I for one am grateful for the work of those who seek ways to make Bitcoin quantum-secure.

I remember back in my freshman year of college, which would've been nearly twenty years ago now, hearing about quantum computers and thinking we might have them in a decade.

When I first bought bitcoin, it was with the notion in mind that maybe one day quantum computers at scale would exist, that one day the Bitcoin network might have to upgrade for it, as it has updated in the past for other things. Bitcoin is resilient against many risks, but I've generally thought that to be one worth watching.

I think some of the recent concerns about quantum are overdone. Bitcoin goes through seasons, and this is clearly quantum season. But it is true that some institutions and potential large buyers are worrying about bitcoin's quantum resistance, and thus its price can be impacted even if the software is not. This can pass, in time. And those who develop potential mitigation paths, that help figure out what the most efficient and resilient upgrades would be if they are needed, are doing good work on that front.

Much like how some people are understandably spooked by just the risk of quantum (i.e. even if you believe there's a ~5% chance of it happening in some investable time horizon, that factors into your expected value analysis), others are understandably relieved by knowing that people are working on it and that mitigation paths do exist. And I'm glad they're doing that.

This is the most detailed view of a human brain to date.

A team of researchers used electron microscopy (EM) to image a cubic millimeter-sized piece of human brain tissue at high resolution and this is a single neuron with 5,600 of the nerve fibers that connect to it.

Yes 🤝

Talking about Quantum feels so much more valuable than talking about filters.

We're back on track 🫡

Epic Hollywood movie dream last night. This one guy was trying to seduce me, it was actually quite nice for someone who hasn't had a guy in my life in years. It was very hot and very vivid. I kept making excuses so it never went beyond kissing and petting, because I knew he was evil. But it was important to play along enough that he didn't know that I knew he was evil.

Later we met up with his evil friend and they took me to a train station. We were going to get on the train, which concerned me a lot because then my good-guy friends wouldn't be able to find me and I'd be more firmly under the control of these evil guys.

Luckily I found my good guy friends and we were able to lose the evil guys in the crowd. But then they started to load the crowd onto the train. The evil guys had not gotten onto the train they just waited as the crowd cleared so they could find us. They were pissed, especially at me, I guess they really thought I hadn't noticed that they were evil when they had me.

The good guys and the bad guys launched into full fight mode at this snowy train station. We're talking not just punches and kicks, but also telekinetic launching of the benches. There was a giant crack, and I realized it was the ice underneath us.

"Who the fuck would build a train on top of a frozen lake?!?" I shouted.

The train went under first with all those people screaming. I went under next, soon enough after that the people could still be heard screaming underwater in the train. But they got quiet fast.

I swam to the surface but the water was so choppy and the ice chunks so tall that I couldn't even see my good guy friends, even though I could still hear them fighting. It was so vivid I could feel the roughness of the ice as I tried to pull myself out of the water only to splash back down. It was so cold.

Anyways, I woke up exhausted. Looked it up, and Norwegians. Norwegians put trains on frozen lake Øvrevatn , pic from 1916 looks very similar to my dream.

Good morning and happy winter solstice!!!

#dreamstr

For a large part of high school and college, my dream was to become a math professor. I loved math, particularly discrete math, like combinatorics, probability and graph theory. There's something about solving, or even understanding a problem that you noodle over for days, usually at the end of many hours of frustration. There's something about developing intuition for certain concepts, seeing patterns that was really attractive.

But I didn't go. I've told myself in the past that it was because I didn't want to and that the life of a professor seemed too grueling and lonely, but if I'm honest, it's because my grades weren't good enough. I goofed off too much in college and coasted through a too many classes.

But looking back, it was a blessing to not have that option. Academia in general and grad school in particular suck. It's a difficult life of moving to where the jobs are, of debasing yourself to fit the mold of the powers that be, full of egos, red tape and politics. And the type of people that graduate PhD programs come out a particular way. You can see it in their eyes. It's like they've lost a bit of their soul.

Academia, like most fiat institutions has that effect on people. It's driven by a zero-sum game of status, where demand remains high despite the economic prospects getting worse and worse.

I bring this up because apparently, the Brown shooter was a grad student. And like many grad students, the system broke him. It's a reminder that as much as it would be nice to have a chance at high status professions like the ones offered in grad school, there's a lot of risk as well, particularly to your soul.

Back in 2019, I got to teach a graduate class at the University of Texas on Bitcoin. I hold no graduate degrees, so the only reason I got to do this was because a couple of the professors there recognized that I was an expert. Sometimes the road less traveled still takes you to where you wanted to go.

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.

Haven't finished yet...got distracted. But so far am moderately disappointed (esp. in Jimmy) in the lack of aggression/urgency toward negating utxo bloat by implementing The Cat. $1 utxos for spam that have increased the btc blockchain by 40% in 3 yrs (?) because of an unforeseen/unintended loophole in Taproot.... are NOT sacred to me. Blow 'em up! Maybe my understanding is defective, but if not, blow 'em up! Am much more closely aligned w/ nostr:nprofile1qywhwumn8ghj76r0w3exjemgw3hx7aewdehhxarjxyhxxmmd9uqjqamnwvaz7tmvd938yetjv4kxz7fwv9shymmwd96k66tf9e3k7mf0qqsggcc8dz9qnmq399n7kp2yu79fazxy3ag8ztpea4y3lu4klgqe46qpqyc8n s analysis ...again, assuming I'm understanding it correctly.

I'm honestly getting pretty black pilled about the coming decade 😬 and I would say I'm a pretty resilient and positive guy normally, but I don't see things easing up any time soon 😪

Sorry to be a debby downer for a minute but can someone ask the christmas spirit what the f@#k I've done to upset it?

Third year in a row recieving life altering news right before christmas. At least this time it's "only" a financial blow and not health or family related. But my stacking goals are well and truely out the window now 😪 I think I'll be lucky to stack a single sat next year... Might even have to start selling 😫

The maintenance fee on the apartment I have which was already over $500 is doubling next year... DOUBLING! insane... I thought it was a pretty modest apartment but this makes it seem like an absolute luxury... It's far from a penthouse! Genuinely considering selling the place but when I look at the market there aren't any better options 😫

Bitcoin taught me so much. 📚

I think I could eat a whole bucket full of blueberries without getting a bellyache 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sending love, thoughts and prayers. When will western citizens realize we do not need to 'welcome everyone'?

you can zap tether gold on rumble

Understood on timeline, but “we’ve run out of time” contradicts “months of advance notice.” Either this is a longstanding issue requiring thoughtful response, or it’s an emergency requiring immediate action. Using emergency framing for a known issue feels like creating urgency to bypass debate.

If Core neglected to update spam filters and refuses to fix the vulnerability, that sounds like the Core development consensus chose not to restrict it. Whether through action or inaction, that became Bitcoin’s reality post Taproot.

On Satoshi’s filters: can you point to specific examples where Satoshi rejected transactions based on content type rather than structural validity? I want to understand the historical precedent you’re citing.

On Core 30 and Taproot: if they’re unrelated, what specifically is Core 30 changing that enables the threat you’re warning about?

On “each user decides” agreed. But there’s a difference between individual nodes filtering their own mempools versus advocating that filtering should be the standard. Your post isn’t just “here’s what I’m doing”, it’s “everyone should do this NOW.” That’s attempting to establish collective filtering as the norm, not individual choice.

Charlie Kirk's “mysterious” death has blown the lid off the toxic influence of Israel in the US. His pastor, Erics Kirks father, and TPUSA all have deep ties to pro Israel groups, fueling speculation that Kirk's demise may be linked to his own organization's deep ties with Israel.

The fact that Israel receives $3.8 billion in annual aid from the US, while simultaneously sharing buildings around the country with the FBI while Mossad agents spy on American soil and Israeli firms manipulate online discourse, is a brazen affront to US sovereignty. Israel's lobbying efforts have corrupted US politicians, compromising American interests and values. Israel has even corrupted the Christian church with its dispensational teaching and it needs to die.

It's time to investigate Kirk's death and expose the truth about Israel's stranglehold on the US, prioritizing transparency and accountability to reclaim American sovereignty from the clutches of a foreign power that has no qualms about silencing its critics.

The Israeli government's history of assassinations and espionage is well documented, and it's imperative that we demand answers about Kirk's death and the extent of Israeli influence in the US.