I can't remember if I've posted on nostr my advice for making good coffee at home.

If you drink instant coffee, there is something you can do that is very inexpensive and barely much more work than boiling a kettle of water, and your coffee will be way better than instant.

If you have an espresso machine at home, this advice isn't for you, you already have good coffee I imagine.

Here is the advice: Get an AeroPress. Get a coffee grinder that uses burrs. Doesn't have to be expensive. You can get a cheap hand grinder like a Timemore, Kingrinder, or 1zpresso... or mayb you can find an old cheap electric coffee grinder. As long as it uses burrs and doesn't have a spinning blade. Then buy whole coffee beans at the supermarket (try different ones until you get one you like). Grind the beans right before brewing in your AeroPress. Grind your coffee while you wait for the water to boil, setup the AeroPress with a filter, then pour in the grounds, pour in the hot water, let it sit about a minute, and press it through. FAR better than instant, and almost as instant. Plus very cheap. You can get an aeropress for probably < US $50 and a hand grinder also for < US $50. I bought both in NZ for less then NZ $100 each.

Using roast coffee beans instead of instant makes a big difference.

Grinding those beans semi-properly with a burr makes an appreciable difference.

The paper filter in the AeroPress and probably other factors about how it works makes a difference.

Instant sucks. Upgrade. But IMHO spending tons of money on espresso machines and fancy grinders isn't going to make your coffee that much better than AeroPress is. Unless you really need espresso shots, in which case... ask someone else.

NEW: 🇺🇸 California has officially PASSED the ‘right to transact’ Bitcoin unanimously in the assembly. 👏

The best way to opt out is to leave their territory.

Try to find an expat job in a different jurisdiction.

As I understand the American tax system, then your taxes to them drop significantly.

Joining freedom cell, opt out communities... combined effort and everyone brings their thing to the pot.

What is 'Bikeshedding'?

"Bikeshedding," also known as Parkinson's Law of Triviality, is a phenomenon where people in an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. It's often seen in meetings where complex topics are glossed over, while simple, easy-to-understand (and thus seemingly easy to contribute to) issues consume an inordinate amount of time and debate.

The term comes from C. Northcote Parkinson's book "Parkinson's Law," where he describes a fictional committee tasked with approving plans for a nuclear power plant. They breeze through the complex details of the reactor itself (because they don't understand it), but spend hours debating the trivial design of the bicycle shed. Everyone can visualize a bicycle shed and has an opinion, so everyone wants to contribute.

To build the Second Realm, we need to create independent systems of cooperation, based on the ethics of liberty, and not dependent on state-controlled institutions.

The United States with all the energy post 9/11 couldn't subdue Afghanistan or Iraq after 20 years. You really think a war with the country that sits between them, who has better organization and resources would be *easy*?

And even if you did manage to topple that government, what then? You really want less stability, more poverty and more death in that region? Because that's exactly what you'll get.

Who would build the roads?

Well, road construction companies would continue to build roads, just for a much lower price because there would be fewer bribes, fraud, and embezzlement.

good morning the government hates you

The combo of 1) people getting sucked into digital echo chambers and 2) people believing hallucinating AI answers without checking, is going to take a lot to change.

We are in an environment where if things *look* official enough, we’ll usually just instantly believe them. Since nobody has the time or inclination to check everything.

Like, someone can just tweet a picture of me at a conference, and put a quote next to it, and tons of people will take it at face value. People won’t stop and ask “is this actually a quote of hers from this conference?” It could be years ago, out of context, or not said by me at all, but one would never know since it seemed legit enough.

The current counter to this is basically to assume most things are potentially wrong in part or in full, unless further verified. But the risk there is people get detached and don’t bother researching things.

One thing you can do is go through your follow list and remove people/entities who don’t have a high signal ratio. In other words, keep people you agree or disagree with that are locked in and high signal, but remove those who parrot things they don’t understand or spread misinformation on a regular basis.

In an environment of endless quantity, it is more important than ever to elevate quality.

#AI and robotics are coming fast... faster than most are ready for or, frankly, even remotely considering.

Teach your kids (and their teachers) not to compete with or ignore #AI.

Rather, it is critical for future generations to quickly learn to collaborate with #AI and (importantly) focus on what makes us distinctly human.

Think creativity, empathy, compassion, and human touch for starters.

The world will look very different in 2035 than it does today.

Buckle up.

I saw that name on my drive here, so I guess haha. Unless there's something I'm doing that is leaking my IP address.