Author: Julie

Categories
Preparedness

Day 1578 and Dark Start

On April 16 Spain hit its first weekday of 100% renewable power on the national grid. Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica was celebrated for this milestone. Today Spain and Portugal went dark as the grid collapsed after a massive dip in demand.

“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” Sánchez said, before detailing that at 12:33 p.m. on Monday Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent of 60% of its national demand, in a matter of five seconds. Via AP Newswire

Via Andi Alb

As was lucky enough to finally meet Lynne Kiesling in person at Renegade Futurisms last week energy grid security and market coordination was top of my mind as I learned of the disaster in Spain

Lynne is an economist who studies transactive energy models. She is a fantastic Twitter mutual for any scholar of market dynamics so naturally she was the first person I thought to ask about untangling what may have happened.

She points out that oscillations are an issue in all power systems which means it will take some analysis to tease apart the combination of atmospheric conditions, system inertia and other factors which caused so much demand to drop off at such speed.

If you are interested in a perspective of a white hat hacker of power grids on the problem of synchronization this thread is worth a read.

A drop caused automatic failsafes to kick in and disconnect things. It takes so long to restart after these failsafe crashes because we haven’t engineered it to be easy to restart the grid aka a “black start” as power plants require power from the grid to operate themselves.

But it’s alas not really much of a question that grids need reworking for managing our energy mix. I found this tweet to be both humorous and helpful in understanding why.

Me: What if the renewables underperform more than modeled, and spare capacity can’t keep up?

Founder: You have emergency load shedding.

What’s that?

Cascading blackouts.

AGM on Twitter

Cascading blackouts may be the better outcome. What Spain experienced today was what happens after the fail safe of cascading blackouts occur.

Javier Blas has an excellent opinion piece in Bloomberg about the need for electricity realism as our future demands we overcome the culture wars of the last decades of energy transition.

It’s clear electricity security issues are on the rise. On March 20th Heathrow Airport was shutdown after a single transformer at an old substation caught fire. That looks minor in comparison to an entire country going dark. Imagine what could happen as we head into summer and experience the grid pressure of a hot summer day.

Categories
Travel

Day 1577 and Losing My Shit

I had an incredible long weekend in Boulder as a speaker at CU’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization’s conference Renegade Futurism. It was an exceptional group of people and I felt privileged to learn from them.

Alas the universe must have needed to even out this wonderful high with a few lows. My husband and I’s trip back home to Montana was quite bumpy.

After a late evening of socializing, we left packing for the morning. We are both teetoholers but when you are old enough just staying out later than average can deliver a hangover.

We quickly packed up, skipped showering (drought flow shower heads take too long to get you adequately clean) and I quickly inhaled a coffee and bagel to take with my antibiotics.

I knew we were in trouble as soon as we stepped into the Uber. It smelled intensely of body odor. The stank of unwashed upholstery, swampy body pits and a poor suspension combined poorly with exhaustion and an ersatz hangover. I began to feel car sick.

I tried a nausea medicine called Zofran. It wasn’t enough. I attempted to express that I needed us to pull over so I could throw up. I opened the window and begged for a disposable baggie. The driver was tuned out. Alex rushed to find anything that would do.

He found a foldable nylon pocket bag from a Japanese airline he keeps on hand in his luggage for emergencies. Alas I needed it three times. The car drove on even as I kept evacuating my stomach into this reusable bag.

We arrived at Denver International Airport and Alex rushed out to throw out the treasured Nippon Airways pocket bag lest the smell further exacerbate the issue. A loss but better than getting vomit all over the Uber. Not that the driver was paying attention. Oddly.

After unloading we checked multiple bags. We’d both come from long trips and figured it was a safe simple single flight. The United fancy status counter gave us trouble about being five pounds over on one bag. The label needed re-printing as the confused newly hired counter service agent struggled with the overrides for frequent fliers.

It’s an hour and a half from Denver to Bozeman so we felt safe checking all of our bags. And indeed our normal carry-on bags made it home with us without issue as checked luggage. They got off the airplane quicker than we did.

But as you probably guessed the 5lb overweight bag that took so much time to get labeled correctly. Yeah, it was never even put on our airplane. It was still in Denver. We have a tracker in the bag so we knew where it was. United asked us to report as lost as part of their procedure for getting it to us.

I’d list my shit twice now in one day. Hopefully the bag it makes it onto the next flight as it has quite a number of irreplaceable items.

And because things happen in threes, as I unpacked what luggage I did have I discovered that my eye medication was missing. I last remember seeing it in our hotel’s nightstand cubby. I may have packed it in the liquids bag in the lost luggage so there is a chance. But I don’t recall packing it. It’s Turkish so I’m not even sure if I can replace it.

I lost a lot of shit today. Hopefully I get it all back. Well except for the stomach problem in the car. I hope that never happens again. That is shit I’m happy to have lost.

Categories
Community Culture Politics

Day 1576 and Fight For The Future

I am saddened by the protective conservative ethos of some of our cathedral elites. I was filled with pride to hear multiple distinguished professor discuss their love of Boulder as emblematic of the kind often town we should all aspire to live in.

Boulder is a truly special town. Alas I have to question why it is that scholars with security and prestige can afford my hometown but their children’s generation couldn’t.

I am deeply saddened by the rising costs of my childhood town. We come back during the pandemic. When starting out my life twenty years ago I left my home as expenses rose.

My family didn’t own property. Regular people moved to other towns. Those who bought early fight to keep things. As they are. So only the wealthy, often conservative socially or economically, but generally institutionally secure elders own the town and no one else.

These preservation minded wealthy, either virtuous liberals or cultural conservatives want to preserve the values that created Boulder. The irony is not lost on me that the futurism of going back benefits the past entirely at the expense of the future.

But what moral or political good could there be in your perfect town and perfect conservation of certain mores if the children moved away.

You live in a garden made by weirdos and hippies and shined it into an expense that their own young cannot participate in it. Hippies and engineers produced a counter culture and turned it into a luxury good they did not uniformly pass down.

Boulder became a luxury good. I grant I could have a small piece of that. But would we flourish? Our elder elites keep their houses and smugly advocate against change to house even their own children. This change that necessary for the future their children will live in. We must be able to build for it.

I miss Boulder but I don’t miss this smug elitism of virtue. We chose to have a life where we could have a house and land and space for our lives and a regulatory climate where we could build the technology that will shape our future. I am sad it wasn’t going to be Boulder. We’ve lost Boulder to the security of the past and it’s expensive maintenance.

Bozeman is now the Boulder of the 90s. And I want to build up its future through the efforts of its industrious citizens and their ambition for building a future.

A forward thinking and growth focused governor introduced a future of building things with tools and technology and owning those benefits together. That the vision I want for Colorado and for Boulder.

Pairing his vision with two aesthetically conservative growth skeptical perspectives helps us realize the large gaps in values. And so I despair for the fact that I can never go home. So I must fight for my future. Which is I suppose what Renegade Futurism is all about.

Categories
Aesthetics Politics

Day 1575 and Renegade Futurism

I spent my day at a conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Bensen Center for the Study of Western Civilization. It’s my hometown university and while I never studied there I was greatly enriched by its traditions of public and community programming. The land grant universities educated Americans like me even if we never attended them.

I suppose this is silly of me but I didn’t think an academic conference would actually be all that academic. I am used to financial forums and media shined up environments where doing the reading is sadly not a prerequisite. Academics very much do the reading. Or we said at my alma mater “that’s all very well in practice but how about in theory?”

I felt a little silly as the lone person on my panel who actually worked in industry and felt a little more acutely how absolutely unprepared our technical industry is for the task of running our elite institutions. We have on the ground knowledge and they have a very firm grasp of Hegel and Gransci. It’s a tension that has come to a head before.

And yet here our technical elite are gaining power and and a seat at the table and congratulations we’ve finished the long march through the institution. And somehow you still lost. We aren’t any closer to socialism or social justice. You know what happens in the dialect resolution next? Fascism. It’s like why pay the six figures for the degree if you don’t even read. Champagne socialists the lot of them.

But I’m also struck at just how divorced our academics are from the reality on the ground. We had an industrial class that founded private institutions that clashed with our empire elites before. How do you think we ended up with Stanford and the University of Chicago? Why do we continue this dance of institutional ownership?

And yet the cycle continues and we come up with new readings and new interpretations of how things should be optimally done. We have moral traditions and religious traditions and I’m sure this is an exhausting time to consider a new Pope so I’ll go light on my Catholic friends. Protestants just don’t understand. The future has arrived. You just didn’t notice it.

Categories
Politics Travel

Day 1574 and American HVAC

Being back in America after any amount of time in Europe is always a weird transition for me. I am in Colorado for an academic conference so I’m staying in a chain hotel.

Being accustomed to European systems that simply don’t work beyond a set range I turn the air conditioning on maximum before bed assuming at best I’ll achieve 22C (71.5 degrees in freedom units) as I like to sleep in a cool room.

I wake up with my Whoop warning me I have an “elevated body temp” and I think huh that’s weird it’s freezing in here. The room is 15C. That’s 59 degrees Fahrenheit for Americans.

Social media loves joking about PE HVAC takeover bros but a random conference hotel in Colorado has better air conditioning than the entirety of Western Europe.

You can stay in the best hotel in Frankfurt and it won’t get to a decent temperature. If you stay in an Airbnb and run an air conditioner you may even have troubles with the neighbors.

Isn’t it a bit odd you can be comfortable in a renovated 400 year old bank vault in Istanbul or a corporate chain hotel in American flyover states but Europe simply can’t manage climate control? Don’t worry though I’m sure NATO can re-industrialize no problem. Wink wink.

The way we virtue signal is so bizarre. Like let’s consider the 29 cent Dole branded banana I got at Trade Joe’s. It’s certified organic. The barcode tells me to look. Trader Joe’s is owned by a German conglomerate Aldi.

I’m Bob Dole.

The organic movement may be the original blueprint for ESG and DEI but it’s now so well accepted that hallelujah the mercenaries that guard the banana republic of Dole are verified socially responsible. It was only capitalism that ever forced their hands. Riddle me that my socialist friends.

And this brings me to my panel on Friday on whether technology can be a force used to counter culture. To which I respond with which culture are we countering and why?

Categories
Culture Travel

Day 1573 and Transit Manners

I’m surprised that the bad manners and poor social graces perpetuated by pandemic isolation continue to plague all forms of public transit.

I am flying from Europe to America today for a conference appearance in Boulder Colorado. This has involved a few smaller regional hops where an hour or so of flight time is spent in the air. Not so bad right? Wrong.

You must plan for an hour on each side of a flight transit to manage border control, passport control, baggage screening and security.

Add in another half an hour for the chaotic free for all that is getting a plane loaded up and your day can disappear quickly as folks cut lines, misunderstand their luggage options and otherwise practice social misanthropy.

It’s as if no one understands any basic conventions of transit anymore and we are collectively refusing notice or to do anything to fix it.

If I am lucky enough to be flying business or first class (the flat lay on a transcontinental flight is a must for my spine) I’ll typically board first. This used to be a huge perk

But now group systems are a mess. Frequent flier status & business class has now become group 2. First boarding is, of course, children and the disabled.

I get how this can be confusing. Once the elderly were onboard, I watched multiple passengers try to line jump me only to get a red light and loud beep. They would shrug and hang back.

Seems the jumping problem is now endemic and the crew has given up managing “gate lice” who try to smuggle themselves in early. We have to shame them now.

If I haven’t managed to board first I’ll find my front of cabin baggage completely used up. The new trend is taking first and business class storage and then going to your seat. I had to get a Tumi moved as someone took up the storage for my entire row.

Even as I was struggling to move other people’s baggage with the annoyed crew, the other travelers ignored our exertions. I’m quite short so getting a roller bag up often requires me climbing on a seat or getting a boost from someone taller than me to get it over the lip of the bin. Thankfully a military man stepped in after ten minutes of failures. Thank you for your service.

Categories
Startups

Day 1572 and Re-Skilling

I’m having a Boomer moment. And I think I’m excited about it? I’m actually extremely excited.

It’s clear without a significant investment of time and effort, most millennials’ technical skills will be out of date in the next decade. I think it’s likely to happen faster but humans are slower than our tools.

The rate of change in artificial intelligence, and its subsequent impact on the business of software, is moving at such rapid clip that even if you put your total focus on the topic you will find yourself behind.

I doubt I’ll be the only millennial to find themselves up-skilling and re-skilling in this era. Hopefully we are quick enough on educational change for Gen Z and Alpha that they get exposed early.

And I am one of the lucky ones. I’ve been working in technology my whole career. I’ve been investing in the space for several years. I’ve been dreaming of the singularity since I was a kid. I just wish I had the neuroplasticity i did back then. But I know it will be worth the effort.

Categories
Community Politics Startups

Day 1571 and Townie Done Good

I am excited to be a panelist at an academic conference at my hometown’s university later this week.

While I didn’t attend the University of Colorado at Boulder myself, as a townie kid it holds a special place as educational institution in my life.

Their libraries lent me books, I attended events like their famed Conference on World Affairs and I made use of campus facilities from sports fields to their planetarium.

CU Boulder helped make me who I am today. Which is apparently someone who is qualified to weigh in on challenging topics in technology and culture.

The conference is called Renegade Futurism: Tech and the New Political Counterculture

Tech” isn’t like other industries. In addition to money and products, it is now a source for politicians, policy, culture, and philosophies with unprecedented influence throughout the globe. Figures like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel hardly count as mere industrialists; they function as thought-leaders and government operatives.  
 

This two-day conference gathers actors from today’s tech world–entrepreneurs, makers, thinkers, observers, and critics–to discuss the meaning of the tech counterculture, and what it might entail for the future of technology and American democracy.     

Hosted by the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization on Friday April 25th and Saturday April 26th and it is open to the community so if you are nearby please consider registering and attending.

The speaker line up is very impressive from politicians like our very own governor Jared Polis to journalists like James Pogue and entrepreneurs, operators and industrialists like myself.

My topic is first thing and the panelists are well worth being up early to learn from.

April 25th Atlas Building ATLS 100 – Cofrin Auditorium

9:00AM-10:15AM “How dissident is today’s tech?”

Technology can be a democratizing tool or a weapon of centralized authority. If those are perennial alternatives in technology’s history, which has predominated during recent years?

Panel: Michael Gibson, Jeff Schullenberger, Patrick Deneen, Julie Fredrickson
Moderator: Paul Diduch

Categories
Culture Travel

Day 1570 and Risen

I feel the change all around me. I feel the change inside me. On Easter one feels the miraculous in big and small ways.

Having traveled a not insignificant portion of the Silk Road from Adriatic to Ionia to the Bosporus this week I feel the changing flows of commerce, empire and faith rather viscerally. It sounds grandiose and yet now else can one explain the gravity of time and place?

Being embodied is our human journey. To overcome it is the stuff of myth, faith and religious belief. Understanding its meaning is glimpsed here and there in the natural world but is mostly beyond our ken.

I do not know what is coming or what I will learn in the process. The glory is in being put on the path. Happy Easter.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1569 and The Sky Above The Port Tuned To A Dead Channel

I spent the night in a port city in Greece as I am making my way back to Western Europe. I’ll be crossing by airplane via polar routes on my way to Colorado next week for an academic conference at my home town university.

I feel like I’ve made it when I am invited to speak on topics like Renegade Futurism. I’m now old enough to have lived a couple rounds in the “dissident technology” discourse so I hope to have something of value to say to new generations.

“You can’t get the little pricks generation gap you.” Molly Millions Neuromancer

On the long drive back from Istanbul I am listening to William Gibson’s Neuromancer to set myself in the right mood after the mix of antiquity and modernity I encountered this week.

One doesn’t cross thousands of kilometers and centuries of empires without requiring a bit of an aesthetic change.

Sunnier ports than in Gibson’s Neuromancer

The weather is more sunny Mediterranean Easter weekend than the non-climate skies of a future Japan’s Chiba and Night City, but with really any port city at night I can’t help but think of the famous first line of cyperpunk’s foremost novel.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

William Gibson’s Neuromancer

And so I tuned in to a story of oligarchy, artificial intelligence, dissident coders and cyborgs with mirror shades. In that near future the protagonists make a stopover in Istanbul too and it involves medically advanced nervous system treatments too. Gibson’s cyborg chop shops are almost as advanced as what I saw this week.

Hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy

Gibson’s 1984 novel is as relevant in 2025 as it ever was. Our timeline has become his later work in uncanny ways but his cyperpunk aesthetic has become as timeless as the domes of Constantinople.

The elephants eye domes of a hammam

Whatever transition we are about to make as humans as our own Wintermute intelligences arrive will be rocky. I don’t know who will be the dissidents and how centralizing power may prove to be.

One can just start to see corporate post-nation states emerge. Maybe they will look like Tessier-Ashpool S.A. Maybe it will look like Elon Musk’s family office Excession. Of course, that’s an entirely different science fiction novel about artificial intelligence.

Polybius’s cycles of political revolution chart