I woke up from a dream where I was bathing in a hot spring. The water wasn't hot enough, and come to think of it, there wasn't much water at all. A kindly older woman beside me noticed a wound on my shin and referred me to someone named "Monica T." for antibiotics. I looked down and saw that my foot was purple and swollen. I woke up with the name still in my head, so I wrote it down at 4am. Naturally, I googled it this morning. and found someone with that exact name who claims to work at the "Krusty Krab." I'm definitely not going there for antibiotics.

does anyone know what he means?

this is super exciting. If i'm not mistaken, the "bridge" feature will allow me to pay other peoples' lightning invoices in BTC satoshis while earning XBT dashtoshis. i could even earn a fee, however, i might charge a negative fee.

Proto-town?

does anyone have advice for passing an initial interview with flying colors. looking for an actor on Fiverr: "looking for bubbly personality with interview competence to take video call." pay depends on whether i get the followup interview or not. this isn't immoral, it's just human API

choose your hardware wallet based on Kalshi bets for which one breaks next View quoted note → kalshi.com

what if you could stand on the top of a really tall bluff and look out and see the whole earth, and that bluff is as comfortable and warm as your house, that's how i feel looking at the moon right now.

i've proposed making a bet with someone: talarico wins, they make me a cake, talrico loses, i make them a cake. i'm actually hoping they flip this to Talarico loses, they make me a cake, since they think that is more likely. on second thought, i also don't want someone to make a cake if they are sad.

if someone in Pakistan wants to save money, should they buy gold or bitcoin?

The phone rang. the area code showed Texas -- a region i've been targeting with resumes. i answered with brusque "hi" "hello" me: "what's up?" "Is this Firstname Lastname? ... ugh, sorry I must have the wrong number."? click. I fought some anger, felt like shouting "yes, you have the right number, are you scared of me?" oops. another job potential cut off by my fear of scams. meanwhile the clock showed 4:44. weird, my last WhatsApp text with the mysterious recruiter from India was also sent at 4:44. clearly the universe is trying to tell me something. meanwhile my youtube algorithm suggests a video on dementia. I listen of course, taking note to add "Do not rescusitate, do not intubate, do not feed" to the next version of my will. progress is happening slowly but surely. and it's only Tuesday.

Is he a recruiter or a scammer? After insisting on details like "on-site only" and exact tools and terms, hourly rate, then he asked for my driver's license number. I'm so confused at the moment. So I sent an email to the company he works for to check. But it probably doesn't matter anyway because I treated him like a scammer.

a ramble on how i'm currently thinking about XBT: "infinity divided by 21 million" "it's hard-capped at 21 million" "anyone can send a transaction--it's permissionless" etc, etc. I believe Warren Buffet said off-handedly "they will find a way to make more of it" when he heard of the scarcity of bitcoin intrinsic to it's protocol. so how intrinsic is it, really? to people who don't like bitcoin (which is most that i meet), 21 million is not intrinsic to it, as is proof-of-work. they would not bat an eye if the whole thing collapsed into a graveyard with the rest of their money problems. it seems to me that it's only intrinsic as long as the major players who use bitcoin say it is. let's say that the government did not change the 21 million cap, but decided to levy a fee on all bitcoin transactions through national mining companies, and any bitcoin transaction that cleared thru an international miner would be blacklisted at major exchanges, a tax headache. the self-sovereign bitcoiner enjoyed the economic adoption of the network by major players which introduced political leverage. do they then decide to fork the network? at which point they hope that enough people join them with enough technical skills to recreate the financial ecosystem? or would they sell out of that network and buy into an existing underground network that maintained the ethos of 21 million and no-rules on who is sending what--partly because noKYC means that people don't know who is sending what. but that network is hostage to low liquidity, low acceptance. how many sly-roundabout systems are subverting sly-roundabout systems? perhaps two: the current and the next? bitcoin is the current sly-roundabout system, and the next sly-roundabout system is already in existence. it may not be needed at the end of the day, or successful. maybe it's enough that the alternative keeps the incumbent on its toes.

everything is possible until it's proven impossible & what is possible is bounded by what is envisioned I'm at that point in my life where I wonder "what kind of impression did i leave on the person in the cube beside mine that i worked with 5 years ago?" so i can shortcut if i should reach out on LinkedIn or not. it would be easier if I had clear good/bad experiences with people. Instead I just have years of milk toast relationships with most. it would have been better to be a little louder/more annoying to figure out the boundaries back then. *notes to self to be more disagreeable in future. future cube conversations: "are you eating in your cube again? go eat in the kitchen or else share some so at least i can eat it as well as smell it" "are you on your phone again? well at least so me a picture so i can tell you which way to swipe"

Christmas ideas: buy 1 XBT for each of your family members and tell them you're giving them each 1 bitcoin

has an AI agent solved a problem for you this week?

thank God for XBT/BTC atomic swaps beta version

GitHub

GitHub - gjbrr/blake-swap

Contribute to gjbrr/blake-swap development by creating an account on GitHub.

View quoted note →

unless you are atomic swapping bitcoin BTC/XBT with it View quoted note → View quoted note →

open source slop just dropped is it slop or not? View quoted note →

I made the BTC ↔ BLAKE atomic swap reference implementation public:

GitHub

GitHub - gjbrr/blake-swap

Contribute to gjbrr/blake-swap development by creating an account on GitHub.

It uses Bitcoin-style HTLCs for settlement and Nostr for peer-to-peer coordination. No swap server or federation; the chains remain authoritative. The current release is experimental and unaudited, but it has completed two-host regtest swaps in both physical directions, including restart and recovery testing. One thing I’d especially like people to try: Give the repo to your AI assistant and ask it to walk you through a swap one command at a time. Start on regtest or use tiny experimental amounts only. Do not use valuable funds yet. Feedback, breakage reports, and independent implementations are very welcome.

are typical men more attracted or less attracted if they have a 3rd date fireside on her patio and she mentions that she built the outdoor garden lighting? she asked me "did i scare him away" i said no... i'm pretty sure having a handywoman would be a bonus, but... are men scared off by women who install their own patio lighting? or maybe they are scared off by the fact that she has a patio in the first place. idk. is dating a woman who owns a house demoralizing for men who are below the average age of home ownership? she was literally considering selling the house and renting. i said that was a bad idea. but maybe a woman in an apartment is more palatable for dating for a man who is in an apartment? NDA--not dating advice. sell your house and rent.