208 - 恭喜發財 - Kung Hei Fat Choi
🇹🇭 We have now moved into the Year of the Fire Horse and the Solar Eclipse has passed. Bangkok is noticeably full with tourists at the moment, easily recognisable by their Thai pants and "I ♥ Bangkok" T-shirts.
Over the weekend V and I had our Valentine's Day lunch at one of V's favourite spots and we still have a dinner planned out in town but we are waiting for the crowds to dissipate so that we can enjoy that more.
Monday evening was the regular Satoshi Square Bitcoin meeting and I headed out afterwards to enjoy the CNY celebrations around Bangkok. A nice evening out. We also got to enjoy the Flower Market and there are loads of meetups in Bangkok. I'll be out with the group this weekend, exploring the Saen Saep Canal.
We still have the Total Lunar Eclipse of 2-3 March and the Total Solar Eclipse of 12 August to look forward to this year - dates for your diary and they too are likely significant.
Monologues of the week
This week I have couple of items that deserve to be up front. First is superb one from Chase Hughes - scales will fall from your eyes as you listen to what he says. After that is everything you need to know about all of the recent Bitcoin FUD, courtesy of Simon Dixon. Both of these are important and deserve your attention.
It's obvious once you see it
Do take the time to click and read below and I recommend you also watch and listen to Chase's monologue. When we analyse dozens of sacred texts - the Gnostic gospels found in the caves of Egypt, the Upanishads of India, the Hermetic writings of Greece and the shamanic codes of the Maya - a striking pattern emerges.
Roger Price
Click above for the summary and to listen to Chase explain it - here for the transcript
These are civilizations separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years. They had no internet or email and no way to speak to one another. Yet when you translate their words and strip away the cultural costumes, they are all just saying the same things - there is a clear global echo. There is a common message in all the ancient texts from all civilizations - you likely should understand what that is. Spoiler: it is highly relevant to things today.
Hardtalk - pay attention
I realise that the noise to signal ratio at present is overwhelming. There has never been a time when such vast quantities of nonsense and lies were maliciously spread about as knowledge and truth. Thankfully, Simon is working diligently to extract the signal from the noise (on the Bitcoin front at least) and you would do well to pay attention to his conclusions.
Part One: Was Bitcoin Hijacked? The Infiltration Operations Explained. Simon lays the foundation and map the four major infiltration vectors he sees at play:
- Intelligence / Epstein (early reconnaissance + attempted influence)
- Silicon Valley (corporate capture, custodians, narrative steering)
- Wall Street (ETFs, derivatives, public-company treasuries, custody centralization)
- Central Banks / Regulators (Operation Choke-point 2.0, stable-coins, CBDCs)
Roger Price
Click for the summary and to listen to the full discussion
Part Two: Hijacking Bitcoin? A fascinating discussion between Simon Dixon and Steve Patterson (co-author of Hijacking Bitcoin with Roger Ver). Despite coming from what seem to be opposite camps they agree on much more than the disagree.
Part Three: Knots vs Core: Bitcoin’s Next Governance War (Core v30 & BIP 110). He brings it right up to today:
- Core v30 vs BIP 110 and Miner activation vs user activation dynamics
- Ordinals / spam / OP_RETURN policy wars
- What happens if an “intolerant minority” tries to soft fork?
- Why competing implementations may increase decentralisation - or trigger a new fracture - and how best to prepare for all possible outcomes
More in this issue
- Photo memories - Chinese New Year in Bangkok
- Project Updates - Unleashing creativity - a motorbike for your mind
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out - Jumping the Uncanny Valley - can you see it yet?
Chinese New year in Bangkok this week
🛠️ Project Updates
The following are updates from some projects that I am following, supporting and collaborating with. These are all part of the Parallel Systems that we need to build and use. What are you doing?
Art and Travel - an inspiring story
I recently had the pleasure to meet up with Johannes. You might recall our previous discussion. More recently he has started expanding his websites and business using AI to help him develop and deploy things that would have been impossible until recently.
Following our recent meetup at Bob Space he kindly offered to write a guest post to help you understand the possibilities that this technology brings and how to get started with it.
Roger Price
Click to read Johannes' guest post - what are you waiting for?
A motorbike for your mind
Steve Jobs first introduced the metaphor of computers as a "bicycle for the mind" in a 1980 presentation where he referenced a Scientific American article on animal locomotion efficiency. The concept originated from a study showing humans were relatively inefficient in movement until using bicycles, which dramatically increased their efficiency—mirroring how computers amplify human thought.
Well OpenClaw might just be the motorbike for the mind. Just like with real motorbikes, you can go faster and further than before. So also you can hurt yourself rather badly. And society will judge you based on your choice of transport. What do you choose?
To help you make decide and make up your mind, listen to this fascinating interview between Lex Fridman and Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw.
Roger Price
Click for the summary and to listen to the full discussion
And then go on to listen to this motivating and exciting discussion between Marty and Justin Moon.
Roger Price
Click for the summary and to listen to the full discussion
For sure he is right - now is the time to step up and re-skill. Calling all those who see the end of their current Fiat Jobs in sight - you have a new world in front of you and it is yours to grab or to loose.
Boring but it works!
Closing out the project section with a seemingly boring update but it is immensely powerful. With my switch to using Linux as my daily driver computer, I needed a new newsreader; also several of my subscribers have been having problems recently with NetNewsWire and I have noticed them too.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is amazing technology. It delivers content directly from blogs, news sites, and podcasts to a reader of your choice, consolidating updates in one place.
RSS saves time, protects your privacy, and ensures you never miss an update. No more visiting multiple websites or relying on algorithm-driven platforms. Instead, you control what you see, in chronological order, with no tracking or ads.
Aaron Kili
In an age of digital overload, RSS offers a simple, stable, and user-first alternative. Take back control of your information flow - embrace RSS today. I have picked LifeRea on Linux as my replacement for NetNewsWire - what is your experience and recommendation?
🔗 Links for your edification
The following are links from my Liferea feeds - learn, enjoy and share.
Micro$oft is evil - explained like you are 5
October 14th, 2025. Micro$oft just told 400 million people that their computers are now officially junk. Not because they're broken or slow but because they don't have a hardware chip that Micro$oft suddenly decided everyone needs. Your computer worked fine yesterday. Today, Micro$oft declares it obsolete and demands you to buy a new one to run Windoze.
All of this is being done to enforce the use of a Hardware Security Module (HSM) that will be used to permanently track your computer and everything that you do on it. This latest announcement is just the latest in a series of changes they have been making in recent years, boiling the frogs. Now the frogs begin to realise...
Apple is equally bad - this should terrify you
Your AppleID is not just an email address - this should be obvious to you by how difficult Apple has always been about any sort of change or update that you wanted to make to it. It is but an earlier manifestation of what Micro$oft is now pushing with their HSMs.
Do take a few minutes to read the article below - you will be terrified by the level of control that Apple has and what they can do with it.
This is why you do want to get serious about having your data outside of Big Tech platforms and under your own control with your own backups. You should know by now that this means using Linux and Open Source software. It is never too late to start to do the right thing - what are you waiting for?
Just interesting
A couple of interesting ones to close out this section - no deeper meaning! They came across my feeds and I enjoyed watching them - you might too.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
This week I took some time to further peruse Peter Duke's work. You should too. As he explains: For most articles, he has a long-form thesis written by himself with his own research, a “Bots React” 30-minute (or so) podcast version generated with Google’s NotebookLM, and a 6-8 minute “Explainer” video. His strategy is to provide ideas in a format that suits the intended audience. Some will read, others will listen, or watch, others will do all three.
NotebookLM has weak spots and isn’t perfect, which is why it is preferable that you read the long-form content. It falls short on specific graphic references, especially when it bumps up against ADL-inspired “trust and safety” issues.
Pulling on the Shakespeare thread
You might well recall that I have previously highlighted the work of Robert Frederick. He has proven beyond all doubt that the story told about William Shakespeare is entirely fabricated. He presents evidence of who really did write the works falsely attributed to "William Shakespeare" and why.
The Hidden Life Is Best
Click for Robert's latest summary of the evidence
Peter has also followed this thread and I recommend that you read his full-length thesis, replete with supporting evidence and those NotebookLM summaries that you can listen to. Peter takes things much further - you will likely be surprised.
The Duke Report™️
Click for Peter's full-length thesis
The Kybalion - well explained
This week I came across this excellent explainer of The Kybalion by Chris of LSB. He explains this as one who has internalised it - and you would do well to do so too.
You can refresh your mind and find copies of the book and audiobook, free to download here.
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- Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix
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- The Architect
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