LynAlden
Lyn Alden

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.

2026-02-10 13:14:28 UTC

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Nope. Not for writing or finished art.
I’d have AI do some proofreading to point out grammars errors, which then I’d fix manually (or ignore them if I disagreed). But then it went to multiple human editors, too. And I made AI mock-ups of art to send to the artist to give her a sense of what I’m looking for.

2026-02-10 01:52:26 UTC

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Good evening.
A year and a half ago, Nostr spoke. And so I listened. Here’s the cover reveal for my upcoming sci fi thriller, The Stolguard Incident.
I’ll share more info over the following weeks, but in the meantime I wanted to make sure folks on Nostr got the first look.
https://blossom.primal.net/179ab082c464ebc2a757a2ed80809e9e4cc9239db06d426b42959b1ba6406fd1.jpg
#nevent1q…vmz5

2026-02-06 19:21:01 UTC

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Yeah but that would get in the way of humor.

2026-02-06 18:48:57 UTC

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I don’t disagree that retail mattered, but they were largely existing retail. New retail didn’t show up in size.

2026-02-06 13:09:10 UTC

Anyway, GM.
https://blossom.primal.net/dc3051e4530a978243d30f20fbc29961d9eb0364f89378d918017913c0922bff.jpg

2026-02-06 12:15:07 UTC

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In any bear market, especially a day as sharply down as today, there’s a good chance of someone blowing up.
But that’s a contributing factor, not a causal one.
The causal factor is weak structural demand for bitcoin.

2026-02-06 05:15:40 UTC

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No.

2026-02-06 04:26:23 UTC

Algos treating bitcoin like SaaS.
https://blossom.primal.net/942b76adae82e37449308ee1eb738083382e03ee62f140f34009003278f7d7aa.png
Relatively few new retail investors came in this cycle. Meanwhile, altcoins exhausted basically every possible narrative for why they should exist and are set to more persistently fade into irrelevance, with most of them not even really reaching new highs this time. Bitcoin separated from the pack for the most part, but had trouble catching a sustained bid nonetheless.
-Some institutional investors are indeed spooked by the quantum risk. That had a nonzero impact, and I have really good sources on that. But if quantum was the main catalyst for the underperformance as some like to argue, then there'd most likely be a big performance gap between bitcoin (hard to upgrade) vs more centralized altcoins (easy to upgrade) that are marketing quantum resiliency roadmaps. That's not happening, though, which largely disproves that as the main culprit.
-Most institutional investors I've looked into have little knowledge or even awareness of the spam issue, version wars, fork wars, etc.
-Biggest factor seems to just be a combo of 1) buyer exhaustion (lack of retail, lack of sovereigns, leaving basically a corporate play this cycle) and 2) weighed down by the more permanent stagnation of altcoins (which is good in the long run but a headwind here, because there is a lot of cross-ownership between them and bitcoin).

2026-02-05 15:03:46 UTC

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I’m curious- what aspect do you not like about the cover?

2026-02-04 18:18:36 UTC

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I’m not promoting complacency.
Back in 2024 I co-authored a paper on consensus changes, helping make sure people are familiar with the details, because we foresaw these types of debates heating up.
https://github.com/bitcoin-cap/bcap

2026-02-04 18:06:17 UTC

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That’s not pushing updates. That’s pulling updates.
Users decide which version of software to run and the code is public.

2026-02-04 17:57:53 UTC

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I was quite surprised at how well you handled a Sudanese female voice. That stuck out to me. :)
It’s not a literal voice, but it captures the vibe in such a way that I can easily picture her speaking those lines.

2026-02-04 16:36:50 UTC

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Fortunately bitcoin is open source, and devs can't push updates to users.

2026-02-04 15:27:48 UTC

I read the novel Blood of the Bourgeoisie by Michael Sullivan.
Given all the corruption recently revealed about powerful people, it seems like a good season for it. It's a thriller about elite corruption, and features bitcoin prominently. Anyway, here's a review.
The book is a concise and well-paced read, with three point-of-view characters. All three of them are quite fleshed out, especially given how trim the overall page count is.
The plot is well-constructed and creative. Motivations make sense, the scale is significant, and I found myself consistently wanting to know what happens next.
The audiobook version is out now, narrated by the great @nprofile…yza6. I started with the ebook version, but then listened to the audiobook version for the second half, so I experienced the book both in prose form and through listening, and both were quite enjoyable.
I like there to be themes in novels. In other words, if the answer to why Prince Niceguy defeats Darklord Asshole in the climax is because "he's better with a sword", then that's just not that interesting to me. In addition to his training, what did Prince Niceguy learn that allowed him to defeat him? The original Star Wars trilogy handled this well: Luke loses to Vader in the middle movie and beats him in the third movie, not just because he improved with a saber between the duels but because he mastered himself and his emotions, and accepted the truth of things rather than deny them.
This novel has good themes, in my view. Clashes of ideology. Tough choices. Characters who have their worldviews tested. Good, evil, and shades of gray. Can evil be purged peacefully, or does it require violence?
There's a series of flashbacks in it, which is a structure that annoys a minority of readers (because it risks breaking your immersion by jumping back and forth), but I really like that structure in novels as long as it's well done. It helps flesh out a story and makes the reader wonder how the flashbacks are going to inform or intersect with the present-day plot. In this case, I thought the flashbacks were very well done and played nicely into the plot. I predicted how the flashbacks would intersect the main story, but there are other twists that surprised me a great deal. In my view that's the ideal combo, because as a reader I'm rewarded for thinking ahead, but also blindsided at times.
To the extent that I have any critiques of the novel to flesh out a full review, they're pretty limited and contextual.
-The bitcoin component is significant, both plot-wise and dialogue-wise. If someone doesn't like bitcoin, the plot can still work for them but it'll likely detract from their overall appreciation. On the other hand if someone is very knowledgeable on bitcoin, the "bitcoin 101" parts of it may feel skim-able. That's a tough balance for an author to navigate and I can't envision how it would be handled better. I would imagine that the sweet spot as a reader here is to be interested in bitcoin but a bit skeptical or not super knowledgeable about it.
-One of the challenges an author faces (including myself) is how to make dialogue seem realistic but not too realistic. That's an unintuitive thing. If you actually transcribe most real-life conversations, they are filled with "ums" and false starts and just tons of verbal clutter which makes them super annoying to read. So an author can't actually make dialogue perfectly realistic, all the time. On the other hand, if dialogue is too polished and expositionary, it sounds artificial: "Well how do you do today, Bob? Lovely weather isn't it? Have you heard about that deceased gardener? What a shame. They found him this morning. I heard he was sleeping with the countess."
Sullivan handles the dialogue well, but there were some times I would have preferred it pushed a bit closer to the realism side of the spectrum. There is not necessarily any ideal sweet spot, though. It's all trade-offs. An author has to put necessary exposition somewhere, and it can go in the narrative or in dialogue or some blend of the two, and readers have different preferences. There was one moment where characters whispered in front of another character as though they weren't heard and I was like, "guys, he's right there in earshot, looking at you..."
I'd be happy to pick up other books by Sullivan in the future. In fact, he's got an earlier sci fi novel out called The Final Flaw. I haven't gotten to that one yet, but after reading this one, I'd like to give that a read as well.
https://blossom.primal.net/b07e145b8ab7142540cdf2c2ff325fd9db7ce52b4d37000ca69cad4d16b09420.jpg

2026-02-04 14:17:47 UTC

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Fortunately bitcoin is open source, so no, none of what's in the files affects my view of bitcoin.

2026-02-04 14:17:09 UTC

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That's true. While Trump's base wanted the files out, he himself was mixed on the issue (knowing he's in them). He was hedging from the start.
From 2024 when asked if he'd release the Epstein files: "Yeah, yeah, I would. I guess I would... I think that, less so, because you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there".

2026-02-04 14:10:16 UTC

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The administration went silent on the Epstein files because they and their friends are in it a bunch. Just as much as their enemies.
Trump's first administration and Biden's administration both sat on the files. Trump's second administration campaigned on releasing them, then tried to conceal them until Massie and others legally forced the issue.
They hope just lying about it and ignoring it enough will make it go away. That strategy worked for them for other issues in the past. But this time they've fractured part of their base away, like MJT.
It's swamp all the way down.
#nevent1q…fm4s

2026-01-31 23:08:23 UTC

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Plot twist: they were my footprints.
I hopped off the porch and went for a walk. After a few steps, the ice was so hard I just walked on top of it, not sinking in, leaving no footprints.
I didn’t realize how weird the remaining prints looked until my husband went out and was like “wtf”.

2026-01-31 19:58:44 UTC

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The footprints that just stop in the middle of nowhere.

2026-01-31 19:53:05 UTC

Husband saw this on our yard and was like, “did someone get fucking raptured?”
https://blossom.primal.net/7b83c6653cd6a44b69c7d8405f5f30dc0877e2d317ae5cc80360ee1d26207f87.jpg

2026-01-31 18:27:52 UTC

"Weapons" was a movie I hadn't even heard of, but it was good.
It's a 2025 horror/mystery movie with an ensemble cast, including Josh Brolin. From the same director of the 2022 horror film Barbarian, and of similar quality.
The premise is that at 2:17am in this random suburban town, a couple dozen kids from the same class all disappeared. They all walked outside their front doors, ran away, and were not seen again. Except one kid in the class.
As parents freak out, and the police aren't getting many leads, the story then follows multiple people to see what's going on. It's tense and dark, well-directed and and well-acted.
I have rather few criticisms of the film. They made some characters a bit more unlikable/annoying than they needed to, which made it slightly hard to get attached at first, but that wasn't insurmountable. And although the story does take into account the existence of doorbell cameras and such, I felt that at today's level of surveillance, what happened is unrealistic. And the resolution felt slightly rushed.
Overall, a surprisingly strong film in a genre that isn't particularly my favorite. Was entertained and tense throughout.
https://blossom.primal.net/0946a05577e15686f290694807d1e954960c15eeeb1b9a40679e2822151cb18b.jpg

2026-01-30 00:39:23 UTC

Trump has said that he would pick the next Fed chair tomorrow. Odds rapidly jumped for Warsh.
No matter who it is, nothing stops this train.
https://blossom.primal.net/957e6fc8815eea0a9f31e862626a06a6767e6bc4c752580ff590faa314ef62e1.jpg

2026-01-30 00:29:36 UTC

So I watched The Rip. A Miami cop movie with Affleck and Damon.
I liked the first half quite a bit. Really intense opening scene, good mystery setup, high emotional stakes, etc. Always happy to see Affleck and Damon together.
The second half lost me a bit. Some aspects seemed unrealistic enough to distract me and pull me out of it. And I felt the heavy hand of the writers/director in terms of character choices not really making sense, convenient scene changes, etc.
But, all together a solid cop movie. Glad I watched it.
So far out of this recent run of movies, Sinners is comfortably my top choice even though I had some issues in the third act.
https://blossom.primal.net/b465aeebfc8be72294a2ce91285bd6b3e4642daac18a31072242e18ed7a34175.jpg

2026-01-30 00:24:04 UTC

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That move in DXY is nothing compared to the massive move in gold and precious metals. Precious metals are up vs everything, and by a massive magnitude.
Bull market in gold vs oil, gold vs houses, gold vs stocks, gold vs bitcoin, gold vs dollars, gold vs euro, gold vs yen, etc.
DXY is back down to the same level it was at during the 1990s when gold was like $300/oz. That just compares the dollar vs other fiat currencies, and it's like a 13% move this year vs 100% for gold and nearly 300% for silver.
https://blossom.primal.net/71c187532710c74abdcd99924da9ea9a59821ee6e03ef440161762a5cf3d1026.png

2026-01-29 16:43:47 UTC

https://blossom.primal.net/e007070e14dc2f64a5ee21073511b93e8d0c36efe8983122738f46543b6130e6.jpg

2026-01-29 16:43:24 UTC

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It’s wrong when they say it for bitcoin, too.

2026-01-29 15:20:21 UTC

I see some people saying, “it’s not gold going up, it’s the dollar going down” and things like that.
That’s not really the case, and there’s a simple test to see why.
When a currency crashes, it loses value relative to everything. Other currencies, real estate, stocks, precious metals, etc. Prices of normal goods and services skyrocket.
In this bull run, precious metals gained value vs other things. Gold vs oil. Gold vs stocks. Gold vs real estate. Silver vs oil, etc.
The dollar is rangebound vs other major currencies. The supply growth of the dollar this past year was 5%. It’s gold and other precious metals that went up vs everything. Partly based on fundamentals, and now seemingly due to momentum.
Now, where there is some truth to the statement: central banks in aggregate haven’t added to their holding of treasuries in ten years. The only foreign treasury purchases have been in the private sector, and at a rate lower than total US debt growth. But central banks have been buying gold. There is indeed a gradual shift toward neutral reserve assets afoot, ever since around 2009.
But that a very long process. That source of demand didn’t single-handedly drive the huge boom in precious metals over this past year. This was like a volleyball held under water and let go, soaring back up.

2026-01-29 01:35:55 UTC

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I saw The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and disliked both.
I liked this more than those two.

2026-01-28 21:26:04 UTC

The number of people who spent the past decade complaining about the Fed's artificially low interest rates, only to turn around and constantly complain about their slowness of cutting rates lately (as if 3.75% is super high), is comical.

2026-01-28 16:30:36 UTC

The premise of the movie Bugonia is that two conspiracy theorists (led by Jesse Plemons) kidnap a pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone) because they think she's an alien.
We watched it last night, and had mixed thoughts.
-It was notably darker than I thought, which is neither good nor bad but in kind of a "dark comedy" genre it was lower on comedy and higher on darkness than I would've guessed. Scenes were more violent and tense than I had expected them to be.
-I was entertained throughout, in the sense that I enjoyed watching it and was curious how it would end, if everyone would be alright or not, comedic or tragic ending, etc.
-The acting was great all around, and particularly from Plemons. No complaints about cinematography or the score.
-I felt the writing/dialogue could be a stronger. Much of it comes down to Stone's character debating with Plemon's character, the back-and-forth that they go through, and it wasn't super riveting imo.
-I have another criticism but it's a spoiler to talk about it. In general, I feel that the narrative kind of "cheats" in a sense, where details and plot points don't necessarily line up as well as they could.
Definitely glad I watched it. Was curious about this one.
https://blossom.primal.net/f49267601b3fe923dbf9ead8d46e41ebd82fac5de1bd477552ca449e3ee4506b.jpg

2026-01-26 19:34:26 UTC

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Neither could we, but we stuck with it anyway.

2026-01-26 18:12:05 UTC

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I think No Country translated well to the screen. And Burn After Reading is filled with unlikable idiots but I think it’s hilarious.
This movie at least had the teenager I could root for, but overall, there wasn’t enough comedy or on-screen gravitas and fascination to offset the unlikability of most of the characters.

2026-01-26 18:07:44 UTC

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The car chase aspect, specifically the use of hills, was the most interesting part to me.

2026-01-26 17:37:41 UTC

As part of our currently nightly movie streak, we watched One Battle After Another.
Dicaprio, Penn, Del Toro, etc. A (very long) dark comedy-thriller about far-left terrorists and white supremacists.
Neither me nor my husband were a fan of this one at all.
-Didn't like or sympathize with almost any character (other than the teenager).
-But I also didn't find it that funny or interesting, and no character really captured a scene.
In a movie like No Country for Old Men, I didn't particularly get emotionally attached to any character either, but they're all super interesting on-screen, especially the villain. Penn plays a villain here (Colonel Lockjaw) that is both menacing and goofy, but while the writing and acting of Hans Landa in Inglorious Bastards really nails that combo, I didn't feel that way for Lockjaw. It was more jarring.
Overall acting was fine, given the quality of the actors. But no role was particularly memorable. Nothing really stood out for the cinematography or the musical score, and I didn't particularly like the writing. And several aspects seemed unrealistic in what feels like it's trying to be a fairly realistic movie.
I suspect the main issue is that on one hand, they want to capture that kind of dark-funny nihilistic vibe that several Coen brothers movies have (e.g. Fargo). But they don't quite want to fully commit to that nihilism either, and instead really do want us to emotionally attach to several of the characters here, and straddling that line didn't work for me.
https://blossom.primal.net/d89cd09ba09e3d107e3d04c9bd89925eab13598c1e0886bf47961ac4d9e72082.jpg

2026-01-17 18:45:06 UTC

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You seem confused about the purpose of my post, acting as though I disagree with you.

2026-01-17 15:37:08 UTC

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That’s the funny thing. It’s so small. Almost all the anger is about optics.
Also, I’d wager a guess that the 49k limit (which increases over time to like 70k) is probably about the realistic demand for Chinese EVs in Canada in the first place. It’s not like there’s an enormous million-person line of demand for Chinese EVs.

2026-01-17 14:54:26 UTC

Canada lowered tariffs on Chinese EVs to similar levels of a few years ago (up to a limited number, and still 6% tariffs rather than zero).
US politicians are angry about about it, despite the fact that the US literally had/has a free trade agreement with Canada involving cars and many other products.
In the US, we keep dunking on our neighbors to the north about how lefty they are, since indeed they’re a lot more lefty than us, when ironically this decision by Canada is historically a conservative position: freer competition and lower taxes, and yet that’s the one we’re most angry about.
It's an example of how quickly perceptions can shift, the Overton window can shift, political parties ran rotate policies, etc. Everything becomes about optics and tribes.
A few years ago if someone said, "So Canada used to put 100% punitive tariffs on Chinese EVs, and now they're going to lower those a lot so that Canadians can buy more affordable EVs if they wish, and China will do the same for some Canadian stuff," most people would be like, "well, good."

2026-01-16 14:30:02 UTC

You ever read a book in one sitting? I did that with the 1979 sci fi novella Electric Forest by Tanith Lee last night when going to bed. Ended up getting to sleep a bit later than intended because of it.
Anyway, here’s a review.
In a far future world where humanity exists on hundreds of planets, most people are genetically engineered to be beautiful, and not just the wealthy, but everyone. However, some rare accidents happen.
Magdala was born crippled and ugly in a beautiful world. Given up by her prostitute mother to a state-run orphanage, she was mercilessly bullied by other kids. Now in her 20s, she works a menial job, lives in a tiny apartment, and has no friends or partner. She has considered plastic surgery, but it’s too expensive, and for her full-body condition it wouldn’t be enough to fix the issues anyway. Thus, she lives in a perpetual state of loneliness and melancholy.
Then one day, a scientist shows up and says he can make her beautiful. And as a reader will expect, it certainly does come with a catch. What follows is a generally social-intrigue type of plot, where beautiful-Magdala has to do various things for her benefactor.
Overall, I’m glad I read it, but cannot really say I liked it. I’ve been meaning to read more of this era of sci fi.
The prose was quite good. The opening premise was interesting. I genuinely couldn’t really predict where the plot would go. A few individual scenes were great.
But I did not particularly like the characters, nor did I view them as making understandable choices. Of course, plenty of characters in fiction make bad choices, but when well-characterized, those bad choices are understandable, like we see the cause and effect, we know the character enough to be like, “yep, they’d do that.” I mostly didn’t feel that here.
I did not like the details/choreography of the one action scene (I mean, if you have exactly one, then do it really well), nor did I like the epilogue.
https://blossom.primal.net/afee4c64f58771114ea4e4485e9ea155163992db739dbe22543eefe31a8dd46d.jpg https://blossom.primal.net/a8353525231d790794a074d8dd8917b5767fa93b623cda9602a8083426d9a93a.jpg

2026-01-14 19:27:56 UTC

Back in 2018-2020, I wrote a lot about how the upcoming issue of fiscal dominance would contribute heavily to populist politics.
For example, 2020:
"Populist politics then become more commonplace, and while some strands of it can be quite rational based on countering prevailing policies that are rightly viewed as needing reform, there are also more dangerous or extreme strands that begin to emerge as well, particularly if those initial and more rational strands go unaddressed. Policymakers historically face the choice of doing something to alleviate the financial burdens of the broad population, or risking outright revolution."
https://www.lynalden.com/fiscal-and-monetary-policy/
During eras of fiscal dominance, the state tends to take more control of the economy, tends to restrict capital movement, and tends to limit personal freedom, whether it's a right or left government. And they drum up as much public support as possible with a narrative.
But witnessing it playing out first hand has still been a sight to behold. I could jot it all down on paper but then admittedly have still been surprised at times as it keeps playing out. And we see both left and right varieties occurring.
For folks who want to keep government pretty limited where possible, these past six years have been absolutely wild to watch in practice. So many people forget the basic principle that any power you give your current government, a future government that you don't agree with can use that power against you.
The poles of right and left keep drifting outward, and the horseshoe theory of politics is on full display as the two populist extremes are closer together than the moderates of each side are (but then ironically, some of those moderates also unite to oppose those extremes as well). So many people lose their minds and go full communist or full fascist. And then some normal things get labeled as extreme, so people who just believe in a handful of principles that were normal a few decades ago are like out in the wilderness now.
And the centralized algos certainly contribute to it. As someone who has been active on social media for a long time, 2025 really stuck out to me, at least as much as 2020 did. I see people reorienting their positions so rapidly around new things in a sort of mass groupthink, I see people retweeting so many things that support their view despite being obvious AI slop or clearly false or out of context with just a 2-minute factcheck. Some real populist momentum waves build, and then centralized algos give them rocket fuel. Both the main wave, and the reactionary wave on the other side, are fueled by the algos for maximum engagement.
When I interviewed @nprofile…zj6n at the Oslo Freedom Forum back in 2024, he focused on algos affecting not just what people can say, but what people think. And in the year and a half since then, I think that has very much played out.
There is an enormous premium these days for being able to recognize the algo's influence on you, and to continually factcheck and emotion-check yourself, take a breath and step back, touch grass, get sun, and assess what your foundational principles are.
https://blossom.primal.net/dd901c4be2394ca6a374689c98ff2460c04e6b1ca1e5385de8cb52308a93b7cb.png
https://blossom.primal.net/8d1518397db28f510a41b728c32f245dc4411651a258fd06f0b9c7a84fc7f3f5.jpg

2026-01-13 19:44:39 UTC

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I think fiction can build understanding on certain topics in a way that nonfiction struggles with. It’s the closest approximation of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.
Additionally, it can entertain us while we get something from it, making us consume more of it.
Fantasy and sci fi can also explore certain ethical dilemmas or concepts with our real-world biases removed. Topics related to politics, religion, etc can be explored more easily in fictional versions than the real ones people are already used to or have opinions about.

2026-01-13 17:30:34 UTC

You know what would be neat? Going back and reading some of George RR Martin's pre-Game of Thrones books.
Anyway, I finished the sci fi novel Windhaven during lunch today, so here's a review.
Martin co-wrote Windhaven with Lisa Tuttle in the 1970s. It was a series of three novellas, which where combined into a completed novel in 1981.
It's a story about a woman, Maris, who is a flyer. The gravity on this world is lower, and the atmosphere thicker, and the world consists of islands separated by dangerous seas. This combo allows people to fly with specialized wings, and it's the best way to send messages, although there are limited numbers of wings (without the tech to make any more) and so flyers are in a special caste.
The initial story follows Maris as she tries to change some of the caste dynamics. Specifically, wings are passed down through bloodlines regardless of skill or desire, whereas some argue that those with greater skill and desire should get the wings instead (especially because, whenever flyer crashes at sea, the wings are lost forever, and so bad flyer skill affects the whole world over time). Maris, as one might imagine, is highly skilled but lacks the bloodline, hence the problem.
Without spoilers, the book then jumps forward in time, and looks at various ethical dilemmas. Sometimes changing one aspect of society for the better, introduces new problems people didn't expect. And then solving those problems can create other problems, and so forth. It's a really interesting set of socioeconomic dynamics to explore.
There's no combat or on-page violence in the book (very little off-page as well), and the rating for the book is middling (basically anyone expecting Martin's Grimdark Game of Thrones type of stuff will be disappointed). But I think it was a very unique and quality novel that stands out vs many others I've read. It's more like, political intrigue across this island world, and the evolution of various personal relationships.
My criticisms of the book are mainly around dialogue. Martin and Tuttle were early in their careers when this was written, and it's not as well written as later stuff. Characters, despite holding different positions on a given topic, generally all speak with the same matter-of-fact voice to each other. Higher-caliber writing tends to make character voice jump out of the page more.
In contrast, a book like The Lies of Locke Lamora is pretty far on the other end of the spectrum, with character voice that just punches you in the face from the start. Most books are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and I felt this was too far in the robotic/sameness end of it.
The reason I found it is because Bookborn, a reviewer on YouTube, decided to read through Martin's entire backlog and said this was her favorite one, and arguably in her top five books of all time.
While I wouldn't rank it like that personally, I definitely found it interesting, especially the second two thirds, and was curious to see the evolution of Martin's work over his career. There was also one particular sad thing in it that (the Ballad of Aron and Jeni) that made me tear up for a moment, and I was thinking about it for a while afterward.
https://blossom.primal.net/e716bd63bc285f7273c7a656bbae5df05491468573f54f54d84cae2b24f71bf6.jpg

2026-01-12 01:17:26 UTC

The DOJ served the Fed with a subpoena and threatened Powell with a criminal indictment related to the Fed's expensive renovations.
Powell, rather than releasing the minimal version of a statement that merely disagreed with the accusation, instead released a statement and video that pretty much went scorched earth, saying this isn't really about the renovations and is instead about the Fed's independent control of interest rates.
Historically speaking, this is the biggest direct clash between the Fed and the Executive Branch since the 1940s/1950s.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20260111a.htm

2026-01-11 01:48:26 UTC

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The printing press and moderately high literacy rates are basically the threshold for that.

2026-01-10 19:02:19 UTC

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imo, one of the only things more valuable than time, is principles.

2026-01-10 18:03:34 UTC

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https://blossom.primal.net/79d9c3fcb59fb930cc9710a7cdbacada83731e3e0d539c61a9a9b0b868724b9f.jpg

2026-01-10 17:40:45 UTC

Rather than choosing their tribe based on shared principles, most people just reprogram their principles around whatever their tribe is doing.

2026-01-10 01:13:04 UTC

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Course not.

2026-01-10 00:03:24 UTC

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This guy had thousands.

2026-01-09 22:56:30 UTC

Just rode with an uber driver who has a perfect 5.00 rating. Don’t think I’ve seen that before. It’s almost always 4.9 something.
It was an older gentleman wearing a three piece suit, driving a Corolla. Super friendly.
Basically the final boss of uber drivers.

2026-01-08 00:42:15 UTC

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Quite solid.
Not my normal fare, but when I travel I tend to let loose.

2026-01-08 00:39:04 UTC

I had to fly down south to help a relative with a health issue.
I’m at a Cracker Barrel for the first time, since it’s adjacent to my hotel. The 50-something waitress is calling me “baby girl” when asking if I need anything.
I texted my husband like, “there are apparently two people in the world comfortable enough to call me ‘baby girl’, you and this waitress.”
Southern hospitality tends to stand out for those that are not familiar with it. A couple years ago, my husband and I went down to South Carolina for a wedding, stayed at a random hotel, and in the parking lot as we walked up to it, a random couple that was leaving the hotel said “how y’all doin?” In the warmest possible tone. Up north, that kind of thing is rare. We just pass each other in parking lots. That’s our way. So we were like, “uh, good…” ::awkward smile::

2026-01-08 00:27:56 UTC

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XD
#nevent1q…p7sh

2026-01-07 21:46:57 UTC

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While not to this degree, my inlaw family in Egypt lived like this for a while and we are trying to keep the trend alive.
One side of the family built an apartment building, with a different unit for each family, and a garden on the roof. The other side lived in separate apartments, but they get together 5x to 10x per year.
#nevent1q…939x

2026-01-07 21:28:48 UTC

The USDA’s new food pyramid is pretty lit.
https://blossom.primal.net/96145f641dc0486a856e7867f0f301dcde3bceb2329e6d3e05fde94dbea66957.jpg

2025-12-31 23:02:42 UTC

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lol

2025-12-30 16:00:11 UTC

The ratio of AI slop posts across Twitter now is pretty wild.

2025-12-30 01:02:04 UTC

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Gay people exist in real life, and having some gay characters in fiction is normal.
The issue is bad writing, forced themes, etc. Even many gay people would watch that particular Stranger Things scene and be like “uh… this is bad”.

2025-12-30 00:37:29 UTC

The mega-flop episode in this last season of Stranger Things gave me a new marketing pitch for my upcoming sci fi novel:
https://blossom.primal.net/8200e82326fa882b1299b6c57ed65d01b3427a216c9ecaa262d451a37ea4c386.png

2025-12-29 19:38:25 UTC

You know what would be crazy? Just deciding to skip punctuation.
Cormac McCarthy, the bestselling and Pulitzer-winning author of books like No Country For Old Men, The Road, and Blood Meridian, famously didn't like quotation marks, felt they cluttered the page, and so he didn't use them.
When dialogue happens in his novels, there are no quotes around it, and you as the reader just have to figure out when a line is narration or dialogue. He also didn't use semicolons or exclamation points or certain other forms of punctuation. While he didn't exclude commas entirely, he did minimize them, and instead used extra "ands" in place of where many other authors would use commas. He used periods normally.
His prose isn't my cup of tea, but there's no denying his success, and it goes to show that you can kind of just do things.
https://blossom.primal.net/a3c2dff2e8680c831ab6df0244f23411acbe037e2e2e5040a739ca64ffce5d25.png

2025-12-27 20:17:12 UTC

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Yeah.

2025-12-27 20:08:33 UTC

In the first Expanse book, Leviathan Wakes, there is a scene where a detective is looking through space port logs.
There’s one ship called The Badass Motherfucker. It’s owned by the MYOFB Corporation (presumably, “Mind Your Own Fucking Business”).
They don’t elaborate. The detective passes over it and eventually finds the ship he is after. This particular ship and corp never comes up again.
I feel like we need a spinoff covering whatever the hell these guys are up to, lol.
https://blossom.primal.net/11f25caf28b9e0b2e00d261c3234cd55407aa451383b18b79d56fbd5811f5bd7.jpg

2025-12-24 17:27:43 UTC

I for one am grateful for the work of those who seek ways to make Bitcoin quantum-secure.
I remember back in my freshman year of college, which would've been nearly twenty years ago now, hearing about quantum computers and thinking we might have them in a decade.
When I first bought bitcoin, it was with the notion in mind that maybe one day quantum computers at scale would exist, that one day the Bitcoin network might have to upgrade for it, as it has updated in the past for other things. Bitcoin is resilient against many risks, but I've generally thought that to be one worth watching.
I think some of the recent concerns about quantum are overdone. Bitcoin goes through seasons, and this is clearly quantum season. But it is true that some institutions and potential large buyers are worrying about bitcoin's quantum resistance, and thus its price can be impacted even if the software is not. This can pass, in time. And those who develop potential mitigation paths, that help figure out what the most efficient and resilient upgrades would be if they are needed, are doing good work on that front.
Much like how some people are understandably spooked by just the risk of quantum (i.e. even if you believe there's a ~5% chance of it happening in some investable time horizon, that factors into your expected value analysis), others are understandably relieved by knowing that people are working on it and that mitigation paths do exist. And I'm glad they're doing that.

2025-12-23 22:35:15 UTC

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I wrote multiple times a year ago that privacy would continue to be suppressed regardless of administration.
It is.

2025-12-23 22:32:53 UTC

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One of my most popular posts here was when I simply reminded people that our politicians are retarded.
This was when Trump was surging in the polls last year. I talked about why both him and Biden were retarded, not just Biden. This was at a time when many people needed hope that one side might be smart, that maybe Trump wasn’t retarded as his literally senile competitor was. As if they forgot the 2027-2021 run.
Now, here in December 2025, with a repeated failure to release the full Epstein files, and he himself implicated in many of them, and MAGA turning against him, are you surprised?
Everyone knew he was a bad person. People just argued for why a bad person was needed, or why his bad values wouldn’t interfere with his policies.
But yeah, bad people rule things badly.
Nothing stops this train.
#nevent1q…kn89

2025-12-23 20:57:41 UTC

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Well, having read this, for the fun of it I just retweeted it to my 800k followers too.

2025-12-23 14:39:38 UTC

I've been slumping on my fitness this past month.
It got cold, so I stopped my daily biking. Then I got sick, so I wasn't hitting my basement gym either. Then even when I recovered I just wasn't doing it. Best I was doing was walking outside to get some sun and fresh air.
Yesterday I got back in. Stretches, push-ups, squats, bag-punching, deadlifts, dumbbell routines, and a few treadmill sprints. I'm super sore today, and my cardio is shit at the moment, but it feels great.
If you've been slumping a bit this winter, I'm right there with you! Use today as a catalyst to get back in. You'll be glad you did.

2025-12-22 17:26:35 UTC

Imagine if you won the lottery, but were in another state, and now had to get back to that state with the lottery ticket. If you were to somehow lose the ticket, you’d lose it all. Like carrying a single private key to a few thousand bitcoin in your pocket or something.
Anyway, here’s a review of Night Moves by Jared Dillian. It’s a collection of 16 short stories about situations like that, and although they are drastically different from each other, I’d say the overall theme is “dark comedy slice-of-life”. Most are about some variation of death, addiction, sex, temptation, or compulsion.
I’m primarily familiar with Dillian’s financial work- he’s a former Wall Street trader and a current financial newsletter writer. He’s also a DJ and fiction writer, which is the side of his work I’m less familiar with, until now.
I usually read full novels rather than collections of short stories. And the majority of the novels I read tend to be fantasy or sci fi; basically stories about the past or the future. This one consists of short stories that are mostly set near the present day.
The characters in the stories range from grungy teenagers to aging dentists, from up-and-coming weather forecasters to divorced ladies, from working professionals to homeless alcoholics, and everything in between.
More than half could be classified as tragedies in the sense that you’re basically reading a slow-motion trainwreck happening. But tragedy is not the theme of the collection per se; some of them are quite constructive and happy. Others are kind of neutral and comical. And that keeps you guessing as you read- any given story might end happily or sadly, or somewhere in between.
I found the writing to be clear and smooth, and was always happy to get to another story. I’d spend 10 minutes reading one between periods of work or exercise or something, as a mental reset. My mind would get to enter this other character’s weird life for a moment to see what problem or situation they’re dealing with.
If I have to critique what was otherwise a great read, I’d say some of the stories ended rather abruptly or anti-climactically. In those cases I’d find myself wanting a few more pages of resolution. But that seems quite intentional, and basically the best critique an author could receive is that the reader wanted a bit more of what they were reading. If I were reading a 300+ page book that ended anti-climatically I’d be annoyed, but weird slice-of-life short stories ending anti-climactically is indeed like real life, and feels like the correct writing choice in these cases.
Since this one was quite enjoyable, I’ll look to pick up one of his essay collections such as “Those Bastards” or “Rule 62” at some point.
https://blossom.primal.net/4fd6d55edf3971a70057145a5e7ba047262721873a6bf39c4321ea0dfa5685ba.jpg

2025-12-20 20:23:36 UTC

Good morning.
I’m bullish on Lightning, meanwhile quantum computing won’t matter here in the 2020s.

2025-12-18 20:53:14 UTC

Just saw someone wearing a mask while driving alone in their car.
In the year of our lord 2025.

2025-12-11 00:38:31 UTC

https://blossom.primal.net/eb22b3b7aef1c21d415a73bbc8c20fe5463b09eb9f64efd470821f3ccaa46f87.jpg

2025-12-10 23:00:45 UTC

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Foxes shouldn’t wear socks.

2025-12-10 22:45:13 UTC

Here's the "No BS" macro news for today.
-The Fed projected, back in early 2024, that they would likely end balance sheet reduction around this time and transition toward gradually increasing their balance sheet in line with nominal GDP (so that banks' fractional reserve lending remains unaffected with current regulations).
-It got pulled forward slightly, perhaps two or three months, by the government shutdown overfilling the Treasury cash account (i.e. sucking cash out of the broader financial system).
-The Fed previously announced they would stop reducing their balance sheet. Today they said they would start gradually increasing it. Powell said the baseline is $20-$25 billion per month, but due to current liquidity shortages and April tax day (which drains liquidity), they plan to increase it by $40 billion per month through April (which afterward in May, conveniently, is when Powell will be replaced as chairman with a presumably more dovish chairman).
-They're focusing on printing money to buy short-term duration Treasuries, not long-term. This is for the financial system, not economic stimulus per se, and so they won't be calling it QE.
-The Fed will now be structurally expanding their balance sheet while inflation is above their own target.
-This is a gradual print scenario. It's bullish for liquidity and liquidity-correlated assets, in general. It's not explosively bullish, but it does lean dovish.
-Nothing stops this train.
https://blossom.primal.net/d415c82270a843cbf1350b96d0c72dc30c3f42d38ade9641c51da29f61256d80.png
https://blossom.primal.net/d3ea177cb78ebb015fcb99c72c29c2db87e94e5bf8aebfe226fee2b86196aa7b.png

2025-12-09 01:18:25 UTC

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The treasury buybacks are a liquidity management tool, because the amount of debt outstanding has outpaced trading volumes of that debt. It improves the liquidity of off-the-run securities.
They are a net issuer, not a net buy-backer. The buybacks are a sign of fiscal dominance but not something I put much macro weight on.

2025-12-09 00:56:45 UTC

There's an annual contest for indie-published fantasy books called SPFBO, and it's been running for ten years now. When looking for indie novels to read, that's not a bad list to start from.
Anyway, here's a review of "The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids", which was the first winner of that contest.
It's the first in a five-book series that focuses on a thief named Amra Thetys. Amra is kind of your typical anti-hero thief; she grew up in a rough spot and does some bad stuff but basically has a heart of gold. At about 200 pages, the book is a short read, but I guess the series as a whole is like one 1,000+ page book.
I liked the first half quite a bit. It's fast-paced and gets right into the story. The prose is solid enough. Amra quickly gets pulled by her friend into some criminal mess, with some dark omens sent her way, and we go from there.
In particular, a bloodwitch came up to her on the street once she got pulled into the mess, and said:
"I See blood, and gold," she said, her voice gone all hollow. "I Hear a mournful howl. Fire and Death are on your trail, girl, and behind them the Eightfold Bitch makes her way to your door. One of Her Blades has noticed you. But will it find your hand, or your heart? Unclear, uncertain..."
Amra was freaked out, because bloodwitches can turn your blood to rust and see the future. So I was like, "alright, you've got my attention."
But the second half was somewhat disappointing. Things were just kind of happening, there was a rapidly expanding character list, magic kind of just did whatever it needed to, and I wasn't very emotionally attached to anyone. The ending was okay, but it primarily set up the rest of the series.
I probably won't pick up the second book in the series anytime soon, though from the ratings and how this one went, I could imagine the five of them all being a fun enough read.
https://blossom.primal.net/061438125b22e5b4ad63d9e26f0c774e05e095d252b8ae3417d7f42c8099b769.jpg

2025-12-07 23:27:25 UTC

Mt Everest had its first documented climb in 1953.
The first person went to space in 1961.
It's kind of crazy to think about how "new" mankind's spread over the world is. My father was already a teenager the first time someone climbed Everest, and in his twenties by the time someone went to space.
If we start the "modern era" as roughly coinciding with the telecommunications age (ie the dawn of the cross-continental telegraph in the1860s), it's less than two consecutive human lifetimes old.
Everything is new.

2025-12-07 22:18:47 UTC

Whenever we go to the local Italian restaurant, the waitress asks if we want dessert or coffee afterward.
I know it's a common thing, but for the life of me I don't know why anyone would want coffee after a big meal at night.

2025-12-04 15:32:09 UTC

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I hardly watched any, but it would be Bladerunner 2049.

2025-12-04 15:30:58 UTC

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This is my model portfolio for mass audiences, many of which would otherwise have zero.
It’s not my recommended allocation for people who have studied bitcoin extensively.

2025-12-03 22:03:21 UTC

My December public macro newsletter has been published.
You can check it out here:
https://www.lynalden.com/december-2025-newsletter/
https://blossom.primal.net/ff59f664b4b8365696eec9ba22c72040f795066036ea23fda3c5f20477bba5e5.png

2025-12-03 17:38:08 UTC

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Haven't read her first novel yet. Unlike Piranesis which is short, her first novel is very long and I've not had the energy to read it compared to other things on my list.

2025-12-03 17:09:58 UTC

What if the world as you knew it consisted of infinite rooms and staircases, each partially flooded and filled with strange statues, and it only had two living people in it? That would be nuts right?
Anyway, I read Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke, and that’s the world in which the titular character finds himself.
Notably, Clarke has only written two novels in her career, they were 16 years apart (“Jonathan Srange and Mr Norrell” in 2004 and “Piranesi” in 2020), and both were award-winning massive bestsellers, beloved by critics and readers alike.
Piranesi lives in a realm of infinite rooms and staircases, inhabited by birds and fish and shined on by the sun and moon and stars, and in which seawaters routinely rise and fall. He has a rather meager existence as he lives off fish and seaweed and catalogues the various rooms, and he is grateful that the world is generous enough to provide for him. For the most part he’s the only person around, except occasionally he runs into one more guy he calls “The Other.” He also knows of 15 human skeletons that he has names for.
Clarke did plenty of historical research and makes a lot of allusions in the work. It’s rather literary, and the whole thing is quite a surrealist artsy story and it’s much loved by people who enjoy sophisticated things.
I am, perhaps, not very sophisticated.
To me this felt like the kind of book I’d be assigned to read in high school. It was rather dry and boring to my unsophisticated palate, though short enough to breeze through in several sittings. I predicted most of the mystery in advance, and as things happened I’d be like, “alright.” When something occasionally did surprise me, it was always mildly to the downside. Like someone tells you lunch will be a mystery, and then come lunchtime it’s revealed to be a sandwich.
I know a lot of people who rave about this book, so it’s been on my to-read list for a while, and now I have that good feeling of finished homework. When people talk about Piranesi I can be like, “Ah, yes, Piranesi. Fine literature, that is.”
https://blossom.primal.net/7ed7552111f45b4687be2b06f215990021307da7b6781231629e91f4aab8ddc7.jpg

2025-12-03 15:48:29 UTC

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Cyborg sent me a copy of her comic.
With her diamond hands, she fights the money printer. On the front of the cover is a QR code that goes to her Nostr profile. She has of course posted this to her 200k+ followers on X as well.
For those who are not familiar, Cyborg has won championships across five organizations including UFC, and she has been active on Nostr for years now.
Hands down the coolest npub here. Give her some zaps and follows!
https://blossom.primal.net/65a39cce2bd36181525a804024d871dccd3b01c7c9b1bc20bef578bad8feea85.jpg
#nevent1q…lvtr

2025-12-03 03:45:20 UTC

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You know what show ended right when it should have?
Breaking Bad, of course.
#nevent1q…3xzh

2025-12-03 03:44:26 UTC

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Yeah that concise format impressed me as a teen. I’ve liked it ever since.

2025-12-02 22:48:13 UTC

Too many shows and book series go on for too long. Rather than end at an ideal spot to maximize the art/story of it all, they keep going until the creators get bored or the money isn't flowing anymore.

2025-12-02 22:40:42 UTC

Finally getting a moment to start watching The Boys season 4.
Watched up to season 3 a while back, which is where it was up to at the time. Anyone else watch it?
https://blossom.primal.net/c1c0fe150948499d6d78b607c2cf2ffb92957c1f3e2af7687c2180872c9a1899.jpg

2025-11-29 02:29:42 UTC

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To be fair there are some hipsters in that part of the Venn diagram.

2025-11-27 21:50:14 UTC

Moorish Spain was the period from the 8th to 15th centuries when Muslims ruled the Iberian peninsula.
Anyway, here's a book review of The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I've had time to finish on this fine Thanksgiving day. It's historical fiction written back in 1995 about the final years of Moorish Spain.
Guy Gavriel Kay is known for writing stories that are mostly historical fiction, but with a small touch of fantasy. In this story, Al-Rassan refers to the southern part of Spain/Portugal controlled by Muslim city-states, while three Christian kings rule their mini-kingdoms in northern Spain/Portugal. In this book, Muslims are called Asharites and identify with the stars, Christians are called Jaddites and identify with the sun, and Jews are called Kindath and identify with the twin moons over this world (which is a touch of the aforementioned fantasy element).
Ultimately, it's a story about love and friendship across cultural boundaries, but duty that sometimes has to separate them.
The three main characters are Ammar (an Asharite poet-swordsman), Rodrigo (a Jaddite noble knight-leader), and Jehane (a Kindath physician), and it spans a few years as the Jaddites and Asharites grow increasingly hostile toward each other. The story is probably best summed up when Ammar laments that the concerning way things are headed, it's likely not going to be his poetry that he's remembered for.
It's not as simple as two sides of a war, though. The Asharite city-states of Al-Rassan are rather secular, as are the Jaddite mini-kingdoms in the north. But the Jaddite clergy seeks to push those secular Jaddite kings to have a holy war and retake the peninsula, and the Asharite warlords back across the strait seek to push those secular Asharite kings to reclaim their peak of power of the peninsula as well. So there are basically four powerful factions in conflict, along with the Kindath as the fifth minor element.
The word "Lions" in the The Lions of Al-Rassan refers to men without equal. Ammar and Rodrigo both represent basically the pinnacle of their sides, and it's a story about what happens as those two "Lions" meet in the waning days of Al-Rassan.
I mostly enjoyed the plot, as well as the main three characters. Guy Gavriel Kay is kind of an "author's author", meaning that several authors consider him one of the top authors out there, but his books only have moderate popularity compared to the top bestsellers. Kay also helped Tolkien's son edit The Silmarillion back in the 1970s after Tolkien's death.
Although Kay is praised for his prose, it's not my favorite. I prefer more concise, straightforward prose, whereas this is somewhat poetic in nature. To me there's a slight distracting element when prose is written like that. The author Brandon Sanderson has used the analogy of clear glass vs stained glass when it comes to prose style. Sanderson's prose is "clear glass" meaning you read for the story, not the prose. Kay's prose is "stained glass" meaning that you read partially for the prose itself, with the trade-off that it's harder to see the story/characters as perfectly clearly through it. And then of course there are many subtypes. Kay's prose just doesn't vibe with me well.
I think it's a great book, with strong themes and intricate politics and a broad cast of fascinating characters. Some will quite enjoy the prose, but it made me slightly detached from the characters as I read it.
https://blossom.primal.net/7db4d6b42d4435a97487d5429a68b21bad0ef66e3875fb7b0ba73e1ec5c7881f.jpg

2025-11-23 19:21:22 UTC

Receiving zaps from users is a way better incentive model than paying out a share of advertising revenue to posters based on engagement.
Zaps tend to reward quality and sincerity. Giving an advertising share in proportion to engagement rewards slop and rage.
https://blossom.primal.net/172f8dc4f730e1b1e9a173c49b652a9c60f11943ed98d3a4ca2f3109e007ea07.png

2025-11-23 17:48:11 UTC

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Has that been confirmed as non-altered?
Many people have posted fake/parody ones, and now that one says the U.S.

2025-11-23 17:44:20 UTC

I find Bladerunner 2049 frustrating, because I *almost* love it.
The characters, themes, acting, and the overall plot structure are great, imo.
However, villains give melodramatic exposition monologues, villains leave heroes alive for no reason other than the plot needs them to, important things are left thinly guarded for no reason other than the plot needs the heroes or villains to easily get at them, etc. In other words, there are distracting writing/execution issues in what could otherwise be a masterpiece.
The first time I watched it, I didn't love it. It did stick with me though; I think about it sometimes, for years afterward. And watching it a second time I appreciated it more, but still was frustrated by the same things.
What does everyone else feel about it?
https://blossom.primal.net/9ebe083032f03d51762fbdc6458a40969fc68e8f7d582ffe036ca1afcaabfb91.jpg

2025-11-22 17:12:18 UTC

It was around autumn 2012 that Japan ramped up its central bank balance sheet dramatically.
Notably, that's also when their GDP peaked in dollar terms, and their stock market had its generational bottom.
Japan serves as an example that what's going on economically can be very different than the stock market.
https://blossom.primal.net/0aa986314f775b83038a4d24ea5232fe734e5c8c0e400f5f019b91411075be89.png
https://blossom.primal.net/f07d166b793f408093a086bb02e0360b92fc298f678d635813431774f0420d72.png

2025-11-22 15:47:40 UTC

What's going on in Sudan gets an order of magnitude less coverage than what's going on in other military hot spots of the world, despite being of similar magnitude.
Perhaps I tend to think of it a lot because Sudan borders Egypt to the south. So it's geographically in my mind more tangibly.
People can only get emotionally engaged about a handful of things. The world is too big and noisy for us to care about everything. That way lies madness. But it's still interesting which things do reach us, and rile us up.
When violence gets covered heavily in the media, it's often said that it's about the numbers, the humanity of it. But in reality, conflicts at the intersection between major religions, major military powers, or where there is a lot of oil, are what get most of the coverage. If violence happens to people outside of that scope, it's often drowned out and ignored.
Social media and algorithms are powerful. In a situation where it might be reasonable to care about something 2x or 3x as much as another thing due to geopolitical implications and such, social media can put it in front of you 200x or 300x as frequently, and thus make you care or think about it 200x or 300x more.
The issue is fractal, and so it happens the same at smaller scales. In any given industry or community, there are certain topics that get an order of magnitude more coverage and discussion than a dozen other things of similar scale or importance. And then people get sucked into an echo chamber where they think the 3-5x things that are frequently in front of them, and that their mind is mostly focused on, are indeed the 3-5x most important things when in reality it's mostly the algorithm reinforcing itself, and reinforcing that aspect of human nature that moves in groups.
Being able to sculpt your own algorithm is important, but equally it helps to be aware of the algorithm's influence in the first place. When you hear about something a ton, ask why. When you don't hear about something big very often, also ask why.
___
"Sudan plunged into a civil war in April 2023 after a vicious struggle for power broke out between its army and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
It has led to a famine and claims of a genocide in the western Darfur region - with fears for the residents of city of el-Fasher after it was recently captured by the RSF.
More than 150,000 people have died in the conflict across the country, and about 12 million have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world's largest humanitarian crisis."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjel2nn22z9o

2025-11-21 05:37:49 UTC

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lol
#nevent1q…ezy9

2025-11-19 19:03:51 UTC

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I'm using Thorn (who does talk to institutions, and most institutions are shitcoiners) as one example. But then I also pointed out that I talk to those institutional allocators to, and I'm hearing it directly from them- they're worried about quantum and macro, not Core/Knots. Many don't even know about Core/Knots.
Feel free to fork consensus. My argument has been that filters won't stop non-monetary transactions from getting into the blockchain if they meet consensus, and indeed they have not, which is why people are still talking about it and are now talking about potential forks.

2025-11-19 18:58:00 UTC

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This is base liquidity, not broad liquidity. Broad liquidity is still pretty good, but AI stocks and gold have been the biggest beneficiaries this year rather than bitcoin.
A lot of people bought bitcoin last year due to expectations about a sovereign bitcoin reserve and things like that, and those sorts of expectations are being washed out.

2025-11-19 16:23:20 UTC

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Same thing happens in macro. Doomers will be like “all this debt is going to implode and be deflationary” and then the central bank and fiscal authorities respond and print money. Deflation gone, enter inflation.
And then other doomers always expect hyperinflation around the corner, even though policymakers do respond to currency weakness as well. It’s not to say it can never happen, but it’s never on the timeline they think.
Risks need to be monitored, but most systems do have responsive control loops in them that mitigate risks more than doomers think.