Sometimes in life and the course of history, there are moments where simply stating the truth, in a clear and understandable way, can stir a fire in thousands or even millions of people. Devon Eriksen, author and destroyer of socialist nonsense, joins us today to get to know him and his perspective. We discuss the nature of story, the importance of culture, the power of stating the simple truth, the dangers of being right too early, and what we need to do to turn the tide of a dying moral code a...
Jan 23, 2024•1 hr 44 min
"I hope Bitcoin sticks around and grows more popular, but in its current form to most in #TradFi it is the opposite of SOUND MONEY, especially if it takes cult-like behavior to make it grow. It needs the STATE to force its use on everyone. That is what makes it MONEY." ~ Samantha LaDuc Today we dive into the enlightening twitter thread from financial analyst Samantha LaDuc on why Bitcoin cannot be and is not money, one of which is because money is enforced by the state, but that's only just the ...
Jan 20, 2024•1 hr 3 min
There are so many myths and misconceptions around AI models. What they can do, how they are trained, even the fundamentals of how the data for them is even collected and formatted to make sense. The idea that we can "train our own model" by just feeding it a ton of conversation or notes is unrealistic, but why exactly is that? Today we get into a 2 Part read which will be one of the most value dense we have covered on the show yet. It breaks down the entirety of the process of identifying the co...
Jan 18, 2024•1 hr 38 min
"Part of the problem of Lightning’s shortcoming regarding scalability of Bitcoin ownership is that in order to open a channel, or control a UTXO, you actually have to transact on the base layer. After that Lightning can facilitate a very large number of transactions off-chain but a user must still transact on-chain to onboard themselves to Lightning, It massively increases the number of transactions Bitcoin can process but it does nothing at all to increase the number of people who can own bitco...
Jan 17, 2024•49 min
There are a lot of speculation, claims, predictions, and accusations around the successes and faults of the Lightning Network. But where do this things fall when we look at the boots on the ground metrics? When we really look at the hard data, what can we know for certain? Today we dig into the past few years of lightning development and growth with Sam Wouters from River, author of the incredible Lightning Report released in August of last year. If you are interested in the truth of Lightning, ...
Jan 15, 2024•1 hr 32 min
The legacy financial system has arrived. One January 10th, numerous Bitcoin ETFs were approved. But is this even a good thing? What does this signal for the legitimacy of Bitcoin as an asset? What does it mean for the sovereignty of the network? This could both bring trillions of dollars in liquidity into Bitcoin and break through the Overton window of the average person. This may make bitcoin "real" for many who refused to pay attention before. But the big question... the real risk, is if we ca...
Jan 13, 2024•59 min
Today we explore the tools for voice changing ai and text-to-speech. What is Guy using, and what are the impacts of instant and easy voice copying be on content creation, copyright, the meme lords, fraud, and personal identity. Referenced in the show ElevenLabs.io (Link: https://elevenlabs.io/) Altered.ai (Link: https://www.altered.ai/) Episode #011 - The Fears of Ai (Link: http://tinyurl.com/4v9rj98r) Could Ai Go Nuclear? - Ai Unchained #003 - The Dark Side of Ai with Alex Lewin (Link: http://t...
Jan 11, 2024•52 min
" Channel liquidity and offline receives, in my opinion, are the two most obvious reasons why self-custodial lightning is not popular. When most users hear about any of these, they just think "screw that" and move to a custodial wallet because it is so much easier. If these were our only two problems, I think self-custodial lightning would be fine. It may never be the predominant way people use lightning, but we could get the UX good enough that we have a significant portion of people using ligh...
Jan 09, 2024•51 min
"The computers used to create valuable new Bitcoin tokens and validate transactions consume around the same amount of energy as a medium-sized country such as Sweden would generate. Hence the stinging critique of how this cryptocurrency wastes the planet’s precious resources." — Ian Birrell Is it true that Bitcoin only wastes energy and is the sole purview of financial gambling and speculation in the western world, or are there boots on the ground showing the real results of the "pioneer species...
Jan 08, 2024•41 min
"Bitcoin appears to be a decentralized Ponzi scheme not a decentralized currency. People don't spend it because they want it to go up. The dollar works because of inflation. It keeps velocity up like hot potato. If you want to store value silver gold and land. Because it's beautiful useful and valuable. Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme without an individual attached to it to go to prison. So the media can control swings for profit. That's my opinion about bitcoin. The purpose isn't currency the purpose...
Jan 06, 2024•1 hr 1 min
The models, the tools, the implementations, everything is moving incredibly fast. But a very interesting trend that I've been seeing, is that the open source benchmarks are improving just slightly faster than the closed source alternatives. Slowly but surely, they are catching up. The day may come where the open source models are the best models, the ones with the greatest number of tools, and the largest variety of implementations, because naturally they're open and available for everyone to wo...
Jan 05, 2024•51 min
"Since 2017, bitcoin has been Stone Ridge’s treasury reserve asset because of my extreme aversion to risk. We run net short USD – which is fancy way of saying we net borrow fiat - to pay bills and make investments. We save in bitcoin. It would be impossible to overstate the corporate advantages of being on the Bitcoin Standard. Since 2017, we’ve doubled our franchises to ten, more than 10x’d our trading profits, and delivered 25% annualized ROE for our shareholders. Our firm compensation, rent, ...
Jan 03, 2024•1 hr 31 min
"This decision, which is legally sound, has the effect of declaring all private mortgages on real and personal property, and all U.S. and State bonds held by the Federal Reserve, National, and State banks to be null and void. This amounts to the emancipation of this Nation from personal, national, and state debt purportedly owed to this banking system. Every American owes it to himself to study this decision very carefully, for upon it hangs the question of freedom or slavery." ~ Jerome Daly Is ...
Jan 01, 2024•1 hr 1 min
“This makes Bitcoin miners uniquely symbiotic with energy grids serving as “demand response” partners. If energy is ever in short supply, people get priority over Bitcoin miners. However whenever there is excess energy, it gets monetized. This symbiotic relationship leads to more energy abundance generally.” ~ Brandon Quittem Another great piece coming at you today from The Bitcoin Times Ed 4, and by returning author Brandon Quittem, who did the incredible Mycelium Series for understanding Bitco...
Dec 30, 2023•1 hr 58 min
"We’re less than a year from another halving, awaiting systemic implications from federal regulation and institutional adoption, standing at the precipice of an American primary election into which Bitcoin has irrevocably inserted itself. Welcome to the big leagues." ~ Mark Goodwin and Alex Bergeron We are headed into a new era for Bitcoin. The stakes are higher, and the challenges will be even greater. There will be inevitable shifts in how we use and how we think of Bitcoin as a system. And th...
Dec 27, 2023•1 hr 4 min
"You’re a thirsty bitch. You like to gargle Peter’s balls." ~ DeaterBob Merry Christmas! In this reboot episode, we revisit the infamous debate between Bitcoin plebs American HODL and DeaterBob. They're on the same mission of pushing Bitcoin adoption, but their principles and who they're willing to buddy up with couldn't be more opposite. This episode is a lighthearted journey into the hilarious underbelly of discussions in the Bitcoin community. Check out the original article at AH & Deater...
Dec 26, 2023•48 min
"There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it." ~ Albert Jay Nock In this reboot episode, we revi...
Dec 24, 2023•1 hr 6 min
"You got to go from proto banking to full service banking and then to central banking and you know interconnected central bank. So now a lot of that is actually a technological story and I don't think it gets covered enough because most people covering it. Historians and economists aren't necessarily looking at the lens of technology and at most they'll give a caveat like oh the telegraph allowed this. But it's like no, that's actually not like a footnote.That's a core thing that happened, that ...
Dec 22, 2023•1 hr 38 min
Ai is a powerful tool, and thus, necessarily comes with incredible risk. It could obsolete millions of workers, taking jobs and productive capacity away from humans and consolidate it into corporations. It could make the average individual too dangerous, putting incredible power into the hands of bad people. It may even present an existential threat to humanity, a veritable nuclear bomb, made available to everyone in the world... What could all of this mean? Doesn't it suggests we need to tightl...
Dec 21, 2023•1 hr 4 min
"Regulators will continue coming down on those custodians, making more demands for information, more demands on restrictions for what users can do with their money, they will not stop. So short of actually activating covenants on Bitcoin, what can we do?" ~ Shinobi As we move into an era of bitcoin where the surveillance and control apparatus will seek to gain their stranglehold on the industry, but we still don't have a scaling solution for the whole world, how do we mitigate the time during tr...
Dec 20, 2023•43 min
In this episode I dive into the ongoing shift from closed systems to open, permissionless digital realms, drawing parallels to the internet revolution. I discuss the importance of privacy as a fundamental right, and explain why government attempts to regulate and control Bitcoin are contemptible and flawed. With a focus on recent FinCEN rules and Senator Warren's proposed bill, I advocates for a re-evaluation of regulatory approaches, challenging the authorities to understand the true nature of ...
Dec 18, 2023•55 min
Today we dive into a few of my favorite tools for running LLMs locally on your machine, even the average consumer machine. With a huge variety of models to choose from and varying levels of customization and presets, these will get you started on running your own Ai, and getting the pieces necessary to connect them into micro apps and other parts of your workflow. Not only are these huge productivity boosters to have, but it's also just a ton of fun to play around. For the large list of links to...
Dec 14, 2023•40 min
"I’ve done an overall analysis of the proposal by addressing seven different sections of where FinCEN is attempting to infringe on your rights. From violating the sanctity of your personal information and restricting your financial autonomy, to stifling your freedom of speech and association, I’ll unpack each area. This is about shining a light on the fine print, connecting the dots, and equipping you with the knowledge you need to stand up against these intrusive measures. It’s time to draw a l...
Dec 13, 2023•2 hr 37 min
"Nothing in the ordinal logic requires inscriptions to be linked to the “first” sat. So why is it the first sat of the first output? Why not the second sat of the first output? Why not the last, or one of the other hundreds, thousands, or millions of other satoshis which were also present in that same transaction? The answer is, well, because we are _pretending_ that it is so. In other words, we say a sat is inscribed _by fiat_." ~ Southern Hands You may have heard many claims of the innovative ...
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 14 min
The principle that one should help men in an emergency cannot be extended to regard all human suffering as an emergency and to turn the misfortune of some into a first mortgage on the lives of others.” ~ Ayn Rand Today we are going to turn some concepts on their head. I hope that this challenges many to reflect not on their judgements, but to reflect on *the internal values that push us toward those judgements.* What if our thinking is twisted by a deeply internalized, but absurdly unrealistic e...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 15 min
"Coding has always felt to me like an endlessly deep and rich domain. Now I find myself wanting to write a eulogy for it." ~ James Somers Today we dive into an amazing piece and such an important perspective on the future with Ai. With GPT being able to code with ease, so many tasks and projects that would've taken hours before. Where the "so-so" programmer can now build nearly anything with an Ai partner, what is to come of the future of coding? Should we be celebrating... or is a eulogy in ord...
Dec 07, 2023•1 hr 15 min
"Many people insist that governments aren't involved in censorship, but they are. And now, a whistleblower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance." ~ Michael Shellenberger From time we time we get a lucky glimpse into the mindset and tactics of the counterfeit class. Exposing their crimes and systems of manipulation. Today we uncover more, thanks to the help of an anonymous, brave whistleblower...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr 17 min
"A reality check on the limitations of Lightning Network, and what that means in terms of its long term viability. No, it's not doomed, but it probably won't be used the way you expected it to be." ~ Shinobi What has happened to lightning? With fees skyrocketing thanks to Ordinals bloating blockspace, tons of payments over lightning are no longer viable, or become entirely trusted. How did we not see this coming and what new issues have arisen as Lightning has matured? Does this spell the end of...
Dec 05, 2023•49 min
The free market works because economic decisions are made by people who have skin in the game. When you spend $100 you have earned, you understand the cost. It was your sweat the created the gain, and no one can understand that cost better than you when you go to spend it. Genuine value information, and real trade offs inform the price in the market. Money is simply a reflection of the resources it is allocating. It is nothing more than a ledger system for allocating resources across time. But w...
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr 19 min
Nodeless is dead. Long live Nodeless. Unfortunately the Nodeless payment service has had to shut down, but for anyone who needs to get in touch for any issues then feel free to contact me or UTXO. Nodeless is also open source, so if you wish to setup an instance for yourself, the project is available on github: https://github.com/nodeless-io/nodeless-monolith Follow UTXO on Nostr for surely other great things to come: npub1utx00neqgqln72j22kej3ux7803c2k986henvvha4thuwfkper4s7r50e8 --- Send in a ...
Nov 30, 2023•4 min
