🇮🇹 🇮🇪 🇬🇧 Over last weekend V and I travelled back up from Sicily via Dublin to Belfast. We are now staying in Holywood for a short while for family visits and to prepare the next stage of our journey.

Travel was uneventful, if a bit arduous. We had one hour delay and since we only landed in Dublin at 2030, we were indeed rather late to arrive in Holywood! Of course we were welcomed by Northern Ireland's traditional cold, wet and windy weather - quite a change from a month in Palermo. Monday was horrible!

Tuesday evening we had an ad-hoc Bitcoin meetup in Belfast. Just a few of us but we had some good discussion and I got in a few demos of Fedi - a great solution to enable small payments between people using Bitcoin. Remember - it is still early days and you will thank me if you get started ahead of the curve and the crowd. Simplest way is to download the Fedi app and join the Bitcoin Principles community. You can send me a message (I am travellr#9746 ) in this app and I will send you your first bitcoin to welcome you and get you started.

Wednesday and Thursday we had fantastic weather in Holywood and I was very happy to get out and walk along the seafront. Somewhat bracing at times but it is nice to walk along the beach and there are always plenty of people out doing the same. I was happy too to meet up with a few of my former school-mates who still live here!

Before leaving Palermo, V and I did a few more outings, one of which was a day trip to Erice, Trapani and Segesta. I have included a few photos below to give you a taste of the trip. Suffice to say we were really impressed by Sicily and everywhere we went - this island certainly warrants a return visit some time.

Book of the week

This week I have been reading a book by an Italian author - in its English translation. I really do have the impression that Italian scientists and books have been subject to less or different levels of filtering by the Empire.

This is not an easy read (maybe because of the translation) but the content is fascinating since he combines and draws from many of the other sources we have been considering recently - including Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic fields, Ervin Laszlo on the Akashic field, David Bohm and Karl Pribram on Holographic Paradigm, and Masaru Emoto on the memory of water and homeopathy.

For sure, I am not an expert in these matters, nor can I claim to have followed or agreed with all the argumentation but the explanation and the picture presented is certainly interesting and with much merit. Perhaps all the more so when you consider how much the Empire has tried to hamper the work of these scientists over the years. There are certainly some things the Empire does not want you to know or discuss. As always, DYOR.

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied (or suppressed) by the Government - then you know it is true

More in this issue

• Photo memories - a last batch from Sicily: Erice, Trapani and Segesta
• Project Updates - Hands-on - Pixel 7a, Kobo reader and inbound Lightning
• Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
• Closing out - Don't let religiosity get you

🛠️ Project Updates

This week I have a couple of hands-on projects, in addition to the usual Bitcoin projects. First up is a new Pixel phone running GrapheneOS. My trusty Pixel4a phone still works fine (still available at under £100) and I love using it but the camera is not good enough to replace my iPhone - I have a solution! Also, time for me to break free from the Kindle and have an e-reader that lets me easily read all my books.

Pixel 7a

Launched in May of 2023, this is not considered a flagship phone so you can pick these up at a nice price and they are fully supported for security updates through 2028. It is also considered as one of the best Pixels ever made. As you know I do not run Android on these phones, rather GrapheneOS. This operating system focuses on security and privacy and it is great to have all the tracking features removed and disabled.

You will want to set up multiple profiles to compartmentalise apps needing additional security. This is easy to do and once you have done it you will wonder why you never did this before. Neofetch is indeed a nice way to access F-droid for open source apps and Burrito's suggestion (discussed last week) to safely use the PlayStore only when absolutely needed is a good trick to have.

In case you were wondering why you would not want the latest iPhone 16, check out Rob's explainer:

You may have noticed that more and more people seem to have had enough of this nonsense from the phone manufacturers. They are fed up with the relentless new models with useless new features that just enable the Empire to tighten its stranglehold on you and your data. Picking the older models and buying refurbished or renewed seems to make much more sense. What is your view? Happy to discuss!

Kobo reader

I have quite a collection of eBooks in multiple formats that I have gathered over the years. Nice as the Kindle is, it is not good at letting you read things that you did not buy through Amazon. Kindle is very restrictive in formats it accepts and it really wants you to have your entire collection on Amazon servers. As you know, Amazon simply cannot be trusted - they have been caught many times removing access to products that people have purchased and I do not trust them not to modify books either. Jared explains:

For this reason, I keep my book collection in Calibre as I have described before. This supports all formats of eBook and gives you a collection that you can back up and control yourself. Remember, Libation does this for audiobooks.

For years I have been using iBooks on my iPad to read these - though it is also a bit restrictive and reading on an iPad is not the best experience. So I have finally switched to a Kobo reader and it is GREAT! With tons of space, I can have as many books as I like from my collection on my device - all easily searchable and readable on a great eInk display with battery life of several weeks.

Inbound Lightning gets easier

One of the interesting tools that I like to use is Boltz exchange. They make it especially easy to move between Lightning and Liquid. This is an interesting option to have, especially when transaction fees are high. Boltz is also seeking to expand into solving the inbound-liquidity issue more generally for people and merchants.

This is another arrow in the quiver, helping to ease adoption and scale bitcoin.

🔗 Links for your edification

I have a few links this week to give you food for thought. I encourage you to click through to the referenced articles and check them out.

Are you fed up yet?

I did ask this question nearly 3 years ago. Is is certainly instructive to go back and re-read my newsletter of that time and then compare what I expected with what happened as summarised in the latest substack from Alex (below).

Thanks to one of my subscribers for passing this one on to me - Alex' analysis is spot-on. If you were in any doubt as to why it would be good to have fresh passports and Sovereign Individual residence options as well as to own some Bitcoin, this should cure you.

Atlas Shrugged

I had planned for some time to include this in my Book of the week section but I have not yet read it. It is still in my TBR queue but I came across this 6 minute summary and I have got to recommend it and from this the book looks to be even more of an essential read.

Ayn Rand's iconic novel challenges the role of the individual in society. From the determined Dagny Taggart to the mysterious John Galt, this video breaks down the book’s complex ideas about capitalism, innovation, and the human spirit. Whether you’re new to the novel or revisiting its bold message, this summary is perfect for anyone looking to understand its lasting impact.

If you want to listen to John Gault's speech, click below - 4 minutes well spent!

If you have got here and you have not watched the two clips above - STOP and do so now!

Peter has a new moniker

Peter McCormack has been running the What Bitcoin Did podcast for a few years. He has now decided to pivot into long-form interviews on Economic and Societal matters that affect everyone, especially in the UK and are not directly related to Bitcoin.

Allen Farrington is a writer and investor and is one of his first guests. Allen co-wrote Bitcoin is Venice and he’s a co-founder of Axiom, a Bitcoin-focused venture firm.

In this episode, they discuss the distortions caused by fiat money, the consequences of misallocated capital, and the philosophical underpinnings of a Bitcoin standard. They get into how these issues impact both individuals and economies, dissect the flaws of modern capitalism, and discuss how Bitcoin offers a path toward financial sovereignty and a more equitable economic future, as Allen provides a compelling case for why the current system is unsustainable and what can be done to change it. Links to specific topics are below - click and enjoy.

00:00:50 - Housing Bubble, 00:03:33 - What is Fiat Money?, 00:07:40 - Explaining Bitcoin, 00:12:01 - Yuppie Elite and Finance, 00:20:00 - Thatcher-Era Policies, 00:25:00 - Why You Can’t Save with Fiat Money, 00:30:04 - Historical Context of Inflation, 00:36:31 - Capitalism vs. Fiat, 00:40:00 - Managed Decline of Society, 00:47:20 - Unwinding the Credit Bubble, 00:57:26 - How Central Banks Operate, 01:14:10 - Capitalism Under the Gold Standard, 01:23:17 - Bitcoin’s Impact on Credit Creation, 01:37:00 - Personal Responsibility in Bitcoin, 01:40:55 - Money for Grownups

🤔 Closing Thought

This week I have only one closing thought - this is a rather important one. I also feel that I have quite some personal experience in this area and if you look around you can see lots that looks like Belfast in the 1970s but on a wider and grander scale in rather a lot of locations around the world.

Religiosity is a problem

I got quite some interesting feedback on last week's interview of David by Jason. Jason really is moving Archaix to a new level with these interviews of other knowledgeable researchers. These are people who have done their own extensive research over the years and they share their information freely for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

So I do encourage to you listen to this next interview of Affy by Jason. She shares some important insights, amplified and refined with Jason in the discussion. This is particularly relevant to all that you see going on today following the events that kicked off in October last year and which continued to escalate this past week.

You may well recall our discussion back in in Newsletter 55 where we asked which of the world religions was correct. Perhaps they are all correct or maybe they are even all wrong - WDYT? This is a follow up to that discussion giving you some fascinating insights to Islam and how it, just like Christianity, has been subverted over the years to indoctrinate people with beliefs that they will fight for.

To me, as one who grew up in Belfast in the 1970s it is blatantly obvious that religion and sectarianism was used to divide people up against eachother and cause them to expend all their otherwise useful energy fighting eachother. Once you have lived this and seen it first-hand you can easily recognise it when you see it elsewhere - as I did in Hong Kong in 2019 when first the students were split off as enemy of the public followed by a test to stir up religious sectarianism.

If you look at the mainstream media today you will see this writ large everywhere.

Remember the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - you do not need to follow the dungeon programming of the collective. You can choose the alternative path and you will likely be and feel all the better for it.

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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

In case you missed it before, I am including Dinner with André here this week - you really do need to watch this and listen to the dialogue. All of this from 1981, already 43 years ago.

Any questions or anything else? Feel free to comment below!
You can also email me at: LetterFrom@rogerprice.me

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