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Nostr Nests

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Sure, sliced bread is great when toasted. But when you're entirely off-grid, there are a few more components required before toasting can commence. I say off-grid. Actually, I now have a pretty smart glass-fiber line that does pretty smart internet things, given the right configuration. That, and a bunch of other stuff (clean clothes anyone?) happen with these, my current (anyone?) seven special components, sort of from the bottom: Battery charger and its magic box that auto-switches if'n I need charging (I don't.) Mid-left: car-type DC fuse protection thingie. Top: charge-controller by Epever that just works (as opposed to crappy ones that break). It connects to a couple of 400w solar panels and the lithium battery and does nifty stuff (including feeds to my 24v DC frig. [which in turn feeds me]). To the right is a 24v lithium battery that is expensive and requires some config. fiddling – but after that, relieves one of the maintenance and more primitive aspects of lead-acid batteries (reckoned to charge on for 10 years+ to boot). The little heat-sink-looking thing next to it, is where I step down the batt's 24v to 12v to power a water pump, some now widely available DC light bulbs that are 4w for good light, as well as my fiber-optic-box-thingie (tech term), and a mobile travel router. Both of these use negligible amounts of electricity (and yet, they much desire a stable 12v which the lithium battery and transformer deliver admirably). Anyhoo, fellow web developer Vic kindly inquired about if I document this version of the development rabbit-hole, which I don't, so here it is. It's really quite similar to the sometimes rewarding, always challenging, world of troubleshooting and deploying software (read: you learn to cultivate patience). And when it works, you get to eat toast and shower and post to nostr and stuff.

from my dict: bigeois | biˈZHwä | of or characteristic of the technocratic class. upholding the interests of technology; not low-energy or slow: "bigeois society takes for granted the sanctity of progress"

I made this 10 years ago, as the digital wave heights came further into view.

gratuitous kudos to https://flycat.club/ for making a fine-looking client!

In addition to plain old Saturday, for me anyway, this week marks my initial participation in Nostr (for the uninitiated, Nostr is a way to participate in the Web in a decentralized [ i.e. not beholden to Sluggo-the-proprietary-corporation-that-can-just-disappear-you-at-will ] myriad of ways). To be honest, I really don't share the bitcoin zeal of a lot of others that inhabit this space. Suffice to say ... er, well ... beyond a certain threshold of energy consumption, technical processes begin to dictate social relations. As esoteric as that may sound, I'll leave it at that. But really, this sort of cryptographic identity that shares a through-line of sorts with cryptocurrency is just that and nothing more. I work with the webrtc protocol which affords really nice decentralized peer connectivity via browser-to-browser. (For my new Nostr-nerd friends here, if there isn't a slick little 'signal-server' implemented for Nostr, that would be a nice tool. (In webrtc, you need a way to identify the browsers you want to connect to ... audio, voice, and a data-channel ... by way of this signal server. I'd think that shifting some of the transport to a data-channel thusly would be sleek, even robust. If there is such a thing, don't hesitate to drop a line. Okay. Techno-jazz out of the way, brings me to another impression from this initial survey of this fledgling and open-ended protocol. And that is a factor that I suspect will evolve for its obvious benefit. I'm calling it a breezy entry way to Nostr. Getting Aunt Sally on board is another way of putting it. To put it as rant-free as I can: All this supposed liberty and boost to a shared public utility to encourage and promote open public discourse – that Nostr could seemingly avail – is just another version of a technocrat's gleeful cheer of "neato!" until folks with shitty old android phones can use it as easily as said-Sluggo's onboarding. In closing, aloha and mahalo (thanks) to my seemingly kind-hearted new Nostril friends. (that Haw'n reference may "dox" myself as to actually living in a particular place (living-context) on the Earth. I'll save that rap for a penchant for using this stuff within actual community (read: not 'community' predicated on "hey! we don't do proximity here" heh.

Nostr seems friggin' decentrally awesome. However, the current barriers to entry are surely precluding all non-propeller-headed, non-technocratic folks, from participating. Bringing wide-spread public discourse into the larger Polis would seem to be its highest and best use. To those of us – frankly less interested in cryptocurrency (and its attendant energy reality) and finding libertarianism mostly lacking in regard for our commons – such perspective is more aligned with our collective answer to that eminently reasonable question: "What good is it?" (that said, I've much appreciated the help and aloha encountered thus far!)

send me free bread (i'll show my nips if need be) thanks!

Um, this here is my nostr note. Not super profound. Really just commemorating my nostr slog ...