🇪🇸 We have had a busy week here in Palma. We have fully settled back into our routine here and we have a busy weekend ahead (more on that next week).

The weather changed to be cooler this week and we had quite some rain on Sunday and Monday. The rest of the week was nice and sunny but notably fresher than when we arrived. That did not stop people getting outside to enjoy themselves.

Over the weekend I had a nice lunch with quite a bunch of bitcoiners here. We also had the regular Bitcoin meetup on Wednesday and I have been having ad-hoc meetings with bitcoiner friends around town. We have planned a few more meetups in the coming weeks so let me know if you want to meetup or join.

Midweek, V and I did a nice walk along the beaches and waterfront all the way to Playa de Palma. This is a walk that we do every year and it is the walk that triggered me to say "enough is enough" and to "opt out" when we were here three years ago. With hindsight, that was certainly the right decision and I'm so glad to have taken it. Deleting my LinkedIn account formalised my "exit from the Matrix" - immensely liberating and highly recommended.

The local council seems to be investing in the waterfront with quite a lot of new breakwaters having been placed to protect the beaches. The whole walk is lively and full of people enjoying themselves. The lifeguard huts seem to have been renewed and there seemed to be quite a few more parasols out and being placed.

I know that I have said it before and done nothing yet but V and I might even learn a bit of Spanish while we are here. Considering that we are return visitors here it would be good to get off Zero, at least. Let's see...

Book of the week

This week I re-read a superb book on Bitcoin Philosophy, Technology and Economics. I may have mentioned it to you before. In any case I strongly recommend that you get it - or at least listen to the audio reading that is freely available.

This is an easy read (about 3-4 hours) and Guy will read the book to you if you need. It does take you from the very beginning with no knowledge through the most important things to know. You will be in the top few educated percent after this - it is clear and non-technical - just do it!

You will quickly discover how much you have been kept in the dark about money and how it works and you will understand why Bitcoin is revolutionary and important.

More in this issue

• Photo memories - around Palma this week
• Project Updates - Website and Server updates
• Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
• Closing out - Clues, hiding in plain sight

🛠️ Project Updates

This week I have been really busy doing a bit of housekeeping on my website, servers and a refresh of my development tools. What are you up to - what are your projects?

Website developments

On the website I have started to copy the newsletters into Nostr as Reads. This is one way to make them available persistently, independent of my website. This is one of the many benefits of Nostr, including increased reach, engagement and zaps. Check them out here:

As I did this I checked the links in each newsletter as I moved them. Hardly surprising but some of the links seem to have expired and needed to be fixed. This is a problem that we have discussed before and there are solutions. In particular this time I discovered that the Michael Saylor interview link had broken.

This interview is particularly relevant to everything that is happening today - and it was from November 29th 2021. I strongly recommend that you watch it.

What was even more insightful for me was the process that I used to find a link-fix. I decided to ask Grok (since I have a twitter account but haven't really used it). WOW! This is amazingly powerful. You can read the full sequence of events here.

In summary: I told Grok that I was looking for an interview of Michael Saylor on Fox News in Nov or Dec of 2021. Initially Grok responded that whilst it could find many interviews and articles it could not find the one that I wanted - but it offered:

I can dig deeper or broaden the search slightly—maybe there’s something adjacent. Want me to keep looking or pivot to other interviews from that time-frame?

So - I said: "yes - go for it". The results are remarkable. Not only did it find me the full interview but it also found me an article that contained the video and analysis of it. And, with one click you can also see it's entire "Thought Process".

If you are not yet awake to the potential of AI tools like this, you need to open your eyes. I certainly understand the many reservations around using such tools but if you are not using them (prudently) you are missing out on so much and disadvantaging yourself.

Setting up a Nostr Relay

This week I also decided to get a bit more serious about running my Nostr relay. I have set up a few in the past but entropy took them down after a while and I was too busy with other things to recover them. So I have now decided to get a bit more serious and I'm setting up a relay with a plan to run it longer term.

Grok was well able to suggest options and provide links to source articles - see the discussion below and your options.

I have used Umbrel before (and I'm still running an older instance) but the latest version of Umbrel does not really work for me since it expects/requires only one internal disk. The new configuration is too restrictive for me and whilst it can be re-configured, this is a manual process and it does not survive updates - so that's no good.

So my system of choice is Nostream - it requires docker (but this can be a benefit) and it supports a nice range of features. I'll likely be sharing more in due course. If you have experience or insights on this, do share.

Other developments

The other main project activity for me this week was to install and refresh my development environment on Linux (and refresh my memory). This does seem to be an annual process! I last did this a year ago when I got the T470 installed and working - I remember doing that too here in Palma. This year I am using my X280 which I enjoy more since it is smaller and more portable.

I have covered these tools before - but if you need a list - they are all recommended:

• tmux and midnight commander
• zoxide and fzf
• pika backup

BTW - if/when you ever encounter any errors or issues with install or configuration, the AI tools are your best friend. They can instantly and reliably diagnose any issue from a copy/paste of the otherwise cryptic error message. Try it - you will be amazed. Not only does it identify root causes of issues, it will give you commands and steps to resolve them.

🔗 Links for your edification

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

Good advice from Chris

Dr Chris G took a year off to travel the world. He is now back in Australia and sharing his learning from this experience. As V and I have travelled around I meet lots of people who say "oh, I would love to travel like you". Chris tells you how you can do it.

If you have read 21 Lessons (above) and understood how money really works, you will recognise the truth in what he explains.

Micro$oft gets even worse

Mirco$oft is out in front in terms of nefarious and unethical behaviour. It has strong competition from Google for first place (ie the worst) and Apple is not far behind them both. This week, a couple more pieces of evidence emerged:

First up - they are bringing back the entirely dystopian Recall feature. Even if this was a good idea (it's not), there is simply no way that they are capable to implement this in a secure manner where the data will not leak. Additionally, Micro$oft themselves just cannot be trusted to be honest in their dealings with such data.

Knowing the above, you will understand why they want it to be mandatory for you to have a Microsoft Account and to be signed into it with your internet connection (and consent) once you install Windoze 11. They want to ensure that they have full and unfettered access to your data and they want it to be identifiable to you as this next one explains.

Henry and Nate's take on this is here. I agree with them. Even Apple is not this bad.

Told you so!

Maverick has "got a good one for you" today. He is a perma-bear and he is certainly basking in the light of his recent predictions. That said he is certainly worth listening to and adding to your knowledge base.

The more this insanity unfolds, the more it resembles the plot of The Mandibles.

ICYMI: Lionel Shriver wrote The Mandibles - the book that I featured back in Issue 48. This is absolutely required reading along with Matt Odell's subsequent interview with Lionel here.

An idea who's time has come

It is easy to become nihilistic in the current climate. To avoid this I read widely, look for and study options and solutions that have potential to bring dramatic improvement.

I do think that Bitcoin Bonds could well be such a solution. I am generally more interested in solutions that bring scaling and accessibility to Bitcoin rather than ones that appeal to Governments and Bankers but this idea could well have legs and would seem to be a logical evolution after ETFs and it could solve imminent problems in the Bond Market. I am fully aware that scaling solutions need to exist within the bigger financial markets.

Use your brain. Microstrategy (now Strategy) has been testing this for the last four years. It could be time to go mainstream.

🤔 Closing Thoughts

A couple of closing thoughts this week. First is another example of predictive programming - you know that "all the world is a stage..." and I have always suspected there was more to Videogames than you ever imagined. Lastly I am including one of the better and simpler A-Z explainers on Gnosticism - don't say that nobody told you.

Predictions from 2013

12 Years after the pivotal release for Call of Duty Black Ops 2... the modern world looks a whole lot closer to that version of reality than anyone would have ever expected.

From a rise in military automation, to quantum computing, and international trade wars (including over rare earth materials)... Treyarch predicted it all right down to the year... with a videogame that feels increasingly accurate with each passing month of the year. In case you need the current headlines - check here.

Simply explained

For those who are looking for a good and simple explanation of Gnosticism - this is it. No need to get hung-up with Sophia and her creation - there are many more pertinent and relevant parts to the knowledge and traditions and they are well explained here.

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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

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

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