Do you think this guy hid his private keys in that floating barrel and tagged it with B so his heirs would figure it out after his passing? Be cool

first amendment canary for my border control ICE guard

Remember when the Bitcoin community was all about self-custody, cold storage, and being your own damn bank? Back when “stacking sats” meant tucking away your hard-earned excess like a digital squirrel prepping for economic winter?

Yeah. That was adorable.

Fast forward to today, and apparently, we’re all just one TED Talk away from rehypothecating our houseplants to buy more Bitcoin on margin. The new gospel? “Borrow while rates are low and Bitcoin’s cheap—because the future is inevitable, bro.”

Gone are the days of the humble node runner with a second freezer full of beef and a copy of The Sovereign Individual on the toilet tank. Enter: leveraged maxis playing musical chairs with Celsius 2.0 clones, yelling “NGU!” while their collateral ratio nose-dives.

These are the same people who used to meme about “Not your keys, not your coins.” Now it’s “Not your debt, not your problem” if Bitcoin hits $500k by Q4. We’ve replaced Satoshi’s vision of financial responsibility with Michael Saylor cosplay and a HELOC.

Here’s the truth: Bitcoin is saving technology—for savers. For those who produce more than they consume, who delay gratification, who live by the ancient discipline of not being a complete moron with their money. You don’t need a sixth mortgage to stack hard. You just need margin in your life, not on your portfolio.

The future is bright. But only if we stop acting like junkies trying to front-run the next halving by pledging our family goat on-chain.

Want to win in this game? Work hard. Live below your means. Stack the excess. Cold store it. Repeat.

Not sexy. Just sovereign.

And the love that demands we choose it is… mind blowing.

Aligned incentives are beautiful.

🫂

Indeed. Doesn't stop #bitcoin.

As for the lightning volume.. got any cool stats on that?

~ 50% of UTXOs are below 1000 sats.

Such a successful spam attack.

Hopefully 🤞

Loads of tissue damage that needs to repair now as well, thank goodness for strong painkillers!

Here’s what having a titanium plate and 10 screws inserted into a broken ankle looks like 😩

Dr. Hisham Ammous: Life as Clinical Surgery

Sept 1, 1944 - June 6, 2025

Hisham Saifedean Rashid Ammous was born in the village of Atteel in Palestine on September 1, 1944. After finishing high school in nearby Fadiliya school in Tulkarem, he moved to Saudi Arabia to work as a school teacher, then to Kuwait to work in the electric company. Unsatisfied with his career, he decided to become a doctor, and applied for a scholarship from the Jordanian government to the University of Madrid in Spain, through the Spanish embassy in Jordan. He moved to Madrid without speaking a word of Spanish, but graduated as a surgeon with distinction in 1976. After that scholarship, he practically never needed, asked for, or took anything from anyone until his last day.

In his five decades as a surgeon, Dr. Ammous must have performed over 20,000 surgeries across Spain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine, Brazil, Lebanon, and Libya. He relished his work as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. To his profession and mission, he was the most devoutly dedicated man. He lived for surgery. Come rain, shine, snow, checkpoints, military invasions, cranky kids, genocide, or regional war, he found a way to make it to Al Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem almost every day, braving countless Israeli occupation checkpoints and dealing with the young criminals manning them and getting all of their life's meaning from the impunity they have to make the lives of innocent Palestinians hell. He became a regular traveler to wars and refugee camps to perform surgeries. He worked nonstop all day for days on end in warzones. He went to Gaza for surgeries after every Israeli mass slaughter over the years, and was desperate for the current genocide to end so he could return. His favorite 'vacation' was to visit me in Lebanon and perform dozens of free surgeries for destitute refugees.

His discipline was supernatural. He was never late for anything in his life, and was never disorganized. No matter what life threw at him, he relentlessly pursued his mission and was always prepared. His doggedness, determination, focus, and obsession will sound insane to most people, which is why most people will never perform 20,000 surgeries or do anything remotely as important with their lives. In his wake, hundreds of messages have poured in from people remembering how he helped them with his kind generosity, healed them with his skilled hands, and made them laugh with his legendary searing wit. Among the most amazing stories I heard was that he gave his patients’ families the keys to his hospital office so they could sleep in it and not have to drive through hours of checkpoints every day.

His supreme motivation in life, and the thing that gave life meaning for him, was to give his children a life better than the one he had, and he dedicated himself to it until the very end. He never ceased repeating this lesson to me, and he exemplified it every day. All his time, attention, and interests revolved around improving the lives of his children. He understood the whole of our human civilization rests on the foundation of people investing in giving their children a better life, and this was also the most profound lesson I learned from years of studying economics, and the central theme and most important lesson of my third and best book, Principles of Economics. For teaching me this lesson before I could read, that book was dedicated to him.

He is survived by his two sons, Ahmad and me, his daughter Dana, and three loving grandchildren who lit up his last ten years. Nothing can compare with the joy his grandchildren brought him. No money or accomplishment by him or me could have made him happier than my 2 year old making ever more outrageous demands for gifts as she tries to discover if there is anything he won't get her. His joy around her convinced me that the best thing you can do for your parents is to give them grandchildren. It seems offensive that life could be this simple and banal, that mere reproduction is the secret to its satisfaction, but he showed me it was true, and far from banal. We humans are wired to spend our lives seeking reproduction, and having it shape our happiness and satisfaction, because we wouldn't exist otherwise.

In my 44 years of life, I never recall seeing him bedridden with illness, and after five decades of caring for patients and children, he must have dreaded the thought of being on the receiving end of the care of others.

Dr. Ammous passed on the first day of Eid Al Adha, while taking a nap, after having called his friends and family to exchange Eid greetings. He died suddenly and immediately, and almost certainly felt nothing, and never had to suffer any serious illness or confront his impending mortality.

He lived blissfully immersed in his life's mission until its very last second. And he succeeded in it completely and perfectly. He gave his children everything they needed until they needed nothing more from him. The only consolation in his passing is that until his last minute he was strong, cheerful, healthy, sharply-dressed, and eagerly looking forward to seeing his grandchildren in a few days and giving them the many gifts he bought for them, and looking forward to vacationing this summer with his family in his beloved Madrid.

In his passing, he deprived his loving children of the chance to provide him a tiny fraction of the love and care he provided them for decades. This was a man determined to contribute more to this world than take from it, and to give his children everything. And he accomplished his life's mission clinically, like his surgeries.

It’s getting close to the point where the choice becomes feed my child or vibe code nostr apps on MKStacks

I have a half-baked post on CTV, which it might be past time to polish and publish.

But hell, I've got enough in my life without the intense online reaction I can expect from this.

Ackshually... The b in my handle is a ₿ and it's a little b in my nostr plebs handle. AND... Don't tell me where my big bone is allowed to go. 😎

The decisions you made five or ten years ago is what you’re living today.