Not a dev, but IMHO stress testing custodial wallets just leads to their demise more quickly and shows how custodial is not meant for mass usage. And from a user's perspective, jumping from one custodial app to another gets really annoying. Devs should just focus on building self-custodial solutions like AlbyHub or at least build apps that gradually upgrade a user from custodial to self-custodial.

Custodial solutions has its place for specific use cases like initial onboarding of merchants, which Coinos was perfect for, but it should have stayed small and local. It would be a shame if non-merchant users degrade the service to the point where it becomes unusable to actual merchants.

In Mary Roach's Packing for Mars, she writes about NASA doing research and performing tests on how long someone can go without a shower. The test subjects described the first couple days without showering to be the most uncomfortable, but after getting past the initial discomfort, they were able to adjust and didn't feel strong inclinations to shower anymore. When our body is replenishing the natural oils on recently cleaned skin, that's when we feel most icky, but once it achieves a balanced state, we feel less gross if that makes sense.

Blocking DNS queries to social media and distracting sites is next level. Do you read physical books only then? Or do you consider reading on a kindle not part of screen time?

Is this a new blog? I really like his thoughts and perspective in this post, so looking forward to more in the future.

I highly recommend you listen to this podcast episode about Anom (https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/146/). Anom was an encrypted phone with a backdoored e2ee messager app that was created and maintained by the FBI and sold specifically to criminals. These phones and messaging app were used to facilitate drug business operations and coordinate murders. I think it will challenge your views about these matters.

And then what will you do when they unban it?

Good point showing how this manifests in other fields. Cal seems to think this tradeoff is not as lopsided on newer platforms where creators can have a much closer engagement with their audience.

It reads like SN's node didn't want to send the zap to your node because the fee (1 sat) was too high for their liking. This tends to happen for small zap amounts. I suggest just changing your settings so that you receive CCs for low zap amounts.

Yea, there's a lot more variables that make up a bitcoin wallet, and xpubs aren't enough sometimes. Wallet output descriptors has better interoperability between different wallets if they are supported.

Sparrow also allows you to export the wallet's output descriptor and you can import that into BlueWallet instead. The output descriptor contains the derivation path (should start with wpkh([00000000/84h/0h/0h]), and BlueWallet should be able to read that.

During the weekdays, I run around 5-6 kms 2-3 times a week, and then do a long run 10-25 kms in the weekend.

I'm a running maxi and believe that our bodies are built to run. Compared to other animals, humans are uniquely equipped to run very long distances. We are able to sweat through our skin, which keeps our body cool over long periods of exertion, and our respiratory system remains stable and does not get compressed while running. Animals, on the other hand, struggle to stay cool over long distances and their respiratory system contracts due to their running form. We also have strong butts to stay upright and support our upper body and our feet is designed to have bounce and be like a spring. Christopher McDougall's Born to Run is what really inspired me to get serious about running, and a lot of what I wrote here is from that book.

Running is also good for our bones, which is why pro cyclists in the off season use running to stay fit. Since cycling is a non-contact sport, running ends up being a good way to strengthen their legs.

The Logitech Ergo M575 is below $50. It's small and can connect via bluetooth and wireless dongle so you can have it set up for two computers. It's a thumb trackball mouse, but I've gotten so used to it and it doesn't take up much desk space.

I think it's a positive that libraries offer more to the public than just books. Patrons who visit the library for the amenities are actually more likely to checkout a physical book than other patrons who don't even visit the library at all. It's actually one of the rare public spaces where you can hang out and handle your own business without getting bothered, which is great especially for youth and kids.

I'm actually currently in the middle of the third book Death's End, but I enjoyed reading the second book The Dark Forest much more than the first book. I actually thought the first book was meh, but it sets the stage for the big ideas Cixin Liu explores in the following books.

Even though the Japanese have a really strong passport, I don't think they do much international travel interestingly enough.

But then the customer gets frustrated and from now on decides to buy posters from a different merchant who accepts the forked coin, so now more economic activity ends up happening on the forked coin. So in anticipation of that, you are incentivized to sell your posters at enough of a discount, so that the customer is more willing to make an effort to figure out how to send you bitcoin that your node accepts instead of leaving for another merchant. Offering a discount is in a way paying to enforce your node's rules, or is that too far-fetched?

BitcoinMechanic recently posted on youtube discussing exactly this and echoes a lot of what @Scoresby talks about in this post and both argue why sovereign permissionless medium of exchange is what ultimately defines bitcoin's properties as hard money. It's an hour long, but the key points are made after 46:36.

He talks about gold and how even though gold isn't really used as a medium of exchange, it still has scarcity and store of value properties due to its molecular properties being enforced by the laws of physics.

But because bitcoin is digital, it's scarcity of 21 million and SoV properties is only maintained when people are actively using it and enforcing the rules embedded in code with each interaction/exchange. And if an overwhelming majority of bitcoin's economic activity is through third parties who then get to define the rules, then bitcoin's hard moneyness is vulnerable to capture.

Key Quote: "Bitcoin is not hard money unless it's used actively by people who are asking permission from no one. That's the only way it maintains it and I mean that with regards to storing it, taking custody of it themselves, and using it as a permissionless medium of exchange. If they don't do the latter... and the trend is away from using as a medium of exchange, then ultimately 21 million is not going to mean anything."

If you have Alby Hub set up, then you can use the subaccounts feature and just create wallets with an initial balance for players. This allows players who don't have existing lightning wallets to play Monopoly with sats! And I believe transactions between subaccounts within the same Alby Hub don't actually go through the lightning network so its zero fee and you gain some privacy.

Yea, I found the answer via the search in SN, but it took some digging and persistence on my part.