🇹🇭 This week V and I have continued to enjoy Bangkok winter sunshine. As we head into the weekend the cooler weather from up north is finally reaching here and temperatures are dropping to a very pleasant 20-30 degree daily range - how great is that!

We both have our daily routines working for us. Among other things I am now including yoga into my day in addition the swimming and am feeling all the better for it. Mornings are the time for project work, writing, analyses and investigations. As I have mentioned before, evenings are a great time to get out and about in Bangkok when it is not too hot and there is a fabulous atmosphere in most places you will visit.

This week I got to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Siam at the recommendation of a subscriber who is visiting Bangkok for a bit. There is an exhibition on the top floors and it is free to visit. Worth doing so and there is nice coffee shop downstairs before you head back out into the heat.

This time last year we were reassessing things in Hong Kong and, with hindsight, we think we did make the right decision with our 2023 plans - even if they were challenged right at the outset:

We are finalising our planning for 2024, year of the Dragon, and I think we have got it about sorted. How is your planning going? What will you be doing? Anything different from this year?

Seasonal Celebrations

Thailand is predominantly a Buddhist country and Christmas is not a public holiday here. However there is certainly now a commercial push to get people to exchange gifts or participate in Christmas festivities.

It is interesting to reflect on the origins of celebrations around this time of year - for sure it has not always been what many westerners think.

The original celebrations of this time of year were Saturnalia (17-23 December) and the Solstice on December 21. Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival held in honour of the god Saturn, the deity of agriculture and harvest. It was generally a time of revelry, feasting, gift-giving, and a temporary suspension of social norms - key elements being:

1. Feasting and Merriment: People would gather for elaborate feasts, indulge in food and drink, and engage in merriment. It was a time of celebration and excess.
2. Gift-Giving: Gifts were exchanged during Saturnalia, often small tokens of good luck or friendship. This tradition was a precursor to the modern practice of giving gifts during the Christmas season.
3. Role Reversals: One of the distinctive features of Saturnalia was the temporary reversal of social roles. Slaves were allowed to be treated as equals or even served by their masters. This aspect of the festival reflected the idea of a temporary, topsy-turvy world.
4. Public Celebrations: Saturnalia involved public festivities, including processions, singing, and dancing. People would take to the streets to celebrate together.
5. Temples and Sacrifices: Temples of Saturn were central to the observance of Saturnalia. Sacrifices were made to the god, and there were ceremonies and rituals to seek his favour for a bountiful harvest in the coming year.

Also rather interesting: there is a phenomenon known as the "standstill" of the sunrise around the Solstice. This refers to the fact that the Sun's rising position on the horizon appears to "stand still" for three days, creating an intriguing pattern - the Analemma:

1. Day of the Solstice: On the day of the solstice itself (around December 21st), the sunrise is at its southernmost point on the horizon.
2. First Standstill Day: The day after the solstice, observers may notice that the sunrise position appears relatively unchanged from the solstice day.
3. Second Standstill Day: The day after the first standstill day, there is a second day during which the sunrise still appears to be at the same position on the horizon.

Additional food for thought - click below for an extensive and well researched exploration and explainer:

Holiday reading suggestions

Back in July 2022 I gave you a tour of my library and, after re-reading that newsletter I stick with pretty much all the recommendations and things that that I said then. These are indeed some of the best books that you could pick up and read over the holiday period - or any time for that matter! A few highlights below, do check them out.

For fiction, the Harry Potter series and also Terry Pratchett's Carpet People and Guards series are just great. Also if you look a bit further and think a bit, you will find many deeper messages and parallels to what goes on in real life. The later books in the Harry Potter series do bear a striking resemblance to a lot of the evil that is happening in recent years - think about Delores Umbridge, the Ministry and everything around He who must not be named. Predictive programming perhaps - or maybe there is just nothing new under the sun?

For Ancient wisdom recall my review of Mythos by Stephen Fry.  This is the best introduction you will find to folklore stories that will make you ready to think more.

New this year...

Notwithstanding all that, I did discover and even re-discover some new books this year that I have got to recommend. You might even prefer to start with some of these.

The Mandibles - This was the first book that I read this year and what a fantastic find. It all started with failed bond auction and computer hackers - perhaps that rings some bells for you. Or is that too close for comfort? Listen to the follow-up interview with Matt did with Lionel Shriver, the author.

Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins independently corroborates all that you read in The Creature from Jekyll Island and listen to the book club discussion on it here.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is required reading. The story takes place in some post-crisis world where trust in governments and countries has broken down and the world is made up of territories controlled by various corporations - each of which has their own "passport" and rules.  The inhabitants of the world spend their time "living" in the Metaverse (yes - he did coin that term).  Of course there is some sort of computer virus that strikes and threatens to end everything - you can imagine how things develop.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle - is one of those paradigm-shifting books that you need to read and experience. All of life exists in the only present moment. The past and future are mental constructs that do not truly exist - think about it! I do recommend that you set aside time to read this book - audiobook also in the link above.

Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett - another great read that also gives some interesting deeper messages: The novel explores themes of bureaucracy, communication, and the impact of technology on society, not to mention a rather prescient discussion on money and how it is made and controlled.

Principles of Economics by Saifedean Ammous. This is a university-level text book, written to replace the nonsense that students have been taught for the last 70 years. Also available in audiobook. You will understand how things really work. A nice summary of the course is here.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams is a fantastic follow-up to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Some of the ideas no longer seem so far fetched!

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I resisted reading this one for a long time due to my distrust of the author in his current role as WEF spokesperson. I was pushed to read this by a subscriber and am glad I did. Mind broadening.

Broken Money by Lyn Alden. Also in Audiobook. This one will really surprise you. Among other things you will learn how WW1 got funded by fraud committed against the UK population by the Bank of England and how this lead to WW2 and all that has followed that, right up to the present moment - read the FT admission here and the lies have only continued ever since. She explains simply and objectively how governments have always manipulated money to steal from their populations - look around you today. Many others are awakening to this, for example Matt K's recent explainer.

The Dream by David Icke - this gets my "Book of the Year" award. You will be shocked and appalled at how accurate his predictions were for what happened with Covid and that is only Chapter One.  He goes MUCH FURTHER.  He may or may not be right on everything he says, but even if he is right on 10-20% the implications should make you think very differently on many things.  Anyone with a bit of critical thinking in their head should be able to see many of the points he makes - the evidence is all around you.

Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard is the shortest book on the list and it is also a great one to start with. At just 60 pages long, also available in audiobook (one hour) you will understand things that you may have suspected but could not put into words. It's all obvious with hindsight.

So what are your book suggestions? What are the best books you have read this year? Do reach out and let me know. I'm also happy to discuss any of the above with you!

More in this issue

• Photo memories - around Bangkok this week
• Project Updates - Tools - use them or don't!
• Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
• Closing out - Jason's reading list - pay attention!

🛠️ Project Updates

I have been continuing this week with hands-on project work. What are you doing?

Server refinements

I have been making refinements to the server setup this week, particularly focussing on hardening and also eliminating errors and warnings from the startup process. For this I have to recommend ChatGPT as a helpful tool. You can simply paste journal extracts in as a prompt and it will give you a very useful interpretation of what you feed in. This then allows you to ask more specific questions to resolve any issues. Try it and let me know your thoughts!

So-called "AI tools"

You will be aware that the so-called Artificial Intelligence tools have nothing to do with intelligence, rather they bring enormous computing power using novel techniques to crunch whatever data is fed into their models. That said, what these tools can do is truly amazing. See here for a whistle stop tour of the current top selection:

Up to you - use them or don't. For me, I am happy to take all the advantage that I can get and I can see lots more potential as these tools become more capable and even more powerful.

Cashu moves to V1.0

This is a PR that encapsulates a collection of changes to the protocol that will make our lives easier in the future. It cleans up early mistakes that were made as the protocol grew organically and removes implicit assumptions about the funding sources (e.g. Lightning) and currency units (e.g. "sats") used for Cashu mints that are inherent in the current protocol - nice!

This is progressing and maturing nicely. Chaumian eCash solutions like this and Fedimint will be very important going forward. They offer many benefits including scalability to unlimited participants as well as complete privacy. Fedimint delivers industrial-strength decentralisation and censorship resistance.

🔗 Links for your edification

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

Maverick is even more bearish than usual - listen carefully. Sooner or later he will be right - as Peter explains here.

Joe has an interesting and very balanced, if somewhat inconclusive video on what is going on in Argentina. Only time will tell but I think this is a very necessary experiment, just like El Salvador:

Lyn too has been experimenting with the so-called AI Tools. Check her output in the link below - if you have read Lyn's book (or been reading the newsletters) you will certainly understand the meaning behind the images.

🤔 Closing Thoughts

In response to quite some interest, I have been sharing updates and insight from Jason Breschears and his work on archaix.com. This week, a couple more from him that you may well find useful.

First up is Jason's first book where he describes how and when he first noticed the 138 year cycles and how he expanded his research backwards and forwards in history, citing source from hundreds of other books and researchers.

Beyond that - look no further than Jason's own reading list for your next book.

Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts? Let me know!

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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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