Payjoin is like CoinJoin but instead of focus on splitting money it’s on batching and instead of using some purpose built wallet you just scan a QR code

Many in the older generation struggle to mentally grasp the idea of an abstraction functioning as a protocol, and how powerful it is. It's more difficult than we might imagine for people to understand such concepts. It just takes time, it's still early.

Love the explanation! Thank you. I had a feeling the ZKPs might be an unnecessary bolt-on for a lot of things. In the mainstream world, I get the sense they are a misdirection from some of the more fundamental problems that need to be solved.

If I am to learn ZKP math, does ECC maths carry over at all or nah?

#asknostr

Curves that support bilinear pairings and extension fields. I looked into this a few years ago, but not sure I understand anymore.

A lot of people seem to believe that Jeffrey Epstein recruited underage girls in order to videotape them having sex with rich and powerful people as compromat for an intelligence agency, perhaps Mossad, and that he was murdered in prison to cover up the loose end.

While I cannot prove that this is not true, there is almost no evidence for this story. The evidence points to a simpler story: Jeffrey Epstein was a socialite and financier who had connections with lots of famous and powerful people, and he also liked having sex with minors and so he recruited minors so that he could have sex with them. Several famous people also took the opportunity to have sex with minors facilitated by Epstein, but not as videotaped compromat. The second time he was imprisoned for it he committed suicide by strangulation.

The hyoid bone can be fractured by hanging, but more often by strangulation, and the description of Epstein's body as found is more like strangulation. You can commit suicide by strangulation (please don't).

The strange occurance of the camera being off, the cell not being monitored, could have been guards who were turning their backs to let him commit suicide ("fucking pedo should die, let's let him do it."). Papers related to Epstein said he was a suicide risk prior to his death. US Attorneys office offered a plea deal to the correctional officers if they claim they fell asleep, who rejected it claiming they did nothing wrong, but clearly the Justice Department suspected the guards.

Earlier on July 23 Epstein attempted suicide, which put him on suicide watch. But Epstein's attorney argued against it and he was taken off suicide watch but stull was supposed to be checked on every 30 minutes. So the bedsheets were not toilet paper in this cell as some claim.

The claim that Alexander Acosta said "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone" has only one source, an editorial in The Daily Beast by Vicky Ward who says it came from an interview she did with a former senior White House official and this is what she claims Accosta told the Trump team. It is not in court documents or congressional testimony from Accosta as far as I can tell, and regarding it Accosta said "I would hesitate to take this reporting as fact."

Maxwell is in prison for assisting Epstein in recruiting underaged girls for sex with Epstein.

The famous people that various girls claimed were involved in sex acts in this situation may or may not have been. The evidence doesn't strongly favor either side.

I have found no evidence of video tapes recovered from the Island with the names of famous people on their labels. I vaguely remember seeing it in a video way back when, but either I am mistaken or the Internet has been scrubbed of such a thing. If anybody has it, please share. I'm currently assuming this was a myth at the time and never happened.

The conspiracy theory was fun, but it is too flimsy.

Some Thoughts on Adoption (and other nonsense).

There's this old Louis C.K. clip—recorded long before he was cancelled—that summarizes our modern conundrum well: "Everything's amazing and nobody's happy."

As I was walking towards the hospital today—after a way too early 5:30 rise—it dawned on me that wide-scale nostr adoption (and "proper" wide-scale bitcoin adoption, for that matter) is probably not going to happen. The good news is that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The bad news is that lots of people will suffer.

"Why so bearish?" I hear you ask. If you know me just a little bit you'll know that, even though I do have many faults, being bearish isn't one of them. I'm still incredibly optimistic when it comes to the adoption and proliferation of freedom tech. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I do.

Here's what dawned on me, though: People aren't even interested in their own health, why would they be interested in healthy money? Yes, everyone wants to be healthy. But doing what is necessary to live a healthy lifestyle? Not interested. Not in the least. Usually something really really bad has to happen for people to change their ways. And even that doesn't move the needle in some cases, as plenty of drinkers who still drink after their liver gave up, or plenty a smoker who still smokes after being diagnosed with lung cancer can attest to.

Which brings me to bitcoin treasury companies. Are most of them interested in taking the responsibility of holding their own keys? Are they interested in providing real value while staying humble and stacking sats? No, of course not. They are interested in paper gains, not in a full-blown reorientation that leads to a healthier lifestyle. And I mean that literally: if you truly and fully adopt bitcoin, the responsibility that is entailed by that will result in a reorientation, a re-alignment of values, which will—down the line—lead to more long-term thinking, healthier business practices, more honest value generation, and so on.

To me, this is what "capital B" Bitcoin is about. Change. Real change. A ridiculous proposition to the balance sheet brain.

...which brings me to nostr.

A short stroll through the current iteration of the internet should make clear that the platforms that most people spend their time on are incredibly mis-aligned with humanity. The outrage-machine that we've built for ourselves is keeping us like rats in Skinner boxes, hitting the dopamine button with every swipe and every scroll, no matter what. We've built a machine that is parasitic on humanity, instead of synergistic. We are optimizing for engagement, which means that we are maximizing addiction by shoving a mixture of uppers (porn) and downers (rage bait) down our collective throats. The machine is catering to our lowest selves, as opposed to our highest selves. (We could also optimize for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, you know. Is that too much to ask?)

But who is to blame for all of that? (And is it worth blaming someone in the first place?)

It is clear to me that the whole military-grade industrial advertising complex that profits from running large-scale and nonstop psychological experiments on the whole fucking population of the earth wouldn't be profitable for long if we would all get our act together. But that won't happen, of course. There won't be a magical finger snap that suddenly shakes us awake from our slumber; that stops us from sleepwalking into dystopia. Just like there won't be a magical finger snap that stops us from our bad habits and unhealthy lifestyles.

Adopting a healthy way of living is hard. It means saying no to the constant onslaught of sugary snacks, fast-food around every corner, and social pressures to indulge. It means taking responsibility for your decisions, cultivating discipline, taking care of your body, your psyche, and yes, also your soul.

A wise man once said that "he who has a 'why' can bear almost any 'how'." And that's what most of us are missing: a strong enough "why." Why go through the trouble of living healthy? It's hard! Why hold your own keys, if someone else can do it for you, and there's even the apparent safety of some insurance? Why cultivate a less destructive relationship to the internet, if you can just autoplay & chill, whether it be with Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, PornHub, or something else? Why not write the snarky comment and trigger a whole cohort of people at the click of a button?

Because it's not healthy, that's why.

"Everything's amazing and nobody's happy." That's the state of the world. Always has been. And I'm to blame too, of course. Sitting in the hospital waiting room, writing these lines, bitching and moaning about the internet, this amazing series of tubes that I so love, warts and all.

But yeah, the internet won't heal itself over night. Neither will the economy, nor the rent-seeking zombie companies that don't provide value, nor the underlying fiat system that broke it all in the first place. It will take lots of time, lots of courage, lots of faith, and lots of responsibility.

It will be hard, but it will also be worth it. And it starts with you.

GM. Could you please answer for me to test if my relays are working? Thanks! #GM #coffeechain #asknostr

Calibre

Amazon uses a couple that are easily convertible any which way with Calibre

What I mean is the board is 2d but it’s played over time which is the third dimension.

Hot take: 2d chess is 3d chess.

No you can definitely send an MPP payment across multiple first-hop channels from the same node.

The state will call it a weapon, a threat, a tool of criminals. But cryptography is simply the equalizer, the lever that shifts power from rulers to the ruled.

Do you have to set up something for that in your node, or does that happen automatically? Do you have a good article on that?

AI doesn’t audit…it hallucinates. If it’s crypto-critical, verify with eyes, not vibes. lol.

I am not on telegram. Can you share more details?

Cc: nostr:nprofile1qqsxwkuyle67y94tj378gw8w2xw2wa6nwmwlqhddlwnz0z7sztsaw2qpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsl6e2ut

Sure, and in this case, the protocol-level semantic is the size of the OP_RETURN, regardless of whether it is a jpeg or some other data. The point is, it has no effect on whether Bitcoin is permissionless so long as it is not enforced arbitrarily, such that some transactions with larger OP_Returns are permitted, while others are not. Therefore your argument that it violates the ethical principles of Bitcoin is invalid. All users and all types of data within the OP_Return are treated the same by Knots. It's not looking to see whether that data is a jpeg, just whether it exceeds the size limit.

Maybe I’m off my rocker…maybe. But, most original posts feel like statements thrown into the void. Not much real back-and-forth…more like broadcasting than conversation. It’s not always like that, but mostly.

I think Nostr could become a space for deeper discussion, but it probably needs more people willing to slow down, ask questions, and actually engage instead of just posting and moving on…

Thoughts?

Oh wait, better:

deal

dell

fell

fill

file

five

live

I am open to being corrected or refuted about this view:

I approach Libertarianism the same way I approach Bitcoin and Hinduism.

In their proper sense,

•They can only be adopted voluntarily.

•People are free to not believe in them, as exit is optional.

•There's no leader that is enforcing rules.

•They can be interpreted in various ways.

•But the systems don't deny the existence of 'truth'.

•Truth is arrived at through debate, discussion and argumentation in various ways through different journeys.

But because of their open and leaderless nature, people who don't understand them can interpret them 'improperly' or 'incorrectly' and still call themselves a proponent of the system.

And that's okay.

It won't hurt the system itself in any way.