yeah the fudge-rounds line was dumb but my man is singing his heart out

I know everybody is dunking on the random governor who decided that she could just wave her hand and unilaterally suspend any right she dislikes simply by hissing the word "emergency," but the problem is that she's only wrong if another political force — the courts, politics, disobedience, or Locke's old Appeal to Heaven — proves her wrong. Enforcing the limits of official power isn't some American $currentYear problem, it's a recurring issue throughout history. The question is why we're suddenly seeing the authoritarian instinct activating so much more openly — and frequently. In prior decades, they had to be cute in how they went about it, often requiring laws and lies. Now they're remarkably comfortable simply stating "because of the 'emergency,' you can no longer {travel | donate | engage in commerce | read | communicate | carry}," and that's the whole of it. The next question is what you're going to do about it.

The fact that Bitcoin isn't yet accepted everywheree and for everything really underlines for me how few people have actually used Lightning. Whenever I show somebody how it works, there's always that "wow" moment. But why was it a surprise? The problem is that normal people still understand BTC from the one half-remembered opinion piece they read in 2017, and are operating under the belief that transactions still take an hour to settle, rather than being instantaneous and irreversible — money transmission without the Paypal Problem. The public mind needs a cache refresh.

Last hot take for the night: the live-action version of One Piece has some of the worst lines I've ever heard delivered. The sort dialogue that can cause physical discomfort even to someone watching alone and unwitnessed — just as the perfect crime cannot erase the awareness of guilt. They tried so hard, too. A shame.

Sometimes I wonder if we're not focused enough on developing meaningful (and free) social spaces in VR. At times it feels like there is a fabric of "permissioning" being lowered over what were nominally public spaces, for previous generations. I worry that one day we will wake in a world where if you don't have the right face, the right politics, the right cash — or more likely, card — there will be no place to go. Access denied.

Hard not to feel disappointed in the media these days. Harder still as you age, having read certain bylines for years; having seen them develop; having witnessed them decline.

shadowheart: i am a bundle of problems that encrypted my memories and forgot the passphrase me: i can fix her

I know everybody's excited about the SEC losing in court, and it is indeed an important victory, but it's worth bearing in mind that Gensler knew he was acting outside the law long before the verdict. The largest institutions care less about what is legal than what they can get away with. Given how long it takes the courts to rule, it is a reminder that in the context of the government's own misconduct, there are limits to the utility of law.

Every time I return to this app, it has improved.

Some weeks ago I was reading Thoreau's "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" aloud at bed-time to my son, who of course does not understand it but appreciates the sound of the words all the same, when I discovered that its famous title was in fact not the original! The original title was significantly more radical: "Resistance to Civil Government." It's quite short, and I would encourage everyone here to read (or re-read) it. It is still tremendously relevant. Re-reading it with the original (un-sanitized) title in mind, it lands even harder. These days, Thoreau would probably get his door kicked in. Here's a free link to the Project Gutenberg copy:

The Project Gutenberg eBook of On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau

Share your favorite quotes, after reading.

People are just nicer here.

Good day to check out nostr again. The primary reason I'm not here more often is I connect through a very jank VM. Elon is working hard to incentivize me to fix it.

can't use twitter without sensitivity training

The bad news: Twitter's insanely puritan algorithm just massively deboosted my tweets because I posted a baby picture. The good news: nostr still works just fine.

This is the happy place.

Do you think the CIA still does this?

My wife climbed higher on the ranked ladder than SBF. With a touchpad.

Ok, so we failed to topple Venezuela or Syria, have lost any meaningful control over the festering wounds of Iraq and Libya, witnessed 20 years of relentless, gold-plated coalition conquest in Afghanistan get spanked and sent to bed without supper, and now we're supposed to be lining up for war with China? Do I have that right? Does that sound like a good idea to you? Anyone?