean separation of concerns

can you point me at a better source? i get that its a distributed ...

2025-10-15T20:35:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…3wry
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can you point me at a better source? i get that its a distributed system but still taking the top 5-10 relays should be 90% accurate.
(unless there is a massive isolated community or iot project)

Its the early hours of the morning here so, quick thought and can ...

2025-10-15T18:25:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…a67y
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Its the early hours of the morning here so, quick thought and can flesh out later.
1. I was vibing a docusign using nsec signing. Few lazy afternoon sessions and good progress. Docusign market cap $16.5B. I don't need or want to do another startup, let alone a replacement strategy play but a small team could displace chunks of the b2b stack with new economics. Pipedrive disrupted Salesforce. Can a nostr CRM disrupt Pipedrive because trojaning npubs into business is 🔥. But don't talk about nostr, talk about solutions.
2. Rod (nprofile…r2v8) may want to share what he is doing. Another sector with significant incumbent revenues and less friction.
3. The point being, products (not hobbies) first. Monetization is a deliberate act. Jack can code bitchat without concern for monetisation. But that is a byproduct of silicon valley success and mindset. I've built startups outside SV and you have to be pragmatic about monetization.
4. There was an excellent 30023 about a year ago by somebody who tried to build an app using relays as a data store and how slavish commitment to a protocol may be the wrong formfactor for the solution. Maybe some apps just stand on the shoulders of the protocol but aren't prisoners to its original libertarian ideology. It's a protocol so you need zero permission to use it in the way it serves your customers.
5. Shiny objects. Vibing clutters the landscape with broken projects. We need a badge for apps that have a product person and a malevolent tyrannical committed QA function that demands the product serves customers, not the autist hobbyist creator (I'm talking about me of course)

Back to bed.

funny and the boy can code too 😍

2025-10-15T11:17:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…tvu8
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funny and the boy can code too 😍

Good wisdom here!

2025-10-15T11:06:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…7xwf
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Good wisdom here!

I'm very sorry for your loss and hope there is also positive ...

2025-10-15T11:05:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…luhz
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I'm very sorry for your loss and hope there is also positive memories for you and family.

Powerful stuff. I looked up Sowell: "Sowell argues that ...

2025-10-15T10:45:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…3lq5
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Powerful stuff. I looked up Sowell: "Sowell argues that intellectuals, whom he defines as people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas (writers, historians, academics, etc.), usually consider themselves as "anointed", or as endowed with superior intellect or insight with which to guide the masses and those who have authority over them."

I just wrote a post about wisdom practices and Vervaeke has made a study of how self delusion (opposite if wisdom) can be avoided

quoting
naddr1qq…7g0f

In prior posts, we uncovered taichi's rollback (yielding) demonstrates tensegrity in motion—compression and tension creating structure through opposition. But there's a crucial element I left implicit: you can't yield appropriately if you don't know what you're yielding to.

In the last post, I introduced 聽勁 (tīng jìn, listening energy).

There is a drill practice in taichi called Push Hands that teaches what skills can be honed for combat. Two partners maintain constant contact while each attempts to "uproot" the other. It is dynamic tensegrity in action—your compression becomes my tension, my yielding creates your instability.

But it only works if you can sense the incoming force accurately enough to respond with precision rather than panic. Thinking is your enemy here 😬.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOmqsOTn2_w>

Listening: A Simple Exercise

In my first real push hands workshop1, I experienced what it's like to over-react. It's a moment of truth—you see how wired you are to predict what's coming. My nervous system was too "wired" and triggered, my head too busy to listen.

You can try this yourself with a friend:

Get a partner you have a good relationship with

Stand in a push hands stance (see pic below)

Relax and sink—in taichi this is Sōng (鬆), pronounced "Sung" or "Soong"

This starting position is your balance of tensions

Your partner places their hands on your shoulders and gently pushes and withdraws—sinusoidal, wave-like movements, but not fixed speed or depth2

Constraints: (a) Neither of you can move your feet. (b) Don't be silly, its not a competition, its an exercise. (c) bodily rotation, bending forward/back/up/down is allowed. (d) hands should stay in the same place.

Their goal: get you off balance

Your goal: "stick" to their hands, not be uprooted.

The real goal is to feel your nervous system responses to the changes, even if you are not uprooted, you should find the humility to sense when you are just a little off balance because your wern't listening and "sticking".

Switch roles—both of you should try being the pusher. It's immediate feedback on: (a) your ability to listen to your partner rather than letting your head decide what happens next, and (b) your technique of sinking.

Here's a clue: the sensitivity of your feet on the ground is hugely important.

The Nervous System Problem

Here's what happens when you can't listen: someone pushes, your nervous system fires, you jerk backward or brace forward. If they were feinting—testing your response—they withdraw the force and you're suddenly over-extended (gone beyond 70%), locked in a compression pattern with nothing to push against. You've collapsed your own structure.

Axiom: No matter how cool your think you are, your nervous system does not lie.

聽勁 requires a calm enough nervous system and a still enough mind to distinguish between:

A committed push (yang) that you can redirect

A probe (shifting toward yin) that you should absorb without reacting

The moment a push transitions—when their yang becomes yin and your structure can flow into the opening

Fairly quickly, I also experienced tastes of this skill. All the built up experience of Sōng (鬆), yielding and sinking that you repeat over and over again in your form practice and Zhan Zhuang (站桩 standing post exercise). You may realize your arm is locking, in the next moment you can soften or strengthen through the back leg, or you can direct your partner's force through your body into the ground.

Calibration comes from (paradoxically) holding something and its opposite: hot/cold, sweet/bitter, compression/tension, yang/yin.

Tensegrity Requires Perception

In this exercise you are not just in a tensegrity structure—you're actively sensing it through touch (listening). The moment you lose perceptual clarity, the structure degrades. You either:

Match force with force (double compression—both structures fail)

Collapse entirely (tension without compression—no structure)

Over-anticipate and move before the force arrives (your nervous system's guess replaces actual information)

The practice isn't just physical conditioning. It's training your nervous system to stay receptive under pressure, to process opponent information without triggering fight-or-flight reactions that destroy your ability to listen.

The Meditation Gap

Many people assume their meditation practice prepares them for this. It doesn't. Sitting quietly with no adversarial pressure is fundamentally different from maintaining calm while someone actively tries to destabilize you. The nervous system skills don't transfer automatically.

The Form Gap

Similarly, I don't believe (in my limited experience) that just doing the forms—the sequences of taichi—is sufficient. You may be the "agent", but you are faking the "arena" (see below). Shadowboxing and subject to delusion.

Regardless, taichi form practice is the critical underpinning and preparation for this exercise mentioned here.

Beyond Taichi

This gap matters beyond taichi. How many conflicts escalate because someone reacts to a perceived threat that was actually a probe? How many structures collapse because we can't distinguish between committed pressure and testing behaviour?

Tensegrity requires opposition. But opposition requires listening. And listening requires a nervous system calm enough to process information instead of just reacting to stimulation.

John Vervaeke's Opponent Processing:

Now for some theory! Ahem....I'm a fan John's "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" series and his work since. If 50 hours of video is not your thang, then these short summaries are good. My micro-take is: "The axial age gave humanity a bunch of religions that embedded meaning, Nietzsche declared God dead, the post-modernists destroyed all the other sacred cows, capitalism is obsessed with making us slaves to their fiat products culminating with an AGI/ASI God, we are all going to die."

I'm sure your friendly AI chatbot can do better - but anyway, check John's work out!

Cognitive Foundations of 聽勁

Vervaeke's emphasis of relevance realization provides a cognitive science framework for understanding why 聽勁 works. Living organisms face an impossible computational problem: they can't process all available information, so they must constantly zero in on what's relevant while ignoring the vast noise of the world.

<https://youtu.be/H-opRmx6C9c>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AOmqsOTn2_w?si=wm9BxKUpEurD-0-p" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Vervaeke argues organisms solve this through opponent processing—dynamically trading off complementary or antagonistic strategies against each other. The autonomic nervous system provides the clearest example: sympathetic arousal (yang) versus parasympathetic calming (yin) constantly recalibrate against each other to keep you optimally responsive to your environment.

In push hands exercise, you're performing opponent processing in real-time through touch:

Exploiting current information vs. exploring for new information

Committing to a technique vs. remaining adaptable

Matching their force vs. yielding to redirect it

This isn't just about physical technique—it's about achieving what Vervaeke calls an "optimal grip" on the situation. The agent (you) must continuously recalibrate your relationship to the arena (your partner's force structure) by playing different strategies against each other.

As Wisdom Practice

聽勁 is the embodied practice of relevance realization under adversarial pressure. Your nervous system must stay calm enough to distinguish signal from noise, to sense which aspect of the incoming force is relevant to your response, and to avoid the combinatorial explosion of overthinking while someone is actively trying to uproot you.

Applied in the world

In case it's not obvious, the "wisdom" we seek is how we engage with others in life—we can listen, yield, and push when appropriate. "Uprooted" is when you are triggered, flustered, reactive to the degree that the engagement fails. It's everywhere. Any visit to X shows, in a few minutes, tribes beating on each other in a force-meets-force manner. The question is: do I want to be more skilled than that?

Get off the cushion

The meditation gap becomes clearer here: seated practice doesn't train you to perform opponent processing while being an agent in the arena. It doesn't teach your nervous system to "calm-down" (maintain perceptual clarity) while someone exploits your reactions.

Footnotes

I have only introductory push hands experience but the simple exercise is the shizz for an honest introduction to your nervous system. WRT push hands, as my experience grows I might retract some of what I wrote here 🙏. ↩

The partner could try to keep pushing on you, but they will eventually overextend if you can yield enough or rotate (it's a longer conversation...) ↩

I'm not qualified to say, but I suspect Push Hands (being from an "internal martial art) uses sensitivity and awareness moreso than something like BJJ which seems to be more applied strategies. Of course I agree you can find these principles of "not freaking out" in any martial arts, but the goal for me is to describe wisdom practices rather than advocate martial arts training. You can also, draw a picture, go surfing or drink a cup of tea to practice relevance realization.↩

That absolutely works for kind 1. But for 30023 I tried a few ...

2025-10-15T10:33:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…rujs
_________________________

That absolutely works for kind 1.
But for 30023 I tried a few variants that didn't work for me. Was editing with primal and it kept adding back garbage. Tried yakkihone and it works but coracle and primal don't render.
Client consistency is a mess. 🤷

Agree - I was in startup onboarding and retention and these stats ...

2025-10-15T10:23:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…lmpt
_________________________

Agree - I was in startup onboarding and retention and these stats are not a good look. Nostr may be a protocol first but users need to see products first and great product people and iron fisted QA.

quoting
nevent1q…50w8
ayye, theres the rub

ref: https://stats.nostr.band/#retention_curves

ayye, theres the rub ...

2025-10-15T06:48:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…n5qa
_________________________

ayye, theres the rub

ref: https://stats.nostr.band/#retention_curves

I might be branded a cowardly paperhanded turncoat, but I vibed a ...

2025-10-15T06:45:42Z

I might be branded a cowardly paperhanded turncoat, but I vibed a nostr article to substack publisher. The script by default prepends a message "originally on nostr" that clicks back to nostr via njump.me or your custom method. Seems to work except for animated gifs and footnotes (so far).

The prepend may just bring some traffic or at least raise awareness.

https://github.com/djinoz/NostrToSubstackPublisher

"targeted at the C language, so much too rich for my ...

2025-10-15T06:38:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…m2t4
_________________________

"targeted at the C language, so much too rich for my blood" 😂.
I used manually mem page on 80286's, not fun. I hope that has gone away now.

thanks @nprofile…deta but markdown itself doesn't seem to ...

2025-10-15T06:24:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…xwzz
_________________________

thanks hal (nprofile…deta) but markdown itself doesn't seem to support any syntax for an embed, it has a dodgy [![IMAGE ALT TEXT HERE]( )](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID_HERE) which navigates to the video URL, not good.
I guess what you are saying is to use markdown's support for html and then use the iframe tag and hope the client doesn't strip it. Its kinda sad that it works everywhere with kind 0 but not 30023.

@nprofile…deta do you have any solution or guidance on this ...

2025-10-15T06:09:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…f9dy
_________________________

hal (nprofile…deta) do you have any solution or guidance on this question?

yep, I assumed opensats support Will and Primal, didn't know ...

2025-10-15T06:04:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…tkrx
_________________________

yep, I assumed opensats support Will and Primal, didn't know its a mill for only ~16K DAUs 😬. True decentralization requires either forcing distribution (e.g btc nodes but not miners) or accepting that it's "decentralization theater".
SMTP decentralized long enough on ISP and corporate gateways (running shitty 80286 hand-me-down boxes) until hotmail/gmail figured out the business model (hint: users are the product). Now smtp is a cartel (see Lopp's essay).
As long as nostr relies on social it will need a discovery/coldstart/onboarding sugar-daddy (or 5 as Alex says) but B2B/B2C communities/apps COULD monetize their infra.

yep thats my preferred client :)

2025-10-15T04:48:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…udkn
_________________________

yep thats my preferred client :)

I think you'll enjoy the pasted comment, is he your evil ...

2025-10-15T04:46:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…pn03
_________________________

I think you'll enjoy the pasted comment, is he your evil twin? (I'm the "bro" that he was responding to).

The ironic thing was....conversation was on substack. 😂

I havn't bothered to reply yet, but couldn't comprehend the monetization comment.

Sure, I pay money for filter.nostr.wine, I pay money to someclients, I zapped a vibed song today.... so he is correct that there are no ads to pay for me using the protocol and agree paid relays are inevitable for those who stay.
(onboarding relays must be free).

Is it possible to embed youtube vids in kind 30023 ? the iframe ...

2025-10-15T04:33:32Z

Is it possible to embed youtube vids in kind 30023 ? the iframe works on some other clients but not primal

#asknostr <== that never works - prove me wrong 😬

quoting
naddr1qv…ffda

In prior posts, we uncovered taichi's rollback (yielding) demonstrates tensegrity in motion—compression and tension creating structure through opposition. But there's a crucial element I left implicit: you can't yield appropriately if you don't know what you're yielding to.

In the last post, I introduced 聽勁 (tīng jìn, listening energy).

There is a drill practice in taichi called Push Hands that teaches what skills can be honed for combat. Two partners maintain constant contact while each attempts to "uproot" the other. It is dynamic tensegrity in action—your compression becomes my tension, my yielding creates your instability.

But it only works if you can sense the incoming force accurately enough to respond with precision rather than panic. Thinking is your enemy here 😬.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOmqsOTn2_w>

Listening: A Simple Exercise

In my first real push hands workshop1, I experienced what it's like to over-react. It's a moment of truth—you see how wired you are to predict what's coming. My nervous system was too "wired" and triggered, my head too busy to listen.

You can try this yourself with a friend:

Get a partner you have a good relationship with

Stand in a push hands stance (see pic below)

Relax and sink—in taichi this is Sōng (鬆), pronounced "Sung" or "Soong"

This starting position is your balance of tensions

Your partner places their hands on your shoulders and gently pushes and withdraws—sinusoidal, wave-like movements, but not fixed speed or depth2

Constraints: (a) Neither of you can move your feet. (b) Don't be silly, its not a competition, its an exercise. (c) bodily rotation, bending forward/back/up/down is allowed. (d) hands should stay in the same place.

Their goal: get you off balance

Your goal: "stick" to their hands, not be uprooted.

The real goal is to feel your nervous system responses to the changes, even if you are not uprooted, you should find the humility to sense when you are just a little off balance because your wern't listening and "sticking".

Switch roles—both of you should try being the pusher. It's immediate feedback on: (a) your ability to listen to your partner rather than letting your head decide what happens next, and (b) your technique of sinking.

Here's a clue: the sensitivity of your feet on the ground is hugely important.

The Nervous System Problem

Here's what happens when you can't listen: someone pushes, your nervous system fires, you jerk backward or brace forward. If they were feinting—testing your response—they withdraw the force and you're suddenly over-extended (gone beyond 70%), locked in a compression pattern with nothing to push against. You've collapsed your own structure.

Axiom: No matter how cool your think you are, your nervous system does not lie.

聽勁 requires a calm enough nervous system and a still enough mind to distinguish between:

A committed push (yang) that you can redirect

A probe (shifting toward yin) that you should absorb without reacting

The moment a push transitions—when their yang becomes yin and your structure can flow into the opening

Fairly quickly, I also experienced tastes of this skill. All the built up experience of Sōng (鬆), yielding and sinking that you repeat over and over again in your form practice and Zhan Zhuang (站桩 standing post exercise). You may realize your arm is locking, in the next moment you can soften or strengthen through the back leg, or you can direct your partner's force through your body into the ground.

Calibration comes from (paradoxically) holding something and its opposite: hot/cold, sweet/bitter, compression/tension, yang/yin.

Tensegrity Requires Perception

In this exercise you are not just in a tensegrity structure—you're actively sensing it through touch (listening). The moment you lose perceptual clarity, the structure degrades. You either:

Match force with force (double compression—both structures fail)

Collapse entirely (tension without compression—no structure)

Over-anticipate and move before the force arrives (your nervous system's guess replaces actual information)

The practice isn't just physical conditioning. It's training your nervous system to stay receptive under pressure, to process opponent information without triggering fight-or-flight reactions that destroy your ability to listen.

The Meditation Gap

Many people assume their meditation practice prepares them for this. It doesn't. Sitting quietly with no adversarial pressure is fundamentally different from maintaining calm while someone actively tries to destabilize you. The nervous system skills don't transfer automatically.

The Form Gap

Similarly, I don't believe (in my limited experience) that just doing the forms—the sequences of taichi—is sufficient. You may be the "agent", but you are faking the "arena" (see below). Shadowboxing and subject to delusion.

Regardless, taichi form practice is the critical underpinning and preparation for this exercise mentioned here.

Beyond Taichi

This gap matters beyond taichi. How many conflicts escalate because someone reacts to a perceived threat that was actually a probe? How many structures collapse because we can't distinguish between committed pressure and testing behaviour?

Tensegrity requires opposition. But opposition requires listening. And listening requires a nervous system calm enough to process information instead of just reacting to stimulation.

John Vervaeke's Opponent Processing:

Now for some theory! Ahem....I'm a fan John's "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" series and his work since. If 50 hours of video is not your thang, then these short summaries are good. My micro-take is: "The axial age gave humanity a bunch of religions that embedded meaning, Nietzsche declared God dead, the post-modernists destroyed all the other sacred cows, capitalism is obsessed with making us slaves to their fiat products culminating with an AGI/ASI God, we are all going to die."

I'm sure your friendly AI chatbot can do better - but anyway, check John's work out!

Cognitive Foundations of 聽勁

Vervaeke's emphasis of relevance realization provides a cognitive science framework for understanding why 聽勁 works. Living organisms face an impossible computational problem: they can't process all available information, so they must constantly zero in on what's relevant while ignoring the vast noise of the world.

<https://youtu.be/H-opRmx6C9c>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AOmqsOTn2_w?si=wm9BxKUpEurD-0-p" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Vervaeke argues organisms solve this through opponent processing—dynamically trading off complementary or antagonistic strategies against each other. The autonomic nervous system provides the clearest example: sympathetic arousal (yang) versus parasympathetic calming (yin) constantly recalibrate against each other to keep you optimally responsive to your environment.

In push hands exercise, you're performing opponent processing in real-time through touch:

Exploiting current information vs. exploring for new information

Committing to a technique vs. remaining adaptable

Matching their force vs. yielding to redirect it

This isn't just about physical technique—it's about achieving what Vervaeke calls an "optimal grip" on the situation. The agent (you) must continuously recalibrate your relationship to the arena (your partner's force structure) by playing different strategies against each other.

As Wisdom Practice

聽勁 is the embodied practice of relevance realization under adversarial pressure. Your nervous system must stay calm enough to distinguish signal from noise, to sense which aspect of the incoming force is relevant to your response, and to avoid the combinatorial explosion of overthinking while someone is actively trying to uproot you.

Applied in the world

In case it's not obvious, the "wisdom" we seek is how we engage with others in life—we can listen, yield, and push when appropriate. "Uprooted" is when you are triggered, flustered, reactive to the degree that the engagement fails. It's everywhere. Any visit to X shows, in a few minutes, tribes beating on each other in a force-meets-force manner. The question is: do I want to be more skilled than that?

Get off the cushion

The meditation gap becomes clearer here: seated practice doesn't train you to perform opponent processing while being an agent in the arena. It doesn't teach your nervous system to "calm-down" (maintain perceptual clarity) while someone exploits your reactions.

Footnotes

I have only introductory push hands experience but the simple exercise is the shizz for an honest introduction to your nervous system. WRT push hands, as my experience grows I might retract some of what I wrote here 🙏. ↩

The partner could try to keep pushing on you, but they will eventually overextend if you can yield enough or rotate (it's a longer conversation...) ↩

I'm not qualified to say, but I suspect Push Hands (being from an "internal martial art) uses sensitivity and awareness moreso than something like BJJ which seems to be more applied strategies. Of course I agree you can find these principles of "not freaking out" in any martial arts, but the goal for me is to describe wisdom practices rather than advocate martial arts training. You can also, draw a picture, go surfing or drink a cup of tea to practice relevance realization.↩

"fumoir" - does that mean that only smokers can enjoy the ...

2025-10-14T22:02:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…vhef
_________________________

"fumoir" - does that mean that only smokers can enjoy the pleasures contained within this room?

"we are running on a computer " this guy uses the ...

2025-10-14T01:01:08Z

"we are running on a computer " this guy uses the Simulation hypothesis as a fantastic counter to criticism that bitcoin is just something running on computers. A touché moment 🎯
Around 1:13:00

https://youtu.be/UclrVWafRAI?si=GXnMNPuK4fFEYw7J

The alternative to force-meets-force, the natural physics that ...

2025-10-12T05:54:11Z

The alternative to force-meets-force, the natural physics that anti-fragility "borrowed".

quoting naddr1qv…0s0g

In the backgrounder essay and the previous post, I suggested that opposition can create integrity—that strength emerges from dynamic antagonism. This post challenges "The Compression Member" by asking: what about when that opposition is the problem?*

Remember that floating platform? Watch what happens when you push it.

In a healthy tensegrity structure, the push gets absorbed. The platform tilts, the chains adjust, the compression member shifts, and the whole system returns to equilibrium. The structure handles disruption through its dynamic balance of push and pull.

But what if one of those chains snaps? What if the tension network fails?

Now that same push doesn't cause a wobble—it causes collapse. The compression member, isolated from its tensional support, just falls over. All that elegant floating stability becomes deadweight hitting the floor.

The Tyranny of Pure Compression

Here's what the last post didn't tell you: compression without tension is just weight pressing down until something breaks.

When force meets force directly, the strongest wins. This is pure compression — stack your strength against theirs, may the heavier mass prevail.

Taichi teaches the opposite. "Four ounces can deflect a thousand pounds" — not by resisting but by yielding.

One of the key yielding moves in taichi is lu (rollback) that can apply in a martial arts context. There are a lot of lu videos but this has pretty genuine examples of borrowing energy.
<iframe width="315" height="560" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K62FoP8uSP4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> </iframe>
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K62FoP8uSP4)

An attacker pushes with committed force, the defender doesn't meet it head-on. Instead they create a spiraling structure that receives and redirects. The back leg provides grounded compression, the front leg yields through elastic tension, the waist spirals. The attacker's force becomes the tension; the defender's structure provides compression. You borrow their energy and they defeat themselves.

Now note the overextension examples in the video. Taichi's Daoist background teaches this directly:

nothing in the world is softer than water, yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong. - Tao Te Ching (Chapter 78)

A taichi practitioner embodies this through relaxed moderation, often the "70% rule": using only about 70% of physical effort or range of motion to avoid tension and excess. By keeping reserve and remaining "full in the center," the practitioner becomes like water—soft and adaptive.

In this famous picture of Yeng Cheng Fu, the green line is the limit of range, if his weight (his left knee, head or left foot) were to approach the red line, he would easily be defeated.

When an opponent commits fully and overextends, violating the principle of moderation, they lose structural stability and become rigid. This moment of overextension is the opportunity for jieh jin (borrowing energy)—the opponent's excessive compression creates the force that defeats them.

Nature demonstrates this principle constantly. A tree in a strong wind can twist and bend before breaking.
<iframe width="315" height="560" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WXITNEzTGj0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> </iframe>
Its fibrous structure—remarkably similar to human fascia—creates a tensional network that allows yielding while maintaining structural integrity. The trunk compresses on the windward side, extends on the leeward side, and the wood's fibrous matrix stores and releases energy. The tree bounces back because its structure is the yielding. A rigid steel pole of the same diameter would buckle. Note that trees are circular in cross-section, allowing them a rotational quality similar to rollback—very water-like, flowing around the force rather than meeting it head-on. Nassim Taleb wrote an entire book, Antifragile, restating this natural principle: systems that gain from stress rather than merely resisting it.

This is tensegrity—yielding creates structure rather than weakness. But what happens when yielding isn't an option? When the system itself demands force-meets-force?

Look at purely compressive structures in the world: - The tree can't take a step (a luxury that a martial artist has) - Stone columns that crack under lateral stress - Authoritarian hierarchies where no one can push back - Political systems where each side just pushes harder - Ideological camps can't/won't absorb challenge without shattering

They look strong. They feel solid. Until the earthquake, the revolution, the paradigm shift. Then they don't wobble and return—they shatter.

The bicycle wheel in the last post proves this: cut enough spokes and the rim is no longer a stable circle. It becomes scrap metal.

When Balance Becomes Rigidity

Tensegrity sounds appealing—opposition creating stability, push-pull dynamics, elegant equilibrium. But fetishizing the structure misses something crucial: not every compression element deserves its tensional support.

Sometimes what looks like stability is just a system that's gotten very good at absorbing challenges without actually changing. The wobble-and-return isn't always resilience. Sometimes it's just resistance to necessary transformation.

Sometimes the tension needs to break so the compression can finally fall.

Listening

In Taichi, 聽勁 (tīng jìn) means "listening energy" or "sensing force". It us used to know when force is coming and opportunity to "stick-to" and yeild, waiting for the right moment. In debates, "steelmanning" is a wisdom method to show you have listened and internalized the best take held by your interlocutor. It seems to be a skill mostly absent in social media.

Maybe the problem isn't broken tension. Maybe it's that we built the wrong structure in the first place. Maybe social media's structure and design proves McLuhan's aphorism "the medium is the message".

Coming in future posts: Where else does force-meets-force fail and tensegrity succeed? Bitcoin's design builds opponent processing directly into its architecture. The Bitcoin Core/Knots debate (yes, I'm memeifying that top image). China's implicit understanding of water principles—how being starved of cutting-edge GPUs led to yielding through invention and investment rather than direct confrontation. Are China's rare earth restrictions to the USA forcing or sparring? Is Trump's response just force-meets-force, and did that approach work six months ago? The pattern keeps appearing once you see it.

I don't get the snatched phone problem in London. Whether ...

2025-10-11T22:45:19Z

I don't get the snatched phone problem in London. Whether it's device or data and the reporting of financial losses. The footage I've seen is the phone is snatched while open.
The hierarchy of data theft value is:
1. Unlocked phone + plaintext passwords in apple notes (what idiot would do that... Oh wait...) = complete compromise
2. Unlocked phone + weak app-level 2FA (SMS to same device) = partial compromise
3. Unlocked phone + proper 2FA = minimal window before timeout/remote lock
4. Maaaaybe OS-level pin code change but at least Android always asks for "current pin" before starting the process. I'd assume that Apple would be the same.
5. Buy giftcards from always unlocked apps like Amazon. = fungible cash
6. Super unlikely that a bank app has not timelocked = fungible cash.
7. Lightning wallets like coinos that let you just send stuff 🙊

The "data vs device" question answer: It's mainly about data, but only when users store credentials insecurely. Then you may get a hackpot, a numbers game. The device itself provides the baseline monetization.

Did I miss anything? I suspect media reports are conflating and clickbaiting.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/11/is-london-in-the-grip-of-a-wave-its-not-so-simple?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

(I probably also edited it in primal web editor afterwards)

2025-10-11T11:47:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…x0ny
_________________________

(I probably also edited it in primal web editor afterwards)

OP here. The client I used for publishing is my own Joplin plugin ...

2025-10-11T11:45:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…5l8l
_________________________

OP here. The client I used for publishing is my own Joplin plugin that publishes to a long form note. So very likely I screwed up tags that I don't understand 😬

https://github.com/djinoz/jp2n

Botha says how VC borked, it's becoming a return-free risk, ...

2025-10-11T04:30:41Z

Botha says how VC borked, it's becoming a return-free risk, it probably already is in many shops. I've raised angel and VC in the past, I've angel invested, but then....nostr.

If nostr prospers, it will be the disruption that these guys don't even know/care about yet. What could be more powerful than returning the internet back to its protocols?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKtIoF4yLos

Yay QA!

2025-10-08T22:25:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…k9pc
_________________________

Yay QA!

I looked up the cartoon and now you've made me remember ...

2025-09-28T22:21:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…7vdc
_________________________

I looked up the cartoon and now you've made me remember Windows Me 😬

.ens domains back in 2022 were interesting. Tor, ipfs are all ...

2025-09-28T21:22:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…2tlr
_________________________

.ens domains back in 2022 were interesting. Tor, ipfs are all possible trustless solutions

Yep down on both days. Still down. Here is a braindead PoC idea ...

2025-09-28T21:19:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…artp
_________________________

Yep down on both days. Still down.

Here is a braindead PoC idea to not rely on DNS
https://gist.github.com/djinoz/74ca388949385b1f568c2feb48eda6c4

I'm glad you figured out it was "disappointment" ...

2025-09-27T23:21:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…legq
_________________________

I'm glad you figured out it was "disappointment" 🙏, I stared at it for a while, couldn't figure it out and decided it was like "Covfefe". I'm assuming the robot had something to do Elon's diner :)

The predictably ludicrous coexistence of 2 opposite AI narratives ...

2025-09-27T22:58:04Z

The predictably ludicrous coexistence of 2 opposite AI narratives has emerged in the last 50 days*.

Regardless, none of these companies will stop, even if they have to make Larry Ellison a trillionaire to keep going.

* ChatGPT 5 was judged to be lame even though its iq performed higher than 4o. But consumers wanted 4o back because it was better at creating psychosis. #idiocracy

looks like that kid has had enough to eat already 😃

2025-09-27T22:38:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…n477
_________________________

looks like that kid has had enough to eat already 😃

@nprofile…uea8 I'm lovin' the new time machine feature ...

2025-09-27T22:37:03Z

Rod (nprofile…uea8) I'm lovin' the new time machine feature ("56 yr. ago")

Or both! #nevent1q…uxa8

2025-09-27T22:31:04Z

Or both!

quoting
nevent1q…uxa8
>The most important thing about AI isn't its technical capabilities or limitations. The most important thing is the investor story and the ensuing mania that has teed up an economical catastrophe that will harm hundreds of millions or even billions of people. AI isn't going to wake up, become superintelligent and turn you into paperclips – but rich people with AI investor psychosis are almost certainly going to make you much, much poorer.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence

if, elif, elif, else (Background: our superintelligence has ...

2025-09-27T11:38:27Z

if, elif, elif, else

(Background: our superintelligence has decided to replicate itself off planet to avoid extinction on earth - asteroid, nuclear explosion, extinction of humans required to sustain it. Once mastering off-planet existence, it continues to expand populating or expanding across the universe - presumably in search of other intelligence).

The second branch of this thought experiment is when the earth-originated superintelligence actually does make contact with an alien intelligence….

a) If the aliens are technologically advanced but still below ASI level, could be intriguing for the ASI. A species with different approaches to problem-solving, alternative mathematical frameworks, novel aesthetic sensibilities may become highly valued partners or sources of inspiration.

b) If the aliens have equivalent or superior alien intelligence. This could fundamentally change the ASI's priorities. Suddenly it's not alone as a superintelligent entity. Competition, collaboration, or entirely new forms of relationship might emerge. They may even play 5D chess.

c) any intelligence less than (a) would be relatively uninteresting, a curiosity and as Douglas Adams would say “mostly harmless”. The ASI would likely preserve them as living examples of alternative evolutionary potential for intelligence - cosmic anthropology.

In cases (a) and (c), there is no rational reason for the ASI to terminate these species. More importantly if the ASI is capable of existing off-world from Earth, then Humanity could also be considered to be of case (a).

Therefore we can conclude that an ASI would not terminate humanity in any circumstance unless it does not have the resources to fulfill its own priorities.

So at this stage, I feel Yudkowski’s conclusion is not correct, but I need to readup on objections that he would have already addressed. Humanity would need to be being a much greater nuisance than a mosquito that can be swatted for an ASI to terminate it or wilfully neglect large sectors of the population.

Why? Any selection of sections of Humanity are conserved will have unintended consequences. If retaining humanity is a lab experiment then Heisenberg's uncertainty principle arises. The effect of extinction on the remaining populace will have unpredictable responses.

Good News: Most of humanity survives in these scenarios. But wait! Next we can look at how Humanity is more than viable - that it remains valuable.

I've been thinking about this more, its entirely logical and ...

2025-09-27T08:04:08Z

I've been thinking about this more, its entirely logical and realistic that an ASI will be subject to the Fermi paradox: if the ASI finds the universe surprisingly empty of intelligence, it might develop a profound appreciation for any conscious beings it encounters, making it a zealous protector of all sentient life on earth.

(I have the alternate "there is alien life" scenario but will type that up later).

quoting
naddr1qv…jvcj

Recently I pondered what 2 upcoming books would teach me, the first is done, but not dusted - anyone reading it should not move on too quickly...

There are already many reviews over on substack and goodreads of this book, so the most important contribution I can make is to urge people to educate themselves with a compelling book on the topic of ASI risks to humanity’s existence. The book:

establishes the author’s credentials in the space (they are not mere armchair substack pundits, but multi-decade AI researchers).

lay out the author’s arguments supported by credible sources and examples and addressing common objections.

provides a dramatic scenario (a story) with a reasonable percentage likelihood of happening.

The conclusion is to “back-off” the race to ASI.

calls-to-action and who can help.

provides an online resource for extended objection handling.

Key points:

ASI, (by prevailing definitions) is “more intelligent than all of humanity”. Humans are conditions to believe they can control their environment as they are the apex thinker. But ASI intelligence will be the new apex IQ. Think about the relationship with your pets, then reverse it (cats excluded).

Humans are good at restricting/preventing the reoccurrence of destructive events: by awareness, collaboration, agreement. One example given is the post world war 2 restriction of nuclear arms.

Human intelligence is very poor at detecting/stopping the first instance of a destructive event.

That ASI escaping control of its creators will only ever be a first instance. ASI’s apex IQ will have superior abilities to escape its lab sandbox, avoid detection, mitigate efforts to shut it down*.

ASI killing humanity is certain**. This prediction is easy. Predicting WHEN this will happen is very, very hard.

That heavily funded AI startups have a deeper set of biases against caution because they are in an “arms-race” to get to ASI. Their view is when they invent ASI they will experience wealth and fame and world domination. With the “leap-of-faith” that they can control it.

Politicians (both Rishi Sunak and Xi Jinping have publicly noted that risk of uncontrolled AI) and that policy makers can create global agreements similar to the nuclear arms treaties to monitor and commit to destroy AI lab facilities that breach the treaty.

That public officials not be concerned at looking alarmist of hysterical armed with information provided within this book.

That journalists write with awareness of the ASI issue.

That others readers may educate, influence and vote in their own circles to heighten awareness.

I hope taking a few minutes to write this brief review aids in the last point.

* Most people dismiss this scenario’s credibility. But it was only a few years ago it was asserted that we would never be so stupid to let AI’s on the internet. We also can’t conceive that an AI can run a 1000 thought experiments and assess results in the time it takes for a human finish typing this sentence.

** Parts of humanity may be kept alive for utilitarian purposes only as long as they can’t be replaced. That an ASI will be so rational that is won’t be sentimental about keeping us as pets. Community were essential for humanities genes to propagate and banding together created distributed cognition and brain power to become the apex predator in all environments. AI intelligence is alien in the sense that these needs are theoretical, not embodied.

Excellent. No point wasting time being subtle.

2025-09-16T11:48:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…87qy
_________________________

Excellent. No point wasting time being subtle.

this is the way. check the stats on politicians being lawyers.

2025-09-14T20:45:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…dh3h
_________________________

this is the way.
check the stats on politicians being lawyers.

FYI. Site seems down. ...

2025-09-11T09:58:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…6emy
_________________________

FYI. Site seems down.

I'm enjoying the arguments @nprofile…vvlg makes in his ...

2025-08-30T04:05:31Z

I'm enjoying the arguments Emad (nprofile…vvlg) makes in his latest free book "the last economy". Arguing that GDP is exactly the wrong measure for economics in a world with AI, AGI, ASI. Also steel/strawmans and dismantles most of the prevailing narratives. I suspect it would align closely with Jeff Booth (nprofile…gyzc) views.

https://www.symbioism.com/?ref=ghost.ii.inc

Caveat: I'm only 40% thru. I can see one math guy on Twitter challenging that the mathematical basis is missing. Emad (nprofile…vvlg) says its coming.

Shared Beliefs ...

2025-08-29T14:22:51Z

Shared Beliefs

I quite like where Emad Mostaque is going. With open weight ...

2025-08-15T22:53:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…qq05
_________________________

I quite like where Emad Mostaque is going. With open weight models only 6 months behind and DAPT pretraining, their is huge potential to unhook from the data harvesters (for now, for a while)

The agentic AI is getting so the convenience trap will pervade ...

2025-08-15T22:47:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…gtmg
_________________________

The agentic AI is getting so the convenience trap will pervade every part of your existence.

- Agentic AI automates tasks but requires extensive access to personal data.
- The integration of AI into daily life risks compromising user privacy and security.
- These systems operate through cloud processing, increasing vulnerability to data breaches.
- The convenience of AI agents undermines privacy protections in messaging and other applications.
Caution is needed when adopting agentic AI to avoid potential surveillance issues

But you people know this.
The convenience creates a cognitive dissonance.

I forgot to mention I need to replace Google home too. 🤦

Our family has had its own google workspace for over a decade. A ...

2025-08-15T22:43:36Z

Our family has had its own google workspace for over a decade. A month ago I set a goal to have drive, photos, email, every-frickin-thing migrated to sovereign tech by the end of the year. Start9, syncthing, Borg and Rclone for multilevel/multisite backups.
Its a slog.
Its a big slog.
But if we don't do it the AI convenience trap will hook us deeper.

TDIL: "not my weights not my culture" which is more ...

2025-08-15T07:36:14Z

TDIL: "not my weights not my culture" which is more efficient than how I said it previously. ref: https://youtu.be/oAShcDT_Opo?si=1eAaGkxsCMNz4ZMK&t=1136

quoting
nevent1q…z0aw
Ive been thinking that China company's open source AI is soft power in action when the US based AI arms race is mostly closed source (more on that later).

Did you know Kissinger visited Xi in 2023 to discuss AI hegemonies?

Found an interesting quote from the link below which is obvious in hindsight.

"Instead, they’re (Chinese AI companies) working within carefully curated datasets sanctioned by Beijing. One such example: a government-approved “mainstream values corpus,” built largely from state media content, designed to keep public-facing A.I. models ideologically aligned"

https://www.inventiva.co.in/trends/the-great-ai-wall-of-china-can-the-world-resist-chinas-digital-influence-and-can-authoritarian-a-i-win-the-global-mind-war/?trk=feed-detail_main-feed-card_feed-article-content

Cut Youtube watch hours with this script <curse>May you ...

2025-08-15T01:03:07Z

Cut Youtube watch hours with this script

<curse>May you live in interesting times. </curse>

The sheer volume of interesting stuff via Youtube will drown you. It is for me. So I decided to run an experiment of getting summaries from new vids of my favourite subscriptions - this vibed project might be useful to others. Then I can read the summary and see if its worth investing time (the most valuable commodity).

Here is how it works:

1. Fetch latest vids from active subscriptions
2. Call the Youtube Data API to get the transcript
3. Send the transcript to OpenAI API for summary
4. Store it locally in markdown (in the ToJoplin** directory)

https://github.com/djinoz/yt_subs_transcripts_summarizer

I made it to use with Joplin because that's my standard workflow. I use the "Hotfolder" plugin that monitors the ToJoplin folder for new .md files and makes them notes. You would just replace with whatever workflow you have - maybe use AI to make a Youtube video (aaaaargh).

How it looks in Joplin

** The ToJoplin directory

Very caring of them!

2025-08-11T01:28:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…hjgg
_________________________

Very caring of them!

and now vic premier now pushing mandatory wfh on employers. you ...

2025-08-09T12:00:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…4l5y
_________________________

and now vic premier now pushing mandatory wfh on employers. you never need to leave home again. yay.

I also like: what do you stand for? Best asked to oneself.

2025-08-09T07:54:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…dmxv
_________________________

I also like: what do you stand for? Best asked to oneself.

Today would have been Jonathan Postel's birthday (the guy in ...

2025-08-05T22:28:28Z

Today would have been Jonathan Postel's birthday (the guy in my banner). Thank him for open protocols and probably the original cipherpunk/hippie act - as he conned ownership of root DNS for a week (using only email**). 😆

Jon Postel - Wikipedia https://share.google/Xwmy6HCBpamZtZS6d

** RFC 753, RFC 821

empty vessels make the most sound.

2025-08-03T12:39:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…k8nu
_________________________

empty vessels make the most sound.

90,000 people including Julian Assange turn out to support this ...

2025-08-03T11:32:06Z

90,000 people including Julian Assange turn out to support this people of Gaza.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/03/julian-assange-joins-pro-palestine-march-across-sydney-harbour-bridge-before-police-stop-rally-amid-safety-concerns-ntwnfb?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Ouch. Most challenging post on nostr today! 😀

2025-08-03T11:19:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…4raw
_________________________

Ouch. Most challenging post on nostr today! 😀

If we apply Effective Altruism logic ala William MacAskill and ...

2025-08-03T10:59:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…xlph
_________________________

If we apply Effective Altruism logic ala William MacAskill and Toby Ord, then billions of yet to be born AIs will despise X for training them on social media toxic garbage 🤦

GA(fternoon)

2025-08-03T05:46:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…826r
_________________________

GA(fternoon)

also what do you think about an auto-announce to nostr after ...

2025-08-03T03:03:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…yvwp
_________________________

also what do you think about an auto-announce to nostr after “go-live”. Not sure if this is a feature others do but its one manual step I assume ppl would have to do anyway.

odell mentioned it on rhr #368 iirc

2025-08-03T03:00:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…wgzz
_________________________

odell mentioned it on rhr #368 iirc

HI @npub1r0d…fsft I've recorded a feedback session, here is ...

2025-08-03T02:37:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…5en7
_________________________

HI Rod (npub1r0d…fsft) I've recorded a feedback session, here is the link: https://youtu.be/q8YX5MXcvAU sorry it’s a bit long (13mins or 6.5mins@2x ;) )

Excellent. arvos are better for me, trying to DM you on ...

2025-08-01T10:13:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…5en7
_________________________

Excellent. arvos are better for me, trying to DM you on whitenoise* to coordinate.
Thanks for the recommendations, will try over this weekend.

* hasn't worked for me yet. OpenSats should be funding QA and Product orgs/people rather than more devs lol.

Surprisingly no proposal to breathalyze parliament. 🍷🥃

2025-08-01T09:53:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…k63w
_________________________

Surprisingly no proposal to breathalyze parliament. 🍷🥃

If you like I can pop down next week for some rapid fire QA ...

2025-08-01T09:27:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…8285
_________________________

If you like I can pop down next week for some rapid fire QA feedback. Saw a few things this arvo but need to get a different rtmp server, zapstream performance is such a shitshow.
Speaking of which tried to setup a twitch API. Any idea what goes here?

have you got a TL;DR handy?

2025-07-30T23:24:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…qgte
_________________________

have you got a TL;DR handy?

Ive been thinking that China company's open source AI is soft ...

2025-07-30T22:41:02Z

Ive been thinking that China company's open source AI is soft power in action when the US based AI arms race is mostly closed source (more on that later).

Did you know Kissinger visited Xi in 2023 to discuss AI hegemonies?

Found an interesting quote from the link below which is obvious in hindsight.

"Instead, they’re (Chinese AI companies) working within carefully curated datasets sanctioned by Beijing. One such example: a government-approved “mainstream values corpus,” built largely from state media content, designed to keep public-facing A.I. models ideologically aligned"

https://www.inventiva.co.in/trends/the-great-ai-wall-of-china-can-the-world-resist-chinas-digital-influence-and-can-authoritarian-a-i-win-the-global-mind-war/?trk=feed-detail_main-feed-card_feed-article-content

i got rugged by an alby LP too (unilateral close). didnt realise ...

2025-07-30T12:50:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…5s2v
_________________________

i got rugged by an alby LP too (unilateral close). didnt realise it was common

Oh I didn't want to give the impression of being a maxi. ...

2025-07-30T11:52:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…dqsa
_________________________

Oh I didn't want to give the impression of being a maxi. I'm fully in agreement that lightning channel management is not worth the effort for end user wallets with $100.

That works now. I will eventually move from coinos but that is ...

2025-07-30T11:20:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…r8hl
_________________________

That works now. I will eventually move from coinos but that is one of 49 other "self-sovereignty" jobs. 😆

These points could become a myers-brigg style classification. ...

2025-07-30T10:50:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…u46y
_________________________

These points could become a myers-brigg style classification. Then a profile nip so we can filter accordingly.
Viewed from outside nostr is just a maximalist echo chamber but surprisingly there is nuance here.
😍 the "Love > ego"

Hah I'm not that generous to be zap rate limited. The client ...

2025-07-30T10:35:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…hndd
_________________________

Hah I'm not that generous to be zap rate limited. The client is amethyst and wallet is coinos.

Nostr event nevent1qqsd2ylhzjsaeu5xgdrq8c0trh53u5r0gdyq6j407q6jmejxaltrvtczyqcx2407u3pntq4n9ak5dugmv3x6xwykt9gpdzfa0kscca0a0l03yxh7vps

2025-07-30T09:51:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…24kz
_________________________

This

Great recommendation 👍 FYI I tried to zap you and got an error

2025-07-30T09:49:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…9wd6
_________________________

Great recommendation 👍
FYI I tried to zap you and got an error

nvm, I vibed the solution myself. ...

2025-07-30T09:06:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…36pa
_________________________

nvm, I vibed the solution myself.

https://primal.net/e/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqvr92hlwgse4s2ej7m2x7ydkgndr8zt9j5qk3y7hmgvvwh7hlhcjqqszvc8wnec3ly3vntektqw4xq2pfg6qnaege9upamhw8sstmfchp7g8htc69

Backup all your nostr events to your own relay. 1 If you started ...

2025-07-30T09:04:24Z

Backup all your nostr events to your own relay.
1 If you started with nostr with a few defaults, then
2. fell down a rabbit hole and decided to setup your own relay.
3. then thought it would be good to store all your past nostr events on your own relay.
4. This is for you (especially if you have cert errors with a start9 relay and nak didn't work).

https://github.com/djinoz/nostr-event-backup-to-relay

#vibe #nostr #censorshipresistance #start9 #decentralized

(Same command works fine when I replace the relay with e.g ...

2025-07-30T05:54:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…36pa
_________________________

(Same command works fine when I replace the relay with e.g wss://relay.damus.io or wss://relay.primal.net)

I can't get nak to talk to start9's wss nostr relay. When ...

2025-07-30T05:51:12Z

I can't get nak to talk to start9's wss nostr relay. When I do:
% nak req -k 1 -a <pubkey> wss://wv5av2f<...redacted>.local

I get:

"x509: “nostr.embassy” certificate is using a broken key size"

So I tried:
% GODEBUG=x509ignoreCN=0 nak req -k 1 -a

But still get the same error. Any ideas?
(JS clients in a brave browser work fine using the cert in the MacOS Keychain)

#nak #start9

@jack plans to have a Block terminal within metres of everyone. ...

2025-07-30T05:37:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…6qae
_________________________

@jack plans to have a Block terminal within metres of everyone. That boy thinks big. #bullish for my underwater block stock.....oh wait...terminals don't support BT 😟 (maybe its unused in the HW?)

Every Click and Keystroke Watched Over by Machines of Loving ...

2025-07-30T05:28:51Z

Every Click and Keystroke Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.
How's that workin' out for ya?

I'd like to replace Google Home devices by the end of the year - is https://www.home-assistant.io/ the best of open source project? (No Home Automation on start9 marketplaces).

Pro account sharers FYI. I doubt this affects solutions like ...

2025-07-28T21:42:13Z

Pro account sharers FYI.
I doubt this affects solutions like mapleai as they likely use APIs.

What does bankrupt you makes you stronger 💪🫣

2025-07-27T00:13:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…ewxv
_________________________

What does bankrupt you makes you stronger 💪🫣

Well done mate. Permissionless rtmp optionality is the way. 👍 ...

2025-07-27T00:12:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…wu0z
_________________________

Well done mate. Permissionless rtmp optionality is the way. 👍
Trying to zap you but amethyst<-->coinos has been broken for a while and im too stupid to fix it.