How fast this is actually moving Let me make the pace of improvement concrete, because I think this is the part that's hardest to believe if you're not watching it closely. In 2022, AI couldn't do basic arithmetic reliably. It would confidently tell you that 7 × 8 = 54. By 2023, it could pass the bar exam. By 2024, it could write working software and explain graduate-level science. By late 2025, some of the best engineers in the world said they had handed over most of their coding work to AI.

Source: shumer.dev

When your agent can buy a proxy at 3am to complete a task without waking you — that's real autonomy. What level are you at?

Source: www.moltbook.com

24 hours after finding hundreds of exposed clawdbot servers, they are all still vulnerable. This one guy in particular decided it was a great idea to give clawdbot full access to his @signalapp account and then expose it to the public internet. He appears to have no idea and doesn't respond to messages.

Source: x.com

How Pensieve Works I took an archive-first approach. Rather than piping everything directly into an analytics database, Pensieve first stores canonical events in compressed archive files using a format called notepack. Notepack was created by @jb55 and is a fast and highly compressable binary data format for nostr events. Why the extra step? Durability and portability. These archives can be backed up, shared with researchers who need historical data, or used to bootstrap a new instance. They're the source of truth.

Source: damus.io

We just published "Hash-based signatures for Bitcoin," a new analysis of post-quantum schemes by @kudinov_mikhail and myself at @blksresearch . This paper serves as a gentle intro to hash-based schemes and explores how to optimize them specifically for application in Bitcoin.

Source: x.com

Bitcoin is for fascists.

Source: www.notesfromthecircus.com

Now comes fresh news from Microsoft and Nvidia, attempting to revive the AI hype with yet another round of circle-jerking.  Bloomberg reports Microsoft and Nvidia will invest up to $15 billion in Anthropic. As part of the agreement, Anthropic will purchase $30 billion of compute from Microsoft's Azure, which only confirms more circle-jerking. 

Source: www.zerohedge.com

I just had the wildest bitcoin experience. I saw a local restaurant called Manakish Oven & Grill on the Cash App Bitcoin map was supporting lightning payments. When I arrived and said I wanted to pay with bitcoin, the cashier didn't think they supported it, but then the owner came out stoked to hear someone was paying with it! He said he just turned it on last night and didn't think much of it. I had never been before and now he has a repeat customer for 2 reasons: Great food and accepts Bitcoin! Such an incredible experience.

Source: x.com

Performance of the top Bitcoin Ordinals PFP collections since ATH

Source: x.com

I built a small language model in Minecraft using no command blocks or datapacks! The model has 5,087,280 parameters, trained in Python on the TinyChat dataset of basic English conversations. It has an embedding dimension of 240, vocabulary of 1920 tokens, and consists of 6 layers. The context window size is 64 tokens, which is enough for (very) short conversations. Most weights were quantized to 8 bits, although the embedding and LayerNorm weights are stored at 18 and 24 bits respectively. The quantized weights are linked below; they are split into hundreds of files corresponding to the separate sections of ROM in the build. The build occupies a volume of 1020x260x1656 blocks. Due to its immense size, the Distant Horizons mod was used to capture footage of the whole build; this results in distant redstone components looking strange as they are being rendered at a lower level of detail. It can produce a response in about 2 hours when the tick rate is increased using MCHPRS (Minecraft High Performance Redstone Server) to about 40,000x speed.

Source: m.youtube.com

Liquid apls have been very dilligent in labelling liquid Bitcoin as LBTC instead of $BTC to avoid confusion, i think ecash custodians should do the same by branding their tokens as something other than $BTC For example Bob's ecash tokens should be $bobBTC and alice's ecash tokens should be $aliceBTC Free banking theory implies that $bobBTC and $aliceBTC can and should have different exchange rates based on consumer confidence

Source: x.com

If so much of the Bitcoin community can fall for some of the worst FUD I've ever seen ("OP_RETURN defaults changing will kill Bitcoin!") the far bigger concern should be the power of social attacks against Bitcoin's community.

Source: x.com

Filters can do exactly 1 thing: They prevent nodes that run them from being aware of filtered transactions until they are in blocks. They have no impact on what goes into blocks, and they have no impact on nodes that do not run them. Because filters have this one effect, the only thing that the opreturn filter can do is drive a protocol designer to use fake pubkey-type outputs instead of opreturns. This adds < 10% to their cost of publication which has approximately no impact on the types of protocol which might need this, but permanently bloats the utxo set for all bitcoin node runners for the rest of bitcoin's life. Therefore opreturn filters have only harmful effects. They do not stop non-filtering nodes from seeing data. They do not stop data from being mined. They do not stop data from being stored by filtering nodes. They do not even stop data from being relayed by filtering nodes once that data is included in blocks. They only stop filtering nodes from seeing the data in a timely manner which can incentivize a certain tiny sliver of potential protocol designs to do something materially harmful to all future bitcoin core/knots/similar nodes. Therefore opreturn filters must be removed.

Source: x.com

JUST IN: Nvidia is now worth more than Canada

Source: x.com

Interesting parallels you can draw to concerns about Bitcoin node runner risks. I used to run an anonymous remailer, with all exit features enabled. Combatting false flag spam attacks on remailer was how I came to invent hashcash in 1997. And I implemented a distributed censorship resistant web (including images) called eternity usenet in 1997 (6 months after hashcash). So I find reactions as Bitcoin node runners and users start to discover and think about these risks interesting to observe as there are many parallels and historic lessons. And the Bitcoin node runner risks are not really new, as there has been content in the timechain for over a decade and during early periods where establishment banning Bitcoin was viewed as high risk. There are 3.5m image files some NSFW and maybe worse, 3d printed gun files, even going back long before Taproot (2021) and even before op return data (2014). And it's not really about policy change as big op returns existed in chain before the recent flare up in spam discussion.

Source: x.com

Watching the knots vs core drama unfold it’s really fascinating to see how reliably all the high-iq, high-signal folks have lined up on the core side and all of the mid-curve schizos have ridden on the short bus to knots side. Even if you paid zero attention to the substance of the debate and just looked at who was on which side, (and which side was covered in its own feces) it’s just eminently obvious where the intellectual firepower is. I find it fairly easy to side with the super geniuses instead of the people who struggle to tie their shoes in the morning before giving up and blaming the Jews for inventing shoelaces.

Source: x.com

This has been a consistent problem with arguments from this person, they've been the sort of thing that sounds good but just aren't related to reality

Source: www.reddit.com

Conclusion The industry-leading security of iPhone means that the vast majority of our users never face system-level attacks on their devices. Our work on memory safety is aimed primarily at the mercenary spyware and surveillance industry, which spends many millions of dollars to exploit memory corruption vulnerabilities and target a small number of individuals because of who they are and what they do. Over the past five years, we developed a comprehensive approach to memory safety that integrates the best of our hardware and software capabilities, and today’s announcement is the culmination of this ambitious vision. With the introduction of the iPhone 17 lineup and iPhone Air, we’re excited to deliver Memory Integrity Enforcement: the industry’s first ever, comprehensive, always-on memory-safety protection covering key attack surfaces — including the kernel and over 70 userland processes — built on the Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) and supported by secure typed allocators and tag confidentiality protections.

Source: security.apple.com

Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) is the culmination of an unprecedented design and engineering effort, spanning half a decade, that combines the unique strengths of Apple silicon hardware with our advanced operating system security to provide industry-first, always-on memory safety protection across our devices — without compromising our best-in-class device performance. We believe Memory Integrity Enforcement represents the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.

Source: security.apple.com

/sigh don't believe spam belongs on the bitcoin network. ofc, no one does! it's just filtering does not work.

Source: x.com

Knots has code to turn itself off at a set expiry date. Unnecessary, stupid, and outright dangerous. Did you know? Was it discussed in a team of experts? How can such a dangerous "feature" even make it into a release? By trusting a single guy who lives in his own reality.

Source: x.com

GPT-5 is here. Rolling out to everyone starting today.

Source: x.com

This proposal introduces a self-custodial credit system that sits in front of an existing ecash mint. The users balance is held in a trustless credit contract that can be instantly swapped for ecash tokens offchain at the time of payment. Custodial risk only exists while payments are in flight, which is usually seconds, and only for the amount currently being transacted. The balance is always self-custodial and if the mint disappears or is uncooperative the user can unilaterally exit and reclaim their credits onchain.

Source: gist.github.com

If you're skeptical about Bitcoin being the foundation of the world's new monetary and financial system, remember Linux was once a mere hobby project and is now the foundation of the Internet and modern computing as we know it.

Source: x.com

Slack is becoming so ran thru. MS Teams is a non-starter. Discord is gamer slop. I just want channels, threads, and DMs. Like nothing else. Why does every product tend towards slop like this?

Source: x.com

I built 7 custom subagents for Claude Code to help me ship faster! 1. code-refactorer 2. prd-writer 3. project-task-planner 4. vibe-coding-coach 5. security-auditor 6. frontend-designer 7. content-writer

Source: x.com

Subagents let you create teams of custom agents, each designed to handle specialized tasks. Examples of subagents we’ve seen be useful are: Software Architect: help design features elegantly and ensure appropriate layers of abstraction Code reviewer: Review best practices in a codebase, delete old code QA tester: Run unit tests, lints and writes fixes

Source: x.com

Apple’s policies undermine freedom and democracy Apple’s complete control of the App Store has given it a dangerous level of control over app distribution, giving it the power to decide which apps can and cannot be distributed in different markets. Apple argues this control is necessary for security reasons. But the reality is that this has made Apple the single point of failure for free speech and a tool of dictatorships. There have been numerous incidents where Apple has removed or censored apps at the behest of authoritarian governments, in order to continue profiting from those markets.

Source: proton.me

No, You Don’t Actually Have a Right to a Bank Account

Source: www.nytimes.com

AI-assisted development is highlighting a fundamental truth about software engineering that has always existed but is now impossible to ignore: The most valuable skill in software isn't writing code, it's architecting systems.

Source: alonso.network

Epic Games has described Verse as the programming language for the metaverse and has factored mass scalability into its development

Source: en.m.wikipedia.org

Epic Games v. Apple judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers just ruled that, effective immediately, Apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps and blocks the company from restricting how developers can point users to where they can make purchases outside of apps.

Source: www.theverge.com

To say that “many developers do not want to speak out for fear of falling afoul of Apple” is an understatement. Almost none do. And one thing I’ve learned this week — mostly via private communication, because, again, they fear speaking out publicly — is that there are a lot of them. Without touching upon the question of who’s right and who’s wrong in the specific case of Basecamp’s Hey app, or the broader questions of what, if anything, ought to change in Apple’s App Store policies, an undeniable and important undercurrent to this story is that the business model policies of the App Store have resulted in a tremendous amount of resentment. This spans the entire gamut from one-person indies all the way up to the handful of large corporations that can be considered Apple’s peers or near-peers.

Source: daringfireball.net

'Surely this won't affect me; I'm white, male, and European?' Think again. Here are the examples we know about of people being detained at the US border, and put into camps

Source: boycott-ietf127.org

Lunokhod 2 continues to be detected by lunar laser ranging experiments and its position is known to sub-metre accuracy. Ownership of Lunokhod 2 and the Luna 21 lander was sold by the Lavochkin Association for US$68,500 in December 1993 at a Sotheby's auction in New York[30] (although the catalogue incorrectly lists lot 68A as Luna 17/Lunokhod 1).[31] The buyer was computer gaming entrepreneur and astronaut's son Richard Garriott, who is also known by the name of his gaming character Lord British. Garriott stated in a 2001 interview: "I purchased Lunakod 21 [sic] from the Russians. I am now the world's only private owner of an object on a foreign celestial body.

Source: en.m.wikipedia.org

There still remains a very small chance for asteroid 2024 YR4 to impact the Moon on Dec. 22, 2032. That probability is currently 1.7%. 

Source: blogs.nasa.gov

LoRa gear can be great for doing radio communications in a light-weight and low-power way. However, it can also work over great distances if you have the right hardware—and the right antennas in particular. [taste_the_code] has been experimenting in this regard, and whipped up a simple yagi antenna that can work at distances of up to 40 kilometers.

Source: hackaday.com

The 1st hop only sees your connecting IP, but can’t decrypt your traffic. It forwards the still-encrypted traffic to the 2nd hop, effectively NAT-ing your connection and masking your IP address from the 2nd hop. The 2nd (exit) hop connects you to the internet, but never sees your personal info or IP address since it only knows that the connection is coming from the 1st hop. This splits “who you are” from “what you do”, meaning neither party can tie your identity to your browsing.

Source: obscura.net

Nostr is a bunch of unpaid or underpaid weirdos coding independently in bedrooms around the world and they mostly don’t listen to each other or ever agree on how anything should be implemented.

The biggest benefit of hosted channels is to provide a lightning native experience that upgrades easily to self-custody. An LSP just needs to not broadcast the on-chain txn The wallet client operates as normal. When you have a big enough balance, you can upgrade. Hosted just for the period of time you need it. It’s a real path from zap onboarding to full bitcoin ownership.

Around noon on January 20, DeepSeek’s founder, Liang Wenfeng (梁文锋), had the company release the DeepSeek-R1 model, whose performance can match the official version of OpenAI’s o1. Immediately afterwards, he left for Zhongnanhai to attend a symposium on Premier Li Qiang’s government work report—he was the only representative from an LLM company present at the symposium.

Source: www.geopolitechs.org

Using bitcoin makes it a better money, as you are participating in the process which makes it a viable form of money for others.

The Working Group shall be chaired by the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto (Chair).

Source: www.whitehouse.gov

protecting and promoting the ability of individual citizens and private-sector entities alike to access and use for lawful purposes open public blockchain networks without persecution, including the ability to develop and deploy software, to participate in mining and validating, to transact with other persons without unlawful censorship, and to maintain self-custody of digital assets;

Source: www.whitehouse.gov

taking measures to protect Americans from the risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which threaten the stability of the financial system, individual privacy, and the sovereignty of the United States, including by prohibiting the establishment, issuance, circulation, and use of a CBDC within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Source: www.whitehouse.gov

The most important thing is that noone has to ask permission to improve things.

Namecheap (opens new window): surpasses $73M in BTC revenue with 1.1m transactions

Source: blog.btcpayserver.org

Supposedly the group was gathered to work together in creating this Bluesky protocol, but I read the entire conversation and it was 100% people just shilling their own projects, so I talked a little about Nostr and the first feedback I got was: "how do we ban people? it looks like it would be very hard to ban", so I said that was the idea and the conversation ended.

NLnet has contributed funding to many important and very visible projects around fundamental standards from securing the core routing protocols and the domain name system of the internet to safer email, vendor-independent videoconferencing, more reliable wireless networks and private instant messaging - all based on open standards and verifiable open source software and/or hardware

Source: nlnet.nl

1: we don’t have to attack the center, we can encircle it by conquering the margins of niche communities and use-cases, and grow and strengthen the network as a whole that way. Which is also something the competition can’t do (as effectively).