Flying to Cairo tomorrow to visit friends and family, where I will be until shortly before Pacific Bitcoin.

I have a small wad of cash from last time which I will be bringing with me, that is now worth a lot less than last time I was there.

At the start of 2022, the exchange rate to the US dollar was 15 to 1. When I was there, the exchange rate was in the 20s, since the Egyptian central bank was in the process of devaluing it (at the behest of the IMF). Now it’s over 30 to 1, so these are all seven dollar bills basically.

My friends and family, whose wages are denominated in pounds, all got wage increases since the start of 2022, but they certainly didn’t get 100% wage increases, and so all of them earn fewer dollar-equivalents per hour thanks to this devaluation (which among other reasons is why the IMF wanted Egypt to do it).

It's kind of a verbal meme, but one of my favorite questions is, "what radicalized you?" Since I'm someone who appeals to moderates with a tempered but purposeful element of anti-establishment fire, it's kind of a notable question.

My first thought is, "well let me tell you about my childhood and why I'm not a huge fan of the state."

My second thought is, "let's talk about the global financial crisis."

My third thought is, "look at the 2016 time period where U.S. fiscal deficits started to wonkishly deviate from unemployment.

My fourth thought, regarding the Current Thing, because nobody wants to go back that far, is, "they replaced a beautiful blue bird with an X and said it would be half of the global financial system."

And that made me angry.

Somewhere, Rene Girard turned and smiled.

I've been stuck on TOOL's Fear Inoculum for 3 years straight myself...

Doing finishing touches for my book, which is now past all external editing. I'm doing the author's final edit/checkup, cover, getting it into the right format for publication, etc.

Some questions for the community:

-Do you prefer hardcover, paperback, or ebook?

-For hardcover or paperback, do you care about the physical dimensions of a book? eg do you prefer a 5.5"x8.5" thicc book or a 7"x10" thinner book?

-For those that like audio books, would you prefer to read the book physically or electronically rather than listen to it, if it had a lot of images?

What things are important enough to you that you would protest over, or practice civil disobedience over?

My last iPhone was an iPhone 4. The app store had just being launched and development was really cool. I used it for 2 years in that 3D printed (working gears) cover. One day, Apple decided to not let me access the raw camera anymore and that was it. I went back on Android and have been here ever since.

I own multiple Macbooks, Mac Minis Mac Pros and use them every day. They are incredibly stable machines for those of us that just want to get work done. These days the iPhone is simply an inferior product. Not only because of the App Store lock-in but also because it's ecosystem has been stuck in time for years. Every time I use one, I have this feeling of going back to 2017. It's bizzare that it sells so well... All hail the power of marketing...

Over the next five years, what do you think the chances are that talking about inflation or energy will be censored on centralized social media platforms comparatively to what happened with the pandemic during 2020/2021?

Love how mature we are 😅