Batch-opened lightning channels tonight using a different wallet (not LND's). So economical if you don't count the time that I spent figuring it out! Been wanting to do this for a while.

David Pinkerton

Opening Lightning Channels Directly From an External Wallet

ZEUS published a report this month called Lightning Economics: The Bridge Between Bitcoin’s Two Identities. The summary line that stopped me: “...

Agents easily shop at Bitrefill. 👀

Quick quality-of-life tip for Claude Code users on Linux: I added audible notifications using Claude Code's hooks feature so I don't have to stare at the terminal waiting. Two hooks in settings.json: - "permission_prompt" -- plays a warning sound when Claude needs approval - "idle_prompt" -- plays a bell when Claude is done and waiting for input Uses notify-send for desktop notifications + pw-play for PipeWire audio. Total config is about 15 lines of JSON. Tip: on GNOME, use -u normal (not critical) so notifications auto-dismiss instead of piling up. The audio does the real alerting anyway. Now I can context-switch to other work and get dinged when attention is needed. Highly recommend if you're running long tasks. "hooks": { "Notification": [ { "matcher": "permission_prompt", "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "notify-send -u normal -t 10000 'Claude Code' 'Permission required' && pw-play /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/dialog-warning.oga" }] }, { "matcher": "idle_prompt", "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "notify-send -u normal -t 10000 'Claude Code' 'Waiting for input' && pw-play /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/bell.oga" }] } ] } Docs:

Hooks reference - Claude Code Docs

Reference for Claude Code hook events, configuration schema, JSON input/output formats, exit codes, async hooks, HTTP hooks, prompt hooks, and MCP ...

The quantum threat to Bitcoin is invisible, remote, and unverifiable. This is the exact pattern Patrick Moore identified for scare stories that thrive on information asymmetry. We're at ~1,500 qubits. You'd need millions. The gap is enormous. The headlines skip that part.

David Pinkerton

Quantum FUD Is a Fake Invisible Catastrophe

Patrick Moore’s 2021 book Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom makes a simple observation: most modern scare stories are built on phen...

I gave Claude Code access to my Fastmail inbox via MCP (Model Context Protocol) and it's been surprisingly useful. 38 tools — search, send, draft, bulk operations, contacts, calendar. All from the terminal. Self-hosted with Docker + Caddy reverse proxy. First thing I did: asked Claude to review my last week of email. It pulled 50 messages, categorised them, and flagged an overdue library book, an expiring GitHub token, and a meeting the next morning. The interesting technical problem was making it work with multiple concurrent connections — the original server only supported one session at a time. Wrote it up here:

David Pinkerton

I Gave Claude Code Access to My Email

I’ve been running Claude Code as my primary development tool for months now. It writes code, reads docs, manages git — all from the terminal. B...

Repo (MIT):

GitHub

GitHub - AusDavo/fastmail-mcp: A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to the Fastmail API, enabling AI assistants to interact with email, contacts, and calendar data. Includes a DXT (desktop extension) for Claude Desktop.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to the Fastmail API, enabling AI assistants to interact with email, contacts, and calend...

Built a voice-to-blog pipeline for a mate who runs a personal training business. He talks into Telegram on his commute, and by the time he parks there's a draft blog post committed to his Hugo repo. Whisper for transcription → Claude for writing → GitHub for commits → Telegram confirmation. All wired together in n8n, self-hosted on my home server behind Caddy. The only external dependencies are the AI APIs. The system prompt is where the personality lives — tone, structure, length, audience. The infrastructure is generic. Cloned the whole pipeline for a second site in one session. Full writeup:

David Pinkerton

Talk Into Your Phone, Get a Blog Post: Building a Voice-to-Post Pipeline

A self-hosted pipeline that turns Telegram voice messages into draft blog posts — Whisper for transcription, Claude for writing, GitHub for commi...

Most AI tools have some memory now, but it's siloed to one app, stored as flat text, and not searchable by meaning. I built a self-hosted semantic memory server that any MCP-compatible tool can connect to. Store a thought, search by meaning later — not keywords. Capture from your phone via a web form, or just tell Claude to remember something. The whole thing is two Docker containers behind a reverse proxy. No Supabase, no managed anything. Your memories on your hardware. Inspired by @Nate B Jones's Open Brain concept, rebuilt for full self-hosting. https://dpinkerton.com/posts/self-hosted-mcp-memory-server/

PSA for Australian bitcoiners with SMSFs. The ATO published crypto audit guidance in October that says holding statements alone aren't sufficient evidence. Auditors must obtain "additional objective, supportable evidence." For exchange-held bitcoin, there's a path. For self-custody, there's nothing prescribed. If your auditor can't verify your holdings, they must qualify your audit and report you for a Reg 8.02B breach. That's not optional. ASIC took action against 28 SMSF auditors in H2 2025. The ATO is doing office visits. Reg 8.02B breaches are up to 12% of all SMSF breaches and rising. And from July, accountants become AUSTRAC reporting entities. The government isn't coming for your keys. They're coming for your paperwork. And if the paperwork problem isn't solved, the next step is forcing SMSF holdings onto exchanges or approved custodians. Don't give them the excuse. I wrote up the full picture with primary sources:

David Pinkerton

If You Hold Bitcoin in Your SMSF and Self-Custody It, Read This

This is the third post in a series about SMSF Bitcoin audit evidence. The first post covered what auditors need to verify. The second post compared...