No. 903D38Monday, October 12, 202624h to 16:25

The Nostr Observer

Printed from one corner of the network

Ranked as EZ689 events through your lens270 voices

Bitcoin · Who is knocking?

5,822 connections. 82 names. One address.

BitcornPleb’s report from one node gives a reason to look more closely at its neighbours. Two Umbrel apps turn those connections into something an operator can inspect.

From BitcornPleb’s node report

The address kept returning; the wallet names kept changing. BitcornPleb reports that one address associated with LinkingLion opened 5,822 connections to their node under eighty-two fake wallet names. It is a measurement from one operator, not a count of the whole Bitcoin network.

The observation accompanies two apps built for that operator’s own Umbrel and now offered through a community store. Bitcoin Lab records which peer delivers each new block first and ranks peers by that measure. For solo miners, it also times how quickly the pool turns a block into work, with automatic discovery of pool apps on the Umbrel.

Peer Map puts connections on a world map and classifies them as nodes, wallets, crawlers or peers presenting themselves as Bitcoin Core. The author says it also counts LinkingLion connections and raises the possibility of transactions being linked to IP addresses. That attribution and the reported connection count come from the developer; they are not an independent identification by this paper.

The tools’ stated scope stays close to home: Both run on your own node: no account, no tracking. The useful question behind them is concrete: which peers deliver blocks, and which ones repeatedly turn up under different names?

Research desk

Lichen sketches a way back out

waxwing introduces Lichen, a proposal for withdrawing from a second layer using liquidity in channels. The author believes it can work without changes to Bitcoin’s consensus rules and points to a proof of concept with a regtest demonstration.

The intended application is shielded transfers with better privacy and fewer bridge complications. It is a research proposal inviting scrutiny, not an announcement of a production service.

From the picture desk · Hawaiʻi

The trail disappears into cloud

A reddish dirt trail follows a narrow ridge into dense mist, with shrubs along its edges.
A ridge fades from view on the Awa’awapuhi trail. danielw shared this photograph in today’s reading, identifying its capture date as August 6, 2025.Photograph by danielw

The workshop · Releases, plans and rough edges

Maintenance

Small fixes at busy doors

Amber releases version 6.6.8 to fix a crash on some devices when another app opens the signer, or after a request is rejected. The release note traces it to the system failing to read the referring app.

Mostro announces Mostrix 0.3.7 with easier access to refresh and copying a full order ID. Long payment-method names should now stay inside the order form; ordinary Up and Down keys select disputes again. Chat-copy selection and navigation in an empty dispute chat also receive fixes.

Adam Soltys reports improvements to feed scrolling in Coinos. The common ambition is modest and useful: fewer interruptions between an intention and the next action.

Nostr over radio

The signature must survive the squeeze

Juraj clarifies the road-report experiment described in yesterday’s issue. The aim is a compact MeshCore packet that can be expanded back into the original Nostr event, valid signature included.

The proposal retains only the most precise geohash in transit and reconstructs what the full event needs. Juraj is open to adopting another project’s event format if that round trip can be preserved.

The status matters: the app is a demo with no users, and MeshCore support is not implemented yet. The post also identifies a practical obstacle: a node currently connects to one MeshCore app at a time. A shared route for other apps’ events is still part of the work.

Wallet design

Recovery should need more than one key

Nunchuk says it plans to add configurable M-of-N recovery paths to its on-chain timelock-assisted wallets within a few weeks. The option would require multiple keys even when taking the recovery route.

The announcement comes in a post responding to reports of compromised hardware signers. Nunchuk argues for independent hardware and software from different vendors, and against a recovery path that returns an otherwise multi-key wallet to reliance on a single key.

This is the wallet maker’s announced plan and argument. The option is described as forthcoming.

The kitchen · What the tools got right and wrong

A maple finish for the holiday table

A glazed salmon fillet on a square plate beside a smoker.
Permanerd’s smoked salmon, finished with maple syrup and butter. The cook calls it probably their best yet.Cooking and photograph by Permanerd

The meal began with plans to host guests for Canadian Thanksgiving. A later update recorded the four-hour dry brine complete, followed by drying the Chinook fillet before smoking. The finished plate supplies the last instalment.

Recipe conversion

Five times the sugar

sperry reports a successful batch of scones followed by repeated failures after asking Claude to turn the recipe into an import file for Mealie. Checking the recipe again revealed the problem: the imported version had five times the sugar.

The convenience was in moving a recipe between systems. The error moved with it, surviving long enough to spoil more baking before the quantities were checked.

Home economics

The smaller apple leaves less behind

Dr. Hax works through the cost of homemade dried apple pieces for granola, including a value for the time spent. An initial estimate came to $1.75 an ounce against $1.57 for the cheapest shop-bought alternative.

A follow-up finds two quarts of dried pieces weigh a pound, with poorer yield from this batch’s smaller apples: more of each pound went into the cores. The project is about saving on household food, not setting up a business.

The axle cost three drill bits

A.A.Ron replaces the firewood dolly’s axle to suit new wheels. Stainless steel proved an expensive choice in workshop consumables: three drill bits and a reciprocating-saw blade went on the holes and the cut. Next time, the author would choose mild steel for easier machining.

Worth the scroll · In brief · On the calendar

Reading the manual

Your photo has a size setting

Dee Kay’s media chapter in the Amethyst manual explains a setting easy to miss: ordinary photo uploads start at Medium, and choosing Uncompressed is a per-upload decision.

The guide says Low, Medium and High alter JPEG quality after the same downscaling process; Uncompressed preserves the original resolution and format. It also walks through stored Blossom files, failed uploads and the separate HLS Upload entry for adaptive video.

A smaller client, still in alpha

Gigi’s Feather listing describes a minimal Android Nostr client focused on simplicity and discoverability. In a separate note, the developer says it is still in alpha but works for them.

Tools for making

Stay with the difficult bar

Rubber Ring, listed by Zapstore, loops selected passages from an audio file and changes playback speed without changing pitch. Its beat grid and chord labels can be corrected by hand; saved sections can be chained into practice arrangements.

The listing calls it an early release with rough edges. It is a tool for repeating the passage until the hands catch up.

Save a file, publish a post

Tim introduces folderblog: put a Markdown file in a folder and save it to publish, with no build step, git push or frontmatter. The project aims to make writing for the web feel like writing to disk.

The listeners chose 56

Noderunners Radio counts 355 songs in its Sunday tally, fifty-six requested and paid for by listeners. OutKast, ZZ Top and the Doors appear among the selections.

Dates ahead

Tonight · Oct 12 · 19:00 · Wareham
Purbeck Bitcoin Meetup, The Bear, 14 South Street.

Oct 14 · 20:00 · Carnago
Varese bitcoiner meetup, Birrificio Settimo, 33 Via Monte Rosa.

Oct 17 · 11:45 · State College
Nostr Valley III, Happy Valley Brewing Company. Doors at 11:45; the programme follows at 12:05, with talks on cooking, trust-based search, profile protection and more.

Oct 28 · 18:30 · Funchal
FREE Madeira’s Merchant Onboarding Session, Cowork Funchal. An English-language case study, free entry, RSVP recommended; children welcome.

Times are local to each venue. Links lead to the organisers’ listings or announcements.

The exchange

A wireless adapter leaves the drawer

BIT21M lists a FRITZ! WLAN stick AC 860 for €20, plus €5 shipping in Italy. The seller says it was used only a few times before being put away; the listing marks its condition good and its status active.

Price, condition and availability are the seller’s descriptions.

The Instrument

No notes in common

The ranked notes desk returned 399 events; the anonymous control returned 400. None appeared in both. Across fourteen desks, this reading contains 689 events from 270 voices.

Twenty-four hours ending Monday, October 12 at 16:25, Europe/Vilnius. All editorial events fall inside that window. These are counts of this reading, not of the whole network.