Is Primal down?

Deepseek seems like a pretty big deal. Timeline keeps getting crazier.

Running Cashu.

Currently Nostr mostly looks like a Twitter clone with fewer users, less content, and weaker network effects. The feature that really differentiates it is zaps. Censorship resistance and user control are amazing, but most users don’t care. The more we can find creative ways to leverage native money within social media, the more we grow the network. I’m convinced this is the killer feature of Nostr.

Gonna spend some time in Costa Rica next month, specifically Santa Teresa area. Any other Nostriches based down there? I know there’s a fairly big Costa Rica presence on this app.

Just bought a Ross shirt on @strike Crazy smooth checkout and payment experience @jack mallers I’m very impressed.

Pasta all’Amatriciana 🤌🏼

This is how you gotta salt your pasta water.

Over the past couple of years I converted 95% of my wardrobe to natural fiber materials. Pretty much everything I wear is made from cotton, hemp, linen, wool, or leather. Looks better, feels better, is more performant, and (unlike polyester clothing) doesn’t leach microplastics or disrupt your endocrine system. When you start to research it, you’ll be shocked at just how bad plastic/polyester clothing is for your health. I wrote a post with some of my favorite brands if you’re looking to make the switch: https://mylessnider.com/articles/natural-fiber-clothing

One of the highest-leverage cooking skills is knowing how to use salt properly. Ask any chef— salt is the single most important ingredient in cooking. A few tips: - Use a high-quality salt with a medium-fine grind for everyday cooking. Salt touches everything you eat, so it’s worth buying really good, clean stuff. In my opinion Vera Salt is the best out there. It’s what I use for all my cooking. - Get a salt cellar (or just use a wide bowl). You want to keep lots of salt easily accessible right by your stove. It should be big enough that you can get your hand in there and grab a big pinch. Shakers and grinders don’t cut it. - Measure salt by FEEL. Another reason why a salt cellar makes sense. Take note of how much salt you’re picking up and how it tastes on your food. Do this over and over again and you’ll be able to measure salt with the feel of your hands and then taste to adjust. This is a super important skill. - Always salt in stages and always taste as you go. Salt takes time to permeate food; you can just salt all at the beginning or all at the end. Taste throughout the cooking process and adjust as needed. This will make sure your final dish is properly seasoned.

Should I start publishing more recipes on Nostr? Maybe as long-form notes? If anyone would be interested in that let me know. I have a big backlog of published recipes I could bring here!

Big batch of bolognese. One of the best dishes to cook in bulk. Scales up easily if you’re cooking for a group and also freezes well for easy weeknight meals. I love making this with ancestral blend beef or venison. The low and slow cooking process makes it super tender. Probably my favorite pasta dish of all time.

Young people across the board are seeing prices go up and quality of life go down. The problem is no longer theoretical. People really feel it. Now our job is to show them that the real cause is money printing. There’s a lot of propaganda trying to convince them otherwise, and a lot of people are still confused about what the solution is.

What’s the best source for inflation statistics that aren’t manipulated by the government?

Does anyone more technical than me have thoughts on Spark (the Lightning-compatible Bitcoin L2 being built by Lightspark)? Seems compelling from my view, but not 100% sure about the technical tradeoffs.

Build Stablecoin Apps & Bitcoin Wallets with Spark SDKs - *Spark

Create Bitcoin-native wallets, launch stablecoins, and build fast, low-cost financial apps with Spark. No bridges. No wrappers. Purely on Bitcoin.

Tether moving their entire company/HQ to El Salvador feels pretty significant.

If you cook with beef tallow a lot like I do and are looking for high-quality brands, check these out. Lineage is regenerative, grass-fed and finished, and third party tested for glyphosate. h/t @Paul Saladino MD Fond is also regenerative and grass-finished and has some cool flavored options. Should be noted that you can also make your own tallow or get some from a local butcher or rancher. This is often cheaper.

The more time I spend on Nostr, the more I think that having native money on the network is what’s going to unlock growth. Having true free speech is amazing and important, but if we’re being honest most users don’t care about that. And for a lot of users, X under Musk is free enough. But native money and micropayments is unique to Nostr and opens up use cases that can’t exist anywhere else. Unlocking more ways to leverage this is how we get more people on here. @Mike Rama is doing some cool experiments in this space.

I publish a weekly-ish cooking newsletter on Substack. Just sent out the latest issue with some pantry recommendations, a roasted cauliflower recipe, some cool new beef tallow brands, and more.

Round Up - Recipes, Links, and Recommendations

Korean Pantry Staples, A Cauliflower Recipe, 80/20 Cooking Updates, and more

First Elon, now Zuck switching to a pro free speech stance. This is good in the short term, but people will eventually realize that the benevolent dictator model isn’t the right one for social media platforms, even if that benevolent dictator is generally pro free speech. Nostr fixes this.