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.

This chart of US Treasury performance is from Bank of America's latest global research report. Look at the title, lol.

I read Upgrade by Blake Crouch and wasn't a big fan. The outline of the story was promising but the execution was inconsistent, in my view. I'd give it maybe a 6.5/10. It's set in the near future, with a specific event having messed everything up. A genius scientist that tried to solve world hunger by genetically modifying crops accidentally caused a global famine, killing 200 million and damaging the world economically and socially for decades in a way that it never fully recovered from. Gene editing is now forbidden, and since the technology is accessible at pretty low cost, there are police forces dedicated to surveilling for usage of it and raiding peoples' houses to prevent another catastrophe. The main character, the son of that scientist, gets infected with a disease that changes his genes and makes him superhuman mentally and physically in a world where that's outlawed. And thus his adventure begins to find out who infected him and what to do. Without giving spoilers, probably my main issue with the story was the villain. She was badass with a cool background and setup, but then her motivations didn't really make sense. And the majority of the book is about the philosophical and external conflict between the hero and this villain. Solid outline and idea, but felt rushed and not as well thought out as it could have been. Some elements felt preachy in the sense that it feels like the author set up this conflict, which didn't really need to happen, in order to make a point. By fine-tuning the plot a bit more, I think it could have been executed better and more believably and preserving the overall outline.

Rising political populism is an immune response to structural imbalances. Many people think this trade war just happened out of nowhere. There's some truth to that, meaning that Trump didn't have to engage in it in the way he did. But you have to look back several steps to get a bigger picture. The way the dollar reserve currency system is structured, the world needs an ever-growing number of dollars, and the US supplies those dollars via a permanent trade deficit. Those two aspects are joined at the hip. This hollows out the US industrial base, and hurts some regions (e.g. the Midwest) and helps others (e.g. NYC and DC). Eventually those cumulative imbalances get so big, combined with other imbalances as well, that political realignments shift in generationally important ways. The "blue wall", referring to the northern part of the Midwest that's at the center of the rust belt and historically voted Democrat, has shifted Republican or otherwise become more mixed. The trade deficit and other imbalances have become front and center. Establishment-type folks are going to keep being blindsided by this type of thing as long as the imbalances persist. They're going to keep pointing to one-time phenomenon, like one specific election, or one specific person, but really it's the underlying imbalance that's at the heart of it.

After driving my Hyundai for 16 years, it’s finally starting to fail. So I’m going to join the rich life now… and get a Toyota. Here’s to the next 16.

While I have nothing against short fiction, the reason I’m not drawn to it is that I want to get to know the characters. That takes time. My sweet spot tends to be a long stand-alone novel or a duology/trilogy. When you go longer than that, into some epic series, I’m skeptical. By default I view it as someone writing for a career rather than to tell their optimal story, with *very* limited exceptions.

What are your favorite negative character arcs? A negative character arc is one where the protagonist gets worse over time rather than better. They might or might not turn for the better in the end, but the majority of the time is spent on a negative descent. A well-done example would be Frodo. The ring wears him down through the course of the story. An example that should have been good but wasn’t executed as well as it should have been, would be Anakin in the Star Wars prequel.

Had an interesting interaction with a cashier today. This young man in his 20s was ringing people up. His voice and mannerisms were basically like Napoleon Dynamite. In front of me, the customer said “thank you, have a good day” and he said back “that would be impossible, but you have a good day ma’am.” I was only half paying attention so I assumed I misheard. He then rang my products up as I focused on packing my bags. I pay and say basically “thanks, have a good day”. He says, “that would be impossible ma’am, but you have a good day.” I paused, hearing the repeated statement. He started scanning the next customer’s items. Part of me wanted to ask why it’s impossible to have a nice day. It’s so specific. But doing so would interrupt his focus on the next customer. I took my bags, walked out, and looked back a couple times. In hindsight, I wish I’d asked. That would be more important than risking the next customer’s checkout time by a couple minutes. Next time I’m at the supermarket, I’m going to do a scan of the cashiers to see if he’s among them.

“You can just do things” is one of my favorite meme phrases that I see out there. Back around my senior year of high school, I consciously decided to shift to that mindset. I went from kind of operating within rules, and trying to leave a light touch around me, to being more assertive and creative about what I want to do. It was kind of a quiet “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me” vibe shift. At the time I think the terminology I filtered it through was Sagan’s pale blue dot. Like, everything that has ever been done is on this crazy little ball spinning through space. So it’s okay to just do things, to take chances, to think outside of the box. Because the box itself is already actually kind of crazy. And then in the mid-2010s, like around 2016, I did kind of a checkup on how I’m doing, and felt that while I had used that strategy well, I wasn’t thinking big enough. I had primarily used that strategy to climb up the ranks in the engineering world, with the goal of making things better for myself and my colleagues/division; I would just do things and be the person who pushed to say “yes” a lot and it had worked out really well. But for my next phase, I felt I needed to “just do things” outside of an organizational structure as well. So I started my namesake website. I previously had a small anon website on stock investing which I was able to sell to some publisher and that gave me experience, but this one would be different. It would have my face on it. Any sort of content creator starts by being a little crazy. It starts with the improbable concept that you could create written or audio or visual content that thousands or millions of people will actually want to see and get value out of, in the sea of endless content that already exists. But it starts somewhere. With just doing things. My view was that I would do my best, leverage the experience that I had, and give it my honest shot. Never looked back since. It’s been a wild journey.

There are so many reply-guy comments on Twitter/X that my mind quickly puts into a "your mom" joke framework, but then I never post it. As soon as I read, "You didn't even" or "Bitcoin is" or things along those lines, my mind is like "Your mom didn't" or "Your mom is". And if I wrote them out in those thread's context, they're kind of funny. Mainly I don't post them out of respect for moms, since moms are fucking awesome and I only want to send positive vibes. It's quietly my biggest restraint.

It’s actually crazy that I can just randomly pay/tip Calle, without knowing his real name or business identity, and yet still know it’s actually him due to a self-organizing social graph. Ecash can make it even easier and more private. But the capability is already under-appreciated.

Zap marketing is cooler to see than platform marketing, imo. Commenters getting micro-paid, love to see it. From my recent lightning bounty thread:

I saw a few posts here dunking on Dan for his anti-Nostr posts on Twitter/X. I'm grateful for them. Happy to treat it as a marketing/education opportunity. If life gives you lemons, see if there's a way to make lemonade.

Some people say I should post more about bitcoin on Nostr. But you already know about bitcoin, don’t you Neo? Your real question is what you should do with it now.

I’m tired of the Twitter posts fanboying over nation state purchases. It’s relevant for macro and price, but I get it. Most people keep re-posting it for engagement. I only need the key articles. I don’t want to focus on that. I want the juicy stuff. I’ve focused attention here a lot lately, but in case I missed anything, I invite you to tell me what I should analyze and then broadcast on my site and on Twitter/X about privacy, tech, taxes, and so forth.

My harshest critic is my husband. Most people can’t honestly say that, but I can. He’s always my final boss when trying to assert an idea. He’s super smart and usually comes at things from a different angle. And he’s my primary editor. He’s also the head of my website’s customer support center. Unlike my social media where I shoot from the hip and fuck around, I post detailed articles on my site only after my harshest critic gives me his feedback. And he doesn’t phrase things like a loving husband normally would. He goes over the top. He’ll literally put comments on my drafts like “This is fucking right wing trash Lyn. I know you were raised in a trailer park so I don’t expect much, but do better. Rephrase literally all of this.” That sounds abusive but it’s humorous in practice given our context when working. We’re not very politically different, but I tend to lean slightly righter than him, so that’s a common source of debate. I pull him right and he pulls me left, not as people who are far apart but who are slightly apart but both opinionated and debate over every inch. It’s on an issue by issue basis. Mostly he does those comments for humor, but partially because he wants a debate and will bring like a well-researched150 IQ argument to hold the line as I try to argue through his defenses. And I write my research for investment clients of all political views, left and right, globally, as objective as possible, and so he purposely helps keep me straight and steelmans all my arguments for clients. We debated in the early days about the vaccine in the pandemic, for example, back in 2020 and 2021. We’re still kind of debating about it now in 2025, both granting certain details to the other. But whenever I write something of substance that is controversial, I know he will read it and call me a retard, which I have to push through and turn into a publishable article. My social media posts are just me, whereas my long-form posts take time and argue through him. I often post thoughts and gather comments on Twitter/X, since a lot of tradfi financial pros are happy to discuss. Then I write a piece, and my husband looks through it. I either agree or disagree, and then publish. I get the final say, but I only publish after I’m confident after his arguments. TLDR; My summary from this whole rambling piece is that I suggest you find a close loved one who will call you a trailer park retard while challenging you on every piece you write while loving you. Few people will do that but it’s important.

Sometimes, when I notice I have persistent trolls over months, I take a couple tries to reach out and talk to them. I try to directly address their issues, and ask what their problem is, or who hurt them. Like someone who is clearly a human but posts anti-Bitcoin stuff on my threads 193 times. Or who makes fun of my voice 65 times. Thus far, it has almost never worked out. They just keep going until they burn out. Their views and comments tend to be near-zero anyway. It’s a mental illness issue. And I’m not equipped to handle it. Kind of like how people throw poop in certain cities, there are people who digitally just parasitically can’t stop clutching to others negatively. I invite them to do better, hope they recover, but I increasingly learn that dealing with them rationally doesn’t work and I’m not the right one to help with that sort of mental illness.

What do you think the world will be like 50 years from now, in the 2070s? And specifically, what kind of tech do you think will surprise to the upside by that time, and become pretty dominant or ubiquitous? And what tech do you think will underperform expectations, and not exist at the scale that people now might’ve guessed would be common by then?