I think tabletop roleplaying games (e.g. D&D, Pathfinder, etc) are great, and it has been nice to see them gain some popularity over the past decade.

I've been emphasizing them as a hobby over the past couple years for a few reasons.

-All of my work is quantitative, so for hobbies I like totally different things. Fantasy, basically. Spreadsheets during the day, slaying evil clerics at night.

-I sit at a computer much of the day. I've been minimizing computer gaming over the past five years because I don't want my hobbies to also be at a computer. Outside hobbies are ideal, but for inside hobbies at least I don't want to be close to a screen or to have constant pressure on my wrist/shoulder from using a mouse.

-They are mathematically-involved strategy games in combat, combined with character decision-making outside of combat. Rather than read a fantasy novel, a player can participate in one. Active participation rather than passive consumption.

Active, strategic, whimsical, and social.

Last lunch in Madeira

I really hate flying. Not the flying part per se, but just the logistics to the airport, time in the airport, time in the plane, logistics to the hotel, etc. I feel less healthy by the time I arrive.

Major props to people who fly to Madeira all the way from like Australia and New Zealand.

The past two years of bitcoin conferences I have been at have been bear market conferences.

And funnily, the energy was still really high at all of them. Pacific Bitcoin in 2022 occurred literally during the FTX dump to $16k and we were having an amazing time regardless.

Bitcoin Atlantis in Madeira has been the closest thing to a conference in a bull market for a while.

My single favorite thing at conferences is meeting people from so many countries. Within one example hour I met a woman from Saudi Arabia, a whole group from Bulgaria, someone from Bolivia, someone from Columbia, someone from Spain, and someone from South Africa. A woman from Malaysia really stuck out too and it was a great conversation.

There is no other asset that brings out so much hope and unity from people with such different backgrounds and experiences.

Open source global money. 🫂

It’s great meeting so many people on Nostr here in person at Bitcoin Atlantis!

Haven’t had time to post on social media much this week but wanted to give everyone a shoutout!

The mid-season climax of my husband's Dungeons and Dragons campaign is tonight.

There’s been all sorts of political intrigue and missions to gather evidence and build coalitions but now we gotta just outright storm the palace and defeat the evil cleric who had the prior Sultan assassinated and usurped the throne.

Wish me luck. -_-'

One of the most important things I did throughout the first decade and a half of my career was say "yes" to almost everything. I always erred on the side of leaning in, doing more, expanding the number of things I'm doing, etc. It created a stressful flood of over-work, but it also expanded my connections and capabilities dramatically and was worth it.

But it's also important to know when things are filled up. When too much expansion turns into lack of focus. When quantity gets in the way of quality. Eventually the number of requests became too much, so I started having to say "no" more. My default was always yes, so it took time to learn how to say no.

Going forward, I plan to get better at saying no, and to rein in my focus toward a smaller set of things. I'll still be doing quite a lot, but sometimes the stillness between actions is just as important as the actions themselves. It makes those actions more deliberate and impactful when they occur. Quality over quantity. Focus over expansion.

What’s a better term for the MSNBC/Fox/NYT/whatever companies: “corporate media” or “legacy media”?

A decade ago I was in my car at a stoplight, and there was a bunch of seagulls eating a discarded bag of fast food in the intersection.

When the light turned green, the car in front of me went slowly to give the seagulls a chance to fly away, but they didn't. Instead, the car's tire just slowly ran over a whole pile of seagulls, who just kept going after the fast food as they were run over. I just watched horrified as this played out.

Every once in a while, I just wonder why the seagulls never got out of the way despite how slow the threat was.

Anyway, looking at the bond market reminded me of this again today.

If some unlucky person bought bitcoin right at the very top of the cycle in 2021, they're now down less than if they had bought US Treasuries at that moment instead.

That's how awful bonds have been.

Once per season I tend to proactively shake off some followers to avoid audience capture.

This season it is Putin simps.

People ask me for my financial strategy and I'm like:

-I'm so bearish that I'm bullish. Short fiat, long real assets, permanently.

-But be aware of counter-rallies, valuation, and sentiment. Don't get over-leveraged and rekt.

-I'm risk adverse and have a dozen people that depend on me financially in two different countries, and thus I mitigate the possibility of financial disruption via diversification up to a point.

Don’t bet against bitcoiners: nostr:note1ffptc4plrsynweylaas9vpnwwxhc4y3pm82h3c7dr2rp7wn9uv3sjr3naw

One thing I really like about technology is that in the long arc of time it isn't politicized. It just *is*.

In the emergent stage it's often politicized. But then eventually it just wins.

Electricity was a topic of political opinions until it wasn't. Same for cars. Same for Bitcoin. Same for everything that changes things in a big way.

Politics are powerful, but they are local and temporary. Technology is global and permanent. It either works and spreads, or it doesn't and fades.

Because it’s actually decentralized. nostr:note16mjm5elhnw73ywwlt4j5fnrmewyc3an8f3r4rdvml366m7ppmaesvrarq9

Many libertarians are closet conservatives. They pretend to be socially and fiscally open, but in practice they aggressively simp for social conservative dictators when given the chance. Their entire vibe changes and becomes more obviously conservative sometimes after lost elections.

That's a reason why they have limited support to begin with; a lot of people that might otherwise support their views kind of sense this vibe ahead of time and then it indeed plays out in practice.