I'm getting a taste for what it's like being outside the system. Yesterday I found out that if you aren't currently insured, car insurance rates in Spain start from point Xero, treated as a new teen driver. Next step down from that, just been told I'm lucky to be able to pay astronomical rate because most insurers aren't even prepared to insure me. For context I have had a full licence since 1982 in 3 different countries never had a serious accident, and according to official tables of accident rate demographics, Im in almost the safest age bracket for insurers. But I haven't had a car for 4 years... I live off grid so you don't get post or courier service. A simple solution, you set up a drop off point with a local post office or courier agent in town. Nowadays try buying off of Amazon type sites, so many products are flagged not able to be sent to drop off addresses. Need a home address. So I'm what, knocking on someone's door asking if they will accept my packages? A word to Nostr, the open solution to walled gardens. Try setting up a lightning wallet to work with some apps - limited drop down options are creeping in. You can push back on Nostr. There's no point screaming at legacy insurance companies or e-commerce sites. But the sooner open minded companies move into every legacy space the better. Because this is developing into a road to nowhere, pay to play, massive exclusion and growing anger at faceless companies - and I still need to drive and I still need the products I can't get delivered.

I don't think the lady at the car insurance office understood how wrong her industry is. Wrong as in broken and predatory. I started driving 45 years ago and played the game with insurance, start high go low over time.. I had full insurance in Spain for 9 years. 4 years ago I sold my car and been walking ever since. But now I need a van. I asked for a quote, information. She required my driving license. When she asked about the vehicle I showed her an option online. She required the registration number. I was literally dumbstruck. Wtf. It's not my vehicle. I want info not a signed up policy. She would not continue without it. After all that the cheapest quote for basic insurance was €700. The justification was that I did not have an active car insurance policy therefore there was no claims to reference, back to the start. I couldn't speak, it was like a sucker punch. 41 of the last 45 years playing the game just wiped away. What? 2 years with no claims and it will start to go down, she said, completely oblivious to what 700€ actually means in a country where 1000 a month is OK money for the majority. I asked why it wouldn't be cheaper next year and she dropped the next bombshell. Cost of living rises will put the lower price back up to €700. Just like that, broad grinned acceptance that inflation will make sure I never benefit from driving safe. This is the matrix, the fricking crazy world where I'm the rude person asking her to justify the racket.

Summer veg is all nice and dandy but basic survival food is perennial winter food, nuts and fruit. At 8000 calories per litre, I just stashed about 1 million calories of extra virgen olive oil, 5kgs olivas muertas - that's about 600kgs of pressed olives and 20kgs of almonds. Chickens need imported feed to lay at full speed but if it ever got ugly, they can get by on forage and keep us in eggs. Meat is obviously another source of food :) but, here's an unpopular observation - if it's in the deep freeze, that doesn't count as secure food. For a bit of food in reserve, think of food sources that require no tech to store. Hope it never comes to be vital. #selfsufficient #olives #Spain #homesteading

One advantage of BTC/ lightning that may be lost on non users - there is no fear of phonecalls or unexplained refusal of perfectly innocuous payments to other countries. My first use case of BTC was buying a hardware wallet from an eastern European country. I spoke three times to the UK bank security team and each time they couldn't see any technical reason why the payments couldn't go through. I don't think they were playing dumb, but someone on a higher pay grade than them probably knew why they failed to go through.

Thoroughly enjoying the freedom of looking for movies on IMDb.com copying the TT part of the URL and pasting it on the end of vidsrc.net/embed/ thanks @🟠 isolabellart

I see that someone is trying to ruin Nostr by posting random words from burner npubs. Presumably there is a technically smart alternative to " block each one manually"

Arguably the only thing that can change the desolate direction of travel of mankind is a new fiñancial system. Review the incentives from the top down. Family, yes or no? Education or indoctrination? For sustainable profit or for Maximum profit whatever the cost? Health, entertainment, food production, transport options... the decision making on that little lot seems at its bottom line driven by the financial consequences. The financial system is inflationary, precarious by design, predatory by design. With investment for instance, we are all thrown in the ring despite being deliberately de educated from childhood about money and the system. The few best players win all at a game that is to deceive, to string along. We are a social, cooperative animal at the core. We should be deciding on our present and future options based on best incentives for all, not, how do 99.9% of us protect ourselves against a group literally out to get us without us realising, or if you do wake up, wheres the static target to aim at, address, challenge, negotiate with. There isn't one. They have all the cards etc 2. Numbers and bitcoin. And unlike the few, we don't have to hurt a fly to rebalance the game. Just wake up and make a decision. Hard money for a better life. Easy money, a shit life and arguably end of life for everyone including the few. Happy 2025 ommmmm :)

Construction, comedy, guitar and drums, that's me algo-ed by YouTube. No mention of trees, fresh air, chickens, biodiversity. No money in those.

#artstr I cleaned and buffed up this olive root. Interesting, or a bit too freaky to hang by the front door? I'm going to leave it up for a while to see if it grows on me. If so I'll wax it up to bring out the colours and replace the polypropylene string!

A very simple message to send out to the world. If you want to be successful, be humble enough to emulate a successful humble person. nurses, shepherds and basket Weavers spring to mind...

# Naturestr is magic. If this were painted, I would probably question the use of colour.

Woollen socks. Silk thermals. Turn down the heating.

inflation is not what they sold us back in the day or today. But bitcoiners know this.

You need to take our Made in USA products or I'll impose tarrifs. You can have bitcoin if you stop with the privacy stuff. Big stick coming. The price of doing business with govt will be writ large.

Lost track of the days. Cool.

According to modern society valuations, the property and this piece of garden has almost no value. It doesn't hurt to be out of step with what the mainstream thinks!

If value for value #v4v is legit, then the content creator is acting out of need to create, and zapping is a personal reaction. The way zaps are displayed and promoted, v4v is in danger of being a jumping on the bandwagon gimmick. Seeing a mega sats count for a post puts me off zapping. The post has been validated, well done, moving on. I get the validation value of seeing a high paid post, so I'm not dissing the concept of zapping, but displaying how many #sats are received for a post is rather vulgar, nouveau riche. Why not display number of zaps and not the value? This also adds to #privacy Contrarían view from someone finding their way.

During a mid life crisis in 2016, I tried to self learn a few chords on a crappy €50 strat copy. In 2017 I started recording stuff into my computer through a cheapo soundcard. This is an example. I still have no idea where it came from or how to play it. Then I bought a second hand copy of the guitar Angus Young plays/ed, scuffed it up a bit and recorded a track home alone. That felt better. I eventually plucked up the courage to play the recording to a time-served rock and blues man who had given me a couple of lessons. Half way through he turned it off and asked “Where the hell did this come from?” I answered, “The first lesson, you asked me if I wanted to learn music or tracks. Remember, I chose music?” He smiled, said I'd played a couple of notes he couldn't reproduce on his guitar and put the headphones back on. I still have no idea where it came from and apart from a couple of chords, I still couldn't play it again. Having bared my soul I will now retire to my room and die inside! See what you think! #music #12songsofChristmas

We are still very very early. Sharpest insight this week was that people use social media apps for the community not the tech. Going 100% on nostr is perhaps a good move for bitcoin and nostr Devs and influencers. But is this community open and big enough to support the growers, artists and makers? We shall see.