🇧🇪 🇪🇸 Friday last week we flew up to Belgium to be there over the weekend for V's Mum's birthday. It was a surprise visit - that is why I could not say anything last week! This was a short visit - just a couple of days but we did pack in quite a few things. A busy weekend! We will be back again the coming months, each time just passing through but if you want to meet up, let me know and I'll let you know next trip. Also you are welcome to meet us as we travel around - just reach out!

Family and friends

While in Belgium we also took the opportunity to meet up with a few friends who we had not seen for quite some time. It was nice to meet up for dinner and breakfast together. A few others were caught out by our surprise visit and they were out of town or unavailable at short notice - we'll meet next time!

Also we had a great family dinner to celebrate V's mum's birthday. All the Belgian side of the family was there. This was the main reason for our visit and it was great to meet everyone. You have to seize every opportunity when you can.

Travel experience

Travel was pretty smooth all the way from Palma until we got to Brussels and then we encountered chaos and infrastructure failure. The escalators were broken to bring people into the airport so there were people everywhere struggling with suitcases trying to go up broken escalators to departures on the top floor. The super slow lifts were not much help, stopping at every floor and just frustrating everyone.

We were going down to the train station but things were not better there. The station was full of people standing around. No staff to be seen anywhere except a few who were cowering behind the ticket counter with large crowds in front.

V and I had bought 1st class tickets online and paid the Diablo airport tax premium. Even so only V's ticket worked and barriers would not open for me. Of course there was nobody to help. After trying several ticket gates with the same result I just tailgated someone thru the gate. Alarms went off and the gates tried to capture me but I just pushed though. Nobody took any notice; perhaps this is just normal in Belgium?

Down on the platform we then found that the train was 50 minutes late. Needless to say it was pretty full when it did finally arrive. Only due to V's assertiveness did we manage to get seats and of course, being the Amsterdam train, we held on tightly to our belongings.

FYI on the platform under the airport the cellular data doesn't work; I could not get a working connection. There is NMBS wifi but you need to sign up with an email address to which they will send you a logon code that of course you cannot receive because you cannot connect. Fully useless. What moron designed this system?

Antwerp station was also pretty chaotic with large crowds simultaneously arriving and departing and everyone getting in everyone else's way! I am sure that other train journeys we have done in our travels have been a bit smoother than all this.

Book and Interview of the week

This week with all the travelling I had plenty of time for reading and I read one of the the most interesting books I have found in many years. You should get your own copy while you still can and consider its contents.

This is a long book at 736 pages and it is better to have your own paper copy if/while you can get it. Since I am travelling I got it for now just on Kindle and I highlighted no less than 50 sections in chapter 1 alone. This book is dynamite and you need to have your copy - it was published in 2012 but every page resonates with and explains what is happening today and over the last few years.

If this all sounds like the ramblings of a lunatic, then this book is probably not for you and I would respectfully suggest that you replace it back in its place on the shelf and go ‘back to sleep’ along with the rest of the populace. 

If however, these words have stirred something within your soul and awakened an interest or a desire to find out more and/or actually do something about it, even if only for the sake of the future of your own children and their children, then please read on. 
- John Hamer

Coincidentally (in truth there are no coincidences), Richard was interviewing the author of this book (and many more) this week. I whole-heartedly recommend that you take a listen to their discussion. If you are awake it will reassure you and make you more curious. BTW, Jason corroborates this here.

They conclude with some rather positive messages and I must say that I tend to agree. As I have said many times, the world is a very big place (and I do my best to show you that via this newsletter) - there are plenty of places that you have have superior quality of life and can avoid much of the lunacy that has metastasised throughout western society. Jurisdictional arbitrage and Sovereign Individual playbook.

Life is not just about "having a good time". There is so much that has been hidden from you and obfuscated. Some that he covers in the book include: the power of thoughts and human consciousness to physically affect material substances, the interconnectedness of all physical and non-physical matter, remote-viewing and the interchange-ability of cause and effect.

You can click through here for reviews and the Table of Contents.

More in this issue

• Photo memories - weekend in Belgium
• Project Updates - more Linux tools and Cashu transforms money & cash
• Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
• Closing out - a couple of paradoxes and some deeper thinking

🛠️ Project Updates

The following are updates from some projects that I am using, following, supporting and collaborating with. What are you doing?

Not-so-boring backups!

First up is a really nice project. I have long been frustrated that the backup solutions on linux, while powerful, are not user-friendly. Until now they lacked the ease of use of things like Apple's Time Machine. All change now - Pika backup is a great solution with all the user-friendliness that you need as well as excellent support for backing up to remote servers.

Give it a go and let me know your opinion. Do you have other or better options?

Cashu Gateways

Developments are racing ahead apace in the Cashu world. Watch below for a simple demo, running on two independent phones. Remember that this all runs within your browser so it is not dependent on any App Store and it works too on PC and Mac browsers.

Several technologies are at play here - can you count them? Let me know!

Flight time

With all the time on planes and in airports over the last week I got to listen to quite a few excellent podcasts. Sharing them here for your enjoyment and learning

First up is a great interview of Jeff Booth by Stephan. Jeff is the author of "The Price of Tomorrow" - an excellent book that I have reviewed here and strongly recommend. Listen as he explains the mind of the bitcoiner and how we view the nonsense of Keynesian economics but also what he and many others are building.

I agree completely with Jeff's sentiment: you/we need to be careful where we spend our energy. Be sure to do so in positive directions and work with those who are looking forward and building - do not waste time with detractors and NPCs.

Next up is great interview of Will Casarin by Matt. Will is the creator of the Damus Nostr client and he was one of the key drivers that got Nostr going. He was also the inventor of "zaps", the ability to send lightning tips to others over Nostr. Listen as he explains how he has been taking Damus forward and the developments that are currently ongoing. Damus is one of my favourite Nostr clients; as you should know a big advantage of Nostr is that you can use multiple clients and they all just work - each with their own flavour and perspective.

Matt's explanation of the OpenSats story towards the end of the interview is required listening. He is a real force for good and deserves our support.

And here are the young ones! This is a great interview of two young software developers who are working on Nostr as their first real jobs. They are funded by OpenSats. It is fascinating to hear how they think and the solutions that they are inventing and building. Nostr enables so many things.

Lightning - state of the Union

This is a fabulous overview of all of the developments that are now ongoing in and around Lightning. You will be amazed and how international and diverse this is.

We know that Lightning is not perfect for everything and it surely does need to be complemented by other solutions that enable more users to have easier access and onboarding. These are coming with Fedimint and Cashu - as Jeff has explained above.

🔗 Links for your edification

The following are links from my NetNewswire RSS feeds - learn, enjoy and share.

History lesson and what's coming

Thanks to one of my subscribers who pointed out this long read by Lyn Alden. It is a fascinating analysis of how investments have performed over the last 100 years. There are a few shocking findings but the conclusions make sense to all who are awake to what is happening.

Most Investments are Actually Bad. Here’s Why.

Historical data shows that the vast, vast majority of investments perform poorly. This is true for bonds, stocks, and real estate as asset classes. Nearly all of it makes for a bad investment for outside passive investors. And what I’ll show in this piece is that this is both normal and unavoidable. And unintuitively, I’ll […]

Lyn AldenLyn Alden

The successful strategies are basically those that "go short fiat" and use leverage to acquire scarce assets - all the better if they are non-callable - this is Financial Blackjack as she describes. Going forward the IMF points out that "once again, financial repression may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies". Recall our discussion on The Great Taking.

Jurisdictional Arbitrage

This is a great interview of Andrew, done by Saifedean. In the interview they cover all the important aspects of Jurisdictional Arbitrage and Flag Theory. This is important knowledge to have and to use wisely. Don't say that nobody told you!

Ikea - who knew?

Well this is an interesting story - and intriguing explanation of how he makes his videos. Plenty of useful tips and tricks for content creators. And plenty that I did not know about Ikea. How about you?

🤔 Closing Thoughts

I have an interesting selection to close out this week. First up is another set of insights by MLB - too many fires! Next is a couple of rather interesting mathematical paradoxes - WDYT? And I end this week with a musical clip by a very interesting person - more on this will follow.

Fire Games chapter 3

By popular request, MLB is back with a third instalment. This time he picks a city in USA. Watch and listen and tell me if you still believe the mainstream propaganda. He tells you of further revelations that are forthcoming. It is time to wake up and see through the nonsense.

He is forming a team of people to look out for these things around the world - are you up to the challenge?

Russell's Paradox

Continuing this week with another pattern break. This is a fascinating video. I am not a mathematician but mathematics does often fascinate me and this guy does a great job of explaining. This one is for pure information and enjoyment.

As he explains, the fudge that mathematicians apply is to change the rules - however he does on to cite another example where you cannot change the rule - you are stuck with the paradox!

This reminds me of the fun that we had on my birthday back in 2023 with the number 2178 - check here

74 - Another year, another birthday

🇬🇧 Another year, another birthday - older and wiser! This year I am here again in Belfast on my birthday. Just like last year the weather seems to be fine everywhere else except here in Belfast! It was a quieter day than last year and that’s OK. V and I have

Letter from ...around the worldRoger Price

Wake up!

Listen to the rather simple and clear message from Ole and Mo - it's time!

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No one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
- Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix

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You can also email me at: LetterFrom@rogerprice.me

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