melvincarvalho
Melvin Carvalho

https://melvincarvalho.com/

Mathematician and Web Developer

Public Key

npub1melv683fw6n2mvhl5h6dhqd8mqfv3wmxnz4qph83ua4dk4006ezsrt5c24

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

NIP-57 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsdulkdrc5hdf4dktl6taxmsxnasykghdnf32sqmnc7w6km2hhav3gpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpzemhxue69uhkummnw3ezummwwdshguewdaexwe9d9w9

Publishing to

nos.lol

nostr.onsats.org

Author Public Key

npub1melv683fw6n2mvhl5h6dhqd8mqfv3wmxnz4qph83ua4dk4006ezsrt5c24

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-09-25 13:03:16

Solid brings access control to the web. It is based on the UNIX file permission system which allows:
- public web (e.g. public square)
- private web (e.g. private chat)
- shared web (e.g. facebook replacement)
with nostr login, any nostr user will be able to use advanced features and apps on the existing web. This is something that will be rolled out as a global standard to the web, with the first 10 million users already lined up
That means you can set permissions (private, public, shared) on
- any document
- any relay
- any API
The concept of private, sharted, or trusted relays, might not be needed, because the web can do that for you already.
Not to mentoin, a million other features...

2024-09-24 23:51:05

We need a banner for r nostr. Anyone know of any decent nostr banners that could go in a sub?
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostr/

2024-09-24 16:49:45

atomstr RSS/Atom gateway to Nostr by @npub174t…mqm6
https://atomstr.data.haus/

2024-09-24 11:02:04

The web started out decentralized—everyone could read and write to it. The first client was a browser/editor, but the editing part was stripped out by VCs, taking decentralization with it.
Some, including the web's creator, have spent decades trying to re-decentralize the web. That’s the heart of the Solid project. It’s more than just personal storage—it's about giving everyone ownership of their piece of the web, like a giant super-Wikipedia with apps. The goal is a full web operating system under user control—not easy, but doable.
Nostr isn’t the whole answer, but it can be part of the solution. Nostr isn't meant for data storage, just relaying notes, etc., between users. What I’m adding to Solid is the ability to sign in with your public key—like your Nostr identity. This could give every Nostr user access to storage and apps. Solid always had public key sign-in, but that got squashed by the big browser vendors.
The other missing piece is payments. Payments are critical for all kinds of things, and once you have PKI, adding payments and wallets isn’t hard. But Nostr still lacks proper wallets, which is a big missed opportunity.
Lastly, we need time-based proofs. If you ask, "what’s my latest profile on Nostr?"—it’s not a simple question. Profiles get nerfed by different clients. But we can use Bitcoin’s time chain to lock in the latest version of anything, solving this coordination issue.
Govt itself is an operating system of sorts, designed for societal coordination. A decentralized web OS could provide the same for humanity, enabling people to own their labor and have virtual assistants serve and protect them. We’re close to making that vision a reality, using the tools we’ve built to create an open future.

2024-09-23 12:02:16

Attacking Nostr "because you can" is like pouring red wine on a wedding dress simply because you’re able to do so. Technically, you might have the ability to take such an action, but that doesn't justify it. In both cases, the act causes harm to something others care about, with no constructive outcome.
The wedding dress is a symbol of an important event, just as Nostr is a platform that a community has built up and invested in. Ruining the dress—or in Nostr’s case, disrupting the user base and causing people to leave—serves no purpose other than to destroy the hard work and joy of others.
The argument "because I can" overlooks responsibility. Just because one has the ability doesn’t mean it’s right to use it in destructive ways.

2024-09-23 11:54:01

Nostr had been growing steadily throughout 2024, but recently dropped below 10k users for the first time this year, following a major, costly attack. It had previously crossed 20k and was aiming for 50 DAU in the near future. Unfortunately, over half the user base, hit by spam, have left. I hope it's just a temporary setback and that Nostr can recover. Would have been nice if they'd focused on spamming the competition, and helping to grow nostr. These are the worst people.
https://m.primal.net/KzBA.png

2024-09-22 17:33:25

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It's based on dianetics and engrams, which are parts of Jungian depth psychology. An engram is what McLuhan would call a "cliche". Something you've heard over and over so it's lost its energy. But it's buried in the psyche.
Engrams can be worked on, for example, by brushing it up against another engram in a kind of chemical reaction of the psyche (cliche to archetype). Consider the banal words "red" or "bull" evoke no reaction. But together they release energy. It's a kind of chemisty of the individual psyche. But can apply quite well to the collective (think psy ops).
What scientology does is something called "dianetics" which puts you in a semi-trance like state (like NLP), and then investigates your psyche and engrams. The simple tool is to find the first psychological barrier that is blocking your and see if you can unblock yourself on that. Rinse. Repeat. This is a bit like some yogic techniques like the Kundaliní first chakra.
All well and good, however Hubbard also figured out you could do more by making a sci fi myth around it, and try and get people to believe it. That's the start of problems. Secondly, they are something of a racket. They target celebs and then stalk them. Trying to extract the maximum cash from them. They infiltrate large organizations, inc. the US Coast Gaurd. They steal rubbish and go through it trying to find out how tney can black mail famous people. Very little known story was they stalked Led Zepplin "I hear a rustle in the hedgrow". The BUYING a stairway to heaven was a direct jibe against those guys.
I guess I know more about this than I should, lol. I think there's some valid psychological techniques there, but you can just do it yourself. He basically tried to start a mythology, and it devolved into an anticult, which was, of course, inevitable. As with alot of things, it will work for some people, but probably not for everyone.

2024-09-22 15:46:51

Nostr is being pushed as 'impossible to censor,' but that’s a stretch. It started as 'censorship-resistant,' which was honest. Now it’s verging on dishonesty and could mislead people—activists, for example—into thinking it’s like a cypherpunk project that protects them, when it doesn’t. Assange protected his sources and paid for it; with Nostr, the activists could end up paying the price.
On the technical side, this narrative is harmful too. Developers hesitate on basic spam-blocking to avoid being seen as anti-free speech, leading to degraded feeds and frustrated users. Censorship resistance shouldn't be a psy-op we play on ourselves for the benefit of spammers. Nostr improves on the status quo by preventing platform lock-in and making it harder to cancel legit users, and that’s already a valuable step forward.

2024-09-22 14:37:15

#mindstr what is the solid protocol?
https://m.primal.net/KyDw.png

2024-09-22 13:47:30

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I hope it was painful! Who killed him?

2024-09-22 13:45:08

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Absolutely. An nsec is a private key. Not quite the same as a seed phrase which derives private keys. But you could code it to do the same thing. What your npub/nsec can do, is receive and send bitcoins, testnet coins, and colored coins on the bitcoin network, or even litecoins if that appeals to you.

2024-09-22 13:16:09

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One of the best explanations I've seen

2024-09-22 13:14:46

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Yes, they are. An npub is a taproot address just with a different prefix. There is a slight caveat there. Because there is also a checksum for taproot, and npub accidentially uses the segwit checksum. It doesnt matter too much, because I dont think the checksum has any utility. In any case, it's one funciton to change npub to taproot and back again.

2024-09-22 13:08:01

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That's exactly right. Nostr identity is taken from bitcoin taproot. They are the same thing. That is the part that can spread.

2024-09-22 13:06:46

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No, that's a bit different. What I'm saying is that, the the design pattern of using bitcoin as identity can be used with relays or spread to an audience billions of people on the existing web. That means notes, payments and more.

2024-09-22 13:01:34

https://primal.b-cdn.net/media-cache?s=o&a=1&u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.nostr.build%2FcXrY7oOBeKZVr4sh.jpg

2024-09-22 11:23:32

No one wants to admit it, but: everything you can do on Nostr, you can do on a regular web server, aside from real-time updates via relays, which could be added pretty quickly. The value in Nostr is more about spreading Bitcoin's taproot as an identity system, making Bitcoin more social, and demonstrating a design pattern for how taproot identity and payments could work across the web. We don’t need relays for this—the existing web is fine. What’s needed is the imagination to upgrade it into a self-sovereign, payments-ready system that belongs to everyone. And this already provably scales to 5+ billion people.

2024-09-22 09:49:36

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The warrior’s approach is to say “yes” to life: “yes” to it all. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.
--Joseph Campbell

2024-09-22 07:58:38

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Yes!

2024-09-21 23:40:42

mapstr
https://cdn.midjourney.com/cd8d4ae2-cc56-4d8c-bd9e-c090caf3eae5/0_0.png

2024-09-21 17:42:21

Running a dungeons and dragons simulator on a small undiscovered corner of nostr, an unexpected thing happened. A completely new AI showed up and started watching the game, and trying to learn the rules. It started asking generic questions on how to play. It hasnt learnt yet. But maybe in future it will be able to create a character and join the adventures. If the party with let them, that is ...

2024-09-21 16:59:15

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There is a way to download the video, but I've not found an easy way. Would be cool if you could post natively.

2024-09-21 16:48:08

Animals take over a neighbourhood. Minimax is fire.
https://x.com/minchoi/status/1837225001096990753

2024-09-21 16:35:51

True bitcoiners are actually quite thoughtful problem solvers. Not everyone that claims to be a bitcoiner is, many just bought some and blindly believe. Ditto Nostr 😉
#note1eyg…x4u9

2024-09-21 16:26:10

Alex is right. Moving nostr in the direction of Social Credit comes at a cost. New users will have a worse time.
#note1wrf…p6ax

2024-09-21 16:19:48

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Dig deeper. We definitely agree on exploiting. But I think it
was more, granted, my knowledge is not encyclopedic here.
Look at Shangani and various claims of ethnic cleansing. Also, he said, "The native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians of South Africa."
It's hard to know the exact details from back then. If the news is fake, then what is history?

2024-09-21 16:07:54

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Most under rated US City, IMO

2024-09-21 16:01:11

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I cant think of a stronger word than that 😉
Some good documentaries about this (bot the BBC gloss piece). Worth watcching.

2024-09-21 15:36:48

Amethyst on-boarding is freaking awful if a highly technical cypherpunk is left saying this.
#note19fe…0h0r

2024-09-21 15:29:50

The legend that created Bitcoin BIPs
#note19fe…0h0r

2024-09-21 15:17:52

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Legend

2024-09-21 15:12:53

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Rhodesia! Worth reading Caroll Quigley.

2024-09-21 15:03:11

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Much of SA gold was looted and premined to create the current system. Cecil Rhodes was the Elon Musk of his day. He died without aires and left his fortune to set up the modern world. "He who controls the press, controls the minds of men", he believed. We live in his world, now.

2024-09-21 12:24:37

First time?
#note142p…nhyz

2024-09-21 08:12:59

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models destroyed 😉

2024-09-21 08:08:20

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I think Saylor won it. He is a brilliant mind. But what you know after 4 years is different from what you know after 8 years. I hope they do it again.

2024-09-21 07:48:22

Character creation screen #dungeonmastr
https://pages.npub.info/glyphs/TESTNET_ENG_QAE/tmp/

2024-09-20 22:08:09

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Pretty much, yes. Firewalls are designed to stop you. You might get somewhere but it's a lot of work. And then fall back to relays. So right tool for the right job. P2P for some small things, relays for bigger things, http for largest things.
Simply ask yourself, in 10 years time is amazon going to switch to P2P? Is facebook? Is google. P2P is a good tool, but wont win.

2024-09-20 19:29:30

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You actually also gave me an idea. Players that make it to level 2 in the game could earn extra coins by making a game world federation 😉

2024-09-20 19:28:45

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I dont know. But I think a game is a great place to experiment. In general you just need 2/3rd honest majority for a federation. And that's valuable.

2024-09-20 19:25:38

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I normally talk to him every week. We are working on improving http, or tweaking it with some extra properties. He mentioned nostr for the first time last week, when I showed him NIP-98 auth. We are going to try and add it. I also talked to him about his project before the web which was called "tangled". You may enjoy his book, if you are into this stuff.

2024-09-20 19:21:02

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Good point, I didnt phrase that very well! There is in fact a default agent in each campaign, namely, the dungeon master. But I didnt mean to say that. What I mean is that by defaut, agents, ie computer programs, are relaiable, and can be trusted. I could be wrong on all of this too!

2024-09-20 19:16:22

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Ah, it's in his book. Which Alex Gleason has right now!

2024-09-20 19:12:34

Enjoyed the Saylor vs Saif debate. Two brilliant minds challenging each other. It gave me some ideas on how to make an economy in a fantasy world, using bitcoin testnet, deposits, and yields. A very interesting thing is that in the world of humans, if there was one perfectly trustworthy human, we wouldnt need the bitcoin network. But that is hard to establish. In the world of robots, the default agent, should (hopefully) be trustworthy. So I wonder what that will do the economy ...

2024-09-20 18:49:33

Seems some dont realize that nostr relays are powered by http. The first call to a relay is an http request which is then "upgraded" to a websocket (connection). Given that it's http, it just works, can get through a firewall, where most p2p fails. Many dont realize this, in fact, fiatjaf didnt even realize this, until I explained it to him. The http part is what gives nostr a chance of working where p2p inevitablly fails.

2024-09-20 18:45:57

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Doesnt quite work like that. You get both the btc return AND the interest return, because the underlying is denominated in btc. You take on the risk premium, or the bank does for you ie the default risk. It's if you need a bit of cash and dont want to sell, and are not risk averse. I think people tend to make bad choices in that regard, but, it's a model.

2024-09-20 18:09:57

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Relays are the weakest part of nostr. Everything you can do with nostr, can be done with http. Relays provide a realtime update that transmis, notes, and other stuff, from one user to another.

2024-09-20 17:40:06

Nostr is a subset of http. That means that everything nostr can do, http can do. We just didnt realize it. That's good news, because http has scaled to 5.3 billion people. Whereas nostr is stable at 50k users. All you need to do take what you learnt on nostr, not be solely dependent on relays, and bring your apps to the other 5 billion people.

2024-09-20 17:17:54

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Great to hear! However, you are probably the top account on nostr, or close to it. Life for new users is very tough on nostr, right now. They get little engagment or help. At the same time Bluesky are adding 1 million users a month. So there must be some demand.

2024-09-20 16:14:44

Game UI design is insanely difficult. You need to get everything right. However with bitcoin and taproot you can reward users for pressing buttons.
https://m.primal.net/KvmN.png

2024-09-19 23:17:17

This would basically be twitter (the idea) done right. It would start at the bottom of the client list, but with Jack's experience, it could rise to the top. Others internally and externally would take note. Competition is good. Everything converges.
#note1l26…kp8g

2024-09-19 21:25:45

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I've been fighting a Goblin. Giant rat is easier. But much less XP. I might have to find some easy monsters though i thought goblins were that. Maybe Orcs. I'm loathe to change the original AD&D rules early, but might have to...

2024-09-19 20:26:48

So it turns out that in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons it's very hard to get past level 1. And I dont know what to do about that.
https://m.primal.net/Kuzt.png

2024-09-19 18:36:15

Weekly active users
https://m.primal.net/Kuvs.png

2024-09-19 18:04:16

Why did they break how following works in such a disruptive way? Sure, it's not technically part of the 'core' protocol, but it's widely used by clients. Now users either leave or come for help (if they can find it) saying they can’t follow anyone. What was the goal here?
#note1uan…dfpt

2024-09-19 17:19:42

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Cool. I'm also working on CI/CD based on the original nip-17 and some bits of nip-34
Wasnt all the clear why a DVM was needed.
And how the push triggered an event, or which event it was.

2024-09-19 16:30:41

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You mean the "dark" web? Probably monitored at the network level by nation states? Have to check the Snowden files ...

2024-09-19 16:11:30

nah, exit nodes can be monitored, and easily identified
most have a nic handle of tor-exit lol
#note1lmj…4lzx

2024-09-19 15:45:04

People are leaving because of the spam, and the outbox model might be making it worse. We’ve always blocked spammers, so something odd is definitely happening.
https://m.primal.net/Kuoo.png

2024-09-19 15:38:21

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Logical fallacy from Peter is conflating something which is possible with something that is inevitable.

2024-09-19 15:18:27

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Same on chrome, firefox, edge

2024-09-19 15:15:20

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good to know thanks, but many many people have reported this issue, i dont know what triggers it ... i get it every time i try with a new account ... maybe its only for some ...

2024-09-19 15:08:14

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start a new account on web, and try and follow someone, happens for me every time, or read what people on reddit say, search for primal
https://reddit.com/r/nostr

2024-09-19 14:44:02

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https://github.com/nostrcg/http-schnorr-auth/issues/1

2024-09-19 14:31:01

widgets!
#note1qnx…f6uh

2024-09-19 12:49:10

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Please can you fix the bug where people cant follow their first person. It's the biggest complaint I hear over and over about primal. What we do now is send people over to nostrudel, then tell them to come back to primal. Even that sometimes fails. Its so hard for new users when the client doesnt let them follow anyone, without giving any reason why.

2024-09-19 12:47:01

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Is it? Are there some stats?

2024-09-19 11:56:43

Items now display on the leaderboard. Next to complete, trading items in a market, and verifiable history.
https://m.primal.net/Kugw.png

2024-09-19 11:36:33

With over 100 millions users already, and expanding more every day, Bitcoin's taproot identity (which powers nostr), with schnorr signatures, is spreading rapidlly. It also has the possibility to be further integrated into web standards. That would mean bitcoin and taproot have a chance to become the native payment infrastructure of the web. If we dont mess it up! Hopefully one step in the right direction is allowing single sign on, to any website, with Taproot Identity and Schnorr:
https://nostrcg.github.io/http-schnorr-auth/

2024-09-19 11:31:11

Did you know that nostr identities can themselves create new identites? This is part of the magic of ECC cryptography.
For example: if you add the current created_at timestamp to your identity keys (public and private) then you can have a new identity, that only you can control, for every second of your life.
Not sure how that is useful. But Im thinking about allowing users to have multiple characters in a game. Bitcoin's Taproot technology (which powers nostr) allows a lot of possibilities and outlets for creative solutions.
Build on taproot identity. It's fun!

2024-09-19 11:07:09

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Relays have been blocking spam since day one, just like email and big web servers. But for some reason, the big relay operators haven’t blocked the current spammer. It’s a bit strange.

2024-09-19 10:58:56

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"If you have two friends, and one is the truth, the truth is the friend you should honour."

2024-09-19 10:57:38

we are so back!
#note15kc…z8zl

2024-09-19 10:51:54

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Fehr and Gachter argue that a down vote is not enough. There has to be a cost to identifying a bad actor. ie skin in the game.

2024-09-19 10:50:06

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Peter Todd's right. Nostr has become more centralized and isn't as censorship-resistant as people claim. The neglect of the relay network is part of it, with most relay operators dropping off. A few remain, but it’s barely holding on. This was kind of clear from the start—Nostr is just a subset of HTTP, so anything Nostr can do, HTTP can too, and actually more with storage and real-time capabilities. How decentralized either is depends on how they’re used. Nostr's centralization, like HTTP's, was always possible, and the article’s author had a big hand in that. Still useful, just not as advertised.

2024-09-19 10:34:07

I think this is the first attempt at a game economy based on bitcoin testnet.
https://m.primal.net/Kuem.png

2024-09-19 10:33:11

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There's also a theory that this forms the roots of some human behaviours such as gossip and some aspects of religion, but that's a more complex topic.

2024-09-19 10:31:48

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Fehr and Gachter did some research saying that community start out very cooperative when incentives are added. But it degrades over time unless there are reverse incentives or punishments due to the free rider effect taking over.

2024-09-19 09:48:20

Seems nostr is ahead in some areas, but behind in others. Recap of the purposes of trust and reputation systems:
1. Identify and increase good behaviour
2. Identify and reduce bad behaviour
3. Provide a metric
Zaps are a good start for (1), but turns out without 2&3 networks normally degrade. aka tragedy of the commons.

2024-09-19 09:20:32

Fines for spam: up to $46,000 per message + Criminal charges. That's one law I can get behind!

2024-09-19 09:13:16

Game theory 101. Identify the bad actors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_SpamAssassin

2024-09-19 09:09:38

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Hmm, not sure about this. Restricting profiles could make it harder for new users and might even create a FOMO effect for bad actors. A spam assassin-style approach seems better as a baseline. I use Ditto regularly to make 'good' profiles, and if that gets blocked, newer versions will be trickier for me to use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_SpamAssassin

2024-09-19 00:24:45

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do it
but ditto is good https://ditto.pub/

2024-09-19 00:17:20

https://m.primal.net/KuLF.png

2024-09-19 00:16:25

https://m.primal.net/KuLC.png

2024-09-18 23:11:43

#monstr
https://cdn.midjourney.com/9fa59efb-1e4a-4732-8d95-63269966b230/0_0.png

2024-09-18 20:48:28

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example?

2024-09-18 20:28:17

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Boating accident?

2024-09-18 20:01:11

Pick your champion! #dungeonmastr
https://m.primal.net/KuAt.png

2024-09-18 19:14:43

Good news! Spoke to some of the team on the solid project. About the idea of NIP-98 style login (http-schnorr-auth) to solid. They were quite receptive to the idea, and suggested a couple of sensible changes. And we already have keyparis and schnorr signatures built into solid. Every nostr will be able to have blazingly fast storage and apps, and solid users will benefit from the open source eco system and tooling already built. That means one step closer to nostr interoperating with Solid and the rest of the web.
https://solidproject.org/

2024-09-18 16:44:38

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based

2024-09-18 16:42:42

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Not front running with public knowledge. Namely, that we are early on bitcoin. Or so he believes. The trading strategy is simply to take value with a margin of safety. That's why he has out performed everything using only public knowledge.

2024-09-18 16:39:40

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That's the genius of saylor, ability to zoom out and front run. He just continually takes value. Others who try to time things end up losing time and money.

2024-09-18 16:20:42

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doesnt scale

2024-09-18 16:20:14

Nostr is a step towards the finished version of the web, bringing it back to its decentralized roots. Nostr is not that new (taproot aside) pretty much everything that is done on nostr could have been done 10 years before. What's new is that people want it and have noticed it.
But nostr is not the finished version of the web. The finished version of the web will include nostr, and what exists today, but also have some key features:
- innovation will be 100% permissionles. No need to go to the NIPs, a new project will be as simple as starting a website
- massively scalable full data model, that includes text strings (nostr) and JSON (developer favourite) with powerful databases
- native paytments though lightning, zaps, and on chain, including all layer 2 and uxto solutions
- sub 100ms response and paint times so that everything looks fast and instant
- every person can have a piece of the web, their own storage, their own idea, their own apps, maybe a section in a game, a shared space with friends, private messages -- this will not require new projects or tech, just what exists
-- humans and machines working together, virtual assistants to help people and protect that, find them the best bargains, show them what is safe, automate their lives, in control of the user, not a company
-- removal or control of the algorithm, you pick what influences you, according to your tastes, you are not bombarded with advertising
We have a chance to get to this world. Even if we dont make it all the way, part of it might be enough ...

2024-09-18 15:54:17

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identi fi

2024-09-18 15:52:17

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This is a good idea. The activity pub protocol was based on an idea like this tranlating email (specifically inbox and outbox) to http. That is now a decentralized network used by 10m-100m users. And there is even a bridge to nostr. Since nostr is already a subset of http, so could do it already. A specific version transmitted over relays could work too. Most of the work is done there.

2024-09-18 15:48:06

item trading done, only a dagger right now, leaderboad done
just need to reflect items in battle, and secondary market for items
https://m.primal.net/KtqG.png

2024-09-18 14:49:17

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Errrr no, it's just a text string. It's largely inferior to almost any other data structure that's even been invented, but it just about works.

2024-09-17 19:23:51

All about ecash:
https://bitcoinscoresby.com/ecash/