My book is finished! The German version is done, the English version (translated with AI) is ready, all the images are included, and the cover is designed. It's almost ready to go to print. I've already found two people to review the German version. One is even an editor-in-chief and incredibly intellectual. I'm a bit nervous about his opinion. For the English version, I definitely need reviewers too, especially since I'm not a native speaker. But once that's done and I've incorporated their feedback, it's off to the printers, inshallah.

"Perhaps it is time to ask: should we reimagine Mahr in a world where money itself is being redefined?" ... says Mufti Faraz Adam on LinkedIn And as usual, he's being received skeptically by some fiat Muslims for it. Following the pattern of "That's not real money. At best it's an investment. Investments can fail, so you shouldn't mix investments into the mahr." 🤦

I'll be selling my book directly for Sats too. No Big Tech, no Amazon. I'll use a small print-on-demand service for fiat customers (probably Epubli), and through that I could sell it on Amazon as well, but no Amazon, Sats are the priority. I have 2 basic alternatives for this: 1. Nostr-based marketplaces, like @Plebeian Market 2. Or my own BTCPay Server. The disadvantages are: 1. Requires an npub, only Nostriches can buy there. But it's free. 2. Requires relatively high administration effort (docker, firewall etc.) and costs a small amount monthly ($7-$15), and I don't even know who will use it. BTCPay Server must be completely self-hosted in this case because I need to connect my Lightning wallet via NWC. But shared instances like Voltage don't allow Nostr plugin installation and don't have it pre-installed. Unless @Rizful.com can tell me how I can connect my Rizful wallet to BTCPay Server without NWC. Then I could use my Voltage instance.

ChatGPT is ridiculously overrated. It's not even useful as a simple spell checker or translator. I don't understand why people make such a big deal about it.

Managed to soak up some vitamin D with what I assume were the last rays of sunshine this year. Because on the way back, the sky already turned gray and stayed that way until this evening. A week of rain is already in the forecast. Germany is sinking back into its long gray period for the next 9-10 months, before the climate returns where my bones can thaw out again. Fall and winter arrive here punctually every year, without fail. This time even early. Spring and summer, on the other hand, sometimes don't show up at all.

I'm all for preserving privacy and I personally apply various OPSEC measures, especially in my private life. But privacy has its downsides too. It tempts some individuals to become noncommittal or even offensive, which is easy to do without consequences when protected by your "privacy." This gets even worse in business contexts because you could, for example, scam your "business partner" and then disappear without consequences. And if the provider works in security or finance and messes up, but can't be held accountable, the risk multiplies many times over. They simply get away with the mess they've made. That's why in these more sensitive areas, I prefer collaboration, even as a simple customer of a service, where the founder or CEO doesn't remain anonymous. Where they appear under their real name, ideally with a LinkedIn profile, standing behind their product with their reputation. They won't risk having their tarnished name eternalized across the internet, they won't get snippy and rude with you if you've fallen victim to their carelessness and bring it up with them. But that's just my view. That's only my 30 years of internet experience talking.

Alright, something is finally developing on Muslim Nostr (MN). And we're not just being reactive like Muslim Twitter (MT), but creative. And that's so important on multiple levels. I like it. Keep this vibe going, MN! You can just do things. View quoted note →

Reminder: You can just find out who zaps you the most

ZapStar

I'm working on some artwork for my book. In the style of my profile picture. Got to have a bit of visual relief between all that text.

Is Amethyst well again? #asknostr

You wanna see a real cyberpunk website? This is a cyberpunk website. And it’s 30 years old.

Adam Back's home page

I've revised the entire book. It'll be 3 volumes in one book. Now some third parties are reading it and giving me their feedback, which I might still incorporate. But I already think it's pretty complete. After that, it goes into translation and book design. The title is already set too: "The White Ram Lamb"

When I was coming back from Jumuah (Jumuah muabarak! to my Akhis by the way) and saw the election posters outside, the bottom one really made me laugh: At the very bottom, 'The Left' party is advertising with the slogan 'Your rent is going up because your landlord is raising it.' Dude... putting aside how Captain Obvious and trivial that sounds, the simplicity of the message for the average person is both funny and kind of clever. What are they implying with this? They want to fight the housing shortage by forcing a rent cap on all landlords by law. And what happens when free price setting no longer works? Many landlords pull their properties off the market (because they can't cover their costs anymore, for example), so there are even fewer housing spaces available. Classic case of shooting yourself in the foot. But the normie just thinks 'Oh yeah! Pay less rent.' Man, this is how politics works today. On the backs of the uninformed.

I'll admit, I actually read the short ad messages in the Zap-Ads. And sometimes I copy or type the advertised URL into my browser bar because I'm curious. Listen up, marketing industry!

I haven't used Google Search in years. I don't even remember what a Google search results page looks like anymore. Brave search is much better anyway.

Reclaim The Net

Google Expands Age Verification to Search

Behavioral profiling now trails you from video views to the search box.

Hey akhis, we're gonna have our own radio show soon! View quoted note →

A wholesome photo for your timeline

Ok, after the Coinos relay was acting up again and I couldn't zap, I've now switched to @Rizful.com . I've been keeping an eye on them for quite a while, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to give them a try. Switching over in the Nostr clients worked right away on the first attempt, and they seem to be fast with transactions too. To be honest, I've never experienced that before. Let's keep watching how they perform.

This Nostr client has become a beast! 💪 🔥 View quoted note →

Haha, I wrote the same thing once. Because both lead back to the same principles. If you're just a fiat Bitcoiner and only see it as an investment, you're just waiting for 'price go up'. But if you see Bitcoin for what it was actually invented for (freedom from banks and their self-inflicted crises, medium of exchange, self-sovereignty, etc.) then those same values should also lead you to Nostr. View quoted note →