I am recovering from the whirlwind week in Washington D.C and my brain is only marginally more functional than my body. I’m slow and in pain.
So it delights me, even as I return to convalescing, to see that Twitter’s current happening is the discovery that a large chunk of Japan is on Twitter and they are active posters.
Screenshot of Nikita Bier explaining why users are seeing more posts from Japanese users
In past eras of Twitter the language barrier was high. Auto-translated posts are a relatively new feature such that if you only spoke English you didn’t see content that wasn’t English. I wasn’t seeing any Japanese posts but once I saw Nikita’s post, I was keen to tilt my feed. So I went on a mission to find and like as many posts as I could from Japanese accounts.
And what a world of joy it has been. Americans are showing up in droves to Japanese Twitter users with encouragement, support, and good will.
It is very sweet as you will see seemingly random posts with tens of thousands of likes and comments cheering on the hobbies, struggles and daily lives of random Japanese users. Everyone is getting in on the spirit.
Americans have a lot of love for the Japanese, their culture and their way of life. Weebs are a large American subculture. Probably larger and more vocal than say Francophiles or Anglophiles. And as it turns out the Japanese like Americans just as much as we like them.
A cultural exchange of brotherly love between citizens of two very different countries is a wonderful change of pace from the toxicity of culture warring and actual war. Just look at the comments on a post with Americans well wishing a Japanese man battling cancer.
I don’t care even one iota if this is a deliberate algorithmic change that I have thrown myself into but it’s nice to see everyone encouraging and happy. And I’m happy to see the friendship between our two nations.
I don’t wear makeup everyday. When the pandemic hit and life moved online, one could easily slap on a video filter and avoid the additional labor required to look professional as a woman.
I went from a life where wearing a full face of makeup was the professional default expectation to one where there was no expectations at all. People don’t like a world without rules.
That vacuum of expectations has been filled with even more intense appearance expectations. Now that “in real life” experiences have become luxuries, many social interactions have developed new norms in which cosmetics are part and parcel of expected manners and basic decorum.
Not all scenes have incorporated makeup. Technology is still relatively laid back about visible makeup but many have gone the opposite direction. Washington D.C. is a scene where professional expectations demand polish.
Maybe some of this is the Boomer expectations of television ready appearances or maybe it’s the constant Zoomer video recordings but this town likes a full face. A beat mug with a limp wrist as they say.
That means your face’s skin has multiple different layers from contour to powder, your eyes require eyeliner, eyeshadow and mascara and your lips are lined and colored.
I’ve enjoyed doing a “natural” look this week which despite its misleading name is still quite a few steps. The basics aren’t that hard though. Light brings a feature forward. Shadows move a feature back. Everything else is details.
I brought cosmetics for a few friends and one girlfriend who mentioned the cosmetic expectations asked me for some basic advice on eye makeup as she’s found it a nuisance and quite a bit of work.
I grabbed a few eyeshadow sticks and we popped into the bathroom of the Waldorf which was the home base hotel of the conference I’d been attending.
I will use brushes and powder eyeshadow palettes when I need a very specific look, but if I just need to be “done up” I like the ease of an eyeshadow stick. You smudge some depth into your crease and some light on the inner edge and you are good to go.
Two or three colors gets the job done. I use a gel twist up eyeliner just on upper line. I prefer lengthening mascara or tubing varieties as volume mascaras tend to drop fiber.
Demonstrating this process got us a small audience. The bathroom attendant was curious about the ease and speed at which this was possible. Nothing brings women together quite like the rituals and secrets of aesthetics. All eyes on my eyes and all hearts open to finding a new way to feel comfortable. That’s beauty to me.
I may have had one of the best days of my life yesterday. I want to get into a preposterous amount of detail as every single element of the day was peak Washington D.C.
I hung out with a long time friend with whom I have a shared passion (we are a special kind of economics nerd), we walked all over, toured several spaces your average citizen only sees on television. And if you are a nerd you really care where day Bretton Woods was signed.
The treaty room
It was my first time seeing some of those spaces and I felt very privileged. Nothing fires patriotism quite like seeing those who serve the nation.
I finished the day above the city watching the sunset on the Washington Monument while airplanes and helicopters ferried people of great importance than I in and out of the city.
It almost made me want to consider public service. But as my friend reminded me that it’s not all this glamorous. My Sunday was almost surely the very best the city has to offer.
Perfect weather, perfect company, perfectly cooked steak (from 6666 ranch so shoutout to my Taylor Sheridan homies), I even had on a perfect spring dress.
As you may have guessed I wasn’t in Montana the last few weeks. I was in San Diego for a short stint. Some might call it working remotely. I’d also say I was testing a few health theories which remain inconclusive.
It’s always hard to determine health experiment when a random bit of personal maintenance details like needing dental work messes your data up. Biohacking works best in routine and I only keep them up seasonally.
Going to California in the winter and it not being San Francisco is a bit of a new thing even though my husband went to college at UCSD. Any hints of early results in biotechnology used to come through their labs. And even some of their neurologists contributed important math to gradient descent
It’s a shame to have lost so much of the frontier to the petty encroachment of fiefdoms and institutional capture. California has a lovely soul. And imagining my parents finding a cheap way into housing in San Jose seems almost comical but maybe you could put $100 down and get a car. But now the place with a lot of space to get some peace of mind is the rocky mountainside. Maybe one day they will fix prop 13.
I spent most of yesterday on an airplane. I flew nearly 12 hours along the polar routes to go from Heathrow to America’s west coast. I flew British Airways and was disinclined to spend the many pounds for internet access.
Alas this meant I missed the rollout of the joyful flight of one of my favorite investments. Valar Atomics began its journey from California to Utah just as I too was flying. Me and the reactor I angel invested in were both up in the air like bluebirds and sunshine.
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah, Feb 15 – The U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense on Sunday for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.
The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Via Reuters
I tear up just thinking of the incredible accomplishments of millions of people coordinating together across centuries that these technologies represent.
It’s easy to think of ourselves as being small in the vastness of time and space. I almost cannot believe I was handed such gifts in this life, but I can claim a small but early part in Valar’s story.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey on board a C-17 cargo plane that transported Valar Atomics’ Ward nuclear microreactor from March Air Force Base in California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah, at the Hill Air Force Base in Utah, U.S., February 15, 2026. On the right, with the American flag and the Valar logo on his jacket is our CEO Isaiah Taylor
Just a little over three years ago I sent Isaiah a message on Twitter. We had a lot in common and I felt a kinship with this young entrepreneur. It was before he had even begun the incorporation work on Valar. He was working on something else, but I trusted his quiet intelligence and admired his humble inquisitiveness. We kept in touch as he mapped out his path.
His lack of ego instantly marked him as special, as it meant he could hear even the hardest criticisms. His fortitude was clear. He could incorporate what was necessary into his mission, a skill usually developed much later in life.
It’s rare to build trust so early on, and yet we both did. I told him I’d back anything he did so long as he was the CEO. Little did I know just how lucky I would end up as his very first backer.
You might think you will have doubts in high risk early stage investing. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t believe in him from day one. I knew he was on a mission bigger than any of us. I knew it and he knew it. For God and country as they say.
That faith was required, as it was tested in rapid succession again and again over the next three years. Chewing glass is part of every startup. Even when you go as rapidly as Valar has gone, there are harsh conditions, brushes with death, and moments of utter joy in between.
Not only did we write a first check in the angel round, but in tight spots before the seed closed we wired follow on within minutes when a concern about a cash flow question arose. We put together special purpose vehicles. Nothing could jeopardize this mission. I’d invest more if I could.
We weren’t always the ideal investors as we struggled to showcase to bigger and better firms our conviction. Not too long ago it was all about being asset light and software as a service. Thankfully the execution always outshone the skeptics and we were ahead of the times. And while the skepticism was fierce, Isaiah never wavered. Neither did I.
And you can better believe that I am looking forward to July 4th this year. We promised the president we’d be turning on the reactor, so there is much to be done between now and then.
Even the Department of Defense (War?) is writing swan songs about Valar from the Pentagon Twitter account
At March Air Reserve Base, California, yesterday, a next-generation nuclear reactor was loaded aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft for transport to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The reactor will eventually head to the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab for testing and evaluation.
The Ward 250 is a 5 megawatt nuclear reactor that fits into the back of a C-17 aircraft could theoretically power about 5,000 homes.
For military use, such a reactor could provide energy security on a military base ensuring the mission there need not depend on the civilian power grid, and in military operations overseas, such reactors would mean U.S. forces could operate without concern that an enemy might cut fuel supplies.
A reactor such as the Ward 250 also means greater energy security for the entire United States. It is firmly in line with President Donald J. Trump’s executive orders to reshape and modernize America’s nuclear energy landscape.
The president signed four executive orders designed to advance America’s nuclear energy posture, May 23, 2025. Those include “
Michael P. Duffey, the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said the partnership between the War and Energy Departments is critical to advancing the president’s nuclear energy initiatives.
“It’s clear to me that advancing President Trump’s priority on nuclear energy depends on close coordination between the Department of Energy and the Department of War,” Duffey said. “This partnership ensures advanced nuclear technologies are developed, evaluated and deployed in ways that strengthen energy resilience and national security.”
The future of warfare is energy-intensive, he said, and includes AI data centers, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not built for that, and so the War Department will need to build its own energy infrastructure.
“Powering next generation warfare will require us to move faster than our adversaries, to build a system that doesn’t just equip our warfighters to fight, but equips them to win at extraordinary speed,” Duffey said. “Today is a monumental step toward building that system. By supporting the industrial base and its capacity to innovate, we accelerate the delivery of resilient power to where it’s needed.”
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said that with small reactors like those transferred from March Air Reserve Base to Hill Air Force Base, the United States is aiming for a nuclear energy renaissance.
“The American nuclear renaissance is to get that ball moving again, fast, carefully, but with private capital, American innovation and determination,” Wright said. “President Trump signed multiple executive orders that have unleashed tremendous reform of all the things that stopped the American nuclear industry from moving.”
Part of that effort, he said, will mean that by July 4, three small reactors will be critical — or running smoothly.
“That’s speed, that’s innovation, that’s the start of a nuclear renaissance,” Wright said. By
I did not have a good weekend. I feel the emotions of humanity’s current transitional phase too keenly. There are the wondrous upswings of hope and deep darkness that consumes anyone who bears witness.
I feel compelled to bear witness. Even though I know it harms me. Even when I know I am staring into a war, purpose designed to push me into or out of the myriad conflicting agendas of state, corporate, faith and cultural powers. A thousand agendas who wish us submit to their will.
I wish I had the guidance of the generation who led the world through modernity’s war torn emergence into our current networked age. Without knowing our future, would they be able to use their past to help us see through the fog that clouds our present?
I return to the works of Tove Jansson and Michael Ende again and again as I try to make sense of what it means to be human. Ironic that I should find human truths in authors who wrote of fantastical worlds filled with whimsical trolls and flying luck dragons.
And yet truths that seem crystalline in fiction distort when I apply the lens of my present. I recall Corinthian’s 1 “Through A Glass, Darkly” and know I am not the first to have such troubles. I will not be the last.
Ende wrote a fictional formless entity called “The Nothing” in The Neverending Story. The people of the realm Fantastica voluntarily leap into The Nothing. It has an irresistible pull.
Worse still, the destructive phenomenon changes the Fantasticans who become lies in the human world. Fantasticans who are destroyed by entering “The Nothing,” don’t just vanish. They reappear in our human world as false beliefs, deceptions, and propaganda that people mistake for reality. The symbolism is clear.
When we suppresses imagination and our inner life, our “lost” fantasies don’t disappear. As in shadow theory, they return as toxic narratives, distortions, and myths that make people “blind” to the difference between reality and illusion.
I do not wish for any of us to kill who we are. We walk into The Nothing and whatever version of ourselves comes out the other side is not the truth. I can only pray that I am not willingly walking into The Nothing as I bear witness.
I feel a ray of optimism emerging like a bulb who mistimes a false spring in late winter. I am in the dead of winter and I have the first glimmers of light.
“How you do one thing is how you do everything” is an aphorism about character that would take a natural born contrarian to engage.
I made a series of small decisions to keep myself still and make use of resources and skill clusters so I didn’t have to stress myself for a timeline that I didn’t make.
I took a few days to back off into medical tourism and longevity experiments. Nothing fancy or even novel. I wanted good sleep and a classic NAD+, Myers Cocktail, essential trace minerala, glutathione, Alpha-lipoic acid. Just good clean anti-inflammatory fun.
I want the good decisions about sleep habits and nutritional choices (sea bass, shaved vegetable salad, prawns and artichokes), the good exercise decisions (mobility and V02 max if I can’t push muscle too hard without impacting my my nervous system’s vagal tone).
I feel so lucky that this is a choice I can make. I need to be in fighting shape or the compounding choices of my health will have the wrong trend line. I want to see our future.
I am breathing slowly and watching a kind of lake effect whip up the water in the pool outside giving a fluid dynamics show to anyone who loves the movement of water and wind. That makes me want to live in our present.
As a woo child of the New Age 90’s era of music, I love listening to Enya in the bathtub. Pure Moods and a hippie mother set a tone for bathing for the remainder of my life.
Alas in Montana we do not have a bathtub in any of our bathrooms. We have a hot tub but the chemicals bother my skin so I only get to enjoy a bathtub when I’m traveling.
And you better believe I have Enya downloaded on Spotify for those occasions even though I’m certain at some point we probably owned all of her music on tape and CD.
While I love the classics (who doesn’t want to sail away?) I had Wild Child come up as I was soaking up magnesium yesterday. Which is not a bad checklist for becoming present in the moment.
Ever close your eyes Ever stop and listen Ever feel alive And you’ve nothing missing You don’t need a reason Let the day go on and on
Let the rain fall down Everywhere around you Give into it now Let the day surround you You don’t need a reason Let the rain go on and on
What a day What a day to take to What a way What a way To make it through What a day What a day to take to A wild child – Enya
I’m no wild child but I don’t need a reason to enjoy a bath or a day. Rest up and rejuvenate.
I finished a seven hour drive through weather so moody and inconsistent I felt it’s changing by the hour.
The day began sunny and bright but as I climbed into higher elevations, I quickly encountered what felt like every state and format of water in quick succession.
Fog turned to drizzle which began to pour as rain which froze to the trees in sparkling ice till finally snow began falling.
My intention had been to reach a remote nature preserve in the mountains known for its views but also the switch backs and hairpin turns required to make it up (and down) the elevation climb.
I left as early as I could muster given the 4pm sunset that comes this close to solstice. I didn’t want my last climb up the hill to be in the dark. I barely made it by sunset.
The Christmas story is almost too layered to with truth to hold any but universal mythic truths this far from its historical origin.
We hear parables of the unexpected guest who arrives late at night seeking shelter. We are taught about the faith we must have in our families even when they ask us to believe in the impossible.
The Gospel of Luke (2:1) says Caesar Augustus issued a decree that “all the world” should be registered, so “everyone went to their own town to register.”
Imagine putting a pregnant woman on a donkey just to be sure you’ve got the proper tax regime in place. Empire is as Empire does.
In America the census comes to you. In Rome the census journey was the means by which Jesus’ birth occurs in Bethlehem, aligning the birth story with messianic expectations.
Why am I thinking about systems of record keeping on this holy day? Well I suppose it’s because on religious holidays days I have the space to consider what our future systems of record may be and how we will weave together the miracles that may show us the future of who we are to be as humans and as Christians.
Accounting and record keeping are relatively new inventions in the grand scheme of human development. Tribal knowledge assumed we could keep track. Empires needed a bit more structure and a lot more systems of record keeping.
What will we need as the nation state change and reform and the empires of this century are formed more by context graphs and nodal pathways than census takers and taxmen?
We are reinventing the living records of decisions we once traced through men of power and means but are now stitched through corporate entities, personal trusts, accounting norms and our attempts to find sources of ground truth we can all agree upon.
Trust and power dictated that in the past but now we need new ways. We must explain not only what happened but how it happened and verify it across decentralized systems in open systems even when much of our knowledge is tied in closed systems and protocols whose rules we’ve never fully articulated expect to a few high priests how they run run.
Technical documentation becomes precedent as Jay Gupta of Foundation Capital said in a thread. I bet he didn’t expect that to end up in a Christmas story either. Funny how life and history works isn’t it? Merry Christmas to us all. And may the day bring you tidings of great joy. Or at least a protocol handshake that is a bit easier than heading to Judea by donkey.
