Very glad you enjoyed! And I do agree with your take
Weirdly, it was firstly ordering food. I'd done a Mandarin course before the trip, but my pronunciation was absolutely awful so we ended up either pointing or eating at places with pictures on the menu.
secondly, the public toilets!!!
'wear gas mask, use safety harness, don't fall in'
I was lucky enough to meet nostr:npub1t8lmu87g980vlyr92sut6t0n57m5dm62q3356nhfu2qtkm89798qqwsf7p in Nashville last year. Have just finished her excellent book; highly recommend that everyone picks up a copy and reads it too.
Absolutely extraordinary account of incredible courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and the clearest insight I've ever read into the extraordinary North Korean regime. Kudos to her and all her family.
nostr:note1pxk88ew6j93qufw76vgs208a99my2g2mu50t62x5xnep5rxjzv6sm4qeu2
Thanks for the suggestion!
This is abominable government overreach.
Remember, "we cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence."
This egregious action by the UK should make everyone consider other options.
We must all do our part to pass on the message of Nostr and the privacy tools being built here.
Trying out 0xchat this weekend - anyone have any views on it so far?
Apple used to tell us "think different". Now we really need to take their advice.
Ordered mine at the same time; still no sign!
Better than letting the government keep pissing in your face though.
Why can't you easily lend your Bitcoin in the UK without incurring a tax charge?
Largely because the current tax treatment of lending Bitcoin sees the transfer as a taxable event.
By contrast with stocks, shares and other securities, Bitcoin falls outside the scope of repurchase or “repo” legislation that enables the lending of securities to be tax neutral. This has to change.
There's a huge economic opportunity here, and the UK’s financial services sector needs to seize it; to capitalise on this £1 trillion-plus market, particularly by providing collateralised loans and other financial services that facilitate asset management.
Yesterday, nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcqpqz74dj8y9xgq3lmz3eyvarzmwxwllhuzewz2exwz5j57tf6jssmssdz6m0z were proud to collaborate in drafting and adding our name to a letter sent to Rachel Reeves, Emma Reynolds and James Murray, urging them to prioritise legislation to treat the lending of Bitcoin as a "no gain, no loss" transaction. This change would simply reflect economic reality and ensure that Bitcoin is treated in just the same way as securities currently are.
We're pleased to sign this letter alongside Coinbase, Greengage, Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, Recap and many others.
We keep hearing that 'growth' is a priority for this Government. Let's now see those words turned into actions. 
True - but the problem we have is that not enough have made the move, and many are vulnerable
that's a good point - though fear is that this will hit the most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves
That's true for those who already know about Bitcoin. But in the UK only about 12 percent of people hold it. We need to be vocal in pushing back against state overreach whether it will affect us immediately or not.
🚨 This is not a drill 🚨
Everyone who cares about their right to privacy and personal freedom should write to their MPs now.
In the UK Labour are rushing through a Bill that could give the government the power not only to spy on your bank accounts, but to remove money directly from them.
This is an appalling overreach of state power. More fundamentally, it reverses the presumption of innocence that is the keystone of the justice system in any fair society. If the state believes I have committed a crime, it must prove that beyond reasonable doubt in front of a jury of my peers. Until it does that, I am innocent. Punishment before proof is the mark of the tyrant.
And why is this so important? Because transacting freely is fundamental to your ability to live a free and unencumbered life in an open society. Your decisions, your opinions, and your desires are all reflected in your transacting and spending choices. Fettering these is the simplest way for an authoritarian state to control you.
We defeated these attempts before. We must defeat them again.
Please share as widely as you can; use the template prepared by Big Brother Watch below to alert your MP NOW.
https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/stop-bank-spying/#emailMP
I'd only just found Nostr and we were bantering about Miami Vice and Phil Collins In the Air Tonight about two years ago! fun times and felt like the Wild West back then
Get involved, write to your MP here!
There’s so much to unpack in yesterday’s update on the UK’s CBDC - 🚨 both good and bad 🚨.
👉As we’ve previously predicted, a CBDC can’t be created without ‘Parliament’s approval’. This, crucially, gives the UK’s voters a bargaining chip. We all need to make clear to our MPs that we don’t want these monstrosities in our country, and that any MP who votes in favour of a CBDC will be punished at the ballot box.
👉CBDCs won’t be ‘like an electronic version of the banknotes issued by the Bank of England’. They would be programmable and would absolutely allow governments to monitor and control your spending. This is unacceptable in a free society.
👉It’s good news that even a ‘decision’ won’t be made until 2027. If that’s what they’re telling us now, the timetable will likely slip to at least 2029.
👉They pretend that ‘user’s privacy would be protected’. This is of course utterly false (see the admission in the second image below). The Bank of England’s own report, produced with MIT, undermines this assertion completely. A digital pound will give the Bank and the Government effectively total control over your money, your spending, and by extension, over you.
If you don’t like the sound of that, then join us in fighting back. The battle is far from over, and it’s absolutely crucial that we win.
