Kirk

I've been in UK for medical care at this place. I struggle to believe anyone has ever recovered from anything in this building.

Weird juxtaposition

In a hotel restaurant enjoying my morning sencha, I can’t help but overhear the only other person there ask the Hungarian waiter if he had heard that Ukraine had managed to take the fight into Russia (presumably referring to their recent assault on Kursk)? She sounded so excited, and clearly believed this was some sign that Ukraine was turning the tide of the war (which is exactly the PR effect Ukraine hoped to achieve). I found myself looking at her, just thinking how we are living in totally different universes. How, in the year 2024, could she still uncritically believe anything the news feeds her? Then I went back to enjoying my tea and the beauty of the courtyard garden. GM

It’s such a pretty surveillance state

In London atm and it really is beginning to feel like the dystopian London from V for Vendetta. It's a jarring juxtaposition: all these beautiful buildings and gardens within the context of dystopian surveillance state that, if I understand Starmer correctly, is now using live AI facial recognition combined with more CCTV cameras per square km than anywhere else on earth. I was listening to a bit of a Keir Starmer speech and it sounded almost exactly like high chancellor, Adam Sutler when he is ramping up surveillance and control to monitor dissident thought and capture V. It’s as though these politicians have never seen a movie, or read a dystopian sci fi novel. They certainly have no sense of irony.

Why hello you pretty, pretty Orwellian surveillance society

I’m not sure if Bitcoin has conditioned me to love volatility, or this was always part of my investing psychology

There is a soulful, haunting quality to Lizzy Paplinger's voice that lingers with me after I've listened. MSMR was one of the innumerable indie pop bands that came out around the '08-14 period. And while most of them sound interchangeable (Marina, Charli XCX, Tove Lo...) and have these darker themes and moodiness, MSMR stands out as having a bit more substance. It's a bummer they never broke out. https://youtu.be/lazZJdkQ05g?si=ZUB3hnGPpIwgY8tX https://youtu.be/7N82nu2oIzI?si=CDpX41g7_VsJtgEh https://youtu.be/cfF-qQT__s4?si=e9zwdFke6em3nhBn

I can't help thinking about all the money that was raised to bribe politicians, and what incredible tech could be built out if it had gone towards open source developers instead.

As big a fan as I am of nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu , I’ve been incredibly disappointed by HRF’s silence now ten months into an ongoing genocide in Gaza. Worse than silence, really. Of all the people they could have featured at the Oslo Freedom Forum, they chose Ahmed Alkhatib. I encourage you to watch it as, to anyone who knows anything about this conflict and its history, it is truly an atrocious speech: https://youtu.be/dxEZtVSO7_4?si=Q7EC1DnFNKU6Cqb3. Ahmed reminds me of the character of Saeed, from Emile Habibi’s satirical fiction, ‘The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist’. The character is a quizzling and a collaborationist with the occupying forces, and if you watch Ahmed’s talk you see a similar psychology. Notice how long Ahmed spends denouncing Hamas—the venom and vitriol in his tone. Notice the kind words for the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, which functions as little more than an arm of the Israeli government oppressing the people of the West Bank as they are continually dispossessed, brutalised and murdered. Notice his use of the passive voice when describing the mass murder committed by Israeli forces that switches to an active, adjective-laden screed when describing Hamas’ October 7th attacks. Notice how he calls for a “bilateral ceasefire”, instead of an immediate end to Israel’s decades-long military occupation. Watching his talk you would think that Hamas is really the problem and that history really did begin on October 7th. And if we can just get rid of Hamas, and maybe that nasty right-wing Netanyahu government, then there will be peace. Aside from being delusional, the truth is there can’t be peace between lions and men. When one party is intent on being a lion— on occupying, dispossessing, oppressing, kidnapping and torturing (what Ahmed antiseptically refers to as “the arbitrary detention of Palestinians”)and murdering, there can be no meaningful peace. The peace Ahmed speaks of is the same as the peace Israelis speak of: Palestinians in Gaza quietly lying down an dying in the concentration camp, whilst Palestinians in the West Bank continue to allow Israeli settlers to steal their land. The solution is for Israel to immediately end their brutal and illegal occupation of the Palestinian people. That is the only solution. Not “education” or “empowering civil society” in Gaza. There is no “both sides” to this. Israel is the occupying force and the Palestinians are the indigenous people resisting occupation. And the have every right to do so. Over the decades, the Palestinians have tried both political means of resisting occupation (Oslo, Camp David, the much-ballyhooed “peace process”). As Edward Said aptly noted, the whole peace process was just Israeli domination disguised as compromise. To quote the American-Israeli scholar, Barry Rubin, it was “all process and no peace”—a sham from the outset to continue denying Palestinians their rights. The Palestinians in Gaza also tried peaceful protest, most recently in The Great March of Return of 2018-2019. Ahmed does not mention this, of course. Nor does he mention what the Israelis did: lining up their best snipers along the fence-line and intentionally targeting the knee-caps of young Palestinians to cripple them for life. They had a competition to see how many they could cripple. Over 200 Palestinians were killed, and over 36,000 injured (including almost 9,000 children). 156 limb amputations had to be performed, 27 were left paralysed, 1200 suffered severe limb injuries requiring long-term surgical reconstruction. You do not hear about this, though, because Palestinians have been so dehumanised and erased from Western media coverage. And Ahmed only furthers this whitewashing and dehumanisation. Palestinians have a right to resistance. And if peaceful means only get them massacred, it is absurd for anyone to act outraged and clutch their pearls when they turn to violence. Anyway, if Alex or anyone from HRF cares to comment, I’d be interested in why they have been assiduously covering every bomb Putin drops but ignoring the crime of the century being perpetrated in Gaza. And I’d be curious if any of my fellow Nostriches have noticed the same thing I have.

I'm there in spirit Free Palestine 🇵🇸 https://www.youtube.com/live/lUOMXV8-fgM?si=-e5Y-ntB_Y_ajixq

I'm convinced the venn diagram of people who say "bitcoins" and people who say "maths" is just a circle.

GE

I only hope this election is the last ride of the boomers.

Julian Assange live press conference about to begin https://www.youtube.com/live/XATYVc6upMY?si=5lP7-auOedBX2Frl

Every pleb running a lightning node is one force close away from giving up on the whole endeavor

wtf is an outpoint?

Great blog post by nostr:npub1ey6qdmvzcgcsr883m9nspzz0mm037l26xtardzcskfsvc6gc7jssm9szvp articulating the vision of bitcoin as the interoperability layer connecting all the various subnetworks (Ark, liquid, cashu/fedimints, coinpools...) that will eventually be what allows bitcoin to scale. https://medium.com/breez-technology/lightning-is-the-common-language-of-the-bitcoin-economy-eb8515341c11