Very nice warm weather this week. Not quite swimming weather but nearly there. What I’ve been up to:

1. Prague inspired deep dive into lightning and nostr. Remain unconvinced about nostr.
2. Set up Lightning wallet and Alby hub, more on that below
3. Further edits to my Whats the problem article

One takeaway from Prague was the liberating feeling of using my lightning wallet to pay for things. Really did feel like I and all the others milling about in those two conference halls were pioneers. The stark constrast between inside and outside. The small bubble of the conference ground where all the food and drink stalls, the restaurant and other vendors accept Bitcoin as standard (you didn’t even have to ask), and normie-land outside. Although Prague is a relatively Bitcoin friendly location. I enjoyed several beers in a pub that accepted Bitcoin. Although lack of decent internet had me revert to cash.

Anyway.. Inspired I was to continue on my journey into self-sovereignty. I setup my Lightning node on umbrel. And installed Alby hub. Connected node to Alby hub, which is essentially a lightning wallet with bells and whistles, and from there I connect nostr apps using the NWC protocol. (nostr wallet connect). There was a bit of confusion and friction. I installed Alby hub and setup a new wallet with backup seed phrase. Forgetting that I had already setup a wallet via the Alby browser extension a while back, which I hooked up Primal. I could/should have recorded down my old wallet seed phrase via the browser extension (which I can unlock via pin) then unpacked my existing wallet into Alby hub, rather than setting up a new one.

To keep using my existing nostr account/npub (which I have all my notes and follows/followers on etc) I had to paste that npub to the extension. It informed me that this key isn’t derived from this seed phrase (or something to that effect). So I flip-flopped for a while between starting afresh with the new key, which would involve garnering new followers and introducing myself again. Anyway… All a bit boring and a bit of a grind. But it’s what I spent much of my free time on this week.