BooksAndArticles

Diana was a very respected lady in the apartment building where I’ve lived for years. We had a family acquaintance and would often visit each other’s homes.

Diana left this life quite suddenly and at a very young age. She was only 57 years old. Three weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, she left her house to take a walk in one of the parks in our city, which lies around a lake. Poor Diana left on her own two feet and returned on the stretcher of an ambulance. 

While walking through the park, she suffered a sudden heart attack and died on one of the park’s pathways, near a plum tree.

I wasn’t in the city when it happened, so I couldn’t attend her funeral. Instead, I went to her house afterward. I found only her husband, Spiro. Their children, a son and a daughter, had already performed all the funeral rites and returned to their homes—her son in the Netherlands and her daughter in Canada.

As I was speaking with Spiro, the house cat, Pisua, came near and rubbed against my legs. “Poor cat,” said Spiro, “he’s sad. For the first three or four days, he hid in the wardrobe, among Diana’s clothes, and wouldn’t come out—not even to drink water or eat food.” Apparently, Spiro told me, the cat had seen the entire scene when they brought the lifeless body home in the ambulance, when they placed her in the coffin, and so on. It seemed as if the cat, too, was mourning the loss of the lady of the house.

In the days that followed, the image of the grieving cat stayed with me—the way he hid in the wardrobe, among Diana’s clothes.

But perhaps it wasn’t exactly grief, I thought to myself. The poor cat, frightened when he saw his owner lying in a coffin, must have felt uncertain and scared, and in search of safety, he chose a closed, enclosed space.

There is said that cats are deeply connected to their territory, often perceiving it as essential for their sense of safety and existence. Maybe Diana’s scent among the clothes, in one way or another, created in the cat’s brain the feeling that she hadn’t left, but was still present there, in the wardrobe.

But perhaps it goes deeper, I thought, and I recalled the belief that cats are among the animals that understand humans best—they feel the emotions and sentiments of those they are close to and with whom they have a special bond.

That last thought seemed a bit exaggerated to me, and I remembered Hachiko, the famous dog from the movie of the same name, who kept waiting for his owner even years after he had died. People say, not without reason, that the dog is the most loyal animal and the most inclined to serve humans. Still, I reasoned, Hachiko is a fictional character, even though at the beginning of the film it says it’s based on a true story. To make the film more compelling and emotional, it’s possible the creators exaggerated the dog’s loyalty after his master’s death.

But maybe the exaggeration isn’t that great, I reconsidered, as I recalled another dog—Argos, Odysseus’ dog—who is the only one to recognize his master when he returns after twenty years of war and wandering. Worn out from neglect, the dog died just moments after confirming that his master was alive and had come back.

Argos’s loyalty to his master contrasts sharply with the other characters, especially the many suitors who aimed to usurp the throne, steal Penelope, and kill his son, Telemachus. It’s no coincidence that scholars note the language used in the poem to describe Argos’s death resembles the language used for the death of noble warriors.

It’s hard to say whether animals, including Diana’s cat, actually mourn. Skeptics might be right in saying that such beliefs are rooted in humans’ anthropomorphic tendencies—in other words, the tendency to interpret every noble trait in animals as something borrowed from humans. But perhaps we can say with some certainty that some animals, even without knowing what mourning is, feel the absence of their four-legged companions—and even of their two-legged masters—with sadness.

Surely, they don’t know the word “mourning,” and they don’t understand human customs and conventions, but they seem to experience the void left by death. And if that’s true, then the phrase “In the beginning was the Word” should be replaced with “In the beginning was the feeling.”

In the beginning was the feeling...

AskSN

I'm curious about what such an album would sound like for you. Would it be techno, metal, folk... 

Which music genre would best suit this album? What kind of titles, lyrics, and moods would capture the spirit of decentralization, cryptography, and financial revolution? 

I would like to see a **hip-hop** album inspired by Bitcoin because of its revolutionary, subversive tone. I mean a serious project.  

I'd love to hear your imaginative takes.

What would a music album entirely inspired by Bitcoin sound like?

econ

Would life have been better if we had stayed on a gold standard?

stack_harder

Maybe yes, in terms of inflation control and monetary discipline.

Probably not when it comes to economic flexibility, responding to crises, and promoting growth.

For me it would be empathy: **the ability to deeply understand and feel what others are experiencing**.

Empathy is not a cure-all—but as a universal baseline, it could move humanity closer to a more understanding, humane, and sustainable way of living. 

The key would be balancing empathy with wisdom and boundaries.

What would you choose?

If you could implant one value into humans being at birth, what would it be?

bitcoin

🚨 $330M in Bitcoin VANISHED — No Hack, Just a Mind Game! 🧠💥

One of the biggest crypto heists of 2025 just went down:

💸 3,520 BTC (~$330.7M) was stolen from a U.S.-based wallet.

But here’s the shocking part:
🔓 No smart contract flaws
🛡️ No blockchain bugs
❌ No tech failure at all… just human trust exploited.

---
🕵️ What Actually Happened?
This wasn’t a hack.

It was a social engineering trap — a psychological hustle, not a technical one. 🎭
Scammers acted like trusted providers, slowly earning trust over WEEKS.
Then — boom — they got access to sensitive wallet info.
🔥 Within hours, the BTC was gone…
🧱 Laundered through 50+ wallets & 20+ exchanges.
Untraceable. Untouchable.

---
👀 Social Engineering in Crypto?

It’s not your blockchain that’s vulnerable…
It’s YOU — your habits, your emotions, your attention. 💡

🎣 Scammer Playbook: • Fake tech support “helpers”. 
• Phishing emails/websites 🎯
• Impersonating devs, friends, even exchange staff 😨

---
⚠️ Why This Should Scare You
This BTC wasn’t sitting hot on an exchange...
It was in cold storage. ❄️🔐
The wallet was secure — the judgment wasn’t. 🧠💔

---
🛡️ How to Stay Safe in 2025 (and beyond):
✅ Never share your seed phrase — EVER.
✅ Use multi-sig wallets for large bags 🏦
✅ Triple-check links, emails, and identities 🔍
🚩 If it feels urgent, emotional, or pressure-filled —
💣 It’s probably a SCAM.

---
📢 Final Reminder:

Blockchain is safe.
💬 People are the backdoor.
Don’t get socially hacked.
🧠 Think.
🖱️ Click smart.
💬 Trust slow.


$330M in Bitcoin VANISHED — No Hack, Just a Mind Game!

ideasfromtheedge

As you read Emil Cioran's essays and aphorisms, you're not just “reading” to find answers. Instead, you're entering into a dialogue with a brilliant madman who seems to understand the deep-seated unease we sometimes feel about life's inherent contradictions.

There’s no fluff in his writings, no appeasement, no desire to reinforce the illusions we’ve all grown accustomed to. But, he also understood that many of us “last only as long as our fictions.”

Cioran's words resonate with the dark side of who we are—the part that sometimes wonders if it's all worth it—the daily grind, the pursuit of meaning, the endless striving. He’s not for the faint of heart, but his bleak insight is laced with a strange beauty.

[Read more](https://poeticoutlaws.substack.com/p/emil-cioran-the-tired-intellectual?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true)

Emil Cioran: The Tired Intellectual

movies

Is America the greatest country on world?

B_for_Bitcoin

America is so in love with itself that it is too blind to see, that it's not everybody's darling. There are other nations, other cultures, other volks out there with their own greatness.

Socrates: “Every wrongful act stems from ignorance, and the mind does not commit errors.”

Ignorance isn’t the only reason men do wrong. Some know better and still take the bad road because it’s easy, because it pays, because they want to. The mind isn’t perfect. It fools itself. It justifies what it shouldn’t. A man can stare truth in the face and still turn away.

Aristotle: “Most human actions arise from the non-rational parts of the soul.”

Men don’t live by reason alone. They act from hunger, from fear, from things buried deep. They tell themselves they have reasons, but often, it’s just the body talking. It’s the old instincts, the old habits, the pull of comfort. A man fights this or he doesn’t.

Spinoza: “Desires are the source of actions, and the mind succumbs to the power of desire.”

Desire is a hard thing. It moves men. It makes them weak, makes them strong, makes them fools. But the mind isn’t helpless. A man can turn his back on desire. He can hold the line. He can train himself to want better things. But it takes work. It takes knowing himself.

Schopenhauer: “Human actions cannot be predicted, for they stem from a blind, purposeless will.”

Men aren’t leaves in the wind. They have patterns. They have ways. If you watch them long enough, you see it. They think they act on a whim, but their past, their nature, their choices—these things steer them. The world is not blind. It just doesn’t care.

Freud: “The mind manifests as an influential actor when satisfying instincts; all human actions have instinctual roots.”

Instinct runs deep, but a man is more than hunger and lust. He can choose. He can suffer for something bigger. He can walk away from what his body screams for. Some men do. Some men don’t. That’s what makes the difference.

Dostoevsky: “Man does not act out of knowledge as much as he does out of habit.”

A man is his habits more than his thoughts. He may know better, but he will still wake, eat, drink, and sin as he always has. Change is slow. Hard. Some never do it. They live the same day over and over until they die.

Nietzsche: “The mind that does not destroy the old world—the world entrenched in the depths of the universal mind—is slavery. The mind tethered to a stake…”

If a man never breaks the chains of old ideas, he stays a slave. The world is built on the past, but a man must tear it down if it holds him back. He must burn the old gods, the old rules, and make his own way. Otherwise, he is not free.

Slaves to the past or masters of ourselves?

Stacker Saloon

saloon

Your life is like a coin.
You can spend it however you want.
But only once…

Positive and optimistic people attract everyone. After all, who wouldn’t want to be around someone with a radiant aura, a constant smile, and an energy that lights up the room? Someone whose mere presence lifts your spirits, guaranteeing a good time? Someone who always sees the glass half full, finds a ray of light even in darkness, and holds onto it?

Such a person has so much to offer. Isn’t their example alone a source of inspiration? Doesn’t it make you want to adopt parts of their mindset? Why? Because life gets better that way! You learn to rely on yourself, trust your own strength, and take life as it comes—without negativity or defeatism. You know you’ll find something positive in every situation and take what it has to offer. After all, challenges and setbacks are often the most constructive experiences.

Today, I met someone like that. They filled my day with light and joy. I feel like a better person today.

I feel like a better person today

Last evening, during my afternoon walk, I heard the voice of a child coming from the veranda of the neighboring villa.

"I have a bicycle," said the silhouette of a girl, perhaps 5 or 6 years old.

I told her that the bike was so beautiful, even though it was dusk, and I could barely make out the silhouette of the bicycle.

"I's my birthday today. And my dad bought it for me," said the little girl. I wished her a happy birthday and told her that good girls always receive gifts.

With the pleasant feeling that this little exchange created, I continued on my way. If she had been a bit older, say 10 or 12 years old, I thought to myself, she likely wouldn’t have spoken to me to share the joy of her day with a random stranger.

And I couldn’t quite explain why, as time passes, the childlike inclination to speak about one's emotions, to share happiness or sadness with others, fades or even disappears.

Anyone who has an answer—or even a guess—is kindly invited to tell me.

Why does our childlike urge to share emotions fade over time?

One that comes to my mind is this: governments may attempt to impose tighter controls (although without results) on these technologies to protect their own financial systems. 


What are the biggest challenges that Bitcoin and Nostr can face in future?

"Later"
 -Talk to you later.
 -I'll call you later.
 -See you later.
 -We'll walk later.
 "I'll tell you later."
 We leave everything for later, but forget that "later" does not belong to us.
 Later, our loved ones are no longer with us.
 Later, we don't hear them and we don't see them.
 Later, they are just memories.
 Later, the day becomes night, the force becomes helpless,
 the smile becomes a grimace, and life becomes death.
 "Later" becomes "too late."

Later

War spreads across the world. It is a simple thing, how it moves from place to place, leaving death behind. In Africa they fight. In Europe they wait to fight. The big men in their offices talk of strategy while people die. They do not care. They never have.

The corporations take what they want. The hungry stay hungry. The rich get richer. That is how it has always been. But now it is worse. Now the people are desperate. When people are desperate they pick up guns.

Russia watches and waits. They know about nuclear weapons. The West pretends not to see what it has done. Their newspapers write clean words about dirty wars. The bombs do not care who they kill.

It is all connected now. Each bullet fired makes the next one easier. The men who call themselves leaders speak of freedom while they count their money and their dead. They build walls of lies to hide behind.

We must choose. We can die in their war or we can fight for something true. There is no middle way anymore. That is finished.

No good way to die

On Humanity:

Dostoevsky: "Man is a living being who walks on two legs, yet is ungrateful."

Nietzsche: "Man is nothing but a being that must be surpassed."

On Life:

Dostoevsky: "Every person in this world must love life, not try to understand it."

Nietzsche: "Life is nothing but a smile on a dead man’s lips."

On Happiness:

Dostoevsky: "I am searching for happiness, but: where is it?"

Nietzsche: "We have invented happiness as an invention."

On Contentment:

Dostoevsky: "At first, they cried; then they adapted and got used to it. Man can adapt to anything… how despicable."

Nietzsche: "In truth, I hate those who see everything as good and this world as the best of worlds. These are merely the contented ones who accept everything and savor it without true taste."

On Reason:

Dostoevsky: "Reason guides me, and that is precisely what has destroyed me."

Nietzsche: "The most deeply rooted beliefs in the mind are those things that seem unbelievable."

On the Heart:

Dostoevsky: "He fell victim to his great belief in the nobility of the human heart."

Nietzsche: "I love only what man has written with his blood… desire runs deeper than heartbreak."

On Homeland:

Dostoevsky: "The days are gone when our parents worried about us abroad. Now, in our estrangement, we fear for them at home."

Nietzsche: "Every homeland has its own hypocrisy, which it calls its virtues. As for its best qualities, it is ignorant of them and refuses to know them."

On Children:

Dostoevsky: "The soul is healed by being with children."

Nietzsche: "No nation can thrive if the roots of its children are corrupted."

On Love:

Dostoevsky: "He loved her greatly but hated that absurd excess in showing emotions. He despised those feelings that resembled the emotions of cattle."

Nietzsche: "There is not enough love and goodness in this world for us to abandon either to imaginary beings."

A Philosophical Duel Between Dostoevsky and Nietzsche

The value of Bitcoin is distinct from its price, as is the case with any other currency, whether fiat or alternative. Value is an intrinsic measure determined by the defining characteristics that compose the nature and functionality of a currency, whether it is fiat or alternative. Price, on the other hand, is influenced by external factors beyond the qualitative characteristics of the currency. The value of Bitcoin is what gives meaning to its functionality and its use by many users worldwide. The question is, what factor breathes life into this value?

This value does not stem from the fact that each unit of Bitcoin represents a certain value of fiat money in digital form. It is not backed by any tangible asset, such as fiat currencies like the US dollar, the euro, etc. While it may express such a value, it remains independent of the conditions of existence and circulation of fiat money. To be concise, the real value of Bitcoin primarily depends on its utility and secondarily on its scarcity.

In contrast to price, the value of Bitcoin is not a fluctuating measure influenced, for instance, by adoption levels or speculations regarding its use and strength in the transactional market compared to other currencies. Bitcoin is supported not by any asset but by its core Code and its utility, which is a derivative of this Code and the Blockchain ledger.

The fact that Bitcoin is not a centralized network driven by a single issuing authority or a trusted third party, but rather a decentralized and distributed network across many users, relying solely on its Code as an automated, programmed, and programmable "authority," is what empowers the currency. Its independence from any entity, particularly an organization with specific policies imposing restrictive terms on the currency's functionality, coupled with its ongoing programmability, is precisely what creates Bitcoin's utility.

As a programmable currency, it can have various functionalities—from a simple payment method or investment medium to independence from the international banking system and any intermediary in all types of transactions. This includes the creation of DACs (Decentralized Autonomous Corporations), the first decentralized companies that operate without actual labor provided by employees. Bitcoin’s flexibility has resulted in the community continuously discovering new uses for the currency.

The scarcity of Bitcoin comes second, primarily because, without its utility, Bitcoin would not have achieved the adoption and growth it has seen. Scarcity, as a measure, is mainly related to the limited number of bitcoins that can ever be produced. The total number of bitcoins cannot exceed 21 million. Every four years, the number of bitcoins produced is halved until it reaches the maximum limit of 21 million, which is the ultimate cap for now.

The value of Bitcoin is distinct from its price

Fun Fact Friday - Best Fun Fact Gets 5,000 CCs

Before erasers were invented, people used bread to remove pencil marks.

![](https://m.stacker.news/73410)

news

The "freedom of expression" touted by the tech moguls is a blatant fraud. Behind their hypocritical proclamations of free speech lies repression, censorship, and authoritarianism. A striking example is the case of Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, whose cartoon was censored for the first time since she began working at the newspaper in 2008. The cartoon depicted billionaires bowing down to Trump.

As Ann Telnaes herself noted in a post:

>The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

Censorship…

culture

Missing the Point: Vote the Bums Out!

kepford

Well said. Focusing on politicians as if they’re the root of the problem misses the bigger picture.