

# My Favorite Freedom Technology

Bitcoin in self custody is the most valuable freedom tech. It requires Here are the tools I like to use, but this set up might not be for everybody. It takes time to learn how to use the tools and try different ones out. Different strokes for different folks, but here are some of the tools I use for my stack.

My favorite wallet is the Q, but I think it's important to use multisig with wallets from multiple vendors. I think wallets with secure elements are best, and I prefer QR codes to NFC so my ideal setup is a multisig wallet that uses

- A Cold Card Q: Two secure elements from different vendors and QR support

- Keystone (Bitcoin OnlynVersion): --secure element and QR code support.

- Seed Signer: QR support, but no secure element.

In a perfect world, we would have a DIY wallet that has a secure element, but this is the best all airgap setup I think we have so far, but I haven't used the passport much and I've never actually seen a Bitbox.

This is what I would consider retirement money and I think it is important to put time locks on stuff for additional security. I like the time locks on Cold Cards, but they’re not perfect. I also find MuSig interesting but I haven’t tried it yet. 

I think of my Tap Signer as a savings account. It's not as secure as my retirement, but it's easy to access. What if I don't get paid for a month or two? I won't have time to access my super cypherpunk multisig setup, so I keep some sats hidden on a Tap Signer in an undisclosed location. I don’t keep it at home, but it will take me hours to access instead of months.

I'm still working on my spending money. There are tradeoffs to consider and everyone must judge these trade-offs themselves.

I was using BTCpayServer on lunanode with the Strike API to pay my bills. Basically I kept my money in sats in my own wallet(Phoenix) for as long as I possiibly could. Say I bought a cup of coffee. I swiped my credit card. Then I paid 5 bucks or whatever on BTCpayServer. The sats would instantly convert to fiat. I sent the fiat to my bank paid my bill at the end of the month. I had a buffer in Strike to cover fees. As of last week, I can just pay my credit card bills with Strike now so I'm setting things up to pay my bills like this. It will probably take me a few months to get it right. There's a couple ways to automate this from your own node, but I think it's more work than it's worth. I'll probably just start treating Strike as my bank even though I run my own lightning node.

## Node
The Start9 is the easiest node to use, but Umbrel taught me a lot. I'm technical to do much of the Linux networking on any computer, but time is scarce.

## Nostr

Nostr is one of the most underrated freedom tools we have. I use it way more than my BTCpayServer and I don't think we will need stores with BTCpayServer WooCommerce plugins much longer now that we have clients like shopstr and plebian market. 


I watched NBC news the other day The United States Supreme Court will take up the TikTok case. Full discolosure: I have never used TikTok. It appears that Congress passed a bill that will ban TikTok in the United States if the company does not sell itself to a U.S. Corporation. I thought it was a bunch of teenage girls dancing, but I guess I was wrong. Is code speech? Is TikTok using Propaganda to brainwash people into believing misinformation and disinformation? How should I know? I use nostr, a decentralized, censorship protocol that let’s you choose your own algorithm. TikTok is a platform owned by a foreign corporation that the U.S. government plans to force sale to a US Corporation like a Mercedes Benz confiscated by the police because the driver was selling illegal dried flowers. Long live free markets! 

Nostr is very early, but it has promise. I mean, I guess the US government can force me to sell my $400 computer to Facebook because I host  https://iris.marc26z.com/. The difference is, if I hand my computer over to Zuck, it’s not going to stop Yakihonne from relaying the same information. If they force Miljan to sell Primal to Twitter, they can’t stop someone in China from making their own Primal. Nostr is very early, but it has promise. Grab some popcorn.

## A Vansion.

This is not hardware, per say, but If you're single, you should live in a van. I rented rooms as a single man. Unfortunately, I never heard about bitcoin until a few months before I moved into an apartment with my girlfriend(now wife). Now we have a mortgage because my wife hates the idea of living in a mobile home, but it’s a better “investment” than a single family home. In clown world with clown world inflation and clown world interest rates, you're better off with a house than a mobile home. Mobile homes don’t go up in value compared to dollars. Single family homes go up in value compared to US dollars.  Therefore mobile homes have a social stigma in the US. People are looked down upon for owning inferior real estate. Besides, they usually rent the land. Renters have some other kind of social stigma, but who cares what fiat society says. Run the numbers yourself.

Mobile homes are cheaper than single family homes. This means you will have more cash flow to stack more sats. If bitcoin gets 60% more valuable every year and your single family home gets 7% more valuable per year…You will be better off spending less per month and stacking sats with the difference, but this is not financial advice. 

Even if single family homes appreciated more than bitcoin, Mobile homes are better for freedom. Spencer H. MacCallum, in The Art Of Community says, "The resulting mobile home was the first successful factory constructed house. Because it resembled a trailer more than a house, however, and was unfashionable, the significance of this technological accomplishment was overlooked. It's implications are still far from being fully realized." He says "...the fact that it is relocatable has psychological appeal. For an increasingly mobile population, it is attractive to think of moving across the country by sending the house ahead and having it ready to step into and prepare a meal on arrival." This book sold me on the idea of mobile homes as a technology for freedom, but it was written in 1970.

I did the math. My parents would have been better off financially if they bought a mobile home and saved the difference in gold. They should have bought bitcoin! Yeah, but it didn't exist in 1989. I suspect you will do even better saving the difference in bitcoin for 30 years, but again...This is not financial advice.

The book is out-dated. You're probably even better off living in a tiny home or shipping container these days, but the concept is the same.

Live small.
Live free.
If you are not free, move.
Living in a mobile home makes moving easier.

Again, my wife disagrees, but math is math and freedom can turn to tyranny over night. Mobility is required to chase freedom.

If you can live in a Van or some other mobile home, that's one of the most free-ing technologies you can own.

## An Old Car

If you want to be free, don’t buy a $50,000 Toyota. You’re better off with a bike, but if you must commute, don’t waste tons of sats on a new car. Get an old car. Don’t buy a Lambo if you want to be free. The newly ousted leader of Syria had Lambos.  What good do they do him now that he is exiled in Russia? I thought bitcion was for drug dealers. Why did this dumb dumb buy Lambos instead? Don’t waste precious sats on cars with computers nerds can’t fix. Drive a beater and stack sats.

## Mealie

Housing is the biggest expense for most people. Automobiles is next. The third biggest expense is usually food. The best way to minimize this cost is to cook your own food. If you don’t live in a Van you should do your [grocery shopping with your middle finger](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/23/grocery-shopping-with-your-middle-finger/). Stock up when things are on sale. Meal-prep and that includes adding frozen lasagna to your freezer for those nights when you just don’t want to cook. 

If you are not a Network Administrator, I suggest using Umbrel for this. More advanced users can put it on the clearnet with the Cloudflare tunnel. 

I use mealie to automate my grocery lists. That way, I can plan meals in advance, using stuff I already bought on sale. When I shop, I only buy things on sale to keep my grocery bill as low as possible. Then I plan my weekly meals based on what I have. I buy vegetables on sale. I buy snacks on sale. I do most of my shopping at Costco at the beginning of the month. I plan my breakfasts, my wife’s lunches and my son’s snacks. 

My brother in law says I’m a prepper. He’s not wrong. Mealie is free and open source software that has nothing to do with Austrian economics, but it’s helpful with home economics. Learn to cook and shop cheaply before you study praxeology, especially if you are living in a high inflation environment. As costs rise faster than wages, learning to shop like an investor is a good skill to have. In the last election, a U.S. presidential candidate suggested price controls. I don’t care about politics, but everything I’ve read about price controls says it leads to shortages. It’s important to have a stock of food to protect yourself from hyperinflation. Planning ahead with free and open source software and stocking up on food is a good way to prepare for such a situation. 