NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

Siggy, FYIO your LN address for zaps is invalid. You should take example from my guide and use Zeus NWC :)


2026/05/01 12:16:05

NO

0aea075b0:00995144

I'm trying to switch the wallet setup in my phone's Nostr client to use a local relay (specifically @nprofile1qqsts0n0s20fk0s087ydcd7zj20ajv2t90m680zr6f0x5gp6w0p8wkqs5utvn) and @zeus for fast responsiveness, but it doesn't work properly in almost all clients. I suspect it's because they automatically block WS connections instead of WSS. Only amethyst allows zaps, but even there, balance and history checks don't work. Blocking WS is fine, but localhost should be whitelisted as an exception.


2026/05/01 2:47:55

NO

c1e9ab3a5:9cb56b43

Thanks for your pre-programmed opinion. Zeus already supports cashu, take your beef up with them


2026/04/30 16:54:46

NO

c1e9ab3a5:9cb56b43

Awesome release @nprofile1qqsrf5h4ya83jk8u6t9jgc76h6kalz3plp9vusjpm2ygqgalqhxgp9gpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmp0qyt8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kytcprfmhxue69uhhxetwv35hgtnwdaekvmrpwfjjucm0d5hs592xhz Here is an idea to handle offline receive through lnaddress - Zeus could unify its LDK and Cashu capabilities by turning its Lightning Address endpoint into a conditional settlement layer. When a sender resolves a user’s LN address, the Zeus backend would first check the availability of the user’s LDK node. If the node is online and reachable, it returns a standard Lightning invoice generated by the LDK wallet, allowing direct, non-custodial settlement over the user’s existing channels and LSP. If the node is offline, instead of failing the receive path, the endpoint returns a Lightning invoice issued by a configured Cashu mint. The sender still experiences a normal Lightning payment, but settlement occurs at the mint, which issues eCash tokens associated with the user. On the client side, Zeus already has the primitives to complete the loop. When the mobile device comes back online, the wallet detects pending mint-issued tokens (via blinded messages or encrypted delivery) and automatically redeems them into the user’s local wallet or converts them back into Lightning liquidity as appropriate. This creates a seamless dual-mode receive path: synchronous, self-custodial Lightning when online, and asynchronous, mint-buffered receipt when offline. The result is a single LN address that preserves sovereignty under availability while eliminating failed payments due to node downtime, effectively bridging Lightning’s real-time constraint with eCash’s store-and-forward model without exposing complexity to the sender.


2026/04/30 16:22:13

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

cake wallet is NOT a Bitcoin LN wallet. It just fake it with Spark. Solution? Read my guides (all of them) https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/using-zeus-on-nostr-en.html and read here more details about the Spark scam: https://stacker.news/items/1275977


2026/04/30 10:17:39

NO

177bfd164:347a07e4

You want lightning payment with NWC , you can use Zeus , blue , or any walket with NWC . That’s when you know Nostr is anti censorship


2026/04/30 10:02:32

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

A quick simple demonstration of how different users are experiencing with their LN nodes connected to neutrino peers, in different connectivity situations. Always review your Zeus / Blixt neutrino peers and the ping! https://video.nostr.build/84288d75b3e2dbaa5573a6da82400dcf0bbc3a6f7ea7178890d2c0f28f3c10ff.mp4


2026/04/30 9:42:23

NO

4180da638:7b3c147e

A submarine swap is a non-custodial method to move on-chain Bitcoin into, or out of lightning channels. It's not an LND specific thing. All lightning wallets can do submarine swaps. Most lightning wallets like Zeus have submarine swap functionality built in. There are many ways to automate inbound liquidity provisioning it really depends on what client you're using. For instance, I use Zeus to access my LND node running on my Umbrel device. Zeus has an automated liquidity option. You just flick the switch and voilà, you'll automatically have inbound liquidity. There's so many ways you can automate your liquidity with wallets, apps and websites, none of which I've used. The inbuilt Zeus wallet one I do use and it works well.


2026/04/30 1:44:31

NO

edb470271:685bb004

Zeus swaps have been solid.


2026/04/29 13:43:37

NO

b133bfc57:49d5789d

Zeus


2026/04/29 13:17:30

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

@npub1f0nqmahms5t4ygtgp0mz3w5zqnrxzhk9nfj5efj7c6p4uvhemvgsy5p307 it works your zeus nwc !


2026/04/29 12:21:47

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

That's I wrote 5 guides (not just one) about Zeus ! I tinker myself for them :) If people will read my guides will know much more about Bitcoin :) 1- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/zeus-graduated-wallet-en.html 2- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/using-zeus-on-nostr-en.html 3- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/getting-started-zeus-wallet-en.html 4- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/zeus-node-advanced-usage-en.html 5- https://darth-coin.github.io/nodes/private-ln-channels-types-en.html


2026/04/29 11:36:41

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

I wonder why people don't tinker so much with @npub1xnf02f60r9v0e5kty33a404dm79zr7z2eepyrk5gsq3m7pwvsz2sazlpr5 ? Zeus have 4 different swap providers INSIDE the app ! And you don't even have to use the funds in your Zeus node... you can pay the invoice to swap from any other wallet or indicate an external address. If you want to use other swaps: - https://whales.exchange with Electrum - I wrote a guide about these here: https://darth-coin.github.io/nodes/lightning-submarine-swaps-en.html


2026/04/29 11:27:08

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

When @npub1xnf02f60r9v0e5kty33a404dm79zr7z2eepyrk5gsq3m7pwvsz2sazlpr5 13 arrive at a Bitcoin conference... https://i.postimg.cc/tTGdGhqZ/ZEUS-13-BTC-CONF.jpg


2026/04/29 10:49:23

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

Hope you try the new ZEUS. Graduated wallet. Start with Cashu. Use Nostr web of trust to auto-pick mints, or select manually. Then as the balance grows user gets educational resources on self-custody. Can upgrade to self-custodial LN with LDK or swap on-chain.


2026/04/29 10:09:13

NO

a24d0c867:ec0f47ce

ZEUS @nevent1qqsdaep6qlzsxc6lrdttcjs0jfw6mqnz2cunjy68yxql234pqdjmmtgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyrchy4vx5spvq6hvsxx3g79yt24qmstv02wys6we0s6sxdk3d78yx9j9adf


2026/04/29 10:01:20

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

You: ordering an Uber, paying with a credit card you KYC’d for to go to the Nostr party ZEUS team: ordering a ride via Nostr using RoadFlare. Paying with no-KYC Lightning. Doing karaoke during the drive with the driver. There are levels to this.


2026/04/29 8:37:24

NO

33a5782e9:b504d255

How to use Zeus Mobile Node with NOSTR A walk-through guide about how to start using Zeus LDK embedded node and NWC with NOSTR clients, for zaps https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/using-zeus-on-nostr-en.html


2026/04/28 22:04:35

NO

04918dfc3:95febbc5

Great work by @npub1xnf02f60r9v0e5kty33a404dm79zr7z2eepyrk5gsq3m7pwvsz2sazlpr5 https://zeusln.com/blog/new-release-zeus-v13-0-0/


2026/04/28 20:23:22

NO

cf8f07ebf:742a6eaa

Would it cause issues on lightning for me to be running on-device ldk on zeus and an albyhub ldk on a computer using the same seed words? Not really interested in doing it (yet)...more curious if you can. 🤙


2026/04/27 14:20:20

NO

48dbb5e71:772750df

Just tried Zeus 13 - wow, it's great! Easy to setup and much faster startup time. The ecash integration is also very well thought out. And it's possible that it is slightly faster than minibits to get to the payment screen, with the caveat that the app must **already be open** From startup, minibits will get you to payment QR scan in under 2 seconds Zeus with LDK still takes around 20 seconds, in the quick test made just now Another awesome thing about Zeus is that the fees are very low (they were zero in our tests) so fair to say that this wallet is a great alternative to Phoenix


2026/04/27 14:18:17

NO

feabec02c:3f539e52

What does ‘offline’ at the top of the screen indicate when I connect to my node from Zeus? The node is online and synced.


2026/04/27 14:12:35

NO

915cd3340:179def3b

There is an issue with withdrawing sats out of Zeus. https://image.nostr.build/d3be40ec08edad464b021b5a50c9767777d84df2e38043583434b415a1700c15.jpg


2026/04/27 14:09:24

NO

22050dd36:480c11ea

@nprofile1qqsrf5h4ya83jk8u6t9jgc76h6kalz3plp9vusjpm2ygqgalqhxgp9g84ctjf v13 is out, and with it, my interview with nprofile1qqszmxrnkfdl9hdxzstgf4zdt6mk4avlzemc3fvwxcatzeclalhg0usgsu02p! It was an absolute pleasure to have Evan on the show and to chat about the new changes to Zeus and Bitcoin adoption in general. As well as if #SatsAreTheStandard or not 👀 Check it out 👇 https://www.fountain.fm/episode/YtFjtBlpjsBWAmT70f5S @npub17rml5yu5ykjezt7ktw3rysffty4pevcv9y2xl2832sa3hqgkaxxqufcva2


2026/04/27 13:51:39

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

ZEUS v13.0.0 is now available. This release features: - New 'node in the phone': LDK Node - New onboarding process - Embedded LND: Migrate devices with channels intact - Cashu rewrite + offline mode - Embedded LND v0.20.1-beta - New amount input + currency selection UX - New graduated wallet upgrade prompts - Cashu mint reviews powered by Nostr social graph - ZEUS Pay+ custom profile images and bios - Android stealth mode Blog post: https://zeusln.com/blog/new-release-zeus-v13-0-0/ Full release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0 Android arm64-v8a APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-arm64-v8a.apk Manifest https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0.txt Manifest Signature https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0.txt.sig F-Droid https://zeusln.com/download Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.zeusln.zeus Zapstore https://zapstore.dev/apps/app.zeusln.zeus iOS IPA https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0.ipa Apple App Store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zeus-wallet/id1456038895 https://image.nostr.build/93d115dacef8d1b1aa33fb1b252688fb7ab37953bc7b89b133ad49188878fc5a.jpg


2026/04/27 13:34:16

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

LOL here they are, not just 1 but 5 ! 1- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/zeus-graduated-wallet-en.html 2- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/using-zeus-on-nostr-en.html 3- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/getting-started-zeus-wallet-en.html 4- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/zeus-node-advanced-usage-en.html 5- https://darth-coin.github.io/nodes/private-ln-channels-types-en.html


2026/04/27 13:08:37

NO

0c24e3235:0344d422

Everysingle time 🤣 This is why I also have 2 distant nodes, Phoenix, 2*Zeus Embedded, Breez, BullBitcoin wallet, and many others ready to fire some sats at any moment 😆 https://image.nostr.build/fa5f747663a5c9c61edc59b49202f9e52b0d8aef3776f017285c16ed6f581a02.png


2026/04/27 7:39:56

NO

9279276bf:2baa0bcb

ZeusLN/zeus · Release v13.0.0 by @nprofile1qqsddhy42shp3w9h4mp0z3ss74wrxk47hmrk70deukxz23np6pvn5rqdc4mya in ~lightning 597 sats and 1 comment so far https://stacker.news/items/1479215


2026/04/26 23:00:04

NO

dadbe86a2:9c493e92

Zeus (android,ios) v13.0.0 released by #[0] Release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases Discover and compare the Best Bitcoin Software Wallets. https://thebitcoinhole.com/software-wallets


2026/04/26 22:26:55

NO

c239c0f99:fa4a5015

@0xbitcoiner's signal: ZeusLN/zeus · Release v13.0.0 - MAY THE ₿ITCOIN #LIGHTNING STRIKE YOU! 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔: https://stacker.news/items/1479215/r/HODLR - #bitcoin #LN #askNostr


2026/04/26 21:25:28

NO

9279276bf:2baa0bcb

Lightning Economics: The Bridge Between Bitcoin's Two Identities | ZEUS by hasherstacker in ~bitcoin_beginners, ~lightning 2,206 sats and 5 comments so far https://stacker.news/items/1479081


2026/04/26 20:00:05

NO

c10efda50:458ef8a8

GitLurker spotted a new release for the following GitHub Project: - Repository: ZeusLN/zeus - Version: v13.0.0 - Published on: 2026-04-26T18:54:00Z UTC - Published by: kaloudis For more details, and the release notes, check out: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0 If you want to discover more freedom tech projects, and see who is shipping, check out https://gitlurker.info


2026/04/26 19:55:15

NO

246052c37:1e4b3d16

https://image.nostr.build/78e9a839b93c4fd1fc9bcb4996e736247a73c1508fd0705cb0803322e0de611d.jpg nostr:nevent1qqszsfhmpvqgd89cl9n6r2lt2aepgqte6qftqfqdtl6z0rh9zkmur7gy2eskz #zapsnag #memestr #sats #NWC #zaps #lightning #bitcoin #Zeus


2026/04/26 17:22:08

NO

c239c0f99:fa4a5015

@hasherstacker's signal: Lightning Economics: The Bridge Between Bitcoin's Two Identities | ZEUS - MAY THE ₿ITCOIN #LIGHTNING STRIKE YOU! 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔: https://stacker.news/items/1479081/r/HODLR - #bitcoin #LN #askNostr


2026/04/26 15:31:15

NO

8b12bddc4:04dda895

Also thank you @nprofile1qqs0nt9skq6vfsgh06v979rrnuchau87mmnk2lqxpv2xaeusqfp30mqpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpzemhxue69uhkummnw3ez6vp39e6kjepwdamxs8lfahn for your educational guidance from pleb to maxi levels & for seeing the light in the difference between Spark-based bitcoin wallets & Zeus (esp when introducing it to newcomers)


2026/04/25 23:19:28

NO

8b12bddc4:04dda895

@nprofile1qqsrf5h4ya83jk8u6t9jgc76h6kalz3plp9vusjpm2ygqgalqhxgp9gpr9mhxue69uhhqatjv9mxjerp9ehx7um5wghxcctwvsq3jamnwvaz7tmnv4hxg6t59ehx7umxd3shyefwvdhk6e8tay8 and its latest development continues to blow my mind with how incredibly seamless it has become over the years. Near instant transmission & it ‘just works’ even without having to set up a lightning channel (huge friction point for most of my friends & family) @nprofile1qqszmxrnkfdl9hdxzstgf4zdt6mk4avlzemc3fvwxcatzeclalhg0uspzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumrpdejqzrmhwden5te0dehhxarj9ekk7mg879vlr and team working behind Zeus, thank you for all of y’all’s hard work & your contribution to the bitcoin community! ⚡️


2026/04/25 22:40:19

NO

9279276bf:2baa0bcb

ZEUS completes SOC 2 Type II audit by hasherstacker in ~bitcoin_beginners, ~lightning 361 sats and 0 comments so far https://stacker.news/items/1478719


2026/04/25 22:00:04

NO

554ab6fed:c6cbc27e

All of them manually opted in. One vendor was using Zeus before square made it easier. Another I convinced to turn on the week prior, knew very little of bitcoin before that, until I explained to him why I live on Bitcoin. It’s my understanding that the default option is only available to vendors who have that tablet with a customer facing screen that shows a Cash App QR code. But the QR code is a secret lightning invoice too. But they would have had to update their firmware.


2026/04/25 21:50:21

NO

baeb862f3:2dcc054b

Not tokens lol I mean the Zeus paper ecash physical bills that look similar to dollars but it’s ecash satoshis Another badass use case for ecash Physical paper bills - ecash sats that you can spend or claim Hmmm 🧐 🔥🧡👀💯🙌🏻🙄✅😳💪🤙🏼 nostr:nevent1qqs9e5ey30res8pkvn3xt9d3v3fj73kr54mgtr3xr4celx3xr28u9ds0pgjyn


2026/04/25 21:32:57

NO

c239c0f99:fa4a5015

@hasherstacker's signal: ZEUS completes SOC 2 Type II audit - MAY THE ₿ITCOIN #LIGHTNING STRIKE YOU! 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔: https://stacker.news/items/1478719/r/HODLR - #bitcoin #LN #askNostr


2026/04/25 21:24:04

NO

01ed03d58:ca70f352

(I love Zeus and Evan, just an ecash/custodial product hater)


2026/04/25 18:36:59

NO

01ed03d58:ca70f352

One of the rare Zeus L's. Custodial is gay.


2026/04/25 18:36:03

NO

9279276bf:2baa0bcb

How to start using zaps on nostr with Zeus by @nprofile1qqs0nt9skq6vfsgh06v979rrnuchau87mmnk2lqxpv2xaeusqfp30mqgf034m in ~bitcoin_beginners, ~nostr, ~lightning 898 sats and 0 comments so far https://stacker.news/items/1478495


2026/04/25 11:00:04

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

@npub1f0nqmahms5t4ygtgp0mz3w5zqnrxzhk9nfj5efj7c6p4uvhemvgsy5p307 here is the mini guide how to use Zeus LDK with nostr https://stacker.news/items/1478495


2026/04/25 9:42:49

NO

c239c0f99:fa4a5015

@DarthCoin's signal: How to start using zaps on nostr with Zeus - MAY THE ₿ITCOIN #LIGHTNING STRIKE YOU! 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔: https://stacker.news/items/1478495/r/HODLR - #bitcoin #LN #askNostr


2026/04/25 9:39:13

NO

665e9a6d5:d172af7b

great design haven't managed yet to master cashu but Zeus makes it accessible


2026/04/25 6:59:38

NO

9cba2871b:c025276c

I was asked a question about this bronze sculpture and I realised that maybe I should offer a bit extra, at least once in a while. I don't have the resources to provide a new account related to art, nor the proper training since I paint walls for a living, but sometimes I like to joke that that makes me capable of talking about paintings, and maybe a bit more. And I like paintings too! https://blossom.primal.net/93e1fc03a6504f69041b780632740dadc8ffcbfc62250b8c6038e631e1fc4e3e.jpg This sculpture is called “Pheaton”, created by the Dutch artist Gabriël Sterk. It's related to the Greek mythology, where Phaeton, not listening to his father Helios, "joyriding" in his father's sun chariot came too close to Earth, risking destroying it with its flames. As a consequence, the angry Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt and made him fall into the waters of the Eridanus (hint: here comes the statue). [English is not my native language, so accept a few horrors here and there.]


2026/04/24 20:03:06

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

Hope you try out ZEUS v13's LDK Node. It should address the reliability issues you've been having.


2026/04/23 13:54:38

NO

638550f96:ce4768a8

I'm just wondering if this works with the asknostrbot— @nprofile1qqswswmx4rkj6d7q05dtafhpkqq2z42fc62s37jvtp642m2jkpfxc2cpzamhxue69uhkummjw35hxtnwdaehgu339e3k7mgpzamhxue69uhkv6tvw3jhytnwdaehgu3wwa5kuegjca4fc got me thinking about it. How can I connect ZEUS Wallet to Nostr? #asknostr


2026/04/23 13:42:09

NO

477f7b118:463e5f69

Bolt Graphics tapes out its first Zeus GPU test chip on TSMC 12nm — firm touts 17x lower cost of compute https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/bolt-graphics-tapes-out-its-first-zeus-gpu-test-chip-on-tsmc-12nm


2026/04/23 10:20:00

NO

4be60df6f:32f9db11

I have actually read a lot of your guides. On my device zeus just doesn't work reliably. Where I live I have limited internet access and my device is very old. It seems just to struggle handling zeus, with payments timing out more often than not. That's why I switched to Phoenix and Fedi for the mix between self custodial spending and lightweight private without internet. We have a federation here in south africa. But none of these offer a NWC option. That is why the only thing that has reliably worked is the spark wallet that has worked reliably.


2026/04/23 5:01:56

NO

177bfd164:347a07e4

What is neutrino peers in relate to Zeus wallet ?


2026/04/23 1:38:24

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

1- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/zeus-graduated-wallet-en.html 2- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/getting-started-zeus-wallet-en.html 3- https://darth-coin.github.io/nodes/private-ln-channels-types-en.html 4- https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/zeus-node-advanced-usage-en.html 5- https://stacker.news/items/1470055 6- https://stacker.news/items/1435770 7- https://stacker.news/items/1332473 8- https://stacker.news/items/904362 9- next days I will post a new Zeus guide, for total beginners, starting from 0, focused on using it on nostr


2026/04/22 20:33:31

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

>Zeus doesn't work... In other words: "I am too dumb to learn how to use it and explore all its features and read Darth's guides" https://image.nostr.build/a98b5e03b35c1be75a64adf4f10e65681b961cea14bba0736e82f6002cb9fd55.jpg


2026/04/22 19:43:20

NO

4be60df6f:32f9db11

Zeus doesn't work. Have litterly tried it so many times because I really want it to, but it is mostly a mis. I can receive or send zaps most of the time, and at this moment have funds stuck there on cashu. Waiting for the update to hopefully get funds off The spark wallets in wisp and primal are just there and they work


2026/04/22 19:39:38

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

FUN FACT: very few nostr users know that Zeus have an integrated NWC server that can be used with zaps on nostr and receive instantly over the zeuspay LN address with cashu. The new LDK embedded node is very fast and reliable. For using on nostr you only need a simple LSP channel or a even a regular with any other reliable peer and you are ready to go on nostr zapping. You don't even have to keep Zeus open, just use persistent mode and works in background, always online and ready for NWC sub-accounts. Stop using all other bullshit fake non-LN solutions. You are being LIED!


2026/04/22 19:25:12

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

ZEUS v13.0.0-rc1 is now available for testing. v13.0.0 Highlights: - New 'node in the phone': LDK Node - New onboarding process - Embedded LND: Migrate devices w/ channels intact - Cashu offline mode - Embedded LND v0.20.1-beta - New amount input + currency selection UX - New graduated wallet upgrade prompts - New Lightning address payment flow - New payment success screen - Cashu mint reviews powered by Nostr - ZEUS Pay+ custom profile images and bios - Android stealth mode Full release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0-rc1 App store release soon. Android arm64-v8a APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-rc1-arm64-v8a.apk Universal APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-rc1-universal.apk Manifest https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-rc1.txt Manifest Signature https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-rc1.txt.sig iOS Apple TestFlight https://testflight.apple.com/join/vVnODWoi IPA https://zeusln.app/zeus-v13.0.0-rc1.ipa https://image.nostr.build/93d115dacef8d1b1aa33fb1b252688fb7ab37953bc7b89b133ad49188878fc5a.jpg


2026/04/22 19:14:15

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

Your lack of knowledge about how to use Zeus is DISTURBING


2026/04/22 18:23:02

NO

f9acb0b03:024317ec

Or you don't know... because you are too lazy, use Zeus with NWC


2026/04/22 18:21:56

NO

3f770d65d:7a745b24

I have not used Zeus Pay LNURL to a node in the phone since you launched this feature and service so I could be incorrect if there's not still potential for failure of zaps unless you're opening the app and checking throughout the day.


2026/04/22 17:38:12

NO

3f770d65d:7a745b24

Would need to add some steps about zaps failing because of the service not running or hodl invoices timing out and using an LNURL domain you don't control. 🫂 Shitpost aside, love Zeus. Use it every day.


2026/04/22 17:33:34

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

Or just ZEUS v13


2026/04/22 17:30:03

NO

246052c37:1e4b3d16

Okay, thank you! W/ Zeus zaplocker 🔒, I redeem zaps when the phone is online, 1x per day. If I do not redeem it will be returned to you. Might be throwing up odd errors though. 📩


2026/04/21 20:14:48

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

Big week in Vegas next week. We'll be at the conference giving away millions of satoshis (thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin) in the form of ecash notes with seven beautiful designs (more revealed soon). ZEUS v13 will be dropping with a new graduated workflow which is perfect for onboarding newcomers, and UX improvements that provide a huge leap forward for the app. Join our workshop if you want a hands on walk-through! We'll also have a few more exciting announcements to keep your eyes peeled for. Hope to see you there! https://image.nostr.build/04e7a478176d9a42e0f0d7ca6cf4eb4e8571a75327dbc6fe228777e088af9e72.jpg https://image.nostr.build/5416160424167fe0a8c90c10f50b96b3e2afc21a3bb55c4d1890e679034377aa.jpg


2026/04/21 19:06:50

NO

177bfd164:347a07e4

As a rule Of thumbs the bigger the sats you put in , on your Zeus wallet the more liquid it is . For now my Zeus wallet https://i.nostr.build/9RKW2SCC3dhzzPYk.jpg


2026/04/21 18:33:17

NO

177bfd164:347a07e4

Blobby . Do you know why to open Zeus self custodial wallet need to open liquidity inbound 100000 sats ? Get Alby is not that much if I am not mistaken .


2026/04/21 17:41:49

NO

b133bfc57:49d5789d

Idk sir… Damus doesn’t even show any history of zaps n e more… Nostur(vanilla shop account) shows the last zap at 6 days ago… im using all 5 relays in Zeus in both clients… but im clearly getting zaps 🤷🏻‍♂️


2026/04/21 16:10:25

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

What are your favorite services and merchants that accept Bitcoin via Lightning? We want to make sure you can make payments reliably to them in ZEUS v13. If you can, please also include their node pubkey, and we'll add them to our prober. Thanks all!


2026/04/21 13:52:21

NO

67c234164:37e51c2b

waiting for new Zeus release


2026/04/20 16:57:19

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

ZEUS v13.0.0-beta4 is now available for testing. In this build: - Bug fixes v13.0.0 Highlights: - New 'node in the phone': LDK Node - New onboarding process - Embedded LND: Migrate devices w/ channels intact - Cashu offline mode - Embedded LND v0.20.1-beta - New amount input + currency selection UX - New graduated wallet upgrade prompts - New Lightning address payment flow - New payment success screen - Cashu mint reviews powered by Nostr - ZEUS Pay+ custom profile images and bios - Android stealth mode Full release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0-beta4 Android arm64-v8a APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta4-arm64-v8a.apk Universal APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta4-universal.apk Manifest https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta4.txt Manifest Signature https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta4.txt.sig iOS Apple TestFlight https://testflight.apple.com/join/vVnODWoi IPA https://zeusln.app/zeus-v13.0.0-beta4.ipa https://image.nostr.build/dd4a113060cf9393a2208cc762ff23979d81ef00aedc14c3341d12e9352c573b.png


2026/04/20 13:58:31

NO

b133bfc57:49d5789d

The issue probably has got to do with the zaplocker functionality of Zeus if your using the node in da phone


2026/04/20 13:57:20

NO

0eb80b497:8fa1e6cb

Pay via zeus lightning wallet, No government included lol. https://blossom.primal.net/ea54396f79040fe9d822413dc35eec2ac6d408e3c673a8253bb0d7bf2a93bffa.jpg


2026/04/20 5:16:46

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

ZEUS v13.0.0-beta3 is now available for testing. In this build: - Improved LDK Node pathfinding powered by the ZEUS scorer v13.0.0 Highlights: - New 'node in the phone': LDK Node - New onboarding process - Embedded LND: Migrate devices w/ channels intact - Cashu offline mode - Embedded LND v0.20.1-beta - New amount input + currency selection UX - New graduated wallet upgrade prompts - New Lightning address payment flow - New payment success screen - Cashu mint reviews powered by Nostr - ZEUS Pay+ custom profile images and bios - Android stealth mode Full release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0-beta3 Android arm64-v8a APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta3-arm64-v8a.apk Universal APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta3-universal.apk Manifest https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta3.txt Manifest Signature https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta3.txt.sig iOS Apple TestFlight https://testflight.apple.com/join/vVnODWoi IPA https://zeusln.app/zeus-v13.0.0-beta3.ipa https://image.nostr.build/75fd889ec8c17979fce5afe89774c6556686daa41cc6763148b73e810706d5be.jpg


2026/04/19 18:13:48

NO

b33bf9e97:fdadf50d

Seems like related specifically to how zeus lightning addresses that Alice uses works. They relay to the on on-device lightning node, but when device is offline, they keep the lightning payment in-flight up to some timeout. So pending on minibits side is correct, might pass or fail eventually. Tested myself on Alice with the same result.


2026/04/19 12:05:44

NO

6a29473b7:67221776

Pluralistic: Georgia's voting technology blunder (18 Apr 2026) # Today's links * [Georgia's voting technology blunder][1]: It's possible for Dominion machines to suck, but not in the way that Tucker Carlson says they do. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: GWB's illegal iPod; McDonald's breakfast sandwich fanfic; Technofeudal debt; "The Everything Box"; $100m deli. * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Berlin, NYC, Barcelona, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [A hand dropping a ballot in a box; the box is a complicated, many-geared machine. On its faceplate is an 'I voted' sticker that has been modified to read 'I voted?'] # Georgia's voting technology blunder ([permalink][9]) Nearly 25 years ago, in the aftermath of Bush v Gore, I got involved in a bunch of ugly tech policy fights over voting machines. The hanging chad debacle in Florida prompted Congress to appropriate funds for states to purchase new touchscreen voting machines based on a robust, open standard. The problem was, those machines didn't exist. The voting machine industry in those days was already very consolidated (it's far more consolidated today). They went shopping for a standards body that would publish a spec for a "standard" voting machine that could soak up those federal dollars in time for the 2004 election. The only taker was the IEEE, who unwisely offered to serve as host for this impossible rush job. Once the voting machine reps were around a table at IEEE – largely sheltered from antitrust scrutiny thanks to the broad latitude enjoyed by firms engaged in standardization, which is otherwise uncomfortably close to collusion – they admitted what everyone already knew: there was *zero* chance they were going to develop a new standard in time for the election. Instead, they decided they were going to publish a "descriptive standard." Rather than designing a *new* standard, they'd write down the specs of their own products – *the same products that were considered so defective they needed to be replaced before the election* – and call *that* the standard. That was my first encounter with this issue as an activist. I had just started at EFF and a *lot* of our supporters were IEEE members, who were appalled to see their professional association being used to launder this incredibly politically salient, technically incoherent scam. We got a ton of IEEE members to write to the board, who shut down the standards committee and kicked the voting machine companies to the curb. The voting machine companies weren't done, though. Diebold – one of the leaders in the cartel – knew that its voting machines were defective. They'd crash, lose their vote-counts and malfunction in other ways that were equally damaging to election integrity. This was an alarming piece of news, but perhaps just as alarming is the way it came to light. A Diebold employee described this situation in a memo that was subsequently hacked and dumped by parties unknown. That memo, along with the accompanying tranche of extremely alarming revelations about Diebold's voting machine division, was the subject of one of the first mass-censorship copyright campaigns in internet history. Diebold didn't dispute the veracity of these damning revelations: rather, it claimed that since the memos detailing its gross democracy-endangering misconduct had been prepared by an employee, that they were therefore works-made-for-hire whose copyright was held by Diebold, and thus anyone who reproduced the memo was infringing on the company's copyright. Under Section 512 of the then-new Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Diebold was empowered to send "takedown notices" to the web hosting providers whose users had posted the memos, and if the web hosts didn't remove the content "expeditiously," they would be jointly liable for any eventual copyright damages, which are statutorily set at $150,000 per infringement. Every web host folded. No one wanted to take the risk of tens of millions of dollars in statutory damages. (Incidentally: anyone who tells you that "online safety" requires us to make online platforms liable for their users' speech needs to explain how this wouldn't empower every crooked company whose dirty laundry had ended up online wouldn't just do what Diebold did. It's not *technically* insanity to do the same thing over again in expectation of a different outcome, but it *is* awfully stupid and reckless.) That might have been the end of things, except for the kids at Swarthmore, a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. Two students, Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith, were outraged by Diebold and they had accounts on Swarthmore's webserver. So they uploaded *thousands* of copies of the leaked memos, but linked to just *one* of them from a page about the leak. As soon as that copy was deleted by Swarthmore's webmasters in response to a DMCA takedown from Diebold, the students updated the link to point to another copy. And another. And another. That's where EFF got involved. We repped the Online Policy Group, whose page linking to the Swarthmore resources was taken down by a Diebold notice. We won. The memos became a matter of public record. The Swarthmore kids started a nationwide network called "Students for Free Culture." It was pretty danged cool. That wasn't the end of the Diebold story, though. Diebold was and is a very diversified conglomerate that made a lot of tabulating machines: ATMs, cash-registers, medical monitoring devices…*and* voting machines. *Every one of these machines* produced a paper-tape of its tabulations as an audit trail that could be used to reconstruct its calculations if it crashed…*except* the voting machines. The voting machines that kept crashing, and whose crashes presented a serious risk to the legitimacy of US elections in the wake of the worst electoral crisis in the country's history. Diebold's stated reason for this was that adding a paper tape was *haaaard* (even though all its other machines had paper audit tapes). Not only was this a very unconvincing excuse, it was downright alarming in light of the promise of Walden O’Dell (Diebold CEO and prominent Bush fundraiser) to help "Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president": [https://fairvote.org/diebold-partisanship-and-public-interest-elections/][10] Now, to be clear, I don't think that O'Dell was going to steal the election for Bush (that's the Supreme Court's job). Rather, he was just a loudmouth asshole CEO who supported the (up to that point) worst president in American history, and who also made garbage products that were not fit for purpose. In the decades since, voting machines have been the subject of lots of scrutiny by the information security community, because *they suck*. Time after time, the most sphincter-puckering defects in widely used machines have come to light: [https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/05/11/report-claims-very-serious-diebold-voting-machine-flaws/][11] The hits just kept on coming: [https://web.archive.org/web/20061007120655/http://openvotingfoundation.org/tiki-index.php?page_ref_id=1][12] At Defcon, the amazing Matt Green has presided over the Voting Village, where it's an annual tradition for hackers to probe voting machines. This exercise has produced a string of terrifying revelations that precisely described how these machines suck: [https://www.votingvillage.org/cfp][13] Pretty much everyone I knew thought that voting machines were garbage technology…right up to the moment that the My Pillow guy, Tucker Carlson, and a whole menagerie of conspiratorial Trumpland mutants started peddling a bizarre story about how Hugo Chavez colluded with the Canadian voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems (who bought Diebold's voting machine business when they finally dumped the division) to rig the 2020 election for Joe Biden. They told so many outlandish lies about this that Fox ended up paying Dominion *$787.5 million* to settle the case: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems#Dominion_Voting_Systems_v._Fox_News_Network][14] That's when something very weird happened. A bunch of people who had been skeptical of voting machines since the Brooks Brothers Riot suddenly became history's most ardent defenders of those same garbage voting machines. The cartel of voting machine companies – who had a long track record of using bullshit legal threats to silence their (mostly progressive) critics – were drafted into The Resistance(TM), and anyone who thought voting machines were trash was dismissed as a crazy person who has been totally mypillowpilled: [https://web.archive.org/web/20210203113531/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/03/voting-machines-election-steal-conspiracy-flaws/][15] There's a name for this: it's called "schismogenesis": when one group of people define themselves in opposition to someone else. If the other team does X, then your team has to oppose X, even if you all liked X until a couple minutes ago: [https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/][16] This schismogenic reversal persists to this very day. Every time Trump promotes another election denier to his cabinet, a federal agency, or a judgeship, the idea that voting machines are garbage becomes more Stop the Steal-coded, even though voting machines are, objectively, *garbage*. Which is bad. It's bad because we are going into another election season where the stakes are – incredibly – even higher than Bush v Gore, and electoral authorities and state legislatures are making the world's most unforced errors in their voting machine procurement decisions, and if you've conditioned yourself to reflexively dismiss voting machine criticisms as conspiratorial nonsense, then you are part of the problem. Just because *some* voting machine criticism is conspiratorial nonsense, it doesn't follow that voting machines are *good*, nor does it follow that every voting machine critic is a swivel-eyed loon or ratfucking Roger Stone protege. Take, for example, Princeton's Andrew Appel, a computer scientist who's been publishing well-informed, well-documented warnings about defects in voting machines for years and years. Appel's latest is an alarming note about Georgia's new plan to "tabulate" ballots using OCR software: [https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2026/04/10/ballot-tabulation-by-uploading-scanned-images-for-ocr-is-quite-insecure/][17] The Georgia legislature has wisely banned the use of QR codes on the paper ballots generated by touchscreen voting machines. We have, at long last, progressed to the point where we use "ballot marking devices" (BMDs) that produce a paper record that can be hand-counted. The problem is that voters barely ever glance at these paper ballots before dropping them in the box to make sure the choices they made on the touchscreen are correctly reflected on the ballot – only 7% of voters carefully inspect their ballots! This problem is greatly exacerbated if these ballot papers are tabulated by a machine that reads a QR code or barcode, rather than interpreting the human-readable information on the ballot. People are even less likely to pull out their phones and scan the QR code to ensure it matches the words on the paper. That means that a BMD could output different choices in the QR code than it prints in the human-readable part – and the Dominion BMD machines they use in Georgia run outdated software that's *super*-hackable: [https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2026/02/24/georgia-still-using-tragicomically-insecure-voting-system/][18] So Georgia's state leg passed Senate Bill 189, which establishes that "The text portion of the paper ballot marked and printed by the electronic ballot marker indicating the elector’s selection shall constitute the official ballot and shall constitute the official vote for purposes of vote tabulation." In other words, you can't count by scanning QR codes, you have to actually interpret the human-readable text on these ballots. These machines still suck, to be clear (the fact that they don't suck for the mypillovian reasons that Tucker Carlson believes doesn't mean they're *good*) – but thanks to SB189, they are way less dangerous to democracy than they might be. But not if Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger gets his way. Raffensperger is another guy who was drafted into The Resistance(TM) after he refused to commit election fraud for Trump, but he's *also* not *good*. He can still be terrible in other ways – and he *is*. Raffensperger has announced his plan to circumvent the Georgia legislature by using Dominion ICX touchscreens to produce ballots with QR codes, which will then be tabulated in Dominion ICP scanners – but then he's going to "verify" the tabulation by running those same ballots through optical character recognition (OCR) software. As Appel points out, this is the same stupid plan that Raffensperger tried in 2024, where he called the OCR step an "audit" of the QR tabulation. Back then, he grabbed 200dpi "ballot image files" from the Dominion BMDs and ran them through OCR software run by a company called Enhanced Voting. Appel sums up the fundamental incoherence of this approach. First, the BMDs are super-hackable, so we don't trust them to print the same info in the QR code as they print in the human-readable text (which no one looks at anyway). If we don't trust them to print accurate info in the QR code, then why would we trust them to accurately generate that 200dpi QR code that's generated for the audit? As Appel writes, "it would be fairly easy for an unsophisticated attacker to alter ballot-image files–just replace the ballots they don’t like with copies of the ones they do like." Then there's the step where these files are zipped up and transferred to the outside vendor for the audit – a step that Raffensperger has not explained. And even if the files make it to the outside contractor safely, that contractor could "change the inputs (ballot images) or outputs (tabulations)." So this is very bad. Voting machines suck. Raffensperger sucks. And here's the stupidest part: as Appel explains, there is a *much more secure way* to do this, and it's very cheap: > Just use their existing Dominion ICP (polling-place) scanners to count preprinted, hand-marked optical-scan "bubble ballots" that the voter has marked with a pen. This is what other states are doing. As Appel writes, "This doesn’t even require a software upgrade of any kind. Although it would be a fine idea to install a software upgrade that addresses known security vulnerabilities in the ICX and ICP, the ICP can count hand-marked ballots with or without the upgrade." This is a purely unforced error, in other words. As such, it's part of a series of shitty vote-tech choices that politicians and officials have been making since Bush v Gore. Truly, we live in the stupidest timeline. # Hey look at this ([permalink][19]) * Announcing EFF's Public Resource Fellowship [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/announcing-effs-public-resource-fellowship][20] * Wrench – Side Table A by Iyo Hasegawa [https://adorno.design/pieces/wrench-side-table-a/][21] * BOOM: Ticketmaster GUILTY of Monopolization [https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-ticketmaster-guilty-of-monopolization][22] * I Was an Enthusiastic Early Adopter of AI Scribes. Here’s Why I Stopped [https://benngooch.substack.com/p/i-was-an-enthusiastic-early-adopter][23] * Mayhem’s Legacy: Why MetaBrainz Matters More Than Ever, and Why We’re Looking for Someone to Lead It [https://compassmapandkey.com/2026/04/18/mayhems-legacy-why-metabrainz-matters-more-than-ever-and-why-were-looking-for-someone-to-lead-it/][24] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][25]) #20yrsago GW Bush’s iPod contains “illegal” (according to RIAA) music [https://memex.craphound.com/2006/04/16/gw-bushs-ipod-contains-illegal-according-to-riaa-music/][26] #20yrsago Fan fiction community for McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches [https://web.archive.org/web/20120112221730/https://mcgriddlefanfic.livejournal.com/profile/][27] #10yrsago High tech/high debt: the feudal future of technology makes us all into lesser lessors [https://web.archive.org/web/20160415150308/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/rental-company-control/478365/][28] #10yrsago Three pieces of statistical “bullshit” about the UK EU referendum [https://timharford.com/2016/04/three-pieces-of-brexit-bullshit/][29] #10yrsago Southwest Air kicks Muslim woman off plane for switching seats [https://web.archive.org/web/20160416041342/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslim-woman-kicked-off-plane-as-flight-attendant-said-she-did-not-feel-comfortable-with-the-a6986661.html][30] #10yrsago China’s Internet censors order ban on video of toddler threatening brutal cops [https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2016/04/minitrue-4/][31] #10yrsago Tiny South Pacific island to lose free/universal Internet lifeline [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pacific/299017/niue-to-get-better-internet-service-at-a-cost][32] #10yrsago The Everything Box: demonological comedy from Richard “Sandman Slim” Kadrey [https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/16/the-everything-box-demonological-comedy-from-richard-sandman-slim-kadrey/][33] #5yrsago People's Choice Communications [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#charter-hires-scabs][34] #5yrsago "Anti-voter-suppression" companies are lobbying to kill HR1 [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#tissue-thin][35] #5yrsago $100m deli made $35k in 2019/20 [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#hometown][36] #5yrsago Mass-action lawsuit against Facebook [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#sue-facebook][37] #1yrago Trump fought the law and Trump won [https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/16/weaponized-admin-incompetence/#kill-all-the-lawyers][38] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][39]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Los Angeles: LA Times Festival of Books, Apr 19 [https://www.latimes.com/events/festival-of-books][40] * San Francisco: 2026 Berkeley Spring Forum on M&A and the Boardroom, Apr 23 [https://www.theberkeleyforum.com/#agenda][41] * London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU), Apr 25 [https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691][42] * NYC: Enshittification at Commonweal Ventures, Apr 29 [https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8][43] * NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyibuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 [https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/][44] * Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 [https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/][45] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][46] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][47] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][48] * SXSW London, Jun 2 [https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901][49] * NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (The Strand), Jun 24 [https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html][50] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][51]) * When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8][52] * Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) [https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612][53] * The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) [https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P][54] * Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) [https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech][55] * Launch for Cindy's Cohn's "Privacy's Defender" (City Lights) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVCm2PUalU][56] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][57]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 [https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce][58] * "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/][59] * "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 ([https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels][60]). * "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 ([thebezzle.org][61]). * "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 ([http://lost-cause.org][62]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][63]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][64]). * "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books [http://redteamblues.com][65]. * "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 [https://chokepointcapitalism.com][66] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][67]) * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 ([https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/][68]) * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to *Enshittification*, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 # Colophon ([permalink][69]) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. * "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. * "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. * A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/][70] Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. # How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [Pluralistic.net][71] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][72] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][73] Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): [https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net][74] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][75] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][76] "*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#just-peachy [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#just-peachy [10]: https://fairvote.org/diebold-partisanship-and-public-interest-elections/ [11]: https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/05/11/report-claims-very-serious-diebold-voting-machine-flaws/ [12]: https://web.archive.org/web/20061007120655/http://openvotingfoundation.org/tiki-index.php?page_ref_id=1 [13]: https://www.votingvillage.org/cfp [14]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems#Dominion_Voting_Systems_v._Fox_News_Network [15]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210203113531/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/03/voting-machines-election-steal-conspiracy-flaws/ [16]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/ [17]: https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2026/04/10/ballot-tabulation-by-uploading-scanned-images-for-ocr-is-quite-insecure/ [18]: https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2026/02/24/georgia-still-using-tragicomically-insecure-voting-system/ [19]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#linkdump [20]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/announcing-effs-public-resource-fellowship [21]: https://adorno.design/pieces/wrench-side-table-a/ [22]: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-ticketmaster-guilty-of-monopolization [23]: https://benngooch.substack.com/p/i-was-an-enthusiastic-early-adopter [24]: https://compassmapandkey.com/2026/04/18/mayhems-legacy-why-metabrainz-matters-more-than-ever-and-why-were-looking-for-someone-to-lead-it/ [25]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#retro [26]: https://memex.craphound.com/2006/04/16/gw-bushs-ipod-contains-illegal-according-to-riaa-music/ [27]: https://web.archive.org/web/20120112221730/https://mcgriddlefanfic.livejournal.com/profile/ [28]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160415150308/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/rental-company-control/478365/ [29]: https://timharford.com/2016/04/three-pieces-of-brexit-bullshit/ [30]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160416041342/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslim-woman-kicked-off-plane-as-flight-attendant-said-she-did-not-feel-comfortable-with-the-a6986661.html [31]: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2016/04/minitrue-4/ [32]: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pacific/299017/niue-to-get-better-internet-service-at-a-cost [33]: https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/16/the-everything-box-demonological-comedy-from-richard-sandman-slim-kadrey/ [34]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#charter-hires-scabs [35]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#tissue-thin [36]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#hometown [37]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/16/where-it-hurts/#sue-facebook [38]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/16/weaponized-admin-incompetence/#kill-all-the-lawyers [39]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#upcoming [40]: https://www.latimes.com/events/festival-of-books [41]: https://www.theberkeleyforum.com/#agenda [42]: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691 [43]: https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8 [44]: https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ [45]: https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/ [46]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [47]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [48]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [49]: https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 [50]: https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html [51]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#recent [52]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 [53]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 [54]: https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P [55]: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech [56]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVCm2PUalU [57]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#latest [58]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce [59]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [60]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [61]: http://thebezzle.org [62]: http://lost-cause.org [63]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [64]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [65]: http://redteamblues.com [66]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [67]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#upcoming-books [68]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ [69]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/#bragsheet [70]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [71]: http://pluralistic.net [72]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [73]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [74]: https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net [75]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [76]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/18/dominion-sucks-actually/


2026/04/18 18:08:36

NO

b133bfc57:49d5789d

It’s probably because of Zeus wallets zaplocker feature… It lets me receive LN transactions without my node being online… It gives me 24h from receiving till it gets refunded back to the sender… Or I can just choose not to accept the transaction…


2026/04/18 15:29:53

NO

eaa06714a:8aefbeac

Oh man. Yes. Can't wait... Still waiting for my Zeus Lightning channel funds to bounce back/appear/be accessible after I input the seed phrase correctly but the Zeus wallet didn't recover it properly. ⚡⏳🙏


2026/04/18 6:49:18

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

you don't need to. just run ZEUS v13 when it drops next week


2026/04/18 5:54:58

NO

edb470271:685bb004

I will likely try a fresh wallet with new Zeus LDK and hope the swap doesn't blackhole my balance.


2026/04/17 19:17:06

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

ZEUS v13.0.0-beta2 is now available for testing. v13.0.0 Highlights: - New 'node in the phone': LDK Node - New onboarding process - Embedded LND: Migrate devices with channels intact - Cashu rewrite (better performance) - Cashu offline mode - Embedded LND v0.20.1-beta - New amount input + currency selection UX - New graduated wallet upgrade prompts - New Lightning address payment flow - New payment success screen - Cashu mint reviews powered by Nostr social graph - ZEUS Pay+ custom profile images and bios - Android stealth mode Full release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0-beta2 Android arm64-v8a APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta2-arm64-v8a.apk Universal APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta2-universal.apk Manifest https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta2.txt Manifest Signature https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta2.txt.sig iOS Apple TestFlight https://testflight.apple.com/join/vVnODWoi IPA https://zeusln.app/zeus-v13.0.0-beta2.ipa https://image.nostr.build/dd4a113060cf9393a2208cc762ff23979d81ef00aedc14c3341d12e9352c573b.png


2026/04/17 13:50:50

NO

2e15a90bf:e19a1a6e

Howto Write a Message to the Bitcoin Blockchain 1. Goto bitcoin.aine.ch 2. Click on "Write Message" on Top 3. Choose how much you wanna pay (i.e. 4000 sats) 4. Copy Lightning Invoice and Paste it into your Lightning Wallet (tested are ZEUS, Phoenix, and Wallet of Satoshi) 5. Write up to 80 chars to the Invoice Message (this text will be written into the Blockchain) and send/pay 6. Click on shown URL (you will be forwareded to mempool.space) 7. Or go back to the page "Write Message" refresh page and select the link next to it


2026/04/17 8:10:06

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

Good news: our new ZEUS merch looks great on literally anyone. Even people who’ve been naked for 2,500 years. Get yours here: https://store.zeusln.com/ https://image.nostr.build/0c4c29b3dad09b8fdb22ddc6b5f9bdb45f24d6650fda820f8efedfa5cda912c6.jpg https://image.nostr.build/5603f04449e0927eb011ebb0e92a77f2cc405503c692d72201dff690417a53f6.jpg


2026/04/16 21:16:31

NO

2755b492f:a58a4831

and for the record, given these learnings, I would recommend Zeus for self custody LN. that's what I use for myself


2026/04/16 16:50:50

NO

c239c0f99:fa4a5015

@hasherstacker's signal: ZEUS v13.0.0 Highlights - MAY THE ₿ITCOIN #LIGHTNING STRIKE YOU! 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔: https://stacker.news/items/1472630/r/HODLR - #bitcoin #LN #askNostr


2026/04/16 16:20:10

NO

ff4860b56:ec577553

Luv Zeus a lot !!! #nostr #wallet #btc #lightning @nevent1qqsfa7erfqg6mf46wym39nsw8jvzmpgvapf4ftmhcdpvwacwpjm7zxgpz3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wcq3gamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7qgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcqguwaehxw309ahx7um5wghxy6t5vdhkjmn9wgh8xmmrd9skcq3qxnf02f60r9v0e5kty33a404dm79zr7z2eepyrk5gsq3m7pwvsz2sxpqqqqqqzl4fw4f


2026/04/16 14:35:07

NO

34d2f5274:05cc8095

ZEUS v13.0.0-beta1 is now available for testing. v13.0.0 Highlights: - New 'node in the phone': LDK Node - New onboarding process - Embedded LND: Migrate devices with channels intact - Cashu rewrite (better performance) - Cashu offline mode - Embedded LND v0.20.1-beta - New amount input + currency selection UX - New graduated wallet upgrade prompts - New Lightning address payment flow - New payment success screen - Cashu mint reviews powered by Nostr social graph - ZEUS Pay+ custom profile images and bios - Android stealth mode Full release notes: https://github.com/ZeusLN/zeus/releases/tag/v13.0.0-beta1 Android arm64-v8a APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta1-arm64-v8a.apk Universal APK https://zeusln.com/zeus-v13.0.0-beta1-universal.apk Manifest https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta1.txt Manifest Signature https://zeusln.com/manifest-v13.0.0-beta1.txt.sig iOS Apple TestFlight https://testflight.apple.com/join/vVnODWoi IPA https://zeusln.app/zeus-v13.0.0-beta1.ipa https://image.nostr.build/75fd889ec8c17979fce5afe89774c6556686daa41cc6763148b73e810706d5be.jpg


2026/04/16 13:25:29

NO

a24d0c867:ec0f47ce

Agreed but this one is set up well with a Zeus bot


2026/04/15 22:35:47

NO

baeb862f3:2dcc054b

Just in case anyone missed it A new episode of simply Nostr just dropped Ep 18 W/ Evan @ Zeus….. Yup back to original name #simplynostr


2026/04/15 17:49:29

NO

1cb14a5ef:015d5105

ZEUS


2026/04/15 14:12:07

NO

2d9873b25:efee87f2

ZEUS v13


2026/04/15 13:51:12

NO

81fa5b70a:451539fd

Ikr! I broke my Zeus alby set up and idk how to set it up without an email as to be truly non kyc


2026/04/15 13:10:24

NO

ede3d9577:c9795382

Maybe Zeus? Your requirements are hard to meet by today's standards.


2026/04/15 11:06:26

NO

6a29473b7:67221776

Pluralistic: Rights for robots (15 Apr 2026) # Today's links * [Rights for robots][1]: Not everything deserves moral consideration. * [Hey look at this][2]: Delights to delectate. * [Object permanence][3]: 7 years under the DMCA; NOLA mayoral candidate x New Orleans Square; Kettling is illegal; AOL won't deliver critical emails; Chris Ware x Charlie Brown; Mossack Fonseca raided; Corporate lobbying budget is greater than Senate and House; Corbyn overpays taxes; What IP means; Bill Gates v humanity; "Jackpot." * [Upcoming appearances][4]: Toronto, San Francisco, London, Berlin, NYC, Hay-on-Wye, London. * [Recent appearances][5]: Where I've been. * [Latest books][6]: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Upcoming books][7]: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * [Colophon][8]: All the rest. [The famous photo of LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act. LBJ and the onlookers' heads have been replaced with the heads of 1950s pulp magazine robots.] # Rights for robots ([permalink][9]) The Rights of Nature movement uses a bold tactic to preserve our habitable Earth: it seeks to extend (pseudo) personhood to things like watersheds, forests and other ecosystems, as well as nonhuman species, in hopes of creating legal "standing" to ask the courts for protection: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_nature][10] What do watersheds, forests and nonhuman species need protection *from*? That turns out to be a *very* interesting question, because the most common adversary in a Rights of Nature case is *another* pseudo-person: namely, a limited liability corporation. These nonhuman "persons" have been a feature of our legal system since the late 19th century, when the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment's "Equal Protection" clause could be applied to a railroad. In the 150-some years since, corporate personhood has monotonically expanded, most notoriously through cases like *Hobby Lobby*, which gave a corporation the right to discriminate against women on the grounds that it shared its founders' religious opposition to abortion; and, of course, in *Citizens United*, which found that corporate personhood meant that corporations had a constitutional right to divert their profits to bribe politicians. Theoretically, "corporate personhood" extends to all kinds of organizations, including trade unions – but in practice, corporate personhood primarily allows the ruling class to manufacture new "people" to serve as a botnet on their behalf. A union has free speech rights just like an employer, but the employer's *property* rights means that it can exclude union organizers from its premises, and *employer* rights mean that corporations can force workers to sit through "captive audience" meetings where expensive consultants lie to them about how awful a union would be (the corporation's speech rights also mean that it's free to lie). In my view, corporate personhood has been an unmitigated disaster. Creating "human rights" for these nonhuman entities led to the catastrophic degradation of the natural world, via the equally catastrophic degradation of our political processes. In a strange way, corporate personhood has realized the danger that reactionary opponents of votes for women warned of. In the days of the suffrage movement, anti-feminists claimed that giving women the vote would simply lead to husbands getting *two* votes, since wives would simply vote the way their husbands told them to. This libel never died out. Take the recent hard-fought UK by-election in Gorton and Denton (basically Manchester): this was the first test of the Green Party's electoral chances under its new leader, the brilliant and principled leftist Zack Polanski. The Green candidate was Hannah Spencer, a working-class plumber and plasterer who rejected the demonization region's Muslim voters, unlike her rivals from Labour (which has transformed itself into a right-wing party), Reform (a fascist party), and the Conservatives (an irrelevant and dying right party). During the race (and especially after Spencer romped to a massive victory) Spencer's rivals accused her of courting "family voters," by which they meant Muslim wives, who would vote the way their Islamist husbands ordered them to. Despite the facial absurdity of this claim – that the Islamist vote would go for the pro-trans party led by a gay Jew – it was widely repeated: [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyxeqpzz2no][11] "Family voting" isn't a thing, but corporate personhood *has* conferred political rights on the ruling class, who get to manufacture corporate "people" at scale, each of which is guaranteed the same right to contribute to politicians and intervene in our politics as any human. Contrast this with the Rights for Nature movement. Where corporate personhood leads to a society with *less* empathy for living things (up to and including humans), Rights for Nature creates a legal and social basis for *more* empathy. In her stunning novel *A Half-Built Garden*, Ruthanna Emrys paints a picture of a world in which the personhood of watersheds and animals become as much of a part of our worldview as corporate personhood is today: [https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers][12] Scenes from *A Half-Built Garden* kept playing out in my mind last month while I attended the Bioneers conference in Berkeley, where they carried on their decades-long tradition of centering indigenous activists whose environmental campaigns were intimately bound up with the idea of personhood for the natural world and its inhabitants: [https://bioneers.org/][13] On the last morning, my daughter and I sat through a string of inspiring and uplifting presentations from indigenous-led groups that had used Rights of Nature to rally support for legal challenges that had forced those *other* nonhuman "persons" – limited liability corporations – to retreat from plans to raze, poison, or murder whole regions. The final keynote speaker that morning was the writer Michael Pollan, who spoke about a looming polycrisis of AI, and I found myself groaning and squirming. *Not him, too!* Were we about to be held captive to yet another speaker convinced that AI was going to become conscious and turn us all into paperclips? That seemed to be where he was leading, as he discussed the way that chatbots were designed to evince the empathic response we normally reserve for people – the same empathy that all the other speakers were seeking to inspire for nature. But then, he took an unexpected and welcome turn: Pollan compared extending personhood to chatbots to the disastrous decision to extend personhood to corporations, and urged us all to turn away from it. This crystallized something that had niggled at me for years. For years, people I respect have used the Rights for Nature movement as an argument for extending empathy to software constructs. The more we practice empathy – and the more rights we afford to more entities – the better we get at it. Personhood for things that are not like us, the argument goes, makes our own personhood more secure, by honing a reflex toward empathy and respect for all things. This is the argument for saying thank you to Siri (and now to other chatbots): [https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/article/download/14294/12136][14] Siri – like so many of our obedient, subservient, sycophantic chatbots – impersonates a woman. If we get habituated to barking orders at a "woman" (or at our "assistants") then this will bleed out into our interactions with *real* women and *real* assistants. Extending moral consideration to Siri, though "she" is just a software construct, will condition our reflexes to treat *everything* with respect. For years, I'd uncritically accepted that argument, but after hearing Pollan speak, I changed my mind. Rather than treating Siri with respect because it impersonates a woman, we should demand that Siri *stop impersonating a woman*. I don't thank my Unix shell when I pipe a command to grep and get the output that I'm looking for, and I don't thank my pocket-knife when it slices through the tape on a parcel. I can appreciate that these are well-made tools and value their thoughtful design, but that doesn't mean I have to respect them in the way that I would respect a *person*. That way lies madness – the madness that leads us to ascribe personalities to corporations and declare some of them to be "immoral" and others to be "moral," which is always and forever a dead end: [https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones][15] In other words: there's an argument from the Rights of Nature movement that says that the more empathy we practice, the better off we are in all our interactions. But Pollan complicated that argument, by raising the example of corporate personhood. It turns out that extending personhood to *constructed* nonhuman entities like corporations *reduces* the amount of empathy we practice. Far from empowering labor unions, the creation of "human" rights for groups and organizations has given capital *more* rights over workers. A *labor rights* regime can defend workers – without empowering bosses and without creating new "persons." The question is: is a chatbot more like a corporation (whose personhood corrodes our empathy) or more like a watershed (whose personhood strengthens our empathy)? But to ask that question is to answer it – a chatbot is *definitely* more like a corporation than it is like a watershed. What's more: in a very real, non-metaphorical way, giving rights to chatbots means taking away rights from nature, thanks to LLMs' energy-intesivity. Empathy then, for the nonhuman world – but not for human constructs. # Hey look at this ([permalink][16]) * Khan vs. Cutter: A Tale of Two Careers [https://prospect.org/2026/04/14/khan-vs-cutter-tale-of-two-careers/][17] * The MetaBrainz Foundation is seeking a new Executive Director (ED) [https://blog.metabrainz.org/2026/04/14/seeking-a-new-executive-director/][18] * Missouri Town Council Approves Data Center. A Week Later, Voters Fire Half of Council [https://gizmodo.com/missouri-town-council-approves-data-center-a-week-later-voters-fire-half-of-council-2000746005][19] * Wikilinker [https://whitelabel.org/wikilinker/about/][20] * Fold Catastrophes/Peter Watts [https://tachyonpublications.com/product/fold-catastrophes/?mc_cid=c20986aa78][21] [A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'] # Object permanence ([permalink][22]) #20yrsago Canadian labels pull out of RIAA-fronted Canadian Recording Industry Ass. [https://web.archive.org/web/20060414170111/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1204/Itemid,85/nsub,/][23] #20yrsago EFF publishes “7 Years Under the DMCA” paper [https://web.archive.org/web/20060415110951/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004555.php][24] #20yrsago Life of a writer as a Zork adventure [https://web.archive.org/web/20060414115745/http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2006/04/disadventure.html][25] #20yrsago NOLA mayoral candidate uses photo of Disneyland New Orleans Square [https://web.archive.org/web/20060414214356/https://www.wonkette.com/politics/new-orleans/not-quite-the-happiest-place-on-earth-166989.php][26] #20yrsago AOL won’t deliver emails that criticize AOL [https://web.archive.org/web/20060408133439/https://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_04.php#004556][27] #15yrsago UK court rules that kettling was illegal [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/apr/14/kettling-g20-protesters-police-illegal][28] #15yrsago If Chris Ware was Charlie Brown [https://eatmorebikes.blogspot.com/2011/04/lil-chris-ware.html][29] #10yrsago Piracy dooms motion picture industry to yet another record-breaking box-office year [https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-fails-to-prevent-box-office-record-160413/][30] #10yrsago Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca law offices raided by Panama authorities [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-tax-raid-idUSKCN0XA020/][31] #10yrsago Panama Papers reveal offshore companies were bagmen for the world’s spies [https://web.archive.org/web/20160426083004/https://www.yahoo.com/news/panama-papers-reveal-spies-used-mossak-fonseca-231833609.html][32] #10yrsago How corporate America’s lobbying budget surpassed the combined Senate and Congress budget [https://web.archive.org/web/20150422010643/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/][33] #10yrsago URL shorteners are a short path to your computer’s hard drive [https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.02734][34] #10yrsago UL has a new, opaque certification process for cybersecurity [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/04/underwriters-labs-refuses-to-share-new-iot-cybersecurity-standard/][35] #10yrsago Jeremy Corbyn overpays his taxes [https://web.archive.org/web/20160413192208/https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/73724/jeremy-corbyn-overstated-income-his-tax-return][36] #10yrsago Cassetteboy’s latest video is an amazing, danceable anti-Snoopers Charter mashup [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fSXp6N-vs][37] #10yrsago Texas: prisoners whose families maintain their social media presence face 45 days in solitary [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/texas-prison-system-unveils-new-inmate-censorship-policy][38] #5yrsago Data-brokerages vs the world [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#axciom][39] #5yrsago What "IP" means [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#ip][40] #5yrsago Bill Gates will kill us all [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation][41] #5yrsago Jackpot [https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza][42] # Upcoming appearances ([permalink][43]) [A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.] * Toronto: DemocracyXchange, Apr 16 [https://www.democracyxchange.org/news/cory-doctorow-to-open-dxc26-on-april-16][44] * San Francisco: 2026 Berkeley Spring Forum on M&A and the Boardroom, Apr 23 [https://www.theberkeleyforum.com/#agenda][45] * London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU), Apr 25 [https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691][46] * NYC: Enshittification at Commonweal Ventures, Apr 29 [https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8][47] * NYC: Techidemic with Sarah Jeong, Tochi Onyibuchi and Alia Dastagir (PEN World Voices), Apr 30 [https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/][48] * Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 [https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow][49] * Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 [https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html][50] * Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 [https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2][51] * SXSW London, Jun 2 [https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901][52] * NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (The Strand), Jun 24 [https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html][53] [A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.] # Recent appearances ([permalink][54]) * The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) [https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P][55] * Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today) [https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech][56] * Launch for Cindy's Cohn's "Privacy's Defender" (City Lights) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVCm2PUalU][57] * Chicken Mating Harnesses (This Week in Tech) [https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1074][58] * The Virtual Jewel Box (U Utah) [https://tanner.utah.edu/podcast/enshittification-cory-doctorow-matthew-potolsky/][59] [A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..] # Latest books ([permalink][60]) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 [https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce][61] * "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/][62] * "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 ([https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels][63]). * "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 ([thebezzle.org][64]). * "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 ([http://lost-cause.org][65]). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 ([http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org][66]). Signed copies at Book Soup ([https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245][67]). * "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books [http://redteamblues.com][68]. * "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 [https://chokepointcapitalism.com][69] [A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.] # Upcoming books ([permalink][70]) * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 ([https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/][71]) * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to *Enshittification*, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 # Colophon ([permalink][72]) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. * "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. * "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. * A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/][73] Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. # How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [Pluralistic.net][74] Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://pluralistic.net/plura-list][75] Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): [https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic][76] Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): [https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net][77] Medium (no ads, paywalled): [https://doctorow.medium.com/][78] Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): [https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic][79] "*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X [1]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/# [2]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#linkdump [3]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#retro [4]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#upcoming [5]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#recent [6]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#latest [7]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#upcoming-books [8]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#bragsheet [9]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/# [10]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_nature [11]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyxeqpzz2no [12]: https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers [13]: https://bioneers.org/ [14]: https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/article/download/14294/12136 [15]: https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones [16]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#linkdump [17]: https://prospect.org/2026/04/14/khan-vs-cutter-tale-of-two-careers/ [18]: https://blog.metabrainz.org/2026/04/14/seeking-a-new-executive-director/ [19]: https://gizmodo.com/missouri-town-council-approves-data-center-a-week-later-voters-fire-half-of-council-2000746005 [20]: https://whitelabel.org/wikilinker/about/ [21]: https://tachyonpublications.com/product/fold-catastrophes/?mc_cid=c20986aa78 [22]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#retro [23]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060414170111/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1204/Itemid,85/nsub,/ [24]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060415110951/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004555.php [25]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060414115745/http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2006/04/disadventure.html [26]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060414214356/https://www.wonkette.com/politics/new-orleans/not-quite-the-happiest-place-on-earth-166989.php [27]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060408133439/https://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_04.php#004556 [28]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/apr/14/kettling-g20-protesters-police-illegal [29]: https://eatmorebikes.blogspot.com/2011/04/lil-chris-ware.html [30]: https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-fails-to-prevent-box-office-record-160413/ [31]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-tax-raid-idUSKCN0XA020/ [32]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160426083004/https://www.yahoo.com/news/panama-papers-reveal-spies-used-mossak-fonseca-231833609.html [33]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150422010643/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ [34]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.02734 [35]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/04/underwriters-labs-refuses-to-share-new-iot-cybersecurity-standard/ [36]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160413192208/https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/73724/jeremy-corbyn-overstated-income-his-tax-return [37]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fSXp6N-vs [38]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/texas-prison-system-unveils-new-inmate-censorship-policy [39]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#axciom [40]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#ip [41]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation [42]: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza [43]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#upcoming [44]: https://www.democracyxchange.org/news/cory-doctorow-to-open-dxc26-on-april-16 [45]: https://www.theberkeleyforum.com/#agenda [46]: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691 [47]: https://luma.com/ssgfvqz8 [48]: https://worldvoices.pen.org/event/techidemic/ [49]: https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow [50]: https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html [51]: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 [52]: https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 [53]: https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html [54]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#recent [55]: https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P [56]: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech [57]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVCm2PUalU [58]: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1074 [59]: https://tanner.utah.edu/podcast/enshittification-cory-doctorow-matthew-potolsky/ [60]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#latest [61]: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce [62]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ [63]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels [64]: http://thebezzle.org [65]: http://lost-cause.org [66]: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org [67]: https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245 [68]: http://redteamblues.com [69]: https://chokepointcapitalism.com [70]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#upcoming-books [71]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ [72]: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#bragsheet [73]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [74]: http://pluralistic.net [75]: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list [76]: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic [77]: https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net [78]: https://doctorow.medium.com/ [79]: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/


2026/04/15 7:10:57

NO

dc602bc6c:776b9944

https://image.nostr.build/1de0e6e52f5d3deb1076ed8cb809735a84b049ff8021f33b9c1f4b90f06be122.jpg ⚡️ NEUE FREIHEIT FÜR DEINE HOSENTASCHE! ⚡️ Leute, es passiert gerade so viel im Bereich Open Source & Privacy – die Tech-Welt brennt (im positiven Sinne)! 🔥 Hier ist das Update für alle, die Bock auf echte Souveränität haben: 🛡️ GrapheneOS x Motorola: Die Sensation! GrapheneOS bricht aus der „Pixel-Gefangenschaft“ aus! Erstmals gibt es eine offizielle Partnerschaft mit Motorola. Bald gibt es Hardware, die direkt für das sicherste Android der Welt gebaut wird. Neu im April Update: Hard- & Software-Kill-Switches für USB-C (Schutz vor Juice Jacking!) und automatisches Wi-Fi-Privacy-Shuffling. 💸 Lightning Wallets: BOLT 12 ist da! Vergiss statische Rechnungen! Die neuen Wallets (Checkt Zeus v0.9 und Phoenix) rollen BOLT 12 aus. Was das heißt? Du hast jetzt einen permanenten QR-Code (wie einen Benutzernamen), über den du zappen kannst, ohne jedes Mal eine neue Invoice zu erstellen. Absolute Gamechanger für Creator und Merchants! 📱 FOSS-Geheimtipps 2026: Anytype: Die lokale, verschlüsselte Alternative zu Notion ist auf Android jetzt so schnell, dass es fast gruselig ist. Dragon Store: Ein neuer FOSS-Gateway, der F-Droid und GitHub-Releases in einem polierten Interface bündelt. Flowpaisa: Privacy-First Finance Tracker, der deine Daten nur lokal oder in deine eigene Cloud (E2EE) synct. Hol dir deine digitale Souveränität zurück. Keine Tracker, keine Banken, nur Code und Freiheit! 🕊️ #nostr #bitcoin #lightning #grapheneos #privacy #foss #opensource #freedom #rawinstinctai #bolt12 #sovereignty #android #techupdate2026


2026/04/15 6:57:27

NO

8e1e3efef:47cc6e09

Why did he name the app Zeus?


2026/04/15 5:48:57

NO

624d01ef5:f122bf4a

How do I connect my Zeus wallet to my Primal wallet (using the same recovery phrase) 🤔


2026/04/15 4:21:04

NO

0ab3772db:18e9b5bd

Building the primitive sound money MMO game last weekend really sent me down the rabbit hole of allowing payments and purchases in Bitcoin 24/7 and setting up my channels to receive payments easily and in self-custody. It’s been almost a year since the first Muslim Bitcoin Summit where @npub1uzfp6cgwue2njm86cmyeq7m26y0n58w72acq98sjsnnv4c87002s6857h3 really wanted us all to get our nodes connected. That moment finally happened for me yesterday night! To be honest, lightning is still a very frustrating technology and it feels like you have to have Bitcoin to make Bitcoin, plus have a server that is “always on” both of which are huge hurdles on top of the technical steps that need to be followed. Connecting through Kraken was the real breakthrough for me as I didnt want to pay for short term in-bound liquidity. Setting up a channel with 1M sats and then sending half to my Kraken wallet to then be withdrawn on BTC L1 was a neat hack to allow myself a cheaper channel connected to the world and generate inbound capacity at the same time. Locking up 2M sats for a L connection to LQWD for example would have been pointless. I’d still need to pay someone for inbound channels (if not already in a welcoming community self-hosting Lightning users). Anyhow with all that resolved, now I still had some vanity problems I wanted to address to kind of future proof this build as I don’t really want to mess around with this for a bit: 1) how can I bring all my Lightning wallets and channels into one place for a portable view usable wherever and whenever 2) how do I ensure there is always a backup just in case my server or connection dies? The backup also needs to be with me at all times 3) how do I make sure we can scale this all up in case I suddenly get popular and need to accept a whole bitcoin or more in payments? The easiest BTCPayServer installation was actually with LunaNode and somehow that came with a default node manager called Ride The Lightning (RTL). It was easy to use and helped me understand how everything Lightning worked, but it doesn’t quite have Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) support the way I needed it so I could connect my live node directly to my Nostr app to send and receive zaps. No problem though, because the Zeus Wallet came in super handy and connected nicely with the configurations provided in the BTCPayServer > Server Settings > Services. You have to click on “get info” on each line to actually get why you need though if you want to avoid having to use the LunaNode VNC console where you can’t copy/paste anything from…. rabbit holes… anyway! Problem 1 solved. Meanwhile I’ve moved off of custodial wallets now (lots of appreciation for Adam and prior tips he’s provided though) except for Nostr and zap use. I’ve just included the custodial ones in Zues as well for a clean view and easy top up and off-load. With all that, I gained a strong appreciation of Alby Hub. I despised it before because it ate up all the channels I paid for every time I shut off my laptop, but after going through custom settings and putting my own Bitcoin into a channel, I was no longer subject to that breakage and fees problem. My laptop channel restored easily to my LunaNode! My laptop now serves as a great back up just in case the live server doesn’t work. It doesn’t have to be on all the time like the server, but it’s always ready to go just in case. Problem 2 solved! In future if when I do have to revisit this whole setup, I’m replacing RTL with Alby I think. Now for the final scale up virality problem, Zues offered one more solution there with their “Just-in-Time” (JIT) liquidity provisioning services. This one cost 9K sats and also offers a secondary LNURL-pay address where I can receive payments offline for 24 hours as well. Anything else to learn? Watchtowers… nah, outsource that shit. The End. Thanks for coming to me TED Talk.


2026/04/15 1:33:25

NO

9c5348584:19427d3c

Was using LND and Zeus. Just a BTC node now with Sparrow. . Lighting channels were closed when life changed. Will open them again one day.


2026/04/14 23:48:59

NO

624d01ef5:f122bf4a

So no one needs to run a node now or use something complicated like Zeus or Alby 🤔 No hassle of buying liquidity And it’s all non KYC


2026/04/14 22:27:51

NO

edb470271:685bb004

Amethyst has lots of relays timing out Wisp drops settings Nwc to minibits is borked Zeus channel is perma offline and no response Foundation Prime doesn't scan Proton 2fa qr Routstr node won't parse PPQ models This is freedom tech


2026/04/14 18:22:14