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Paul Allen
paulallen@nostrplebs.com
npub1m6x2...9dnn
"A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight."
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
The Hidden Tax on Self-Sufficiency: Why Modern Homesteading Is So Hard
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Old dozer starts and warms up on gasoline then runs on diesel. In our modern age of flex fuel and gas-electric hybrids, it's easy to forget (or have never known) that stuff like this existed long before most of us were born.
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
It's 2026 and X expects me to create an account to watch a video one of its users swiped and uploaded from someone else's TikTok account 🤡
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Calmly and intelligently explaining the reasons private gun ownership is beneficial and necessary has done precious little to preserve the right. It will be no different for the defense of personal privacy. The solution to government attempts to erode personal privacy is two-pronged: 1) build tools to protect privacy, and 2) poison the hearts of the people against government secrecy If no privacy for us, then no secrecy for you. Full stop. God bless the leakers and whistleblowers, especially the ones who've been persecuted for it.
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
No shortage of Meshtastic how-to videos on YT but few that go into this much detail honestly covering both the good and bad. Mesh-anything by its nature needs mass adoption to be useful and speaking as my inner circle's designated 'interpreter' of "nerd stuff", in its current form this has almost zero chance of mass adoption by normies, even those who are into disaster prep. Based on my initial experience, MeshCore seems to have a better chance of achieving that goal and even that may be optimistic. Just one example: maybe I was overlooking something but never was able to figure out how to share channel settings by QR code from Android to iPhone, and it's awfully coincidental that all of the how-to videos I've seen always demo the reverse - sharing from iPhone to Android. I agree that Meshtastic is amazing when it works but not sure if that's due more to the fact it uses affordable low power hardware or because the setup process is enough to make you want to toss it all in the trash and buy a CB radio. Don't know the guy personally but wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Jack Dorsey's motivation to create his bitchat app came from test-driving Meshtastic.
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Why, did YT put the 0.5X button behind a paywall? 🤣 No matter how bad things get, Ben will always be able to find work as an auctioneer or the side-effects reader in a pharma ad 🤣 View quoted note →
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
I don't follow her socials to know but has Senator Warren been as vocal about the energy consumption of AI as she has been about bitcoin mining?
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Avalon mini 3 has a mining mode that uses full power and fan speed, and a heat mode that uses less power but because it runs at a slower fan speed, the unit itself gets significantly hotter and doesn't circulate air well in the room. Not sure if I should run it in mining mode (ignoring the 80% rule) or heater mode with a desk fan blowing on it to help move heat. Also tried to update the firmware and it just kept throwing E-01 error.
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
There's a lot I still don't understand about Meshtastic and MeshCore but I assume there's a good reason that mesh-related discussion needs to take place on a centralized social media platform as opposed to just using the mesh?
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Old Fart Pro Tip: always keep your toenails trimmed because you never know when you're gonna throw out your back 🤣
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Word around the ham shack is that the reason King Solomon had so many concubines is because he was gifted with the ability to see into the future and thus developed a crazy dream of having one woman for every type of radio antenna connector that would ever exist. Records suggest he finally gave up at around 700. 🤡 Seriously though, why so many connector types?
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Canaan needs to give the next version of the Avalon Mini a wireless temperature sensor that you can place on the other side of the room since the one built into the Mini 3 is only good for monitoring the temperature within about an eight-inch radius of the miner. 🤦‍♂
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Heard about this merchant on the No Agenda podcast. Wife and daughter loved the makeup bags, which is good because they couldn't have cared less about the meshtastic nodes I got them or the sats I sent to their Primal wallets. Imagine my surprise 🤣 Now if we can just get her to add Lightning as a payment method.
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
What the heck is DLR talking about? I've looked all over this Christmas stocking and don't see a line running up the back. Is he talking about the stitching? 🤣
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Paul Allen 1 month ago
Pretty cool design but again it seems odd that nobody is really trying to make a mining heater with a form factor similar to a traditional ceramic heater or the slightly larger radiant heater. The closest thing seems to be the Avalon Nano whose heat output and circulation are weak compared to a portable space heater. In the "almost good enough" category is the Avalon Mini and maybe the Heatbit but again, not everyone is looking for a baseboard or tower. Even among existing mining heaters, there seems to be this IMO crazy obsession with low noise. Good air flow requires trade-offs, particularly if the goal is to use this waste heat to warm the surrounding area. BTW, ceramic heaters aren't exactly whisper quiet themselves and you can find them in shops, offices and even bedrooms everywhere. And every time you see one it should serve as a painful reminder of the lost opportunity to help decentralize bitcoin mining.