Travis West

LFG

My kids enjoyed this! Awesome idea!

Clever! I like it.

My buddy,

, has a new product that is super cool. It lets you stamp your seed phrase, or other data, on a steel washer.

It has the benefits of your typical steel plate, but it is more obscure. You can put 240 characters on it, 120 per side.

Demo video in the replies. You can use my referral code, TRAVIS10, for 10% off.

Welcome!

For those of you with kids: The Internet is a great resource and an overall good for human kind. But it can also be a window to the evils of the world.

I used to work a lot of cases as a detective where grown men preyed on fragile, impressionable, and/or at-risk children. Kids caught up in these incidents will lie to you about it. They will hide things and do things not in their best interest. Every parent of every victim of these cases I worked were surprised when they found out their kid had developed a relationship with someone online and that bad things happened to their child.

Please be aware and vigilant. Verify what your kids are doing online. I personally use a software service called Qustodio. I have it installed on all of my kids' devices so I can monitor content, curate access, and protect them.

I wanted my two older kids to have phone access, but without the smart phones and the Internet access. So they have Verizon Gizmo Watches, where they can make calls and text, but only with numbers I authorize. Plus, I can monitor their location. For me, this makes things like letting them walk by themselves down the street to a friend's house an okayer option.

Don't be afraid to just cut kids off from the Internet too. A lot of us did just fine without it growing up, remember that.

Plus, you won't find many people claiming that social media helps them or makes their life more valuable. It is likely the opposite, especially for children.

Parents, do your duty: Protect your kids. Be vigilant about their Internet access.

Stay frosty out there! 🫡

#FreeRoman

All of this FEMA talk in socials reminds me of when I tried to trespass FEMA from a whole city once.

Story time:

FEMA came to my local city, which I am a councilman for, with updated flood zones mapped out and they requested the city join their national flood insurance program. This was earlier this year or last year, I can't quite remember when exactly.

The program allows building owners in the flood zone to buy "federal" flood insurance.

Sounds innocent, but the program also provides the city with a specific ordinance that the city MUST pass. The ordinance requires the flood insurance in the flood zone for any permits, and possibly for any federally-backed mortgages IIRC, and it requires the city to enforce it. So the city has to force folks in the flood zone to buy insurance.

And if the city didn't join the program, there would be consequences:

The city would be ineligible for FEMA assistance in the event of a disaster. New mortgages for buildings in the floodzone would no longer be able to use federally-backed loans ( ! ). And the city would no longer be eligible to receive federal grant money (cities get a lot of this, our money is broken).

I viewed this as the federal government forcing an ordinance on me and my local citizens that we don't want. It was the feds saying, "Do this or you don't get the millions of dollars that your city takes from us via grants."

I even went to an open house that FEMA put on about this issue and I asked why individual property owners couldn't just join the program voluntarily, why does the entire city need to do it and force the insurance on people. The people there weren't the people who could change anything, so it wasn't useful.

Flood insurance, in my opinion, should matter to three parties, none of which is the federal government: The building/homeowner, the bank/person behind the mortgage, and the insurance company insuring the home.

I voiced my concerns about this program and I suggested the program was unethical in its implementation. I urged a no vote and recommended the city trespass FEMA personnel from all city property to send a message to them. Then when (or if) the feds follow through with denying federal funds to the city, we get senators and local media involved.

Because federal grant money and federally-backed mortgages were being held hostage, the city council voted to join the program, with me being the only no vote. Even the other councilmen acknowledged just prior to the vote that they felt they were being forced and didn't have a real choice. Costs and regulations are so burdensome nowadays that small cities rely a ton on grant money. I hate it.

Oh, and by the way, this is probably something every city in the nation with even the smallest part of it in a flood zone faces. So if you live within a city, might be worth checking in and seeing how they handled this.

Now that it is on my mind again, I suppose the city could still trespass FEMA personnel. An item for next month's agenda. LFG!

Stay frosty out there.

I'll be doing a workshop on how to chain surveil yourself at the #BitcoinVeterans Citadel this Saturday at the #BitcoinConference in Nashville. Will cover some privacy tips and techniques as well. The workshop schedule will be shared as we get closer to the conference. There will be many workshops going on - definitely check it out if you are searching for signal!

Had a lot of fun!

https://www.therage.co/william-hill-release-on-bail/

I finally took the time to recover my Samourai Wallet funds today.

I donated it all to the SW defense fund at https://p2prights.org/.

If you believe in financial privacy and freedom tools, I encourage you to donate as well.

Secured a sign from

. Not obnoxiously large at all.

Neat story! Pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Good stuff! Listen to it while you run or work... You probably won't regret it. Inform yourself!

Looks interesting!

Thanks for having me on the show,

! I had a lot of fun.

I view the arrests of the (alleged) Samourai Wallet developers/coordinators as the US Federal government kicking the hornet's nest. This criminal case is going to be significant. It takes time generally for defendants to find attorneys to represent them. As soon as I hear about a defense fund for these two, I will share the crap out of it. The government's jab on this one was way too far and I hope they come to regret it.

Standing by to help. Freedom tech will win in the end. Stay frosty, my friends!

All human kingdoms become Babylon.