100 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 8h \ on: Re: "Bitcoin is money built on distrust." When is trust good and when is it bad? culture
There's a quote I read and can't attribute, but that I love:
So many layers. Worthy of deep meditation.
131 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 10 May \ parent \ on: Swan Announces Managed Bitcoin Mining Service bitcoin
Yeah, it is really puzzling to me. Cory's brand is all about speaking the truth, calling out bad actors, even if there's just the merest wisp of a bad smell. You'd think he would have his own shit in order beyond any possibility of reproach and go the extra mile on everything. Since he seems like a bright guy, I can only infer that there's something complicated that he can't say out loud that's more important than whatever reputation damage he's incurred.
Actually, I could also infer that my personal perception of what is a giant controversy is incredibly skewed. I forget that 99.9% of bitcoiners have never heard of Matt Odell in the first place, despite his super high reputation and seeming (to me) prominence.
Has there been any update on Odell's beef w/ Swan? He appeared very dubious of their claims around mining last year, but I didn't follow closely enough to see how it resolved, or didn't.
Here's the deal: you don't read Thomas Pynchon for his plots.
I think you're right, and I've always wondered what you do read Pynchon for. Not just him, there are others in that same boat, who write giant tomes that feel like homework, or repairing some arcane machine that you don't have parts for. I own a literal handbook designed to allow people to comprehend Gravity's Rainbow; I got a modest way through it before I came to my senses.
I am not a stranger to effortful reading, but I've never understand what reward people get by reading Pynchon except the veneer of intelligence that reading him seems to confer; or that the reader believes is conferred.
He's got a gift for sucking you in so that when you finally come back up for air, you're wondering whether you've been reading for five minutes or fifty. But it can be tiring and sometimes you end up never finishing.
Question, and this isn't me trying to be a jerk: if nobody knew the name Pynchon, would you really bother with it? If the world hadn't concluded that James Joyce, DeLillo were geniuses, would a naiive stranger grab Finnegan's and be like: holy shit, this is astounding? Or would they say: jesus, what a sad attempt at being original, and toss it in recycling?
It really comes across as the lady protesting too much. For what little payout you describe, it seems that there are nearly infinity better options than Pynchon. What am I missing?
I take what's probably an unpopular view on this one: people are super happy to benefit from other people's content. They consume it with abandon, they block ads if they can, they do what they can get away with. That's well and good, go ahead, but acting like it's some big moral thing when other entities -- companies, in this case -- make use of what you've freely given in ways you didn't expect -
I just don't feel it. You relinquish all control to everything when you put it online. If you cringe in horror at someone making use of it, keep your mouth shut, that's my philosophy. It's the wild west and has been since 1970 or whenever.
I've heard that for infrastructural reasons -- e.g., getting plumbing, electricity, etc., to standards / amounts sufficient to the task -- the "re-purposing" is way trickier than it seems at first. Have no real expertise on the topic, though.
A very wise article.
All you need to benefit from a technology is utility. It just has to improve people’s lives somehow, whether they understand it at a granular level or not. We can tell people about bitcoin’s benefits until we’re exhausted and they’re annoyed. What matters is how they actually experience it. We should stop telling them how great the bitcoin economy is going to be and start showing them. Less theory, more practice.
Cool!
It's fun to think of all the ways that rich context like this could be brought to bear. Imagine a popup that gave the three items most like this one; or the most recent few items from that particular user, etc.
I love it too; but I wish the "Stacking since" was in a more intuitive metric. Block height is thematic of course, but it means nothing to me to anchor my perception of time, and I don't think it ever will.
Your account of how the Samourai thing hit you makes me think (for the millionth time) how you have a big opportunity in this space (or perhaps any space) to bring something of yourself to it, and to fill a niche that only you can, whatever that is. Man, how cool to read a thoughtful @siggy47 series, or a book, or whatever, synthesizing the relevant legal aspects? Nobody else is doing that.
If you're like me, you might get in your own way by thinking: well shit, there are ten million people better positioned to do this; I'm a lawyer of type x but what's really needed is a lawyer of type y or whatever.
But if there's anything btc has taught me, it's that there wasn't some particular credential or skillset that was needed for anything, ever. Instead, people had desires, and they brought something to the table, and they fulfilled their desires as best they could, learning what was needed along the way, and it all evolved in such an interesting and creative journey: they became capable of what needed to be done. They found niches that would previously have been unimaginable.
Or rather, they didn't found them, they dug them. Perhaps they mined them.
Anyway. I've been glad for your scattershot posts. I'd be glad for something less scattershot, too. If something in that calls to you, maybe listen to the feeling.
I'm not sure how the Sermon on the Mount relates to the article, but if you found the connection, perhaps others will too.
I thought the same -- a more mellow Darth, broadening his perspective?
I like the Corey Hart one, not afraid to admit it.
I think pilates is maybe a similar thing -- I've never actually done it, but from people I've talked to, it seems like it could really help a lot of people, except it's so heavily gendered and WASPy that it never will.
I keep pointing that out. Most of them have agreed, eventually, though they might have phrased it differently.
49 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 4 May \ parent \ on: Show, Not Tell, What You Know BooksAndArticles
Same idea -- it just waters things down. Often there's a strong noun that obviates the need for an adjective.
These rules are just shorthand, of course there's a place for adjectives, adverbs, and everything -- that's why they exist. But in general, you should use them as sparsely as you can manage.
(Also, I should have said "avoid adjectives and adverbs" -- didn't realize I omitted adverbs.)