Videos
- I knew Nostr was particularly popular in the Bitcoin world and thought it may be a good way to communicate at the event.
- Some micro.blog folks were playing around in Nostr using Damus on iOS, and Damus looked very polished.
- Damus connects with Lightning to allow “Zaps” on posts so you can “zap” some amount of Satoshis to other peoples posts.
Mazie took this fun handheld time-lapse of me making a round of smash burgers tonight. 🍔
Raccoons v Webcam
With Cannon Lake flooded I had repositioned one of the UniFi G4 Instant cameras so it was pointing right at the boat.
I’ve also been battling with raccoons at our place. This summer I had 6 of them trapped and taken away. But there are still more.
And on the very first night of having this camera in position the raccoons decided to play with it.
Thankfully later in the day the lawn care folks showed up and amazingly one of them put the camera back in place for me. Thank you! We’ll see if the raccoons leave it alone.
Sounds on Dalkey Island.
A fish riding a bicycle! (at Guinness Experience in Dublin)
Hawk Walk at Ashford Castle
If I was living hundreds of years ago I would like to have been a person that hunted with a hawk.
On our way to Ballyshannon we stopped at Ashford Castle to experience a Hawk Walk. After completely missing the car park on the first round through we found ourselves back outside the castle grounds getting more thorough directions from the gatekeeper who found us quite amusing. The second time through the gorgeous estate we found it. The castle and estate were amazing on their own. The Guinness family owned it at one point.
We made our way on a nice 10 minute walk through the grounds to the Ireland School of Falconry and started our Hawk Walk with a tour of the facility and seeing some of the 32 hawks that they have there. The Harris Hawks that we would walk with are unique in that they hunt like a pack. They work cooperatively.
We all took turns with Mazie and Tyler starting out with the hawks. We took Walnut and Chestnut out for the walk. The hawks came to the glove quick and obviously knew that the morsels of rat were waiting for them.
We went out on the walk and it was incredible to have these hawks pacing along with us as we went. Anytime you raised the glove they would immediately come. We would then launch them off again and they would fly away. In between they would survey the area and swoop in around us joining along on the walk. Their speed was amazing. They can routinely go 60 miles an hour.
An amazing experience made even more incredible with Ashford Castle as the backdrop. Photos don’t capture this experience that well but the videos really do. The power and grace when the hawk lands on the glove was inspiring.
Tyler in Flight Simulator
While on Milwaukee Spring Break we took a short drive 40 miles south to Gurnee, Illinois to visit Extreme Flight Simulation. Tyler wanted to try a real flight simulator and EFS has a 737-800 simulator that you can do a “no experience” session with a co-pilot. Tyler had a blast. I was a little jealous that I didn’t get to fly it myself. Below are some videos of the experience.
Tyler landing at Chicago O’Hare
Tyler taking off from Tokyo Narita
Here is a photo of him taking the pilot seat right before starting the simulation.
Part of the Milwaukee Spring Break collection.
Lake Superior, Grand Marais.
360 video from the #TeamSPS 2024 Social!
Annual tradition at Renaissance Festival — Ring the bell! Dinged it 2 of 5 times. 💪
One of many waterfalls along the trail to Soglio.
Short video of the demonstration chocolate line at Lindt Home of Chocolate.
Bitcoin Lightning: Fun, Fast, and Free-ish
I’ve been casually investigating Bitcoin Lightning for a while. Lightning is a Layer 2 network on-top of Bitcoin and promises nearly free instantaneous transactions. Apps like Strike and Cash support Lightning, but I got frustrated with them because it wasn’t clear where Lightning was doing the work. Perhaps a good thing for normal use, but not great for learning the tech.
As Bitcoin 2023 approached one of the objectives I had was to get first-hand experience with Lightning. ⚡️ I did some digging before getting to Miami and had Wallet of Satoshi installed, and via Strike transferred 100,000 or so Satoshis.
Before going further, a Satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin and it is named after the creator of Bitcoin. 1 bitcoin = 100,000,000 satoshis. At current market 1 Satoshi is worth $0.00027, and $0.01 is worth 37 Satoshis. Satoshis are often referred to as “Sats”. Sometimes people will say “Stacking Sats” which is to imply slowly building value in Bitcoin with small dollar purchases.
First Transaction
We arrived at the Miami Beach Convention Center early on Friday and desperately needed coffee. We queued up and noticed that they (and we would realize all vendors here) had IBEX terminals to accept Bitcoin payment using Lightning.
A little background, in 2015 I had gone on a mission to buy something with Bitcoin in Minneapolis. I couldn’t find any merchant selling anything that would accept Bitcoin. I’ve long felt that Bitcoin is a great store of value, but have many times said that you would never use Bitcoin for day-to-day purchases. Transaction fees are high, and block times are not deterministic so you can’t confirm payment immediately.
Lightning proved me totally wrong. Thanks to Kerry for whipping out his phone to catch my very first Lightning purchase for some coffees and empanadas on video.
The payment is instantaneous, and the fees are nearly free. The merchant put in the total amount I owed on their device, it generated a Lightning “invoice” that I scanned with my wallet, and after confirming payment it was done in a flash.
Amazing. 🤩
Nostr & Damus
So how is it that I showed up in Miami with Wallet of Satoshi setup and ready to make Lightning transactions?
Setup was pretty simple actually. I downloaded Damus and it walked be through getting my Nostr public and private keys setup. Damus had a list of Lightning wallets that worked with it and Wallet of Satoshi was the best rated in the App Store. And then I stumbled a bit but finally figured out how to send some Satoshis from Strike to Wallet of Satoshi.
Off to the races! 🏇⚡️
This is the first application experience I’ve ever used where micropayments really work.
This is truly exciting to me as a potential way to fix the Original Sin of the Internet — building everything off of a surveillance economy funded by advertising! Traditionally micropayments are far too cumbersome to work. Zaps powered with Bitcoin Lightning are completely friction free.
At the show Damus was selling (for 27,800 Sats) “Zap Me” buttons with an embedded NFC chip. When you bought it they associated the chip with your profile so people could tap the button with their phone and automatically be brought to your profile where they could send you a Zap! ⚡️
PS: I’m planning to add Lightning options to thingelstad.com and the Weekly Thing to encourage folks to experiment.
Login and Signing
Finally, Lightning also brings some functionality to Bitcoin that I’ve enjoyed for a long time with Ethereum. You can use your Lightning wallet to authenticate with a service, as well as signing messages.
Over dinner I was able to authenticate and provision a Bitcoin mining unit just by signing in with Lightning.
Moving beyond passwords, and digital signatures to prove validity of content, are going to increase in significance over time and it is great to see Lightning bring that capability to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
During the 2 days of Bitcoin 2023 I relied almost exclusively on Bitcoin to pay for lunches, coffees, and anything else I wanted. I also took the opportunity to send Satoshis to some of the speakers and people that I met at the event. It was incredible. It gave me all the privacy and benefit of cash, along with all the benefit of digital money.
So my earlier assertion that Bitcoin is a store-of-value but not useful for day to day purchases? Wrong.
In fact I’m on the hunt to get a Lightning coin machine like the one at the event to have in my house. I’d love to be able to have people come over and get their first Bitcoin experience by installing a free Lightning Wallet, putting a quarter in a box and scanning a QR code to leave with 1,000 satoshis! 🥳
Mazie gave a short recital at B&H Photo Video.
Cheering for Argentina 🇦🇷 with Hector at Brit’s Pub as they won on penalty kicks against Netherlands 🇳🇱 in the 2022 World Cup will be a moment I remember forever. 🤩⚽️
Kvernufoss. Very beautiful waterfall.
Waterfall on way to Seyðisfjörður.
Upstream from Dettifoss is the beautiful “symphony” of waterfalls at Selfoss.
The power of Dettifoss is amazing. From the viewing area the falls fills so much of your field of view that you can lose yourself in the cascade of water.
Taylor Hawkins drum solo from Oct. 18, 2018 Foo Fighters show. RIP. 😢
Mazie did the Multi-Axis Trainer at Space Camp today. She reported it was fun and did not feel dizzy at the end.