dantzler

Biochemist interested in decentralization. Open to collaboration.

Public Key

npub1jmr7lf85239hswjhy6jxrq2hf8cteelkddl855shfd23564ajxeseaukpd

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsfd3l05n69gjmc8ftjdfrps9t5nu9uulmxkln62gt5k4g6d27ervcprfmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdaksz8thwden5te0dehhxarj94c82c3wwajkcmr0wfjx2u3wdejhgr2my97

Publishing to

theforest.nostr1.com

nostr-pub.wellorder.net

Author Public Key

npub1jmr7lf85239hswjhy6jxrq2hf8cteelkddl855shfd23564ajxeseaukpd

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-10-09 23:04:48 UTC

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What are you doing at Sound HSA to prevent data breeches like the one that happened on Aug 10, 2026 that resulted in my name, birthday and account number being compromised?
Why should I trust you to keep my bitcoin safe if you can't even keep my PII safe?
Would you at some point in the future consider offering a model like unchained whereby clients can control 2 keys of a 2 of 3 multisig (and you control 1) ? This world at least give me more confidence that my assets are safe.

2026-10-09 05:55:38 UTC

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Just went to a local meetup.

2026-10-08 15:06:41 UTC

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Nice!

2026-10-06 16:37:54 UTC

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Like a perfectly fitted and tuned bicycle disappears underneath you as you become one with the machine.

2026-10-06 04:25:16 UTC

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Good night, indeed.

2026-09-29 18:51:44 UTC

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Whereabouts?
I have lots TVs, red tailed hawk & the occasional barred owl at the tree farm near Chehalis, WA.

2026-09-24 23:38:35 UTC

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That looks like a turkey vulture.

2026-09-18 20:34:05 UTC

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They are my favorite abrasives. Synthetic crystals are fine for that application and lack most of the externalities of mined diamonds.

2026-09-02 20:52:24 UTC

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I resemble this note. I miss my '87 245 manual brick, except for the gas mileage.

2026-08-26 14:43:24 UTC

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How so? Genuinely curious.
I run debian, so maybe compare to that. There are also ways to harden a distro from the defaults.

2026-08-25 14:52:53 UTC

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I'm pretty excited to do this, too. I've been looking at distros that pushed back or refused to follow along with age verification. I'm picking up a pile of surplus thinkpads today from the biotech that laid me off at the beginning of 2025 and omarchy is going on one of them.

2026-08-25 13:45:49 UTC

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Why misquote? He does not say what you wrote inside the quote marks in the video shown. Regardless of whether I may agree with you or not, this detracts from your legitimacy. Be objective and let folks make up their own minds. Id you want to add commentary that is your own, leave it out of quote marks.

2026-08-25 02:16:08 UTC

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Thank you. I'm intensely curious and open minded. I'd say I really started going down the rabbit hole around the great financial crisis and I had a very rough time during covid as a heterodox. I'm trying to balance paying attention with inner growth & peace, plus building resilience.

2026-08-25 01:51:22 UTC

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Many thanks!

2026-08-24 16:46:19 UTC

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Thank you very much! I only see the message you sent prior to the link. Maybe my relay set is lacking?

2026-08-20 02:12:41 UTC

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Deterministic Optimism

2026-08-18 16:01:24 UTC

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Thank you. I'm still working on my nostr-fu. Using coracle.

2026-08-18 16:00:28 UTC

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Yes. 'twas but a fleeting fantasy. a comforting thought.
My kind of fantasy, much like _The_Moon_is_a_Harsh_Mistress_
and now back to our reality...

2026-08-18 02:57:09 UTC

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Hat tip to Kevin McKernan, CSO and Founder of Medicinal Genomics who discovered this DNA contamination while using a vial of these injectable products as an RNA control in a DNA sequencing reaction and to Phillip Buckhaults of University of South Carolina who doubted and challenged Kevin, but was open minded enough to attempt to reproduce Kevin's data. Phillip reproduced the data using several vials with good chain of custody. This type of collaborative science is truly an inspiration to all of us in the field and works much better than the walled gardens of the current peer review process.

2026-08-18 02:46:17 UTC

My favorite part about today's bitcoin and... pod episode was the musing on why no hackers eschew predatory gains to instead take down taxpayer databases instead of selling the stolen data to wrench gangs.
https://npub1jmr7lf85239hswjhy6jxrq2hf8cteelkddl855shfd23564ajxeseaukpd.blossom.band/c9af77b68bbf5fb00f06ce2703bee0b86c1001c57979b0d482de0f130e48ca04.webp
https://fountain.fm/episode/JU41D0i1YNBc1VCNjKu6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHKlfGq3bOA
@nprofile…fv9m

2026-08-07 16:24:51 UTC

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The GBoard approach involves installing that app and revoking network access. You can also turn off personalization, avoid voice typing/microphone access, and don’t send feedback. In this state, it is unclear how nerfed the app would be. It honestly seems like a ripe, juicy fruit of an opportunity for someone to make a local-only keyboard app that learns from the user's style, word use statistics, etc.

2026-08-07 16:15:41 UTC

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Oh dear god - the autocorrect is the bane of my existence. I do feel your pain!

2026-08-07 15:43:40 UTC

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Have you tried heliboard? There is also a way to use googles keyboard and supposedly strip out phoning home, but I would need to research that before trying. I use the former. It is okay, and much better than the stock keyboard.

2026-08-06 02:39:47 UTC

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I tried with cashu but could not get it to work. I've mostly just sent the token strings (i.e. bearer instrument). I have minibits & cocod runnning.

2026-08-05 17:20:30 UTC

@nprofile…22hw You've been doing a great job these past 2 days reporting on the current situation.
Do you cashu (as in can you receive it?)

2026-08-05 16:50:57 UTC

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GM. Thank you for your offer to help folks work through this mess. Very kind.

2026-07-30 15:42:43 UTC

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Happy to test.
Also, have you connected with
@npub1myg…sn5p ?
He was on no solutions with Gigi recently talking about decentralized company structures.

2026-07-25 02:15:16 UTC

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What are you're thoughts on this analysis and potential vulnerabilities?
https://saadkhalidhere.medium.com/why-bitchat-is-a-bad-idea-my-audit-found-critical-zero-days-1b126a45a2c5

2026-07-23 16:49:42 UTC

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I am happy for you. I learn something every day - I used quercitin during covid to enhance zinc bioavailability. Did not know it was found in nettles and also has anti-inflammatory properties. We have a few nettles growing in the woods at our tree farm and are trying to encourage/propagate them.

2026-07-23 04:15:54 UTC

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I appreciate your thoughtful post and generally agree. We all have a choice around how we deploy resources and effort. Transactions are relatively cheap right now but eventually the market value of permissionless peer to peer money will dominate. I am perfectly okay with people using bitcoin in ways I may not choose to use it myself, so long as I continue to be able to use it without others being able to influence how I use it.

2026-07-23 03:27:19 UTC

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You are not alone in that.

2026-07-23 02:05:20 UTC

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*seeing

2026-07-23 02:04:54 UTC

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I would enjoy setting what you come up with.
Art, architecture and nature are welcome contrast to the river of narrative, technology, science and human behavior/incentives that I seem to often swim in.
Thank you for your effort

2026-07-20 15:53:45 UTC

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What don't you like about mint? I run debian trixie on my laptops and it just works. Mint is debian under the hood, which is why I asked. For desktops I use gnome or xcfe, but there are various options. Once you get it set up, you should be good to go and most any issue can be quickly solved with a decent LLM troubleshooting session. I've set up a few bargain thinkpads for non- or less-technical friends and generally the only friction is getting them to update the packages regularly.

2026-07-20 15:38:52 UTC

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Sorry to hear about your solar panels. Glad you reflected and decided to do what feels right to you & is aligned with your values.
You have some cool stuff to share as you repair and reconnect your setup; I will certainly keep an eye out.

2026-07-15 16:05:29 UTC

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I tried to make a model that would engage the small, brass valve handle of a Wye adapter. We have many of these on our farm and my partner has trouble sometimes turning them by hand. The handle is a non-symmetric, skinny diamond shape. I just wanted a reasonable negative space that matches the handle like a socket, with an extension for leverage. I tried Claude, GPT & Gemini and none of them were able to get the shape right even after uploading a photo of the valve handle and a hand drawing with micrometer measurements.
This was a couple months ago, so I should try again.

2026-07-15 14:05:02 UTC

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I think of wealth as having health and the ability to choose how you spend your time. Also your network of meaningful relationships.

2026-07-15 13:28:42 UTC

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Good morning. Another beautiful day begins.

2026-03-12 18:05:01 UTC

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Indeed. I appreciate your open mind.

2026-03-12 17:09:26 UTC

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I just didn't have the heart to do that, plus Linux just seemed like this wild land to explore. My last windows box was 7. I was never allowed admin privileges at work and it was a constant source of frustration for me. Once I started learning Linux I was hooked. I hear you though and have heard that from other wise folks.
The first (biotech) real startup I worked for let me be my own IT dept. I ran Debian stable on a p52 and ran windows in a VM so my laptop could talk to the instruments in lab. It was great. I still fire that old VM up occasionally to use the instrument specific software if I need to for consulting.
These days I'm moving more towards learning to use LLMs to both build software and learn programming & security best practices. Doing this in a Linux environment is much more comfortable for me. The telemetry and embedded AI in windows is quite scary.

2026-03-12 16:54:02 UTC

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I have been a Debian user for years. These days I run Trixie on my main workstation and multiple Pis and Sid on several other boxes, plus my laptop. My node runs Trixie and my Pi5 with openclaw runs ubuntu server headless. My ancient beagleboneblacks are now running trixie.
In general, stuff just works, and Sid gives me access to more fresh packages, even if it is a headache sometimes for constantly filling up /boot with new kernels, not working with more conservative stuff I use like Rstudio, etc.
I'm genuinely curious about some other more hands-on distros like gentoo or arch for learning and more control. Plus the whole Cali age-verification thing for dbus has me concerned and looking preemptively for alternatives.
I'm not a dev per se, but I like hardware (think homemade antennas, sensors, etc.) and writing Python tools. I do some bioinformatics for work. I came to Linux based on a loathing of windows, being somewhat of a control freak, and wanting to learn. I am eternally grateful that it exists as I interact with it nearly every waking day.

2026-02-10 23:09:28 UTC

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Thank you. Likewise!
Hopefully you get your printer sorted out.
If I learn anything when I troubleshoot by blobbing problem, I will share.

2026-02-10 20:50:07 UTC

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The freezer doesn't work. When it is 'freezing' at the beginning it stays near ambient temperature. The vacuum pump seems to work although we had to replace the oil after a relatively short while. What seems weird is the coolant compressor seems warm, but doesn't seem to be running.
I did extend a run that seemed almost done until the morning so I could go to sleep. It looked like some water made it down to the pump the next morning, but we cleaned all that out. The no-freezing part we noticed on the next run before the vacuum would be on. I need to allocate some time to troubleshoot. It seems like a fairly simple system, much like the lyophilizers I have used at lab.

2026-02-10 20:05:52 UTC

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I'm no dev, but I love using my imagination (and a basic understanding of systems, CS, Python, etc.) to indulge my enjoyment of tinkering and building things. Nothing that I have released, but I may at some point share.
I'm interested in a making a transaction explorer/tracer with good visualization that uses only queries to a local full node.
Also playing around with BLE sensors & a Pi or old beaglebone to collect environmental data (temp, pressure, humidity, etc.), store it in a SQLite db & make visualizations. For me this has practical aspects since I'm trying to grow things at a remote site where the actual temps are more extreme than the NOAA data from the nearest weather station suggest.
AI is such a great and fun tool. I used to do similar things with books & stack exchange and now it is just way faster and more focused on the ideas and architecture.

2026-02-10 19:23:19 UTC

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Honest question: how do you feel about linchpin libraries like secp256k1?

2026-02-10 17:55:02 UTC

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Is that support? My printer (a kossel pro that I built) prints most things pretty well, but recently I tried printing part of a meshtastic board case.
One of the parts required support and my printer kept blobbing up while trying to do the support structures. I have always tried to do my designs to not require support, but this is someone else's .stl file.
I spent some time with an LLM doing research and it seems like there are things I can try (e.g. slow things down, make the supports have a bigger footprint, et al) to tweak in how I slice the print, but I have not had time to get back to that project.
On an unrelated note, our freeze drier decided to stop 'freezing'. We had a whole batch of bananas turn out with a chewy texture. Do you know of any good resources to troubleshoot? It sounds like the relay is clicking but the compressor is not coming on, even though it feels warm to the touch. Same model as yours, I think.

2026-02-02 22:55:04 UTC

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I'm in a similar boat, needing to raise funds for day to day activities while I try to find a decent job in science. Rolling month-to-month at this point, supplementing with other assets when I can.

2026-01-28 21:40:28 UTC

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My pleasure. Happy to find interesting, positive folks here!

2026-01-28 21:31:45 UTC

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I've been saving copper pennies for years. In 1982, they were mixed, so a non-destructive way to tell is weigh them: Zn pennies are 2.5 g and Cu pennies about 3.1 g
I've also been saving all my nickels, which are 75% Ni & 25% Cu.
Today, a copper penny has almost $0.04 of copper and nickels are worth around $0.07
Being both a sound money enthusiast and somewhat of a metal head, I figure some day I will melt these down (separately) and cast a cool piece of art. Or use the pennies in a project that needs copper to conduct electricity or heat.
My partner's kid is into pennies since they are being phased out. They get all my zinc ones, but I did gift a 1964 50 cent piece for xmas that has done nicely since then.

2026-01-28 20:34:58 UTC

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Super cool!

2026-01-28 20:24:23 UTC

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This is a sound analysis. It is not easy to bring significant additional silver to market. Industrial demand is fairly inelastic. At some point the price will disgorge holdings from retail to meet the demand.
As an aside, I have heard multiple reports from folks (some from my bitdevs group) who have had a hard time selling physical back to e.g. coin shops. They are getting -30% off spot if the store even offers to buy it.

2026-01-28 20:19:39 UTC

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Mostly up to and including 1964, except for some later half-dollars and dollars. This is a great resource:
https://www.coinflation.com/

2026-01-28 19:13:01 UTC

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I'm in the same general area. Can see St. Helens from our country road.
I'm learning about how to produce biochar on site. Thank you.

2026-01-28 19:09:22 UTC

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I did not. For wanting to assert bodily autonomy I was fired from 2 scientist jobs in the biotech industry. One of my best friends got Guillain-Barré syndrome from his first booster.
Kevin Mckernan & Jessica Rose are trying to share data on DNA contamination in these products and are being fought by the establishment, who are using the review process, etc. to suppress their work. I believe they actually inscribed a reference to this paper in the timechain and are using nostr as an uncensorable mechanism to share it.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/08916934.2025.2551517?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed#abstract

2026-01-27 19:17:55 UTC

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Whereabouts are you? I am interested in hugelkulture and we have many similar plant species on our property (PNW.) Thank you for sharing the process/progress. Our forest has more course, woody debris than I currently know what to do with...

2026-01-14 08:26:16 UTC

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Hi from X. Thanks for sharing your npub there the other day.

2026-01-08 04:05:08 UTC

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You're in good company. Welcome.

2026-01-08 04:02:42 UTC

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Welcome, Berk. Nice salmon prep!

2025-12-23 07:42:26 UTC

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I'm in again at some point. Next few Wednesdays are tough. Open to shifting day though.
Hang in there @nprofile…q8k3

2025-12-18 22:54:42 UTC

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Fascinating - thank you!

2025-12-18 21:27:45 UTC

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31.10 pounds smoked

2025-12-05 19:29:38 UTC

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Thank you for the rec. Will try it out. I had been using station-specific apps like kexp or c89.5 but appreciate the opportunity to increase musical diversity!

2025-12-02 22:46:58 UTC

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Very low frequency underwater acoustics. Still limited in range though (< 40 km.)
https://www.sercel.com/en/news/long-range-underwater-acoustic-communication-experiment

2025-12-02 19:37:48 UTC

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Thanks for the post. You reminded/inspired me to spend more time learning about rocket mass heaters. We have lots of firewood, but it needs to be seasoned. Score on the mill trimmings!

2025-11-27 17:20:18 UTC

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You too. Enjoy family.

2025-11-27 01:28:11 UTC

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Have a great turkey day, all!

2025-11-20 01:11:06 UTC

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Beautiful. Did not know the name - thank you. It is plentiful on vine maples and other trees around me. Looks like some buttercup & maybe trailing blackberry, too? Alder or hazelnut leaves?

2025-11-13 17:17:25 UTC

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found 48 proofs , but no ecash recovered. has me in a loop of 'going to the next interval', whatever that means. UX could use some work.
I get the message: "Good news is that already spent Ecash has been found. Continue with next recovery interval."
I've gone through 4-5 intervals, but they take a while. It does say that it is restoring from mint.minibits.cash The # of proofs found sometimes changes. It look like the intervals are ~ 50; I'm on 550-600, but don't have patience to keep at this much longer as I have not yet had coffee.
says keyset ID 00500550f0494146 (sat)
Running latest version of minibits on graphene.
good exercise - thank you. makes me think twice about the 9k sats I have under another seed.

2025-11-08 02:26:56 UTC

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I fell into that trap once...
Started with a 55 gallon tank then added a couple 100s and a 26 bow front. Then put a 20 gal at work on my desk. I did fantasize about a custom, large tank.
Then I bought my own house that required some fixin' and downsized eventually to zero.
I'll probably get another tank at some point because it was so peaceful to watch the fish. Maybe incorporate aquaculture into homestead for different reasons.
I raised various types of mostly south american cichlids because their behaviors were interesting and they had quite a lot of personality for fish. Always good entertainment when my cat pickles would dip her paw into the tank with a feisty 7" labiatus...

2025-11-07 17:23:40 UTC

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This sucks, I'm sorry to hear that.
which mint? It would be great to understand the failure mechanism. Bad mint or something else.
I still think cashu has a lot of promise, but there are tradeoffs. Love the idea of multinut.
Hope your weekend goes well.

2025-11-07 05:29:09 UTC

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If your device (e.g. phone) has internet access, you can 'teleport' to different geohash locations. Click the top bar on the right where it has the # symbol. The characters after that are your geohash. In the #location channels you can switch to widen your radius from (BT) 'mesh' to 'block', 'neighborhood', 'city', 'province' or 'region'. Or if you know a specific location geohash, you can enter that. No extra hardware required.

2025-11-06 21:46:56 UTC

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Thank you. I've had trouble with getting zaps working. Is there a good source of info you know of? I tried to link a phoenix wallet. Using amethyst, yakkihone, primal & sometimes jumble or ditto. I got set up early with nos2x, so I don't use alby.

2025-11-06 21:37:02 UTC

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Folks in my signal group report that lava moved their coins without their permission and they do not appear to be doing DLC verification anymore.
Here are a couple takes from X that can provide more insight:
https://x.com/_arshbot/status/1986156462519832921
https://x.com/bonomat/status/1986308591796822041
Personally, I would avoid them like the plague, but I'm pretty conservative & boring.

2025-11-06 21:17:50 UTC

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Have you considered @nprofile…9puf ?
I would be happy to test it out with you.
Thanks again for the great discussion last night!

2025-11-05 22:19:34 UTC

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20:00 Eastern time zone?

2025-11-05 22:13:49 UTC

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I'm game. Flexible on timing.

2025-11-05 20:31:54 UTC

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I agree. Welcome to nostr!

2025-11-04 18:59:55 UTC

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Wanted to share this in case it is not on your radar:
https://www.agweb.com/news/business/bitcoin-set-revolutionize-us-agriculture

2025-11-04 18:49:55 UTC

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thank you for bringing this to my attention!

2025-11-01 00:23:39 UTC

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Thanks - this was pretty interesting!

2025-10-23 16:44:18 UTC

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To be honest, I think it was user error. Pretty sure I just missed the nos2x window that popped up underneath another window and I wasn't approving the sign-in, hence could not get in using my nostr profile. Thank you.

2025-10-23 00:33:39 UTC

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I tried to pop in but hivetalk is not letting me join. Planned to say a quick hi, but I have a 5 hour interview at a startup tomorrow and am studying/working on slides. Hope y'all have a good night.

2025-10-16 05:15:46 UTC

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Thank you!

2025-10-16 04:25:09 UTC

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what are you using? I use ollama locally and just played around with this repo so I could talk with PDFs. I keep running out of memory though...
https://github.com/fahdmirza/doclingwithollama
I would like to be able to make audiobooks locally, too.

2025-10-08 23:52:26 UTC

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I can make it.

2025-10-01 21:52:41 UTC

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core v30
When my bitaxe arrives (thanks @nprofile…lwfh ) I will look into mining with Ocean or figure out how to translate/proxy to stratum v2.

2025-09-28 04:48:27 UTC

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You can always take it to the next level by using ideas from von Neumann to avoid potential bias in your dice:
Take any even‑length list of D6 outcomes (e.g. a 120‑length vector) and pair them sequentially (N0, N1), (N2, N3), etc.
They emit one bit per non‑tie:
0 if the first roll < second roll.
1 if the first roll > second roll.
Discard pairs where the two rolls are equal.
Repeat until you have sufficient bits for desired key entropy.
You probably don't need to do this, but it was a fun rabbit hole for me. I'm almost certain that e.g. seed signer et al do not use this approach and rather just ingest the raw die roll results.

2025-09-27 00:39:34 UTC

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The link took me here where it says out of stock.
https://pay.zaprite.com/pl_7kTSUVDT8g
I'm interested and was looking for the price. I'm kind of cash poor at the moment, but am keeping and eye out for economical ways to learn the mechanics of mining. I have no realistic expectation of hitting the 'lottery', just want to learn, integrate with my node, etc.
Thank you for replying.

2025-09-27 00:20:01 UTC

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and they are gone...
Thank you for the heads-up! (I did not get one this time)

2025-09-23 20:13:18 UTC

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Strongly agree.
The covid era reinforced both how important it is to think for oneself, and the lengths the entrenched narrative-creators are willing to go to demonize, discredit, de-platform & de-monetize people who dare to think critically based on their own lived experience & knowledge and information from their web of trust.

2025-09-23 17:52:28 UTC

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I agree with the vast majority of what you have written here. 😄
It is challenging at the beginning of developing a garden (we are only now 1 year on the property) to move things in the direction of healthy, microbially rich soil. The fun is in the journey and the learning.
So far, using deep leaf mulching from the abundant trees in the non-garden space has helped out compete weeds and add organic material to our clay-rich soils. We hunted for symphylans this weekend and fortunately did not find any. I'm excited to put some soil under a microscope to look at what kinds of nematodes we have, among other tiny soil creatures.
As you say, plants in healthy soil, like a healthy body will resist assault by pathogens. Both human and plant immune systems are truly amazing.

2025-09-23 17:21:11 UTC

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I will look at that. Thank you.
I agree that the Spanish flu is not what it seems and that many if not most of the people reputed to have died from flu likely died from something else (e.g. secondary bacterial infections, etc.)
Your profile lists homesteading as an interest, and I'm pretty sure that is why I originally followed you. I'm also working on homesteading. We harvested dozens of pears, asian pears, shallots, onions, potatoes & zucchini this past weekend. I am lucky to have a horticulturist as my beloved partner.
In the spirit of curiosity & improved plant yields, consider that there are plant pathogens that have been classified as viruses (various mosiac, wilt, leaf roll, leaf curl, etc.) that unfortunately infect tomatoes, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, peppers, spinach, etc. There are empirically determined mitigation strategies such as crop rotation, sanitizing of tools, reduction of insect vectors and pests, etc. I am trying to learn more about these to improve my ability to produce food.
The narrative around plant pathogens is less charged at the moment and may provide another perspective to learn and understand about this class of plant diseases.
Thank you for engaging respectfully and I agree that we are all free to believe what we wish. Be well.

2025-09-23 15:39:07 UTC

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What would be acceptable evidence for you?
I left out a bunch because my note was long AF.
When we transfected cells and could see editing via next gen sequencing, we had controls. If we 'transfected' with just buffer (no AAV vector) or if we transfected with purified empty capsids (no payload) or if we transfected with a non-functional 'dummy' payload we got no editing. So we controlled for some spontaneous process occurring in the cells to give us our results - it turns out we required intact capsids with the correct engineered payload to see function that we could measure.
For your car analogy, did you also park your car under a carport roof or next to a sprinkler on a sunny day to explore other ways a car could get wet or stay dry?
An AAV virus is on the order of 25 nm in size, so hard to study. Like many things at this scale, we must be creative and attempt to form hypotheses and devise experiments to test them.
If I had access to a BSL4 lab and a supply of monkeys recently deceased from ebola and I handed you a teaspoon full of their bodily fluids that I had subjected to techniques used to purify/enrich for viral particles, would you consume it if I offered you 1 BTC to do so?
[ spoiler: I would not let you because I care about your well being! ]
Humans may think we are pretty smart monkeys, but there are innumerable things in our universe that we do not understand or even know about. I find being comfortable with this more fun that constraining what I am willing to ponder based on an evolving framework.

2025-09-23 15:02:24 UTC

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I'm not a virologist, but I have studied viruses and used them to study other things, hijacked their function, etc.
At one job we were studying a challenging membrane protein - a calcium transporter called orai1. This protein is made of 6 subunits that arrange themselves in a hexagon embedded in the cell membrane, with a central Ca++ pore. We were trying to make antibodies against it, but it is incredibly challenging to try to solubilize a membrane protein with higher order structure in a way that preserves how it looks in nature.
A colleague in Denmark had a plasmid from grad school containing the gag/pol gene from a murine leukemia virus. The proteins coded for in this gene are necessary and sufficient to produce viral particles that bud off from the cell membrane of a transfected cell. We used HEK293 cells that were already overexpressing Orai1 and I purified the virus-like particles using an ultracentrifuge. These VLPs were decorated on the surface with intact Orai1 and we were able to use them to get spectacular antibodies made.
At another job I worked with the AAV virus. We hijacked this one such that we could replace most of its tiny genome with e.g. a piece of DNA that coded for an ADAR guide RNA. The guides were designed to bind to a defective mRNA and could effectively change an 'A' to a 'G' in that mRNA. In the case of e.g. certain types of muscular dystrophy, changing the 'A' in a premature stop codon to a 'G' resulted in full length dystrophin being made and the potential for a kid with that genetic disease to live a more normal life.
I did analytics on these vector preps that involved using ultracentrifugation to separate empty capsids (most of them) from full capsids that contained our DNA payload. We ran a fairly cutting edge mass spec technique that is able to literally weigh each capsid to observe the fraction with payloads vs. empty, and also even partial (smaller) payloads. We could also study the mass distribution of the capsids themselves since they are made up of 3 proteins all of slightly different masses and the 60 subunit icosahedrons assemble stochastically and therefore the viral particles have different ratios of the 3 structural proteins - hence you get a distribution of empty capsid masses.
My colleagues put these preps on cells and were able to measure mRNA editing in the cells using next generation sequencing.
So here, from a bunch of biophysical first principles, I was able to see evidence of viral structure and function as defined as being able to get into a cell and interact with the cellular machinery.
Be careful of people who tell you viruses don't exist. Sometimes in an information war, adversaries will plant ideas that are picked up and espoused by people who are otherwise sharing uncomfortable truths, in order to discredit them and lower the impact and reach of their message.

2025-09-20 15:02:33 UTC

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Hang in there man. Take some time for yourself and perhaps go for a quiet walk.
I'll be away from the internet for the weekend but perhaps we can chat again next Wednesday.

2025-09-19 19:48:35 UTC

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I did have a job after the covid debacle at another startup that I really enjoyed, but they ran short on funding at the end of last year.

2025-09-19 19:46:33 UTC

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Thank you. I appreciate your positive attitude and thoughtfulness.
I'm doing well. Unemployed and teetering between trying to find an ethical biotech startup to continue that career vs. moving to our tree farm full time to raise a few animals, garden, forage and do forestry.
A cool in between option is that I spoke with the CEO at Umbrel this morning about doing tech support for them. That would be super fun and facilitate a more graceful shift away from the city. I am very passionate about freedom tech and would be happy trading my time to further that cause. Opportunities like that are scarce for a biotech junkie like me.

2025-09-19 18:16:12 UTC

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Here is their recent paper. Not surprisingly, the blob is trying their best to get it retracted as it does not paint Pfizer in a very positive light.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/08916934.2025.2551517?needAccess=true
I came across Jessica because we were both learning R and playing with VAERS data, but she is much better at it than I. 😉

2025-09-19 18:11:40 UTC

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This brings back painful memories. I also watched as people who wanted sovereignty over their own bodies were demonized. I'm glad @nprofile…0u9v did not get fired and proud of @nprofile…00y7 's husband.
I ended up getting fired from 2 jobs. Ironically, these were both in biotech where anyone who was intellectually honest knew that when you are dealing with a completely novel drug modality, it is simply not possible to deem it 'safe' without years of testing and data. I wanted to wait to see more data.
My early foray into getting better at R by digging into the VAERS raw data coupled with my personal risk made the cost/benefit analysis tip in favor of waiting. Seeing Kevin McKernan & Jessica Rose' work on finding significant DNA contamination in the vials is yet 1 more reason to be glad I did not give up control over what goes in my body.
Despite that being a terrible time, it also catalyzed an immense amount of personal growth & exploration, as well as opening my eyes to aspects of society that I had previously passed over.

2025-09-12 17:00:30 UTC

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Higher hydration doughs are definitely trickier to handle.
I read Ken Forkish' book and then hacked his method to suit my lifestyle - mainly lower hands-on time / less fussiness. I typically let it go for 24 hours and manage temperature during fermentation & proofing. I have to adapt to the season.
Today I'm going to use the cooking water from a batch of chickpeas/garbanzos to boost protein content.
Happy baking!