Journal

This section should actually read: Taxation without consent is as plainly robbery, when enforced against one man, as when enforced against millions... Taking a man's money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman. Neither the numbers engaged in the act, nor the different characters they assume as a cover for the act, alter the nature of the act itself.
- Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (1869)

Unfortuantely, it has become increasingly difficult to express any opinion that is not on par with what governments across the globe have been indoctrinating into people; An opinion that will likely put a man in a box, by societies that have been conditioned to increasingly think in extremes: Black and white, left and right, us and them. So let's instead quote Herman Melville:


Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851)

  • A World without Passports
    A World without Passports
    According to my analytics dashboard, there’s a 70% chance you’re reading this on your phone. Maybe at home, or maybe while commuting to work, using your mobile data connection, for which you’ve probably signed up on a mobile contract. A contract for which you had to prove that you are you, likely by showing your national ID or passport. A contract for which you have to pay regularly, probably using a bank account that you also had to identify yourself for upon opening.
  • A Brief Review of the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI Ryzen Ultrabook
    A Brief Review of the Star Labs StarBook Mk VI Ryzen Ultrabook
    As announced back in the update of Q4/2023, I went ahead and ordered a Star Labs StarBook Mk VI with an AMD Ryzen processor to finally replace my previous laptop and eventually my workstation. This is a brief review of the device itself, without going too much into software details.
  • Updates 2023/Q4
    Updates 2023/Q4
    Project updates from the previous consecutive three-month period, with info on the current status of my projects and next steps. You might find this interesting in case you’re using any of my open source tools.
  • An Overview of Privacy-Focused, Decentralized Instant Messengers
    An Overview of Privacy-Focused, Decentralized Instant Messengers
    An overview of privacy-focused, decentralized, open source alternatives to popular non-free spyware instant messengers like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Apple iMessage.
  • NEVER click on a link that looks like that
    NEVER click on a link that looks like that
    Every time one of my posts on this journal ends up somewhere on Reddit Lemmy, Twitter Mastodon Nostr Bluesky or Hacker News, lots of people seem to be irritated by the site’s URL. Hence, let me do a quick introduction into what’s called Punycode, and why I’m using this domain name.
  • How Do You Trust That Your Personal Machine Is Not Compromised?
    How Do You Trust That Your Personal Machine Is Not Compromised?
    A while ago I stumbled upon a simple yet surprisingly interesting question on Hacker News, which seemed to have some people (re-)evaluate their current setups and look for ways to improve. Hence I figured that it might be an interesting subject to cover.