Funny story and a beacon to the nostr/bitcoin tribe 🙏 :
As some of you may know, I run an AI team at a large fiat health-tech company. The job has been sucking out my soul for the past few years, but I persisted because the paycheck was very comfortable and helped me keep the lights on at home. It's been brutal working 10-12 hour days under high stress, hardly being around for my teenage son's final years of childhood, and then trying to make time for my passion projects in bitcoin, nostr, and AI.
Last week, I had enough and finally did what I had been stopping myself from doing for over a year. I asked my SVP to lay me off. He laughed and said that's going to be really tough because I run a high visibilty team and the optics would be terrible if I was laid off. 😂
I pressed him some more and told him there was no way I could continue for much longer and he finally demurred and agreed to "see what he can do" 🤷♂️
I'm going to take him at his word and assume the sweet axe will fall by the end of June, plus about two months of severance. That's about as much runway I have to start making a dent with all the projects I want to dedicate my time to:
- NosFabrica: health data and interoperability on nostr
- Casa Nostra: an umbrella for all my creative projects
* "Finding Home," my Bourdain-inspired food/travel/culture show
with bitcoiners
* "July 18," the sequel to my novel 24 that's 20% written
* "Plebchain Radio," my nostr and bitcoin podcast I co-host with
@QW
* "Rendezvous with Claude and Friends," my performance art
podcast
* "The Acceleration," my AI focused podcast
* "Waiting For Satoshi," a one-act play I'm working on, loosely
inspired by Waiting for Godot
Why am I sharing this with you?
Because Nostr is where the smartest builders, thinkers, and gentleplebs hang out. This is my tribe and I am asking for ideas and guidance. Now that I have taken the leap, how do I make sure a net appears? I want to go full steam ahead on all the projects I listed above, but also want to ensure that I'm not rug-pulling my family.
Avi Burra
avi@nip21.media
npub1hqaz...t56s
Chronicler of the Sovereign Age | Anarcho Surrealist
@Plebchain Radio Block 114 confirmed. I had the pleasure of chatting with @Tim Bouma and get a full download of his wisdom and insights about nostr, bitcoin, and Safebox - the everything app that he is building on nostr.
@QW took the week off for a much needed boating accident, but he will be back next week.
Happy listening!


Fountain
Plebchain Radio • PCR114 - Signed, Sealed, Safeboxed with Tim Bouma • Listen on Fountain
Summary
In this episode of Plebchain Radio, host Avi Burra welcomes Tim Bouma, a prominent figure in Nostr development. They discuss the multifacet...
Mood
Join me for Episode 114 of @Plebchain Radio this Thursday at 6pm ET (UTC -4) as I go solo this week with @QW taking a much needed boating accident
My guest will be @Tim Bouma, the veritable Swiss Army knife of nostr development, and he will explain how he is making our humble protocol for relaying signed events do things most people can’t even fathom
The show will be streamed live on zap.stream. Link will be posted once the stream is live.
Set your blockclocks!
@QW and I are excited to announce our very first @Plebchain Radio Layer 2 drop! 🔥🔥
In this episode, I have a contentious conversation with @Jameson Lopp about the recent OP_RETURN drama, his thoughts on arbitrary data on bitcoin, the involvement of Citrea, Casa’s Ethereum moment, and his general views on the evolution of maximalism and bitcoin purity tests.


Fountain
Plebchain Radio • Layer 2 Ep. 1: LOPP_RETURN • Listen on Fountain
In this bonus episode of Plebchain Radio, Avi Burra speaks with Jameson Lopp about the recent OPRETURN controversy in the Bitcoin community. They d...
A detailed guide to vibe investing:
1. Acquire bitcoin with your labor/energy/fiat
That is all.
Thank you to everyone who watched the premiere of Finding Home today at the @Bitcoin FilmFest 🙏. It means a lot to me
Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback
What’s worse for bitcoin:
A. Monke jpegs on the timechain
B. “Bitcoin is a pet rock”
An incredibly proud moment for me: the pilot episode of my bitcoin food/travel/culture show is premiering at @Bitcoin FilmFest in Warsaw this weekend.
This was an idea I initially hatched at BTC Prague in 2023 - a very humble attempt to pay homage to Anthony Bourdain through the lens of Bitcoin,
and it’s taken this long to bring the pilot to reality.
It’s not going to be generally available yet. I’m still trying to… ahem, find a home for it


Final demos for the nostr for healthcare app development challenge will begin on zap.stream at 11am ET (3pm UTC). Stream is now live:


zap.stream
zap.stream - Nostr Live Streaming
Nostr live streaming powered by Bitcoin lightning. Stream freely with Bitcoin payments, no censorship, open source.

Join @QW and me for episode 113 of @Plebchain Radio this Friday, May 23 at 1pm ET (UTC -4)
Our guests this week are @Oscar Merry and @Dovydas who might just have a special announcement in store about @Fountain 👀
The show will be streamed live on zap.stream. The link will be posted when the show begins.
Set your blockclocks!