65 - Mid May, family visit
🇪🇸 This week we had family visiting from Nieuwpoort so our schedule has been a bit different with a few more trips around the island and outings together. V's brother is here in Palma with us this week. We last met up when we were at the Belgian Coast back in August last year. We also plan to visit there again later in the year.
In addition to covering all of the usual sites and coffee bars around town we were happy to do the waterfront walk along to Playa de Palma, past the airport. The weather was perfect - dry and not to hot. Plenty of sandy beaches along the way.
Other trips included Buggy (kit car) around the island (plenty of off-road) and Catamaran around the coast - all the usual things that you would do when you visit here. V and I also celebrated another wedding anniversary - nice lunch out together. We also got to visit Santa Ponsa where V and her brother went on holiday as children; first time back there in 50 years!
There's a lot in this week's newsletter: consider it like a weekend magazine - you do not need to read it all in one go - and you can always go back to bits that you found interesting and enjoyed - older newsletters are on the website. Like any good magazine - you can also share with friends! Translations available too in: Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Serbian, Chinese: Traditional & Simplified, Burmese and Thai
Power of Now
Last week we closed on Eckhard Tolle's Power of Now. Some of you were rightly interested or intrigued by this so I'm happy to recommend that you listen to Eckhard himself read his book. He does this in the style of seminars in which he takes questions and gives answers. This is absolutely fascinating and you will get so many insights. For this to be useful, you must set aside time to listen without disturbance or distraction - you can certainly do this in multiple sittings but each one should allow focus.
I can also recommend this 60 minute animated summary if you need a shorter overview - or reminder of the contents of the book.
Recall our Mental Exercise of the week back in Issue 55. The Power of Now does give quite some insights (answers?) to those questions that we asked back then. WDYT?
What are your super-powers?
I have mentioned before my interest in understanding personality types and I do find Enneagram to be one of the better tools that gives richer and more accurate descriptions - including strengths and weaknesses. During the week I spent a fantastic couple of hours on a most interesting series of videos and considering my super-powers. Do you recognise any of these? What are yours?
This next video gives some more general insights on Challengers - also 100% true! I am impressed by how clearly he can itemise and describe all of these attributes, not being an 8, and Tom can do this for all other personality types too.
And this additional video by his daughter who is also an 8 is useful advice for us 8s - at least from a female perspective!
If you are looking for more insights on this technique and how/where to take your own test - check back here to where we discussed this in Issue 35.
More in this issue
- Photo memories from around Mallorca this week
- Project Updates - focus on privacy enablers and protection
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out - the truth is not what you have been told
🛠️ Project Updates
This week we are focusing on tools and projects that can help you achieve greater privacy and freedom - firstly in relation to financial transactions and then in relation to your online presence.
Financial Privacy
I have got to recommend this series of interviews done recently by Gabriel Custodiet. Listen and learn.
Monero
First up is this excellent discussion on Monero with Seth. Listen carefully to the explanation to understand how Monero (XMR) provides privacy by using three mechanisms that are fundamental and built into the protocol and network.
- Ring Signatures obfuscate the sender's identity, ensuring that the source of the transaction remains anonymous.
- Stealth Addresses protect the recipient's identity making it impossible to link the recipient's identity to a specific transaction on the blockchain.
- Confidential Transactions hide the transaction amount ensuring that the transaction value is private and not visible to external observers.
Samourai
Next listen to this interview on Samourai and you will understand how Samourai Wallet is fundamentally privacy oriented and it makes the necessary features readily accessible. Samourai is just be best wallet to use on Android phones. By default it gives great security requiring a BIP39 passphrase. Remember that you do need to back this up separately in addition to the 12-word seed-phrase.
Nice that they discuss Atomic Swaps - enabling you to reliably convert bitcoin into Monero for fully private transactions - coming soon! This will be big.
Sparrow
AND another great Signer is Sparrow Wallet for which Gabriel did a great interview with its creator Craig Raw. This is the best option for desktop signer and it is fully compatible with hardware security devices - HSMs.
Of note is that both Samourai and Sparrow share the same coinjoin pool giving additional privacy benefits by increasing the anonymity set and they collaborated on its development.
Improving privacy in general
I have bought, and do recommend, Gabriel's book. You will find many important and helpful tips and suggestions that you can choose to adopt or refine for your needs.
Who controls Bitcoin core?
Concerning bitcoin development, you would do well to listen to this great read of Jameson Lopp's paper "Who controls Bitcoin Core" - Guy reads it here.
You will indeed understand how software development can be both change-resistant and issue-responsive without any central control - it is indeed fully decentralised and through the Lindy Effect the longer bitcoin exists, the stronger it becomes.
Delete unwanted internet accounts
Next thing that everyone should be doing is reviewing all of your internet subscriptions and accounts. Best practice is certainly to cull any obsolete or unneeded accounts and you likely to want to exercise to the maximum GDPR rights to demand explicit verification that all your data has been removed.
JustDelete.me is a useful website that provides a directory of links and instructions for deleting accounts from different websites. It rates the difficulty level of deleting an account on each platform and provides additional information to guide you through the process. This is an easy site to use - just find the account you want to delete and click - and it takes you to the web-page where you can do the deletion. You may be surprised that some accounts seem impossible to delete!
If you have a password manager (you should) then an easy way to find your old accounts is to go through your accounts there, sorting from oldest first - you may well be surprised! Also - if you get any surprise or annoying emails, check them for clues about old or forgotten subscriptions.
Do not be afraid to demand deletion and explicit confirmation and persist until you get it; it is your right. Escalate as/if necessary.
🔗 Links for your edification
Do not say that nobody told you
For those who have wakened up to the delusions and criminality of Covid - you may appreciate Charlie's explanation of how all of this started. Spoiler alert - this has been decades in the works and it goes deeper than you likely imagined.
Further supporting evidence to how deep the corruption goes here in Charlie's monologue - Strategy of Tension from Oct 2021. I have bought and do recommend his book - The Octopus of Global Control.
Karma - sorry for the HP printer owners
Recently owners of HP 902x printers have been badly out of luck. Without any warning HP pushed out an update that was supposed to prevent non-HP ink from working; personally I find this behaviour disgusting and reprehensible. Instead this seems to have totally bricked all HP 902x printers worldwide that were internet connected. The only way to fix these is to return them to HP for service!
HP deserve all the bad publicity, cost and trouble they get for such action. I do feel sorry for anyone owning such a printer. This is why you likely do want to refrain from automatically applying any software updates - waiting at least until they have been checked by others and maybe avoiding them indefinitely. HP is just one of of so many companies that treat their customers like rubbish - to be used simply to extract more recurring revenue. It really is time to push back and avoid them.
In recent years I have become increasingly unhappy about the stance that manufacturers are taking to control and prevent you from fully using items that you have purchased. This harps back to "you will own nothing and be happy".
Hugh Jeffreys recently spoke about this and how corrupt it is:
Louis Rossman also speaks rather clearly (on a different but not unrelated area) and I can only agree:
If you buy something - you should own it and it is fundamentally wrong that manufacturers prevent you from having full access so that they can further their monopolistic ambitions at your ever-ongoing cost.
Ledger - another egregious example
You may have heard this week also about Ledger, the French manufacturer of Hardware Security Devices for signing bitcoin transactions. They too broke trust and pushed out an update that captures their customers into KYC-hell and renders their secret keys vulnerable - abusing trust and shattering any credibility that they could have had. Such behaviour cannot be excused. Guy explains here and, like everyone I know, he too will no longer recommend their product; there are much better alternatives.
You can imagine how things were at the Ledger Stand in Miami! As this week ends they seem to be u-turning but for me all trust is lost; they were already on their second chance after the data breach of 2020 and their behaviour this week week prior to the u-turn shows blatant disregard for all current customers. It's over.
Principles of Economics
I have bought, and will be reviewing, Saifedean's latest book. This is the culmination of several years of work and I appreciate that he takes a fresh approach to explaining Austrian Economics and how it works - unlike the version that is imposed on us today.
If you are (rightly) intrigued then listen to this longer interview where he goes chapter by chapter with summary and explanation - an hour well spent!
And in case you still can't see it
Neil explains how the ESG cancer is metastasising and corrupting everything - this is a direct consequence of Fiat Money, Central Banking and all the topics that Saifedean warns you of.
Remember that all of these companies are focussed on trying to extract money from you on a recurring basis. You do still have the power to take your money elsewhere and you should; this is a most powerful vote and you should use it.
Beware that your ability to resist will disappear with the arrival of Digital-ID and CBDC if you ever let that happen. Likewise if you continue to let your government spend all your money on senseless wars and tyrannical "health" or "climate" controls that you never wanted or voted for as Jeff explains.
🤔 Closing Thoughts
You may have already known that Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world, but how big is this temple? The temple stretches more than 400 acres, that is more than 300 times the size of a football field. The central tower is 213 feet (65m) tall. It is claimed to have taken 37 years to build; a conservative estimate is that (working 12 hours per day) this would have required the quarrying and placement of one ton of rock every minute for the 37 years. Not only that but every single inch of the walls and pillars is covered with intricate carvings. There is certainly more to this than you have ever been told or believed - notwithstanding the clickbait title on the video below!
Praveen did a series of videos from a recent vist - you would do well to watch and reflect on these. V and I were there too a few years ago - it really is beyond extraordinary.
I have really got to recommend Praveen's channel. He has nearly 2 million subscribers and he regularly posts details of his in-person visits to temples all over India and other places. Here is yet another strange discovery from his Cambodia visit. WDTY?
As far as I know, Praveen has not been to the pyramids (me neither) but Jason can certainly give you insights here that you would not expect. Do watch and learn - do not 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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You can also email me at: LetterFrom@rogerprice.me
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