# Larry Salibra
> Larry Salibra's personal website and blog.
Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. Use `/llms-full.txt` for consolidated page and post context.
Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`).

## Pages
- [About Sailing Sula](https://larrysalibra.com/about-sailingsula-com.md) - Hello! I'm Larry. Sailing Sula is a private community where I share my sailing journey and adventures sailing my boat Sula around Hong Kong and (hopefully) beyond. Getting Access If the site looks a bit sparse, that's because most posts are limited to an audience of sailing friends and family. If y…
- [About Larry](https://larrysalibra.com/about.md) - About me Larry Salibra is a technology entrepreneur who lives is Hong Kong. He's the founder of New Internet Labs where he's building a new internet of apps that can't be evil based on the Stacks technology developed while he was an early Engineering Partner at Hiro PBC (formerly Blockstack PBC). P…
- [AI Usage](https://larrysalibra.com/ai.md) - How I use generative AI.
- [Contact Larry](https://larrysalibra.com/contact.md) - Email me: hello@larrysalibra.com. Tweet at me: @larrysalibra.
- [Greatest Hits](https://larrysalibra.com/hits.md) - A selection of my most popular posts and some personal favorites.
- [What I'm doing now](https://larrysalibra.com/now.md) - What's currently going on in my life.
- [Projects](https://larrysalibra.com/projects.md) - Projects New Internet LabsBuilding a new browser for the new internet. Creator of the Can’t Be Evil sandbox.Larry SalibraLarry Salibra#WearAFuckingMaskA campaign that reached millions to get people to wear mask and reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2.Larry SalibraLarry SalibraBlockstackAn ecosystem bui…
- [Sailing Sula Archive](https://larrysalibra.com/sailingsula.md) - An archive of my sailing blog sailingsula.com.

## Posts
- [Amazon US is 8x more expensive than Costco China](https://larrysalibra.com/amazon-us-is-8x-more-expensive-than-costco-china.md) - Amazon US prices used to be among the cheapest in the world. Leading up to and during the pandemic, I would do much of my shopping on Amazon US, which ships to Hong Kong for free without Prime and is 100% tax-free. Slowly over the past decade, though, their advantage has eroded and almost of my reg…
- [Shenzhen scale is so much bigger than Hong Kong](https://larrysalibra.com/shenzhen-scale-is-so-much-bigger-than-hong-kong.md) - Officially, Hong Kong's nominal GDP was US$424 billion in 2025 versus Shenzhen's US$557 billion. I assert that these numbers severally understate the relative value produced by Shenzhen vs Hong Kong in the same way comparing the USA's nominal GDP to China's GDP severely understates the relative val…
- [The future of memories is here and it's spatial](https://larrysalibra.com/the-future-of-memories-is-here-and-its-spatial.md) - “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” -William Gibson I have an infant son and have been taking spatial photos and video of him since his birth (and previously during the pregnancy) so that I can view them on Apple Vision Pro. It's really hard express the intense emotiona…
- [Larry's Weekly Newsletter - August 9, 2026](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/newsletter-august-9-2026.md) - Hello friends! Today's post is the 31st daily post in this streak. I've very much enjoyed writing something everyday and sharing it with you. Below, please find my posts from the past week. Yours, Larry Coldcard shows the challenge of a bitcoin-only businessThe Coldcard hack shows how hard it can b…
- [True self-driving is freedom from responsibility](https://larrysalibra.com/true-self-driving-is-freedom-from-responsibility.md) - I was taking a Pony AI robotaxi around Shenzhen this evening with my dad. Until the post month, I'd only take a Pony AI robotaxi to experience the technology or demonstrate it to visitors. The reason is that, up until recently, there weren't really enough vehicles in the fleet in Shenzhen, so you'd…
- [Stay sustainably](https://larrysalibra.com/stay-sustainably.md) - Another article about another American leaving China. This one is a weird one though. But from 2023 — a time of widespread pressures on local government finances following three years of virus restrictions and a property slowdown — he was asked instead to pay closer to market rent. Given that his v…
- [Completely isolated == easily homogenized](https://larrysalibra.com/completely-isolated-easily-homogenized.md) - I've always wondered why Chinese people living in mainland China seem so much less propagandized than Americans. I think I finally found a possible answer while listening to historian Darryl Cooper interviewed by Tucker Carlson. ...go back to the internal migrations in the 20th century after the Se…
- [Immigration needs to feel fair](https://larrysalibra.com/immigration-needs-to-feel-fair.md) - Adopted from a reply to Erik Voorhees and fluidvoice.btc's discussion on X re protectionism with regard to immigration: Nothing is ever fair in life or markets, but I respectfully submit that if a nation allows lots of immigration for one class of people or category of jobs while protecting other c…
- [Baby's last burp](https://larrysalibra.com/babys-last-burp.md) - I just sat my 3 month old son down on my leg for his post midnight feed burping. Deep in milk food coma, I tilted him forward and gently patting him on the back with a cupped hand until I heard that satisfying sound of a baby's burp. I looked at his face and found him peacefully asleep, blissfully…
- [Don't ignore the doubt](https://larrysalibra.com/dont-ignore-the-doubt.md) - There's a lot of unspoken assumptions in societies about how things work. In democracies, at least the US one in which I was raised, there was a strongly held belief that somehow voting picks the best people for the job. Even as early as middle school, it was pretty clear that wasn't true. One just…
- [Coldcard shows the challenge of a bitcoin-only business](https://larrysalibra.com/coldcard-show-the-challenge-of-a-bitcoin-only-business.md) - The Coldcard hack shows how hard it can be to run a bitcoin-only business. While building the hardware wallet itself might not be that expensive, it is a one-off cost. The associated ongoing software updates, paying for the updates to be professionally audited and running a credible bug bounty prog…
- [Larry's Weekly Newsletter - August 2, 2026](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larrys-weekly-newsletter-august-2-2026.md) - Hello friends! I spent the past week taking family members that haven't visited China in a decade and a half around Guangdong province in the Chinese mainland. Things have really changed here in the past decade and if you haven't visited China in a while (or ever) you're missing out! Below are my p…
- [We can't choose the era we live in](https://larrysalibra.com/we-cant-choose-the-era-we-live-in.md) - A Chinese friend was telling me today that many of his friends felt that the economy today was very unfair. Today isn't like the 1990s in China where everyone was equally poor and "just" working really hard was a receipe for success they say. It sounds a lot like those who grew up in the US from my…
- [A Rockefeller connection in Hong Kong's MTR](https://larrysalibra.com/a-rockefeller-connection-in-hong-kongs-mtr.md) - After listening to The Knowledge Project's episode on John D. Rockefeller over the past few days, I started reading more about him online. I knew Rockefeller's Standard Oil was big, but didn't know that it was so big that it was selling kerosene in China during the Qing dynasty. The trade name it u…
- [Winners compete, losers cheat](https://larrysalibra.com/winners-compete-losers-cheat.md) - Banning Chinese competition is a losing strategy.
- [HK taxis & buses don't need handouts, they need EVs](https://larrysalibra.com/hk-taxis-buses-dont-need-handouts-they-need-evs.md) - Diesel and LPG fuel prices in Hong Kong have massively increased since the beginning of the Iran war. As of today, the diesel price is around US$4.6 per liter...that's approaching US$18 per gallon for the metrically challenged. To help cushion the fast change in price, the Hong Kong Government offe…
- [China's biggest EV SUV has a sense of humor](https://larrysalibra.com/chinas-biggest-ev-suv-has-a-sense-of-humor.md) - On a rainy day in China with visitors from abroad, one of the best forms of entertainment is free: test driving Chinese EVs. Today, I test drove China's largest EV SUV, the 5.4 meter long NIO ES9 "Executive" SUV. It has 697 hp and is absolutely massive. I didn't realize this was China's largest SUV…
- [SpaceX isn't a very good business](https://larrysalibra.com/spacex-isnt-a-very-good-business.md) - I didn't invest in the SpaceX IPO and even if I wanted to, couldn't easily do so since they blocked Hong Kong residents. It seems like Elon timed and priced it perfectly for the company. The thing is, it's not a very good business at anything near its current valuation...and the market seems to be…
- [EV charging: slow mode is all you need](https://larrysalibra.com/ev-charging-slow-mode-is-all-you-need.md) - There are basically two modes of EV charging: Fast mode and slow mode. Fast mode is where you want to use the car, are in a rush and are waiting for the charge to complete so you can continue on a journey. This is the mode used by people on roadtrips, people driving long distances away from home, p…
- [Larry's Weekly Newsletter - July 26, 2026](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larnewsletter-jul-26-2026.md) - Hello friends, We are just drying off from last night's typhoon Noul here in Hong Kong. It was 3rd closest typhoon to hit Hong Kong this century...but otherwise uneventful. Below, please find my writings from the past week. I hope you enjoy them! Yours, Larry Ben Thompson is wrong: US frontier labs…
- [Western policy wonks intentionally "misunderstand" China](https://larrysalibra.com/western-policy-w-intentionally-misunderstands-china.md) - China energy expert David Fishman penned a masterful analysis and refutation of the theory that China is closing the path that earlier generations of developing countries took to industrialization. This theory is all the rage in western policy circles and most recently espoused in a wildly shared a…
- [Purchasing a product is not a political statement](https://larrysalibra.com/purchasing-a-product-is-not-a-political-statement.md) - In the past week, I’ve come across half a dozen comments saying that the poster wants to use the search engine Kagi but cannot in good conscience because Kagi apparently sources some results from the Russian search engine Yandex. To spend $5 a month on Kagi would mean the commenter is supporting Ru…
- [Indoor air in China...better, but still not smoke-free](https://larrysalibra.com/indoor-air-in-china-better-but-still-not-smoke-free.md) - The high rate of cigarette smoking in mainland China has been one of its major downsides for the ~23 years I’ve been around. And the progress on this has been very slow. I've heard theories about this having to do with the tax revenue generated by the State Tobacco Monopoly, but don't follow the po…
- [Farewell BitMEX](https://larrysalibra.com/farewell-bitmex.md) - Hong Kong-based BitMEX announced it's closing its doors on the 23rd of September of this year. I had the good fortune to know the founders and follow their journey from before they launched in December of 2014. It was amazing watching them go from an idea to a product launch and struggle through th…
- [800v vs 400v EVs...does it really matter?](https://larrysalibra.com/800v-vs-400v-evs-does-it-really-matter.md) - Headline EV charging power specs are misleading and 800v vs 400v really matters.
- [The freedom of public transit](https://larrysalibra.com/the-freedom-of-public-transit.md) - I spent the last 3 weeks in Zhuhai, the city in mainland China across the river delta from Hong Kong and Shenzhen, just north of (also technically west, east and south of) Macau. With the advent of the Northbound Travel for Hong Kong Vehicles scheme, car owners, Zhuhai has become a popular destinat…
- [Ben Thompson is wrong: US frontier labs are right to be panicking](https://larrysalibra.com/ben-thompson-is-wrong-us-frontier-labs-are-right-to-be-panicking.md) - American tech blogger Ben Thompson writes today that US frontier labs should not be panicking about Chinese open source models like Kimi K3, despite them being competitive with the best models from American labs. We can "distill" (ha!) his post down to two main arguments: Anthropic and OpenAI likel…
- [Larry's Weekly Newsletter - July 19, 2026](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larrys-weekly-newsletter-july-19-2026.md) - Hi friends! Long time no write! Now that AI is taking over the world, it seems more important than ever for us (you included!) to write regularly so that we do not find ourselves among the Write-Nots. In accordance with my AI policy for this blog/newsletter, all writing is lovingly human-crafted on…
- [A phone is a whiskey flask](https://larrysalibra.com/a-phone-is-a-whiskey-flask.md) - "a phone is a whiskey flask and humanity is drunk out of our collective minds." -me on X There's a lot to say on this topic especially with regards to the implications for things many once took for granted in their societies. For now, I'll just say that I've been trying to dilute the whiskey in my…
- [Low standards for white Chinese speakers](https://larrysalibra.com/low-standards-for-white-chinese-speakers.md) - "Your Chinese is very good...for a white guy." I strongly identify with this statement. Chinese is a great language to learn for many reasons. One such reason is that native Chinese speakers are incredibly supportive of you, no matter how little effort you've put in or progress you've made. If you…
- [Tesla is juicing its China sales](https://larrysalibra.com/tesla-is-juicing-its-china-sales.md) - If you haven't heard, Chinese EVs are amazing and they're taking over the world. And as someone who was just in the market for an EV this spring in Hong Kong, I can assure you that Chinese EVs are excellent: better features, nicer interiors, better ride, charge MUCH faster, much less expensive and…
- [LLMs, nationalism & open source](https://larrysalibra.com/llms-nationalism-open-source.md) - Inkling came out yesterday - an open source LLM by an American firm. It’s supposedly not bad but also not notably good outside of its multi-modal support for audio compared to the leading open source LLMs which just happen to be created by Chinese firms. What was more interesting than the actual mo…
- [Rudd on Xi...more Western naval-gazing](https://larrysalibra.com/rudd-on-xi-more-western-naval-gazing.md) - I listened to Ezra Klein's interview with former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd about Xi Jinping. Rudd speaks Chinese. He served in the Australian foreign service where he met Xi earlier in his career while he was in Xiamen. Rudd later went on to do a PhD at Oxford which seems to have been mo…
- [The big bad Chinese subsidies](https://larrysalibra.com/the-big-bad-chinese-subsidies.md) - This is in reply to a thread on X where Matt Stoller claims that 100% of China's success is due to state subsidies. The "China subsidized its way to success" is really just a cope shibboleth that some Americans repeat without thinking to signal group unity across political lines. It means "It's not…
- [Apple is winning the AI race](https://larrysalibra.com/apple-is-winning-the-ai-race.md) - I don't think people realize how easy it is to make use of on-device AI models in an app on most of Apple's devices shipped in the past two years. And I'm talking about the currently shipping 26 versions of iOS and macOS...not some upcoming developer releases or betas. A few lines of code are all y…
- [QR code menu enabled phone addiction](https://larrysalibra.com/qr-code-menu-enabled-phone-addiction.md) - Phone addiction in mainland China seems to be much higher than the already ridiculous levels it is in other places in the world. It’s very common in restaurants and coffee shops for tables of people to be ignoring each other and their kids bent over their phones. I suspect a large component of this…
- [Bryan Johnson blood tests in a Chinese public hospital](https://larrysalibra.com/blood-tests-in-a-chinese-public-hospital.md) - I wanted to get some Bryan Johnson-inspired blood tests for a baseline of biomarkers. He sells an expensive testing service that, as far as I know, isn’t available outside of the USA. And getting blood tests in Hong Kong means going to an expensive private lab or expensive private hospital or clini…
- [What to make? A sandwich?](https://larrysalibra.com/what-to-make-a-sandwich.md) - AI makes it really easy to build things until you realize you don't know what to build. You may think you know what you want to build until you start to build it, only to find out that not only have you not defined some of the requirements of your project, but you hadn't even considered that those…
- [A Letter to Hong Kong's Financial Secretary on the 2025-26 Budget](https://larrysalibra.com/a-letter-to-hong-kongs-financial-secretary-25-26.md) - My open letter to Hong Kong's Financial Secretary on the 2025-26 Budget.
- [⛵️Sula is sold!](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/sula-is-sold.md) - Hi sailing friends! You're receiving this email because you were part of my one time sailing blog "sailingsula.com". As many of you no doubt already know, I sold Sula in the summer of 2023 to a very kind and loving new owner. As of now, she remains in Hong Kong, however the new owner plans to take…
- [A comparison of cellular bands in Apple's 2024 products](https://larrysalibra.com/a-comparison-of-cellular-bands-in-apples-2024-products.md) - Which regional models of the new iPhones and Apple Watches have the best cellular band support?
- [Best life-hack: Find something you love](https://larrysalibra.com/best-lifehack-find-something-you-love.md) - I spent 3 hours in the gym tonight. I hate going to the gym. Or at least I used to.
- [Gloomy Guangzhou](https://larrysalibra.com/gloomy-guangzhou.md) - Thoughts and questions from my first trip to Guangzhou since covid.
- [Why I post reviews on centralized corporate platforms](https://larrysalibra.com/why-i-post-reviews-on-centralized-corporate-platforms.md) - Why I post reviews on platforms I don't own...
- [Voting in the 2023 Hong Kong district council election](https://larrysalibra.com/voting-in-the-2023-hk-district-council-election.md) - I tried to vote in the district council election and all I got was a greeting card.
- [Day 33: Our ability to learn is mind-blowing](https://larrysalibra.com/day-33-our-ability-to-learn-is-mind-blowing.md) - Learning something new is the best drug. Give it a try!
- [Day 32: Good skippers ask what's next](https://larrysalibra.com/day-32-good-skippers-ask-whats-next.md) - The GTD behavior of defining a next action is the hallmark of a good skipper.
- [Day 31: To command effectively, always say the name](https://larrysalibra.com/day-31-to-command-effectively-always-say-the-name.md) - One of the easiest leadership skills to learn is to always say the other person's name.
- [Day 30: URLs and composability](https://larrysalibra.com/day-30-urls-and-composability.md) - Musings on URL composability in web apps.
- [Day 29: The great Hong Kong floods of 2023](https://larrysalibra.com/day-29-what-happened-with-the-hong-kong-floods.md) - The great Hong Kong floods of 2023 were not entirely unexpected. What went wrong...
- [Day 28: The best seat selection UI ever](https://larrysalibra.com/day-28-the-best-seat-selection-ui-ever.md) - Airline website developers could learn a lot from the Eurostar seat selection interface.
- [✍️ Week 3 of my writing challenge](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/week-3-of-my-writing-challenge.md) - Hi friends! I've finished week 3 of my month long writing challenge and am well into the final week. Below, find the new posts since my last email. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the one about Stacks being the Paypal Mafia of bitcoin was by far the most popular and generated the most interaction. My audie…
- [Day 27: Are airlines buses or experiences?](https://larrysalibra.com/day-27-are-airlines-buses-or-experiences.md) - Airlines are unable to decide if they are in the transportation or the experience business.
- [Day 26: Four questions I ask before starting new projects](https://larrysalibra.com/four-things-i-ask-before-starting-new-projects.md) - When considering a new project, I first ask myself these four questions.
- [Day 25: Crypto is the coordination business](https://larrysalibra.com/day-25-crypto-is-the-coordination-business.md) - Crypto is about tackling problems too big for one company to solve.
- [Day 24: Laser-eyed HODLing alone is not enough](https://larrysalibra.com/day-24-lets-use-bitcoin.md) - We need more than just HODLing to get to us to hyperbitcoinization.
- [Day 23: Predictable natural disasters are not natural at all](https://larrysalibra.com/day-23-predictable-natural-disaster-are-not-natural-at-all.md) - Predictable natural disasters, are not natural at all, but the result of human choice.
- [Day 22: A snow day in Hong Kong](https://larrysalibra.com/day-22-a-snow-day-in-hong-kong.md) - A category 4-equivalent typhoon is pounding Hong Kong...but the city is calm and everything will be fine. How is that?
- [Day 21: Americans have no idea how much better China’s infrastructure is](https://larrysalibra.com/americans-have-no-idea-how-much-better-chinas-infrastructure-is.md) - Frequent power outages were the norm growing up in the USA but almost never happened while living in China.
- [Day 20: Opting out of US healthcare and social security](https://larrysalibra.com/day-20-opting-out-of-us-healthcare-and-social-security.md) - I opted out of the US social ponzi scheme, but with that freedom comes responsibility.
- [Day 19: Why am I paying for you to read this?](https://larrysalibra.com/day-19-why-am-i-paying-for-you-to-read-this.md) - Musings on the perverse incentive structure of the internet.
- [Day 18: Stacks will be the Paypal mafia of Bitcoin](https://larrysalibra.com/day-18-stacks-will-be-the-paypal-mafia-of-bitcoin.md) - It's incredibly motivational to see what Stacks OGs and the community are building!
- [Day 17: Writing about hard things is hard!](https://larrysalibra.com/day-17-writing-about-hard-things-is-hard.md) - Writing about topics in which I'm invested is hard.
- [Day: 16 Diaspora have a bone to pick](https://larrysalibra.com/day-16-diaspora-have-a-bone-to-pick.md) - Diaspora often have a bone to pick with their former homes...that's often why they left...take their views with a grain of salt!
- [Day 15: Employer tax withholding is a scam](https://larrysalibra.com/tax-withholding-is-a-scam.md) - Employer tax withholding is a scam used to get people to pay heavy taxes without feeling the pain.
- [Day 14: Behave like the society you want to live in](https://larrysalibra.com/day-14-behave-like-the-society-you-want-to-live-in.md) - Hong Kongers' kindness makes this a great place to live.
- [✍️ Week 2 of my writing challenge](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/week-2-month-long-writing-challenge.md) - Hi friends! We are wrapping up week two of my month-long daily writing challenge. Posts from Day 4 through Day 13 are linked below. If you missed the first four posts, you can find them here in the previous email. I feel like I'm really getting into the habit of writing daily and quickly. I'm also…
- [Day 13: Rent seeking medical tests](https://larrysalibra.com/day-13-rent-seeking-medical-tests.md) - I'm dreaming of a world where medical tests are cheap and automated.
- [Day 12: Hot and not bitcoin technologies](https://larrysalibra.com/day-12-hot-and-not-bitcoin-tech.md) - An informal poll of a Hong Kong ordinals meetup about which bitcoin tech is interesting and which is not.
- [Day 11: Online vs offline in person payments](https://larrysalibra.com/day-11-online-vs-offline-in-person-payments.md) - In person payment systems that require users to be online fall apart when the network stops working. A hotpot experience.
- [Day 10: 1 year of Duolingo Italian](https://larrysalibra.com/1-year-of-duolingo-italian.md) - Looking back on a year of Duolingo Italian. Have I learned anything?
- [Day 9: Stop trying to make Bitcoin in brick & mortar happen](https://larrysalibra.com/stop-trying-to-make-bitcoin-brick-and-mortar-happen.md) - Bitcoin in brick & mortar has failed. The Lightning community should stop wasting time chasing in person payments.
- [Day 8: America is not knowing how much you're going to pay](https://larrysalibra.com/day-8-america-is-not-knowing-how-much-youre-going-to-pay.md) - The paradox of a free market where no one knows the price.
- [Day 7: iPad Mini as an eBook reader](https://larrysalibra.com/ipad-mini-as-an-ebook-reader.md) - Ditch your Kindle, get an iPad Mini...the perfect eBook reader.
- [Day 6: The intelligent investor was banned from owning gold](https://larrysalibra.com/day-6-intelligent-investor-banned-from-owning-gold.md) - The intelligent investor was banned from owning the most ancient of asset classes and he thought it was funny.
- [Day 5: Apple keeps deleting my games and music](https://larrysalibra.com/day-5-apple-keeps-deleting-my-games-and-music.md) - The captain has turned off the seatbelt sign and my downloaded music is gone. What gives?
- [Day 4: The skipper does not drive the boat](https://larrysalibra.com/day-4-the-skipper-does-not-drive-the-boat.md) - To be skipper means finding good crew and delegating.
- [✍️ My month-long writing challenge](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/my-month-long-writing-challenge.md) - Hi friends! Long time no email! Like many, I suffer from long-form post-anxiety..that is to say when I'm writing a long-form post, I'll feel anxious before posting it. Thoughts like "it's not good enough, people won't like it, it's not done yet, it's not perfect" will float around my mind causing m…
- [Day 3: Ohio is recruiting foreigners to vote](https://larrysalibra.com/day-3-who-is-voting-in-the-usa.md) - I'm not a citizen and Ohio is still recruiting me to vote.
- [Day 2: The slow train to Shenzhen is faster](https://larrysalibra.com/day-2-high-speed-rail-to-shenzhen.md) - The 112 year old slow train to Shenzhen is faster than high speed rail.
- [Day 1: My daily blogging commitment](https://larrysalibra.com/day-1-my-daily-blogging-commitment.md) - Welcome to Day 1 of my month-long public writing commitment. Follow along as I build a habit of writing and shipping in public.
- [Day 0: Investing in Web3 on Bitcoin](https://larrysalibra.com/investing-in-web3-on-bitcoin.md) - Why I'm excited to to support Xverse, the leading Bitcoin Web3 wallet, in their seed funding round.
- [Lightning Con & Nostr Names](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/lightning-con-nostr.md) - Hi friends! I wanted to share some recent posts with you. I went to the Lightning conference held in Vietnam a couple weeks ago and wrote up a summary of my thoughts and takeaways: Thoughts on LightningCon Vietnam 2023Conference takeaways on Lightning UX, payment rails, routing and more!Larry Salib…
- [Thoughts on LightningCon Vietnam 2023](https://larrysalibra.com/thoughts-on-lightningcon-vietnam-2023.md) - Conference takeaways on Lightning UX, payment rails, routing and more!
- [Picture perfect spinnaker drop](https://larrysalibra.com/dropping-the-spinnaker-on-sula.md) - Learn how to drop the spinnaker on Sula and enjoy some photos from a spectacular sail.
- [Celebrating the Lunar New Year in Tai O & Sokos](https://larrysalibra.com/tai-o-sokos-over-cny.md) - Sula spent Lunar New Year holiday cruising in western Hong Kong with Lady P.
- [Supercharging Sula](https://larrysalibra.com/supercharging-sula.md) - Sula was lifted out and her propeller pitch adjusted to make her a faster boat!
- [Fouled water speed transducer](https://larrysalibra.com/fouled-water-speed-transducer.md) - Despite being underway 75% of the time, Sula's speed transducer grew a small coral reef.
- [🐬 Dolphins in Hong Kong - Autumn 2021](https://larrysalibra.com/dolphins-in-hong-kong-autumn-2021.md) - A video compilation of dolphin sightings around western Lantau, Hong Kong from a sailing trip in autumn 2021.
- [Welcome to Sailing Sula!](https://larrysalibra.com/welcome-to-sailing-sula.md) - Sailing Sula is a private community where I share my sailing journey and adventures sailing my boat Sula around Hong Kong and beyond.
- [📺 The original NFTs & Signal](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/the-original-nfts-and-signal.md) - Hello all! Here in Hong Kong, Whatsapp has been king since beginning of the mobile messaging wars. About a year ago there was a big uptake in Signal for various reasons. In the past few months I've started seeing Hong Kong friends drop off Signal. I wrote a post on what I think is happening. Signal…
- [State of Decentralized Naming](https://larrysalibra.com/2021-11-state-of-decentralized-naming.md) - The state of decentralized naming in November 2021 in an 18 minute video.
- [Signal is losing](https://larrysalibra.com/signal-is-losing.md) - Signal is losing the network effect battle in Hong Kong.
- [✈️ Make Hong Kong Asia's World City Again](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/make-hong-kong-asias-world-city-again.md) - Hello! It's been a while since I've wrote you. Like many others, life for me has changed a lot during the pandemic. More on those changes in the future. Here in Hong Kong, we were spared the worst of the pandemic at the price of being cut off from many of our friends and family, by 2 to 3 week bord…
- [Asia's World City needs open borders](https://larrysalibra.com/a-path-to-vaccination-and-travel-for-hong-kong.md) - A path to vaccination and travel for Hong Kong.
- [Earnings for Charity from Wearafuckingmask.com](https://larrysalibra.com/wearafuckingmask-earnings.md) - With your support, we sold $2,205.01 of wearafuckingmask.com t-shirts and earned $529.47 in commissions and donated HK$5,000 to charity!
- [Goodbye USA](https://larrysalibra.com/goodbye-usa.md) - The story of how I left America.
- [Stacking & PoX: Economically anchoring the STX ecosystem in Bitcoin](https://larrysalibra.com/economically-anchoring-stx-in-bitcoin.md) - Blockstack's Stack 2.0 chain is not only cryptographically anchored in Bitcoin, but also economically anchored in Bitcoin.
- [Getting around Trump’s Tiktok & Wechat Bans](https://larrysalibra.com/getting-around-trumps-tiktok-wechat-bans.md) - How US users might get around Trump's Tiktok and Wechat bans.
- [On Blockstack Governance & the Stacks Foundation](https://larrysalibra.com/on-blockstack-governance.md) - Thoughts on governance in decentralized ecosystems and the newly created Stacks Foundation.
- [A guide to sailing in Hong Kong](https://larrysalibra.com/sailing-in-hong-kong.md) - My guide to sailing in Hong Kong
- [🇺🇳 WHO killed the digital nomads?](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/who-killed-the-digital-nomads.md) - Hi friends! Life as nomad has always been a precarious existence. After all, when you have no home, that makes you...homeless? I think Covid-19 has killed the digital nomad as we know it. Here are some lessons that will help you find the home you crave while satisfying your wanderlust in a sustaina…
- [It wasn't WHO, it was you!](https://larrysalibra.com/it-wasnt-who-was-you.md) - Stop blaming WHO! Countries had plenty of time do something about the novel Coronavirus. A timeline of events from my vantage point in Hong Kong.
- [The digital nomad is dead](https://larrysalibra.com/the-digital-nomad-is-dead.md) - Covid-19 killed the digital nomad. Learn from their mistakes so you can plan for a sustainable remote work future.
- [😷 Masks and owning our own data](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/masks-and-owning-our-own-data.md) - Hi lockdown friends! I hope this email finds you and your family healthy and coronavirus-free. In March, frustrated by the government misinformation friends and family in the US and Europe were being bombarded with about masks, I started a campaign to normalize mask wearing: 😷 https://wearafucking…
- [Masks Mission Accomplished!](https://larrysalibra.com/masks-mission-accomplished.md) - Masks are mainstream. The authorities have admitted they were wrong. We won the Battle of the Masks.
- [Blockstack](https://larrysalibra.com/blockstack.md) - An ecosystem building the foundations for a user-owned internet. 100s of apps. Over $75M raised.
- [#WearAFuckingMask](https://larrysalibra.com/wearafuckingmask.md) - A campaign that reached millions to get people to wear mask and reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
- [We aren’t ready to own our own data...yet](https://larrysalibra.com/we-arent-ready-to-own-our-own-data.md) - We talk a lot about users owning their own data. Data ownership means control. Having control means taking responsibility. Responsibility is a lot of work! Let me explain… For the past year, this blog made a temporary move over to the salibra.com domain. The reason for this move was that the previo…
- [Not in my backyard: a tool for living beyond your means](https://larrysalibra.com/not-in-my-backyard.md) - Not-in-my-backyard-ism functions as a tool for financial leverage and taking what one can't afford.
- [The death of Jabber](https://larrysalibra.com/the-death-of-jabber.md) - Why federated chat protocol XMPP died and lessons for today's decentralization movement
- [Buying tea with WeChat Pay in a dystopian future](https://larrysalibra.com/buying-tea-with-wechat-pay.md) - China's WeChat Pay gives us a glimpse of a dystopian future where your money isn't yours.
- [Names on plane tickets are for profit, not safety](https://larrysalibra.com/names-on-plane-tickets-are-for-profit.md) - Names on airline tickets help them make more money, not keep you safe.
- [Viral growth doesn’t mean writing viruses](https://larrysalibra.com/viral-growth-doesnt-mean-writing-viruses.md) - The software we write is a guest on our users' computers. It should behave like one.
- [Opting out of face scanning at Hong Kong International Airport](https://larrysalibra.com/opting-out-of-face-scanning-at-hkg.md) - Opting out of face scanning at Hong Kong International Airport","description":"I tried to opt out of face scanning at Hong Kong's Airport. It was hard.
- [Success by removing temptation](https://larrysalibra.com/success-by-removing-temptation.md) - How I arranged my life so that healthiness is the path of least resistance.
- [Building your business on digital quicksand](https://larrysalibra.com/building-your-business-on-digital-quicksand.md) - Domain name expiration and business
- [New Internet Labs](https://larrysalibra.com/newinternetlabs.md) - Building a new browser for the new internet. Creator of the Can't Be Evil sandbox.
- [Bringing decentralized identity to traditional apps](https://larrysalibra.com/adding-blockstack-auth-to-discourse.md) - TL;DR: In this technical post for developers, I walk through how we added Blockstack ID support to the Discourse forum software. At Blockstack, we're building a new internet for decentralized apps. A new internet implies new apps. But what if you've already built a current app? You can still give y…
- [Product/Market Fit in Crypto Token Projects](https://larrysalibra.com/product-market-fit.md) - Product/Market fit is the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand. Before product/market fit is like playing the game of business on hard mode, acquiring users and making sales goes very slowly. After product/market fit is like playing on easy mode, users are banging down your do…
- [Larry's Newsletter - Issue #23](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larrys-newsletter-issue-23.md) - Long time no see faithful subscribers! Happy Chinese New Year! Since we last talked, a lot has happened. I joined Blockstack full time and the past year we reached a lot of milestones. We shipped a developer preview of our platform for decentralized apps, raised a series A, completed a $50 million…
- [A Guide to Slack Identity Theft](https://larrysalibra.com/slack-identity-theft.md) - TL;DR: Slack removed usernames enabling easy theft of other users' identities. Read on to learn how... Around the world teams everywhere spend their days (and too often nights) glued to a tool that has done more to enable remote first, distributed collaboration than anything since the advent of the…
- [How I built an Ethereum wallet on Bitcoin with 3 lines of code](https://larrysalibra.com/ethereum-wallet-on-blockstack.md) - This post is a companion to a talk I did at the Ethereum Classic Summit in Hong Kong on November 13, 2017. Cryptocurrency and token wallets are pretty simple. You generate a private key that only the owner of the wallet knows and a public key that's shared in some form with people who want to send…
- [Proof of Humanity: a Deep Dive into the Blockstack Token Sale Registration App](https://larrysalibra.com/blockstack-walkthrough.md) - TL;DR: The Blockstack Token Sale Voucher Registration App uses decentralized Blockstack IDs and social media account proofs to make sure registrants are real humans. Read on for a behind-the-scenes look into how it works... It's the middle of the Blockstack Token Sale Registration period, where use…
- [Larry's Newsletter - Issue #22](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larrys-newsletter-issue-22.md) - Happy New Year! We’re still in the midst of the holiday season here in South China with two weeks to go until the Chinese New Year. 2017 is going to be an exciting year for decentralization - and with a US president coming to power that least half the world is very unhappy with, a great time for it…
- [Swimming with a System](https://larrysalibra.com/swimming-with-a-system.md) - "goals are for losers." -Scott Adams I became familiar with Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams during the past year's Presidential election - familiar with him outside of his signature on Dilbert cartoons that is. One of his blog posts about the election came across my Twitter feed. Of all the people p…
- [Larry's Newsletter - Issue #21](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larrys-newsletter-issue-21.md) - Hi y'all! Welcome back after an extra, extra long summer hiatus! I Hope you enjoyed your summer (and fall!). I just got back from a month long ~13,500 km roadtrip across the USA 🇺🇸 and back again with a week long hiatus to help with Scaling Bitcoin in Milan 🇮🇹. Besides enjoying many of the grea…
- [Blockstack in Asia Meetup Marathon Recap](https://larrysalibra.com/recap-blockstack-in-asia-meetup-marathon.md) - From July 8th to 10th, I co-hosted Asia’s first three Blockstack meetups with Blockstack Labs co-founder Ryan Shea in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Taipei. At each meetup, Ryan presented an introduction to Blockstack after which we moved into demos and discussion. Each meetup saw a demographically unique…
- [Blockstack meetups come to Asia!](https://larrysalibra.com/blockstack-comes-to-asia.md) - The great Bitcoin halvening is upon us in less than 2 short days. To celebrate, Blockstack meetups are coming to Asia! I’m delighted to be organizing three meetups in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Taipei this coming weekend. Ryan Shea, co-founder of Blockstack Labs will be in attendance and we’ll be talk…
- [Larry's Newsletter - Issue #20](https://larrysalibra.com/newsletter/larrys-newsletter-issue-20.md) - Hello happening readers! There's been lots of Bitcoin drama the past few weeks. Before we start with the drama, first, some good news. Bitcoin 0.12.1 was released and the Segregated Witness pull request was submitted, holding to the schedule the community negotiated here in Hong Kong in late Februa…
- [Live Photos on the Web](https://larrysalibra.com/live-photos-on-the-web.md) - _Update March 2020: After migrating this blog post, the code on this page no longer works. I'm leaving it here for historical reference. Mealwhile, if you want to display Live Photos on the web, Apple has tools for you. TL;DR: I made Live Photos work on the web and it brought my computer to a grind…
- [2015: The Year the Great Firewall went Global](https://larrysalibra.com/2015-the-year-the-great-firewall-went-global.md) - TL;DR: 2015 marked a changing point in China’s relationship with the global Internet. This post takes a look back at 2015 and 16 events in which the effects of China’s Internet control and censorship regime started being felt outside of its borders. I spent much of the past week on holiday in Mainl…
- [The Genesis Block](https://larrysalibra.com/the-genesis-block.md) - While cleaning up after the Scaling Bitcoin workshops in Hong Kong on Monday, Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong co-founder Leonhard Weese had the forethought to save the podium’s logo from the trash. His idea was that we could collect signatures of workshop attendees and staff and create a token of…
- [Blockstore & Blockchain ID](https://larrysalibra.com/blockstack-talk.md) - A 30 minute introduction to Blockstore and Blockchain ID given at Tuspark’s Causeway Bay location as part of The Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong’s Decentralize All Things event on November 18, 2015. Please note, Blockstore is now called Blockstack Server. Video Watch on Youtube Watch on Youku Slid…
- [Tantan Responds - Promises Encryption](https://larrysalibra.com/tantan-responds-promises-encryption.md) - Wow! I am shocked and humbled by the positive reaction to my post last Friday about how Tantan doesn't use encryption. The overwhelming interest on reddit and across Facebook and Twitter along with the interest from the mainstream media showed that many people understand the value of encryption and…
- [How Chinese Tinder clone screws you](https://larrysalibra.com/how-chinese-dating-app-tantan-screws-you.md) - Update: Tantan CEO and Co-founder Yu Wang reached out to me via email to acknowledge these issues. Read his email and my response. TL;DR: Chinese Tinder clone Tantan is endangering young women and men by failing to use encryption and exposing private data like that made public in the Ashley Madison…
- [How Apple Censors News in China](https://larrysalibra.com/how-apple-censors-news-in-china.md) - The release of iOS 9 saw the launch of Apple’s attempt to revolutionize the news industry, Apple News. While Apple has been pretty clear that News is launching first in the United States, users typically haven’t had any problem using it in other countries as long as your iPhone's region is set to t…
- [Can Apple Notes replace Evernote?](https://larrysalibra.com/can-apple-notes-replace-evernote.md) - Update: iCloud Notes's CloudKit got corrupted after moving a few hundred notes from Evernote - I contacted Apple on September 29th & have been promised that I will hear back from their engineering team within 10 business days. On October 5th, Apple support called me to let me know that they hadn't…
- [How to move notes from Evernote to iCloud Notes](https://larrysalibra.com/moving-from-evernote-to-icloud-notes.md) - Update #2: You should use the built in import feature in macOS to move your notes from Evernotes to Apple Notes. This script is no longer supported. Update: I was able to resolve and workaround the problems I originally encountered and am happily Evernote-free. Your notes will probably be fine. Man…
- [Hop over the Great Firewall with Government Help](https://larrysalibra.com/cmhk.md) - Ask someone to make a list of #ChinaProblems and the Great Firewall is going to be close to the top. The Great Firewall, usually referred to online as GFW, is a system of network hardware, software and policies that work together to wreak havoc on everyone’s favorite non-Chinese apps and websites.…
- [#StartupThisSunday: Part 5 - The Final Stretch](https://larrysalibra.com/startup-this-sunday-part-5-the-final-stretch.md) - This is Part 5 of my 5 part series sharing my 24 hour #StartupThisSunday cross Asia adventure building the human powered website monitoring service wpFlight. In Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 we got off to a great start creating wpFlight. We rejoin the story having just landed in Hong Kong. June…
- [#StartupThisSunday: Part 4 - Hong Kong-bound](https://larrysalibra.com/startup-this-sunday-part-4-hong-kong-bound.md) - This is Part 4 of my 5 part series sharing my 24 hour #StartupThisSunday cross Asia adventure building the human powered website monitoring service wpFlight. In Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 we got off to a great start creating wpFlight. We rejoin the story at Singapore's Changi Airport parked at gate…
- [#StartupThisSunday: Part 3 - Singapore](https://larrysalibra.com/startup-this-sunday-part-3-singapore.md) - This is Part 3 of my 5 part series sharing my 24 hour #StartupThisSunday cross Asia adventure building the human powered website monitoring service wpFlight. In Part 1 and Part 2 we got off to a great start creating wpFlight with working payment code, a partially working frontend interface and plan…
- [#StartupThisSunday: Part 2 - Singapore Bound](https://larrysalibra.com/startup-this-sunday-part-2-singapore-bound.md) - This is Part 2 of my 5 part series sharing my 24 hour #StartupThisSunday cross Asia adventure building the human powered website monitoring service wpFlight. In Part 1, we talked about why I decided to create a monitoring product on top of Pay4Bugs and why I decided to strictly timebox the creation…
- [#StartupThisSunday: Part 1 - Pre-flight](https://larrysalibra.com/startup-this-sunday-part-1-preflight.md) - This is Part 1 of my 5 part series sharing my 24 hour #StartupThisSunday cross Asia adventure building the human powered website monitoring service wpFlight. My #StartupThisSunday trip of building and launching a product in 24 hours really was a spur of the moment decision. I’d had the idea for a n…
- [Security Researchers Claim Internet Standards are Apple Security Flaws](https://larrysalibra.com/security-researchers-claim-internet-standards-are-apple-security-flaw.md) - There is a research paper entitled Unauthorized Cross-App Resource Access on MAC OS X and iOS announced by The Register and picked up by Macrumors claiming that security researchers have totally pwn'd Apple's sandbox security. They are quoted as saying: "We completely cracked the keychain service -…
- [#StartupThisSunday](https://larrysalibra.com/startup-this-sunday.md) - TL;DR: I'm building a new product today I built a new product, wpFlight.com, in 24 hours from start to launch, and doing did it all while on the road! WPFlight was a fun project and example of how a v0 MVP can be put together in only a day. We’ve decided to sunset the product, but that doesn’t mean…
- [Nametiles: Beautiful Blockchain-powered Profiles](https://larrysalibra.com/nametiles-beautiful-blockchain-powered-profiles.md) - I’m very excited to tell you about Nametiles, a way to add beautiful embedded profiles and tagging to blogs and websites. Nametiles lets you embed profile information from Passcard, a digital passport secured by Bitcoin, and tag people using their Passcard +passname on your site. End broken links I…
- [A short history of Internet Identity](https://larrysalibra.com/a-short-history-of-internet-identity.md) - Control of your personal identity isn’t something the Internet is known for. It’s more famous for taking away control of your information and giving it to big companies can monetize it. Bitcoin blockchain technology promises to change that. Those that know me know I’m a huge fan of Bitcoin…not beca…
- [Apple Watch First Impressions](https://larrysalibra.com/apple-watch-first-impressions.md) - Just finished day #4 with the Apple Watch. I keep getting asked what I think about it so I'm collecting my impressions here. Some background: I'm not a watch guy. I have little interest in expensive mechanical watches and haven't worn a watch since sometime in elementary school. If you want to read…
- [Project calling privacy a human right tracks you without consent](https://larrysalibra.com/project-calling-privacy-a-human-right-tracks-you-without-consent.md) - Update: They have removed the tracking. Impressive responsiveness! Friend +liongrass pointed me to an organization called the "Global Commission on Internet Governance" that released a statement calling privacy "fundamental human right" on their open source website. Lofty goals and admirable words.…
- [Apple Watch will make public wifi even worse](https://larrysalibra.com/apple-watch-will-make-public-wifi-even-worse.md) - Like many globe-traveling entrepreneurs, I use a lot of mobile data. In Hong Kong, my carrier slows down my data when I hit 6 gigabytes every month, so I hook up to public wifi whenever possible. While there are tens of thousands of wifi hotspots across the city, public wifi is slow in this dense a…
- [Why Baidu was hijacked to attack GitHub](https://larrysalibra.com/why-baidu-was-hijacked-to-attack-github.md) - Baidu's content data network (CDN), the computers that serve Baidu analytics and Baidu ads has been hijacked and is being used to launch a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on popular developer tool Github. The China Twitterverse has been buzzing today with reports of weird javascript err…
- [FCC Infosec 101: Protect Your Data, Protect Your Sources](https://larrysalibra.com/fcc-infosec-101.md) - I joined Leonhard Weese and Fabian Lischka in leading a 60 minute workshop on information security and encryption for journalists at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Central, Hong Kong. Our goal was to give journalists some basic steps they could take to improve the security of the information t…
- [China (Finally?) Putting an End to Foreign Investment in the Internet](https://larrysalibra.com/china-finally-putting-an-end-to-foreign-investment-in-the-internet.md) - Great post about in ChinaLawBlog about how China is putting an end to so-called variable interest entities (VIEs) that most of China's large internet companies, including Tencent, Sina and Baidu, used to IPO overseas and raise funds from foreign investors. Yet, the remarkable fact is that these hig…
- [Video: 'The British Chinese' - Identity is Complicated](https://larrysalibra.com/video-the-british-chinese-identity-is-complicated.md) - Came across this video where a number of students in a British Chinese language school are asked whether they consider themselves British or Chinese or something else. I tweeted the link without comment intentionally hoping no one would notice and a Twitter follower called me out on it. Some though…

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