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Stumbling around

Allowing a threaded view, don't know if that's recent but it would be useful on any client.

Also, seeing people's relays

I like how he does a double take after he says "bitcoin should not be a dominant portion of any investor's portfolio" and nobody agrees with him wholeheartedly like he expected 😂

The handle could be a hint. It's full of high-entropy messages (hard to compress). The ideal type of messages for saturating free relays?

Sometimes. But it's easier if I can cajole it into believing the same as my conscious mind

A FOUR-LEGGED KING NAMED SAUR

and why a Trønder shouldn't bow for anyone

The smiling redhead you see at the picture below is a man who has tiny bit more rebellious genes in his body than the average Norwegian.

And now he will tell you a story that helps you understand why he takes such pride in this fact.

My late father researched our family tree several hundreds year back in time. All of my ancestors lived in Trøndelag, a beautiful region in the middle part of Norway.

Trøndelag didn't really become a part of a unified Norwegian kingdom before late in the Viking Age. Until about 1050 AD the Trønders was more or less self governd. The political system was to some extent an anarchy based on a deeply rooted respect for private property, combined with disrespect for men who wanted to rule others.

This didn't mean that the Trønders were without leaders or laws. Their famous Frostating law ("ting" means "court") was based on legal and cultural traditions that had developed over hundreds or possibly thousands of years.

The leaders were numerous farmers and landowners from all parts of the region. They also had earls who were entitled to receive some taxes, likely in exchange for an obligation to organize safekeeping and military defence against intruders.

The most fundamental part of the Frostating law was its so-called "resistance provisions", a system of self defence regulations that weren't part of any other Nordic laws.

These rules stated that nobody, neither the King nor any man, could take something from a Trønder without the prior consent of the Frostating, which was controlled by the farmers and landowners.

The law said that, if a king laid claim on someones property, for instance by introducing taxes, without the consent of the Frostating, the Trønders should cut a war arrow, that should be sent around to all corners of Trøndelag.

The arrow carried a message, which said that everybody were obliged to try to kill the king, and if they didn't succeed in doing this, they had to chase him out of the country.

Those who didn't pass the arrow to their neighbor, or who refrained from hunting down the king, would be punished with fines.

An interesting aspect of the Frostating law was that the punishment for someone who took another man's property therefore were much more significant for the king than for anyone else. This is in practice the very opposite principle of our modern day's legal system, in which the laws are designed to protect the politival leaders against the citizens.

There's in my mind no doubt that

- the highly decentralized political power,

- a completely decentralized defence system that required everyone to understand both the right to self defense and the moral obligation to help your fellow man, and

- laws that were severely stacked against powerhungry men

were key factors when it came to securing the Trønders' sovereignty and freedom.

This didn't, of course, deter each and every bloodthirsty king from paying a visit to Trøndelag.

According to the Royal Sagas, one of those who fell for the temptation was King Øystein of Oppland, an area south of Trøndelag. He lived in the 8th to 9th century and had earned the less-than-flattering nickname "Hardrüde", which meant "hard ruler".

After Øystein defeated the Trønders in a battle which we don't know when happened, he installed his son as King of Trøndelag. This probably wasn't the wisest decision that he had ever made, because shortly afterwards the son was killed by his unruly subjects.

When Øystein got wind of what had happened he became furious, gathered his army and attacked the Trønders once more.

Again he won the fight, but this time he decided to try and make a fool out of the Trønders. He told them that they could choose a new king, and gave them two choices - his slave Thore Faxe or a dog named Saur.

The people of Trøndelag merrily elected Saur, and suddenly my ancestors had a four-legged king as their ruler.

Based on what we know about the Trønders' appreciation of their freedom and their deeply rooted traditions as a sovereign people, the following is my interpretation of the events described in the sagas:

Instead of allowing King Øystein the sweet taste of having taught the Trønders a lesson, they decided to make a complete mockery out of his plot.

First, they pretended that they used some kind of witchcraft to give Saur three men's intelligence. They then claimed that he could say two words, and bark a third.

Secondly, they let Saur have a splended farm named Saurshaug (Saur's hill, today Sakshaug, which is 30 km away from where I live). They gave him a high throne, and let him rule over his land from the top of a hill, as was customary for kings at the time.

Thirdly, they gave Saur a collar of gold and a leash of silver.

The dog king's hird (a professional royal guard) served and protected him. If it rained, they would carry him on his shoulders. A real king couldn't be seen with muddy paws as he travelled around and inspected the kingdom and his underlings.

After a while the hirdsmen probably grew tired of all the work that they had to do to create this formidable farce. And when a pack of wolves one day came to Saurshaug, they egged the dog to go out and protect his royal herd.

Saur went after the wolves, who of course ripped him to pieces.

My ancestors probably wanted to send Øystein and all other kings the following message of defiance:

F**** us once and we will kill your son.

F**** us twice and we will ruin your legacy.

They probably wanted Øystein to forever be remembered as the King who bitterly realized that the Trønders could be beaten, but that they never would be ruled by anyone.

Having this story probably strengthened the value of the Frostating law as a weapon against tyrants and plunderers. If the knowledge about the unique resistance regulations in Trøndelag had been well known outside the borders of Trøndelag before King Øystein attacked them, the history about King Saur probably helped bringing word of their code to all corners of the world.

It makes me proud to know our legacy as sovereign Trønders. We were the people who kept our freedom longer than anyone else in the fight against bloodthirsty kings who wanted to rule every Norwegian.

Furthermore, it also makes me realize that I can only show my respect to my ancestors by promising them that I'm not going to bow for anyone.

I am, after all, a trueblood Trønder.

Interesting history! Did Trønders have a choice on whether to join the Frostating, or was it imposed on all inhabitants of Trøndelag?

Feature request to #nostr client devs: the ability to follow a *note* (i.e. receive all replies to that note), without necessarily following its author(s) nostr:npub16c0nh3dnadzqpm76uctf5hqhe2lny344zsmpm6feee9p5rdxaa9q586nvr nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z

Interesting idea... However B could feed the device an old state of the blockchain, so it would require the device to incorporate (say) the block height into the signature, and every recipient of the signature would then need to know that they have to verify whether it corresponds to the blockchain's recent block height

I don't want to discount negative experiences due to bigotry, these definitely exist.

But besides that, maybe the perceived male-centeredness is real and has to do with the fact that males are more likely to be comfortable with the bare-bones style of what a new technology usually looks like (no offense to the devs who are doing a stellar job working at lightning speed):

Accordingly, in its early days a platform tends to be a sausage fest, and this sets the tone of the conversation for newcomers by default. As the platform grows, and more women join as well, they would feel more comfortable in something closer to this:

The platform itself moves stepwise into that direction, wanting to grow and be more inclusive, usually in order to attract ad revenue. Friction ensues, hostility increases, people feel either stifled or abused or both.

What's so great about #nostr is that vastly more aesthetics and rules of conduct can coexist on the same protocol, than on a single platform! Anyone can use the client(s) they prefer, and use the relays they wish (or even run their own relay). We will definitely run into many novel problems and challenges along the way, but the sheer size of the space of possibilities makes me very optimistic #grownostr

Cryptography-savvy people: I am curious, is the following possible?

1) Company A gives employee B a (software and/or hardware) device that allows B to do something, e.g. sign certain transactions in the name of A.

2) B uses the device during his employment.

3) At the end of his employment, B sends A cryptographic proof that he has destroyed the device, i.e. that he is no longer able to sign transactions in the name of A.

Obviously, simply giving B a private key will not work for this, since that can always be written down on a paper napkin. But can a private key be wrapped in some layer of cryptography that still allows for it to be used, and provably destroyed at some point?

#asknostr

“What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, consciously, that is fully understanding their real interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness."

#Bitcoin is f u money, Fiat is f me money