I've solidly become one of those people whose music tastes got locked in during their teens and twenties. So for me that's like 1990s and 2000s rock, or newer bands of the same genre. Does anyone ever deviate from that trend?

If you’d like SXSW to have a Nostr panel, give this a vote. View quoted note →

Sometimes people ask me, “what if American bans bitcoin like they did for gold?” 1) That’s why it’s useful to engage politically. To prevent that draconian tail risk. And it’s working. Prevent any sort of anti-Bitcoin supermajority. 2) America had a supermajority in Congress when they did that for gold. They could override every check on power. That’s uncommon. We became highly collectivist for a period of time. 3) America literally put Japanese Americans in camps back then. But not German Americans. Because we were outright racist. And this was all pre civil rights for Black Americans too. Terrible. 4) This was all pre-internet. Centralized media. Few memes. The slow speed of communication was relevant. The meme-work makes the dream work.

I have some contacts in Russia that work as asset managers and financial analysts. So after the war broke out they were emailing me like, “Well, uh, that’s awkward. But anyway here are some details of what’s happening internally in Russia in terms of the financial system using CNY more and USD less, and other financial changes. Hopefully these are helpful.” So I was like “thanks guys, let’s stay in touch. Stay safe!” View quoted note →

One of the things I almost never see mentioned in the various climate debates is the observation that Earth is historically on the cooler side and is rising from that very low base. The planet has historically gone through multiple cycles of not having polar ice caps and then having them again, etc. Over millions of years. There's been a really long-term feedback loop there. I'm not a climate scientist by any stretch, but I just find that general omission in public discussions around it to be interesting.

NOAA Climate.gov

What’s the hottest Earth’s ever been?

Earth’s hottest periods occurred before humans existed. Those ancient climates would have been like nothing our species has ever seen.

I told Grok to make a picture of a train that won't stop, driven by Uncle Sam. The hat as the smokestack was a nice touch.

Anybody here do cold plunges? Ever since trying it in Norway I’ve gonna partially down the rabbit hole of saunas and cold plunges.

What are some of the best movies of the past five years?

Mark Cuban went on the Daily Show and one of their big topics in he convo was the problematic role of centralized algorithms on social media.

My shower thought today was that the subprime mortgage crisis was 16 years ago. Kind of unbelievable.

This is the real Rudy from Twitter. I confirm it. Give him a follow! View quoted note →

Trump came out better than Elon in this discussion, imho. Minimal gaffes from Trump. He strategically took the moderate approach here. Elon fished for outlier opinions and controversies but Trump used Akido on them and dominated the discussion. One might like or dislike Trump's positions but in this particular appearance the gaffes were minimal and the positions were purposely moderated and careful. This was basically the opposite of the Elon and Jordon Peterson interview. In that interview, Elon clearly entertained Jordan and outmaneuvered him. Elon barely wanted to be there. Jordon looked silly. In this interview with Trump, Elon basically cucked himself for Trump. He knows where his business bread is buttered: Xi, Modi, Erdogan, and whichever US president has momentum. But meanwhile, for those who say I am biased against Elon, I'm on *his* side for the EU and UK activity against Twitter. Elon is absolutely right there. The only proper American response there is to fuck off. And his memes have been great against Thierry Breton and others. UK and EU should get rekt on that front. I'm pro-Elon there, which is not common outside of SpaceX which is great. But the proliferation of Nostr would beat all of that latter part regarding communication. It's good to push back and meme against Thierry Breton. Tell him to get rekt. It's even better to make Thierry Breton irrelevant by making it so that he can't send his Karen-like letters to anyone, since Nostr has no CEO, as we swarm around him and invite Britons and Europeans to join us. Anyway, good evening.

Trump is on the Spaces with Elon. One thing I've noticed for a while is that amid all of the Secret Service failings and inside-job theories or concerns, Trump hasn't really been promoting those failings and theories at all. And this interview confirmed it- he's actively pushing back on them. Elon tried for like 15 minutes to coax out some thoughts from Trump regarding Secret Service incompetence or corruption and yet Trump just kept defending the Secret Service for doing their work and saying that yeah they should explore why someone got on the roof, but that it's chaotic and he's thankful for the counter-snipers, that he's thankful for those that physically shield him, etc. He's literally more defending of them than me as a witness that was like, "wtf happened here?" Trump presumably travels with mostly the same SS team and gets to know them. He's hesitant to personally criticize them in a way that many of his followers have. I found that interesting because he routinely throws lawyers and other insiders out that defended him once they stop being useful. But things are different when you have a team physically shielding you. Like fellow soldiers in war. So far he won't touch them at all.

We’re gonna meme ourselves into a better future, lads and lasses. The jester is the one who tells the truth, shielded by humor. View quoted note →

I like how this St Louis Fed post blames people for banks’ failings. Flip it around. Banks irresponsibly created way more claims for gold than they had gold, kept defaulting, and lost trust. So the government made gold illegal to own for like 40 years. There was no “shortage” of gold in the Great Depression. There was an excessive amount of fraudulent promises for gold, made by commercial banks and central banks.

Here’s Why the U.S. No Longer Follows a Gold Standard

Calls for the U.S. to tie its currency to the price of gold still occur. What is the gold standard, and why does the U.S. no longer use it?

Fedwire processed over a quadrillion dollars worth of settlement volume last year, at an average pace of about 6 transactions per second. Technically about 9 transactions per second on business days, and then closed during weekends and holidays.