Don't Be an NPC

NPC means Non-Player-Character. In some online games, the game includes artificial intelligence to run characters that compete with human players.  The behavior of these NPCs is preprogrammed and therefore only reflects the programmers' thought.

I've noticed that sometimes I think something and the only reason I think it is because someone else thought it first and I was exposed to their view enough times. Sometimes, it's because I thought of it once in the context of something that suggested it, and since I encounter that context often, I might start thinking it's true. This is fertile ground for science. The thought is recognized as a hypothesis and then an experiment is designed that searches for a way to prove the hypothesis wrong. Yes, WRONG. Good science proves hypotheses wrong and forces scientists to revise those hypotheses. Hypotheses survive good science only if they are highly accurate.

I've noticed that I have become dependent on evidence. If someone said "I think..." then I'd ask why. This often pushes people away. I like people, so I tried letting go of my dependence on evidence. I found that I felt I didn't matter any more. My sense of self value dropped drastically. I'm good at analyzing evidence and I had cut myself off from it. So I revived my reliance on evidence. 

When someone asks you why you think what you think, you have the opportunity to serve yourself and that other person by searching for the answer until you find it. You matter. Your analysis matters. Take that opportunity and don't be an NPC!

As A Corrections Officer...

Dear former or current CO,

The webmaster for voluntaryist.com (that's me) is looking for people willing to consider that perhaps, all human interaction should be voluntary.  Many people who call themselves "voluntaryists" have gotten together in an Internet chat group and decided to offer prisoners a correspondence course in philosophy with the aim of reducing the damage that prison does to both prisoners and those employed to care for them.

We believe that Corrections Officers will benefit from an understanding of voluntaryism and that many prisoners may be able to interest COs in it through kindness and reading material.  However, we don't feel that we know enough people who are or have been in your position to know what kind of material might help.

We have discovered a book called "Newjack" by Ted Conover that might interest you or someone you know.  Either way, if you feel you may have some insight that would help us in our effort, please reply, either to the address from which this letter came, or via email to webmaster [at] voluntaryist.com.

Notes on Speed Reading

A friend of mine recently responded very favorably to my concern that I read pretty slow for someone who wants to do well on the LSAT.  He researched some speed reading apps and found one written by some people in Minsk.  He's been playing with it, his wife loves the exercises, and I've been playing around with it too.  With his help and some prodding from the app itself, I've discovered a few things about myself which I imagine are true for most people.

When we read, we have a tendency to pronounce the words we read in our heads, our "mind's ear" if you want, and that takes time - time we don't need to use that way.  If you successfully suppress that tendency, you can read faster.  I see two reasons behind this.  First, you're not waiting for the pattern of sounds in the word you just read to finish playing in your mind before playing the next one, and second, you're not using any mental energy to form those sounds in the first place.

There is an important third element to this that I have not heard of or read about anywhere.  This third element is actually forming the meaning of the word we just read in our mind.  Obviously, we have to do this, but I hadn't recognized it as a discreet step until I played with this app ("Speed Reader" by "Speed Reading Team").  Normally, we let the squiggles on the paper (letters) become sound patterns (words) and then the sound patterns give rise to the meaning.  The trick is to feel the meaning come without waiting for (or even allowing) the sound pattern to come.

It is difficult to ignore the meaning

of a few lines of text even if we don't

read them in a way that produces the

sounds of the words in our minds.

That is the insight that I had yesterday or today.  I have learned to pay more attention to the meaning that arises from seeing text without actually reading it (meaning, saying all the words to myself).  The brain is a pattern matching machine, and because we learned to read (translate squiggles into sound patterns), and we learned to communicate verbally (translate sounds patterns into meaning), the squiggles have consistently led to the meanings for us, but we have to actively suppress the sound patterns so that A) they don't take up our time, and B) they don't take up any mental energy.

Landmark likes to say that we are "meaning making machines" - and we are.  We can use that to our advantage when we want to read a lot of text quickly.  It takes practice.

Some of the insights in this post came from Graeme Blake, whose website is full of good info for getting smarter (all with the intent of getting readers higher scores on the LSAT, but smarter even if you never intend to take any test).

How Can I Make a Unit of Currency?

I wanted to identify a question anyone can ask when they hear about a new currency.  It is likely that the U.S. will create a new currency at some point, and if you ask how you can make one, the answer will be: You Can't. You're not allowed to make one.  That's the point.  It's also the point of cryptocurrencies: You Can.  You may need to buy hardware and get software and configure it, but there's nothing illegal about doing any of that.

If you want to make a Bitcoin, you can enlist the help of a Bitcoin Mining company.  If it's a good company and you have enough patience, you will help to create a bitcoin.  You'll probably be helping to create 12.5 bitcoins.  You don't have to use a Bitcoin mining company though.  You can create a bitcoin by purchasing bitcoin mining hardware and running the software yourself.  If you do that, then you will be working on creating a package of 12.5 bitcoins - by yourself.  That's about $100,000 worth of Bitcoin right now, so you can expect to spend about that much to get the job done.  Caveat! The process involves a lot of randomness, so it's possible to spend millions and never actually make any bitcoin.  This is why most people go through a bitcoin mining company, called a "mining pool."

A lot of the money you'll be spending to make your package of bitcoins will be spent on electricity to run the hardware.  What the hardware does is to create a fingerprint for a bunch of data that is strung together in a "block."  I say "fingerprint" but the technical term is "hash."  You may be familiar with the fact that when you enter 16 random digits into a field on a webpage that asks for a credit card number, it usually responds right away that the number is invalid.  You might also know that this is because the first fifteen digits determine what the 16th digit should be, so only one out of ten random 16-digit sequences can be a valid credit card number.  That last digit is a kind of "hash" or fingerprint of the first 15.

The data being strung together into a "block" is transaction data.  Everyone who wants to spend bitcoin has software they use to do it.  The software makes a little packet of data that indicates what bitcoin is being spent and what the new rule is to spend it next time.  That new rule is identified by the bitcoin address to which the bitcoin is being sent.  The bitcoin address is based on the secret key that the receiver has; their "bitcoin private key."  The sender uses their own bitcoin private key to cryptographically sign the packet of data (a "transaction") and then it goes public on the Internet where bitcoin miners can collect it and add it to their block.

Here's why the miners fingerprint those blocks: A fingerprint, or hash, of a block is a number with about 77 digits.  Let's consider that it's between 0 and 1.  So, for example the fingerprint might be 0.123456...77, where that last 7 is the 77th digit.  The actual result is a very large integer, but if we divide it by 2 raised to the 256th power, it will be a number between 0 and 1, and it will have more than 77 digits, but the digits after the 77th one aren't important.  In order to create bitcoins, the hash has to be very small.  For example, the hash I suggested, 0.123456...77, regardless of what digits are represented by the ellipsis, is way too big.  If it were 0.0000...12345677, and the ellipsis represented several more zeroes, then it would be small enough.  What do they do if the fingerprint is too big?  Well, they change the data and recompute it.

The block contains a bunch of transactions along with a piece of data called the "nonce."  It's just a number that starts at 0, and they add one to it each time they get a hash that is too big, and then they recompute.  The block also contains a timestamp, and the nonce only goes up to about four billion (2 raised to the 32nd power), so when the nonce gets to the highest value it can be, it rolls back to zero and the miner has to change something else.  There are many things they change, but usually it's the timestamp, and it's really the software that changes it automatically.  If they've received new transactions to add to the block, they can restart their nonce back at zero.

The very first transaction in each block currently specifies that 12.5 new bitcoins, plus all the "extra" bitcoin from all the included transactions (called "transaction fees") now belongs to the bitcoin address entered by the miner.  So if you do "mine bitcoin" you can create 12.5 bitcoins and also earn some transaction fees.  I hope you're curious about the transaction fee because here's an explanation: If I identify exactly one bitcoin and declare that ₿0.9999 goes to your bitcoin address, that leaves ₿0.0001 on the table.  That's the transaction fee.  If I specified that you get the whole ₿1.0, then miners wouldn't bother including my transaction in their blocks, so no permanent, globally accessible and cryptographically protected record of the payment would exist and you will never be able to spend it.

Way back before I (or anyone else alive today) was born, anyone could make a unit of currency.  That was before the advent of "legal tender" laws which barred courts from ruling that the stuff anyone can make (like gold coins) must be handed over in a lawsuit.  If you want, you can still get some gold or silver and make a unit of currency, but the government will most likely pretend that what you made looks like a unit of currency that only the government is allowed to make and prosecute you for it.  That's what happened to Bernard von Nothaus who created the "Liberty Dollar."  So people who want to be free went digital.

Banks and governments are now scrambling to make something they can say is based on "blockchain," because they crave control.  My aim with this post was to arm you with a question you can use to avoid being under that control.  Whatever currency they make, ask them how YOU can make a unit of their currency, and see if it requires licenses or permits or privileges or whatever, or if they just ignore your question.  That's what the IRS does when you ask the important questions.

When a currency exists that anyone can make, currency production is "decentralized" and thereby protects those who use it from the corruption inherent to power.  This is why I love cryptocurrency.

Beware of Legalese

This is not a sob story.  This is an appeal.  I'm appealing to you to speak up.  You've probably received several notices from websites that tell you the "Terms of Service" and/or "Privacy Policy" has been updated to reflect recent changes, such as the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union.  What we need to speak up about is something that most people don't know about, so I'm going to tell you.  This is a copy of the text I sent to LocalBitcoins, and I'm inviting you, beseeching you, and imploring you to send it along to any outfits that tell you they are updating their policies.

An important legal concept is that a law which defines a term causes that term to be completely stripped of its common meaning wherever in that law the definition declares that the definition applies.  Can you clarify where you use terms as defined in a law (and provide a reference to that law)?  The language could be as simple as:

GENERAL
   - Language of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
LocalBitcoins recognizes that the legal jurisdictions of our members may have laws that define certain terms.  Except where indicated, the language used in these Terms of Service and in our Privacy Policy uses only the common understanding of these terms.  A URL and the specific legal terms defined there have been provided where appropriate so that you can look up the definitions.

Specifically regarding the GDPR, a handy URL in this effort is https://gdpr-info.eu/ 

Thanks!

I received this lovely response from LocalBitcoins, and I'd love to hear if any of you get something similar.

Hi David,

thank you for the feedback!

I will pass the suggestion to our legal department and hopefully, we will be adding it when doing next update to the TOS.

Lawyers constitute the "Ruling Class" of our planet now, which is why I'm taking the LSAT in June and planning to join that class.

From an evolutionary perspective, I'm already in the ruling class because A) I take responsibility for my own life and B) people see value in my thoughts and incorporate them into their own lives.  The law degree I seek will simply create a paper credential that I can use to help people who rely on such things (sadly, a very large portion of our species).  While I don't have the paper, my thoughts are easy for them to dismiss, and so they lose out on the benefits I offer.  This blog entry is being sent out to people who have joined my mailing list too, and you can check that out at http://eepurl.com/Pp7jf and/or read over the archives at https://goo.gl/ZNjWe9

Simple Tricks for Mailchimp Users

Hey guys,

First, a shoutout to everyone who finds this on my blog: y'all are eavesdropping on my email to people responsible for one of the world's greatest freedom festivals, Libertopia!  Come join us if you can!

I am expecting to be invited to go meditate in the desert for ten days without interacting with other people and I'm VERY EXCITED about it!  I might not get invited, but my intention is that I do.  If it works out as I intend, I will be incommunicado for ten days during which you'll want someone else to write copy and send newsletters.  Here is a list of the little tricks I use to make the process easier:

1. To make a new one, visit "campaigns" and use the drop down (which will NOT appear until your mouse is in the row for that campaign) on the right side to select "Replicate"
   
2. Click "Edit Design" in the Content section of the next page to change the contents.
3. Click something in the left pane (it's a preview of the newsletter) to put the editable version in the right pane (which I'll call the Edit pane).
4. Do NOT be alarmed that the links in the preview pane don't do anything.  That is by design.  When it goes out, they will work.
5. Double click an image in the edit pane to make changes.  You'll get TWO steps, the first is to "Insert or Edit Link", but once you clear that window, you'll be able to resize it or (click "show image style options") move it to the left or right, center it, adjust the space between the text and the image, or add a border.  BUT you can't change the image here.
6. If you want to use a different picture, delete that one (click it once and then press DEL or backspace) and click the "picture" button in the toolbar (the sixth one).  If you want to pull an image off the Internet, you can click the down arrow next to "Upload" and select "Import from URL".
7. If you don't mind complexity (I thrive on it) you can fix some peculiarities by clicking the second to last button ("<>") to view the HTML.  At least in Firefox, the cursor is not always where it appears to be, so I usually just CTRL-A (select all) and CTRL-V (paste) it into a text editor and mess with the HTML there.
8. The very last button in the toolbar (on the top row) isn't actually a tool, but a switch to show more tools by expanding the toolbox.  Using that, you can get buttons to make bullet lists, numbered lists, center, right, left, or both -justify the text, change the text color, etc.
9. Well, I won't be around to ask, but Google is helpful.  I should probably post this for all our fellow mailchimpers.  Oh look, I already did!
   

What is the weight of a priority mail envelope?

Ten 12.5x9.5 USPS Priority Mail envelopes weigh 14.9 ounces.  An ounce is 28.3495 grams.  How much does one envelope weigh?  This question also applies to USPS Priority Mail Express envelopes of the same size.

14.9 ounces times 28.3495 grams per ounce divided by 10 envelopes:

14.9 * 28.3495 / 10 = 42.24 grams per envelope.

Have you heard of "units analysis"?  It's a decent way to check your math when you do this kind of calculation.  You can ignore the numbers, but you have to remember that anything over itself (as in a fraction) is 1 and multiplying by 1 has no effect. So, applying that to the above, we have:

ounces times grams per ounce (g/o) divided by envelopes (e), or

o * g/o / e.  This puts ounces and grams in the numerator and envelopes and ounces in the denominator, and that allows us to "cancel out" the ounces (because they are in the numerator and the denominator), leaving us with grams per envelope.

When I get a receipt from Mailwerkz, my favorite place to send and receive packages, it shows the weight of the package I mailed.  This is very handy because I can convert it from pounds to grams and subtract the weight of the envelope to find out how much what I mailed actually weighed.

Take Responsibility

I found a great discussion in my email box a few days ago.  A "Ralph Lopez" had started the discussion by sending an unsolicited email to several people (including me) with the subject "Can false flag survivors and families form a united front?" Groups formed for and against Ralph's perception that authorities are largely responsible for a lot of the problems we face.  The divisiveness got to me and so I wrote a reply.  Before I put it here, let me give you a little background from the discussion. One of the emails in the discussion contained this:

Laurie Van Auken illuminated this distinction in her response to the government's declaration that "everyone is responsible for 9/11, therefore no one is [personally] for 9/11," to which she commented, "everyone is responsible for 9/11, therefore everyone is responsible for 9/11."

Now I want to share my input with my readers:

These are two very important and seemingly contradictory perspectives.  "Seemingly" I say because perspectives are always and everywhere just what seems to be, to someone.  I think in analogs and allegories.  So I imagine myself saying, after doing something evil: I take full responsibility, but I also blame all of you, in this email thread, in my life, in the world - everyone is to blame for my bad behavior.

However, someone, or some group (me, maybe some conspirators, friends, followers, whatever) created an "evil" intention and then executed on it.  Certainly, the intention was created out of the world and its condition, something to which every single one of us contributes.  What are we?  We are pieces of the physical universe capable of creating and executing on intentions.  With that capability comes responsibility.  Every individual has the responsibility to mind the intentions they create and on which they act, regardless of everyone and everything else.

In view of all of us having (and accepting) responsibility, let's confront the issue of mass murder.  Lord Acton wrote to a Bishop in 1887 that "Power tends to corrupt..." and corruption is a violation of the trust we put in others.  Putting trust in others can be overdone, and I think that's what's going on.  How do we measure the right amount of trust to put in our leaders, should we choose to have leaders?  With light, that's how.  Exposure and knowledge and work to establish an understanding of what's so is how we can know how much to trust.

What Ralph shared with us had this at its core: " full transparency, disclosure. Govt accountability. Public Right to Know. "  What Brian shared has this at its core: " we're all completely fucked by our own greed, avarice and stupidity, ".  I can do something - several things, actually - about both of these things, and it turns out it's the same set of things:

• Speak up
• Respect people
• Recognize my own fallibility
• See from the perspectives of others
• Keep others informed about what I have to offer
• Be honest and trade honestly and in good faith
• Maintain my ability for self-defense
• Protect what is valuable
• Pay attention

Bitcoin Dealer Archive (COMPLETE)

First off, you may be here because you've already been to some place on the Internet where you found someone (me!) with whom to trade bitcoin.  You might not know of the other places where I have ads letting people know that I can buy or sell bitcoin.  I can also buy or sell Dash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, and EOS.  I have ads on the following platforms:

• localbitcoins (scroll to the bottom to see my ads)
• paxful
• localmonero which also handles bitcoin as AgoraDesk
• localethereum
• Wall of Coins (Cash deposit or Cash by Mail)

Mailchimp provides an archive of my newsletters (sign up here), but it only has the most recent twenty posts.  Below is a usually-complete list for those who would like to start at the beginning, as I recommend.  The latest few newsletters might not be here yet, but that second link to the latest twenty has them.

CANARY: Since 6/9/2024, I have been under close scrutiny from the feds. I posted six parts of what turned out to be a 10-part narrative of my adventure in legal land.  If you'd like the rest, please get in touch with me.

CAVEAT: There is no way to alter the content of these newsletters (aside from violating Mailchimp's ToS, which I'm not willing to do and don't know how to do anyway), so be aware that some of what they say is out of date.  For example, "Newsletter Meetup" mentions a meetup that no longer exists.

1. Newsletter Intro
2. Newsletter LongCon
3. Newsletter ScammerID
4. Newsletter ScammerSampling
5. Newsletter IRS
6. Newsletter IDs
7. Newsletter Receipts
8. Newsletter Anti-Fiat
9. Newsletter Cash
10. Newsletter Meetup
11. Newsletter NSA Letter
12. Newsletter Palmdale
13. Newsletter Start Dealing
14. Newsletter Nicaragua
15. Newsletter Bounties
16. Newsletter Holidays
17. Newsletter Stabilization Fund
18. Newsletter abond4.me
19. Newsletter Thunderclap
20. Newsletter BTCAlldayallday
21. Newsletter Suppliers
22. Newsletter The Peace Revolution
23. Newsletter Fork
24. Newsletter Convenience and Savings
25. Newsletter Scammouflage
26. Newsletter Lend, Engage, Persist, Publish
27. Newsletter Joseph Bennett
28. Newsletter WoC
29. Newsletter Notes on Justice
30. Newsletter Opheus
31. Newsletter My First Correction
32. Newsletter Crowdsourcing
33. Newsletter Crowdsourcing (copy 01)
34. Newsletter Bitfinex
35. Newsletter Bitcoin Sale
36. Newsletter Think Tank
37. Newsletter 2016 Plans
38. Newsletter 2017 Plans
39. Newsletter Gov Attack
40. Newsletter Unclear Law
41. Newsletter Kickstarter 1
42. Newsletter Landmark!
43. Newsletter Bitrated
44. Newsletter Trace Mayer
45. Newsletter Trace Mayer with Link
46. Newsletter CHOSE 1
47. Newsletter Contributions
48. Newsletter Contributions (copy 01)
49. Newsletter Complete Archive
50. Newsletter Chocolate 
51. Newsletter Bitcoin is Many Doors
52. Newsletter Beware of Legalese
53. Newsletter I'll be out for a week
54. Newsletter Converting Victimization - I was robbed last night.
55. Newsletter ByeBye CBM Trades
56. Cash by Mail Elsewhere 
57. ⚡Lightning Network⚡ 
58. What's BitcoinHEX?
59. Is BitcoinHEX a Scam? 
60. Remember When Dave Used to Write? 
61. Start Your Vacation Now! 
62. Forbidden Apples available from Bitchute. 
63. How I've Been, and Why
64. Jackalope, Anyone?
65. I Have Crypto!
66. Proof of Keys and Other Important Things
67. Dealing with Volatility
68. Why does "Listen" start with "List"?
69. Jackalope! It's a freedom festival. I'll be there.
70. Beware of Dog!
71. Naked Shorting, Savings, and Balance
72. Hiatus
73. Hope for the Future
74. Perhaps it was Goodbye!
75. Letters of Support
76. Dave needs a job!

Thanks to my friend Candy for showing me that the Mailchimp Archive link does NOT provide a full archive.  I submitted feedback to Mailchimp about this, so hopefully they will fix it soon.  Meanwhile, I constructed the list above by logging into Mailchimp and copying the "page source" of my "Campaigns" page after I clicked the "Load More" button to make sure all my campaigns were listed.  I used a text editor to remove all the lines that didn't contain this:
id="dijit_form_CheckBox_{X}" value="{HEX}"
... where {X} is a number and {HEX} is a hexadecimal number.  My Regex in Textpad was:  
^.*[^0-9]([0-9]+" value="[0-9a-f]+").*$
Next, I copied those lines into Excel and turned them into links with an Excel formula that I've lost. If you'd like help getting the titles for your own archive, leave a reply and I'll see what I can do. I hope these instructions help others who followed the same rabbit hole trying to find a complete list of archived newsletters on Mailchimp's site.