It's at a point now where it's almost impossible for me to use the "regular" internet. I can't access half the sites. The reason? I care about my digital hygiene and thus use a VPN. Sometimes switching to a different VPN or switching the country of the VPN works; other times it does not. Oh well, I guess I'm not going to watch that video, or read that article, or look at that picture. Whatever.

In addition to that, if I'm not blocked completely, I have to prove that I'm human every step of the way. Captchas, re-captchas, Cloudflare checkboxes, the whole shebang. I am human. I promise. And I am very annoyed. Outright angry, even. I doubt that any robot will ever be as annoyed as I am right now about the current state of the internet.

What annoys me most, actually, is that all these measures don't really work. There's bots everywhere. Robots get access to the stuff anyway, using farms of humans, just like in the good old days of WoW gold farming. The centralized "safety" nets of Cloudflare et al brought down large swaths of the internet multiple times in the last couple of weeks alone, and as things centralize more and more these outages will happen more and more.

I'm very close to breaking up with the legacy internet. I'm human, I can cryptographically prove that I'm human, and I have sats to spend. But the legacy internet doesn't care about that. It cares about farming me and my data, while annoying me to no end. I've been nostr only for a while now, but that was only on the "social media" side. 2026 might be the year where I go nostr-only for everything, or to phrase it slightly differently: permissionless for everything.

No more "are you human?"

No more "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

No more cookie banners, paywalls, and AI slop.

No more being treated like a child.

Even if it means that I'll have to self-host everything.

Even if it means that I'll have to build & maintain stuff myself.

Even if it means that it's a lot of work and pain.

Nothing worth having ever comes easy.

But the easy stuff is not worth having in the first place.

Here's to the year to come, and the new corner of the internet, build on cryptography and webs-of-trust. Real value. Real connections. Real humans.

Here's to nostr.

"#Bitcoin is for fascists."

- Mike Brock

#TheQuoteShelf

Fun fact about Mike Brock.

nostr:nprofile1qqspfrgnv6j7geetzvs6muqry9mclp4zxudyhklfjyel9r0sk0fjlggprpmhxue69uhhqun9d45h2mfwwpexjmtpdshxuet5qngdep once asked him to come over to clubhouse and explain the work he was doing at TBD. He jumped into the room and

I began the conversation in good faith, but it soon became obvious he didn’t know much about bitcoin.

nostr:nprofile1qqsttvnpjka059akcl97qyqt9yvwc0z7z6xwfaqrxl08dag89l8sffcpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet5qy8hwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddaks28zqh2 and nostr:nprofile1qqs9n5ytwcgntrktgu7x8n2peh9z4jnn6xgnurq9xf259k59zzm4y2spp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6un9d3shjtnhd3m8xtnnwpskxeg3n6xsx started tearing him to shreds about his lack of technical knowledge and social justice policies. He kind of stammered incoherent Silicon Valley shitcoiner platitudes in retort and the room turned on him.

It quickly became a circular firing squad. Mike was shook. It was one of the most brutal beat downs I’d ever seen (wish it had been recorded).

He had only planned to stay for 20 mins and ended up staying for 3 hours in an attempt to convince the room that he actually was very smart/knowledgeable. Nobody bought it. He even called Brad after to complain about being brought to the room in the first place.

Never saw an ego get crushed that bad in real time before or since.

For most of my life I was the smartest person in every room I was in.

This is not a brag about my intelligence and more an admission that I was perpetually in the wrong room.

I was in the wrong rooms because I was afraid. Afraid of failure, afraid to lose control, afraid of the unknown. It was easier to be the big fish in the small pond.

But it came at the expense of my potential and one day the internal dissonance from taking the easy way out just got too great to ignore and I had to take a leap into the unknown.

I had to let it all fall apart.

I’m sharing this because I’m having an honest reflective moment about my own human weakness and fallibility and I think many of you out there are probably still in a place that you’ve already outgrown.

My advice?

Its time to let the past die.

Kill it if you have to.

That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.

nostr:nprofile1qqsywt6ypu57lxtwj2scdwxnyrl3sry9typcstje65x7rw9a2e5nq8spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwwdhx7un59eek7cmfv9kqmwtzjf, nostr:nprofile1qqstm84k2lp9knmvmf5gw88zvfvar7duvfpqfplryfystdn55ug2gkspr9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuurvv43xx6rpd9hzummjvuq37amnwvaz7tmzd96xxmmfdekkz7rfd4skc6tnw3ejummwd35kuegtfah7v and I look like we’re about to hand you a pamphlet titled “Turning Away From Fiat Sin: Salvation Through Proof of Work.” 😂

It blows my mind that more Bitcoin businesses aren’t taking advantage of Nostr… it’s literally their target demographic all in one place…

nostr:npub10qrssqjsydd38j8mv7h27dq0ynpns3djgu88mhr7cr2qcqrgyezspkxqj8 has more followers on Nostr (16.6K) than on X (14.8K)…

As a Bitcoin company, you NEED to be on Nostr.

You need to be poasting and zapvertising on Nostr.

You need to be sponsoring Bitcoin podcasts and content creators that are active on Nostr.

I guarantee you will see higher conversions at a lower cost than on any centralized platform.

The funny thing about being an “influencer” (a label others put on you, not one you put on yourself) is that if you say things people agree with, they never assume you’re getting paid off. But the second you say something people disagree with, they assume you must be getting paid off…

Which is funny because in my case I’m not getting paid at all by anyone for anything I say. This is why my last few episodes have been pure value for value episodes — there are no sponsors.

It’s also why I love having my fiat mining job; I don’t have to take money from anyone. My retarded opinions are entirely my own.

Anyway, hope you’re having a great Saturday.

Armchair libertarians wie Hoppe und Saifedean mit ihre Kritik an Milei kann man einfach ignorieren, Zeitverschwendung.

When they have primal and call themselves a nostr user

"getting vaccinated keeps grandma and grandpa safe"

"verifying your age keeps a child safe"

maybe next: "stop breathing keeps the climate safe"

... continue as you please ...

I say what I want and v-log sounds stupid 😂

As a wood boi: Cnc can only do the most basic shit. Yr telling me i need a $100k machine and a $80k/yr specialist employee to do what a $70k/yr guy can do alone? That dont math