-You’ve got to fly somewhere, but the only flight available that day leaves at 6am. You begrudgingly book it anyway. -Then the day before, you get an email from the airline saying “we regret to inform you that your flight has been delayed by two hours” to a far more reasonable 8am.

My half-hour animated Broken Money video now has 500k views on YouTube. Coming up on its two-year anniversary:

Here's a Nostr exclusive: the alternative cover of The Stolguard Incident. During the design process, I had two artists design covers, and went with Kim Dingwall's cover. The other one by Joshua Griffin was cool too, but it had "movie poster" vibes and many readers prefer to picture characters the way they want rather than be shown them, so we kept that one as concept art. Still, Joshua's work deserves people to see it. Ava, Stallard, and the Jade-Eyed Witch appear alongside Asim on this version.

I brought out Nostr Lyn a bit in the second half of this chat. Talking macro on BTC Sessions w/ Luke Gromen:

A couple weeks back I was at the New York Stock Exchange for some meetings/events, and they were like "let's update your formal pic that you use for things, that's from 2022". So we do the classic "let's take a slick pic under the NYSE bell, the literal heart of capitalism" photo. Because that'll make it all professional and such. The problem is, whenever I smile, I inherently look like I'm trolling. Regardless of the setting, it looks like I'm just there for the lolz. So the pic seems kind of unusable for formal stuff. Fun for Nostr, though.

Wow that sounds nuts, someone should write a book on that.

Almost nothing in macro currently matters until the Strait of Hormuz opens. That’s the macro. It’s a binary analysis similar to Covid 19.

Whenever I’m asked about private credit lately. On Fox Business, on podcasts, at conferences:

Really not looking forward to flying today.

Unfortunately, Chuck Norris was the only person who could stop this train.

The Stolguard Incident was ranked the top new release in Amazon this weekend for both the cyberpunk and technothriller genres. (It’s also currently the best seller in the space marine category, despite a distinct lack of space marines. Which, I mean, okay.) Thanks everyone for checking it out!

Amazon.com: The Stolguard Incident: 9798988666363: Alden, Lyn: Books

Last night when I finished work and joined my husband for movie night, he instead showed me a video about Newcomb’s paradox and we spent two hours debating it until bed. Anyway how is everyone’s weekend going?

My novel, The Stolguard Incident, is now available! Amazon (print and ebook):

Amazon.com: The Stolguard Incident: 9798988666363: Alden, Lyn: Books

Barnes & Noble (print only):

Barnes & Noble

The Stolguard Incident

Barnes & Noble’s online bookstore for books, NOOK ebooks & magazines. Shop music, movies, toys & games, too. Receive free shipping with your Barn...

Here’s the premise: “In the late 21st century, society is more fractured than ever. Billions satisfy their every whim in virtual worlds, leaving those in power free to tighten their grip on the real one. When a terrorist with strange abilities begins a campaign of violence, military investigator Asim Rahal is thrust into a race against time to find and stop her. But each step of his pursuit reveals the threat to be far worse than he could have imagined, and uncovering it may cost him everything. Truth has always come with a price. Every hero asks themselves what’s worth dying for. The harder question is: what’s worth killing for?” You can check out more info here: https://www.lynalden.com/the-stolguard-incident

That feeling when the year is 2026, you haven’t gone to the post office to mail anything for years, and you partially forget what you’re even supposed to do as you walk up to the counter.

I understand why people use AI to generate posts on social media, but I don’t understand why people use AI to generate replies to other people’s posts (other than for influencing campaigns). I see this all the time on X. A small account will reply to one of my posts with something that is clearly AI generated. But it’s actually an attempt at being conversational- it agrees with and summarizes/rephrases my post, and then asks a follow-up question. It’s not some bot generating fake momentum for a polarizing topic or stirring hate and chaos. Not sure I understand why so many people would set up a bot to do those types of semi-constructive replies. I guess they could be trying to grow an account by being perceived as a thoughtful participant, and their human owner might intend to use the account in the future (or in some cases already does use it too) but it doesn’t see to be working for the ones I looked at.

Men and women writing about how the opposite sex is dumb or to blame for everything, has got to be some of the lowest IQ slop on social media at the moment. It’s often framed in intellectual-sounding ways tied to evolution and such, with a kernals of truth, but then it’s cherry-picked and pretty visibly biased, and the same sort of accounts keep putting out tons of it like an obsession. Most of it is a waste of time. Just do cool things.

In a world of AI slop writing, I’m prioritizing brevity more than ever. As Blaise Pascal (not Mark Twain to whom it is often attributed) once wrote, “I only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” I am increasingly putting in the time to make things shorter.

One of the most successful pirates in history was Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese woman. Historians aren't clear about her early life; she may have been a prostitute. But in her twenties she married a pirate lord who commanded a large confederation of pirates, and thus lived a live of piracy with him for years. When he died in the early1800s, rather than the confederation turning to chaos, she managed to take command of it. She married her late husband's adopted son Zhang Bao as well (she was in her 30s, he in his 20s), and he became basically the #2 in the fleet under her, and that helped cement things. Over the next few years, the confederation grew to hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of pirates. They were one of the biggest powers in the South China Sea, rivaling the navies of China, Portugal, and Britain who were active in the region. In 1810, however, she saw that the future probably wouldn't be so bright for her and the pirates. A pirate confederation is a chaotic thing, and cannot last against multiple navies indefinitely. But pirates rarely ever quit while they're ahead; they almost all end up dying violently. The Chinese and other navies were working together and were pretty desperate to get rid of piracy, and were willing to negotiate. However after months, negotiations broke down between the authorities and the various pirate lords, including Zhang Bao, until Zheng Yi Sao went personally to the Chinese governor's mansion that they were primarily negotiating with, at great personal risk. Just walked right in there with a small delegation, without any fighting force, to negotiate, and got it done. After that, the pirates surrendered from a position of strength. Zheng Yi Sao, Zhang Bao, and others received pardons and got to keep most of their wealth. Zhang Bao became an officer in the Chinese navy, commanding a fleet like he used to. Zheng Yi Sao received land and founded a gambling house. Their marriage was recognized by the Chinese government, having been an unofficial "pirate marriage" beforehand. Zhang Bao eventually died age 39, still in service in the navy. Zheng Yi Sao died at 68, having lived decades overseeing her gambling house, and with children from both her marriages. A pirate lord that retired wealthy and peacefully, and managed to navigate the transition away from piracy in a way that let the most reasonable pirates all quit while they were ahead.

Zheng Yi Sao - Wikipedia

My accountant going through my zaps for tax season like