Moody Urbanity - Manmade Confinements 🏗️
情绪化城市 - 人造禁锢 🏗️
📷 Pentax MX
🎞️ Kentmere Pan 400
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite
Turns out that what hit flight #UA1093 was most likely a balloon from https://windbornesystems.com - this was brought up first in the thread https://x.com/vk5qi/status/1980386581497409891 and now the company confirms that it's a very strong possibility: https://x.com/johndeanl/status/1980462264974209292. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZzbS30xdjM for a short video about the company and how it's filling the atmosphere with long-duration balloons carrying weather sensors. They had just been hailed as one of the best inventions of 2025: https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318250/windborne-systems-atlas/ ...
Despite much opinion to the contrary, the government money we use is crappy.
I'm at bitfest in Manchester to find out if Bitcoin could be a better money.
It could hardly be worse.
The mood is still good, people are joking about recent devaluation rather than crying. Those who aren't all in are trying to buy more at the discount.
After an introduction by Mad Bitcoins, Joe Bryan explains the problem with government money.
He imagines an island on which two types of money are tried, with a dividing wall between them.
When economic problems hit, government can just print more money on the fiat side. Everyone now using money which is worth less. Distorting prices, inflating asset prices, making the rich (who hold assets) richer and the poor (who have to pay inflated prices) poorer. Driving wealth inequality.
On the hard money side, government must tax properly. Take in more from the rich rather than inflating to take it from the poor. Reducing wealth inequality.
On the government money side, the wealthy monitize houses, stocks, resources. Saving in money is impossible, its inflated away. So they save in assets and hording resources. Capital is misallocated. The youth can't afford houses. Poverty traps are caused. The only way out is printing more for benefits. Making it all worse. More economic crises, more printing. More government debt.
Eventually, the wall is broken. Government money people can save in the hard money instead. It reduces the value of government money further. More printing. More inflation.
Eventually, war. Funded by printed money.
The dollar is the best of a bad bunch all other government money is falling in value even faster.
I wonder, is bitcoin really this better money though? It's limited, hard, and can't be printed without energy investment.
I'm still unsure that fixing money fixes the world.
--
Note: "crypto" is mostly more like government money than bitcoin. It can be printed indefinitely by it's makers, does not cost it's makers to print. Crypto is usually just a scam people to get more bitcoin. Bitcoin is not crypto.
#bitfest #bitcoin
Hi spooky rebels! 🎃 It's time for the Great Hauntway! We're doing a Slow Ride to the Great Hauntway on Sun Oct 26. Meet 11:30, Roll at 12:00.
Brief Stop at the LED arch on car-free JFK. Details: https://www.safestreetrebel.com/blog/spooooooky-slow-rid…
Filings: Meta spent the most on US lobbying in Q3, spending $5.8M, followed by Amazon, Google, Apple; Anthropic, Nvidia, and a16z hit $1M for the first time (Ashley Gold/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/21/tech-lobbying-insights-q3
60 years ago #OTD #comet #IkeyaSeki reached perihelion, -10 mag., was visible in daylight and showed a spectacular tail in the following weeks: https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/message/32770 and https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/sept-18-1965-discovery-of-comet-ikeya-seki/ and https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noao-01854/
Canada's financial crime watchdog fines crypto exchange Cryptomus a record ~$126M for infractions including failing to flag suspicious transactions (Canadian Press)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cryptomus-fined-177-million-fintrac-9.6948338
A look at Amazon's Sparrow, Cardinal, Proteus, and other warehouse robots, taking over roles like selecting and picking items, carrying shipping carts, and more (Karen Weise/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/technology/amazon-robotics-automa…
Google Cloud says it now works with nine of the 10 leading AI labs, including OpenAI, and with 60% of the world's generative AI startups, fueling its growth (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/18/how-ai-startups-are-fueli…