Today, the artist with the most intelligent thing to say about ChatGPT is Mark E. Smith.

FOSS stands for **Free and Open Source Software**. It refers to software that is both free to use (as in freedom) and whose source code is openly available for anyone to inspect, modify, and distribute. Here’s what each term means: 1. Free Software: - "Free" in this context refers to freedom, not necessarily price. Free software grants users the freedom to run, modify, and share the software. The key principles of free software are often summarized by the Four Freedoms: - Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose. - Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works and change it to make it do what you wish (access to the source code is a precondition for this). - Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. - Freedom 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this, you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. 2. Open Source Software: - Open source software is similar to free software, but the focus is more on the collaborative benefits of making the source code available. The term "open source" emphasizes that the source code is open and accessible to anyone. Users can modify the software and distribute their modified versions. - Open source projects often involve collaboration among developers from all over the world, contributing to the software's development, bug fixes, and new features. Examples of FOSS: - Linux: An open-source operating system kernel that is the basis for many operating systems (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian). - Apache: An open-source web server software. - Firefox: A free and open-source web browser. - LibreOffice: A free and open-source office suite. - GIMP: A free and open-source image editor. Benefits of FOSS: - Transparency: Anyone can inspect the source code to verify what the software does. - Control: Users have control over the software and can modify it to suit their needs. - Community b: FOSS projects often have large communities that contribute to and support the software. - Cost: Most FOSS is available at no cost, making it accessible to a broader audience. FOSS plays a crucial role in the software ecosystem, empowering users and developers to create, share, and improve software freely. For founders, CTOs, and developers of Bitcoin companies however, whether your code is FOSS, or not has nothing to do with asking for your users trust. Your code being free is irrelevant, and being a Bitcoin company has nothing to do with the license your software runs under. The vast majority of users who run FOSS never read the licenses or Source Code of the tools they use; they are normal people who simply want to get things done. Gimp, Apache, Linux, Firefox are all fine tools that the license they're offered under has no bearing on the user's experience. People use Gimp because they could not afford Photoshop, not because the source code was available. Today, they run it because Photoshop has not been ported to any GNU+Linux operating system with the Gnome interface. If Adobe ported Photoshop to Ubuntu, everyone would abandon Gimp for PS overnight. ColdCard is secure not because people can copy the code; it is secure because it is properly and carefully written. The license code is written under cannot affect the execution or quality of software. This is the fundamental mistake Open Source fanatics make; they think virtue signaling to people who can't write "Hello World" in PHP matters; PROTIP, it DOESN'T MATTER and NO ONE CARES. Open Source can kill companies. If you release your source code, you are inviting people to copy your ideas and compete with you, with no advantage to yourself. The license you use to release your source doesn't matter either when it comes to the business risk; people can read your source and then re-implement it without using your code, and then BANG you've got a clone of your service trying to knock you out of the market. If the people who are cloning you are better funded, more clever, able to look people in the eye when being spoken to, and are affable, then you've got a real problem. And where are all the Bitcoin Cult checklist ticking followers when your magic dust is being "stolen" or "Ripped Off"? They will be nowhere...or buying the tools and service of your competitor because you believed some cult gibberish about MUH OPEN SAUCE. Sharing source code and licenses that compel disclosure are useful things in narrow circumstances, like tools that underpin everything; SSL, GPG, HTTPS, POP3, SMPTE, C, C++, Linux, Bitcoin and so many other tools used to build tools or build businesses. The number of developers working on these tools is astonishing and everyone benefits. This is beyond argument. But. Just because other Open Source tools have big developer bases, it does not follow that every tool must be open source, and that the act of disclosing your source code under the GPL will attract an army of developers commiting changes. You will have seen this with projects breathlessly announced at conferences that failed to attract developers to do the work for free to build them, the assumption being that developers are a magic and infinite resource with infinite time to work for free on an infinite amount of projects, the sole method of recruiting them being to chant "ACK" after posting your just about running source sketches on GitLab. This is the fact that is left out when cheerleaders for Open Source make irrational claims about Open Source being the foundation of user trust. They're not seeing the big picture, are fatally unrealistic and in fact, don't see the picture at all. It's a safe bet that they are not using Ubuntu, Mint or any GNU+Linux operating system for their daily work either, but are in fact hypocrites using *CHOKE* MiCro$oft Winblows and Micro$oft Visual Studio Code or MacOS as their development platform. They will never tell you this of course, while they type out their pro Open Source screeds on Google Chrome or M$ Word. We all know this. In the final (and financial) analysis, all the virtue signalling in the world will not make people use your tool. Only a small number of fanatics care about the license your work is released under, and those people will not move the needle when it comes to changing the world, and the ones that will change the world will copy your weak sauce and turn it into hot sauce. Bitcoin changing the world does not require Open Sourced tools; it requires what google did with Chrome; blasting the competition (Internet Exploder) to smithereens with a browser that beat every other browser by being better for the consumer. Failing to understand this is in 2024 a fundamental error. Thankfully, there are serious people coming to Bitcoin who do not care about any of this, and who are focussed on doing a narrow range of things right. Google's Chrome is focussed on browsing the internet securely and quickly in a standards based way, providing password management and a few other things along the way. A very small number of things. They're not interested in the latest fad, and do not have a model where they keep adding new services to their offering to be cool and hip; they do one thing and do it right. Bitcoin companies are coming that do one thing and do it right. They are extremely focussed (not laser focussed) and they know that bitcoin is for other people, not for developers. By understanding this, they will be the people who change everything. And again when it comes to the license your tool is released under, as far as the public is concerned... IT DOESN'T MATTER and NO ONE CARES.

It’s hangman time. Winner gets an ZAP from ME. You get one clue, “NOT SINGULAR”. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ This contest lasts 24 hours. The judges decision is final! REPLY WITH YOUR GUESS RITE NAO. ↴

Crypto Doublethink is widespread. On the one hand, people say that USD backed by Bitcoin, "can't work", but out of the other side of their mouths they uncritically support Tether. This is 100% irrational Crypto Doublethink. Stablesats Think accepts the premise, inevitability and legitimacy of fiat as its starting point; that the measure used to value Bitcoin is and should be fiat. This is clearly wrong, and anti-Bitcoin. If it were not the case that fiat is the ruler used to measure the value of fiat, no one would think "Stablesats" were required, because Sats are Money. Fiatistas never accepted and still do not accept the fundamental thinking behind the creation of Bitcoin. They are US American Dollar addicted delusionalistas and fiatistas. And you must remember; none of the people advocating Stablesats are actual Bitcoiners; they came to the ideas that underpin Bitcoin after it was released, not before. They are not philosophically aligned with the ideas that were the spur to create Bitcoin (many of them are die hard collectivists and Socialists), and so of course, they are predisposed to accepting lies as the truth, like measuring value in US Dollars. Thankfully, Bitcoin does not and cannot care about any of this, and the true Bitcoin entrepreneurs building Bitcoin companies on its sound foundation are the ones that are changing the world, not people at the periphery promoting the US Dollar, wrapped dollars, Stablecoins and other junk, who scream about other dollarization ideas, "Not that way, but the way I want them!" https://medium.com/@beautyon_/bitcoin-is-the-c-of-money-dce63ce8e37a

If people who ran the platforms in the west did what they knew was right there would be no problem. The actual problem is the people who own platforms do what is wrong, even when they know it is wrong. “Multipolarity” will not solve the problem of western men who shy away from boldness or taking direct correct decisions for their users and companies. Asking for other people to do the job you should be doing is the same as pushing the problem into the technical sphere through “decentralisation”; it’s failing to live up to your responsibilities. Leaders of properly run companies are exactly that; LEADERS. They don’t do things by consensus, or defer to every opinion or allow themselves to be distracted or diverted. They have strict hierarchy where the CEO has final, absolute say on everything important. And history shows this is correct, from Trump, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, to Steve Jobs; companies led by LEADERS succeed in serving the public through strength. And this is all about serving the public. If you fail to do that, you’ve failed. Thankfully in Free Market Capitalism, Natural Law is the rule, not theory: LAW. And make no mistake; all cultures at every scale are not equal. Some work better than others. Failing to accept this is suicidal. But “You do you”!

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect encapsulation of....something. Nostr is actually about what people think they represent; "Freedom, self sovereignty, Bitcoin". It doesn't have to solve a real problem; all it has to do is make people feel good about themselves, so that they can, "identify" with it. Meanwhile, in the real world that they're hiding from, access to Bitcoin is being made harder and harder by the EU (

Regulation - 2023/1114 - EN - MiCA - EUR-Lex

while they Virtue Signal and spray around tiny amounts of "Sats", the origin of which is never accounted for. Nostr is an easy place to be and hide; you don't have to take responsibility for what you're doing (or failing to do) in the real world, and you can openly Virtue Signal in several areas simultaneously. It's crack for Virtue Signallers. Of course, none of this has anything to do with the idea behind Nostr, which is just software. This is a "people problem", a problem of the character of some users, and obviously, this brush cannot be used to paint all Nostr users. It's endlessly fascinating!

3. Is bitcoin safe? Yes, bitcoin is safe if you take care.

Is bitcoin a good investment? Should you invest? Is it safe?

Is bitcoin a good investment? Should you invest? Is it safe?

This guide will help you to understand if you should invest in bitcoin, how much you should invest, and whether it’s safe.

In the end, if Bitcoin is the money everyone is using, the State will have to start accepting it for the payment of taxes. This will have many advantages for the state, as they can "Micro Tax" activities; something that is beyond the ability of the Geriatrics to conceive. There will be an interim stage however, where the State demands that you pay it in its money, meaning you have to convert Bitcoin to fraudulent fiat. They will see, as they need to change the exchange rate twice per day, that the situation is untenable, and this will spur them on to switching to Bitcoin. Bear in mind that once they have collected their own money as taxes, no one in the real economy will accept their money for goods and services, requiring them to buy Bitcoin just to pay salaries and live. There is another scenario however, that indicates that the life of coerced money forms can persist indefinetly if properly managed: THE TALLY STICK. The Tally Stick was literally a piece of wood sawed along its length with a random zig zag that the British Crown would accept as a payment method for settling tax bills. The power to enforce payment methods backed by violence is how this worked so well: It's hard to describe the great depth of genius behind the concept of the Tally Stick. By doing this, the crown managed to create money out of nothing, and build a sound economy on it, whilst remaining at its centre as the essential manager. Bitcoin with its jagged edged keys made of text is very much like a Tally Stick, but without an issuer or the need for saws or supervision. All of this is missed by the vast majority of Bitcoiners because they're ignorant. Nevertheless, it is possible to build different kinds of economies on Bitcoin, and if used by the replacement central banks, can be the fundamental base layer like the Tally Stick. FASCINATING!

You can’t “Stack Sats”, to use the Bitcoin Cult lingo, without there being a means to distribute Sats to Stackers, and no, not everyone is an US American with a bank account, genius. Also, the entire rest of the world switching to Bitcoin, and not just Americans, will cause a sea change in the dynamics of many problems. Think GSM vs CDMA. America can lose international standards wars. That’s proven. The fundamental layers of Bitcoin are powerful enough to make the dream of hyperbitcoinization come true, if the people who maintain the tools and businesses eschew infantilism like Ordinals and “Assets on the Blockchain” and “Stablecoins”; perhaps the most egregious affront to Bitcoiner sensibilities and ethics. The inventor of Ordinals has now “moved on to other things” having left behind a literally indelible legacy of shame, with his acolytes continuing to pollute and burden maintainers of the public record. He’s the personification of one of the great remaining problems facing Bitcoin: Infantilism. "Dollars on Bitcoin” is the direct result of slave mentality and infantilism. The Austrians understand the dynamics of the problem of the Federal Reserve, but amongst them Saifedean is almost unique in correctly applying Austrianism to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Cult on the other hand have proven not up to the challenge with their distractions, infantile absurdities and nonsense. They refuse to accept the basic argument implied by Bitcoin; the Federal Reserve Dollar is a corrupt criminal enterprise that is irredeemable. Thankfully many other countries are waking up to how they’ve been enslaved by Keynesian thinking and turned into Cargo Cults with their Central Bank funny money printed abroad and delivered in Security Theatre stocking rituals. These countries now have the means to free themselves from fiat prostitution, and it’s now highly probable that they’ll do it, thanks to the constant streams of provocations and humiliations doled out by Uncle Sam. Victory for America means allowing Bitcoin to be used as money and accepting it for the payment of taxes, not geriatric gibberish like “Strategic Reserves”, which as Saifedean correctly asserts, will not be permitted by the owners of the Federal Reserve System, who are the actual owners of America.

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Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean) on X

It's nice that politicians are pandering to bitcoiners, but promises are cheap. There is a major insurmountable obstacle to the US govt buying bitc...

FASCINATING!

LET THE RECORD REFLECT: "ATOMIC JURISDICTION" @Beautyon_ on Russia and Bitcoin: 2012 - 2024

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bitcoin russia (from:beautyon_) - Search

The latest posts on bitcoin russia (from:beautyon_). Read what people are saying and join the conversation.

The price of Bitcoin doesn’t matter. Bitcoin is not a person; it can’t feel anything. Math is not honourable or dishonourable. Satoshi isn’t a deity. Satoshi vanished precisely to avoid this sort of mawkish drivel. You can’t be for Ordinals AND Bitcoin. No, it’s not funny. …but it is historic. Full marks for that!

People swooning over RFK's pledge to make the US Government horde Bitcoin are completely wrong to think it is a clever move. It isn't. What it does is prove that RFK has been brainwashed into the Bitcoin Cult "Hodl" mindset, which is an unfortunate, but short term aberration. What the correct policy is is that Uncle Sam should begin to take Bitcoin as a method of payment for all US Taxes. By doing this, Uncle Sam will begin to build up a Fort Knox level hoard of Bitcoin, collected through the normal process of government, which everyone must accept. The people saying that the US Government should have a strategic Bitcoin Reserve are making the claim that Uncle Sam should make a bet against the Federal Reserve. That's crazy. Niy of course, Bitcoiners know that the Federal Reserve isn't Federal at all, and is a private consortium created to steal from the American people. But we're not talking about that today. The correct strategy is to allow Americans to pay taxes in Bitcoin. To incentivise this, a 1% discount should be offered to all taxpayers paying in Bitcoin. If this were the policy, Uncle Sam would very quickly develop a large hoard of Bitcoin, through the normal process of government. ************* I WANT YOUR BITCOIN! *************

Bitcoin was not designed to give the world access to the Nation State's fiat currencies. It was designed to replace those currencies completely. Fiat currencies and their natures are not changed by “Bitcoinising” them, which is not even possible. The Central Banks and Federal Reserve still have control over the money supply which is the fundamental problem witih them and the reason why Bitcoin has a fixed supply. The doublethink going on with Stablecoins is breathtaking. On the one hand, advocates of stablecoins (mostly U.S. Americans) claim to want a Bitcoinized world, but on the other hand, they want the poorest in the world to have easy access to the heroin of fiat US Dollars. Why? Imagine going to a witch doctor who told you that in order solve a problem in his country you had to cut off your right foot and nose. You would never do that, because you know that’s insane. Why then would you listen to a person who is completely ignorant about The US Dollar Problem when it comes to designing any solution, and uncritically give them exactly what they ask for? Of course, you would not do this, any more than you would give a toddler a loaded hair trigger pistol. And you would not suggest that someone who is a drug addict should be given Heroin just because he says it's what he wants. There are arguments for giving people what they want, in order to not be a “Colonialist” imposing Bitcoin and sound money on others but these arguments don’t apply here. It is entirely the fault of the west that the fiat US Dollar has infected, exsanguinated and wrecked foreign countries, and so to remedy this, asking these people if they want stronger Heroin is just nuts. Never forget while we're at it, that in a free market, people are at liberty to develop whatever tools and services they want and then launch them to see if the market will accept them. You can’t be for the free market and then say people should not produce whatever they want and try to serve people in ways they think are correct. That includes toxic Stablecoins and phantasmic fiat assets on the Blockchain. Nevertheless, in the world you are living in where the fiat US Dollar is ruining everything, it is hard to unpack the thinking that makes the claim that spreading poison to the weak is beneficial to mankind. Spreading the US Dollar poison will extend the life of fiat for sure should it take off, and that cannot be a good thing. Saying that this is an interim stage to hyperbitcoinization is just a rationalization, and cannot cover the unethical nature of what it being offered. And consider competition. Companies who want to get ahead of this sad fad and choke it off will go the traditional rails route by offering near friction free US Dollar account apps to anyone who wants them without the “Blockchain” smoke and mirrors. Offering US Dollars on MySQL is indistinguishable from offering them on “Blockchains” as far as the user is concerned and very much less difficult and risky technically for companies to implement. You're not relying on a single vendor that can make mistakes and that treats the ecosystem as a massive game. Something like this, MySQL Dollars could spread virally and more easily than apps that have “Blockchain” fairy dust mixed in with them, and so that moat does not exist in any real way. And please don't intone, "But it would not be decentralized!" No one who these services are designed for knows or cares about "decentralization" or the other sacraments of The Bitcoin Cult. They only care about the effect that shows up in their app, not the underlying network architecture. On the one hand, these people vaunt decentralization, but on the other, think centralized fiat is what people want and need, and don't seem to accept that if the user's needs come first, then if you're going to abandon Bitcoin, why not abandon decentralization and offer US Dollars over MySQL? They're totally illogical from the root up. And then there is the problem of The State. "If you are offering 'assets' you are regulable", will be the SEC narrative. It is hard to imagine how this is not the case. I imagine we will soon see. If this is the case, then not only will the “asset” issuance part of any platform be impacted, but the software tentacles that reach back in to the pure Bitcoin part of any system used to issue those “assets” will also be impacted, if the two systems are inextricably interwoven and not modular. If the fiat US Dollar problem is real, and the death of the US Dollar inevitable, then everything built on US Dollars is also doomed to die a catastrophic death with it.companies offering easy access to US D ollars on MySQL without “Blockchain” magic will be left unimpacted to thrive and dominate, because they did not play word and architecture games and served people directly with what they needed without tricks. In the future, where will Bitcoin be in all of this? If the fiat US Dollar problem is real, and the death of the US Dollar inevitable, then everything built on US Dollars is also doomed to die a catastrophic death with it. What might be left behind is an Aerogel financial network where Bitcoin touches everything, all US Dollars having been evaporated by the solvent of the market, the value stored in Stablecoins being inherently worthless and evil. True Bitcoiners know this. Putting US Dollars on Bitcoin is not a step forward, it is a step backward. It is a step for evil. It promotes evil and spreads evil. It entrenches the strength of the US Dollar, and doubletalk about using Bitcoin’s liquidity as a transport layer is smoke and mirrors, techno babble, and jargonism, as is “Bitcoinizing the US Dollar” which is pure Bitcoin Cult nonsense on its face. I have no doubt that the people who seek to spread the US Dollar are not ill willed and are simply gravely mistaken. They are not the first to be mistaken about the US Dollar and it's nature, and they certainly will not be the last while the US Dollar continues to exist. The market will determine their fate, that and the violence of the State.

The Bitcoin cultists think that Nostr could prevent Biden's handlers from making statements on his behalf. They're totally delusional, obviously. Let's say that Biden needed to use a fingerprint to Tweet. All someone would need to do is take his finger, whether attached to him or not, to make a Tweet "as Biden". And all the delusional drones who think, "signing proves identity." are just that; completely delusional and unaware of how anything actually works: https://medium.com/@beautyon_/beach-boy-bitcoin-64f62bed4c7e Noster can't fix everything, and neither can Bitcoin; and there is a class of Bitcoiner that has shifted this narrative from "Bitcoin fixes this" to "Nostr Fixes this". It's the same Bitcoin Cult under a different name. People who think software services like X, Bitcoin and Nostr are "technologies" betray their complete lack of understanding of what a technology is. Services are not technologies; they are made out of technologies. And if you think a "signing key" will protect the launch procedure from being hijacked, you really don't understand how signing keys work, probably never used GPG, and are ignorant of the history of Cryptography. Which is fine. No one can be expected to know everything. These things are being said because it is important for people who prefer not to be ignorant hear them to reign in the drooling fanboyism that masquerades for insight. They throw around words like "Open Source" and "Centralized" not knowing what these things mean or whether or not practical use can be made of them. They also don't like it when "Open Source" is used against them as intended, when their work is forked and someone makes a copy of it for profit. Publishers of books are the worst offenders in this, breathlessly talking about "Open Source" whilst protecting their books with copyright. One of the rare exceptions is Boldrin and Levine's "Against Intellectual Monopoly" that you can download for free AND buy on Amazon. Not so clever people think they're being smart by finger pointing Boldrin and Levine for selling their books thinking they're not available for free, only to be silenced by pointing to the URL where they are. How pathetic.

Against Intellectual Monopoly

Thankfully, Bitcoin can't suffer from the delusions of these people, who are toxic and retarding of the expansion of Bitcoin's use. Once again, if Bitcoiners can't overcome the voices of these people then it was always doomed to fail. So far. It is THEM that are failing, not YOU.

"Huxley" by Ben Mauro is a graphic novel series set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi universe. The story follows two scavengers who discover an ancient robot named Huxley and embark on an adventure that could alter the fate of the galaxy. The series is known for its richly detailed artwork and complex world-building, reflecting Mauro's extensive experience as a senior concept designer and art director for major gaming franchises like "Halo" and "Call of Duty," as well as films like "The Hobbit" and "Elysium". In addition to the graphic novels, the Huxley universe spans various media, including NFTs, games, and a planned feature film. The narrative explores themes of survival and discovery in a world devastated by a nuclear holocaust, with surviving humans building flying cities and adapting to harsh conditions on the ground. The game "Huxley: The Dystopia," a massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS), was developed by H-Studio, a division of the South Korean company Webzen Inc.. If Webzen, the company that wrote this game decided to use a shared MySQL database with Ubisoft Montreal, the owners of Rainbow 6 Seige, the players of HUXLEY: The Dystopia would be able to enter their Rainbow 6 Seige login details to use the in game money “Renown” in HUXLEY: The Dystopia. Instead they decided to use the options below, both of which allow access to users of other databases. Coinbase uses its own MySQL database to keep track of who has bought what Bitcoin or Etherium; why are their databases different to the databases running at Ubisoft? They’re not different. THEY’RE EXACTLY THE SAME. Therefore the question is this, “why are databases in Coinbase treated differently to databases at Ubisoft or Webzen or…Nintendo?” And in case you didn’t know, genius, Bitcoin is just another database. It is not money at all, any more than Renown is. No one has managed to provide an explanation for this different treatment of identical databases. It’s perplexing. And I can tell you right now, that when people pretending to understand Bitcoin who are tasked with making legal judgements about it are asked this question, they have no answer. They are silent. These legally trained non field experts are in fact imposters who don’t understand anything about Bitcoin, video games, databases, webhooks, webviews, iframes, software or anything about the contexts, realities, facts and common practices that are now decades old. It’s also incredible that so many people “in Bitcoin” are also impostors; claiming that Bitcoin is money, that it is fundamentally different to MySQL and that it should be treated differently in law to any other database. These people explanation for these deceived “Bitcoiners” is that they’re in a cult. What is your excuse? https://medium.com/swlh/why-america-cant-regulate-bitcoin-8c77cee8d794