Happy birthday @ODELL 🎂🍻 View quoted note →

I spent a few hours outside with the dog yesterday. She’s a 10-year Staffordshire Bull Terrier, sweetest dog ever. Starting to slow down a bit, but once it snows, her energy level 10Xes!

I’ve been a subscriber to “The New Criterion” for some 20 years now. Almost without exception each monthly edition has at least one word that forces me to consult a dictionary - and more frequently now, my phone. This month’s word was used to describe a writer’s work as “ensorcelling.” I suppose if I really sat and thought about it I might have more or less figured it out. “Bewitching or enchanting.” “Ensorceler” in French. Just missed it. There might be just an age limit for learning new SAT words.

I've been throwing a bunch sats around through different LN and eCash wallets. I still have a soft spot for cashu.me. Use it once or twice and it becomes very intuitive.

From Poetic Outlaws this AM: All My Life I've Been Waiting - Harold Norse All my life I've been waiting for something unusual to happen. I may yet come into a windfall, National Endowment of the Hearts. All my life I've been expecting a grand finale, an awakening, love erupting in the streets, in the bars, in classrooms, everyone dropping their guard, their pants, their skirts, cops weeping tenderly as they snap off your cuffs, bankers giving away their money, politicians telling the truth, literary critics confessing that they know nothing about writing or life. All my life I've been waiting for something unusual to happen.

The snow seems to have stopped. Time to get shoveling!

Costco in Pentagon City, on a Sunday, day before a major snow storm….. Really bad call🥺

Just turned the last page of the first volume of Iain McGilchrist’s “The Matter With Things.” 750-something pages is a lot to take in, but I have to say, I’m itching to start volume two. As much time as it takes, it repays you infinitely more.

I’m increasingly feeling like it’s time to move back to America. The DC area is grinding on me. When you live and work in DC, it almost doesn’t matter who is in the White House, or who controls Congress. There’s a rhythm to it that invariably funnels you toward a certain way of living. Not to mention it’s too crowded, too expensive, and everyone is really important - just ask them! Where to go, #AskNostr? I grew up in NY, not going back there. I like the idea of the west, a place like Boise? Or there’s always the Nashville area. I dig the vibe there.

Long first day back after the holidays. GN #Nostr.

Happy new year #Nostr. Wishing you all health and happiness in 2025.

Merry Christmas fellow Nostriches! Thanks for helping to make 2024 a banger of a year. Wishing you all health and happiness as we look toward 2025.

Fair to say that @L0la L33tz points aren’t lost on any bitcoiner. But I think it is also important to remember that BPI is writing to a specific audience, policy makers whose job is to think about what is in the country’s best interest. Matt Pines is one of Bitcoin’s most effective advocates on the policy front. I think in this piece he is speaking to policy makers in a language they understand. And he articulates the case for the SBR as well as anyone. Zooming out, if we accept the basic premise that actions are determined largely by incentives, we must consider that should an SBR be realized, and thus bitcoin were to become part of the larger policy-making machine, the incentives that optimize bitcoin’s strengths would ultimately influence that policy making machine. We talk a lot about how the perverted incentives of the fiat system have caused a litany of problems, all well discussed by Bitcoiners. We often refer to Bitcoin as the “apex predator” that will consume the traditional financial system and break all the models. If we believe that, we should be looking for ways to make bitcoin a larger part of the overall financial system, to find ways for it to take root in the political consciousness of policy makers. There are perfectly reasonable arguments among friends about the merits of the SBR. Having spent a few years in government, I understand how incentives push policy makers toward positions, good and bad. If we are confident in Bitcoin’s promise to rebuild the incentives of a broken system in a more fair manner, I offer that bringing bitcoin into the heart of that system offers the best opportunity to realize that opportunity. View quoted note →

I am not of the “one book changed my life” tendency. Maybe I’ve become too cynical….ahem….skeptical. But I do believe there are works that compel you to try. I’m working my way through “The Matter of Things” by Iain McGilchirst. It’s not light reading, but if you give this book your attention and aren’t profoundly affected by it….I think you missed it. The two volumes are ca 1500 pages. But I promise those many pages will grip you.