A new 'temporary' measure for South Africa, where they have been dealing with energy rationing (load shedding) for over a decade, which too was sold as a temporary measure.

How is BlueWallet for on chain?

Chased off.

JP Morgan $JPM is implementing a complete ban on all transactions associated with cryptocurrencies. Customers will no longer have the option to purchase cryptocurrencies or transfer funds to any cryptocurrency platforms

Meanwhile on WEFtter's no-speech platform.

Any recommendations for a FOSS note taking app on Android?

I’ve run every Microsoft OS since MS-DOS 6.22.

I think there is a tendency to idealize memories, to look back on them with rose tinted glasses. Windows 95 was one of the best versions of Windows *upon release* in my best attempt at remembering. Windows 98 was broken at release and wasn’t trustworthy until 98 SE.

Windows ME was arguably the worst version of Windows. It famously crashed during Bill Gates’ demo of it. I had the misfortune to run this 98 + Microsoft Plus abomination for over a year.

Windows 2000 Professional was stable, but slow as Christmas. It wasn’t really meant to be used by consumers, so that kinda makes sense.

Windows XP was a good bit faster, but had nightmares with drivers for any hardware released prior (owing to it being a new kernel) and struggled with stability until SP3 and 4.

Windows Vista introduced UAC which was almost universally hated. We still have it, so Microsoft won that one. It actually became fairly useable during its last SP.

Windows 7 was the last major upgrade to the Windows kernel to date. By far the most loved version of Windows, Microsoft focused on security and performance issues. UAC bugs were mostly fixed and the UI was cleaned up. I ran this one through its entire lifecycle and it was a clean OS.

Windows 8 was Windows 7 with an early attempt at making Microsoft relevant in the tablet space. I feel sorry for anyone who endured this. They managed to get everything wrong.

Windows 10 was Windows 7 with aero basically shut off and strangely ran faster on the same hardware very often than Windows 7 did. Gamers seem to love this OS as DirectX became really good around this period and the OS got cleaned up of a lot of bloat.

Windows 11 is Windows 7 with aero turned back on. It continues to unify the UI. Microsoft has mostly innovated on the UI level, and of course added telemetry and online services in the age of Chromebooks and cloud computing. Security has also been a focus, and it’s the first version of Windows I’ve ever been able to run for two years without a third party anti-virus and not had to reinstall.

Windows 12 is shaping up to be the first innovation in the underlying OS made since Windows 7. Indications are it will be an immutable operating system with atomic updates. I expect ARM support will be a primary focus. Microsoft may be late to that party however as ARM licensing has become a nightmare and MS’s primary partner for ARM (qualcomm) is now investing heavily in RISC-V.

Just my two cents on Windows history to add to the conversation. 🤣

I’ve always been amazed that people go cashless, meaning they literally walk around and even travel without cash, and just rely on cards to pay.

Credit and debit cards are centralized and can be shut off or denied for all sorts of reasons, or can run into technical issues. BTC/LN is better because it’s decentralized, although it still needs power+internet and merchant acceptance. Cash as physical bearer asset money is great. Of course I wish cash was redeemable for something sound, but maybe in the future that’ll be the case again. In the meantime it’s good to have a few meals or taxis or hotel rooms worth of cash on hand.

I always have a diverse mix of digital and physical payment methods on hand, so I never get caught unable to pay.

So far in life I have only had one instance where I couldn’t pay. I was at a restaurant in Cairo a few years ago and their card machine/connection was down, and were only accepting cash. I had physical US dollars but they were part of a bigger corporate restaurant chain and so didn’t have the flexibility to accept them. My husband normally carries Egyptian currency but didn’t have any on him that day, and since he carried it, I previously did not. Neither did our friend that was with us. So we had to go on an awkward search for an ATM for a while and then come back and pay. And from that point I iterated, so I always carry Egyptian currency in Egypt as well as my other methods. And it has come in handy a bunch of times, when my husband needs some spare cash for tips or something I always have a little stockpile ready to go since I am a stickler about always having a certain amount whereas he is more flexible.

I always have a kind of “prepare for everything” type of mentality and like to be in control of my situation, and thus always have like backups for my backups in various contexts, including payment or being able to access various types of value anywhere, even when such preparation is not really needed.