Bitcoin practical sovereignty - I wrote a few days ago about the big lie that bitcoiners tell themselves about self sovereignty. In theory it's possible, but practically speaking it will very soon be impossible. It's good to see some more discussion on this topic happening.
Without self-sovereignty, aren't we essentially just re-creating the current monetary system? #
Gang stalker tsunamis - The past few days I've been dealing with the backlash from compleating the latest feature on my static site generator. As I've mentioned before these tsunamis happen regularly, usually from motorbike gang stalkers, but eventually it spreads everywhere, to random passers by, people in shops, for all intents and purposes it ultimately propagates to every location I go to.
Once again it’s water shortage and starvation intimidation. And once again I'm not sure I'll be able to send out the newsletter. It's a cycle, it happens over and over. #
Talking to people strongly discouraged - Whenever I speak to fellow foreigners, a short while later, something weird happens, often making my situation worse.
Case in point. A few days ago, a rather large chap from central europe stopped to have a chat. We had a nice conversation, it was good to actually have a real life conversation with someone for once. It doesn't happen very often. But it was difficult, because I've learnt over the years here that anytime I talk about something specific, anytime I divulge personal information, it always in some way comes back to bite me. So I end up seeming somewhat evassive, but it's for good reason.
In this case I was able to communicate that to the bloke. As we chatted he said that things couldn't get much worse and I should just accept any help. I mentioned that if there is one thing I've learnt, it's that things can always get worse. When you are in a bad situation, something that is super easy to fix in a few minutes for regular folks, can end up being a multi-day or week gargantuan project. It's a totally different universe. The example I gave was a broken zip on a bag. That can really f you up.
Anyhow the next day he gifted me some clothes. Just basic stuff but good quaility and it made a big difference. All items were black. Things I really needed. I've been wearing the stuff. It's great. Well yesterday, after a day of pink tsunamis, something that happens relatively regularly, I noticed that, suprise suprise, the zip on my main back pack, the new one that I was gifted by another fellow european about a month ago, was partly broken.
How did it happen? Well there were a couple of opportunities it could have happened. It's in the exact same place as happened on another bag about 2 years ago. That bag had been fine for 8 years. There was a strange incident where a stranger took the bag and insisted on moving it totally unnecessairly. About 20 minutes later I noticed the zip was broken. There was also another incident during the COVID lockdown where the main strap on a bag was cut with a sharp tool. I had only left it unattended for a few seconds. Getting that fixed was a massive massive ordeal.
Well guess what, this time about a minute after discovering the broken zip, two incredibly tall westerners, male and female, dressed entirely head to toe in black clothes walked past. It's very unusual. You just don't see a lot of goths, the weather isn't very conducive for it. It's way too hot for goths here. This type of thing happens everytime I talk with anyone. #
Today’s links:
EU to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova - Ukraine appears to already have mostly met the requirements for membership. It will be interesting to see how this changes the positions of other EU countries. Anecdotally I overheard some high schoolers speaking yesterday, here in Vietnan, the name 'Orban' was mentioned repeatedly. I guess they were speaking about the war, and Europe. www.bbc.com #
Threads launches for nearly half a billion more users in Europe - Personally I haven't been using Threads much recently, aside from posting links to the newsletter. Simply not enough time, and all followers are still on Twitter/X. If follower counts increase obviously that would make a big difference, and of course a good quality ActivityPub integration would be a big advantage too. www.theverge.com #
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