Globe99

Public Key

npub147fp2j606qpfysp38phhzvempt7ewsdqwm6uww9uycp6tdvavu0s5paq44

NIP-05 Address

globe99@nostrcheck.me

NIP-57 Address

Globe99@coinos.io

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2lys4fd8aqq5jgqcnsmm3xvas4lvhgxs8daw88z7zvqa9kkwkw8cpzemhxw309ucnjv3wxymrst338qhrww3hxumnwqgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcuqv4ml

Publishing to

192.168.18.7:7777

nos.lol

eden.nostr.land

Author Public Key

npub147fp2j606qpfysp38phhzvempt7ewsdqwm6uww9uycp6tdvavu0s5paq44

Show more details

Last Notes

2025-05-27 21:27:05

- reply

I think the full vision of the DAO has (a) yet to be seen, (b) is only possible on platforms like Ethereum, and (c) is probably going to be necessary to achieve things like polycentric law that Friedman describes.
I guess I still "believe"... The tech is there but it's still very early even for BTC, let alone the real potential of DAOs.

2025-05-23 18:46:54

- reply

I'd suggest Friedman's Machinery of Freedom. And imagine everything being described but "with a blockchain / smart contracts."

2025-05-21 14:26:44

- reply

Harmful? IDK... If this forces the real-world version of this guy to get a real job, then I'd say that's a net win for society.

2025-05-21 03:51:34

- reply

They're MINERALS, Marie!!

2025-05-21 00:22:58

- reply

"What would you do with a million dollars?" Is always a good question for which to have some kind of answer.

2025-05-19 23:38:10

- reply

wait we don't like 丰 ?

2025-05-19 14:55:51

- reply

It's also not just "influencers"... Can you imagine CNBC and the rest of the nocoiner public just accepting this?
It would be a huge embarrassment, "oh those fake money people now want their fake money piles to look bigger, hurf durf durf..."

2025-05-14 02:37:48

- reply

Soo is this effectively the equivalent of "Web of trust" score of 1?

2025-05-13 20:54:31

#asknostr What exactly is the "Network" filter in #coracle? Is that like, 2nd or 3rd order connections?

2025-05-13 02:04:51

- reply

Nvm figured out the WoT. #coracle really is a swiss-army knife of feed construction... But still not seeing custom emojis?

2025-05-13 01:51:28

- reply

1: What are "WOT feeds"? Where do I access this feature?
3: I don't see custom emojis, there's still just a "heart" icon

2025-05-13 00:55:20

- reply

Decentraland?

2025-05-11 23:24:25

- reply

Ugh was just there (Vegas) recently. It just feels really claustrophobic... few seating areas, everything's crowded, and it doesn't help that they cram in a bank of slot machines every 20 feet.... Everything feels rushed, cramped, and claustrophobic.
In contrast, Denver has those big open atriums that make it feel more like a mall than an airport.

2025-05-08 14:59:58

- reply

I've always been like ~90% "maxi". I think that there is a real use case for tokens in a hypothetical future, but in the real world they seem to have been almost exclusively used for shitcoin scams....

2025-05-07 18:34:00

- reply

Yeah this seems to work for Habla at least... I can also clearly see a lot of debate with @nprofile…vx4y involving ASCIIdoc

2025-05-05 14:51:43

- reply

Yep... And I'm not sure really how much AI solves for any of this, especially for "atoms not bits" startups, because robotics that can do even rudimentary 3-5-year old human tasks are still years (decades?) away.

2025-05-05 14:46:14

- reply

"All other parts are basically human, but I've got a Super-Knee"

2025-04-29 22:03:07

- reply

I'll never believe those are actually his legs...

2025-04-29 16:28:50

Whoops... looks like cozying up to the God Emperor didn't earn you any enduring political points...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/us/politics/trump-amazon-tariffs-prices.html

2025-04-29 15:23:36

- reply

I'm sure someone has studied this, but my guess is that Republicans get penalized more for "inaction" whereas Democrats get penalized for action.
Republican congresspeople since Trump 1.0 have had to worry about an omnipresent threat of getting "primaried" by more extreme Trump syncophants if they fall out of line.
In contrast, the DNC is much better at rigging their primaries so as to ensure that incumbents (Pelosi, Schumer, etc) get nice comfortable, challenge-free seats... (This is what gave us Hillary 2016).
However, now in Trump 2.0, both of these dynamics might be reversing? Republicans are getting pounded in town-hall meetings for their actions, while Democrats are getting pilloried for in-action.

2025-04-26 19:59:05

- reply

What'd you get?

2025-04-26 15:26:20

- reply

LOL he made it 7 whole minutes

2025-04-25 02:13:47

- reply

Is that Kyle MacLachlan? Pre-Blue-Velvet?

2025-04-23 20:32:20

- reply

Yeah... Like a lot of the 2010's podcasting world, he started out with someone who I felt had good "common sense" life advice that lots of people probably needed to hear.
Then somehow along the way he skewed way to the Right, to the point of self-caricature.... c.f. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nvckip7qxk
and "WHY NOT?!?" which I surprisingly can't find a good clip of...

2025-04-22 21:54:16

- reply

some"thing"

2025-04-22 21:53:55

- reply

Evolution is much like a poorly maintained codebase: some that "works", even sub-optimally, gets re-used endlessly

2025-04-22 21:42:22

- reply

So I see a kind of "for sale" interface in Nostr now -- at least in both Amethyst "Marketplace".... How does Catallax work with those types of notes?

2025-04-16 19:48:34

- reply

LOL "bots first" ... See, we feed the slop from the AIs back to the AIs! it's brilliant!
The Ensloppification Begins

2025-04-15 21:43:35

- reply

OK sure, but the problem is more the existence of public property producing the "tragedy of the commons" issue.... Everyone's experience with this is different, but from my point of view living in a major US urban area, the problems of homelessness are much more pronounced than that of immigration....
And I think there is data to bear out the conclusion that homeless people are far greater consumers of public services and "disrupters" of public life (in whatever context you're referring to be "forced association") than immigrants.

2025-04-15 20:45:16

- reply

"Do you mean immigrant as in in the US illegally or just someone who immigrated?" We're going around in circles here. The context is specifically Abrego Garcia who is here *legally*, according to the Trump administration in legal filings.
"Forced association- massive illegal immigration" --- Nothing about this is "forced association." Private property allows one to exclude whomever one wants from property. Public property is another issue, and while there can be a "tragedy of the commons" effect I think the problem with home-grown homelessness and mental health issues is far greater than anything created by illegal immigration.
"Forced Disassociation" -- Yes, this one is the problem. If I choose to employ or associate with someone who happens to be on the other side of an arbitrary line, and some Band of Thugs kidnaps that person, then the Thugs are the aggressors and in the wrong.

2025-04-15 20:35:15

- reply

No I suppose it's not happening to the "majority" of immigrants, but it signals a pretty clear policy change, with new "boundary pushing" things happening every day. If I were an immigrant in the US, I would reasonably be scared as to whether I'm next.... Not wait until we start filling up trains with people.

2025-04-15 18:43:51

- reply

Reminds me of Google Plus... Some executives sitting around saying "gee we need a social network, how hard can it be?"
This is one of many reasons why I'm neither an AI doomer, nor AI Utopian.... Because we can already see these things bumping up against the limits of both economic and computational reality. C.f. Sam Altman's reference to their "melting GPU's."

2025-04-15 17:43:21

- reply

"If people are not given a chance to prove they're a member that is a different issue."
Given the context of your metaphor this is clearly the case with Garcia.

2025-04-15 16:29:48

- reply

"Due process" could also be with regards to immigration status. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was in the country legally when he was scooped up and deported to the CECOT gulag. The administration admitted an "administrative error" in this case.

2025-04-15 15:33:51

- reply

This could be a really big deal, like "turn my fan fiction into reality"... I'm sure creative professionals will consider this the Apocalypse, but the flip side is that it will explode the ability of everyday people to make creative works.
Also, from a Nostr perspective: with stuff like Alexandria you could have a multitude of "branching" storylines and plots; using Zap splits, popular story branches would all feed back into some main "trunk."

2025-04-14 22:12:44

- reply

Oddly, it might have been easier ~10 years ago than now. I remember reading stories at the time about how people would travel around the US or Europe on only Bitcoin (mostly journalists as a "stunt," but there were some people who committed to that lifestyle).
Back in the day I remember you could use Gyft to get gift cards for BTC. You would also see the occasional restaurant or bar that accepted it.

2025-04-14 17:41:01

- reply

Really interesting, I think that in many ways this makes Nostr more like real human communities, in the sense that there's a "local" aspect to information propagation.
What's important to someone living in Los Angeles isn't going to be the same as what's important to someone living in Buenos Aires. Different information is going to propagate "naturally" because the concerns of people in different places are different.

2025-04-13 18:00:02

- reply

As much as I recoil from Curtis Yarvin's political program, he described this problem accurately as "Barbarians and Mandarins": Trump and Elon are barbarians, they desire simply to tear down a system, but have neither the vision nor political courage to rebuild something in its place.
In other words; "They're no Milei." Javier Milei had three things that are essential:
1. A technocratic understanding of the bureaucratic State: how it works, and how it doesn't.
2. A deep underpinning in the economic and philosophical benefits of his program, and
3. The ability to articulate this program as a positive vision of the future to an apprehensive public.
All three are essential to truly create change in a modern democracy.
Unfortunately, as it is now, we're headed towards Hayek's "Road to Serfdom."

2025-04-13 17:46:18

- reply

"Hmm, thats a bad comparison. The "homestead" guys just want better food; they still participate in the broader economy."
Well yes of course there's a spectrum between people who just plant an herb garden in their backyard, and a fully stocked off-grid bunker in the desert... I'm referring more to the latter than the former. Of course there's some balance.
"There's nothing wrong with trying to bring back manufacturing to your country; especially if you're anticipating war."
So just to be clear, I and millions of Americans must suffer economic hardship for.... what exactly? The glorious Lutnickian vision of Americans screwing in the tiny screws on their iPhones?
That's economic central planning, and it's doomed to failure.

2025-04-13 15:30:26

- reply

I found this recent article really illuminating... They actually run miles-long fiber-optic cables behind these things to prevent jamming and get the "latency edge."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/03/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-drones-deaths.html

2025-04-13 14:54:26

- reply

The idea that America is going to be economically self-sufficient is as ludicrous as these "homestead" guys who think they're going to live off in a cabin in the woods and be self-sufficient.
That's great until your kid gets sick, or your computer fails... oh what, you didn't build an entire TSMC foundry into your cabin? Too bad, guess you're going to have to re-engage with the economy.
This is a *feature* not a *bug.* We can't grow coffee in America, we can't grow Avocados. But we have money, and other countries do that much better, so trade is "win-win."
"No hope of improvement" what? This isn't some high school report card. Manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to America, outside of certain highly bespoke "artisinal" products. Like Teslas.

2025-04-12 16:02:19

- reply

DO CARL!!

2025-04-11 16:34:09

- reply

Thanks! Yeah it's an open question for what's a better system design... In the system you're proposing, the arbiter basically has "final say" on everything... Even if they're effectively just "rubber stamping" it, they could in principle misbehave and hold things up, even if the patron says "yes the job was done to my satisfaction."
On another subject, I just happened to be thinking before this specifically about "blinded" shipments, that's a good suggestion. I wonder if there is a framework where multiple jobs could be "chained"? I.e. one "patron" is actually acting as a "free agent" for another job, etc... Although I suppose there's no need for the network to know about that.

2025-04-11 03:28:55

- reply

The only Vonnegut I've read, and man, what a mindfuck

2025-04-11 03:00:53

- reply

OK something else: reading this, I realize that the arbiter is responsible for judging the work. So basically, the arbiter is involved in every transaction?
I guess this isn't what I would have naively pictured, which would be that most transactions are simply between buyer and seller, and arbiter is only activated if something "goes wrong" and they need adjudication...
Why do you think it's better that the arbiter be "in the loop" for every transaction, rather than only if something goes wrong?

2025-04-10 22:45:13

- reply

This is really cool, exactly the kind of thing "only Nostr" can do.
My first glance question is: Isn't this an ideal application for multisignature Bitcoin? This is basically a 2-of-3 transaction between buyer, seller and arbiter.
Also is "Kind 3400" already in the protocol or something you came up with?
Are / should transactions be linked to these Nostr events directly in some way?

2025-04-10 04:03:29

- reply

I suppose the only reasonable means for this is device-level control by the parents, who are presumably the ones buying the devices in the first place. So Nostr app settings are restricted on the phone, and the kid can't change it.

2025-04-07 22:35:33

For all the talk of AI taking over the world, you know what's still frustratingly difficult?
"Based on all the data you have on me, find events that will be interesting to me occurring in (set physical location) within (set timeline)."
After 25 years of Internets and this task, largely, still sucks.

2025-04-05 17:42:25

- reply

"Make raids costly" -- In "The Art of Not Being Governed" historian James C. Scott describes the context of medieval Southeast Asia, where the topology created a division between "Hulu" -- mountain people -- and "Hilir" -- valley people.
Governments could control the hilir people because they were tied down to wet rice agriculture, thus were a fixed target for taxation and control. In contrast, "hulu" people were nomadic and lived at higher elevations, thus making raids costly in terms of time, manpower, energy, etc.
Encrypted comms, Bitcoin, etc -- these are "hulu" tech. They raise the costs for State intervention, potentially on a mass scale.

2025-04-05 17:32:17

- reply

Yes, I see this happening as well. VR teleprescence + robots will be a huge boon.
I think about this particularly in the context of Chemistry and other hazardous forms of work... Chemical manipulations could be performed by "robot arms" controlled by someone remote. Same thing with custom electronic fabrication and other forms of "delicate" work.
This is an "end-run" around the massive regulatory and liability burden that exists to do this kind of work, which effectively limits it to academic institutions and large companies.
Even stuff that would normally happen in a garage or workspace, well, not everyone has a garage...

2025-04-02 00:42:50

- reply

I fully agree, but I think we have to realize the strength of the institutional guard-rails against this happening.
Right now, AFAIK, the legal status is that you have to account for capital gains on *everything* you purchase with Bitcoin in the USA. $4 cup of coffee, $10 beer, whatever. Come Tax Time, it's your obligation to break out the spreadsheet and calculate FIFO/LIFO basis on *every single purchase*, separately.
So if this is what they require for a cup of coffee, how easy do you think they'd make it for employers to pay people in Bitcoin?
This goes to the heart of the US taxation regime -- the withholding tax, one of the most sinister forms of taxation. Rather than present you with a bill for what you owe, they just take it right out of your paycheck. How would that regime work with Bitcoin?

2025-04-02 00:22:10

- reply

Well first, I'd say for 10x the work, make sure the salary is at least somewhat commensurate...
But more generally as a mid-career person I've found that the question of "who" you're working for is almost more important than "what" you're working on... Work with people you respect and trust, and even a "bad" project can be made "great."
Conversely, work with people you don't respect and/or don't trust, and even a $billion idea will never get off the ground (or if it somehow does, odds are you'll get screwed out of it).

2025-04-01 15:41:21

- reply

It's interesting to watch the Twitter documentary on CNN, they describe its origins as just a bunch of people who wanted a way to update their IRL friends about what they're doing, using the medium of text messages.
Somewhere along the way Twitter became the "global town square" or whatever, but at first it was just a way to talk to small groups, more similar to Discord of today.

2025-04-01 15:31:03

- reply

he'll have a guy for that

2025-04-01 15:28:57

- reply

Yeah... most I've considered is getting a Raspberry Pi (or even maybe an Umbrel?) to hook up to my TV.
But other than that, my work-setup monitor + an 8BitDo + retrogames.cc and I'm set.

2025-04-01 03:53:28

- reply

Right.... is this just "digital gold" for "number go up", or is this actually something people will use to pay for actual things in meatspace?
That's the question.

2025-04-01 02:12:33

- reply

In the US at least you're technically required to calculate capital gains on *everything* you purchase with Bitcoin. $4 cup of coffee, $20 book, $50 meal... IRS expects you to break out the spreadsheet and calculate FIFO/LIFO basis on every single purchase.
Can you imagine doing that for a *full years* worth of purchases? This, to me, is problem #1 for mass adoption.

2025-03-31 20:04:13

- reply

"Foreign agitator" she wrote an OP-ED, dude.
Nothing was proven about "illegal protests". And so I guess criticism of Israel is "hatred towards a religious class"?
'MURICA

2025-03-31 01:52:02

- reply

Millennials: the generation that has to teach Tech to both their parents and children

2025-03-30 23:47:36

- reply

"...the launch for them to raise funds and grow even more." ... which AFAIK is why @nprofile…79yn left to fund the creation of Nostr...
I think it remains to be seen whether the same external commercial and political forces that tore apart Twitter won't do the same thing to Bluesky.
If I could hazard a guess the comparison between Nostr and Bluesky will wind up being a bit like Bitcoin vs Ethereum. Similarly, there will come a moment, just as happened with "The DAO" in 2016, when the "Bluesky CEO" will be forced to make some tough choices about censorship and what to allow on the network (or, let's be clear, the "reference client" because this is still technically open source).
Vitalik Buterin said "code is Law" until there were $millions lost from bad code. Then he said "you know what, maybe Law is Law", and reversed it.
Will Jay Graber make the same choice?

2025-03-30 20:59:12

- reply

what? she is on a student visa. legal, at least until Little Marco arbitrarily decides that she's not with the stroke of a pen....
(butterfly meme) is this rule of law??

2025-03-30 20:52:41

- reply

Yeah okay sure, by that logic though, we don't know how many people get killed or disabled because there's an ion storm on Saturn or something.
So just like I'm not going to presume that Mercury in retrograde is going to cause me to lose money in the stock market, there's no reason to presume that there are any more deaths from the covid vaccine then what can be *actually* be attributed to it.

2025-03-30 20:47:07

- reply

What they're doing to "legal" immigrants:
https://youtu.be/7-fSpi7ZHoQ

2025-03-30 20:41:55

- reply

It's called "using precise language", which is necessary when you're doing actual science.
Or are you suggesting that we shouldn't use causal relationships when trying to total the number of deaths from the COVID vaccine? are these "Quantum deaths"?

2025-03-30 18:42:37

- reply

well no, see he'll just transfer it to one of his sons if he dies.
trust me bro, "there's ways to do it."

2025-03-30 16:38:12

- reply

"See, the 21st century Memer-Gatherer didn't need any of our modern nanotechnology and quantum brain implants to live... and they were perfectly content and happy, as their High Priestess Hawk Tuah can attest!"

2025-03-30 16:23:44

- reply

I'm going to keep banging on this drum but could we pppplease get clear tax regulations for regular people spending regular amounts of Bitcoin?
Like IDC what Michael Saylor says at the White House, I want to be able to buy a cup of coffee with BTC without having to calculate FIFO/LIFO basis on my capital gains taxes.

2025-03-30 16:18:18

- reply

Yes, continuous self-reflection about the things that matter is really important

2025-03-30 16:14:36

- reply

I tried this for the first time recently, was not disappointed.
Try it with "bread and butter" pickles -- apparently this is something of a staple in Southern cuisine...

2025-03-30 15:56:00

- reply

Are there really "many" such beliefs at any given time?
If anything, there are a "few" such beliefs, and it takes a great deal of knowledge and insight (of how the world actually works in the context of "conventional" knowledge) to find which ones.
Otherwise you're unemployable, living in a cabin in the woods, and drinking your pee because you think that's going to save you from the Flat Earth Alien Crystals in the Deep State.

2025-03-30 15:52:23

- reply

BOO LOL
LOL "the scientists are bought and paid for." Science is done by 100,000's of people all over the world, publishing in journals and sharing data. It's one the most decentralized forms of knowledge production we have. I'm a scientist and I'm not "bought and paid for" by whatever globalist conspiracy boogey you're imagining.

2025-03-30 15:45:43

- reply

How easy is it to integrate Zaps with a federated model? Is the server hosting the zaps now acting as a money transmitter? Do they have an obligation to obey OFAC?

2025-03-30 15:44:09

- reply

I believe multiple scientific studies that have been done on the topic, and the fact that Google overwhelmingly points towards the answer I cited as the correct one. I would believe any LLM that would almost certainly read all of the information available and give the same answer.
I believe that if there were *literally millions of people* dying in a way that could be clearly tied back to a specific vaccine product, there would be widespread scientific reports about it.

2025-03-30 15:41:29

- reply

Yeah... because getting grabbed off the street by jackbooted thugs is in the same ballpark as "people don't like me on Twitter"

2025-03-30 15:40:14

- reply

This is ludicrous. There have been like 50 deaths that have been attributed to COVID-19 vaccines, out of *billions* administered.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8875435/

2025-03-30 15:29:42

- reply

Well I'm not an expert, but the one that immediately sticks out is monetization. Built-in zaps means built-in permissionless monetization. I think that's the big thing Nostr has on every competitor.
More broadly I think because of Nostr's "note-based" architecture it has the possibility of becoming much more than just social media, I.e. projects like Alexandria, decentralized Wiki's, etc.

2025-03-29 15:35:59

#AI as "mid" Tech:
"Consumers who fancy themselves early adopters get a lot of mileage out of A.I.’s predictive power, but they accept a lot of bugginess and poor performance to live in the future before everyone else.
The rest of us are using this technology for far more mundane purposes. A.I. spits out meal plans with the right amount of macros, tells us when our calendars are overscheduled and helps write emails that no one wants. That’s a mid revolution of mid tasks."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/opinion/ai-tech-innovation.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

2025-03-29 04:59:46

- reply

It's hard to lament the absence of something that's so poorly defined in the first place... AGI means something different to practically everyone who talks about it.

2025-03-29 04:22:24

- reply

One could argue that ~post 2020 Elon's venture's successes are precisely in proportion to how much he leaves them alone. ...
SpaceX has had Gwynn Shotwell basically running the show for ~10 years now....
And Tesla might have been disruptive back in 2015, but at this point all major carmakers have arguably better EV models... To say nothing of the expensive flops of the Cybertruck and whatever that "Tesla robot" was supposed to be, two projects in which Musk took strong personal involvement.
At this point the best thing Elon Musk can do for "humanity" is to take his billions, go live on an island somewhere and play Diablo or whatever.

2025-03-29 04:09:47

- reply

It's interesting in light of everything that's come to pass with Peter Thiel -- his idea of success in business is basically to build a monopoly, then build a moat so high nobody can catch up. It's basically what everyone's stereotype of "greedy evil capitalists" is.
One can imagine a direct throughline from this to Curtis Yarvin and the "neo-monarchists"...

2025-03-28 23:32:26

- reply

Yay, everyone wins! Except, of course, the users...

2025-03-28 20:05:44

- reply

I guess that's all well and good, but I see two problems with this. First, the original creator who posted it on Instagram or whatever is kinda getting disenfranchised, because their only way of monetizing that content is through Instagram. Of course it'd be great if they "saw the light" and came over to Nostr, but we can't expect that to happen in the near-term...
Second, eventually, since Instagram technically "owns" all of those memes and images that appear on its platform, it could in principle do mass-copyright takedowns against the various image-hosting platforms on Nostr, which are not (to my understanding) decentralized. So this might be a problem for the Nostr ecosystem long-term if we want social media with anything other than text...

2025-03-28 19:59:24

- reply

"The time is currently 07:07am, President Trump claims that the moon has been colonized by xyglorgs. Today's forcast is mostly sunny with a 30% chance of rain."
Really? So you don't think that journalism has any role in fact-finding? What, it's just supposed to repeat whatever someone says without even attempting to verify it?
So the next part -- "Today's forecast" -- they could just say "well the National Weather Service says it's going to be mostly sunny, but the crazy person outside of my apartment says that today is the day Blue Hellfire will Reign from the Skies.... Reporting both sides, NPR"

2025-03-28 17:55:56

- reply

Yeah it's ~1%.
"Bias" is a tricky thing post-Trump... I mean when he says something that's simply incorrect, wrong, or an obvious lie, is it "bias" when you don't bring in someone nutjob to say "Trump's actually right about that"?
That being said, they frequently interview Congresspeople or Administration officials who "toe the line" on whatever ridiculous thing Trump is spouting at the moment, and (I feel at least) the reporters question that appropriately.

2025-03-28 17:45:00

#asknostr What's the best way to bring in memes / short videos from other platforms? I.e. something funny on Instagram... Should I link to it? Download it and repost it?
What are the ethical, moral and/or op-sec issues?

2025-03-27 15:51:42

- reply

I'm both libertarian and a long-time NPR listener... First, on the "bias" question, I personally don't find significant left-right bias in NPR news coverage. Sure, they're not going to be seeking out the "libertarian perspective" on the issues of the day, but I can get that from other outlets like Reason.
PBS news coverage I have found to be more left-leaning in general, thus I tend to prefer outlets like BBC for basic fact-based "world news" reporting.
On the funding question: It's important to state that actual federal funding accounts for ~1% of NPR's budget. PBS might be larger, but it's also a mix of federal and state funding. Donations "from listeners like you" make up the bulk of it in both cases.
So, while I'm not going to "go to the barricades" to protect 1% of NPR's budget, I am dismayed that the Right has consistently gone after these "soft targets" like NPR, PBS, USAID, etc... Meanwhile the real "waste fraud and abuse" is in the Pentagon, c.f. the disastrous F-35 program.

2025-03-26 21:08:44

- reply

I recognize all but bottom left?

2025-03-25 23:09:09

- reply

Oh yeah I guess I wasn't thinking of running it locally, that makes sense. This goes to the idea of having some kind of self-hosted LLM type thing on a home server...

2025-03-25 23:05:21

- reply

TikTok literally monitors how fast you're scrolling past posts. No way that can be recreated without massive privacy violations.

2025-03-25 22:50:51

- reply

That makes sense... but then, what is the "popular posts" DVM doing?

2025-03-25 21:16:42

- reply

Great 90's cheese. An early attempt to adapt William Gibson.
Personally I think that Molly was miscast, but otherwise, everyone else is "doing their job" here. Also, surprise Henry Rollins!
"i WANT to get online. i NEED.... a computer!"

2025-03-25 16:41:52

- reply

(and fast forward to today): As a result of this ~decade+ of being unusable for point-of-sale transactions, many bitcoiners have actually *internalized* the narrative that it *isn't* suited for these kinds of transactions, even though as we can plainly see on Nostr, Lightning "just works."
You can see this internalized narrative all over the White House "summit." These people want to preserve the dollar as a medium of exchange, and just use Bitcoin as "digital gold." The government didn't do that... we did it to ourselves.

2025-03-25 16:38:37

- reply

"- Hijacking Bitcoin’s narrative and roadmap to make it non-competitive as a P2P medium of exchange."
I think this is more complicated than just government action, and involves many private sector actors, as well as people within the bitcoin community who identify it as "digital gold"... A phrasing that implicitly excludes bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
What happened is that pre-usable Lightning (basically, any time in the past) it was barely possible to actually use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange... which was, 100% the original idea, and don't let Saylor tell you otherwise...
Back in ~2013-2014 you had a real push to try to get people and merchants to actually use bitcoin for purchases. Like @nprofile…4az7 today you had people selling stuff like Alpaca wool sweaters, etc, advertising on places like the BitcoinTalk forums. You had some coffeeshops and bars that accepted bitcoin pop up in various places in the world.
But it wasn't easy. The UX sucked, transactions on the L1 are inherently slow, and (here's where we get to government) the tax requirements are ridiculous. Even today, despite the "pro-Bitcoin president," you're *legally obligated* to calculate capital gains taxes on a cup of coffee. Doesn't matter the cost, $4 transaction, you've got to break out the spreadsheet and calculate FIFO/LIFO on it.
So all of these factors combine so that by ~2015-2016, VC money was all going to "blockchain not bitcoin," Ethereum, alternative blockchains, etc. Fintech was "hot" but it wasn't about replacing the dollar, it was about using your phone to pay with your existing Visa/MasterCard.

2025-03-23 15:32:06

- reply

"Death is a part of life" .... So was, until very recently in human history, polio, 30-year lifespans, dying from an infected hangnail, death at childbirth, etc etc...
"Death" isn't one thing, it always has a cause, that is frequently some particular disease state. I assume you aren't making the argument that we should stop trying to cure cancer, or heart disease, or anything else like that? Should we throw up our hands and say "gee whiz death's inevitable, no penicillin for you"?

2025-03-23 15:24:19

- reply

presumably when you're 83 you'll feel comfortable pushing the "off switch"?

2025-03-22 17:26:05

- reply

Source for authoritative sounding "statistic"?

2025-03-22 16:27:53

- reply

So this is bioelectric feedback, right?
IANA medical scientist, but haven't people been hooking up electrodes to various parts of the body like, ever since electricity was discovered? Not saying that there isn't therapeutic possibility, but what exactly are we talking about here?

2025-03-21 23:27:22

- reply

Lots of his "rambling speculations" have the tenor of a Mob boss who's careful to never flat out order an illegal act, but nonetheless is able to communicate clear intentions to his capos...
"Gee sure would be a shame if those Tesla vandals got put on a one-way trip to El Salvador.... Who will help me 'take care' or this problem?"

2025-03-21 17:23:01

- reply

Just discovered this, how does it work? Is it a direct connection, or is there a server somewhere providing the connection?

2025-03-21 16:40:24

- reply

I thought this was a great talk, thanks for hosting these discussions!
It reminds me of some Vinay Gupta discussions on Youtube from back in the early days of Bitcoin... Highlighting the question of "who owns Bitcoin?", or perhaps more accurately, "who's *responsible* for Bitcoin?"
There is an interesting contradiction between the "hard" anarcho-capitalism and individualism of Bitcoin as a protocol, with the much squishier, communitarian, almost "PBS-like" model of Bitcoin as an open-source project.
I mean, it's worked so far, so I'm not complaining... But we all need to be conscious that *someone* has to pay to keep the lights on here.