Tag: Disaster

Categories
Homesteading

Day 1610 and Tempting Fate

As I was going about doing “prepare for the worst so the best may come” set of chores I chose to brag about our travel pharmacy packing.

As Elon Musk leaves government service there has been a flurry of media hits. I don’t know anything about his personal medical situation nor is it my place to comment but I found it comical to suggest that 20 drugs in a daily medication box was nefarious.

New York Times “Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama”

Those are to put it mildly “rookie numbers” in the biohacking business. And it’s barely a dent if you practice the kind of global chaos preparedness that we do. So I bragged about it and showed one of our global travel kits.

Ray Kurzweil isn’t making it to the singularity on less than 40 supplements a day so I sure as heck ain’t setting out into emerging economies with anything less than a full set of bacterial, viral, and gastrointestinal remedies.

And as we care about things like being first responder trained and able to render aid to our community, we joke that you really can’t be a pro-social prepper if you don’t carry an AFAIK kit.

As I was being snide about our the value preparedness, outside in my own backyard we were being tested. And as soon as it happened I felt completely unprepared. Pride does indeed go before a fall.

We have a beautiful red fox that has for several seasons lurked around our property. We also keep laying hens. Alex has hardened the chicken coop to make sure they did not have a chance to get in. Nature and domestication co-exist uneasily.

We have never seen the fox out in day save in the dead of winter. In the spring we rarely ever see the fox.

So whenever we let the chickens roam generally we keep a keen watch on them. We’ve gone a few seasons with this working but letting your guard down can get you.

Alex was walking down our long drive to retrieve a trash can and let the roaming chickens out of his sight for less than five minutes. In that time the fox raced out from behind foliage and took one.

We caught it all on camera. Having taken one (we could not find her) the fox came back not more than ten minutes later and tried to grab another chicken which point Alex saw and intervened. The fox dropped her but she has a puncture wound.

I finally hear the ruckus and come outside. I see feathers everywhere and figure it out as soon as I see feathers. .

This chicken is alive

I’m pulling out my phone and asking the LLMs how do we care for an injured chicken. Turns out it’s not that different than human.

I run to find the supples for cleaning and disinfecting. I find the topical antibiotics. It all takes much longer than I think it should. Alex cleans her up and she seems fine. But wont know how she recovers for a bit. Now I will do a review of our supplies and their locations as I am reminded that there is no such thing as too prepared.

Categories
Finance

Day 1608 and TACO Trading

President Trump got pissed at CNBC Washington correspondent Megan Cassella for asking about a meme and now we have to worry about his reaction.

To quickly summarize, there has been a joke amongst the financial set about TACO trades.

The “TACO” trade, which is short for Trump Always Chickens Out. The tongue-in-cheek term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, has been adopted by some to describe the pattern in which markets tumble after Mr. Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound just as sharply when he relents and gives countries more time to negotiate deals.

It’s been a reliable dynamic of the spring that high tariffs or “negotiating tactics” are introduced and the market drops and then we get a reprieve when the White House reacts and the cycle continues. Robert Armstrong noted the trade maybe a month ago but it’s been ongoing since Liberation Day in April. I don’t know why you’d ask Trump about this as of this as of course he’s going to react poorly but maybe some shorts decided to wag the dog.

“Don’t ever say what you said,” Trump told the reporter, calling it “the nastiest question.”

I have a bit of a monkeys paw relationship to this entire administration. I am in favor of significant reforms to the federal government and I am an avowed skeptic of central banking’s role in a complex and chaotic economy.

But I’m also a business woman. We can do all the TACO trades we like, but that’s not building anything and no one can do meaningful investing even medium term investment this climate.

As much as I appreciate criticisms of corporate power they are the only constituency who is fighting back on this. Like it or not, they represents the interests of shareholders and workers and this is wreaking havoc on everyone from Shopify storefronts to Procter & Gamble.

I’m not opposed to changing things and seeing what happens but the roller coaster makes it much less appealing to do business.

In other news, I am still waiting on an import nod a hyperbaric chamber so I’ve get some personal skin on this game.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 1594 and The Creek Don’t Rise

I’m not sure where my mother picked up the slang “God willing and the creek don’t rise” but I had it regularly to suggest a thing shall come to pass a “if nature and God” are willing.

It’s it’s got a hint of Appalachia in its origin story and then tumbles over into a Johnny Cash cover of a Jerry Reed country tune (probably where my mother learned it as she loves Cash) before settling into a Spike Lee documentary about the water engineering challenges that have brought such misery to New Orleans.

It’s been pouring in Gallatin County all day. Our already high rivers are looking like they may cause troubles. Friends who fish were concerned the muddy headwaters weeks ago when I was caught in other unexpected spring showers in Colorado.

I am afraid the moisture is kicking up mold in our house. We’ve spent months remediating the problem so it weighs on me to consider the possibility. I woke up covered in hives and eczema.

I took antibiotics and Benadryl and it kept getting worse. I showered with nothing but unscented Castile soap hoping to mitigate the outbreak. That did more.

I have an event I’d like to attend this evening along with a houseguest who I very enjoy much enjoy so it frustrates me when the creek sees fit to rise against the banks that contain the river of my life.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

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
Culture Startups

Day 1561 and Just Don’t Die

I’m noticing a trend among more and more of my social circles of fear, confusion, depression and malaise. Which let’s be frank isn’t at all irrational given (hand waves) all this.

Rapid changes in technology are slamming into geopolitical changes and it is scaring the shit out of all kinds of people. Personal politics aside, many of the institutions, alliances and people we lived with our entire lives are changing.

But the rate of change is exciting! So much of what we took for granted in our youths is simply changing. Maybe (ok definitely) some of it will be worse for parts of it. It’s normal to be afraid of change. But what if we just need to survive the change?

I’ve been in tech my entire life. I was raised in it by my family. My father absolutely loved gadgets and hardware of all kinds and dove headfirst into selling software. I married someone who works in it with me.

I went to work in it by taking my skills in understanding new tools and translating it to an industry that adopted all of it. What an incredible privilege it was.

I worked in fashion and cosmetics so it was a mixed back but many incredible creative talents made and sold clothes that simply wouldn’t have been possible in an earlier more closed era.

The changes my father and I went through feel like slow lumbering industries compared to the rapid iteration of tooling we are seeing now. How we make things is being changed in ways that is almost impossible to keep up with.

I want to survive the Jackpot of change that is upon us. That’s a William Gibson reference. I agree with Bryan Johnson. Just don’t die. Imagine what we will find on the other side.

Categories
Finance Politics

Day 1558 and Basis Point Bullying

I’ve tried not to pay too close attention to the panicked aftermath of the new tariff regime.

I don’t trade the public markets actively and we’d already made preparations in our personal financial lives for a deleveraged dollar. It seemed clear where things were headed and weakening the dollar solves a couple problems for America.

I am a free trader. I believe in open markets as the most effective means we currently have at our disposal for large scale coordination that works with human nature.

Nevertheless the allure of central planning and collectivism is hard to resist for those in power. The market will adapt and find other ways of allocating assets but the wasted energy of a crisis frustrates investors. Damming the waters only impeded flow.

Each basis point drop saves America 1 billion according to Secretary Bessent. So we’ve an incentive to nuke 30 basis points and keep yields low. And yet the 10 year is still stubbornly high.

The exorbitant privilege of Bretton Woods comes with the fears of a centralized currency managed by technocrats who must give guidance to markets without providing too many surprises.

I grew up with a significant amount of skepticism around the federal reserve and its places to hippie parents and the University of Chicago but even I never thought I’d live to see this kind of test. And I am a Bitcoiner! Maybe Silicon Valley will finally find out what bargain we have with Uncle Sam.

Categories
Politics

Day 1555 and Machiavellian Modernist

I finally decided to read James Burnham’s The Machiavellians this week. It felt appropriate what with all the tariff excitement and “Liberation Day” wish casting around mercantilism. As markets reacted and the chattering classes raised the volume it seemed like it was time to circle back on some core issues of power, realism, idealism and modernity.

The thesis of The Machiavellians, a term often associated with James Burnham’s book, revolves around the analysis of political power as inherently driven by elite rule and self-interest. The focus is on the practical dynamics of power, emphasizing realism over idealism. – Perplexity

As the Trump 2.0’s 5D chess defenders debate with the “tariffs are fucking retarded” economist and technocrat crowd it’s a good moment to contemplate if we’ve forgotten to care about the aims of a polis and whether it’s pursuing the people’s highest good.

Leo Strauss was the first critic of modernity I encountered with any weight. He saw Machiavelli as the first wave of modernity. Politics became practical tool as we lost our ambition for achieving justice, purpose and moral grounding through politics.

What good is an excellent technocracy if we only produce policies that send us careening towards charts with obscure symbolic meaning inscrutable to your average citizen? Meaning is stubbornly hard to measure.