Brian - Relax. We'll be fine.

Chronicler of sorts.
"I see you have strong conviction. Do your acts and words that stem from that help people to be nicer to one another?"
Not a bot.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

Humanity is free.
Humanity is awake.
You are wonderful.

Pass it on.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

#cf97 and the @Section8Chicago supporters made me do it. #MyXAnniversary

[healthbot @thehealthb0t]

Hilarious two minute skit perfectly captures the insanity of the COVID era.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

@thehealthb0t Never gets old.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

@TrumpetGuapo @ChicagoFire @JeppsonsMalort

[Illinois is broke and corrupt @IsIllinois]

Premium Chicago Loop Building. This high rise fetched $25 million. 90% less than last sales price

These drastic sales prices are going to kill property taxes in downtown Chicago. Meaning all others in Cook County will have to pay more

[TFTC @TFTC21]

Martti Malmi, one of Bitcoin's earliest developers, just released a new version of Nostr VPN, an open-source mesh VPN that replaces the entire trust model of traditional VPN services.

Traditional VPNs route all your traffic through a central server operated by a company you have to trust. They see your data. They require your email. They can log your activity. They can be subpoenaed, hacked, or shut down. Even modern mesh VPNs like Tailscale, which improved on this by sending data peer-to-peer, still require you to authenticate through a centralized coordination server using third-party accounts like Google or Microsoft.

Nostr VPN eliminates the central server entirely. Your identity is a Nostr keypair, a self-generated cryptographic key pair with no registration, no email, no third-party account. The underlying transport layer is FIPS (Free Internetworking Peering System), a self-organizing encrypted mesh network where nodes authenticate each other, route traffic for each other, and establish connections without any central authority or global topology knowledge. Each node's Nostr public key (npub) serves as its network address.

The architecture uses two layers of encryption: hop-by-hop encryption between peers and independent end-to-end encryption between mesh endpoints with periodic rekeying for forward secrecy. When direct connections fail due to NAT issues, the system falls back to Nostr-based multihop routing through other FIPS nodes rather than relying on company-operated relay servers. Peer discovery and NAT traversal happen through public Nostr relays using encrypted gift-wrapped messages.

The new release adds native desktop apps for macOS, Linux, and Windows, an Android app, Nostr-based multihop routing for when NAT holepunching fails, and improved network management. It supports UDP, TCP, Ethernet, Tor, and Bluetooth transports simultaneously on a single mesh.

This is what happens when you apply Bitcoin's design philosophy, permissionless, self-sovereign, no trusted third parties, to networking infrastructure. Built by one of the people who helped Satoshi build Bitcoin in 2009.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

@TedForIllinois I might just write you in for governor.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

Illinois voters picked the wrong candidate for the GOP ticket.

[Ted For Illinois @TedForIllinois]

In Part 2 of today’s Pritzker blame games, this time he’s going after Trump for Illinois’ high gas prices.

But somebody – like the press, if they would – needs to ask Pritzker why Trump’s policies don’t hit the Midwest equally. Why is Illinois’ $5.05 per gallon gas price (avg. per AAA):

94 cents higher than Indiana’s?
88 cents higher than Kentucky's?
87 cents higher than Missouri's?
76 cents higher than Iowa's?
55 cents higher than Wisconsin's?
25 cents higher than Michigan's?

Pritzker’s honest answer would be: “Because after I doubled the motor fuel tax in 2019 and then tied those taxes to inflation, we now have the nation’s 3rd-highest gas taxes. It’s on me.”

But don’t count on Pritzker to tell the truth. Or the media to challenge Pritzker on it.

#twill @ILGOP #Illinois @Potus #gasoline

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

"No YOU were steering the Titanic!"

[Paul Vallas @PaulVallas]

You have to love JB Pritzker moaning about the incompetent Mayor Brandon Johnson as they both play the “who lost the Bears” game. Johnson will eventually try to blame it on race, while Pritzker will no doubt find a way to blame it on Trump.

Just a reminder…

Pritzker is largely responsible for Johnson becoming mayor and for providing Johnson’s former employer and current puppet master, Stacy Davis Gates, the power to hold the city and its elected officials hostage by authorizing the CTU to strike for virtually any reason.

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

The #USOC semis are all teams in the bottom half of their tables. I'm not shocked that I don't have much excitement for whoever wins. At least when DC and Wigan came in last place but won their respective tournaments they were high-point/contrast stories.

[The Wolf Man @iTheWolfman]

👍👍

[Critically Thinking & Drinking 🧐 🥃🧉🍸🍹🤪 @TheCriticalDri1]

Leeeeeroy Jeeeeeenkins!! Turns 21 today 😂

[Brian - Relax. We'll be fine. @ricecakeonfire]

?

[Dr. Dawn Michael @DawnsMission]

Hantavirus is not contagious from person to person.

Early 1990s Hantavirus Fact Sheet (New Mexico Department of Health / CDC)A Hantavirus fact sheet from the early 1990s (issued by a U.S. government health department, most likely tied to the CDC during or right after the 1993 Four Corners outbreak) did clearly state that hantavirus is not contagious from person to person. That was accurate then… and it remains accurate today.

You catch it from breathing in dust from rodent urine, droppings, or saliva — not from other humans.

Save this. Share this. Original government facts still matter.

[Collin Corbett @CollinCorbett]

To combat skyrocketing gas prices in Illinois, we can and should continue to talk about the gas tax, but the bigger culprit is the state double taxing us at the pump.

Illinois is one of only a few states that double taxes gas, levying a sales tax on top of gas taxes.

Worse, because this sales tax is a percentage (6.25%), the more expensive gas becomes, the more taxes we pay.

With the state bringing in so much more revenue than anticipated, JB Pritzker and Springfield could do something to help temporarily lower our pain at the pump.

But they won't, because they think you'll blame Trump and Republicans for gas prices, and winning a petty partisan fight is more important to them than helping working families.

Illinoisans deserve better.

#twill

[USA NEWS 🇺🇸 @usanewshq]

Well, well, well

What do we have here?

[MERICA MEMED @Mericamemed]

"I don't wanna lose you as a customer" 😂😂😂😂

[Whiplash347 @Whiplash437]

Here is a Hantavirus Fact sheet from the early 90’s from a Government Health Department. It CLEARLY states Hantavirus is NOT contagious! Everyone learn this and pass it on. This is so maddening to me.