238 - Lisbon for a bit
🇵🇹 V and I are taking a few days R&R down here in Portugal. We are staying in Lisbon and exploring the city and surroundings. The weather has been fantastic all week and we have been out and about every day, making the most of our time here.
We travelled down on 9/11, so we got to enjoy quieter airports. That said, we had the worst check-in experience ever. TAP Air Portugal - absolutely dreadful service and they should be avoided in future - read more below:
Apart from that Lisbon has been excellent for us. This is the first week that we have really had to ourselves for months - since we left Bangkok, in fact. We had an excellent apartment with superb east-facing terrace and handy bus connection to the center. We are also close to the Metro and Trains and there is a supermarket opposite!
V got us Lisboa Cards for a couple of days - these give you free access to many of the major locations, discounts for many more and free transport for 24 hours. For the other days we used the Navegante cards - prepaid for trams, trains and buses. Do make use of the excellent Lisboa Card documentation book - it is a comprehensive explainer of everything that is included free and discounted - you can plan your trip optimally (one of V's superpowers).
A few places that we recommend visiting include: The S Jorge Castle on the hill, the Decorative Arts museum, Sao Vicente monastery, the National Pantheon and the Flea Market where we had a superb Mushroom meal at Santa Clara dos Columeros! Subsequent days took us to Belem Tower and the Jeronimo monastery, not to mention many superb parks with their original trees, shady seats and usually a lake with wild birds.
Beyond that we got to do a trip along the coast here to Estoril and Cascais. We went along to check these out as possible locations for a future stay and also to meet up with a former colleague who lives here - we last met up in Bangk0k and before that in Hong Kong - nice!
Check-in Chaos: When Paid Extras Don't Follow You to Your New Flight
As you may recall, we pushed our flight back from 1 to 11 September so we could spend more time with V's mum. V had booked a few extras with TAP Air Portugal (we do treat ourselves to some little luxuries now and again) — extra luggage, plus premium services: priority check-in and fast-track-security as well as lounge access.
The trouble surfaced the night before, when V checked in using the TAP app and found that our paid extras had not made the move to the new flight. She had to pay all over again — and even then, the app refused to issue boarding cards, insisting we check in at the airport.
We arrived early and were first in the premium queue, handled on TAP's behalf by Transavia. They refused to check us in, saying there was no trace of our luggage in their system — and even when we showed them the TAP website proving we'd paid twice for our suitcases they wouldn't discuss it further!
After a thoroughly frustrating 45 minutes on the phone, V persuaded TAP support to email us the "EMD numbers" for the suitcases. Armed with those, we convinced the Transavia agent to enter them manually, and at last we had our boarding passes. With all the delay we did not get to enjoy the lounge that we had paid for.
We made the flight — but only thanks to V's persistence and after paying twice for luggage we'd already covered. The lesson learned: if you change a flight, don't assume your paid extras travel with it - so add extra items only when doing the final check-in.
We have issued a formal complaint and will pursue this all the way to get our money back as a minimum. Avoid TAP Air Portugal if possible.
What is your experience?
Books of the week
I was delighted to discover Ali Abdaal's personal selection of high-quality Harry Potter fan fiction. These stories, which are free to read, provide immersive alternate narratives that often rival original novels in depth and character development. You can easily download the corresponding digital files to devices like Kobo and Kindle to enjoy them as fully formatted books.
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality offers a scientific perspective on magic.
- The Debt of Time explores the emotional consequences of returning a lost character to the living.
- The Rigel Black Chronicles reimagines the series through a political lens with a gender-swapped protagonist.
- Backward With Purpose utilizes a time-travel premise to examine the trauma and strategic choices of survivors.
- Manacled presents a dark, post-apocalyptic narrative that the author has since adapted into the traditionally published novel Alchemised.
Ali Abdaal
Click for Ali's review and links to download the books
My own introduction to this genre came last year through Manacled. I have to say that all the warnings that Ali gives about the content are correct and even understate things quite a bit. Reading this really is an eye-opener on many fronts and will make you think deeply about many things.
The story is set in an alternate universe where Voldemort won the war. Hermione Granger is captured by the Death Eaters and forced into slavery under a re-population mandate. She is assigned to Draco Malfoy, now the High Reeve, who uses her as a breeding tool. The narrative explores themes of power, control, survival, and psychological trauma as Hermione harbours an Order secret buried deep in her mind that the Death Eaters are determined to extract.
The book became so popular that it prompted the author SenLinYu to decide to take it down and make a new book that she could commercialise. As Ali explains the Fan Fiction must be distributed Free of Charge and cannot be commercialised.
So Manacled was removed from AO3 (Archive Of Our Own) and other sites ahead of the novel's release in 2024. Fans were given advance notice to download and preserve copies for personal use - if you know where to look, you can still find the original - hint (Anna's Archive is a good place to start for things like this).
In Alchemised, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy became Helena Marino and Kaine Ferron, with entirely new world-building built around necromancy and alchemy rather than the Potter-verse.
So - have you read any of these? What is your recommendation or preference?
More in this issue
- Photo memories - around Lisbon this week
- Project Updates - Silent Payments, Frigate and Fedimint
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out - Before the moon appeared - uniformatarianism vs catastrophism
Saturday in Lisbon - what a great day out
🛠️ 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?
Sparrow and Frigate for Silent Payments
First up I am highlighting this interview of Craig Raw by Gabriel. Craig is the creator behind Sparrow Wallet which has got to be one of the top open source bitcoin wallets. Note it is only available on Mac and Linux (and even Windoze) - NB: there is no phone-based version - so do not be fooled.
In this interview they discuss how Craig has tackled the problem of making truly anonymous bitcoin transactions using what looks like a fixed Bitcoin Address. This is a fascinating story, how he built on the existing capability of Silent Payment addresses to bring about a 10x performance improvement, followed by an additional 10x improvement. After all of that he worked with another talented developer to get 10x performance beyond that. With 1000x the performance of the initial implementation, this has reached the level of scaling needed for general public use.
Roger Price
Click for notes and summary and to listen to the full interview
I am currently looking at adding Silent Payment processing, via Frigate, to my bitcoin nodes. This can run alongside a Fedimint server and Monero node. What are you doing?
Fedimint - some homework
As I mentioned I am also looking into running my own Fedimint Service. The goal behind this is learning but also to be useful for me and anyone who is interested to participate and learn along with me.
I'll be using the Docker setup. This is the easiest way to get things running on Linux servers. There can be some complications around networking and firewalls but AI understands all the nuances and it will resolve any issues you encounter.
🔗 Links for your edification
The following are links from my Liferea RSS feeds - learn, enjoy and share.
Everyone feels it already
In this rather good interview by Danny, Lyn explains what is happening and how it will likely evolve. She characterizes the federal deficit as a Gordian knot that is politically unfixable, predicting that the current fiscal trajectory will likely persist into the 2030s. She further argues that because past deflationary forces like globalization are exhausted and the traditional tools used by Central Banks will no longer work as they did.
Roger Price
Click for summary and notes and to listen to the full interview
- Regarding Bitcoin, her long-term thesis focuses on its status as the leading decentralized money with the potential for significant growth as its share of global liquid assets increases.
- Lyn also discusses her new venture, Orange Juice, a permanent-capital company co-founded with Ego Death Capital, Reuben, and Adrian, which acquires private businesses and incorporates Bitcoin into their treasuries. This puts into practice what Saifedean explained in his book, The Gold Standard - check it out if you have not yet done so.
Lyn's new book also sounds rather interesting - I'm adding it to my TBR list.
Lyn Alden
Click for details - something different from Broken Money
For a rather more Geopolitical analysis of the situation and outlook, Simon nails things pretty well here.
Roger Price
Click for notes and summary and to listen to the full discussion
Lyn and Simon share the same diagnosis — fiscal dominance, rising yields, impotent monetary policy, a squeezed middle class and Bitcoin as the escape hatch. Where they part ways is on why it is happening (Lyn: impersonal long-term debt-cycle arithmetic; Simon: a deliberate extraction-and-control agenda) and what to do about it beyond the portfolio (Alden: invest in scarce assets; Dixon: adopt a broader sovereignty-and-survival philosophy). So now, you know!
This explains everything
If you have been in Portugal you might have wondered why you can't understand anything from spoken Portuguese even though you know and can recognise related European languages. This girl explains why!
🤔 Closing Thoughts
Something different this month. Recently Jason has been releasing versions of some of his earlier material that he has edited to remove all superfluous discussion, focussing in on the content being discussed. This is one such example and I encourage you to click through then read/listen and inform yourself.
You might think that this is too far fetched to believe, however I encourage you to go back and watch Jason's walkthrough of the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics that told this story. In addition, everything from COVID onward was laid out for you to see in advance.
Roger Price
Click for a full walk-through and to listen to Jason's superb explanation
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Don't say that nobody told you.
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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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- The Architect
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