"What begins as progress can quietly become dependency"

"In the end, replicating human perception is hard, and it’s made harder when constrained to the limitations of display technology or printed images. There’s nothing wrong with tweaking the image when the automated algorithms make the wrong call."

What an unprocessed photo looks like: (Maurycy's blog)

I'm curious to see how OpenGrowBox project will improve during 2026, roadmap looks very nice. Home Assistant is an ideal platform for building a smart growbox, I use it myself, playing with sensors is quite fun.

OpenGrowBox

OpenGrowBox – FREE Open Source Grow Automation with Home Assistant

OpenGrowBox is a completely FREE, open-source plant automation system built on Home Assistant. Automate climate, lighting, and nutrients for easy, ...

I've read 1/3 of "Farewell to Westphalia" so far, but I like it... It seems like the book defines something that I've always missed in crypto discourse (and especially in the bitcoin discourse), and that is the emphasis on how blockchain can transform human governance, and how to make nation states obsolete. Compared to Network State, this sounds more anarchistic and questions the essence of the state itself (even the "network" one). But as I say, I haven't finished reading yet... But sounds very promising

Also, while I'm talking about privacy and blockchain data, it's also worth mentioning https://rotki.com, open-source tool for portfolio tracking which supports DeFi protocols (alternative for Zerion, Zapper, Debank etc.)

One of my favorite Ethereum projects is https://trueblocks.io/, which provides a user-friendly and private way to access transactions and data, especially useful if you have your own node. It's a big disappointment to me how almost no one in the eth ecosystem cares about the dependency on etherscan.io and other centralized data providers.

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.” ― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Happy NYE

What I like about AT Protocol is the repository system, all posts are part of a repository, the content of which is signed as a whole, so it is very difficult to "disappear" a specific post... Nostr relay can easily ignore some notes. AT Protocol relay too, but it is very easy to compare it with PDS and see what is missing. Nostr approach is great for infinite notes where you don't need overall integrity, - but specifically for microblogging I would really like to have that integrity.

To make sure that your posts don't disappear from relays, your images don't disappear from blossom servers, etc. you need to run your own instances of these (something like haven) - which is basically AT Protocol PDS or Pubky Homeserver

Blossom is soo stupid.... It externalizes the "freedom" to users while concentrating the risk on operators. As operator of a blossom server you are responsible for everything uploaded to your server - CSAM, copyrighted content, revenge porn, terrorist material, and any other illegal content in your jurisdiction. You are forced to actively monitor what you're hosting otherwise you can easily get in trouble - facing criminal investigations, lawsuits, server seizures, and financial ruin. One bad upload can destroy your life. It's basically like running a Tor hidden service on the clearnet - all the liability of hosting anonymous content, none of the protection. Relays have a very similar problem, but at least the content is somewhat obfuscated through WebSocket - you need a Nostr client to easily browse what's there. With Blossom, you just need a URL and everyone on the planet with a browser can open it, including law enforcement. It's trivially easy for authorities to find illegal content on your server. You're basically painting a target on yourself.

My favorite open-source cross-platform file sharing

LocalSend: Share files to nearby devices

"No longer available in your region" 🇨🇿 Lightning is a really "special" technology. I think I'm pretty tech-savvy, but in the 7 years that LN has been around, I haven't figured out how to use it in a way that I can also pass on to less technical people. It just seems like an endless battle with obfuscation. Public Cashu mints will only exist until states start threatening them. Unless cashu would work on Tor?