Wall Street Journal: "Trump, Chip Maker TSMC Announce $100 Billion Investment in U.S."
One of the more important paragraphs in the article. It kind of sets the stage.
“If they did [the chips] in Taiwan to send them here they’ll have 25% or $30% or 50% or whatever the number may be” in tariffs, Trump said. “It’ll go only up. By doing it here, there’s no tariffs.”
Stocks like $ASML.AS $NVDA $TSM and $BTC still had a rough day today.
Source:
Solar Quest - Acid Air Raid (George's All Nighter)
The greatest 303 programming in history. Describing this track as a "monster" doesn't do it justice.
#acid #trance
You enjoy the track and video as much as I do? Madonna in her prime was second to none, well apart from Prince of course.
Madonna - Justify My Love
This belongs in the Louvre. Madonna, Lenny Kravitz + Jean-Baptiste Mondino == 🔥
Hah! Yeah, the public toilets in China have a lot of catching up to do for sure. Hole in the ground is one thing which isn't fun of course, but it can be managed. The lack of privacy in some of them is a different matter though. I'm never going to get used to that. I'm lucky enough to have a bladder and guts that are somewhat easy to control. Have kept visits to a minimum.
Got the book btw! Currently reading Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on The Shore", will do "The Girl with Seven Names" after.
Thank you Kim! ❤️
$NKE
Hahah! What did you find hard about Beijing?
I liked Beijing which I visited on that exact same trip. Flew in to Pyongyang from Beijing and took the train back to Beijing once the tour was over.
I was lucky enough to meet nostr:npub1t8lmu87g980vlyr92sut6t0n57m5dm62q3356nhfu2qtkm89798qqwsf7p in Nashville last year. Have just finished her excellent book; highly recommend that everyone picks up a copy and reads it too.
Absolutely extraordinary account of incredible courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and the clearest insight I've ever read into the extraordinary North Korean regime. Kudos to her and all her family.
nostr:note1pxk88ew6j93qufw76vgs208a99my2g2mu50t62x5xnep5rxjzv6sm4qeu2
Thanks for the tip! Ordering it!
I've actually visited North Korea 10 years ago as a part of a group tour. Spent 6 days there and saw pretty much the same places, monuments etc as everyone else who visits the country. One thing I'll never forget was seeing thousands (no exaggeration) of people doing hard manual labour when building the then new airport. Hard manual labour we've replaced with machines over here. Needless to say, I've not seen anything like it before nor after.
I just messaged the mate I was there with about this book in case he wanted a copy as well. Apparently he's already read it. He has somewhat of a fascination with the country so he's read a lot about it. His exact words about the book: "Very good but also very tragic".
At times like this I'm reminded how good life here is. There are problems then there's real problems.
Wall Street Journal: "Birkin Bag Maker Hermes Posts Higher Revenue on Strong Americas Performance"
$RMS.PA
"The French luxury group on Friday reported revenue of 3.96 billion euros ($4.15 billion) for the fourth quarter, up nearly 18% at constant exchange rates compared with the prior-year period."
""Hermes is affected by the crisis in China, but the group is quite resilient, Chief Executive Axel Dumas said during an earnings call. “There are positive signs, but not enough to expect a full recovery,” he added.""
"Hermes proposed a dividend of €16 a share."
No "è" on the keyboard at WSJ? Anyways, amazing results by Hermès. Will try to read or listen to the conference call this weekend.
Source (paywall):
I've a hard time believing one city, albeit a very big one, would have this kind of impact. With that said, I'm not certain of anything. I'll try to read/listen to the conference call this weekend.
Just checked the rates for different Hyatts in NYC one regular Wednesday in April. Rates are crazy!
Not sure what this is all about, but I'm going to find out.
$H
Holy shit, I just got a Bit Axe today, downloaded datum onto my Start 9 and now I'm mining on Ocean using my own block templates. Amazingly easy to set up. Thanks nostr:nprofile1qqs0m40g76hqmwqhhc9hrk3qfxxpsp5k3k9xgk24nsjf7v305u6xffcwac93l , nostr:nprofile1qqs8fl79rnpsz5x00xmvkvtd8g2u7ve2k2dr3lkfadyy4v24r4k3s4sh8dmel , and everyone else at nostr:nprofile1qqsq9k04vahllseell55m74n3047y88pzlr0z5yany32st29fapqmgstcvu4w who made this so easy. Proud to be contributing to the decentralization and censorship resistance of Bitcoin.
Nice one!
DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters | Lex Fridman Podcast #459
Dylan Patel & Nathan Lambert on Lex!
Just finished all 5 hours. This episode is beyond fantastic!
Dylan and Nathan share so much knowledge about semi conductors, LLMs, data centres, geopolitics, Stargate (am I the only one who remembers the film?), the future of AI etc.
If you have a interest in this space, you need to listen to this. There's no two ways about it...
Eric Prydz - Live from History Toronto 2025
We're not worthy! 🙌
Sparrow v2.1.0 released with:
• Lark for USB hardware wallets
• Ledger multisig wallet registration save
• Jade Plus USB support
• Restore tables sort & sizing on wallet load
• PSBTv2 support
And much more: https://github.com/sparrowwallet/sparrow/releases/tag/2.1.0
Doing the Lord's work man! Thank you!
'24 was a fantastic year in many ways, but when it comes to collecting payments in the form of #Bitcoin nothing changed where I'm at. The 20% discount didn't attract anyone to pay that way. Still keeping it though.
The company chugged along with no big surprises. Future market outlook not as good as last year due to I might lose a client. I don't have many so it'll hurt, but I'm good in any case.
Keeping fingers crossed for my business and bitcoin in '25!
Incorporating #Bitcoin into my business.
I personally hold bitcoin and do believe it's something that can benefit society as a whole. With that in mind I made the decision to accept bitcoin as payment at the business I own starting the first half of '22. I had already bought some bitcoin and placed on the balance sheet, but accepting bitcoin as payment was something else I figured. Checked with my accountant who did some investigation and came back to me with an OK.
Invoices sent by my business contain all the necessary info for making payments in bitcoin, ie conversion from national currency, wallet address, list of exchanges where to buy bitcoin etc. There's even a small discount of 5% if paid in bitcoin to entice clients.
During these 19 months or so, not one single invoice has been paid this way. Not only that, not one client has asked me what this bitcoin thing is all about. This is unfortunate and currently the state of affairs in the country I reside.
Starting today I'm increasing the discount to 20%, maybe that'll make one or two clients curious. If all invoices were to be paid with this higher discount and the price of bitcoin would remain flat at current levels of around $45 k, I'd still be OK financially.
Some background. It's an insignificant business in the grand scheme of things, but it's how I make my living. Started 7 years ago. Sells services, not goods. Pretty high margins currently. Few big well established clients who make up all of the revenue. No mom and pop shops. Clients always pay on time. Generates steady cash flow which has allowed purchases of stocks and bitcoin to put on its balance sheet. Future market outlook OK.
Assets
1) 15% cash for salaries, taxes and purchases of services / software / hardware
2) 85% stocks and bitcoin
Hoping this modified bait will have some effect and this post inspires others to do the same at their businesses even though my attempt hasn't been successful so far. I'm sure there're lots of people in a similar situation to me who could start accepting bitcoin if they wanted to, but who haven't given it enough thought. Why not? Take a stand, accelerate adoption.
In any case, these’re exciting times, lets see what '24 brings us!