Zap to Zero Day 22 | Bikeshedding

A sleek, futuristic bicycle gleaming in the harsh light of a post-apocalyptic world, its expensive price tag a stark contrast to the decaying nuclear power plant looming in the background.
Bikeshedding, also known as Parkinson’s law of triviality, describes our tendency to devote a disproportionate amount of our time to menial and trivial matters while leaving important matters unattended.
— The Decision Lab, What is Bikeshedding?

Yesterday, I worked on integrating Nostr Wallet Connect into SN. While I was trying to figure out how I can check if the connection URI from the wallet is working—don't want to throw preventable errors in your faces on zap attempts1—I found this comment from @benthecarman that made me laugh hard (still laughing every time I read it):
Maybe this is a new nip indeed. Requesting invoices shouldn't require authorization. The need looks more like a data vending machine that replies when a key is pinged than a nwc action.
you guys bike shedding so much more than needed. the wallet connect functionality should have the ability to receive, that is all this does
And the discussion only got more funny:
As it stands, the change alone doesn't seem to be a replacement for the public lnurlp resolution when asking for an invoice from somebody else's wallet.
you can build zaps on top of this, you can build a lightning address server on top of this, you can build a webstore on top of this.
the point of this is to allow the functionality of requesting invoices, not building a specific app/use case like zaps
However, people weren't satisfied that this PR doesn't solve world hunger—yet. So more and more people asked if it would make sense to add more and more things 2.
At some point, @supertestnet joined in and asked about the status of this PR since it wasn't clear.
It looks like this spec-change has been approved and is now live in a popular NWC implementation. Can it be merged so that other client devs know how to interoperate? This would help ensure different implementations use the same api for the same functionality, and it would help client devs like me know what api methods to call if they want to use this functionality
need 2 implementations
ok
looks like a second implementation is on its way, hopefully it is here soon
After this was done, @benthecarman asked on Sep 3, 2023:
https://github.com/getAlby/nostr-wallet-connect now implements this, good to merge?
But we weren't done with @benthecarman yet. Even @TonyGiorgio joined the fun:
How about a keysend method? That would enable wallets to be the funding source for a lot of value for value podcast stuff.
After @benthecarman also added this method, he dared to ask if it was good to merge now:
I think this PR is getting pretty big at this point. We should have enough functionality now for any kind of wallet.
Good to merge? @bumi @rolznz
But since new methods were added to the spec, these new methods also had to be implemented now:
@benthecarman we haven't implemented the new methods yet, if possible it would be great to do this first in case we notice any changes that need to be made.
On Oct 11, 2023, get_info was proposed as the final method. This was the method I was currently trying to use to check the connection status.
I would like to propose one final additional method - what do you guys think?
Get Info
Returns information about the user's node
The discussion continued. @Semisol also joined in and did a review on Oct 30, 2023. But since the PR has deviated a lot since it started as a simple way to add receiving to NWC, they were confused:
I don't get the goal here.
The original intention was to be able to create invoices over NWC. That way NWC can be used as a replacement for things like LNURL in the future.
The alby guys wanted to add full functionality to be able to get all other payment information so we added list payments and invoices.
The latest comments were about multi_pay_keysend and multi_pay_invoice which I think is related to Atomic Multi-path Payments (AMP).
But I recommend that you checkout the discussion yourself and see how the sausage bleeding edge of technology is made!

Satistics

DateSpentStacked (Rewards)PostsCommentsRewarded
2023-12-2813k8808 (n/a)235n/a
2023-12-2916.1k15.6k (5222)352
2023-12-3010.8k9752 (7026)141✍️
2023-12-3120.5k17.9k (4379)561
2024-01-0112.5k10.7k (7684)347✍️
2024-01-0216k19.5k (9353)636✍️
2024-01-0315.9k15.6k (6729)246
2024-01-0411.4k11.4k (3954 4093 4131)338✍️
2024-01-0511.3k11.4k (3954 4092)141?
2024-01-0666916282 (3665 3954)038✍️
2024-01-0780538503 (1219 3665)320✍️
2024-01-0888739164 (1219)212
2024-01-0958286808 (4649)2 634 35✍️
2024-01-1014.1k14.4k (4857)322
2024-01-1111.8k10.4k (4109)322✍️
2024-01-1287438016 (4778)341✍️
2024-01-1393939339 (3116)217
2024-01-1414.2k6697 (3533)441✍️
2024-01-1510.2k11.3k (3395)115
2024-01-16686711.1k (2500)227
2024-01-1760086931 (3982)121
2024-01-1868277606 (2544)227
2024-01-19TBDTBD (3755)TBDTBD
I turned my PC off yesterday. I usually never turn it off so I can easily continue with whatever I was doing. But yesterday, I felt like I need to turn it off to help me go to sleep.
Since the script that polled my SN balance every 5 second was running on it, it died. I realized my mistake just a few minutes ago and restarted it. Need to move it to a server of mine. This should be one of those 5 minutes things that you should just immediately do instead of thinking about when to do. But I really want to finish this post first. And then I will have probably forgotten about it.
Btw, I am actually quite surprised that it took so long for something like this to happen. This is the code that was running without any hiccups since Day 12:
#!/usr/bin/env bash COOKIE="<INSERT COOKIE HERE>" ENDPOINT=https://stacker.news/api/graphql while true; do sats=$(curl \ -X POST \ -H "Content-type: application/json" \ -H "Cookie: $COOKIE" \ --data '{ "query": "query ME { me { privates { sats } id } }" }' \ --silent "$ENDPOINT" \ | jq '.data.me.privates.sats') line="$(date +%s) $sats" echo "$line" | tee -a me_sats sleep 5 done

Recent Superzaps

1. Confessions of a burnt-out father

A while ago, @cryotosensei shared his pain of being a father of two kids with us. Pain that he expected but pain that still hurts.
I don't want to quote too much since I don't want people to feel like they don't have to read the actual post since they read "my summary". But this isn't supposed to be a summary. This is supposed to make you interested in reading the actual post and zap it. Consider this to be the abstract of a scientific paper. If you only read the abstract of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, did you really read the Bitcoin Whitepaper? The answer should be obvious.
So here is my favorite line where I felt a real connection to @cryotosensei even though I am far away from being a parent—and I am not sure if I ever really want to or will have kids.
I don’t have to be around people all the time. I’m perfectly fine signing up for seminars and workshops and attending them alone. I miss being exposed to people outside my usual realm of work and expanding my horizons. I hate that I have to rush home every week day after work because I need to pick up my kids from the childcare centre. I hate that I have to spend my weekends taking my boy to the indoor playground so that he can release his pent-up energies. In fact, right now I’m at the indoor playground. All I see around me are equally bored parents passing the time buried in their handphones. Since when did my activity-filled life turn out to be so mundane?
So please, check out the post from @cryotosensei and share whatever you have to share with him. I think he deserves it. Even though he sometimes talk a little too much for my liking about his wife being Japanese, lol.

2. What’s your SN routine like?

Another great post from @cryotosensei. This one is from yesterday.
I loved how @cryotosensei not just asked us about our routine (like a fed) but actually shared his own routine first (like a very sophisticated fed). That's what SN is about: Value 4 Value!
I have had the cowboy hat in my possession for 24 days, so suffice it to say that posting and commenting here on Stacker News have become a comfortable routine.
While other regulars fiddle around with the optimal amount of zaps they should give, I have been more preoccupied with incorporating the use of SN into my life. So after 24 days, this is basically my routine these days:
[...]
What’s your SN routine like?
I also loved reading the comments. @cryotosensei basically created a good prompt to create bonds between old cowboys and people learning the ropes. For example, @siggy47, the founder of ~bitcoin_beginners, replied this:
Can I just say that I see you all the time making quality contributions here. I think you may be cheating yourself of sats with your method. You will earn far more by tipping more. Build up some more sats, then tip quality posts early. For more details, check @Natalia's recent post. It really pays to pay others before yourself, as crazy as that sounds. As an example, the first thing I do in the morning is donate a load of sats to the site. It's not completely out of the goodness of my heart. First of all, then I don't need to worry about my cowboy hat. Secondly, I know I have a chance to earn it back with good tipping and posting throughout the day.
Maybe there should also be ~meta_beginners territory? Half-joking.

3. The Mysterious Life And Death Of Mircea Popescu

In SN terms, this is a very old post. When @siggy47 found out that some dude named Popescu died, he dug deeper (not into his grave fortunately—at least I hope so).
I once took a vacation with my family to Costa Rica’s pacific coast, not far from the place where Mircea Popescu reportedly died. It’s a beautiful part of the world, and it’s on my short list of places to relocate to if I get the motivation to leave the United States. I say it’s where he reportedly died, because there is little about Mircea Popescu that is certain. That’s the way he wanted it. Yes, I used the past tense, and I will keep doing so for the sake of consistency, but I’m not sure he’s dead.
I must confess that when the news of the drowning began appearing in bitcoin publications in late June of 2021 I had never heard of him. He was apparently an OG bitcoiner, a major whale and a famous blogger. The headlines said that he may have died holding over one million bitcoin, making him the only “bitcoin millionaire” other than Satoshi Nakamoto. I read elsewhere that his stash was not nearly that large. It was all based on speculation. So far as I can tell, none of his wallets have ever been traced or identified. Everyone just took his word for it when he boasted of his enormous hoard. I discovered that he was controversial. He was considered a brilliant bitcoin philosopher and a savvy entrepreneur, while at the same time he was described as hateful, racist, misogynistic, and anti-semitic. I am a bit of a history junkie, so I wanted to learn more about him.
I must confess that I didn't really look much into this Popescu dude until @siggy47 mentioned yesterday that my writing style is similar; just more friendly.
I don't want to dump more work on you, but when you're done with this experiment I hope you keep writing these posts everyday as a sort of blog. Your writing style is addicting. Kind of a more friendly Popescu. I read it to see what's going on in that head of yours more than for this experiment. I bet I'm not the only one.
I looked into trilema.com and even the domain name was something that inspired me. The front page also loads random posts on every site fresh. Also something that I can imagine myself doing.
However, I would never host a site without TLS enabled. I know that it might not make total sense for something like a blog3 but with my background in cryptography, that's just a no-go for me when it comes to my own sites.
I am very happy that @siggy47 mentioned this. I am still processing what it means for me though.
It feels like I passed some kind of writing event horizon.

Challenge of the Day

I don't know, why are you asking me? Go figure out your own challenge of the day.

Song of the Day

And I feel tired Empty and hollow Heart broken inside And I feel this life Has nothing for me anymore
And I feel revived Sacred and honored One of a kind And I feel this life Is something I was chosen for
Crazy to think about that I tried to learn this song on guitar 10 years ago. You can't believe how proud I was that I figured out how to play the first 9 seconds. Not in the same speed, but the intro was recognizable.

Maybe I should have ended this series while I had the chance to end on a nice number like 21. I also created a freebie comment yesterday on accident. This was one of the original loss conditions for this series that started as a game.

images generated using leonardo.ai

Footnotes

  1. Jim Shore, Fail Fast
  2. To be fair, they were all somewhat related to receiving afaict. For example, list_invoices (to list invoices) and list_payments (to list payments) were mentioned. Later, another method was discovered: list_transactions should do what list_invoices and list_payments does in one call.
  3. Even Paul Graham's blog didn't use TLS in the past. It now does for some reason though.
Wow, thanks for surfacing my parenting post and more importantly, highlighting the bit that you resonated with.
I may be playing the victim card here but heck. Part of what angers me in my parenting journey is how the narrative in Singapore has always been about the financial costs of raising kids. We had a parenting campaign whose slogan was “Have three or more, if you can afford it”. I welcome the baby bonuses and free vaccinations and other monetary incentives - but I feel sick that the non-monetary costs are hardly discussed. It’s such a simplistic and reductionist approach of framing things. You highlighting that part made me feel that my pains are acknowledged. I don’t even need to feel accepted. That’s why I barely flinched when 1-2 Stackers basically asked me to man up in the kindest way they could haha. Because I felt heard.
I want to share something that none of the Stackers talked about but really helped me tremendously. It happened last December when I was watching a Japanese celebrity undergoing a fortune-telling session. The celebrity asked the fortune-teller if he should get married. The fortune-teller said that regardless of whether he got married or not, he would regret it because he hates feeling trapped. A case of darn if you do, darner if you don’t.
I just felt so relieved hearing those words because basically that’s it: I hate feeling trapped. Then I came across this fabulous quotation by Soren Kierkegaard 1813–55:
My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both.
I won’t call it an epiphany but this bolt of realisation just made all the mental clutter and swirling feelings settle down like sentiments on the rock bed.
I regret becoming a father. But I also know that I will regret not becoming a father.
I think this quotation helps me because it makes me realise that there are assorted costs related to either choice. Life is complicated as such.
I hope this helps you when you come to that stage in life.
Nonetheless, I’m so glad I posted that post because I apply these pieces of advice put forth by Stackers in my life these days:
Trim the fat. Make him love reading. Tell yourself “I get to do it” rather than “I have to do it”. Remember your wife is as burnt out as you are. Building a family is long-lasting; working as a corporate rat is temporary. Keep in mind the low time-preference. Do things to enjoy your kids. The storm will pass.
I tell myself this every day ☝️😃
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I want to share something that none of the Stackers talked about but really helped me tremendously. It happened last December when I was watching a Japanese celebrity undergoing a fortune-telling session. The celebrity asked the fortune-teller if he should get married. The fortune-teller said that regardless of whether he got married or not, he would regret it because he hates feeling trapped. A case of darn if you do, darner if you don’t.
I just felt so relieved hearing those words because basically that’s it: I hate feeling trapped. Then I came across this fabulous quotation by Soren Kierkegaard 1813–55:
My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both.
I won’t call it an epiphany but this bolt of realisation just made all the mental clutter and swirling feelings settle down like sentiments on the rock bed.
I regret becoming a father. But I also know that I will regret not becoming a father.
I think this quotation helps me because it makes me realise that there are assorted costs related to either choice. Life is complicated as such.
Ohh, that's a great way to look at it! I also came to this realization a while ago.
Most of the times, (hard) decisions are not about not regretting the decision ever, but regretting them less and shorter than the alternatives. Especially when the decisions are hard, it's just about trade-offs. Knowing what is more important to you in the long run. There is no "perfect decision".
For example, will I regret speaking up or will I regret not speaking up? I will regret both in some way but I will regret more and longer when I don't speak up. Life isn't fair but it's good to know that it isn't.
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I'm glad you highlighted a couple of @cryotosensei's posts. He's been my favorite newish contributor.
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He has some great perspectives on things.
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See, this is why SN is groundbreaking.
I can go back and zap @siggy47 more sats for that article than the pathetic zap I initially gave it. Probably because I was too enthralled with the story and researching it afterwards. (I'll blame it on that instead of me being a cheap-ass)
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Thanks! I feel the same way when I look back at old zaps. Nemo really changed the zapping standard on SN. He was a one man revolution.
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The original Satbomber… mad as a box of frogs that stacker!
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I also created a freebie comment yesterday on accident. This was one of the original loss conditions for this series that started as a game.
And you didn’t start the comment with ‘I’m just a poor boy nobody loves me…’
Yet you are a poor boy… disappointing lol
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You had to get the Queen reference in, didn't you?
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Of course! Freebie posts have to have conse-queen-ces….
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Fun fact: Mircea Popescu put a bounty on Pieter Wuille’s head
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21 sats \ 5 replies \ @ek OP 19 Jan
Huh, interesting even though "interesting" is probably not the right word. But I am also not surprised. I didn't read much yet about Popescu but what I read sounds like a generally unhinged person.
I searched around and found this article from Bitcoin Magazine and they linked to the blog post with the bounty: There's a one Bitcoin reward for the death of Pieter Wuille.
Skimming through it, I guess the reason for the bounty was SegWit?
I have a lot of reading to do. Unfortunately, he used some weird calendar to date his posts: Wednesday, 03 April, Year 5 d.Tr.
Anyone knows what d.Tr. means? Does it stand for the creation of the blog/bitcoin? So it starts counting from 2008 since that's when the blog started according to the footer?
Copyright © 2008 - 2024 for all text and images. Trilema is. Everything else's just hearsay.
Btw, if you use a link without a / at the end, the site just closes. Very interesting person indeed (or just a bug). Example:
vs
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I didn't read much yet about Popescu but what I read sounds like a generally unhinged person.
It annoys me when people are like oh what a nut, can you believe it, what a toxic OG lol instead of what an epic fuckwad. Death threats are not funny. They are not foibles of somebody's quirky personality that we should chuckle and shake our heads about.
If that guy really did drown everyone in btc from top to bottom is better off for it.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 19 Jan
I am a little confused, did you quote me as inspiration to talk about other people or did you feel that my quote sounded like these people:
oh what a nut, can you believe it, what a toxic OG lol
If so, that wasn't my intention, since I agree with you:
Death threats are not funny. They are not foibles of somebody's quirky personality that we should chuckle and shake our heads about.
I would say there aren't many things that I wouldn't make fun of in some way but inciting violence as part of a "joke" is definitely a no-go—kind of weird that I am even writing this.
I also absolutely hate a lot of these prank videos online. Even people who watch them make me sick since they already gave these people what they want: your click and your attention. So I am also kind of sick myself since by definition, I also watched some of them. They are just clicks on the expense of other people. People don't even need anonymity on the internet to be fuckwads. Enough clicks and attention can apparently compensate for the lack of anonymity of some actions.
But I get it. It's like watching an accident happen in real time. And social media addiction kind of makes people forget about decency. The first thing that often comes into mind is often: "I can post this on social media!"1
I am not sure if it really became worse thanks to social media (or the internet in general) or if the internet just makes us more aware of what always was the case. For example, I really like this clip of a German police officer:
Footnotes
  1. Myself included, it happens to me too with SN.
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I am a little confused, did you quote me as inspiration to talk about other people or did you feel that my quote sounded like these people
No, just that he came up just now and it reminded me of the stuff I wrote about.
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No idea regarding d.Tr.
Mircea Popescu also started the "The Real Bitcoin" fork. It forked off at v5.3 or so, before the introduction of P2SH, because the project was diverging from Satoshi’s vision.
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Apparently there are still two such listening nodes on the network.
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Challenge of the day. Get outside and get fresh air. The air temp here is single digits and I ran over 7 miles in the snow slop. Proof of work!
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lmao appreciate someone recognizes my pain!
multi_pay_invoice and multi_pay_keysend are for just doing multiple payments in a single command, to save on the number of requests needed, nothing to do with AMP
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457 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek OP 19 Jan
multi_pay_invoice and multi_pay_keysend are for just doing multiple payments in a single command, to save on the number of requests needed, nothing to do with AMP
lol, naming is confusing then, maybe we should rename them? ;)
half-joking
to save on the number of requests needed, nothing to do with AMP
what about one call to drain a wallet? i imagine this could be very useful for some people.
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no more commands 😭
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I have to zap this post the hard way.
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Crypto revenue is on the rise. Is this a sign that the posts are getting better?
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108 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 19 Jan
Since thanks to this Z2Z experiment I am running I often don't have 1k sats myself, I lowered it to 512 sats now.
I mentioned that I would refund people who post actual cryptography stuff. So I would need enough sats in my wallet to refund these people. That wasn't easy when it costs 1k sats to post.
Also, I would have to pay my own fee when I found something interesting which is annoying, lol
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Ah, ok !
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