Imagine a whole generation of open source devs 10 years from now getting rugged because they never learned to code.

Bike #2 ready to go. Tires and suspension pumped and gtg. And a really dirty truck. View quoted note →

Here’s a blast from the past. I got my wife’s Cannondale Scalpel with the freakish lefty single front fork suspension all tuned up and a couple fresh tires for her birthday. Can’t wait to get out for a rip when the snow melts.

From the Peter McCormack Show. Credit to Connor for finding this. The most devastating and beautiful thing I've read. “Yeah, so there would be no collapse the way some of these people think of it. It's not going to be like the movie Dawn of the Dead or whatever, one day suddenly shit hits the fan and the prices skyrocket and everyone begins to riot and the SS comes marching down the street to kill everyone. There'll be no happening. It's far more insidious than that. Read the poem The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot and you'll understand. You'll just notice that every day simple things will become a little bit more expensive. Everyone's homes and apartments will get smaller. Your work hours will get longer but your pay will decrease. You'll see your family and friends less, and find that in time you care less about them. Every day you'll find yourself lowering your standards for everything: work, food, relationships. Job security will no longer exist as a concept. You'll notice houses and apartments shrinking. People will start hanging on to clothing longer and longer, less people will get married, even less will have children. People engross themselves in technological distractions and fancy, while never truly experiencing the real world. Whatever dream people used to have about their lives were going to be, will become for them a distant memory. The only thing left will be the reality of the debt and their poverty. And every minute of every day they will be told you are stupid, ugly and weak, but together we are free, prosperous and safe. That is the collapse, the reduction of the American man into a feudal surf, incapable of feeling love or hate, incapable of seeing the pitiful nature of his situation for what it is recognizing: his own self worth.” View quoted note →

Fear Narratives in the Modern Age It is migratory bird season where I live. Hundreds of thousands of birds of every kind that have wintered elsewhere are streaming back into the area to repeat the annual ritual of breeding, nesting, raising young, and surviving on nature's bounty. When I was sitting on the front stoop having a smoke last weekend, there was a murmuration of Starlings (the same as "flock" for starlings) sweeping through the area, occasionally lighting on any one of a number of nearby large trees. We are talking enough birds to change the colour of an entire grove of trees. Occasionally, and without any seeming threat, a single bird would leap from the branch that it was perched on, and take flight. Without delay, the entire group of 5000+ birds would erupt from their perches and the sky would become black with a flowing blob of shrieking birds. It got me to thinking. How much societal behavior over the past century has mimicked this crowd fear response? Based entirely on fears we have been told are we should have? Fear of other nations. Fear of terrorists. Fear of the drug cartels. Fear of viruses. Fear of impending economic collapse. Fear of lost freedoms. Fear of standing up and standing out. It's been a century of FUD. What if, when the first "bird" got spooked, the others took a second to look around and decide if it was worth reacting? After a time, it's impossible to tell if what you are being told is truthful or designed to instill fear and illicit a response. Be not afraid. Never let them get to you. Stand up and fight. #grownostr

I can’t believe I’ve never read this poem before. Thanks to this episode of The Peter McCormack Show, I now have. And if you really want to be floored, listen for a few minutes starting at 24:30. Apparently Spotify no longer has a “share from timestamp x “ function anymore. T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965 A penny for the Old Guy                               I We are the hollow men  
We are the stuffed men  
Leaning together 
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! 
Our dried voices, when  
We whisper together  
Are quiet and meaningless 
As wind in dry grass  
Or rats’ feet over broken glass 
In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour.  
Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed 
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom 
Remember us—if at all—not as lost  
Violent souls, but only  
As the hollow men                                II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams  
In death’s dream kingdom  
These do not appear: 
There, the eyes are  
Sunlight on a broken column  
There, is a tree swinging 
And voices are  
In the wind’s singing  
More distant and more solemn  
Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer  
In death’s dream kingdom  
Let me also wear 
Such deliberate disguises 
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves 
In a field 
Behaving as the wind behaves  
No nearer— Not that final meeting  
In the twilight kingdom                               III This is the dead land 
This is cactus land 
Here the stone images 
Are raised, here they receive 
The supplication of a dead man’s hand 
Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this 
In death’s other kingdom 
Waking alone 
At the hour when we are  
Trembling with tenderness  
Lips that would kiss 
Form prayers to broken stone.                               IV The eyes are not here  
There are no eyes here  
In this valley of dying stars  
In this hollow valley 
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places  
We grope together  
And avoid speech 
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless  
The eyes reappear  
As the perpetual star 
Multifoliate rose  
Of death’s twilight kingdom  
The hope only  
Of empty men.                               V Here we go round the prickly pear 
Prickly pear prickly pear 
Here we go round the prickly pear 
At five o’clock in the morning. Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow                                   For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception  
And the creation 
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow                                   Life is very long Between the desire  
And the spasm  
Between the potency  
And the existence  
Between the essence  
And the descent  
Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is  
Life is 
For Thine is the This is the way the world ends 
This is the way the world ends 
This is the way the world ends 
Not with a bang but a whimper

Spotify

#166 - Freddie New - How Governments Destroy Money and Empires (The Lessons From Rome)

The Peter McCormack Show · Episode

Has anyone considered that, unlike other fourth turnings throughout history that eventually yielded to periods of renaissance and rebirth, that this one has a feeling of finality to it? Like we are playing for “all the marbles” this go-round? The reason I’ve been thinking about this is because of the absolute surveillance and censorability of trade, communications, and movement that the powers that be are currently developing. This ability to achieve full spectrum dominance over every aspect of people’s lives has never existed before. I fear that it is going to have to get ugly. If I was 18 again and unattached, with the knowledge I have now, I’d be a problem and be getting out in front of this. What do you think? #asknostr

In the past year this recipe has saved us about $300 compared to using products like laundry pods that force you to use a set amount of detergent regardless of load size. #homesteading #prepping

You know that part in Gladiator when Maximus says “With all my heart, no.” when Marcus Aurelius asks him if he will do his will and lead Rome as a republic after his death? And then Marcus says “You see, that is why it MUST be you.” That’s how I feel at work about the IT role. I got this startup off the ground with basic network, communications, hardware and data security architecture when I came on board because I had the skills and no one else could even touch type. Then as we grew, that role was handed off to a contractor so I could focus on building the part of the business that I was hired to build. Sales. The contractor was permitted to work with zero oversight despite my warnings to the owners, and completely ignored the conventions and architecture put in place that would allow everything to scale. So now our owner is trying to wrestle back super user access back from the contractor and handing me a bunch of tablets to set up for new field staff. I can’t even take step one. I am reminded why I never wanted to be IT. I’ve been that guy at enough places to know better. It’s like being a janitor. All you do is clean up other people’s shit lol.

How is “Bitcoin as money” not going to be indefinitely kneecapped by the absence of de minimus spend legislation? I used to think it was just a case of the legislation not catching up to the technology, but in reality, what incentive does the government have to increase the ease with which people opt out of their extractive system? Am I missing something? Well, other than a frontal lobe cause I'm still stacking hard like a retard. #asknostr #grownostr

Jiang should get together with Peter Zeihan and do a pod since they both seem to know everything about everything. I’d love to see either one of them debate @Simon Dixon about Bitcoin. View quoted note →

Thought I’d see some rektbot posts at 75k