Spiral Locking...
Mary, Queen of Scots used 'spiral locking' technique to preserve secrecy of last letter before her execution
An example of letterlocking -- where people doubled letters as envelopes to ensure the security of a document -- the fallen monarch used a spiral locking process to seal a message that was "a last will and testament and a bid for martyrdom.
Mary was shrouded in political controversy during her lifetime. She was next in line to the throne after Henry VIII's children, and was targeted by conspirators under the reign of her English cousin, Elizabeth I. Mary was interned for 19 years, after which she was executed at the age of 44.
How Bitcoin works
Well many of you will be confused just like I was when I heard about Bitcoin that how it works. Well in today's article I have explained how it works
Fortunately, it's easier to define what Bitcoin actually is. It's software and a purely digital phenomenon—a set of protocols and processes.
It is also the most successful of hundreds of attempts to create virtual money through the use of cryptography. Bitcoin has inspired hundreds of imitators, but it remains the largest **cryptocurrency** by market capitalization, a distinction it has held throughout its decade-plus history. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cryptocurrency.asp
Like standard currency, Bitcoin is produced and has processes and safeguards in place to prevent fraud and ensure appreciation in its value. The main building blocks of Bitcoin are blockchain, mining, hashes, halving, keys, and wallets. They are discussed in detail below.
Bitcoin is a digital currency, a decentralized system that records transactions in a distributed ledger called a blockchain.
Bitcoin miners run complex computer rigs to solve complicated puzzles in an effort to confirm groups of transactions called blocks. Upon success, these blocks are added to the blockchain record, and the miners are rewarded with a small number of bitcoins.
Other participants in the Bitcoin market can buy or sell tokens through cryptocurrency exchanges or peer-to-peer.
The Bitcoin ledger is protected against fraud via a trustless system; Bitcoin exchanges also work to defend themselves against potential theft, although high-profile thefts have occurred.
The Last Dance
The Last Dance – An Open Letter To Ali Sadpara
Dear Ali bhai,
I'll never forget the only time I saw you. It was at the Value of Life event in Islamabad a few months ago, but it feels like yesterday. As soon as our eyes met, I waved to you from the audience seats. You placed your hand over your heart with the slight bow and smiled. A flower bloomed in my heart and continues to blossom to this very day.
When Saad started mentioning your amazing feats, everything around you diminished. Your stature rose like a giant standing as tall as the mighty K2, stretching to the heavens.
Throughout this storytelling event, I pondered what nature of people capture the spirit of adventure?
No one but mountaineers.
They symbolize adventure and are a prime example of the relentless pursuit of dreams. Your breed are true explorers who step out of comfort zones to forward human potential and experience. How else could we have made it to far corners of the world if not for the brave ones who left their homes in Africa two million years ago and traversed unchartered plains, deserts, oceans, and mighty mountain ranges to explore what lay beyond the horizon? The remainder of humanity merely followed in their mighty footsteps. In days gone by, those adventurers risked their lives to help us survive and evolve. Today, you carry on that legacy and inspire us by showing how to make the impossible possible.
You shouldered other people's loads on your back in places higher than eagles fly while nurturing dreams in your heart. You gave other people your strong, steady hand on deadly slopes to help them achieve their goals. While they captured all the headlines, you remained obscure to most in your own country. For those who don't know your achievements, how will they know the pain you endured?
But the pain didn't matter to you.
You did everything with utmost unconditional love in a selfless manner: to help others, to bring joy to everyone you met, and to make your country proud.
As time passed, you climbed higher and higher. As the difficulties mounted, you smiled broader and broader. The striking lines on your cheeks, deep as crevasses, reveal that you lived every moment either in extreme pain or joy. Not in between.
Like a moth dances around the flame, you danced and danced and danced around the mountains as if charming and seducing them. While for others, mountains proved a battleground, for you, they were your dancefloor.
"Ali bhai is our biggest superstar, our hero!" your friend Saad always said to me.
Come back, our hero, for this life is full of hidden crevasses, and every one of us has a long climb ahead. Hold our hand. Show us how we traverse our paths, cross our canyons, navigate our mountains. Inspire us anew.
The reason we met was that Imtiaz Ali, the mountain guide from Shimshal, had died on Italian-Pak expedition in 2019. Through the Value of Life project, we wanted to acknowledge our mountaineers and build a support system for them.
Inspired by you and other heroes, I covered a series of stories on local mountaineers in Shimshal. You were next on my list. Little did I know that instead of writing your heroic feats, I would be drafting a letter to you.
I have so many unanswered questions. Why did you go to K2 in winter? What happened after the Bottleneck? And why was it your last dance? My heart longs to know, to understand.
I believe, the K2 summit was afraid of the dark winter nights and didn't let you leave the mountain. So, it held you close to its heart like a kid hugs a teddy bear tight before going to bed. Now K2 has covered itself with a blanket of clouds and gone to sleep with you. Sweet dreams.
Before you were the dreamer, and K2 was the dream. Now, K2 is the dreamer, and you are the dream.
Maybe, one day, we will wake up, and you will be back again, either in this or another world.
I'll wait for the day when our eyes meet again. I'll put your story to paper as you narrate your adventures and what kept your heart warm on those cold nights on K2.
And after I've written everything and taken a million photos of you, we will call it a wrap and start the celebrations. Oh, what a party we'll have!
We will summon angels to play the drums. They will thunder seven skies with divine beats and send everyone and everything into a trance: humans, animals, birds, trees, plants, and waterfalls, all waving and swinging to the mystical rhythms of the music that transcends space and time, that moves right to the heart.
All fourteen 8,000-m mountains will travel from far and wide corners and dance in a circle around you, each trying to win your heart, the same way you tried to win their heart in your life. Now, in the middle, you will dance like a whirling dervish.
As the night grows darker, you will gesture and invite peaks to twirl with you in the circle one by one until you have danced with them all except one. Then in the darkest hour of the night, you will finally invite the most beautiful of all, the Chogori, the K2, inside.
And so will the final dance begin: hands in hands, arms in arms, singing, spinning, bending, rising, gliding, and stretching, exploring all possibilities in dance. On and on. Until the end of time. Until the end of the universe. Maybe even beyond that.
Until you two become one again. One majestic mountain.
The mountain—far beyond any mountaineer can go—any angels can fly above—and any storyteller can write about.
All anyone can do is watch the mountain from a far distance with their jaw dropped. Slowly, they will notice lines appear on the face of the eastern slopes—curving and becoming bolder and broader.
The longer everyone looks upon them, the more familiar the lines will become. They have seen those lines on someone’s face before.
And then there will be one big dance, one tremendous celebration, as all meld into one.
After that, everyone will be reborn to the truth. I. We, They. You. And your beloved K2!
Love,
Story of 8000s and Shakila
It is the story of two 8,000s and Shakila.
In 2019, seven mountaineers from Italian-Pak expedition were pushing for the summit of 5,800m Melvin Jones Peak in Pakistan when an avalanche swept them down for 600m. Three members of the team were from Shimshal. One of them lost his life on the spot. His name was Imtiyaz Ali. His sister Shakila Numa barely survived the accident.
"The avalanche tossed us around, and I had injuries all over, including my face. I even lost my boots. The other members left me behind and went to Camp 1. Before leaving, someone wrapped a jacket around my feet. At night, I became unconscious due to cold. Next morning, when the sun shone on me, I came to life again."
Shakila spent 24 hours at the avalanche site with the corpse of her brother. Her team presumed she would be dead. Eventually, a helicopter mission rescued her.
Like all Shimashlis, her mountaineering started with a trek to a pasture in the highlands. When her cousin Farzana became the first woman to scale Manglik Sar (6,050m), Shakila took a lot of inspiration from her and began training with Qudrat Ali and Shaheen Baig at Shimshal Mountaineering School. "I told them I wanted to climb the Manglik Sar in the winter. They stated it had not been done before and would be very tough." Nonetheless, it didn't take her too long to convince her mentors. They organized the expedition for eight girls from Shimshal, trained them, and led the ascent. In January 2011, they became the first-ever group to have scaled Manglik Sar in the winter when the temperature dipped to -30ºC. The year after, together with Shimshal girls, she successfully climbed three peaks in one week —Julio Sar (6,035 metres), Qouz Sar (5,854m), and Manglik Sar (6,050m). In 2018, they all summited Shifkateen Sar (5,400m).
"Climbing mountains is like turning your dreams into reality. When you leave home, people doubt your abilities, but as you climb higher up, you prove others wrong with every step you take on the mountain. You make things possible."
When her brother Imtiyaz was alive, after returning from every expedition, he would narrate tales of adventures to Shakila as both sat by the fire stove. He would teach her how to tie climbing knots and how to to use the gear. The duo would discuss plans for climbing. Then one day, when they were finally living their dream together, the tragedy befell them. That day, she was only a couple of meters away from him, attached by a rope. The last thing she said to him was, "Imtiyaz bhai, an avalanche is going to hit us." The last thing she heard from him, "don't worry, nothing will happen!"
The next moment, something happened, and he was gone.
But the fire inside her is still burning. Shakila wants to ascend the 7,027m Spantik in winter and scale some unclimbed peaks. She has her eyes on one particular mountain, the 8,611m K2. That is her favourite peak.
"I want to climb mountains, so I can make a good name for Pakistan, and make my family and my village Shimshal proud."
Her brother was the sole breadwinner for his family. After his death, Shakila urgently needed a source of income to support her brother's children. The Shimshal Girls Hostel in Hunza gave her a job in the kitchen where she has been working for over a year.
Her colleagues believe she is cooking food there, but it's the K2 dreams she is stirring in the pots. The translucent vapours of her fantasies leave the kitchen through the exhaust fan opening, and by piggybacking on the waves of the breeze, they rise higher and higher turning into wispy clouds, which then circle the magnificent 7,688m Rakaposhi over and over again. Just like a moth dancing around the flame in oblivion out of pure love.
"It was Imtiyaz's wish that we climb together. He wanted me to become as good of a mountaineer as he was. His words continue to motivate me every day. I have to fulfil his dream!"
When she said this, her eyes had specks of lights wobbling in them like tiny paper sailboats rocking in choppy waters. The rim of her eyes dammed the ocean ever so tightly lest the boats carrying her dreams perish in the storm.
To describe Shakila in a few words, I would say hers is the story of two 8,000s.
The first 8000 is the height of K2 in meters. And the other 8000, that's Shakila's monthly salary in Pakistani Rupees (50 USD).
Two equal numbers. But far apart like peaks belonging to opposite poles. Yet somewhere between those two 8000ers, is Shakila on a long rope only visible to her, balancing herself and inching towards the other end; all this without a safety rope. After every passing hour, the crevasses on the ground and her forehead grow a tad deeper.
Something tells me she is going to make to it to the other side.
She has to, because she has made a promise. And she will, for Imtiyaz bhai is watching over her from heaven!
-----------------
Love untold
Everyone's style of love is very strange
Someone longs for love
One simply enjoys the peace of mind
Someone is waiting for the next person moment by moment
It requires a look of grace
No one likes to see. Someone tries to sacrifice his body, mind, money, love.
Someone is comparing love to a madman or Qais
There are two things in love: progress, migration and separation and connection. One gets love without asking for it.
What was lacking?
What was wrong
And then that person either cracks the poor like Qais
Or, like a madman, he seeks coins in the deserts, forgetting the distinction between flowers and thorns.
Some fail
And spend the rest of their lives shedding tears
And even to the grave they may be tormented by a glimpse of the Beloved and there are some such things
Those who do not deviate from love but ask for coins in prayer instead of the beloved
They either find peace or they get impatient or they get bored
Anyway, every pleasure is extremely boring
When a loving person is patient, then he finds love stories, love stories, love poetry, all connected jokes. Wherever you talk about love, he will laugh hollowly.
He will make fun of love even if he doesn't want to. He will shake everyone and ask what is love?
Tell me where is the love
And this is the extreme of pain at which no one dies but he has died while he is alive. There is a feeling in it but he is tired of feeling. The migration of the beloved is not painful. That person only cures his sorrows with laughter
He seems to be happy but the lover of love does not want to get entangled in love by deviating. He is in search of everyone.
Real success
Once upon a time there used to live a boy in middle Asia. He was a very intelligent boy, he always scored around 100 in science!
Selected for IIT and scored well in IIT.
Went to University of California for MBA.
He got a high-paying job in the United States and settled there.
He married a beautiful Tamil girl.
Buy a big 5 room house and luxury cars.
He had everything that made him successful, but a few years ago he shot his wife and children and committed suicide.
* What was wrong?
The California Institute of Clinical Psychology studied the case and found out what went wrong. "*
The researcher met with the boy's friends and family and found that he had lost his job due to the US economic crisis and had to sit without a job for many days.He did not get a job even after deducting his previous salary. He was then unable to repay the loan for the house and he and his family lost the house.He survived for a few months, living on less money, and then he and his wife decided to commit suicide together. He first shot his wife and children and then shot himself. The case concludes that the man was programmed (accustomed) to * success * but was not trained for failure.First of all, I want to tell you that if you have gained everything, you have the opportunity to lose everything, no one knows when the next economic crisis will reach the world. The best habit of success is to get training to deal with failures.
I would like to appeal to every parent, please make your child not only accustomed to success but also teach them how to handle the failures. And also teach them appropriate lessons about life. Learning advanced science and math will help them pass competitive exams, but knowledge of life will help them cope with every problem. Instead of teaching them to work for ... money ..., teach them ... how money works Help them find their passion because these degrees will not help them in the next economic crisis and we do not know when the next crisis will reach the world.
Bitcoin
The emergence of cryptocurrency and blockchains 12 years ago changed everything.
Bitcoin showed that money doesn’t have to be issued by governments. It proved that a group of individuals could act together without knowing each other. It demonstrated that the internet can be both transparent and private.
From Bitcoin came Ethereum and a host of other blockchains, along with ICOs and stablecoins. From there we saw DAOs, DeFi and NFTs and much more. In 12 years, crypto has become a $2 trillion industry with radical implications for finance, central banks, corporations, nonprofits and the way organizations are founded and run.
Crypto and blockchain technology are foundational innovations that open new possibilities for transferring and building wealth, and that could allow a new internet to emerge from the broken Web 2 world we’re in.
These new concepts of money and human governance raise massive, almost existential questions – questions that matter to everyone well beyond the rarefied circles of technologists and financiers.
Well hope that it will grow as it did in the previous course of time
My thoughts 💭
Every human being reaches a certain place in his life by seeing many colors. Each face has a story behind it. One has to try. I think all these people who are in high positions, their lives are very complete.
Those who are religious people are just at the highest level of piety.
But it does not happen
Every human being fights his inner frustrations, corrects his shortcomings, charges his securities, pushes back the painful things, endures many attitudes and reaches a certain place. Even the best man makes mistakes. Even the best man is fighting on many fronts but constant struggle makes him victorious.
We are human, we can't be perfect, we have to fight to the end.
What is the real thing? We don't have the courage to give up. These are negative things. I have to avoid them.
Why avoid?
But what to do to overcome them? Admit it, I have this shortcoming. I get jealous here. I disliked this thing in his attitude, I disliked this thing.
After all of that I think we can make peace with our demons ☺️
@Joshua12
