Whiskers passed away just over 48 hours ago. It hurts less each day but it still hurts like hell.

Whiskers May 4, 2010 - Sept. 5, 2026 FOREVER LOVED

I’ve been thinking a lot about reciprocity, respect, and basic etiquette on Nostr today. I recently went through the personal npubs I follow. If someone didn’t follow me, I unfollowed them. I went from following 600+ accounts to about 295—almost exactly the number that follow me. This isn’t about ideology. In fact, I follow people with whom I strongly disagree, sometimes on very important things. If they treat me with respect and there is some basic reciprocity, I’m perfectly happy to hear what they have to say. Nor do I think anyone owes me a follow, reply, zap, repost, or anything else. But the reverse is also true: I don’t owe anyone my attention simply because they’re prominent, have a large following, wrote a book, built something useful, or are considered important in Bitcoin or Nostr. To me, a social network should be social. If someone follows you, regularly replies to you, quotes you, reposts you, or otherwise takes an interest in what you’re saying, occasionally acknowledging that person is basic etiquette. You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to become friends. You certainly don’t have to respond to everything. Just recognize that there’s another human being there. What increasingly repels me is the influencer model: thousands of people are encouraged to follow, repost, zap, listen, and engage, while recognition flows primarily toward a small inner circle. That may be how someone chooses to use Nostr. That’s their prerogative. But I don’t have to participate in it. I’d rather have a smaller social graph containing people who disagree with me but recognize me as a fellow participant than follow hundreds of “important” people with whom the relationship consists entirely of me listening to them. You don’t have to agree with me. Just treat me like a human being, and I’ll try to extend the same courtesy to you. That’s the kind of Nostr I want. And yes, I had AI help me craft and organize this note. I use AI as a tool to help me express what I’m thinking more clearly, and I’m not ashamed of that either. The thoughts and judgments are mine. If you disagree with that—or with anything I’ve written here—so be it.

Using Continuum Passport to connect and post on relayop.xyz

Bitcoin is back! Don't let anyone ever tell you that price doesn't matter. It does! It feels very good to see Bitcoin climbing back up to 74000 today. All the drama over the past few weeks (Coldcard, BIP 110, Boltz, BTCPay and so on) and all this happening with the price not moving much been feeling pretty glum. But it feels very good to see it start going up like this again. I pray for all those affected by the coldcard heist and some of the other issues. I didn't lose BTC in that but I did go through some other things this week and I know sooner or later we will have to say goodbye to our dear friend Whiskers (now 16 years). We have had him since he was 6 weeks old. Life never sits still does it?

I'm back! Last week Thursday (8/13), my main MacBook Pro (Intel) (which I have been using continuously since 2016) decided to call it quits. Turns out the SSD (internal) disk started failing, and sure enough First Aid couldn't fix it, so I've been dealing with that. I had another MacBook Pro I have been using since last Friday, but it's running an older OS. Then on Friday (8/14) our dryer stopped working and I had to order a replacement for it. The dryer is stacked on top of our washer (both LG models) The new dryer was installed this afternoon. It works great and is very quiet. Then this past Tuesday night (8/18) our dog Whiskers (who is now 16 years) had some "mistakes" that evening. He also had not been eating much that day and refused his medications (my wife figured out how to give it him with some cheese of course. Today (8/20) he regained his appetite and looks to be doing much better. Life happens I feel like this past week I've been living in a time warp.