I love the idea of the libertarian movement. But like all ideologies when taken to an extreme, it tends to destroy more than it liberates. Network School by Balaji is built on the network state idea. On the surface it looks like bringing smart people in through startup cities that benefit the host country. But underneath, the real goal is to gather a group of ideologically aligned people, buy up land, and eventually create their own sovereign country and government. Where it gets dirty is they don't do this in their own countries. They go to other countries and attempt to, for lack of a better word, colonise. Malaysia is one of the prominent real-world experiments in the network state movement, sold as a “startup city”. At the present moment, Balaji is arrogantly threatening to pull out his $20M investment if he doesn't get what he wants, not realising that Malaysia is fairly rich and an established country. The controversy has sparked significant public backlash and Malaysians are more than happy to see him go. Nobody wants foreigners colonising their land. We see the same playbook in Greenland where the same investors backing network states push "freedom cities" only to pave the way for Trump to want to own it. Plenty of others in this category like Honduras and Praxis. At the end of the day, any ideology taken to the extreme backfires. Same goes for democracy and communism. What bums me out is that because these new age colonisers tie themselves to the libertarian movement, Bitcoin's reputation takes a hit too.

Looks like it's gonna be an Israel-Palestine matchup for the World Cup finals!

Bitcoin folks, what Bitcoin wallets do you use? Be it custodial, self-custodial, sw or hw. And why?

I love that Nostr can be as simple as using 2-3 relays. It makes getting started easy, and honestly it has made my life easier. I have been a large relay girl from the get go. But the more I think about building on Nostr, I also see the challenges of big relays. Without careful design, both users and conversations tend to centralize around the largest and most convenient relays. That feels like the opposite of what Nostr was meant to be. How much will client defaults and user inertia end up influencing the network? The downside is what keeps me thinking. If I build on this, what are my users going to see? Porn? Political views they strongly disagree with? Is that the image I want associated with my brand? Do I then start censoring things? If I do, where do I draw the line? Am I suddenly deciding what people should and shouldn't see, and based on what, my own judgement? That doesn't feel right either. I believe users should be able to choose for themselves. But right now the only real option is to mute or block after they've already seen it, not actually design their own ecosystem around their interests. Are users going to end up muting 500 content providers they don't like, or just leave Nostr altogether after the first 10? That pushes the onus back onto the client. But without some form of filtering on the client side, do we end up back at an all-or-nothing centralized platform? I myself have been annoyed from time to time by the infighting and gender degradation. Do I want other people seeing that all the time? And somehow I end up going around in circles on this. But then there is also an incredibly attractive upside. Large relays make it viable to build serverless apps without needing to run your own infrastructure, which is a huge deal. These guys have been carrying a lot of the load for a long time now, for which I am grateful for. So there is a real trade off. Then there is the UX hurdle. The cryptographic key based identity system is incredibly attractive (secp256k1 keys underneath, same curve as Bitcoin), but login is still a major barrier for non tech users. It is a problem we all know needs solving. On the technical side, I am really excited about the possibilities of FROST for key security and projects like Pomegranate. It is great to see fiatjaf and other devs exploring tools in this space, even if they are still early. My only hope is that momentum holds and these early projects don’t lose steam before they mature. Discovery is still a big open question, but that is also what makes this space exciting. The potential for building and solving these problems is what keeps a whole bunch of problem solvers coming back. Honestly I was not thinking about building on Nostr until recently. But the more conversations I have been having with @daniele over the past few weeks, the more tempted I am to migrate what I have been building ("the other stuff" related). Some people see problems and complain. I have always believed that identifying problems is the first step toward finding solutions. To me, the bigger problem is not knowing what the problem is. And I may not know enough. But the more I think about it, the more I see vast opportunities here.

Caught the Iran–NZ match earlier and wow, both sides gave 100% throughout. I thought the commentators were a little biased, but the referees were decent. Good on Iran for fighting back to draw 2–2. My football journey started when I was about12. My dad wasn't into football, so my brother decided he might as well influence his two younger sisters while he still could and have some company. He taught my sister how to play. I rarely joined in as I had heart complications growing up, so I mostly watched. One day, my sister hit the ball so hard it chipped his front tooth. He still has half a fake tooth there today. During World Cups, he'd drag us out of bed at ridiculous hours because matches were usually live at 2 or 3am where we lived. He'd set up makeshift beds, stock up on snacks, and try his best to create the perfect viewing experience. Most of the time my sister and I would just leave our rooms, collapse onto the cushions, and fall asleep. As teenagers, though, we started paying a lot more attention. We suddenly realised footballers were very good looking. Posters started appearing in our rooms. And just to annoy our brother who was (and still is!) a die-hard Liverpool fan, we covered our walls with Manchester United posters. As we got older, football became part of lifestyle. College dates, parties would drag on to the time of the matches. At work, you'd see colleagues coming in with sleepy faces after a late-night game. My boss was a Tottenham Hotspur fan, and I developed a simple rule - only ask him for things when Spurs won. If they lost, stay away for the day. It worked surprisingly well! Football has always been a huge part of life in many parts of the world. I caught my first match this year, Brazil vs Morocco, over breakfast with my brother. The hours weren't unearthly this time, but gosh, I was not expecting Brazil to go rogue, ever. Or for Morocco to be that steady. Or for Turkey to lose to Australia. But you can see when people kan chiong, they let their emotions get the better of them and eventually lose focus. Still, the first thing I told my brother was, "Wow, I forgot football matches are full of good looking, ridiculously fit men." I guess some things never change. 📷- guardian

We are the outcome of the choices we make

Testing a $4 ceramic patch antenna + receiver at 1.575GHz. In under 30 seconds it locked 8 satellites for a solid location fix. Makes you wonder how many thousands of satellites are out there. And if you have an antenna on you, how easily you could be tracked. This captures signals down to -160dBm

Got a collection of Orwell to read. I've only read 1984 and Animal farm all these years. I learned that for Down and Out in Paris and London, he voluntarily lived as a tramp to fully experience poverty for the book. But what I find most ironic is that Orwell went to Eton. Who would have thought

In love we find out who we want to be In war we find out who we are - Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale

Please help Lucy, a sweet 11 year old girl who could be put to death in Virginia. A year ago Lucy had surgery to remove suspected cancer on her leg. She was groggy, in pain, wearing a cone, and confused from the anesthesia and medication. While in that disoriented state, there was an incident with a person and the court declared her a "dangerous dog". A month ago, Lucy's collar slipped off while she was loose in the yard. She did not leave the property. Nobody was hurt, but neighbours called the police and the animal control had this poor old 11 year old dog locked up. Her court case is coming. They could put her to sleep. This girl belongs to a US army veteran and she has been by his side ever since he came back. She deserves love. I am not from the US but this story crossed oceans and broke my heart. If you are an American, please call 📞 Shenandoah County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office (US number) +1 540 459 6129. Say "Return Lucy to her veteran owner immediately." But you don't have to be American to speak for Lucy. Global voices show this matters everywhere. ✉️ Email ecooper@shenandoahcountyva.us Be respectful. Be kind. Be loud. #SaveLucy

X (formerly Twitter)

Brendan M. Jones 🇺🇸 (@brendanmjones) on X

It has now been one month since Lucy's collar slipped over her head. One month since she was loose in my yard for a few seconds. One month since no...

cc @Derek Ross , @mcshane @npub1acg6...p35c @Sophia , some of the dog people I know here.