rabble

https://rabble.nz/

Building holis.social and nos.social.

Public Key

npub1wmr34t36fy03m8hvgl96zl3znndyzyaqhwmwdtshwmtkg03fetaqhjg240

NIP-05 Address

rabble@nos.social

NIP-57 Address

rabble@primal.net

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8d3c64cayj8canmky0jap0c3fekjpzwsthdhx4cthd4my8c5u47sprpmhxue69uhkwun0w4c8xtnxd9shg6npvchxxmmdqywhwumn8ghj7mn0wd68yttsw43zuam9d3kx7unyv4ezumn9wslyz4a3

Publishing to

groups.fiatjaf.com

nostr-pub.wellorder.net

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub1wmr34t36fy03m8hvgl96zl3znndyzyaqhwmwdtshwmtkg03fetaqhjg240

Show more details

Last Notes

2025-06-06 04:14:19

Why must I use ApplePay and an app to apply for a visa?
This weekend, I’m travelling to Sydney to interview Yoel Roth for my upcoming Revolution.social podcast. I’m excited to talk to him because, after leaving Twitter, he wrote a paper about the trust and safety challenges facing social media protocols. If we decentralise social media, how do we govern ourselves without relying on centralised systems that can define who has permission to participate?
I need an electronic travel authorization to go to Australia and mine had expired. How hard can it new to renew it? Much harder than it should be.
The thing is, a visa is the most intense kind of government permission. And the permissioned and centralised world of technology almost derailed my entire trip. When I was at the Oslo Freedom Forum, I lost my fiat debit card. It wasn’t a big deal; I blocked it in my bank’s app, and I have other cards, so it wasn’t a major issue. I ordered a replacement card, but my bank requires me to use it physically at a store before they’ll allow me to use the new card for digital payments. And it hasn’t arrived in the post yet. No big deal, I have alternatives, lots of ways of paying for things.
Last night, I remembered to double check my Australian visa. To my surprise, I found out that I needed to renew it. No problem; I went to their website and they directed me to use their mobile app. Fine, I’ll download it again. But here’s where things started to go wrong. Apparently, the Australian government has decided that the visa should only be paid for with an in-app purchase! And because I had frozen my debit card, I couldn’t use that card. My bank wouldn’t unfreeze it because I had ordered a replacement card.
There is a website method, but it lacks any instructions, there are hundreds of questions instead of half a dozen, and it wasn’t clear to me what of the hundreds of Visa options I was supposed to choose.
So I’m waiting for my flight in Auckland but can’t check in because my visa isn’t set up. I need the app and to make an in app purchase!!!
Apple wouldn’t let me re-download the visa app because it has in-app payments and I needed an active card. Now I’ve got like 6 cards in my phone’s digital wallet! But Apple will only let me use a debit card with a New Zealand address! There’s literally an Apple Card with plenty of limit on this phone, but I can’t use it. I tried to use my new NZ company account, but it’s new and I only put $10 to test that it worked right before my trip to OFF! It worked but Apple had more delayed payments than $10, so it quickly declined more payments. Apple still wouldn’t let me re-install the visa app! So I immediately transferred a few hundred dollars from in to the new company account. Normally inter-bank transfers in Australia and New Zealand are immediate because both countries have small banking systems where all banks actually use a single centralized database. Not great for privacy but it’s normally very efficient.
I did an intrabank transfer to my non-blocked company account. But instead of being immediate they said it might take “a few hours!” So I tried adding funds to the new company account using debit or credit cards not those all blocked. Probably money transmitter rules about using cards to fund a bank account vs purchasing. Why provide the option if it won’t go through. Dunno. My guess is the bank was happy to accept it but the credit card companies I use blocked it.
I thought, okay, let me find a pre-paid NZ card. Turns out that there are tons of ways I could be a card issuer of prepaid cards in NZ, but I couldn’t find one which I could get a virtual card online with an NZ address.
Cash App was happy to let me use my BTC to fund some prepaid cards, but they all ended up with European or American issuing banks! Despite being marketed as New Zealand prepaid cards, but they all ended up being either impossible for me to set up to find or not actually based in NZ. Turns out that this stumbling through options lead to me getting a few prepaid no-KYC bitcoin-funded debit cards by accident! All this financial regulation and I stumbled in to anonymous credit cards.
Another option would be just switch my AppStore back to the US. But, Apple won’t let you change your country for your AppleID if you have any active subscriptions. I’ve got a bunch of US cards in my Apple wallet, but I can’t use them.
I missed my flight and had to rebook on a later one, not cheap. But kept going, trying to find a way to install this app. I tried to use my work Apple ID that I use for the nos.social app. While Apple lets you use phone numbers as 2-factor auth, it’s really buggy and doesn’t work for setting up a user in macOS or iOS. They really want you to use the own AppleID everywhere. I could log in to the US Apple account but only via the iCloud website, oh, and Apple Developer Connect. Useless for me in this situation. It wouldn’t take my US AppleID on my laptop or phone.
I also kept trying to find a debit card that Apple NZ would accept, get my personal bank to unblock my card, or even the new business account to work. Nothing.
If I didn’t figure this out, I’d miss my now rescheduled flight.
Eventually, I went through and got the very complicated website to work and spent $200 on a tourist visa. This same visa costs $20 if I use the Apple / Android app and their payment rails! The visa came back confirmed in a couple minutes, after paying the 10x “web tax.”
Right after that, I went through and got confirmation that the bank transfer to my new business account cleared. Honestly, it’s the first time since moving to New Zealand I’ve had an interbank fiat transfer take time; it’s normally immediate! Just when I needed it.
Why is this tech so locked down? Apple won’t let me fund my Apple “iTunes” account with my own cards, but only allows local fiat payments. Australia makes it 10 times more expensive to use their website instead of Apple Pay and makes the process much harder!
Billions get laundered through off shore shell companies and Wall Street but somehow banks, credit cards companies, the government of Australia, and Apple all worked to make nearly impossible for me to pay for a $20 visa waiver!? And instead I had to spend $200 on a sketchy website that barely worked.
Now just to be clear. I’m opposed to the existence of borders and nation states being able to control who can live where base on a corrupt system of visas. So my minor frustration is nothing in comparison to what a person from Nigeria or Afghanistan faces when they try and travel. It’s still frustrating.

2025-06-03 21:02:54

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that’s a protocol spec issue, your’e welcome to work on it: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aopen+key+delegation

2025-05-30 17:56:24

I’m launching my social media bill of rights campaign at #websummit live at 11:05am pst today.
https://www.youtube.com/live/FLWpJfkLR4E
Rights.social

2025-05-30 00:48:10

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Yeah it’s not good, but our job here is to build a better alternative. ;-D

2025-05-28 13:34:09

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@npub1nje…l02j https://www.youtube.com/live/NVPhJ0aCKOw?si=XY6HSgNpm1fdLssU

2025-05-26 12:48:35

@npub147k…cpce says she’d welcome Trump on Bluesky.
#note1mgp…dq2p

2025-05-26 06:01:40

This place looks like it’s AI generated.
https://i.nostr.build/ZBRCb9IlC4HjtcKU.jpg https://i.nostr.build/xB8avbTgr0tDQfpL.jpg

2025-05-24 15:21:04

Oslo Freedom Forum #OFF
https://image.nostr.build/039f6de1116119c8b9d0de58195d8f7d3c59ccb6f5a01ee73e493134a2234ee4.jpg https://image.nostr.build/9f3c7d444d1e75d89dd0399c00fd8e03a31a5d8a9959a599d2f1f1e1aef051b7.jpg https://image.nostr.build/9ea27b79173a2a3689d418f03aa476088370b6ab98ce679c3c058eede79f88bf.jpg

2025-05-20 11:30:24

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2025-05-19 21:20:29

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It’s nip-29 group focused but we’ve been working a lot on relay management https://github.com/verse-pbc/groups_relay

2025-05-19 20:37:58

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Fixed: https://github.com/planetary-social/nos/pull/1777
It takes a while to go through the apple build / release process.

2025-05-17 21:32:58

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Malta!

2025-05-17 17:39:33

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welcome @npub17f8…rqqa

2025-05-16 14:13:01

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It’s not hard for clients to detect it’s an nevent string. If it’s nostr:nevent the OS will try and open a different nostr app sometimes which is a bad experience

2025-05-16 08:08:30

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Free speech should include speech about acts which are illegal.

2025-05-16 07:06:03

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Estaba activista y ex-congresista en el momento, 2001.

2025-05-15 06:51:42

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@npub1vm7…sm7s oh I’m sure everyone speaks English. And frankly Germans aren’t so picky about people speaking their language as French are. I just find it funny people are ignoring my apology for not understanding German. Everyone is very nice.

2025-05-15 06:49:38

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@npub1c7k…qh4c yeah I agree. Learning a new language isn’t easy and I have no particular affinity for languages, but I put it a fair amount of effort to become fluent in Spanish and glad for it. In terms of German, I’ve only visited for at most a week at a time, not nearly enough to learn the language.
My current situation living in Aotearoa New Zealand the de facto language is English but the official language is Te Reo Māori. In effect what happens is people speak a dialect of English with significant lexical substrate influence from Te Reo Māori. When I first arrived I had to google everything 10th word to understand any kind of official communication from the government or schools.
While I support people learning the language where they live but most of the criticism of immigrants not leaning the language well enough feels xenophobic.

2025-05-15 05:10:43

Whenever I visit Germany or the Nordic countries i’m always surprised at that the way everybody just assumes i speak the language. It’s kind of nice, but a little weird too. My mom’s family immigrated to the US in the 1880’s but only switched to speaking English at home because of WWII. For obvious reasons of not being down with the politics of Germany at the time. After the war, they didn’t go back to speaking German, except for songs and keeping cultural traditions.
It’s really interesting to be in a place where your ancestors come from. A few years ago I went to the tiny village of Plath, a couple hours north of Berlin. As far as we know that’s where my family came from. It’s a very small place, a couple hundred houses, a church, a bunch of farms, and no shops or restaurants of any kind. Honestly it didn’t look like any buildings had been built in the last 150 years.
Now when I’m in Germany, like I find myself today, I just feel kind of weird and incompetent when i have to explain that i don’t speak german to everybody I interact with. A few times today, getting through the airport in Munich, they’ve just ignored my protestations that I don’t speak German and went ahead trying to tell me something in German anyway. Maybe they think i’m acting the way German’s claim they don’t speak good english but then proceed to be entirely fluent. Germany isn’t very helpful a language to speak in New Zealand, I’m going to try Te Reo first, but maybe someday i’ll spend more time with focus in a german speaking country and try and learn.

2025-05-14 00:03:19

I have no inside knowledge and am just learning about the square handleheld product right now, but if I were to try and build a competitive alternative to iOS / Android for mobile devices this feels like the right way to do it. Bottom up, with a speciality product which has value for business customers. Eventually you grow to a more consumer market slowly without needing to boil the ocean.
My guess is that it’s some fork of Android with a customized OS and mini-AppStore for apps from Block. In order to compete against Google you’d need services and apps everyone wants, which is a hell of a moat. The solution that Chinese companies have for that is their consumers want different apps because western apps don’t work in china. I don’t know how you’d do it in the west. Maybe play off Europeans desire to not be dependent on American tech, maybe support Android / flutter / KMM apps? Maybe new agents will unseat the entire legacy SaaS products will dry up the Google/Apple moat.
We know how much the duopoly in mobile is a fundamental threat to free speech and an open internet. Doing something about it is a lot harder. Big efforts have failed so many times, an incremental strategy might just work.
https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld

2025-05-13 22:48:00

Starting the long trek towards the Oslo Freedom Forum. https://image.nostr.build/396b21679fea3ddb3f41f1769e0f49b6788553111534b6f10bf35a19bf714cad.jpg

2025-05-12 08:38:13

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I’ve got calendar stuff in my new chusme.social app that I’m working on. Definitely still in the buggy prototype stage. It’s a group focused nostr app.

2025-05-11 23:50:38

There’s a Bluesky related project to make a foursquare competitor using their data. We could totally do this faster with nostr.
https://atprotocol.dev/location-data-on-at-protocol-the-second-community-fund-project/?ref=free-our-feeds.ghost.io

2025-05-11 07:48:42

I’m not sure when this happened, but https://nostr.watch/ got updated and is much better now.

2025-05-10 05:00:09

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Not really, about half kiwi’s if you consider either people born overseas or children of people from overseas. Despite being the capital of New Zealand, it’s not particularly kiwi in comparison to other places in the country.

2025-05-03 02:56:48

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What about this note would keep it private?
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2025-05-02 21:07:33

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It’s so damned slow and buggy. :(

2025-05-02 21:02:23

I like Claude code a lot but think of its big limitations is the way it only works with Claude sonnet 3.7.
I’m really enjoying all the emerging agentic coding explosion.
#note1zt3…mew5

2025-05-02 20:59:32

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It’d be interesting to see a visualization on other political views diagram which isn’t just a left / right spectrum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

2025-04-29 01:09:03

Did Trump ask Canadians to write in his name when they vote today?!
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114415618596069518

2025-04-23 00:50:42

Bluesky’s added user verification in a way that’s not entirely bad. Different entities can become verifiers. So if you run a company you can verify your own employees. Bluesky PBC also will run a verifier. I think this isn’t a terrible solution to preventing impersonation.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/04-21-2025-verification

2025-04-20 19:30:03

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Yes he’s never been very interested in being factual.

2025-04-20 19:26:24

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In general they do answer differently depending on your tone.

2025-04-18 06:12:53

“The original power of the internet wasn’t just about cool technology — it was about radical power redistribution. The web wasn’t exciting because it had hyperlinks; it was exciting because suddenly anyone could publish without asking permission”
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/17/the-de-in-decentralization-stands-for-democracy/

2025-04-18 05:12:49

I’m not sure how many people follow TechDirt.com but they’re a long standing low budget tech publication which has been very influential in the movement for an open web and protocols over platforms.
Their editor’s essay, Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech, laid out the arguments for what become both Nostr and ATprotocol.
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech
Anyway, i just like to remember the folks who got us here. They accept bitcoin donations: https://www.techdirt.com/support/

2025-04-17 22:51:53

This is a great manifesto!
#note1fx0…lk0k

2025-04-17 21:35:39

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connect.nos.social

2025-04-17 21:35:13

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connect.nos.social works

2025-04-17 20:42:45

Police are creating AI bots to participate in protest movements in order to entrap activists.
The idea of infiltrating activist groups. At least this AI won’t end up going so deep under cover to the point where they have kids with the activists they’re targeting! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/14/police-spy-bragged-about-fathering-a-child-with-activist-inquiry-hears
#note1dpk…c2tx

2025-04-17 20:39:51

@npub17nd…950x I’m moving up the hill so you’ll be getting new angles on the same pier.
https://i.nostr.build/i5AvGOJ0txVyItLc.jpg

2025-04-17 01:41:15

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I didn’t mean it to be an insult or anything. It’s kind of endearing that the engineers doing the work are presenting it. But nobody makes eye contact with each other or the camera much.
As to be expected, it gets much better once they get in to their special interest, which is of course the LLM’s they’ve built.

2025-04-17 00:58:53

Watching the OpenAI livestream launch of o3/o4-mini it’s like a case study in 4 autistic guys nervously trying to present something.
https://openai.com/live/

2025-04-17 00:51:23

OpenAI released new models a couple days ago, 4.1, 4.1 mini, and 4.1 nano. I just got around to trying them today and found out they’ve released other new models, o3, o3-mini, and o4-mini.
What’s more interesting than that, is they’ve got a c ompetitor to Claude Code, an agent cli for building apps called codex.
https://github.com/openai/codex

2025-04-17 00:02:49

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So yes and no. They removed the domain name user names at bsky.social so while the users have their keys and could migrate to a different PDS, I don’t think they’re able to publish on bluesky hardware. I’m also not sure if bluesky the company has blocked content from those DID’s (users) on the relays and appviews. If they didn’t block, they probably don’t want to be public about it because Turkey would just come back and demand that they do it.

2025-04-16 23:58:29

Samsung has released a vacuum cleaner with built in screen that lets you do texting and phone calls while vacuuming! This is worse than the LED screens on fridges. Who on earth needs to make phone calls WHILE vacuuming!? Don’t you already have your phone in your pocket, and you know, vacuums make a lot of noise, so you’d want to STOP vacuuming in order talk on the phone.
https://www.theverge.com/news/639078/samsung-bespoke-ai-jet-ultra-vacuum-text-messages

2025-04-16 18:47:02

OpenAI is considering launching a social media app / platform. This feels like something we should pay attention to, but also where Nostr could compete using open models and our protocol.
https://www.theverge.com/openai/648130/openai-social-network-x-competitor

2025-04-16 17:38:03

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Only https://deer.social seems to let you opt out of the company moderation so far.

2025-04-16 11:44:41

When you build a system that allows central control and censorship then the state will use those affordances if they feel the need. Bluesky’s blocked some Turkish accounts by order of the Turkish government.
https://i.nostr.build/xhKQNAYikxHeNUPk.jpg
The user DID keys are still active but their associated domain name / user names are not and the identities at blocked by bluesky’s moderation system that Turkish users can’t opt out of.
https://bsky.app/profile/nekorug.moe/post/3lmwgtwfggs2e
To escape this censorship you need to both use a Bluesky client that doesn’t opt in to the company’s obligatory moderation and also some relay and appviews which refuse to comply with Turkish censorship orders.

2025-04-16 11:18:43

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no, we’re focused on building a nostr group / communities app now, as there are a bunch of social feed apps. And the new app does have android and ios builds. Not ready to release it yet…

2025-04-16 09:49:32

Interesting someone finally made an ATprotocol client that doesn’t include the required base moderation provided by Bluesky inc.
https://deer.social

2025-04-16 01:53:12

Keep up to date with what's happening on Nostr with the Nostr Recap!
#nevent1q…4rvl

2025-04-16 01:51:06

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Representative democracies and the state have a lot of problems. Not ideal, not the system i'd like to live in. But they're better than an authoritarian state which uses it's monopoly of violence to silence all dissent and randomly deport dissidents to foreign forced labor camps.

2025-04-16 01:15:20

## A Plan for Defending Democracy: Building a Strategic, Cross-Party Coalition
We urgently need a concrete plan—a grand coalition—to defend democracy. If we truly mean #NeverAgain, the moment to act decisively is now. Democracy, basic freedoms, and human dignity itself are under threat.
Trump’s administration openly defies the Supreme Court, imposes extreme tariffs (up to 143% on China!), and now even threatens prison camps for political dissenters. To me, this isn’t just politics—it’s a terrifying erosion of civil liberties, constitutional norms, and the rights we once assumed were untouchable.
But outrage alone isn’t enough. We need a practical, targeted strategy that can truly stop this authoritarian slide.
### My Proposal: A Cross-Party Centrist Coalition in the U.S. House
Given how narrowly divided the House of Representatives currently is, I believe a small number of moderate Republicans from agriculture-heavy, purple or swing districts—especially in states with "top-two" primary systems like California and Washington—could join with centrist Democrats to flip the balance of power.
The goal isn’t a traditional partisan victory. Instead, it’s to create a powerful legislative firewall that can:
- Uphold and enforce Supreme Court rulings against an administration inclined to ignore them.
- End economically catastrophic tariffs that devastate American farmers and workers.
- Block authoritarian measures, like prison camps for political dissidents.
### How This Coalition Could Work Practically:
1. **Moderate Republicans take a stand**:
They commit publicly to oppose unconstitutional actions, reject extreme tariffs, and protect civil liberties, even if it means breaking from party leadership.
2. **Strategic Electoral Guarantees**:
- Democrats, especially in California and Washington’s top-two primary districts, would strategically "stand down," pledging not to run strong Democratic challengers against these Republicans.
- Progressive activists would temporarily focus their resources elsewhere, understanding that preserving democracy must come first.
- Centrist Democratic donors and influential grassroots groups would promise robust funding, political defense, and organizational support for these moderate Republicans, ensuring their survival against inevitable MAGA-backed primary challengers.
3. **Electing a Coalition-Friendly Speaker**:
The coalition could elect a moderate, compromise Speaker—someone from either party who firmly commits to:
- Protecting constitutional norms and enforcing judicial rulings.
- Ending catastrophic trade wars and protecting U.S. agriculture.
- Stopping authoritarian actions, including any plans for political imprisonment of dissenters.
4. **Allowing Independence for Progressives**:
This arrangement does not silence progressive voices or policies. Progressives would still freely critique and push for their agenda. But, crucially, on foundational issues—civil rights, human dignity, rule of law, economic sanity—the entire coalition would stand united.
### Why Would Moderate Republicans Take This Risk?
The threat from Trump and the MAGA wing will be fierce. Moderate Republicans will face harsh political backlash. That’s exactly why the coalition must pledge, explicitly and publicly, powerful electoral support and funding. These Republicans must know they’ll not stand alone. A true coalition demands solidarity and strong defense for its courageous members.
### Why This Unconventional Coalition Matters Right Now:
This strategy is not politics-as-usual. It’s bold and challenging. But with democracy itself on the line, ideological purity tests must be set aside. Coalition-building is the most pragmatic choice in extraordinary times.
I urge all who value democracy—progressives, centrists, moderates, libertarians, independents—to come together. Protect our courts, preserve the rule of law, safeguard livelihoods, and stand firm against authoritarianism. The stakes are too high to let partisan differences keep us divided.
### If #NeverAgain Means Anything, We Must Act Boldly:
Let’s move beyond partisan comfort zones. Let’s support principled Republicans who bravely oppose authoritarianism. By uniting now, creatively and courageously, we can prevent tyranny before it fully takes hold.
This coalition is how we protect each other. This is how we ensure freedom survives.
The moment is here—let’s act.

2025-04-15 21:10:11

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Despite Uruguay and New Zealand never being being enough to use tariffs to their advantage both tried. And eventually abandoned them to see lots of growth. But their tiny size didn’t stop them from thinking tariffs would work.

2025-04-14 23:01:30

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Yes we are but it’s a new app we’re building. We aren’t ready to release or announce it but the code is open source.
https://github.com/orgs/verse-pbc/repositories
What are communikeys?

2025-04-14 22:59:06

https://i.nostr.build/vygzTPOqPnd4EPF6.jpg

2025-04-12 20:56:20

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If someone could make some nostr apps that used semantic web syntax and it’d get added to the spec. The thing is almost all nips are optional so having it in the spec doesn’t mean apps or relays will use it. But if it’s useful to some people then do it!

2025-04-12 01:38:21

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I strongly recommend you understand the logic of the State before you try and contest its power.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

2025-04-11 09:35:28

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I’m not sure what door it is, but there’s exploration happening: http://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/pull/3620
Imagine that but with the FROST key signing / bunker…
Letting bsky users have a hosted nsec bunker using their PDS. They’re already ok with the server holding their keys. Think of it it as custodial nostr vs non-custodial. Sure the latter is better if you want real security and control, but a lot of folks don’t want or wouldnt manage well self custody. In fact they don’t even have to know.

2025-04-11 09:14:27

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There’s a STRONG desire for groups and MLS based groups in the bluesky ecosystem. It basically isn’t possible on atprotocol but it is possible using the bluesky identity system and other protocols. I believe this could be a backdoor to get bluesky users on to Nostr.

2025-04-11 05:34:25

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You don’t need to host it’s content on your relays or use it… but if you want to know more about how it works: https://www.nos.social/tagr-bot

2025-04-10 05:29:17

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My friends make this keyboard: keyboard.io
It is a work of art!
https://shop.keyboard.io/cdn/shop/files/B02-A7_00123_fullres_3fa76b7f-af13-44a4-869c-e2a1c92175fd.jpg?v=1713981178&width=600
Unfortunately they tried to make them in the US and found it wasn’t possible. Now they’re basically going to lose out on the US market.
https://shop.keyboard.io/blogs/news/an-open-letter-to-u-s-customers

2025-04-10 03:35:02

Did you know you can buy a keyboard made in the US? It looks really nice. The thing is to build a keyboard in the US means it costs $3600!
https://www.norbauer.co/pages/the-seneca

2025-04-10 03:29:14

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I mean the apple devices will be real, but yeah, it’s grey market.

2025-04-10 02:39:21

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Yeah, i think we’ll all be better off if we can get to a unified NIP on this.

2025-04-10 01:55:52

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Will Keychat use the mls stuff in nip-ee / nip-104 that @npub1zuu…c2uc is working on? Is it possible?

2025-04-10 01:54:23

For years when I lived in Uruguay we’d buy laptops and phones overseas and bring them back for ourselves but also everyone we knew. Uruguay like most countries in Latin America have very high tariffs on electronics. It’s a stupid tax which hurts the local economy a lot. There is no world in which it makes sense to manufacture high tech electronics in a tiny country of 3 million people whose economy is based on banking, tourism, and agriculture. Nor does it really make sense on Mercosur (South American trade block) level.
So it was cheaper to buy a round trip ticket to Miami and buy your iPhone than to buy it locally. There are restrictions on how many devices you can bring in, and to be safe unboxed everything to show i wasn’t bringing in products for resale. But basically every time someone from Uruguay travels outside of South America they’ve got a list of things to buy and bring back for friends and family.
There were attempts and making peer to peer market places for the informal tech mule economy but those got shutdown for obvious reasons.
Now I live in New Zealand which is a country which strongly believes in free trade and I’m able to buy whatever I want locally or directly from overseas. I’ve got to pay the VAT (GST style sales tax) but other than that it doesn’t matter where I buy it. It’s great.
The US is choosing to move towards the system that has failed to serve Latin American countries for decades. Ironically enough given Trump and republicans are pushing it but these trade barriers are really popular with a lot of Marxist economists. 😆
The thing is we know what will happen. The price of an iPhone in Canada and Mexico will be 40% cheaper than in the US. Same thing with laptops and everything else made in China. This will cause a booming retail business along the border. Initially out of reclaimed shopping centers, temporary pop up stores, etc… but there will be so much money in it that you’ll see it get established fast. It doesn’t require much to do a pop up electronics store.
Then Americans discovering they can get their name brand consumer and electronics goods across the border will start rushing to get goods at the old pre-Trump prices. Fly to San Diego, take the light rail train to the border, go shopping, come home. At first it’ll be folks buying for personal consumption and friends. But we know if a tax on consumer goods is over 10% then there becomes an economic incentive to evade it. All of a sudden instead of having a problem smuggling drugs and people in to the US you induce economic demand for mass smuggling! Gangs control smuggling partially because it’s illegal and you need extra legal use of violence to regulate the market, but partially because you can control access to the supply.
With electronics and other consumer goods, these will be imported and sold freely in Mexico and Canada. So anyone can buy them. And once inside the US then there’s a massive digital market to resell them, after all there’s nothing illegal about reselling that iPhone or Nike shoes you bought but never used or even unboxed. This is similar to the reason people steal Amazon deliveries. Fencing the stolen items is really easy.
So it’s easy to smuggle stuff (especially at low volume), easy to buy the product, easy to sell it. The effect of these tariffs is going to be an absolute explosion of cross border smuggling in to the US. It’ll make focusing on drugs and people trafficking really hard. It’s is going to completely undermine effective border control. It’s ironic because Trump has built his political career around the idea of border security. But these protectionist tariffs will undermine that project.
Large systems with strong economic incentives are complicated and hard. The global economy is the largest of these complicated systems.

2025-04-09 20:40:24

Signal is the best private messaging system available to a non-technical consumer. But it’s not designed for classified communications. And you can get better security and privacy but there are real trade offs. This is all ok.
#note186p…cel7

2025-04-09 20:36:31

Bugger. I mostly switched to using a Mac Mini and gave it a new password to unlock the OS. Now I’m in a cafe with a laptop while my car gets its regular “warranty of fitness” inspection and I don’t remember my old laptop password. At least pre-coffee I can’t remember it.

2025-04-09 03:02:11

The people who build large electronics and other stores among the borders of the US are going to make a bundle. We’ve seen this story around the world. #tariffs

2025-04-07 20:56:54

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Yeah, my conclusion is that there will be a small minority who gets it and the vast majority of people who think nothing will come of it and it’s all hype.
And maybe it all works out to be hype. Tech has repeatedly claimed it would change the world, sometimes it has, sometimes it hasn’t.
I don’t think the most radical projections are likely, but as i pay more attention to it, use it more, i find it to be really powerful and getting better.
Clearly it’ll take over tech and software development first. And i think most other uses will really lag behind.
I get why people think AI is crap. It got thrown in to lots of things and isn’t good. Is the AI integration to Slack useful? Not in the least. This bolting on mostly won’t work. What we’ll need is things redone with AI at the center of how it works, that’ll be the transformation.

2025-04-07 19:44:16

I’m excited to @npub1yau…vjmf to take on the nostr signer extension task!
#note1v75…yr8d

2025-04-07 03:05:41

It’s the Nostr Recap!
#note1j4k…qaym

2025-04-07 02:06:13

This prediction about potential futures of AI and the world are both fascinating and terrifying. I highly recommend you spend the time to read it.
https://ai-2027.com

2025-04-06 20:17:02

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I mean there is a lot of engineering to handle the intense rain. Mostly due to drainage systems and dikes.
If you’re asking if the government is somehow causing this? There was a government transparency investigation and there is no coordinated or organized effort to bring about more rain. That’s a right wing conspiracy. It comes up with a center left coalition, but the current government has all the center and right wing parties in power. If there was some government program like the conspiracy theories claim, they’d expose it.
Anyway, New Zealand is just in a part of the world that gets lots of rain coming in very intense storms.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-whole-truth/300802897/the-whole-truth-no-cloud-seeding-isnt-causing-all-this-awful-weather

2025-04-06 12:56:05

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I strongly believe in reparations for colonialism and that not enough has been done, but i find land acknowledgments to be kind of weird and hollow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQyFfC7_U-E

2025-04-06 12:46:28

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@npub1fa8…thnd well you could go to Svalbard, it’s a semi-autonomous region with no restrictions or visa requirements on who could move or live there.
Or if you wanted to find a jurisdiction which was both un-inhabited AND low tariff you could settle the Heard and McDonald Islands!

2025-04-06 11:51:17

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Basically the entire idea of Spotify is they took the streaming model of p2p apps and made it owned and controlled by the labels. That’s why it exists.

2025-04-06 11:26:56

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It’s not really a mystery … they made a deal where the music labels became co-owners of Spotify. It’s a cartel.

2025-04-06 11:24:26

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Mostly quality of life, i wanted to be in a place that felt welcoming, safe, transparent, and was above all a high trust society.
This is a bit more about what i’m doing here: https://www.ehf.org/read/decentralised-social-media-by-and-for-the-people

2025-04-06 11:11:50

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It’s why the streets with shops and in the city center all have awning which completely protect the sidewalk from rain. People need a way of getting out of the rain when it comes.

2025-04-06 11:06:04

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Well yes, Hobbiton is in the Waikato so they only got 4.5 inches of rain in this storm!

2025-04-06 10:58:37

New Zealand gets a lot of rainfall in storms but this past few days it’s been particularly notable.
https://image.nostr.build/a15830845f9383360449548de4ca1b1b7daa206737082bb601d86e3e2b9c29c2.jpg
For folks who don’t speak metric, that’s 13 inches in a 24 hour period, and over 16 inches of rainfall in some places over 36 hours. It did cause some flooding!
It’s about as much rain in 36 hours as Los Angeles, Denver, Anchorage, Calgary, or Madrid get in a full year.

2025-04-06 09:58:10

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document it for us please ;-D

2025-04-06 09:52:47

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That's stupid, the US was just as colonized as Canada... and frankly has done a worse job of working with it's first nations people.
I don't see how that is a leftist position.

2025-04-06 08:25:15

Well this silly #hellthread did get me to finally go and update the notification and mute settings on @npub1pu3…tfch with better options and defaults.
https://github.com/planetary-social/nos/pull/1775

2025-04-05 23:27:06

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They’ve been put on torrent sites too ;=D

2025-04-02 18:59:27

What is your why for building #Nostr and #FreedomTech?
#note1nyk…zt7j

2025-04-02 18:58:12

I think the work @npub1xsp…62dr is doing in terms of using Nostr as a tool to annotate blockchain content is interesting. So much of the bitcoiners see other blockchain projects as speculative “shitcoins” that they don’t see the ways that smart contracts and decentralized blockchain based protocols can do new and powerful things.
One of my problems with the blockchain projects is they often try and put everything on chain. A kind of your only tool is the blockchain hammer, so everything looks like a smart contract nail, type issues. But if you only put the minimal amount of content that requires universal consensus on chain you can do the rest with Nostr.
We need Nostr to grow beyond its bitcoin core.
#note1p39…d67s

2025-04-02 09:40:29

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Aider and Claude code both work much better than the IDE based ai coding systems for me

2025-04-01 03:08:37

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The quote i use at the end is something i stand by, but i also think it’s why i think we need a diverse ecosystem based on a protocol for social media. It let’s me run clients and relays with different rules from the ones you want to run. If you don’t like my app, or relay, or communities, then you’re empowered to choose others. But if we have a single unified corporate platform then everybody will play the refs and game the system. There’s no win for free speech in that situation.

2025-04-01 01:30:43

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You should start with fixing your device, then actually look at the site not my cliff notes version with a link ;-D

2025-04-01 00:07:07

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@npub1n0s…ce54 so charge them! If they really supported a terrorist organization then it’ll be easy to get a conviction.

2025-04-01 00:04:06

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There’s no grounds for revoking their visa based on constitutionally protected speech. The courts have ruled many times that immigrants have the constitutional right to freedom of speech, assembly, due process, and equal protection under the law.
Either we scrap the constitutional rights and the courts reinterpret the constitution or these people deserve a day in court if the government feels they’ve done something bad enough revoke their visa. And that thing legally can not be what they said or what protest they attended. If they were arrested for say breaking a window at the protest, that’s a crime and they could be charged, put on trial, convicted of that and have their visa revoked. Because of what they did and not what they said.

2025-03-31 23:58:29

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Like if we want to have a law which says social media posts promoting the Palestinian cause is illegal material support of terrorism then get that law passed or get the courts to rule that social media posts are material support.
Then go and investigate and arrest people who commit that crime. If convicted of the crime, then they can either directly be deported or serve their sentence and then be deported.
But what’s happening is not that legal process. It’s using an AI bot to find posts which might express a political view which might be by the person you think it is, which might be illegal. If it’s a crime, get a warrant to get records from social media companies and identify the actual person responsible for posting that illegal material.
Personally I’m on Nostr because I don’t believe the state has any business punishing people for their speech. But sounds like you the idea that a government official can just decide what people can and can not say.

2025-03-31 23:50:26

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But these folks wrote editorials and held protests asking for an end to the war in Gaza. Not in any way endorsing or providing any material support to Hamas.
And even if they did violate that law and provide real material support for Hamas or other designated terrorist organization then they should be arrested, charged, put on trial, and found guilty of that crime. Then and only then would it make sense to revoke their visa. If what they did was illegal then charge them and use that conviction to justify their being deported. Immigrants and permanent residents deserve their day in court and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

2025-03-31 23:45:41

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@npub1n0s…ce54 the US legal system is very clear that immigrants and people on temporary visas have constitutional rights to free speech, political association, equal protection under the law, and due process. I think those things which are important parts of the American system are really good and should be defended.
Do I want immigrants supporting Dylan Roof or the KKK? No, but I do want a society that protects free speech. Just like I build on Nostr because I believe in building an internet where people can say things I don’t like or want to hear. I’m very confused to find people who advocate for censorship and authoritarianism on a platform like Nostr.

2025-03-31 19:19:40

This car has an awesome license plate.
https://i.nostr.build/lfnfqu2lNGO4vRyL.jpg

2025-03-31 19:15:18

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Or you could be aware that there’s massive strategic and cultural advantage to having foreign students coming to learn in your country. You get to sell them on your culture, language, model of working. If you believe in a nationalist competition between countries you what their best people to come study, work, and research in your country. You win the talent war.

2025-03-31 18:31:22

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Twitter used to have this feature in a way, you could go to a person’s profile and see twitter from that user’s perspective. But the problem was calculating the intersect of what accounts were public/private/blocked in between the profile you’re viewing and your own user.
The npub way doesn’t have that issue because we don’t have private accounts, and mutes could be applied easily at view time.