Category: Preparedness

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Politics Preparedness

Day 1663 and Panem et Circenses

Catching up on the going’s on of the world this Monday as I reorient myself back to productivity after a very long ten days of surgery recovery is brutal.

The algorithmic response on the internet to a story of a random affair being revealed on a kiss-cam is unsettling in light of the actual empire changing realities playing out at the same time. I don’t want to study the angles of a professional chief executive and his human resources lead becoming entangled.

I keep hoping studying Rome will prove useful in facing the moment but I have nothing better to say than the satirist Juvenal. Bread and circuses continue to serve their purpose in distracting us from our obligations to engage in the making of our own future.

So what do I think deserves your attention? Take time with the artificial intelligence tools that are on offer from every major technology company out there (well except Apple).

Become literate in the new types of search and discovery that connect across inference so you don’t confuse the tool for something it is not (a God or a Devil or worthy of driving you mad).

Learn how to automate something you do regularly and find tedious. See what kind of business processes in your own work might benefit from automation. Go do a rabbit hole on a health problem and see how context reveals things about your own body.

Decide how this new informational access and connection affects things in your own relationship to the power. Decide what it might do to your nation state if you live in a democracy. What kind of economic system will arrive as we have expectations of automation, transparency and information even as we have more tools than ever to obfuscate and confuse?

Do you want more centralized power systems and power flowing to those who run those systems (corporate or state) or do you see the value of decentralized systems and protocols that let you engage with your own preferences? And I don’t just mean what kind of delivery food or Netflix you prefer.

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Preparedness

Day 1590 and Hold Up

I don’t think most Americans are quite ready to address the comical peril of some of our logistics issues. I myself am not and I’ve been screaming bloody murder about preparedness for years.

It’s hard to imagine that any of the music is stopping when you live in a very comfortable and functional place as we do in Montana.

But I’m seeing signs of stress in all corners of our world from grid load stress to importing manufacturing equipment to the ongoing crisis in air travel. Higher end industries like luxury education and venture are doing a swift two step to hide stress but it’s there as well.

I am feeling it. My body feels it as I go through a dip of adjusting to new pressures while still existing with the old ones like my autoimmune nonsense. But I think I am holding up as well as one can.

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Preparedness

Day 1585 and May Flurries

Colorado gardening lore says you should never move seedlings out before Mother’s Day. In Montana similar wisdom suggests keeping the less hardy planting till after Father’s Day.

You think this is a bit excessive till you experience a May snowstorm and you will no longer scoff at the farmer’s almanac types. Just this weekend we were doing spring cleaning chores.

Alex discovered a tire blowout on our Deere mower. Given the state of imports getting an order in to Deere for a replacement was the first thing we did. We’d had enough growth in the back yard that it looked about ready for a cut. The back pastures get hayed later but we now some areas and the verdant green grass needing cutting.

Now, of course, this means it is snowing to beat the band today. We’ve got a couple inching blanketing everything from front porch to back patio. Underneath one of the big fires there is a patch of green new spring grass. A reminder that false spring is tricky in the Rockies.

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Chronicle Preparedness Travel

Day 1584 and Sunday Chores

I missed spring cleaning due to some unexpected travels. Part of that was by design, as a gnarly mold issue required mediation that we decided was best missed by my annoyingly fragile immune system.

You wouldn’t think galavanting across Alexander’s Empire by car would be a reasonable way to avoid mycotoxins and you’d be right but I also like to learn what’s happening in the markets in a visceral manner.

No finer way to come to grips with the breakdown of trade and empire than racing across a continent to understand a supply chain amirite?

In January we began the process of acquiring a hyperbaric chamber for personal use and a medical spa. We figured we were well ahead of the process and like many folks who buy products made in other countries we figured better to get it done before another trade was kicks off.

And then the tariffs came. Whenever you were ordering or transiting goods you were scrambling. I’m scrambling now at home to make sure the household is set up for whatever empty shelves and shortages are ahead but it’s hard to predict.

And so I spend my day planning and cleaning and running errands and generally cleaning up. I hope the mold issue managed as I’m certainly being exposed now. As you might imagine I’m trying to keep windows open and as dry as possible.

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Finance Politics Preparedness

Day 1583 and The Last Tariff Free Shopping Spree

I remember the weeks before Covid-19 lockdowns hit vividly. My father went on international cruise, my husband was traveling domestically right up to the last week, and I got yelled at on the internet for discussing buying masks, toilet paper, and disinfectant.

My father got stuck in a Latin American port as borders closed, Alex made it back with mere days to spare before New York locked down and I had a well stocked pantry & dry goods cabinet. I was a prepper long before it became the default of normie Americans after Hurricane Sandy.

So naturally I’m trying to get ahead of the impacts of the tariff war as the last container loads of goods ordered before “Liberation Day” are sold through by American retailers.

Items Most Likely to Experience Shortages if the Drop in Container Cargo from China Persists
If the current sharp decline in container cargo from China to the United States continues, Americans are likely to see shortages-and significant price increases-across several key product categories. This is due to a combination of record-high tariffs (up to 145%) and a dramatic reduction in shipping volumes, with estimates suggesting a 60% to 80% drop in imports from China

Via Perplexity

Clothing basics, footwear, and cosmetics are at at the top of the list of potential shortage areas so I stocked up on underwear, socks, Aquaphor and hit “order” on the two pairs of athletic shoes I’ve had languishing my cart for months.

Amazon must be having a great couple of weeks.

I also decided to treat myself to a few Landmark classics including Julius Caesar and Alexander’s Campaigns. If the empire is falling I may as well revisit some of my schooling.

Plus I just returned from a run through Alexander’s empire so perhaps this is a moment to ground myself on the rise and fall of empires. I never did much care for Rome though but I didn’t expect to be born in a late republic.

I don’t know how this particular supply shock will play out and I feel lucky to be able to spend on thing’s frivolous and essential. Dry feet and military history are as good as any a thing to have on hand. I imagine we will have more serious inventory to do but it’s better to take the first steps.

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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.

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Politics Preparedness

Day 1550 and Fools, Drunks & The United States of America

Americans are mere days away from the dreaded April 2nd tariff reveal and the mood could not be more sour.

If only America was a few good zoning reform bills further along. Then we could house 700 million more people and our Abundance bro moderate liberals would be in a better mood. Alas it’s easy dunking for most of us when Matty Yglesias weighs in late to the party

I’ve spent the last half decade preparing for a more chaotic world. How it would play out and what would be the driver was anyone’s guess.

I made plenty of bets that energy, compute, and decentralization would be the way in a multi-polar world, but I don’t want to count America out just yet. That’s why we made our last stand in Montana.

“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” Otto von Bismarck

The amusing bit of Trump’s mercantilism is literally only he and a small band of trade administration aids actually think this is sensible economic policy. While I know a tariffs bro personally and I appreciate him as a friend they know I think this approach is dubious.

You know it’s bad when even the king of outlier events Nassim Nicholas Taleb is fretting for Treasury Secretary Bessent. Who is at least qualified to manage the a massive currency crisis.

“He probably gets that whether tarifs make or don’t make sense is irrelevant: any ABRUPT introduction of steep tariffs must lead to a CASCADING & GENERALIZED price action.”

We are damned if you do not because tariffs are the wrong tool for this moment (though most of them are) but because markets like predictable things and cascading price action everywhere makes us dizzy.

Rather like the drunks and the fools mentioned by Bismarck, we’d better hope providence provides in this topsy turvy moment.

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Politics Preparedness

Day 1546 and Present Ephemera

I am backing off some of my “current thing” hyper vigilance for a moment. I need to shake off the noise and find my signal.

The band of possibilities is simply so wide that it feels pointless to react. Who you are will determine everything from here. You must go into the future based on your values. I must strip back to see myself clearly.

The complaints about our geopolitical moment (true and righteous as they may be) are set against a great power conflict that will play out over multiple decades of technological change.

It’s yet unwritten though I have some ambition that we can all play a part in the restructuring of a knowledge abundant world.

The trouble with accelerating into the turn is the sheer stress. We know we need change but how we achieve it is messy.

It seems in some areas we will take the low road. It is a reasonable worry that we are seeing all of the downsides of American choices while the upsides are harder to see. I feel as I’ve only seen the fears I’d had and the changes are made at great cost.

We fucked around and it is finding out season. The present is all ephemera. I need to hold it lightly. The stress it induces serves no purpose. It will pass. I will adapt.

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Medical Preparedness

Day 1525 and Turbulence

I am doing what I can to hold steady in the turbulence of the moment. Deals are still getting done, founders move companies forward, I do my small part to contribute in the strange dance of rounds coming together.

It has not been easy with both my husband and I seemingly rotating between one health issue to another. It would be nice to have us both healthy at the same time.

Because it is the winter of our discontent I’ve spent more time on Deep Research projects this past month than seems sensible but the urge to find solutions is strong when your health needs mending.

Plus it saves a ton of time when the alternative is calling a bunch of different experts and making progress at best every two weeks with appointments. Scheduling health care of any kind is a mess.

I remember realizing so vividly during Hurricane Sandy that no matter the catastrophe the rest of life went on. Everything will feel turbulent in our new high variance age and all we can do is live through it.

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Homesteading Politics Preparedness

Day 1493 and Familiar With Our Game

I’d love to go on a long rant about the new tariffs America intends to impose, but a big winter storm is approaching and being prepared for that is likely the more important task.

Yes I am aware a much bigger looming economic storm on the horizon. I’ve been a “doomer” a while so I’ve come to gripes with that many years ago.

In joking about choosing what fine Canadian products like All Dressed Chips and Letterkenney we should be importing before the new Trump 2.0 tariffs kick in, I shared the preparations we’ve done to mitigate future dislocations. Someone said we should stock more electricity. Well, good news on that front.

That would be true except we have a giant solar array that provides enough electricity for heating, lighting, our bitcoin mining (whose heat exhaust exchange warms our barn where we keep the hydroponic greens)

For those not familiar with our game

The expectation we had when we settled in Montana was that those who prioritized resilience would be in better shape. Chaotic times means being able to handle whatever changes are thrown at you.

It’s been a great life choice. If we have oil shocks or supply chain implosions we are more prepared than average to muddle through it.