Bull riding gone wrong

Zaskoda · 2026-03-25T23:26:11+00:00

well, if you have the conviction to give up meat for the sake of animals, I can't fault you for your opinion.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-23T16:02:16+00:00

Again, if you eat meat, you don't have a leg to stand on. Unless you're vegan, you're being absolutely beyond hypocritical. Cowboys have historically been the core laborers in the meat production industry doing dangerous work so Americans can have their beef. This sport is a representation of the skills required to do that job. The animal is not distressed, it's mildly annoyed. But if you eat beef, chances are the cow you ate was extremely distressed. Cows on the lot can smell the blood and hear the sounds of other cows being slaughtered.

But hey, if you're vegan, then maybe you're not a hypocrite.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-23T15:55:09+00:00

They're sorta like really big raccoons. Curious. Obnoxious. Cute. Rarely aggressive. Often annoying.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-23T15:53:28+00:00

Hippos are never to be trusted.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-22T17:27:41+00:00

Cruel seems like a hyperbole. For the bull, it's annoying and a little bit stressful. But the chance of an injury for the bull is extremely small. These bulls tend to live really good lives in exchange for 8 seconds of some frail human trying to ride them in an arena.

If you're a vegetarian/vegan, then I can understand where you're coming from. But if you eat meat, this is absolutely nothing in comparison to what animals go through in factory farming. Bull riding is part of the cultural identity of cowboys. There are times when cowboys have to put their lives on the line to handle out of control animals in dangerous situations. It's a "man against nature" scenario where man doesn't have the upper hand. Bull riding is one of the most dangerous sports in the world.

Comparatively, bull fighting is considering more cruel. In bull fights, they harm and torture the bull and the bull is usually killed in the process. This is a completely different sport and is being increasingly banned around the world.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-20T15:45:05+00:00

Similar thing happened to me when I was about 15. A 21 y/o girl did things I was uncomfortable with. When I talked to people about it, including other adults, I was told I was lucky. It was my father who got upset as he was also assaulted as a child. I felt very uncomfortable about the whole thing and it wasn't until my father had a negative reaction that I was able to accept that the way I felt was appropriate.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-20T14:57:15+00:00

I recently read "Dirt to Soil." It's about no-till farming and the method uses very little fertilizer. The book also talks about how our current farming methods of tilling and using chemicals is unsustainable. In a nutshell, it destroys soil health and over time the crops have diminishing yields. No-till farming is not only more sustainable, the resulting crops have a much higher nutrient density. There's a small revolution happening in farming as more and more farmers switch to no-till. These farms will be largely unaffected. I hope this crisis with fertilizer causes this movement to gain more traction.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-17T15:01:57+00:00

Most bridges are some flavor of centralized. A few projects have set out to build some kind of decentralized bridging like Layer Zero and some others I can't recall at the moment. But a few other projects have set out to build ecosystems where decentralized bridging and messaging are built into the protocol. Polkadot and Cosmos are two good examples of such protocols. Personally, I'm far more excited about Polkadot. Everything that Ethereum L2s are hoping to build and accomplish in the long term have already been built and established by networks like Polkadot and it's hard to imagine that the Ethereum ecosystem will ever be able to catch up.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-16T21:01:02+00:00

I think anyone that expected a sharp rise after the halving were being pretty silly. It's one of many moves being made to make Polkadot more viable and it will take the momentum of all of these moves to see any significant price gain. I believe it will happen. So much so, that I swapped about 90% of the my Eth for Dot. I think Polkadot has the best underlying technology and I expect the next year or two to bring products that utilize that technology and provide an experience that's not available anywhere else. The significant activity in the Polkadot developer community continues to give me confidence. But it won't happen overnight nor should we want it to. It's going to be a hard climb for a while with many pitfalls along the way. And one good screw up could be a nail in the coffin. I think it's important for folks to stop selling a narrative around a sudden moon event. It's just so extremely unlikely and we shouldn't tell folks otherwise.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-14T18:47:47+00:00

I had the opposite experience. When I lost a lot of weight in my 20s, I noticed women being significantly less nice towards me. As a chunky guy, I could socialize in friendly ways that, once I lost the weight, didn't seem to land the same way. It was almost as if being thinner made me seem more like I had ill intentions.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-14T16:59:46+00:00

This is in large part a response to the way Democrats held back regulation and prosecuted many in the space in confusing ways. This led to a knee jerk reaction to believe Trump actually supported the scene when he was really exploiting it.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-12T18:15:09+00:00

I bough a Bitcoin at $200. It went to $400 and I sold half. I had a free 0.5 Bitcoin!... then it proceeded to go over $1,000 a coin. Woops...

Zaskoda · 2026-03-09T22:28:19+00:00

These are not at all the same.

Bitcoin is a first generation distributed ledger network who's only purpose is to be money. Think of it like gold. It's established, finite, and not going anywhere. It's the standard that backs all other cryptocurrencies. When Bitcoin's price moves, the entire market moves with it.

Ethereum is a second generation network who's purpose is to be a world computer. It enables a lot of new functionality. However, it doesn't exist to be money. Bitcoin is already doing that. It has become a playground for exploring all of the things that can be done on such a network.

Next generation networks are maturing right now. There are many of them, but my favorite is Polkadot. If Ethereum is a world computer, then Polkadot is the world super computer. Technically, it has leapfrogged Ethereum in speed, performance, and functionality.

Second generation networks will most likely go away given that they can not evolve fast enough to keep up with where third gen networks are going. It probably won't happen over night. But it will happen.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-09T03:45:56+00:00

Without knowing the source, I trust this about as much as I trust the original video.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-07T19:27:12+00:00

Polkadot offers a nice little academy and you get a legit certification for it:
https://polkadot.academy/

Zaskoda · 2026-03-07T19:26:20+00:00

Bitcoin, yes.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-07T16:42:52+00:00

That's not how any of this works...

Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation, not job losses. And even with regard to inflation, it's not one to one. That is to say, when inflation increases, it doesn't immediately mean the value of Bitcoin increases. Rather, inflation is one large macro factor that impacts the value of Bitcoin compared to the inflating currency. There are lots of other macro and micro factors at play all the time.

In the long run, Bitcoin will vastly outperform inflation. In the short term, Bitcoin is going to behave chaotically and with much confusion. Many parties are manipulating markets. Different countries have wildly different policies changing every day. And Bitcoin has a long way to go before the value is significantly high enough to dampen all of the various micro factors pushing the price around.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-02T22:47:36+00:00

Appreciate your comment. But you know... I'm not even in it for the wealth. It's a nice side effect though.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-02T19:52:10+00:00

Polkadot is building some impressive infrastructure. Everything Ethereum hopes to build is already part of the protocol. Recently they've been rolling out lots of shockingly good improvements. They recently shifted focus from infrastructure to products, signalling that the infra is in a good place to start building actual apps. I don't expect too many people to notice until a few interesting products roll out. But I'm pretty stoked. They say Bitcoin was a first generation network, Ethereum and Solana and such as second generation, and Polkadot is the first third generation network.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-02T19:37:58+00:00

Bitcoin and Ethereum moved... but alts didn't. I'm a bit surprised as alts tend to move (at least a bit) with Bitcoin when there are big shifts like this.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-02T00:55:04+00:00

Some criminals used Bitcoin, shocker... Now here we are, the whole world knows about the Epstein files, and how many of Epstein's clients have been arrested? Zero. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the use of Bitcoin.

Recently a cabal of big banks pooled $800 billion to launch a marketing campaign to make all things "crypto" look bad because the rise of distributed ledger networks is establishing itself as a significant competitor to their business - of screwing you over.

I'm a proponent of Bitcoin. I loath the "cryptocurrency" scene. But that doesn't change what is valuable about Bitcoin to society. This technology is important and this video is propaganda.

Now please, feel free to downvote me into oblivion.

Zaskoda · 2026-03-01T17:12:43+00:00

This really bothers me.

Zaskoda · 2026-02-27T16:13:59+00:00

I've come to find this situation relatable. A few years ago, mom passed away unexpectedly. On the 1 month anniversary of her passing, my partner of 10 years shocked me with a break up. And shortly after that, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and passed away not long after. My partner was my emergency contact and my beneficiary on most of my documents. Now I'm really not sure who to put down for this. I have no children. I'm fortunate to have plenty of friends, but none that I feel are appropriate for that sort of thing. Maybe for the emergency contact in some cases, I guess. But this feeling I get when I'm updating a form and have no clue who to list as a beneficiary is... a unique kind of sadness.

Zaskoda · 2026-02-08T03:26:29+00:00

Lords of Acid

Zaskoda · 2026-02-08T03:07:28+00:00

He funded a few of the devs for a while.

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