Tim Bouma

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Soon, every machine will be able to directly send and receive money with any another machine on the planet. #nostr #safebox…

I am pinching myself on how NUTS (pardon the pun) this is. Every #nostr #safebox instance becomes its own payment, clearing and settlement engine. A #safebox can send ecash directly to any other #safebox, it can receive ecash, swap it for new tokens or clear out the funds to any…

Very cool. This is an inspiration for me to organize #Nostrottawa sometime early next year @The Broken Ruler are you in?…

“In 1905, Einstein pronounced the doom of continuous or ‘rational’ space, and the way was made clear for Picasso, the Marx brothers, and MAD.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964…

Similar to the three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (x,y,z), #Nostr can be thought of a non-Euclidean cyberspace coordinate system of (n,e) where n is a 32 byte #npub, and e is a 32 byte hash of an event. With (n,e) you can reference and attribute…

Layer 2.…

“In the decentralized, electrical world, we seek multiplicity, not repeatability. We are dancers in a ballet, not soldiers in a march.” Slightly paraphrased from Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964).…

This is so true. Also true with central banking, where Walter Bagehot admitted as such, that central banking was a less stable alternative to the private banking system. Managing short-term volatility at the expense of long-term stability. Now that banks have adopted ‘inflation-fighting’ as their primary mission,

“Where the whole man is involved, there is no work. Work begins with the division of labour and the specialization of functions and tasks in sedentary, agricultural communities. In the computer age we are once more totally involved in our roles.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964…

Convenience is the number 1 driver for most users. Convenience is about reducing complexity AND maximizing optionality. Convenience has little to do with security or sovereignty and that’s how the big platforms are winning - convenience and optionality between a limited set of platforms (e.g., Apple vs. Google). The…

“Money,” they say, “is the symbol of duty, it is the sacrament of having done for mankind that which mankind wanted. Mankind may not be a very good judge, but there is no better.” quote from Understanding Media…

Just. Wow. Reading Marshall McLuhan's chapter on money. He describes the tradition of potlatch where huge surpluses of food are purposefully destroyed for the purpose of maintaining traditional social order. Rice exposed to rain or elaborate art constructions, involving tremendous effort, smashed. Makes me wonder if the ulterior

"When the Spaniards were besieging Leyden in 1574, leather money was issued, but as hardship increased the population boiled and ate the new currency." Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964…

Everything is an information channel. With most information channels being digital: Claude Shannon showed us how to communicate a digital public signal through noise using redundancy. Whitfield Diffie showed us how to communicate a digital private signal through noise without an intermediary. Together, these two capabilities are the foundation of…