Summarizing 2023: A subset of events for the year.

-China's economic re-opening stagnated. Had the first negative foreign direct investment flow in over two decades. And yet simultaneously, China surpasses Japan as world's biggest auto exporter. Huge gap between domestic consumption and export prowess.

-There was a US banking crisis involving a duration mismatch rather than a credit event. Resulted in some of the largest bank failures in American history, and the collapse of the 167-year old global systematically important bank, Credit Suisse. Liquidity was provided to the market and stocks went up toward all-time highs.

-The United States ran enormous deficits, resulting in one of the biggest divides between monetary policy and fiscal policy on record. Amid the deficits, consensus outlooks for a recession go largely contradicted, as some industries boom while others stagnate.

-Russia's invasion of Ukraine drags on. Russia's Prigozhin launches a rebellion, captures Rostov-on-Don and pushes hard toward Moscow, but then calls it off and agrees to leave. Prigozhin dies in a plane crash two months later, attributed to a bomb on board.

-A coup in Niger effectively pushes out France's presence from the country, and more broadly sheds light on France's ongoing presence in many African nations including with the CFA Franc.

-Israel suffers its worst terrorist attack in decades by Hamas, and responds with orders of magnitude more force on Gaza including major civilian casualties, and this war remains ongoing. Global public attention shifts from Ukraine/Russia to Gaza/Israel, and widely polarizes people across the world.

-The first recorded instance of space combat occurred as Israel intercepted a missile from Yemen in low Earth orbit. Yes, Earth's first known instance of non-test space combat was initiated not from within the United States, Russia, or China, but from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

-The first self-identified anarcho-capitalist candidate becomes head of state for a country, and for a G20 country no less. Calls for ending Argentina's central bank, after decades of uncontrolled fiscal monetization, inflation, and economic stagnation. If Argentina dollarizes, it would be the biggest country so far to do so.

-The Suez Canal is effectively closed over dangers posed to ships from Yemen. This impacts global shipping costs and energy, but likely hurts Egypt the most.

-Multiple other conflicts persist, including Myanmar's bloody civil war. Despite enormous casualties, these types of conflicts go largely ignored by the world because they don't materially affect the macroeconomy or bring major powers into potential conflict.

-The US federal government brings attention to UFOs/UAPs with multiple hearings, commissions, etc. But nobody really gives a shit. The public is like, "With all this going on, can we save the aliens topic until next year? Thanks."

Thoughts on Universal Basic Income ?

My default zap amount is still 808. Give me something to zap. 😀

Got a Pixel 8, installed Graphene OS (single user, no play services), ported all my media, data and apps over from my pixel 5 that was running CalyxOS (w/ microG and work profile enabled)

It's been 3 days and so far I am not impressed at all. Battery life is terrible, as soon as I do anything on the phone it gets hot. I know there can be a million variables for reasons why but is this just a new Pixel thing? Reading more now I see the Pixel 6 and 7 had similar issues particularly the 6 series...

My 2.5 year old Pixel 5 with hundreds of battery cycles running way more shit has better battery life and doesn't feel like a hot potatoe. Need to investigate further 🤔

What technique do you use to keep your nails short?

We can't call it a solution for bitcoin because it's custodial, you don't own the funds, and because it's a business which means they can deny you service.

It pains me to say it after 3 years of building on it but I think lightning is ngmi, at least for non custodial pleb payments.

I think ark and liquid are fundamentally a more sound approach to L2 for end users.

If it REQUIRES the end user to run infrastructure, even if that is just a phone, it's going to be too janky to actually scale.

Not to mention that somehow lightning is already more ossified than L1...

If we continue down the custodian route people will get rugged or KYC d

I am ready for your hate, but this is my current take. Also would be happy to be proven wrong.

Now back to sshing into my node and working on chantools to recover a force closed channel utxo that lnd didn't report.

Totally easy for everyday users to solve if they run into this problem...

Can’t win if you don’t think you can.

We’re going to win.

FUCK EASY

I'm fed up with easy.

You don't want easy.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and one of said intentions is making things too easy.

Easy is staying on the couch.

Easy is not putting on your running shoes.

Easy is watching the porn, eating the junk food, binging the fucking stupid series.

Easy is not sticking out.

Easy is shutting up when you should be speaking out.

Easy is compliance.

Easy is saying the same thing, thinking the same thing, and liking the same thing as everyone else.

Easy is kicking the can down the road.

Easy is short-term gain for long-term losses.

Easy is starting up the money printer.

Easy is "papering over" failures.

Easy is "This is too hard. This is not for me. Someone else should take care of it."

Easy is not educating yourself.

Easy is not taking responsibility.

Easy is trusting a third party.

Easy is not holding your own keys.

Easy is comfortable.

Easy is not having to think.

Easy is not having to understand.

Easy is the coddling of the mind.

Doing things right is hard. Understanding things right is hard too. As is changing the status quo. But there's no improvement without change, no change without pain.

Fuck easy.

First Sunday of #Advent

Our church put up a Christmas tree and Sophia had a look!

She also checked out the Advent candles.

#baby

#nostrbaby

#family

#love

#cute

#Christmas

#grownostr