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feat: add blu-site static site generator and fix language issues

Browse Source 
Build a complete static site generator in Lux that faithfully clones
blu.cx (elmstatic). Generates 14 post pages, section indexes, tag pages,
and a home page with snippets grid from markdown content.

Language fixes discovered during development:
- Add \{ and \} escape sequences in string literals (lexer)
- Register String.indexOf and String.lastIndexOf in type checker
- Fix formatter to preserve brace escapes in string literals
- Improve LSP hover to show documentation for let bindings and functions

ISSUES.md documents 15 Lux language limitations found during the project.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Brandon Lucas
2026-02-17 15:43:05 -05:00
parent db82ca1a1c
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---
title: "Writing"
tags: software
---
# [**Writing**](/writing)
---
## **Articles**
- ### [Fear to Attempt](/posts/articles/2025-06-20-fear-to-attempt)
- ### [Payjoin for a Better Bitcoin Future](/posts/articles/2023-10-31-payjoin-better-future)
- ### [Micropayments and the Lightning Network](/posts/articles/2023-03-10-micropayments)
---
## **Blog**
- ### [Nix for Fun and Profit: Programs as Lego's](/posts/blog/2025-11-21-nix-programs-as-legos)
- ### [`<bitcoin-qr/>` - A Zero-Dependency Web Component for Stylish BIP-21 Payments](/posts/blog/2025-02-21-bitcoin-qr)
- ### [Automating Site Deployment for an `nb` -> Github -> VPS Setup](/posts/blog/2025-02-13-automate-site-deploy)
- ### [Hard Reset Asahi Linux After Boot Error and Data Backup](/posts/blog/2025-02-12-asahi-boot-fix)
- ### [File Synchronization For All Your Devices with Syncthing](/posts/blog/2025-02-12-syncthing-nb)
- ### [Toward a Better Site](/posts/blog/2025-01-29-blog-revamped)
- ### [Reading, Writing, and Civilization](/posts/blog/2023-09-26-reading-writing-civilization)
- ### [The First Monotheist](/posts/blog/2023-09-21-worlds-first-monotheist)
---
## **Journal**
- ### [February 2025](/posts/journal/2025-02-01-feb25)
- ### [January 2025](/posts/journal/2025-01-01-jan25)

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---
title: "Quotes"
tags: software
---
# **Quotes**
---
I keep a collection of quotes I find interesting from various sources. In general, I try to keep these to things I can directly reference, so I write the book, link, or other source I read it in
---
2025-08-05
> Someone who asked, 'why believe what is true?' or 'why want what is good?' has failed to understand the nature of reasoning. He doesn't see that, if we are to justify our beliefs and desires at all, then our reasons must be anchored in the true and the good.
- Roger Scruton, Beauty
---
2025-08-04
> The stock exchange is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail.
- [Joseph Schumpeter, quoted from 'Capitalism Buries Its Undertakers' by Robert Bellafoire](https://commonplace.substack.com/p/capitalism-buries-its-undertakers)
---
2025-08-04
> Is the existence of billionaires all that makes people question capitalism today? Or is it also the dull horror of realizing that for all our cherished economic freedom, there doesn’t seem to be anything worth doing with that freedom besides ordering Uber Eats and watching porn?
- [Robert Bellafiore, Capitalism Buries Its Undertakers](https://commonplace.substack.com/p/capitalism-buries-its-undertakers)
---
2025-07-22
> And the men who hold high places
> Must be the ones to start
> To mould a new reality
> Closer to the Heart
> The Blacksmith and the Artist
> Reflect it in their art
> Forge their creativity
> Closer to the Heart
> Philosophers and Ploughmen
> Each must know his part
> To sow a new mentality
> Closer to the Heart
> You can be the Captain
> I will draw the Chart
> Sailing into destiny
> Closer to the Heart
- [Rush, Closer to the Heart](https://www.rush.com/songs/closer-to-the-heart/)
---
January 23, 2025
> Shall I be carried to the skies,
> On flowery beds of ease,
> While others fought to win the prize,
> And sailed through bloody seas?
- Laura Ingalls Wilder, _Little House in the Big Woods_, p. 96
---
September 17, 2024
> Only a few prefer liberty – the majority seek nothing more than fair masters
- Sallust, Histories
---
September 17, 2024
> Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude.
- Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars
---
September 12, 2024
> And I ask for your prayers that these vague and wandering thoughts of mine may some day become coherent and, having been so vainly cast in all directions, that they may direct themselves at last to the one, true, certain, and never-ending good.
- Petrarch, The Ascent of Mount Ventoux, April 26, 1336 at Malaucène
---
September 3, 2024
> It is inhuman to bless where one is cursed.
- Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Pt 4: Maxims and Interludes, #181
---
September 3, 2024
> The consequences of our actions take us by the scruff of the neck, altogether indifferent to the fact that we have 'improved' in the meantime.
- Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Pt 4: Maxims and Interludes, #179.
---
August 16, 2024
> Who can doubt that, were Rome to know itself once more, it would rise again?
- Petrarch, quoted from Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer by Christopher Celenza, Ch. II, p. 56
---
August 16, 2024
> Rome, soon to be destroyed, continued to laugh and play.
- Will Durant, The Age of Faith
---
August 16, 2024
> What makes the heart of the Christian heavy? The fact that he is a pilgrim, and longs for his own country.
- Saint Augustine, self-written epitaph, quoted from The Age of Faith by Will Durant, Ch. III, Part V: The Patriarch
---
August 13, 2024
> Once triumphant, the Church ceased to preach toleration
- Will Durant, The Age of Faith, Ch. III, Part II: The Heretics
---
August 13, 2024
> in 470 a general impoverishment of fields and cities, of senators and proletarians, depressed the spirits of a once great race to an epicurean cynicism that doubted all gods but Priapus, a timid childlessness that shunned the responsibilities of life, and an angry cowardice that denounced every surrender and shirked every martial task.
- Will Durant, The Age of Faith, Ch. II, Part V: The Fall of Rome
---
August 13, 2024
> To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
- Cicero, Orator, 120
---
August 10, 2024
> All that is profound loves a mask; the very profoundest things even have a hatred for images and likenesses. Shouldn’t the opposite be the only proper disguise to accompany the shame of a god?….Every profound spirit needs a mask; even more, a mask is continually growing around every profound spirit thanks to the constantly false, that is shallow interpretation of every word, every step, every sign of life he gives.
- Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part 2
---
August 8, 2024
> What a monument of human smallness is this idea of the philosopher king. What a contrast between it and the simplicity and humaneness of Socrates, who warned the statesman against the danger of being dazzled by his own power, excellence, and wisdom, and who tried to teach him what matters most – that we are all frail human beings. What a decline from this world of irony and reason and truthfulness down to Plato's kingdom of the sage whose magical powers raise him high above ordinary men; although not quite high enough to forgo the use of lies, or to neglect the sorry trade of every shaman – the selling of spells, of breeding spells, in exchange for power over his fellow men
- Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
---
August 4, 2024
> Even if we know how to educate tomorrow’s professional programmer, it is not certain that the society we are living in will allow us to do so. The first effect of teaching a methodology —rather than disseminating knowledge— is that of enhancing the capacities of the already capable, thus magnifying the difference in intelligence. In a society in which the educational system is used as an instrument for the establishment of a homogenized culture, in which the cream is prevented from rising to the top, the education of competent programmers could be politically impalatable.
- Edsger Dijkstra, The Humble Programmer
---
July 30, 2024
> Friendship is not to be sought for its wages, but because its revenue consists entirely in the love which it implies
- Cicero, On Friendship
---
July 30, 2024
> Direct self observation is not nearly sufficient for us to know ourselves: we need history, for the past flows on within us in a hundred waves. Indeed, we ourselves are nothing but that which at every moment we experience of this continual flowing.
- Nietzsche, 1878, Human, All Too Human
---
July 30, 2024
> I’m increasingly certain that there are others like me in the world, alive right now, quietly suppressing themselves for social reasons. I hear from more of them every month. They suppress themselves because they don’t personally know of any House of Wisdom that they could attend to fully be themselves in. Because the scale and scope of their interests don’t quite correspond with that of those of the people around them, and they don’t know if it’s worth opening up about their inner truths – because they believe, accurately according to their past experience, that the likeliest outcome is that people will misunderstand them. A confused “huh?” is often the best you can hope for. Far better than being mocked, insulted, laughed at, dismissed.
> Over the years, I’ve increasingly developed a sense of lightness, clarity, courage and conviction in realizing that these are my people. That when I’m writing for the younger version of myself, and the future versions of myself, I’m writing for them. For us. All of us. I’m a me, but I’m also a we. And there is a deep kinship in that, a deep sense of belonging. And I have decided that I am willing to endure any amount of mockery and misunderstanding from the people who don’t get it, to be a bridge to the people who do. Because more than anything else, that is what I wish I had in my life. A space to understand and be understood. I found it first mainly in books. I have since found it in like-minded nerds. And I hope to share it with literally anybody else who wants it
- Visakan Veerasamy, We Were Voyagers
---
July 30, 2024
> Nobody worth hero-worshipping would want you to worship them. They would want you to become heroic yourself.
- Visakan Veerasamy, We Were Voyagers
---
July 30, 2024
> Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it is their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar
---
July 30, 2024
> The question of whether Machines Can Think is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim
- Edsger Dijkstra, 1984, The Threats to Computing Science
---
July 30, 2024
> We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people; sometimes they follow it!
- Edsger Dijkstra, The Humble Programmer
---
July 13, 2024
> We are living through an advice pandemic and nobody appears to have yet discovered an effective vaccine.
- Tom Cox, Can You Please Stop Telling Me To Live My Best Life Please
---
July 8, 2024
> Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
---
June 30, 2024
> Our legacy is to fill the Universe with children who laugh more than we were allowed to.
- Noah Smith, Toward a Shallower Future
---
May 16, 2024
> Congregations love to be scolded, but not reformed
- Will Durant, The Age of Faith
---
May 16, 2024
> Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men.
- Pythagoras
---
May 15, 2024
> [...] books are the main peer group of any thinker.
- Henrik Karlsson, On Having More Interesting Ideas
---
May 7, 2024
> [Gratitude] is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
- Cicero, Defense of Cnaeus Plancius, Ch. 33, Section 80
---
May 3, 2024
> The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
---
Apr 29, 2024
> You are carrying God about you, you poor wretch, and know it not.
- Epictetus, quoted from Caesar and Christ by Will Durant
---
Mar 30, 2024
> The evil was not in the bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.
- Cicero
---
Mar 25, 2024
> The heritage that we can now more fully transmit is richer than ever before. It is richer than that of Pericles, for it includes all the Greek flowering that followed him; richer than Leonardo’s, for it includes him and the Italian Renaissance; richer than Voltaire’s, for it embraces all the French Enlightenment and its ecumenical dissemination. If progress is real despite our whining, it is not because we are born any healthier, better, or wiser than infants were in the past, but because we are born to a richer heritage, born on a higher level of that pedestal which the accumulation of knowledge and art raises as the ground and support of our being. The heritage rises, and man rises in proportion as he receives it.
> History is, above all else, the creation and recording of that heritage; progress is its increasing abundance, preservation, transmission, and use. To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man’s follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing. The historian will not mourn because he can see no meaning in human existence except that which man puts into it; let it be our pride that we ourselves may put meaning into our lives, and sometimes a significance that transcends death. If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.
- The Lessons of History, Will & Ariel Durant
---
Feb 23, 2024
> The road to serfdom consists of working exponentially harder for a currency growing exponentially weaker.
- Vijay Boyapati, The Bullish Case for Bitcoin
---
Feb 16, 2024
> Loneliness is a tax you have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind.
- Alain de Botton
---
Feb 16, 2024
> So many people today — and even professional scientists— seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.
- Albert Einstein to Robert A. Thornton, 7 December 1944, EA 61-574
---
Feb 6, 2024
> I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is as admirable and sound as it is dangerous -- from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.
- Karl Popper, The Open Society and it's Enemies, preface to the second edition
---
Feb 5, 2024
> [...] the most unfortunate of men is he who has not learned how to bear misfortune [...] men ought to order their lives as if they were fated to live both a long and a short time, [and] wisdom should be cherished as a means of traveling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession.
- Bias of Priene, quoted from The Life of Greece by Will Durant, Ch. VI The Great Migration
---
Feb 2, 2024
> [...] teenagers are always on duty as conformists.
- Paul Graham, Why Nerds are Unpopular
---
January 1, 2024
> Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up. Well, not exactly. I guess there are a few things he doesn't know about. He doesn't know anything about sports.
- General Leslie Groves, quoted from American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 185-186.
---
December 22, 2023
> Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, and not to falter -- this is what life is, herein lies its task.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, in a letter to his brother, the day he was pardoned from execution by firing squad.
---
December 13, 2023
> Math constitutes the language through which alone we can adequately express the great facts of the natural world. And it allows us to portray the changes of mutual relationship that unfold in creation. It is the instrument through which the weak mind of man can most effectually read his creator's works.
- Ada Lovelace, quoted from The Innovators by Walter Isaacson, Ch. 1
---
December 9, 2023
> It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
> No, we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
- Karl Popper, On Freedom
---
December 7, 2023
> I think that there is only one way to science - or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part - unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children, for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.
- Karl Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science
---
December 7, 2023
> Hence, men who are governed by reason [...] desire for themselves nothing, which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind
- Spinoza, Part IV, Prop XVIII
---
September 26, 2023
> Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use as was formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow basis of acknowledged truth an immense but rude superstructure of fable has been erected,[...]
- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter IX, p. 240
---

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---
title: "Creations"
siteTitle: "Creations"
tags: software
---
# **Creations**
---
_More very fun things are on the way, stay tuned..._
<!-- --- -->
<!---->
<!-- ## [nix.fun](https://nix.fun) -->
<!---->
<!-- A work-in-progress website dedicated to helping people solve problems with [Nix](https://github.com/NixOS/nix). -->
---
## [Bitcoin QR Web Component: `bitcoin-qr`](https://bitcoin-qr-demo.netlify.app)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/bitcoin-qr.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/bitcoin-qr.webp" alt="Image of bitcoin-qr samples" width="800" height="443" loading="lazy">
</picture>
_Add your company's image and style the QR to match!_
I created a [web component](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Components) to make it easy to create BIP 21 compatible QR codes with a lot of developer-and-user-friendly defaults. One problem I consistently ran into when developing lightning applications was having to repeatedly build a QR code component with HTTP polling to check for payment, in addition to making many UX decisions about when to use BIP 21 for `bitcoin:` and `lightning:` URI prefixes and how to handle query params. Additionally, I found myself reimplementing a component that did all this in each framework (i.e. React, Svelte) I was using. As far as I know, everyone who's building UIs in bitcoin has to keep redoing this work.
I decided it would be valuable (to myself, if nobody else) to build a universal web component that came with all this functionality out of the box with maximum configuration but opinionated defaults, that could be used in any [framework](https://qr-code-styling.com) or in pure HTML. And for extra fun, it's built on a framework that allows a lot of styling customization!
Feedback on this would be very much appreciated, please feel free to [open an issue](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/bitcoin-qr) if you find a problem or have any suggestions for improvement!
---
### Archive
**Old ideas and proof-of-concepts that never went anywhere (the vast majority of my projects) but that were very fun, interesting, or operating at the cutting edge in their time**
---
### [nostrlytics.com](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/nostrlytics)
When the first major hype wave for [Nostr](https://nostr.com/) occurred and the Bitcoin community didn't know all the problems we'd face building on Nostr, I was learning the horrifyingly painful yet flexible [D3](https://d3js.org/) and decided to use a little bit of what I learned to build a little website with a chart that allowed you to input your public key and a relay websocket endpoint to view some basic statistics about your "profile".
Of course, all we Nostrlytes were taught a powerful lesson in network effects by the all-encompassing [Twitter/x.com](https://x.com) behemoth, and it hasn't really caught on to this day despite the huge amount of hype and developer effort in the Bitcoin community.
That said, I still believe that the public-key-based identity system, combined with Bitcoin micropayments for skin-in-the-game interactions and valueless bot-posts that thrive on X, Nostr is one of the simplest, freest, and most decentralized forms of communication we've invented that could actually work.
As behemoth centralized services continue to degrade and add anti-features due to their illusions of invincibility, these alternatives will hopefully become ever-more usable and appealing to broad audiences.
---
[Video LSAT](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/video-lsat)
The first idea I was interested in when I discovered the magic of the [Lightning Network](https://lightning.network) was the idea of subscriptionless video streaming. The idea that you could simply pay-as-you-go, as opposed to the Subscription Hell of modernity, was hyper-appealing. People could save money, have no ads, and pay pennies to watch full length movies, and both creator and customer would be better off. It would utilize LSATs (now renamed [L402](https://www.l402.org/) after the HTTP status code) to accept Bitcoin Lightning payments to watch a video. That was the idea, anyway.
Aside from latency issues caused by the number of requests you'd need to do to make this work at the micro-scale (I was insane enough to try to do payments by the second), I found that the real problem, like with most things, wasn't technological. It wasn't that we didn't _know how_ to do it or that _nobody had tried_. It was the horrifying realization that most people are pretty complacently fine with their ads (if it means they get to consume "for free" -- as if their both their time and data didn't hold immense value) and their subscriptions (which they often forgot they were paying for after signing up). The surest sign to me that Americans have far too much money for their own good, despite our incessant griping, is that we have so little imagination and will for how life could be better in every way if we were willing to make the smallest up-front sacrifice.
The most common response I got from people when I proposed this idea to them was "Why would I pay for what I can get for free?", without realizing that we are selling little pieces of our souls this way, and that the costs of actually watching a video would be so small it would actually be cheaper relative to the time saved.
Anyway, a competing project that did it better anyway emerged around the same time, [lightning.video](https://lightning.video/), and essentially became half a porn site, half a Bitcoin site. Such is life in the Bitcoin world.
---
### [SatGPT](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/satgpt)
In the earlier days of the GPTs, the only way you could use them was to have a subscription from a big provider like ChatGPT. Taking a cue from the video-lsat project above, I built a little system under which the server company could simply take an API key for themselves and allow users to "top up" an account anonymously by paying in bitcoin micropayments. Very fun project whose idea was supplanted and done better by [ppq.ai](https://ppq.ai/), which is a service I love and highly recommend.
---
### [Micropayments Demo](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/micropayments)
When I was helping mentor at the 2023 MIT Bitcoin Hackathon, I built a simple demo app to show how to use micropayments with Lightning (on LND/Voltage nodes).
---
### [BLUCoin](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/BLUCoin)
After reading Jimmy Song's [Programming Bitcoin](https://github.com/jimmysong/programmingbitcoin) book, I decided to build a minimal bitcoin-based cryptocurrency from scratch with Python, which was an immensely gratifying and difficult experience.
---
### [thebestme](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/thebestme)
I made an attempt by building a mental health app in React Native designed to help people take control of their mental health by utilizing thought-challenging journaling techniques, habit tracking, and mood tracking.
---
### [Combat Deepfakes](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/combat-deepfakes)
Back when [Dapps](https://ethereum.org/en/dapps) were all the rage with Ethereum and before I became disillusioned with it in favor of Bitcoin, [Deepfakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake) were becoming a major concern as the first machine learning technology which could convincingly create fake face swapping videos. I realized we could use the blockchain to create a time-stamping system in which all that was needed to "prove" which video was the real one, was to hash the video and put it on the blockchain, and if another video came later attempting to claim _it_ was the real one, just compare the hash and timestamp of the original.
I thought this may become a cataclysmic problem in our present day, where perhaps politicians would be made to make proclamations of war or revenge porn videos (which are actually, sadly, real), but so far in 2025 this seems to have mainly been used to make funny meme videos and at worst cause very temporary political stirs which are quickly shut down, and in regards to the porn problem, so many people are either voluntarily naked online or have already had photos leaked anyway that the taboo of internet nudity associated with your face has been rapidly diluted, turning would-be reputation-enders into merely deeply embarrassing ephemeral mishaps.
So so far, this ended up not being anywhere near the problem I thought it would be, but perhaps the full ramifications of this have not yet come home to roost.
---
### [lightscameraalabama](https://lightscameraalabama.com)
While I was a student at University of Alabama I built a website in React.js to host historical videos for an Honors College program which encouraged students to make films about Alabama history.

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---
title: Contributions
tags: software
---
# **Contributions**
---
I have contributed to many projects, mostly open source. Here are some that I'm particularly proud of.
---
## [Voltage](https://www.voltage.cloud)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/voltage-dash-5.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/voltage-dash-5.webp" alt="Voltage Dashboard" width="800" height="487" loading="lazy">
</picture>
I'm on the frontend engineering team at [Voltage](https://voltage.cloud/). We've built an easy to use Bitcoin Lightning Payments API. If you've interacted with our product at all from the browser, chances are I worked on it!
I am grateful to this company for cultivating a culture of giving back to the community through open source development via [FOSS Fridays](https://voltage.cloud/blog/foss-friday/foss-fridays-at-voltage). It has enabled me to connect more broadly with the Bitcoin community and expand my skills as a software engineer. It’s a great team on a great [mission](https://voltage.cloud/about); the spirit of [definite optimism](https://boxkitemachine.net/posts/zero-to-one-peter-thiel-definite-vs-indefinite-thinking) is alive and well here.
---
## [Block Clock](https://github.com/voltagecloud/block-clock)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/blockclock.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/blockclock.webp" alt="Block Clock Image" width="800" height="354" loading="lazy">
</picture>
The frontend and design team at Voltage built this `block-clock` web component that connects to Bitcoin Core to display the distribution of block times in a standard 12-hour clock face, using the beautiful designs from the [Bitcoin Core App](https://bitcoincore.app/?ref=blucas.ghost.iohttps://bitcoincore.app) project to do it. We use it in our own [Bitcoin Core Nodes](https://www.voltage.cloud/bitcoin-core) product, but we wanted to make this something that could be shared with the community. We built it as a web component so it's easy to run it in any browser environment, whether you're using frameworks like React or Sveltekit, or just want to drop it directly into an HTML page. If you have a Bitcoin Core node, give it a try!
Check out the [Github Repo](https://github.com/voltagecloud/block-clock) or watch our discussion with the [Bitcoin Design Community](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKZ-IPlADY) to see how it works!
---
## [Payjoin](https://payjoin.org)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/payjoin.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/payjoin.webp" alt="Payjoin Example Image" width="800" height="551" loading="lazy">
</picture>
Payjoin is a protocol designed to assist bitcoin scaling, help save fees, and preserve privacy, whose adoption by even a small minority of wallets could have dramatically positive effects for all bitcoin users.
I built the current version of [payjoin.org](https://payjoin.org) with help from [Dan Gould](https://dangould.dev). I'm also contributing to [Payjoin Dev Kit (PDK)](https://dangould.dev), a tiny library that helps wallets integrate Payjoin, and includes a reference implementation, `payjoin-cli`, that showcases its features.
---
## [Interactive Payjoin](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/interactive-payjoin)
1st place sub-project at the [MIT Bitcoin Hackathon](https://mitbitcoin.devpost.com/). A proof-of-concept demo website showcasing the first instance of the use of [Payjoin Dev Kit](https://payjoindevkit.org/) in the browser by compiling the Rust library to [WASM](https://webassembly.org/).
---
## [bolt12.org](https://bolt12.org)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/bolt12.org.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/bolt12.org.webp" alt="Image of Bolt12 Homepage" width="800" height="498" loading="lazy">
</picture>
BOLT 12 is a specification for implementing offers, which massively improves the lightning user experience by making QR codes:
- Reusable
- Smaller
- Capable of sending you money, like an ATM, as well as receiving
It generates these QRs in-band, as opposed to the out-of-band [LNURL](https://voltage.cloud/blog/lightning-network-faq/how-does-lnurl-work-enhancing-lightnings-user-experience) format, which requires a web server that generates invoices on behalf of your lightning node and is essentially a "hack" on previous limitations of lightning. We can make huge improvements to both the developer and user experience by adopting BOLT 12, and this website hopes to encourage its adoption.
I collaborated with master designer [@sbddesign](https://x.com/StephenDeLorme) to build the current version of bolt12.org.
---
## [Doppler](https://github.com/tee8z/doppler)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/doppler.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/doppler.webp" alt="Image showing usage of Doppler" width="800" height="472" loading="lazy">
</picture>
Doppler is a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) created by [@tee8z](https://x.com/Tee8z) that allows you to write reusable scripts to create local [regtest](https://developer.bitcoin.org/examples/testing.html) (and [Mutinynet](https://blog.mutinywallet.com/mutinynet)!) environments in any configuration you like. The scripts allow for easy reproducibility of any scenario you can think of and dramatically expands the possibilities for testing bitcoin and lightning applications, improving on one of the main limitations of testing software like [Polar](https://lightningpolar.com) (also a great project).
Alongside [@tee8z](https://x.com/Tee8z), I built the first iteration of the frontend that allows you to visualize and build scripts using the Scratch block programming language.
---
## [Satogram](https://satogram.xyz)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/satogram.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/satogram.webp" alt="Image Showing Satogram Logo" width="800" height="407" loading="lazy">
</picture>
Wouldn't it be nice to get paid to see ads, instead of today, where your data is harvested for profit and you get barraged with internet-polluting ads?
Satogram is a project that advertisers can use to pay to send ads over the Lightning Network. It's like spam email, except you're getting paid!
Satogram came out of a hackathon project at Tabconf 2023 led by [@BitcoinCoderBob](https://x.com/BitcoinCoderBob). I built the frontend at the hackathon. As of this writing, Satogram has been used to send a total of 1,515,896 advertisements!
---
## [Alby](https://getalby.com)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/alby.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/alby.webp" alt="Image showing Alby homepage" width="800" height="453" loading="lazy">
</picture>
Alby is a popular lighting wallet browser extension that comes with a wide variety of innovative features. In my first real contributions to open source, I helped build the internationalization flow to allow the app to be translated to a variety of different languages. I also added the ability to [connect and make payments via signets such as Mutinynet](https://github.com/getAlby/lightning-browser-extension/pull/3128), to allow for easier testing of web applications with [WebLN](https://webln.guide). Thanks to the Alby team for taking the time to help me contribute to open source bitcoin in the first place, kicking off this crazy exciting adventure.
---
## [QRty](https://qr-ai.netlify.app)
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/qrty.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/qrty.webp" alt="Image showing QRty homepage" width="800" height="354" loading="lazy">
</picture>
This project used [stable diffusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion) to generate artistic QR codes based on a prompt. Since the only options to generate these QR codes at the time were through subscription services, we thought it would be nice if people could make small payments per query with bitcoin (an idea [obviously befitting to AI services](https://hivemind.vc/ai) in general, but for whatever reason this idea hasn't broken through past us in the bitcoin bubble to mainstream consciousness yet).
It's no longer active due to relatively low use, but we were really proud of the result and you can still see some examples of scan-able codes we created on the site and in these Twitter posts. Built on Voltage with my friend [@LightningK0ala](https://x.com/LightningK0ala).
<picture>
<source srcset="/images/contributions/qr-walt.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="/images/contributions/qr-walt.webp" alt="Image of Walter White as a QR Code" width="800" height="972" loading="lazy">
</picture>
_I wish I'd saved the prompt that generated this._

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---
title: "Talks & Events"
tags: software
---
# **Talks & Events**
---
## [MIT Bitcoin Hackathon 2025 1st Place Winner - Payjoin Integrations](https://x.com/satsie/status/1909081177765364080)
- The Payjoin Team won the 2025 MIT Bitcoin Hackathon by building proof of concept integrations for [boltz.exchange](https://boltz.exchange/), [Liana](https://wizardsardine.com/liana/), and the first known [implementation](https://github.com/thebrandonlucas/interactive-payjoin) of Payjoin in the browser using WASM bindings from Payjoin Dev Kit [PDK](payjoindevkit.org) to Javascript, which doubled as an interactive tutorial for how Payjoin works.
## [Supercharging Transactions with Async Payjoin - TABConf 6](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPzvLxv0YfQ)
- I gave a talk on the origins, history, and implications of the newly developed [BIP 77](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0077.mediawiki) a.k.a Async Payjoin, and how this dramatic improvement in Payjoin UX opens the door to mass wallet adoption and thus huge financial and privacy savings for all of Bitcoin at large.
## [Micropayments and the Lightning Network - Voltage Workshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vq6foKst54&t=124s)
- I did a workshop on the history of micropayments on the web, why they failed, and how the invention of the [Lightning Network](https://lightning.network) on Bitcoin is making that original dream for the web a reality.

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---
title: "Technology"
tags: software
---
# **Technology**
---
## Software
### Terminal or TUI (Terminal UI) tools
I'm a growing fan of the speed, universality, and simplicity of terminal-based tools and use them more and more exclusively in my software repertoire.
- [neovim](https://neovim.io): The ultimate terminal-based editor, once you take the time to learn its ins and outs. The only thing lacking is when genuinely useful new proprietary software (i.e. AI coding agents) comes out, there's really no financial incentive for anyone to build on neovim vs the bought and paid for editors like [Windsurf](https://codeium.com/windsurf) or [Cursor](https://cursor.com) which most devs will use, so we have to wait for charitable hobbyists to create suitable integrations, and I've run into plenty of frustration when trying to get coding agents to work within `neovim`.
- [nb](https://xwmx.github.io/nb): A beautifully simple note-taking system for the terminal. Uses `git` to manage versions, has built-in file encryption, and much more. I use this with `neovim` for everything I write.
- [yazi](https://yazi-rs.github.io): An awesome file navigator that's very powerful and flexible. Stop using `cd <path>` to navigate everywhere!
- [`lazygit`](https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit): This is the best way to use `git` I have ever discovered. It truly makes things easy and doesn't require you to memorize all those weird commands. Also integrates with `neovim`
### Languages
- [Elm](https://elm-lang.org): This is one of the few (if only?) language I've used where I actually love the _language_ and not just what I'm building. Despite its sad lack of leadership and usage falling by the wayside, the idea of a language that makes websites never cause exceptions (in other words, if it compiles, it works) is a huge leap forward for web development. I don't know if I can go back to Javascript after having this experience, and may pursue one of Elm's actively maintained spiritual successors, such as [Gleam](https://gleam.run). This website is built in Elm, by the way.
### Package Management
- [Nix](https://nixos.org): Technically, Nix is a language, package manager, and operating system all at once, but it's purely functional guarantees have incredible downstream consequences which I write about at [nix.fun](https://nix.fun)
### Operating System
- [NixOS](https://nixos.org)
- [Hyprland](https://hyprland.org)
### Bitcoin
- [Sparrow Wallet](https://sparrowwallet.com)
- [SeedSigner](https://seedsigner.com)
### Hardware
- [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org): The most secure smartphone in existence
- [ESP-32](https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32)
- [Framework Laptop 13](https://frame.work)
- [Raspberry PI 0](https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero)
### Fun
- [btop](https://github.com/aristocratos/btop)

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---
title: Books
tags: journal
---
# **Books**
Below is a list of books and essays that have impacted me deeply:
---
## **History**
- _History_ by Ralph Waldo Emerson
### Ancient Greece
- _The Life of Greece_ by Will Durant
### Ancient Rome
- _Caesar and Christ_ by Will Durant
- _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ by Edward Gibbon
### America
- _John Adams_ by David McCullough
- _Washington: A Life_ by Ron Chernow
- _Hamilton_ by Ron Chernow
- _Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power_ by Jon Meacham
### Russia
- _The Gulag Archipelago_ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
### Medicine
- _Awakenings_ by Oliver Sacks
---
## **Biography**
- _Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!_ by Richard Feynman
---
## **Philosophy**
- _Self-Reliance_ by Ralph Waldo Emerson
### Politics
- _The Open Society and its Enemies_ by Karl Popper
- _Beauty_ by Roger Scruton
### Roman
- _Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius
- _On the Shortness of Life_ by Seneca
- _On Friendship_ by Cicero
### Christian
- _A Confession_ by Lev Tolstoy
- _Fear and Trembling_ by Kierkegaard
- _Answer to Job_ by Carl Jung
### Cognition
- _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter
### Morality
- _Beyond Good and Evil_ by Friedrich Nietzsche
- _Man’s Search for Meaning_ by Viktor Frankl
- _The Genealogy of Morals_ by Friedrich Nietzsche
---
## **Novels**
- _The Brothers Karamazov_ by Dostoevsky
- _Crime and Punishment_ by Fyodor Dostoevsky
## **Technology**
- _The Sovereign Individual_ by James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg
### Bitcoin
- _Mastering the Lightning Network_ by Andreas Antonopoulos
- _Programming Bitcoin_ by Jimmy Song
- _Mastering Bitcoin_ by Andreas Antonopoulos
### Privacy
- _Extreme Privacy_ by Michael Bazzell
## **Psychology**
- _Modern Man in Search of a Soul_ by Carl Jung

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---
title: "Work"
tags: software
---
# **Work**
---
I started out by working at Chick-fil-A in the kitchen, then as a programmer for corporate.
Most of my work since then has been in Bitcoin: one of the most fascinating
technological developments of our time and the most promising of the emergent currencies.
I work at Voltage in pursuit of that curiosity, working on streamlining
payments via the Lightning Network.
I also work on numerous Bitcoin side projects, primarily Payjoin: a novel method
that makes transactions more scalable, cheap, private, efficient, and fun.
It is believed that if we can get even a small percentage of the total number of Bitcoin transactions
to use Payjoin, we can break the most common metric used to spy on people today: The Common-input Ownership Heuristic.