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I am quite keen to watch The War Between The Land And The Sea on iplayer. But we need to consider tactics. Will the folks sit and watch it with me at Xmas? If they would that'd perhaps be better than whatever drivel quiz shows and police car chase stuff they normally make me watch. If they won't I'll be be postponing it three weeks for no reason. 🤔 Might be nice to watch it in the new bedroom but that probably won't have a bed or a chair until the new year. #watching #doctorWho #onlyNotDoctorWho

I added a search function to the exocortex log app. Update with the section at the bottom of the conf screen if you can’t see it. Search for whatever words in your log, so you can see when you noted you last saw someone or had the MOT done or whatever. https://exocortexlog.com/news/articles/2025-12-08-search/ #app #lifeLog nostr:nevent1qqsdr2ww059h02mffsg40g8hdg53e8hxs04m93pgn3qu366yl7syp4cppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgu3wvfskuep0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7q3qpkhzm90462y3cfat45m25nmz6p9ku0lw0ak4fqjttpy8qvfhrymqxpqqqqqqzzqne40

This months newsletter is on it's way to email boxes all the wonderful beautiful financially sovereign anarchists who asked for it. The rest of you fiat flops can read it here: https://dalliance.net/blog/nov25/ Featuring updates on the bedroom build, an Anon Opin show, a walk in Devon, a bitcoin conference report, and news of the new steam machines in the links section.

Read "Revelation Space" by Alastair Reynolds, a story about some future space people investigating the demise of an extinct civilization. Some of the people are software uploads or implants in other people's brains, or infectious biological agents and things. The story is galactic in scale across time and space with good world building, a good tale weaving of elements together. I liked the scene where the woman falling to her death in a lift-shaft remembered she was on a space-ship which only had gravity coz of engine thrust, so saved herself turning the engines off with a wrist controller. Trouble is I came to it infrequently with long gaps and so struggled to keep track of what's going on quite a bit. Lots of different elements to keep track of. My fault, should try and concentrate harder and remember things. #reading #books #novel #alastairReynolds #revelationSpace

Here's some things you'll notice the website doesn't do: * No cookie popups. We don't need to warn you about tracking, we just don't track. * No Tracking. I don't even look at the apache logs. I don't care what you do. * No service agreement checkbox. I'm not providing a service. Do what you want with the code but don't blame me. * No billing * No adverts * No paywall * No VPN barrier * No geoblocking * No subscription button (though RSS is provided) Websites don't have to be shit, the surveillance capitalists just enshitify them on purpose. nostr:nevent1qqsdr2ww059h02mffsg40g8hdg53e8hxs04m93pgn3qu366yl7syp4cppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsqmt3djh6a9zguy7466d42fa3dqjmw8lh87m25sf94sjrsxym3jdsrqsqqqqqpvcupkr

Future Plans: I have like ten years of data in my log, converted from those prior prototypes. I will be adding ways to more usefully compare and analyse data going this far back. It could maybe use a milestone function, to track singular events which don't take actual time so don't spread on the grid. Snack tracking and the like. It could likely use a flashcard system, with spaced repetition to review the flashcards, for better memory and recall. Synching between devices might be nice, and lots will suggest doing that through Nostr, but Nostr is a bit public. Would need an encryption layer. Do nostr relays want to relay encrypted data from one user to themselves I suspect Veilid ( https://veilid.com/ ) would be a better option. The "no servers" ethos probably includes nostr relays. Mostly I plan just more and better ways to view the ten years and growing of data I already have. And to do some other things for a bit so my log isn't just full of "Vibecoding Exocortex" 😄 nostr:nevent1qqsrkpankx4pwfrux2hyqc46rja6umq0rt793sfdmeapm0qzcd4s0zqpqqpzqrdw9k2lt55frsn6htfk4f8k95ztdcl7ulmd2jpykkzgwqcnwxfkqvzqqqqqqywhslya

Why is it finally ready now after ten years of being a barely functional input-only android app? A few weeks ago I saw nostr:nprofile1qqsr7acdvhf6we9fch94qwhpy0nza36e3tgrtkpku25ppuu80f69kfq9q9kky giving a talk and demo of [Shakespear](https://shakespeare.diy/), a Chrome app for vibe-coding. Explain the app you want, and the model you select will build it. Don't even need to be a dev they reckon. So I figured I'd give it a try. Start again from scratch, import the old data. In about a week of work this app has progressed far beyond the prototypes that spent more then ten years as half-running shoddy input-only systems that I couldn't be arsed to expand further. It went [pretty well](https://exocortexlog.com/news/articles/2025-11-25-vibecoding/) to start with, something even a non-dev could do, then [ceased up](https://exocortexlog.com/news/articles/2025-12-01-fixingvibes/), unable to really understand the codebase it'd written until I spend a fairly long day manually cleaning up it's mess. So Shakespeare (and presumably all the other tools I haven't tried) seems okay for a non-dev to prototype a small app but currently the models are writing code so sloppy that they can't then later understand it themselves. Still needing a dev's guiding hand to keep it from repeating itself or creating complex unorganized unmanageable code. #vibeCoding #shakespeare nostr:nevent1qqsdr2ww059h02mffsg40g8hdg53e8hxs04m93pgn3qu366yl7syp4cppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsqmt3djh6a9zguy7466d42fa3dqjmw8lh87m25sf94sjrsxym3jdsrqsqqqqqpvcupkr

The thing about a life-logger, is you input sensitive data about your life, lifestyle and activities, so privacy and data-integrity are some of the most important issues. There can be no server, the data has to be yours and yours alone. Because you can’t tell what is happening to the data in a closed-source app, it must be completely free and open source. You can’t trust a corporate diary, they must sell to anyone offering enough money. So it is with my life log app, all data completely in your own device. No home server ever sees anything. There is no home server. Just the code. To achieve this Exocortex Log is a Progressive Web App. It downloads when you are online at the website and can be installed onto the homepage of your phone. It keeps all data on the local device using indexdb. This means you must be responsible for your own backups. Be sure to export and back up your data regularly. I have gaps in my ten year record where my phone was stolen and most recent backup was months prior. Once installed it will work offline, airplane mode, no internet, down in the tube station at midnight, anywhere. There's a blog on the website saying this and more: https://exocortexlog.com/news/articles/2025-12-06-release/ nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqrdw9k2lt55frsn6htfk4f8k95ztdcl7ulmd2jpykkzgwqcnwxfkqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qghwaehxw309ankcmmzv9kzuun9d3shjtnjv4jz7qpqgjaer7dylazggdj7ppeatrsakprd93vzgh6vtgtcwqrpzdpjze8qrpu568

You see a detective on the TV and he’s interviewing all the suspects asking them what they were doing on the night of the murder a month ago last Tuesday night. And on the TV, the suspects all know. Right away. If you asked me ten years ago though, I’d have had barely any clue. If you’re lucky it’d have been something planned in my calendar but mostly, dunno. Watching TV maybe? No idea what show. Was that a night I was in the pub? As we all get older this problem increases I’m told. Eventually full on senility sets in. But what if you have already built the habit to record what you’re doing? To be able to look back and revise and review how you spent your days? An external aid as a crutch to your own forgetful brain’s cortex? So I started this Exocortex Log over a decade ago and now I can answer: Ten years ago on Tuesday I was having dinner with the guitarist from my band and his girlfriend and they burned the pudding. The app has been half finished and barely able to even record let alone review for most of that time, but now it’s ready enough that someone else might use it too if they want. ## Try it Try it out: https://exocortexlog.com Accept a month of demo test data, add a few events for what you’ve done so far today, look at the summary and stats tools. No install needed, the app lives on a web page. If you decide to start logging what you’re doing, clear the DB and start again. Maybe install it for offline use then. Maybe set a reoccurring alarm to get you into the habit of doing it. See if you find it a useful memory aid after a few weeks. And next time a detective asks you what you were doing a month last Tuesday, maybe you’ll be able to answer! #lifeLog #app #memoryAid

Working on a website for a while until you look at it in chrome and it's horrible and you remember your dark mode plugin has been messing with it to make it look sane and dark. 😆 Gotta remember to turn these things off for the sites you're developing.

So the temporary placeholder name "Your Party" is made permanent. None of the options on the shortlist were good. Most of them just as grammatically inconvenient as the dumb placeholder name. The people who decide on the short-list, who can be a member, whose votes counts and what the options are, have quite a lot of power. Zara Sultana boycotted day one over who sets the rules and who can be involved. If Your Party have a governing body with power to override conference they end up like the Labour party and just are easily taken over and usurped by a cabal of thatcherite neoliberal capitalists. They did allow the dual membership system and a wider governance, so Zara won on who gets to be a member and who gets to be in charge. Which is probably good. Coz as the terrible name shows, if you put the idiots in charge you'll get idiocy not good collective decision making. For now the membership appear to have won, and I hear are they are all very excited and fierce and canny and not likely to let the old guard just set up another dictatorship from the top. They currently have half the membership count of the greens, less than a quarter that claimed by Reform. Lets hope they can get some attention towards something other than how billionaires think the country should be run and focus on the people. Here's hoping they can inflate that number by draining the Labour party and Reform members who just want change really rather than actually liking anything said by Farage. #yourParty #ukpol

Huh, I see that Zip Car UK is closing down, which would be a right pain if I hadn't bought a car last year. That's a lot of parking spaces about to be freed up I suppose. And a lot of easy-rental cars lying around the city disappearing. Guess they just weren't making enough money? #zipCar #uk

conference is over now. I likely wouldn't have come for just a bitcoin thing, but I am very interested in redecentralizing the web, so it's attachment to the nostr day pulled me in. Everyone I met was friendly and interesting and seems much more interested in making a better money system than in making money for themselves. Our government and bank money systems are dysfunctional in all kinds of ways which are often less visible than they should be too people using them, especially to those in Europe and America who benefit from the way those systems exploit the global south. I'm not convinced that fixing that would end wars and fix broken government as some seem to think, but I am sure our money is the source of many problems. There are many bright, well meaning, and intelligent people building to improve bitcoin in fascinating ways with the hope of having a parallel system to transition to. With lots of work still to be done. Can it work? I'm sure I don't know, and I'm sure even if it's a better system it'll come with it's own unfairness and cruelty. Money will continue to be a source of suck and worry. I'm told that the bigger conferences are often full of shitcoin scammers and suit wearing banksters who are in fact all in it too get rich and rip people off, but I found none of that here. Here there is a real community of people trying to make the world a better place and improve the lives of their neighbours and governance of their countries. And in the end building community is the most radical and effective way to change the world regardless of the problems of it's money system. I had a great time. Thanks to those organising it and welcome new followers. I mostly don't talk about bitcoin very much because money isn't really very interesting and I'm fast from expert on it. #bitfest #bitcoin

Finally, Martin from BTC Prague wonders how to empower bitcoiners in the UK. He's inspired by many UK scientists and artists and creators. But he thinks it's declining. Socialism and regulation reducing freedom. His home country had a peaceful velvet revolution, ending communism in the 80s. And it now has a law that there is no capital gains tax on long term held bitcoin! The UK, he thinks, needs to build new strong bitcoin based money to have it's own peaceful revolution. #bitfest #bitcoin #uk

Thomas voegtlin talks about nostr spam. It's very censorship resistance means spam can't be stopped by moderators. One way to stop spam is require proof of work before your client accepts a message. A large difficult hash. But big hashing machines are more available to spammers than people. Can't use likes or zaps cuz they can be faked with sybil attacks. Instead: notaries and proveably burned satoshis. Your public messages are classified as ham rather than spam if you burn enough money. Nostr event types to prove it are suggested. Including burning to upvote others messages Don't think I like deliberately burning the money, and seems to me a web of trust might work without doing that? Pay to post also peanizes there poor. But it isn't really burned here, it's shaed out to miners to continue a subsidy when the block rewards run out. So paying miners and these notaries rather than really burning. Okay. Maybe better, but still makes messages mostly for the rich? #bitfest #bitcoin #nostr

A panel on bitcoin treasury companies. Because investment law makes it hard for institutions to buy bitcoin in their funds. You can't own BTC in you tax free ISA. So some companies that do hold bitcoin, notably microstrategy, became proxy investments. If you can't hold BTC you could maybe own a company that owns BTC instead. Microstrategy started because it's ceo realized it's dollar treasury was being debased by dollar printing. So tried buying BTC instead, with fantastic success. Copycat companies proliferated. They boomed and then busted. One panelist calls that a grift. A way to memeticly pump share price. A line can be drawn between profitable companies just storing their profit in bitcoin Vs those raising debt to buy without having a profitable business. Imagine a world transiting from using seashells for money to using gold coins. A company gathers seashells from investors to buy gold coins, which will do better than sea shells. Trouble is the next step where the company pays back it's investors with... More seashells. If you own shares in the company, you do not own bitcoin. You'll just get more old fashioned bank money. Still. It's worked as marketing, more people being convinced BTC has value. If you do buy a treasury company, check it's bitcoin not "digital assets" including shitcoins. #bitfest #bitcoin #bitcoinTreasuryCompanies

Gaskell of Sundial is presenting on a layer two protocol designed to enable bitcoin to generate yield. Most bitcoin is still, in long term hodl. Not helping anyone. Sure, you could lend your bitcoin for interest but that would count as a tax event and also involve losing custody. What if a programmable sidechain to help with scaling, allow borrowing and lending and products retail and institutions like? His solution is called Sundial and doesn't need new protocol changes or forks. Hard to say what it actually does though? Presumably something like liquidity in sidechains? Didn't really seem to get what he actually is building. 🤷 #bitfest #bitcoin

The conference also has a cinema room, showing bitcoin based films. Not mine, but I'm here for "finding home" by avi burra. Who did q&a after. A short Travelog about a visit a cypherpunk in Prague for BTC Prague. Which was a much bigger bitcoin conference. Lots of shots of a beautiful European city, and brief interviews with the people there. Many at restaurants where meals are paid for with bitcoin. I guess they have a circular economy there of some sort. Conclusion seems to be that fixing the money is important but building community is even more importanter. #bitfest #film #bitcoin

Not sure what the difference between a panel and a"fireside chat" is. There is no fire. But here's a fireside chat on what nostr is. Nostr is freedom for Identity. Accounts without hosts. Publishing without publidhers. Censorship resistance without platforms deciding who gets to say what. It's not a silo in which you can be tapped as the service enshitifies, since it's a protocol with accounts you control, you can't switch clients or relays without loosing social graph or contacts. Nostr is notes and Other Stuff, what other stuff? the panel is working on an audiobook publishing system with perhaps a required payment and affiliate revenue share. E-commerce, video publishing, zap stream for live video with zap payments. Onboarding can be tricky with private key management needing to be understood and such a range of options of clients and what relays are. Can we make it easier? Perhaps by abstracting away the fact it's nostr at all. Devine users don't even know they are using nostr. But this robs users of the understanding they may need to move clients or use the same account for video and notes, say. Perhaps by making a private messagnger, the panel thinks people are used to using multiple messenger apps. Though I find they hate that, and that's why they refuse to install signal. They feel they don't need it since they already have WhatsApp with a bigger network. In the end it's education. We have to teach literacy so people can read and write, we have to teach public keys encryption so people can do so securely. #bitfest #nostr

Geyser is a crowdfunding system. Lots of history of patrons raising funds from the public for art works or public infrastructure. Kickstarter and the like on the internet made this much easier. But it's all bank money which is conservative and restrictive. Not global. High fees and middle men. So doing it freely with bitcoin makes some sense. Censorship resistance and global scope. Geyser has been running and funding projects for a while. Non custodial and money goes to creators only if target reached in time, otherwise returned. All open source in smart contracts on chain. #bitfest #bitcoin #crowdfunding