Not sure if any of my followers are interested in how stuff is made, but if so here's a pic of electronics assembly. More specifically printed circuit board (PCB) assembly. The metal is a solder mask so the solder only goes onto the metal pads on the board. It's thickness determines how much solder is applied. Too much, you get a short circuit. Too little and the component falls off. Here's what it looks like after the solder is applied and after the component are placed. After that, just put it on a hot plate or an oven dedicated to electronics, heat until 180°C and make sure all of the parts are properly aligned while the solder is still liquid. And that's pretty much it for surface mount soldering. These boards also have through-hole components, but that's a more common skill, so I'll skip over that for now. If you found this interesting, give this not a boost so others can enjoy seeing how PCBs are populated. ❤️

Finally getting some much-needed rain. #blessed 🙏

If you don't understand how the Keynesian perspective can smooth out an economy and help the average person you should read p222 of Broken Money. If you think the Keynesian model works well in practice, you should read p223 of Broken Money. Really, everyone who cares about this topic should read every page of Broken Money. @Lyn Alden does a great job laying it out in a way that explains both perspectives and includes her take on the situation. She also does an excellent job at making it clear when it's her opinion on a topic versus the view of some other group (Austrian school of economics, Keynesian school of economics, users of the currency, central bankers, private bankers, etc.). This book was worth every penny.

Apparently you can only rent Hummingbird in USD and only pay-per-second with lightning. Heaven forbid anyone want to rent it using lightning, or (gasp) actually buy a copy so they can watch it offline. I like the idea of IndeeHub, but I'm unimpressed by the implementation.

TEEs are not as secure as most people think they are. That said, executing in a TEE is better than not. So yeah, use 'em if you can; just don't treat them like they are infallible.

I am going to try using Zeus to pay at Steak 'n' Shake next week instead of using my usual wallet. Either way it'll route through my home node, but it'll be fun to put Zeus to the test. It should work fine, but previous versions have left me stranded, so I have cause for concern. View quoted note →

I don't understand why seemingly well informed people would advocate for burning coal to produce electricity. Even if we ignore the emissions and pollution, there's the glaring problem of cost. Electricity from coal is expensive. Maybe it's short term thinking? Maybe they place a huge value on flexible sources of power instead of having a flexible load? Maybe they're just trying to get more attention than if they promoted doubling down on the least expensive sources of electricity? Of course, these same people also seem to promote nuclear, which is basically the most expensive option possible, so maybe it's the latter explanation. At least natural gas comes close to the cost of geothermal, wind and solar. I get why people would advocate for that. And I get that hydroelectric isn't an option in some locations (although, if it is, it wins on price, emissions, pollution, and reliability).