Too bad they're cucks, I kind of want one.

I tend to agree with Luke that the block size limits were raised too high too fast, and for 99% of the past six years we would not have even noticed the limitations of smaller blocks. Decentralization is the key to bitcoin's success and that means regular people need to run nodes on affordable hardware. Although you can do it on cheap hardware today the reality is already that in order to run a reliable node for long periods of time you need something better. Bitcoin's future depends on the node operators and the barriers to entry must be lowered.

We all know that blockchains don't scale and that fees will be prohibitively high someday but we are simply not yet at that point. This mempool congestion is happening because someone is investing a lot of money to make a point, possibly for a blocksize increase or possibly just to encourage general FUD.

I have been watching the mempool since mid-2017 and this latest surge of activity driving fees up over 600 sats/byte without any corresponding FOMO price action is clearly an attack. No other cause is believable to me. I'm not saying that all the inscription/ordinal stuff is spam, but a vulnerability is clearly being exploited alongside well-intentioned transactions. This is to be expected, and so is the response--we must do something to stop the attack. The answer is above my pay grade but I am glad to hear that nostr:npub1lh273a4wpkup00stw8dzqjvvrqrfdrv2v3v4t8pynuezlfe5vjnsnaa9nk is working on it.

This post (and it's 49 comments) truly breaks new ground in mind-numbingly dull news.

nostr:nevent1qqsxf72v2tx58fkx5jrhx2gf8plmg3z2wyshewuk9sv45ls7p9gtg3gpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyzqhzjxrdyq42sqmf9zcppclkpty5ha2lw29fqf7722lyurteye4jqcyqqqqqqgflr4mq

ok this shirt is awesome

nostr:nevent1qqs2lqayk84zph92g5kn9rj0ftuneld35f4kfkmlwyn4457qqdhgg8qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvupzqrus205r3f5pkcxgr7s9d67nqxrcald4kddr0505atnt48atnf5qqvzqqqqqqyt4fg02

Half of Let It Be with half of Abbey Road. The reason is personal taste.

The liquid network is quite different than lightning:

- functions almost the same as bitcoin

- does not require an always-on hot wallet

- funds can be held in a non-custodial wallet

The end user experience is that transactions are fast, cheap and reliable.

This is made possible by liquid's security model which reduces the counterparty risk associated with centralized services but retains the associated speed benefits:

- instead of proof-of-work blocks are mined by the consent of the members of the federation

- consent (or manipulation) requires the collusion 11 of 17 federated peers

- the federated peers are held to a high standard of performance and security

In practice liquid works every time. It is easy to understand, hard to screw up, and it scales better than on-chain bitcoin transactions.

Liquid > Lightning, a rant.

I have run several lightning nodes, the first in 2018. I have also used several custodial lightning wallets. Every time my conclusion has been the same: lightning is a facinating idea which will never triumph as bitcoin's payment layer.

The situation with lightning:

- concepts too complex for even intelligent people to grasp

- on-chain transactions are regularly required

- routing often fails

The reality is that:

- complexity leads to the dominance of custodial lightning solutions

- channel management destroys any potential savings on fees

- lightning often just-doesn't-work, particularly over tor

Whilie lightning works well enough under controlled circumstances to make a compelling demonstration, in practice it is more expensive, less reliable, less private and more centralized than on-chain transactions.

High speed micro-transactions between enthusiastic peers are really neat. After 5 years I have yet to see any other practical use case for lightning.

"Your" bank has already spent all of "your" money*.

* - Debt.

The Borg are digital socialists and only analogue technology can stop them. All this crew needs now is a '67 Mustang to save the day.

So all the young people are assimilated and all the old people are immune...hmm. They must have hung all the writers of the first two seasons.

This is the way.

And why is it so dark on the bridge? There is literally no ambient lighting--it's all just control panels. Everybody knows that dark bridges are for the bad guys duh.

Don't weep for humanity, they were clearly a mistake.

nostr:nevent1qqstv9r63w5ldwytn27rf6tnd09rlzzqgd3zd2pjk3wdqhuflhtfxwczyqlt2a99mlp68gplyrfq6algzk5k5gfpezwaylq5fe5kqvrgwvl5jqcyqqqqgfcl8rfed

There is also a terrible abundance of bad guys who can't aim for shit and good guys who never miss. What is this, star wars?

The whole "the pattern resembles the contractions of mammalian labour" thing was really lame and I'm glad they didn't dwell on it.

Of all the people on a starship who would be analyzing energy surge patterns why of all people was it Dr. Crusher who figured it out?

Lots of little flaws in the writing, like when Seven is trying to tell if LaForge is a changling she could have just tapped her comm link to page the real one.

Picard continues to resemble himself more each episode. Worf seems off. Geordi is believable as a square family man.