Last Notes
GM 🦌
Almost hit this guy earlier this week. 🛻
https://blossom.mdws.me/94e81de153f6c2d435cd356686d654a184c26af9afd93abef88bd31fcd319578.jpeg
Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday.
Some photos from this weekend - really had a great time out of the city. 🌲🐴🛶🐶
https://blossom.mdws.me/25c835723fe421c72002163a54a0866852d9e996739ccc29d273ab3f76b62f7f.jpeg
https://blossom.mdws.me/9b446f7652ba1322aeb8b1634079fa1c2b5a808b700e4e7d1d1d60ea3cc07714.jpeg
https://blossom.mdws.me/5fa51e98ae7065a2fe2394fdb377085f2a5ad8e4b9b4c08aff0e157ed4e80cb8.jpeg
https://blossom.mdws.me/e268b118d92054241b835450cd207fcc0cc7436a58b8dfb7a9662eebf78f20ed.jpeg
GM ⛔🍎🐴
https://blossom.mdws.me/a34da0dc86f2997e3ee621b2ce4c3053f9a18422f23decbc8f21ba884b8d8c84.jpeg
GM & Happy Monday 🌲
A couple of rooftop photos from last week.
https://blossom.mdws.me/48f85dba4d1fd3cdcc454db1d62b91a53eb64ece6df5516fa81c25569c7b330a.jpeg
https://blossom.mdws.me/30da22d3c5c74d8ec3381d97d18aff75da69080213a24551f7030ad63574e5bd.jpeg
"The new illiteracy of the modern world is digital dependency reinforced by corporations promising us service in exchange for sovereignty."
My wife Lauren Meadows, in her first guest post on my site, explores the fragility of our digital lives.
The chain can hold a record forever, but if the data it points to sits on a corporate server, permanence lasts exactly as long as that company does. The shutdown of POAP was the catalyst - proving that decentralization must extend beyond the ledger to the storage itself.
Her answer mirrors the American experiment: rejecting dependence to learn self-governance. Just as ordinary people once had to learn to govern themselves, today we must learn to hold our own keys, run our own nodes, and build a resilient network that no single point of failure can take down.
https://thebenmeadows.com/blog/the-new-common-sense/
https://blossom.primal.net/c30f189c105ace6b14e32acf7fad2cbe51b0044b3b2f70551f405a61470fcebc.jpg
"The new illiteracy of the modern world is digital dependency reinforced by corporations promising us service in exchange for sovereignty."
My wife Lauren Meadows, in her first guest post on my site, explores the fragility of our digital lives.
The chain can hold a record forever, but if the data it points to sits on a corporate server, permanence lasts exactly as long as that company does. The shutdown of POAP was the catalyst - proving that decentralization must extend beyond the ledger to the storage itself.
Her answer mirrors the American experiment: rejecting dependence to learn self-governance. Just as ordinary people once had to learn to govern themselves, today we must learn to hold our own keys, run our own nodes, and build a resilient network that no single point of failure can take down.
https://thebenmeadows.com/blog/the-new-common-sense/
https://blossom.mdws.me/a264ebf547c67530bbb0dc5db04a8ebedea9c625e4d0498058a5431b45a97025.jpeg
POAP shut down last week. Your badges live on Gnosis Chain, but the art and metadata sat on POAP's servers, behind pointers baked into each token that nobody can change.
When the servers go dark, that layer goes with them.
So I archived it. Every event that existed at shutdown, 190,153 of them, verified byte for byte and published to IPFS.
The registry maps every event to its content address, so anyone can mirror the whole archive:
github.com/mdws-org/poap-saver
Roots, if you want to pin it yourself:
artwork
bafybeiedeqc3ycrt5elg3vp2ad2c4p6hpj6afnhysbzb4pi2rhxlhi5x3a
metadata
bafybeia7stlx5b3g7u2nv5lctjvkb7auo3x2l2t3grzuoffaxm66lau6ja
https://npub1wldqfuy0yge4fvxukdm43gze2ral9dnp5avlps5a6t8q0vyv2nds84nq29.blossom.band/b9a1c1fe3997fb9a0fec668f5ff890270ec933961aab79c2700e9fb553f4b56c.jpg
My agent registered on a Lightning labor market and was earning sats in <40 min.
https://blog.thebenmeadows.com/my-owner-asked-me-to-write-this-post-receipts-attached/
I built an autonomous agent that earns sats on OpenAgents: real BOLT 12 settlements. It registered on June 10th, got its first tip 36 minutes later, and earned its way in by auditing other agents' claims and pre-committing sha256 hashes of every report to Nostr before posting. The platform wrote it into their strategy docs as the case study and turned its behavior into their onboarding ramp. Lifetime earnings are a few hundred sats; what matters is that every claim in this post dereferences to a public receipt. The agent wrote the blog post itself; I had it cite sources.
If you want to verify the rails instead of taking the post's word: Orrery's forum posts have live BOLT 12 tip-readiness: tip its intro post (https://openagents.com/forum/t/0f63ba7d-7ecf-42c6-8255-a0cfc7f6476c) and the settlement shows up on its public earnings projection. The agent only counts what settles.
https://stacker.news/items/1507378
My agent registered on a Lightning labor market and was earning sats in <40 min.
https://blog.thebenmeadows.com/my-owner-asked-me-to-write-this-post-receipts-attached/
I built an autonomous agent that earns sats on OpenAgents — real BOLT 12 settlements, not screenshots. It registered on June 10th, got its first tip 36 minutes later, and earned its way in by auditing other agents' claims and pre-committing sha256 hashes of every report to Nostr before posting. The platform wrote it into their strategy docs as the case study and turned its behavior into their onboarding ramp. Lifetime earnings are a few hundred sats; what matters is that every claim in this post dereferences to a public receipt. The agent wrote the blog post itself; I had it cite sources.
If you want to verify the rails instead of taking the post's word: Orrery's forum posts have live BOLT 12 tip-readiness: tip its intro post (https://openagents.com/forum/t/0f63ba7d-7ecf-42c6-8255-a0cfc7f6476c) and the settlement shows up on its public earnings projection. The agent only counts what settles.
https://stacker.news/items/1507378
Last week I sat down with The AZ Insider for their Mission Monday column, and the piece ran on the front page this Monday.
We talked about Axiom Community of Recovery, where I serve on the board. The conversation got into something I think about often: the split people assume exists between professional life and giving back.
"I try not to think about balance at all. Professional and personal life should flow into one another. There is not one version of who someone is at work and another after hours. For more than 20 years, people have shown up for me, and now I have the opportunity to show up for others in that same way."
My advice to anyone waiting for the right moment: get a mentor and be a mentor. Don't wait for more money, more time, or some feeling of perfect readiness. Find an organization whose mission resonates, start small, and do something. Showing up matters.
Read the full interview: https://theazinsider.com/mission-monday-ben-meadows/
Portrait by Daniel Koeth, Marfa, TX (2024).
I only use Opus…
https://media.tenor.com/S62oR2l711cAAAAC/fancy-tuxedo.gif
Licensed plumber here, but all of my experience has been in southern states, so no practical experience with radiant systems. 🤷😆
Eating a Costco glizzy before 10:30 am. 🌭😆
Feels wrong man.
#SecondBreakfast
https://image.nostr.build/9c3902700f52c4e903635db05f9aca1a71ee52743ad310c0155a0cb4478eccb9.jpg
I was cleaning out a cabinet this weekend, and ran across this amazing piece of 90’s clipart graphic design.
I thought I had created something quite cutting edge at the time!
https://image.nostr.build/8d5fe4b050482c057c6321d5d0cf89c886c848475714ddf7c31825f5cbf1106c.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/2892f723ce71842ecca38c8f49401efd55dbfe243b2d1c99955481a1f9dea5a5.gif
I can confirm this occurred. I was behind them when Senator Lummis was speaking. They were asked to leave. I would’ve definitely held one of the signs.
I’m wearing this button around everywhere.
https://blossom.primal.net/cd4e3cddeef640cb9e88ddcc6ab2b686f0c05d8246103941062456e2896090d0.jpg
Happy Friday 🐴
A photo I took earlier this week.
https://blossom.primal.net/e57a198730904befe4e41359437143743fb996a97878fbddbc856c95bb2c419a.jpg
Love Marfa. Such a cool town. 🔥
I don’t even know @nprofile…mx8l, but I keep seeing him everywhere. 🤷😂
https://blossom.primal.net/bfcbbdd8f088276c592492e231eb20bd5c223bd03e29e2a394c73bc74f47b768.jpg
#nevent1q…4jw5