I’ve crossed 100k followers. So, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to all the bots that made that possible. 😂

I watched the movie KPOP Demon Hunters. That critically-acclaimed and audience-loved hit new kids/teens movie streaming on Netflix. The reason was two-fold. One was so that I know what the hell my niece is talking about next time I hang out with her. Two is so that I understand why certain things are succeeding as Disney/Pixar keeps floundering in failure. While Disney/Pixar keeps making flops, Sony Animation has been rocking it with hits like Into the Spiderverse, Across the Spiderverse, and KPOP Demon Hunters. With a lower budget than what Disney/Pixar typically comes in with, Sony makes something that is higher quality and earns more money. A few thoughts on why KPOP Demon Hunters was so successful: -It's not the plot; the plot is pretty mid even among the field of kids/teens movies. Unique though. -Funny/likable characters. -Great animation. -Music is way better than competitors. Catchy enough that they're succeeding as singles on their own. -The writing is self-aware, but resists doing the constant quips that a Marvel movie does. -The writers focus #1 on entertainment. There are positive themes in there, but unlike Disney/Pixar that recently forgot how to make an enjoyable film and focus so much on some theme, Sony actually makes fun films that also have themes like heroism/authenticity, etc.

We’re in the part of the cycle where my father in law is very satisfied with the performance of his bitcoin and texts me about it.

Unironically, the side that is more often correct in a given debate usually has way better memes. It's a decent (albeit not foolproof) heuristic. And it applies to humor more broadly, with memes basically being the haiku form of humor. -When you find something funny, it's often because you subconsciously agree with it, at least partially. Sometimes you're trained that you *should* agree with a given side, but humor just cuts through it and reveals that really you kind of don't, and in some way forces you into an honest moment. -Creating a meme requires condensing an argument into a short context. While outright lies are easy to make short (i.e. you can just say a false thing that requires the other side to take time to unpack), actual arguments are not so easy to make short, especially if they're also going to be funny. A meme that has any sort of point to it generally has an argument embedded within it, even if that argument takes the form of an observation or other simple thing. Outside of highly technical contexts, arguments/observations are generally easier to condense if they're true. The side of a given debate that reliably can make short, funny arguments is typically on to something.

Price often condenses information and provides clarity. For a while, solar/wind proponents have operated with two simultaneous but generally conflicting narratives. -One narrative is that solar/wind are more environmentally friendly and should be subsidized. To the extent that they don't grow sufficiently fast, it's because we're not doing enough to artificially boost their adoption. -The other narrative is continually remind how cheap solar/wind have become. Proponents will post charts/studies showing that solar/wind are cheaper than other types of energy, and that it "just makes sense now". In practice, a lot of caveats are often excluded. The thing is, price usually cuts through confusion on these types of matters. Especially price over a significant amount of time and space, rather than just price in a snapshot of time and locality. If solar/wind are indeed cheaper than other energy sources, why aren't they being built in place of others? Why isn't it a no-brainer for any megacorp to just install terawatts of them all over? For example, the percentage growth of solar power in India over the past 5-10 years is impressive, but in terms of raw numbers, way more coal power was brought online during that period than solar. The answer is often that they're *not actually* cheaper in an all-inclusive sense. And if they're not cheaper, why is that? The answer is often because they're more materially intensive, less durable, and not as environmentally friendly as many proponents argue, either. That cost (panels, turbines, batteries, maintenance, decommissioning, and replacement) is going somewhere, and usually quite materially. That's not to say that solar/wind don't have uses (they do), but their usage is often hamfisted into places where they're not the most economic choice, and where they are not the most economic choice, it's often because they're not necessarily the most environmental choice either. Price is often ignored or fudged in analysis, but it really does provide a powerful signal in aggregate that's worth paying attention to.

I have a new article about bitcoin treasury corporations, whether they're good or bad for Bitcoin as a network, and a note on the overall store-of-value vs medium-of-exchange debate:

Lyn Alden

The Rise of Bitcoin Stocks and Bonds

Originally published: July 2025 During the past year or so, the Bitcoin ecosystem has largely been led by the rise of corporate bitcoin treasury st...

GM. Happy 4th. Whenever I use ChatGPT as a research tool, especially whenever related to AI research (either for investment research purposes or my sci fi writings), I am aware of the momentary irony (AI is telling me about AI), I randomly throw in weird questions since it's already primed on the topic:

It's actually been a while since I wrote a long article. My public newsletters and premium reports are typically in the 3k-6k word range. I've got a 7k+ finished piece coming out this weekend. Haven't done one of those in a while. I've got another 8k+ piece written in the pipeline that I'm still tweaking. Trying to avoid some of the insane 12k-20k type of pieces I wrote in 2020 during the money-printing mayhem (although at least those later became the basis of Broken Money).

I made a short recap of the deficit situation. My first ever video meme. Enjoy:

Caption Generator

Recap of the deficit situation

This gentleman explains how the US fiscal deficit evolved over the past decade.

Imagine you have a crazy ex, but it's worse because that ex is a vampire and goes around killing everyone you date going forward. Anyway, I have a new book review. I read best-selling author VE Schwab’s latest novel “Bury My Bones in the Midnight Soil”. It’s about vampires, and the story stretches over 500 years. A friend recommended that I read Schwab, and when I went to my local bookstore, this brand new one from her was displayed front and center, so I picked it up. The genre is gothic horror romance, basically. With an elevated/literary element to it. The vampire themes are presented on two levels: -The first is the straightforward level; there are actual vampires. So there’s a plot, action, all sorts of stuff involving some superpowered murderers. One cool detail I liked is that (as undead beings) the vampires hearts don’t beat, but when they drink someone’s blood, their heart beats for a minute and circulates that new blood around. They crave blood to satisfy hunger, but also to feel a heartbeat again, albeit briefly. Nice touch. -The second level is that the vampires are an allegory for empowerment. Since the book takes place over five centuries, it includes several time periods where women were without much power or rights. And if you were a lesbian (as the author is, and some characters are), well you were pretty much out out of luck. Becoming an immortal vampire with super strength/speed offers the option of breaking free from society’s norms. I only have so much time to read novels, with sci fi and epic fantasy being my favorite genres, so literary urban fantasy about toxic lesbian vampires was a bit outside of my normal scope. It’s good to broaden one’s horizons, they say. Overall, I found Schwab’s writing quality to be great. Solid prose, a shocking inciting incident that caught me off guard, a fresh angle on a villain, clear settings and actions never left me confused or distracted, etc. The story itself was hit or miss for me, though. At 500+ pages, I found it a bit slow. Out of the three point-of-view characters, I could connect well with one of them, but not really the other two. I liked several of the supporting characters, especially a couple of the men were my favorite characters actually, which I think is a testament to Schwab’s writing quality. I’d definitely read more of Schwab’s novels in the future since I enjoyed her writing style, even though this particular plot didn’t exactly resonate with me. 7.5/10

Just finished reading a book, then went online and saw that the U.S. bombed Iran’s major nuclear sites.