🚨NEW WINE ALERT🚨

This 2021 Cab Franc drops on Sunday!

Tasting Notes:🍷

Aroma:

On the nose, this wine presents a captivating bouquet of deep blackberry and ripe plum, with a hint of warm, inviting spices that evoke the essence of freshly baked goods.

Palate:

The palate mirrors the rich fruit profile, showcasing layers of juicy blackberry and luscious plum. The mouthfeel is full-bodied, with strong, structured tannins that give the wine a robust, lingering finish.

TLDR: This wine will take you to a place where blind men see 🍷

I was just walking down the street, coffee in hand, suddenly realizing how "normal" it all is already. Like most days, I went to a coffee shop that accepts lightning. Like most days, I paid directly with sats that someone zapped me here on nostr. Like most days, neither the merchant nor myself thought twice about it, or took a minute to marvel at what just happened.

So, allow me to do just that. Marvel at what just happened. While everyone is having a fantastically crazy time at #nostriga, uncountable people are using bitcoin in a myriad of ways. Some for savings, large and small; some for transactions, large and small; some for other stuff. Bitcoin is slowly but surely entering the world stage. Some commentators will tell you that this is good. Some commentators will tell you that this is bad. Whatever the case may be, it is unavoidable.

I see nostr under a similar light. As platform-based manipulation and censorship ramps up—which it inevitably will—the usage of nostr will ramp up too, and with it the usage of zaps and everything else that comes with it. And soon enough, buying a coffee (or breakfast, lunch, and dinner) with zap-based income will be normal. Just like it's "normal" to be an "influencer" today, or a "YouTuber" or whatnot... It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a normal thing. Anyone can do it.

Back to my coffee. I remember when I had the "oh my god, I can live on bitcoin here!!!" experience for the first time. It was in Bitcoin Jungle, a couple of months after the initiative was launched. I stayed there for 2 weeks or so, buying the necessities of daily life with sats outright. And it worked. Flawlessly. I had zero payment failures, and was exclusively using Zeus with my own node. It was incredible.

Why is this incredible, you ask? Shouldn't stuff just work? Yes, it should. But building out the tech and the infrastructure to make it all work is BLOODY HARD. I remember the first Lightning Conference in Berlin, in 2019. Everyone came, everyone had all their channels and wallets and everything prepared, and ~50% of payments failed. For... reasons.

Fast-forward to today: I go to one of the 100+ merchants in the city that accept bitcoin, a quick tap on the PoS device & QR code scan, boom, done. Is it always perfect? Of course not. Will it get better still? 100% it will. Very soon these merchants will have NFC-enabled devices, and the tap-to-pay experience that people are used to with cards & Apple pay will be normal for bitcoin payments too. If you are in Riga right now, you'll experience this first-hand thanks to Bolt cards and BTCPay Server. It's awesome, it's open-source, and it works. And it will get better still.

We are truly living in the best and weirdest timeline; a timeline where shitposting on the internet can buy you lunch and dinner; a timeline that spawns amazing technological movements like #nostr; a timeline that, every ~10 minutes, allows for a small miracle to happen. A timeline where "magic internet money" is a normal thing; a timeline that, thanks to the magic dust of cryptography, enables anyone to speak about anything, without having to ask for permission. I'm grateful.

Thank you, Satoshi. 🙏🧡

Most websites have Google Analytics installed to help track their details.

I used to do this. It expired on my website some years ago, so I fixed it.

It then expired again. Always updating their tech. I was too busy to give a fuck that second time, so I still haven’t fixed it. My followers don’t care about Google anymore. And we’re not based on advertisers.

I don’t track numbers on my website anymore. I just post based on vibes. I write what I want to and I observe the feedback on any medium that people provide it. And now there’s Nostr.

So I go on vibes. Not numbers.

Yeah I had to double check that. I was like, “wait, it’s shifted by a half? Really?” Never knew that actually.

Let’s play a game.

The rules are simple.

1. Whoever zaps me the most sats wins.

Winner receives all zaps from all players.

And go! nostr:note1nx2ksu6vgq34cmh07zp675ldl476zuvhhdqp0ht6cax2jdvkjtvsee9lxz

Straight talk:

There’s simply too much beer hate out there right now.

nostr:note1d7qdntzp8etzxvwugg9md2mdetdx4cxglta6txauqsl0a7k0nwfskernm3

Is it worth getting back into Magic the Gathering? Haven’t had time to play in 3 years.

I hear they have a lot of power creep lately to maximize profits for Hasbro.

Anyone here been playing it a lot recently?

I posted a bunch of evidence on Twitter for how 1) grocery stores have razor thin margins, 2) food producer margins are more average but haven't changed in two decades, 3) of course farmers aren't the ones getting rich so 4) no, the food companies are not gouging you on prices.

It's monetary inflation. Grocery stores and food producers are trying to keep up.

Most people agree due to the inherent audience selection, but the tweets kind of went viral and reached a broader political audience, so a bunch of people came in like, "How come they can put chips on sale for 50% sometimes!?!? Checkmate Alden." (it's because they don't understand fixed costs vs cost-of-goods sold) or "How do you know any of the filings are real? What if they're literally all just lying on their audited SEC filings?"

Post-truth, some of people are. The grasping for price controls is the short-time public and political instinct that ultimately makes things worse, every time.

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” nostr:note1srz5fdnrxwlrf4ha4ml3pr5ra63wzck2dg9fwlwa3zjwnj22fnwsv02dm9

Bacon, eggs and hashbrowns > Bagel sandwich > breakfast burrito > egg scramble > omelette > waffles > pancakes > French toast

Anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong

Valiant effort, but you may want to proofread your title. $4M?!