Crazy coincidence, likely the very first transaction that buys a United States Spot BTC ETF will occur exactly 15 years after the very first #Bitcoin transaction sent to Hal Finney.

GOOD MORNING NOSTR, SPENT THE LAST DECADE TRYING TO ONBOARD AS MANY PEOPLE TO BITCOIN AS POSSIBLE IN THE MOST RESPONSIBLE WAY POSSIBLE.

WILL SPEND THE NEXT DECADE CHANNELING PURE FUCK YOU ENERGY. 🫡

Good morning nostr, gonna be a busy Monday here on the homestead. I've got indoor and outdoor projects to work on, but its rainy this morning so I may have to do more inside stuff. But of course, the animals still have to be fed and cared for.

Question for any users of Linux desktop and Graphene phone: What is an easy to use app that I can use as a main Contacts list? I want to be able to transfer all of my contact info, including physical addresses, from phone to latop, and vice versa. Currently I simly backup my phone periodically onto usb. I dont use google or any cloud service currently. Oh, and it needs to be printable into readable form, so I can have a physical copy also. This is a must. I looked at Nextcloud briefly, and that might be what i will try. But is there something better, easier, specific to contacts?

Hope yall have a great day nostr friends, enjoy your coffee, and do your work with a happy heart. #coffeechain #grownostr #countrylife #farmlife #homesteading

"The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul." Alfred Austin

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i enjoyed the hell out of watching pulp fiction again recently

Is the Q1 worth it or should the MK4 suffice?

SeedSigner and Jade were the other ones I was debating on.

I’ll def check those out - I’m lacking the info to make the secure and proper decisions, and I don’t want to act rash on the partial info I do know. Ty for the recommendations!

What’s the consensus opinion on using an isolated OS system for cold storage - like using Tails OS or a Windows bootable type drive with a VM running an isolated OS?

Convenience seems to be the biggest sacrifice, and I see the security flaws in running a VM inside a WinOS - just wondering if this approach is practical in application and what anyone who may use this system thinks of it. Ty! ⚡️₿

#asknostr #bitcoin #coldstorage

Privacy Guru Michael Bazzell retires, what can we learn?

We liked his content a lot, and it’s a shame he stopped doing his podcast. One of our readers on Nostr asked us how our content differs. We respect him greatly and this is not a critique, but simply we are targeting a different audience.

His content targets a more novice user and our content is a little more anti-authority, more global, and less trusting of low-end consumer privacy products. For example Bazzell advocates for the use of Protonmail, while as we promote self-hosted email on a VPS. This is more decentralized and private, but requires more effort.

Bazzell suggests the use of Privacy.com cards, which mask your info to the vendor and your bank. This is convenient but ultimately not anonymous, which never was Bazzell’s goal or intent. On the other hand, at Simplified Privacy, we reject fiat money as legitimate, and only use cryptocurrency. We recommend crypto gift card vendors such as CakePay, CoinCards, and Bitrefill to avoid KYC. Some of these even have debit cards. Ultimately, we follow the philosophy of Agorism, and our goal is to create a parallel society outside the control of big tech and banks.

Bazzell is more focused on Signal using a Google Voice or Twillio number. This is practical for many users and his target audience. While as our philosophy is more focused on the broader picture, and we dislike Signal’s centralization and reliance on Amazon’s servers. Instead, we recommend Session for censorship and socialization with strangers, while as SimpleX or XMPP are preferred for pure security. We thought Bazzell’s statement in his book of “I like Session, but it’s not popular” to be reflective of his attitude of purely pragmatic low-level evasion. While as our philosophy is to actively influence society for individuals to self-realize their technological freedom.

Bazzell recommends NextDNS, because of their ability to block or evaluate your traffic. While we see the benefits of this, it’s not right for our particular audience, because then you’re trusting just one company to oversee all traffic. For example if you were to use Tor Browser, you’d be getting a new identity each time. While as NextDNS on one VPN would correlate all traffic as you.

When it comes to phones, Bazzell’s recommendations are a reflection of his focus on convenience to the end user and practicality for the most amount of people in their daily application. For example, he recommends SIM cards INSIDE GrapheneOS phones, and on a podcast he replied to a listener question about external hotspots and routers that it wasn’t that important.

While we acknowledge the practicality and appeal of this to the majority of users, our philosophy is very different and focuses more on those with a higher threat model. We completely dislike SIM cards inside phones because of malware and baseband modem vulnerabilities. Instead, we promote solely EXTERNAL hotspot/router WiFi with VoIP and keeping the hotspot in a faraday bag when you are home. Additionally, we view Google as so hostile, that they can’t even be trusted to manufacture the hardware required for GrapheneOS, so we’re open to non-Google phones with CalyxOS and VM phones on desktop to completely isolate spyware.

Bazzell on his podcast said he only uses OpenVPN, and never WireGuard because of WireGuard’s 2-minute logging of IPs in memory. We respect his decision to recommend this, but we believe it’s not really appropriate for his target audience of novice users. This type of recommendation be more appropriate for Tor users, anti-government journalists, or hackers under extreme or oppressive countries with VPN restrictions. In our subjective opinion, for the vast majority of average Americans (his target audience), the faster speed of WireGuard outweighs the 2-minute IP log.

Bazzell has done numerous podcast episodes discussing System76 Linux computers with PopOS. We think this is great, and would like to add on that System76 is our main recommendation for those coming from Mac/Apple. Not only is this specific audience used to getting both the hardware and operating system bundled together from the same vendor, but Apples can’t dual boot with Linux (easily) like Windows can. Additionally, Chris Titus has a guide on making PopOS aesthetically look like a Mac.

Regarding Bazzell’s pfSense recommendation, this was a good idea up until pfSense switched licenses and is shifting away from FOSS. Now we recommend OPNsense. But this happened AFTER Bazzell’s podcasts/books, so he gets no blame.

Wherever you are Bazzell, you will be missed. I listened to nearly every episode.

I have no sponsors for the Bitcoin And . . . podcast. I reached out a couple of times: no joy. I know if I just grinded the shit out of it I would get some but here's the thing; there are very few Bitcoin companies I would work with because very few have consistently shown their true colors, through bull markets and bear over years and years and years. Those that do are always consistent in messaging, marketing, and merit . . . but . . .

I think there needs to be a "Shitcoinery Clause" in contracts executed between content creator and sponsor that gives the content creator the ability to immediately dissolve the relationship with the sponsor if they start shitcoining, engage in trading of the corn, or some other well-defined covenant agreed upon by the two parties. We cannot go and "live in a new world" if we pack the old world bullshit in our luggage.

There has to be some manner of "pull" with those who take money from Bitcoin companies so as to affect 2 things: The integrity of the content creator AND the integrity of the sponsor. It can no longer be a one way street where a contract forces you to expound on the virtues of espousing the sponsor's goods and services 6 weeks into indictments, bankruptcy, and just obvious unethical behavior or general incompetence of that sponsor. The content outlets have to be on their sponsors' ass at all times to keep them honest and the sponsors should be able to bitch-slap the content creator if he or she starts expounding on the virtues of [insert shitcoin service here].

I'll catch hell for this note but I do not care because if we do not start acting, living, and breathing the ethics we expound on every single day, then we are just no good and should be roundly beat about the head and shoulders.

"If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it." - Chancellor Gorkon, Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country.

do they still charge to mark a podcast as played?

antennapod ftw

2024: THE DAWN OF CYBERSPACE