Nostr Web Client

Gunson

0cca6201658d5d98239c1511ef402562ff7d72446fb201a8d1857c39e369c9fa

Low status fiat heretic. Often wrong. 2 + 2 = 4

Gunson 11mo ago

The commodification of general purpose AI models was fairly obvious given that all the training data is accessible to anyone.

The real "black swan" will hit when the market realises that China will be able to prevent access to high quality labelled video data from factories that will result in their moat on robotics. The West has de-industrialised too much and won't have enough data to train their robots with.

I don't like any of it, but seems inevitable.

Another day, another exchange I am suspended from.

All of my funds are conjoined or swapped between LN/XMR for privacy before sending to exchanges, triggering all sorts of nonsense AML flags.

The exchange I am with now is requesting proof of funds, meaning it wants to see fiat coming into my bank account from an entity I have a business relationship with, asking me to "kindly assist them" in surveilling me.

Except that all of my business relationships are handled in bitcoin – meaning that it is impossible for me to show proof of fiat funds.

Alternatively, the exchange says, I could send them “the address” to which I received payment in the last year, matching the amount of money I have exchanged on their platform.

Obviously no such address exists as I create a new address for each transaction (and so should you). Additionally, much of my money comes in through donations, for which I simply do not have an invoice.

I could now send them every single zap I ever received on nostr in the past year – for context, that would be over 250 zaps in the past week alone, s/o to all the zappers – or I could move my business to Switzerland, where I can exchange up to 1000 CHF per day KYC-free (for now), which is what I’m going to do.

However, since I’ll be more heavily relying on peer-to-peer exchanges from now on, I’ll likely have my bank account flagged for receiving weekly payments from randos on the internet, making it fairly foreseeable that I’ll be losing my bank account in the coming months as well.

Fundamental rights violations aside, the amount of complete nonsense work – and with that costs – this system creates both for the Government and private institutions is absolutely astonishing. If there ever was a true bullshit job, compliance officer would no doubt be it.

It’s time we end the global discrimination complex inherent to the financial system in which we are all guilty until proven innocent, only to upkeep an inefficient system that is useless in preventing crime but formidable for imposing mass surveillance on the people.

So no, I will not "kindly assist you" in surveilling me, and if I die on this hill.

Until then, shill me your favorite tools to pay my bills in bitcoin 👇

Gunson 11mo ago

I'm sorry, this is very frustrating.

Best advice I can give is to keep using p2p offramps like Robosats, but have some other bank accounts as fallbacks. If one bank closes your account that information is *not* shared across the industry (GDPR).

Likely that a few small transactions per month won't trigger any risk flags. Generally the pattern banks are looking for don't match that behavior, or are targeted on high values (e.g. €10k in a few days).

I buy and sell on Robosats every few weeks using Revolut for fiat and never had issues. Not sure about solutions when banks get forced into identifying this type of activity - hopefully that day is far into the future because it will be impossible for banks to know if the transactions they see are related to p2p Bitcoin trades, so they'd need some type of blunt heuristic which would affect people who are doing things unrelated to Bitcoin.

I share your hatred of compliance. Absolute waste of human potential, shadow state bullshit. ✊

Gunson 11mo ago

Maybe Nvidia should start pivoting to Bitcoin ASICs. If this is a sustained correction in the demand for AI infrastructure it could open the conversation for alternate uses, or transitionary uses - something with flexible demand that doesn't need to be connected to the grid ...

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp8ycfwg2kqp7jgheg9jj7xq4ear5pn5ncfta952jvmlw69j49cmgqqsfwthfhs2gy69rzd67cp6wvn9zxtcwe5ajqladtfv3ppljkwgq0gggjh005

Gunson 11mo ago

We need to stop falling into the trap of defending Bitcoin > crypto. The two aren't comparable. Bitcoin solves the problem of fiat money - shitcoins *are* fiat money.

Gunson 11mo ago

"Communists are stupid!"

"China keeps doing smarter things than us!"

Gunson 11mo ago

Good to see Bitcoiners engaging with solid publications like The Spectator. Pity we always get asked about "crypto", but it's fascinating to see the concept of Bitcoin maximalism enter the conversation.

Nice one nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqgcwaehxw309akxjemgw3hxjmn8wfjkccte9e3k7mgqyzh0p44jz2p87wapmescjcf7d4yzfuvp74nmzgzjw0qk390a4u9jxlprakr

https://youtu.be/2tEqVvCs4Eg

Gunson 11mo ago

Jonkershuis at Groot Constantia in Cape Town must be one of the most beautiful restaurant venues in the world

Keen to try out Primal, but it's a non-starter without Amber support. I see there are already two open GitHub issues about it, so hopefully soon? nostr:nprofile1qqsdv8emcke7k3qqaldwv956tstu40ejg663gdsaayuuujs6pknw7jspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujucn0w3jhvtnnwcq3yamnwvaz7tmsw4e8qmr9wpskwtn9wvqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsx2l4qj

Gunson 11mo ago

Okay, just going to use the desktop browser version with Alby

Gunson 11mo ago

Fiat money ruining the London high street

"One reason for the decline in most high streets is that the property management chains are so tightly geared, that to accept a new tenant at a lower rent would mean that the ‘mark-to-market’ value of the property would drop accordingly, potentially putting the value of the firm’s assets dangerously below that of their liabilities. So even though they lose money month to month, they hold out for a big chain, because the mom ’n’ pops can’t pay what they’d need to keep their balance sheet afloat."

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britains-railway-arches-are-getting-hollowed-out

Why does everyone have to shitcoin? All my attempts to Orange Pill end in cringe conversations where they tell me they bought XRP and doge. It’s exhausting. HFSP

Gunson 11mo ago

I've got a generally smart friend who proudly told me he was in some kind of ETF that just bought all the crypto in it's market cap ratio - "just diversifying, and XRP went up so it's a smart strategy".

Have no idea what this scammy supposed ETF is, but I just didn't even know where to begin with all the embedded issues in what he told me.

I hear this a lot, but one of the ways I gained this skill was by being a generalist in a room full of specialists. A systems engineer. The dumbest person in a room of specialists.

I previously ran the engineering and finances of an aircraft simulation facility. I had a lead computer scientist, a lead IT manager, a lead mechanical engineer, a lead electronic engineer (which was initially my area), a lead aeronautics engineer, a lead graphics engineer, and various juniors, and together we had to1) build and maintain a set of aircraft simulators and 2) repeatedly customize those aircraft simulators for individual clients and then I 3) had to oversee the finances of this. And we'd have upper-management requirements (fiscal goals and limits, broader strategic priorities, etc).

I started as a junior electrical engineer, became the senior electrical engineer, and then moved into that more broad-based tech leader role.

In that role, I had to balance all of those things. I would run meetings, but talk the least. It would be 70% initial questions or letting others speak freely, 20% follow-up questions or purposeful counter-points to sort out the differences between competent people, and then 10% declarations or decisions from me. And even when I made those, I would go to each senior party privately and gather their opinions to look for critical flaws to see if an error correction was needed somewhere along the way after that.

Several of my senior engineers who reported to me were older and more experienced than me, so rather than acting the hot-shot, I would talk to each humbly and view my role as like, "someone has to do this whole organization thing, so please help me maximize your input to that."

Someone had to be the person who was the second best at each of the disciplines, and read people and technicals enough to know who should be promoted to lead each of those disciplines and when they were speaking out of competence vs out of pride or other human details. That was my job. I had to make all the separate engineering disciplines clear enough, and agree enough, to chart a single path forward, and then agreed to by upper management who had way less technical details.

And that came down to what is known by systems engineers as the "critical path". In other words, the critical path is the hardest or most expensive or most contested thing of a given project, so you can focus on solving that as the core, so that the periphery would follow.

That role sounds cool, but there's another side of the coin. I realized early I'd never be focused enough to dominate a specialty as some of the hyper-focused specialists I knew could. I could nail an individual project at like a B+ or A- level, but not an A+ level. I was more drawn to the broader picture from the start. I could be a B or B+ at everything, and an A- in my speciality, but I couldn't care enough even about my specialty to bring it to an A+ level. I wanted to be someone who helped all the A+ specialists come together.

I've since applied this systems engineering mindset to analyzing global macro flows, but also to analyze things like bitcoin or major tech themes like energy or AI. Some of it is instinctual or experienced, but other parts are easily teachable.

And the most easily teachable concept is to always think of the critical path. Picture multiple parallel things that all have to go right to get to the goal, and then imagine the hardest of those paths. That's the path to then focus on in terms of realizing how time consuming or expensive it'll be to solve, and how it might be accelerated.

Lots of other things are easily solvable with some resources, but the critical path is the real project-maker or project-killer. Across discliplines, formally or informally, try to be able to identify it, or identity the right people and ask/watch them enough to help you identify it.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqm9xan7hhmnqhku2wq35tyau3wme3dmkxyt2hlxu7tdjppnr3slvqqsfqk6tdqgmavkrpzmswzzhcza0mxhzn82z6yxkfl83e4vqs7kecgcjjc8dz

Gunson 11mo ago

Great advice. Product Manager here, some similarities - I'm super dumb compared to my engineers but somehow still add value by asking basic general questions about the overall objective and just getting smart people to talk to each other.

Gunson 11mo ago

Double breasted sun bird 👌

I need a way to share text and images quickly across desktop, mobile, Mac and windows

Traditionally I’ve used Discord (mobile to desktop) and iMessage (iPhone to Mac)

Nostr could do this easily, but I’d have to log-in on all devices (which isn’t terrible if it’s just one-time), but are DMs to self really the best way to do this?

How do you do it?

#asknostr

Gunson 11mo ago

Email yourself with Proton

Gunson 11mo ago

As much as I appreciate the RHS facilities, and especially Wisley, I'm totally against this demand of a government bail out. Sorry, but this is not what tax payer money is for. Raise entrance prices or cut expenses.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley/articles/impact-of-a3-roadworks-on-rhs

he actually surprised me. started off by admitting that he didn't understand Bitcoin as well as his audience, then made the point that our national debt was a major problem and that spending more on servicing debt than delivering government services is a major issue.

it was also impressive to see how many of the talks he listened to and how intently he listened to all of them.

Gunson 11mo ago

Hopefully he got orange pilled and goes down the rabbit hole

AdoptingBitcoinCapeTown

On the main stage at Adopting Bitcoin Conference Capetown we have speaker Mzwanele Manyi from the MK Party.

Sharing a bit of their point of view on South Africa to adopt Bitcoin as a Strategic Reserve Asset.

Find here the link to the livestream:

https://www.youtube.com/live/t0bTXqIqaMo

Gunson 11mo ago

What's the gist of his pitch? MK Party is a Zulu Marxist pro-corruption vehicle for Jacob Zuma's ego. Bitcoin is for enemies, but let's not forget how vile these guys are. In some dystopia where they are in SA government they would 100% steal anything and everything including a national Bitcoin reserve.

we should lean into NWC

nostr:note15le4kndywjy6rgv2uq67x4ytd65kmtykqv8f8ndhxjyfuhklf0ss8yqumt

Gunson 11mo ago

True. I just set up my NWC with CoinOS for the first time today - zapping about 10x more than usual.

Gunson 11mo ago

Just logged into LinkedIn for thr first time in a month. My god, what a cesspool.

Gunson 11mo ago

Revolut can't do lightning payments, but they push this ad to me

This is so funny 😂

OpenAI was just part of a $500 Billion announcement with Masa Son from SoftBank - money they *clearly* don’t have - for some ridiculous infrastructure buildout to progress AI / align themselves with Trump.

The day prior, a bunch of Chinese dudes open-sourced a model which is on par with OpenAI’s newest and best LLM which costs 3% of ChatGPT or can be downloaded and run locally for free.

All these American hopes being pinned on AI being this new amazing industry and productivity engine have been completely undermined by some dudes in a basement who are subject to sanctions on GPUs.

The US is so fukt, the only question is how long Trump can maintain the confidence game before things fall apart outside of anyone’s control. nostr:note1gwcsdgtrquasy8nhnh6x49jufpyeted0fjvexay80qxg8qpj93wsmlk2ec

Gunson 11mo ago

This seems so obvious, that I can't help feeling that I'm missing something about why big money continues to pour in. Possibly it's because they think they will be able to limit access to just proprietary models, or somehow further weaponise copyright law?

Gunson 11mo ago

So Trump was just using zero-based numbering I guess?

Gunson 11mo ago

Trump Derangement Syndrom seems to need an extra descriptor. It's not just about hating him despite flashes of actual competency. Many are deranged too because they think he's some kind of saviour.

Gunson 11mo ago

Healthy dose of perspective about Trump from the excellent Ivo Vegter

https://dailyfriend.co.za/2025/01/21/welcome-to-the-crony-states-of-america/

Gunson 11mo ago

Gotta say I prefer the relatively benign, albeit unsophisticated, type of grift that the Trumps run. Way better than the corruption that involves trillions of $ state spending and risking WW3 just to shave a few slices off for themselves.

Not that I approve of either, but I've grown to be grateful for lesser evils.

First Pick n Pay supermarket groceries bought with Bitcoin today 💪

Thanks to the team at nostr:nprofile1qqsz85k206vm3vqdmlvcy9l4kyfqchlnf4hnctasxufa3ph0ck9decgpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7ze0u6m 🙏

#spendstr

Funny how the same people who criticize government incompetence and bloat (agree!) are then often the first to be complaining about them not having enough manpower for something, or that they should do more about some issue. Can't have it both ways I'm afraid.

All that "may” happen, or it may not. I won’t take the black pill over “may”.

And at some point, you have to believe in the power of the technology over the power of the state. Otherwise, the experiment was always going to fail.

nostr:note1vl2khgack5mnwecv8h55lmfz8xkl0agqrprj3q47qmtem6pa6fyqnus5gw

I like this take. I think Lola identifies a non-zero risk, but it's partially motivated by a false dichotomy of NGU bros vs. pure freedom tech advocates. Many are both, and Bitcoin benefits from both no matter how distasteful you find one.

It would be even worse if the EO was to ban or restrict it in some way. Yes it would make it more cypherpunk and cool, but zooming out this seems like a much more obvious step to becoming the world's money (even if the wording offends you).

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