Noooooooo! View quoted note →

Complexity is where the truth lives, and where the opportunity hides.

1291. The final Crusader strongholds have fallen, and with them the illusion that faith alone can hold the Holy Land. Yet the Knights Templar return from the East carrying a different prize: the knowledge of Arabic numerals and the revolutionary accounting methods of Liber Abaci. These are tools that measure, connect, and bind — capable of building a network of credit and trust across kingdoms, independent of papal blessing. When Lord Amaury is murdered on pilgrimage, his friend, Brother Etienne of Chartres, inherits a fragment of an unassuming ledger. In its margins are strange marks — the sign of a hidden architecture of influence. Each symbol unlocks a node in a network stretching from Acre to the Hebrides, mapping the flow of power in the only language that never lies: numbers. But numbers have no creed. To the Holy See, they are a threat, a rival scripture without saints or miracles. To the Temple, they are the means to replace the authority of Rome with the quiet dominion of commerce. Between these visions, Etienne must decide: should such knowledge be guarded, destroyed, or set free beyond the reach of any master? The Ledger of Light is a mystery of ideas as much as action — a meditation on the nature of truth, the seduction of control, and the eternal tension between revelation and secrecy. In the dim lamplight of monasteries, on the crowded quays of Avignon, and in the shadowed halls of power, one question burns: when the light of knowledge falls, can any institution — Church, Order, or State — remain unchanged?

The App Store is the new Curia

In my copious spare time I am writing my second historical fiction novel. This time it’s set in the Chartres Cathedral in France in 1198 with monks and warriors. My previous book was set in Algonquin Park in 1917 with artists and lumbermen. I am having great fun fusing what I have learned from historical research (medieval architecture, forgery and trading networks). It’s super fun to incorporate what I have learned (am learning) from bitcoin and nostr, knowing that nothing is truly new under the sun. Just echoes of history past, plus people always willing to kill for their privilege. The goal is to have something published in early 2026, if the world doesn’t end first. Here’s a potential book cover as a teaser. I might share some sneak peeks, but not sure yet. #theledgeroflight

To fax a document - it’s about 2000 sats/page

I had to send a fax today…

Ultraprocessed Foods Provide Most of Americans’ Calories BY JENNIFER CALFAS The Wall Street Journal Aug 08, 2025 Ultraprocessed foods make up the majority of calories Americans are eating, according to a report released Thursday by the federal government. But there are signs this consumption might be declining. Sandwiches, baked goods, salty snacks and other ultraprocessed foods accounted for 55% of the calories Americans age 1 and older consumed from August 2021 to August 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics study. That proportion is getting smaller. For adults, the mean percentage of calories consumed from ultraprocessed foods fell 3 percentage points to 53% since 2018 and for children and teens, it fell nearly 4 percentage points to 61.9%, the report found. “Statistically, the decline is significant,” said Anne Williams, a senior service fellow at the CDC and lead author of the report. For adults consuming around 2,000 calories a day, the drop between the 2017 to 2018 figures and the latest report translates to around 60 fewer calories a day coming from ultraprocessed foods on average, said Williams. Ultraprocessed foods have been linked to an array of health issues, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and depression. There isn’t a set definition for ultraprocessed foods but researchers consider them foods made with ingredients not normally found in a home kitchen, including high-fructose corn syrup and emulsifiers such as soy lecithin. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly scrutinized these foods and their prominence in Americans’ diets, blaming them for the country’s obesity epidemic. The “Make America Healthy Again” report from the Trump administration, released earlier this year, criticized federal dietary guidelines for not addressing these foods. Kennedy said in July that several U.S. agencies would establish a definition for ultraprocessed foods to create more transparency for consumers. “HHS remains committed to supporting rigorous research and evidence-based approaches to inform dietary guidance and promote healthier food environments nationwide,” an HHS spokesperson said. These foods can pose a challenge for consumers searching for healthful-seeming options that are both cheap and convenient. Not all ultraprocessed foods are nutritionally equal; some yogurts or whole-grain products still have health benefits, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. A classification system published by scientists in Brazil determines a food’s level of processing, from unprocessed to ultraprocessed. Processed foods are those with few ingredients and include whole fruit preserved in syrup or cans of tuna preserved in oil. Ultraprocessed foods include ingredients that are beyond those in processed foods, such as artificial sweeteners. Adults with the highest family income consumed a lower mean percentage of calories from ultraprocessed foods than adults with lower incomes. The latest CDC report is the first since the Covid-19 pandemic, which interrupted researchers’ data collecting from 2019 to 2020, Williams said. Shared via PressReader connecting people through news

I’d go one step further and call it Last-Millimetre Sovereignty. View quoted note →

Someone’s gotta spoof the Coinbase ad ‘Everything is Fine’ to ‘Everything is Local’

It’s not about truth, it’s about acceptance. That’s why novels, myths and stories are ‘acceptable’ even when they have no basis in reality. The make the reader feel good. The same applies to LLMs. I’d argue that most users don’t actually care about reality- they just want something acceptable and to feel good. The trick is to make sure that they know it’s actually fiction or adjusted reality.

protocol > api > client

Code is the new constitution.

I still get ze zaps from ze spam zaps, and no nasty comments or zap receipts with nasty comments. Zap Spam Away!

Digital is great for communication and computation but lousy for trust.

Paper is still the best interoperable neutral substrate we have. That is, until #nostr came along…