Tag: Prepared

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Community Emotional Work

Day 1293 and Pollyanna

I’m a millennial who was mentored professionally by Generation X. Boomers rarely factored into my early work life. Even when I reported to the C suite and a board it was still mostly Gen X.

My Gen X mentors had a watercolor landscape of gentle layered cynicism that painted a picture I just didn’t quite see. I don’t have the temperament to see the worst in people and I still believe I could reshape institutions. I felt the biggest difference between myself and my mentors was that I was a bit of a Pollyanna. Many Millennials are earnestly optimistic.

That’s kind of a funny statement as I’m known amongst my social circle for my interest in what happens when things go wrong. I live in Montana in a small farmhouse with a solar grid. My husband who works in Bitcoin. I named my venture fund chaotic. My revealed prefences don’t scream “belief in the future” at first blush. I was taught that being prepared is how you end up with good outcomes.

Cynicism clashes with my belief that good outcomes are possible. Not only can we get wins but have to do so. There is no way out of our problems that is not through.

And I’d rather face that reality with a smile and a belief system in my fellow man. Better to endure regular disappointments than to never know the joy of things going well.

I want to approach the future as one that I can personally shape. Being allowed to contribute to a network that works collaboratively appeals to me because it’s fundamentally an optimistic vision. We can coordinate through all kinds of mechanisms for consensus.

Despite the cynicism of Gen X I am confident I wouldn’t have the dream of networked collaboration if their hackers and engineers hadn’t shown me we could build something better. Maybe that’s not cynicism but realism. And I hope that the realist camp contains lots of Pollyannas. Don’t stop believing and hold on to that feeling.

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Emotional Work

Day 1270 and Chin Up

I’d like to maintain some degree of optimism about, well, everything. And yet I am struggling to maintain attitude control.

I like a little joke about navigating in space because I’m the sort of dork who enjoys science fiction books with lengthy digressions about spin and 3 axis stabilization.

But equally I do think it’s important to keep your chin up. Or nose up. It depends on whether you are piloting your emotions or a some other type of craft. It’s going to be forced metaphor post.

There is no need to crash yourself by getting disoriented navigating a situation in which you have some coordinates. It’s possible to calculate what’s going on and get yourself going in right the direction.

I am trying to do so by articulation, which yes is meant to be read as navigation joke, but is really just another goofy way of saying that writing helps me straight myself out.

So I am doing my best to keep my chin up emotionally and keep navigating what’s in front of me. It’s certainly better than a crash.

Categories
Homesteading Travel

Day 1265 and Fair Forecast

It started snowing last night before sunset in western Montana. At first it seemed like it might be hail and sleet but soon enough fluffier condensation was coming down.

While the rest of the world is suffering under heat domes and excessive weather warnings, things are cool in the Rockies. So much so I wonder if any agriculture may suffer. Our chickens seemed no worse for wear but we didn’t plant much this year.

As I was looking at the forecast in the Apple weather app I noticed in the average table a surprising -14F below the seasonal norm.

Seeing snow on the mountains is always a relief. Dry summers lead to wildfires and no one wants that. I consider this to be a fair to pleasant state for the weather.

I have a day trip planned to the capital shortly and I’m wondering how to pack given the cool. Layering is a fair technique until you have a fierce high altitude storm sweep over the pass.

Wearing linens and light sweaters seems fine for June until a freak snow storm has you wishing you’d packed boots and a puffy coat. Whatever the forecast I hope I’ll be prepared.

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Internet Culture Preparedness

Day 1261 and the Jackpot

Dedicated roamers of the internet are people who like to notice things. Cyperpunk aesthetics made it romantic to experience global abstractions even as the reality of the power of oligarch, state and corporation blended into murky dystopian reality.

I said recently on this photo that we’ve got to stop hyperstitioning William Gibson. We keep finding ourselves further into the future. Just look at these anonymous accounts (so you can enjoy being a participant in the propaganda) joking about a drone operator in Ukraine.

We have netrunners. They’re autistic Ukrainian drone operators and their ice baths are niccy rushes

It’s hard to remember that real people exist on the other side of the abstractions. And yet here we are about to be those real people facing history. And it does seem like the time for taking action is now.

Venkatash Rao wrote an essay “many shoes are dropping” that gave me the kind of frisson of living in future, but as Gibson famously says, a bit unevenly. Across all narrative and technical arcs and and inside geopolitical realities we are starting to see the change.

In this I can’t help but see Gibson’s Jackpot. The elements that Rao calls out are multiple significant elections (not the least of which is the final installment of Biden vs Trump), the capital and nation state power consensus he calls “after Westphalia” and the intertwined fates of artificial intelligence and crypto.

A lot can change in a world where every form of power is being tested. I’ve written about this Jackpot energy before.

The fictional “jackpot” described in the novels is an “androgenic, systemic, multiplex” cluster of environmental, medical and economic crises that begins to emerge in the present day and eventually reduces world population by 80 percent over the second half of the 21st century

The Jackpot Trilogy.

I myself think it a privilege to even be a bit player in this moment in time. That I can allocate resources in any way feels high leverage in a way I didn’t anticipate experiencing.

We are the adults in the room. It may not be mich but we have agency. I feel good about putting my focus on crypto, AI and nuclear energy. Like Rao I can tie together past thoughts across a wide corpus by writing here every day and make decisions based on what has emerged.

Categories
Startups

Day 1254 and Zipppp

I hadn’t expected to have a busy day. I’m really not enjoying having Covid. It’s an inconvenience and it sucks.

But suddenly I was getting all good news from all sides. A startup with a round. Another founder preparing to go out for an enviable raise with exceptional traction. An SPV for a round everyone wants in on. A colleague who had been thinking of taking action on a thesis is going to run an experiment. It’s just all very much my investments and my ecosystem thriving.

I felt like I was in William Gibson’s Jackpot. Incredible things are happening across so many industries and the world is an absolutely chaotic mess. It’s nothing but wars, gerontocracy and resource constraints out there. But here we are working.

Chaos pulls acceleration out of us because we must solve the problems in front of us. War and geopolitical turmoil and climate change require us to shoulder more.

We have real engineering challenges in compute, nuclear, decentralized systems, artificial intelligence and open source to solve to get to meaningful breakthroughs.

The problems are not easy. But our tools are getting better and the compounding effect of this renaissance in intelligence is that we might be able to build for bigger things.

Doomerism wants to focus on how bad things are. And I am the last person to disabuse you of a realistic model of what we are up against. I live off grid in Montana, I own crypto and I like my freedoms.

Humans are resourceful. Given ingenuity and incentive incredible talent has the will to say that I will take on this piece of the future for all of us.

It’s such a privilege to be woven into the ecosystem that is getting us through the Jackpot. And dare I say maybe the application of our ingenuity gets a better result and we can improve on Gibson.

The fictional “jackpot” described in the novels is an “androgenic, systemic, multiplex” cluster of environmental, medical and economic crises that begins to emerge in the present day and eventually reduces world population by 80 percent over the second half of the 21st century

The Jackpot Trilogy.

Maybe we can improve on these numbers. We’ve got the doomer version in our imaginations so now we can find a solution. Life, as Jeff Goldblum reminds us in Jurassic Park, finds a way.

Categories
Politics Preparedness

Day 1247 and For The Uncertain

If you have concerns about the instabilities abroad and at home in America, I am here to be of service. Being a Cassandra is a curse but when the moment arrives you are at least well prepared.

And so if you’d like to chat about things like moving to Montana, being prepared for disasters natural or man-made, or otherwise how to invest in adaptability at venture scale I am your woman.

I’ve been discussing my concerns in prestige glossies and serious news media for years. I see venture friends throwing apocalypse themed parties and I can’t help but feel like the hour is late.

I call this kind of mass awakening to reality the Thursday Styles Problem. By the time something is cool it’s already past time for you the regular person to benefit much from the knowledge of what’s coming.

Categories
Startups Travel

Day 1244 and Twenty Four Hours To Go

Discussing travel mishaps has become something of a national pastime for Americans.

Memorial Day Weekend is the official kick off to summer and I had the good fortune of doing a transcontinental flight. And by and large it went smoothly and enjoyably. It was a record breaking day for travel.

I was on a route I’d never done before flying Munich to Houston. I was on my way to my favorite crypto convention Consensus.

Despite the record breaking number of travelers, I had a pleasant United flight. The westward flights can be tricky for sleep as it’s not an overnight.

The logistics of this worked out as I slept 6 hours before a 4am wake up for the positioning flight and then on my flat lay got nearly a very decent four plus hours.

Munich to Houston is 10 hours & I slept well

My RHR was pretty high from the stress of flying but I was quite impressed that I got restorative sleep and REM. Those flat lays on Polaris really are worth it.

Once I landed in Houston I had a short layover where I was lucky enough to enjoy a sit down meal in the Polaris Lounge. I only wish I’d had more time to enjoy it but clearing customs, going back through security and rechecking luggage takes time.

United Polaris Lounge menu in Houston

After all this incredibly pleasant travel there has to be something right? I had a half mile walk to the E gates for my Austin flight. Americans don’t queue well so I arrived at the beginning of boarding. The entire plane boarded only for us to realize we had a serious mechanical issue.

We then deplaned and walked from the end of E gates to the very end of the C gates (about 22 minutes as the New Yorker walks and a mile and a half) to get to the new plane.

The crew was in danger of timing out while catering needed to do a supply for a down line flight. Someone’s executive decision worked in our favor as we got into the air without getting ice for whoever had the airplane next.

What is a two hour drive turned into a five hour ordeal but I made it in one piece and passed out much later than I intended after a full twenty four hours in transit.

Finally asleep at my hotel in Austin after a 4 hour mechanical failure & airplane change for a 30 minute fly time

If you are in Austin and interested in discussing the intersection of crypto and artificial intelligence I’d love to hear from you. I might need a bit more sleep first though.

A 10,000 step day is pretty good when most of it is sitting on airplanes.
Categories
Startups Travel

1241 and Catching My Breath

Next week I’ll be flying to Austin for what’s become an annual crypto pilgrimage to Consensus. I am excited as it’s like summer camp.

I’ll be participating in a few private sessions but I’ll be a speaker in public town hall forums as well. If you will be in Texas for the event (or are simply in the city) drop me a note on Twitter and perhaps we can overlap.

Given the intensity of the travel I have ahead of me I’m trying to take it easy today and tomorrow. I’ve been doing laundry and organizing myself.

I am not a hot weather person so I worry about events in hot climates in the summer. Heck, I worry about hot climates even in mild seasons. Last year I found myself struggling with Frankfurt in May so summer in Texas isn’t exactly my easy season.

Categories
Travel

Day 1238 and Come As You Are

Sometimes a thing goes so sideways you find yourself on a gridlocked country road listening to whatever music had the good fortune to be dowloaded to your device.

In another era maybe my device would be a car radio and tape cassette but in my elder millennial era it’s now your smartphone. I wonder what will happen to the interoperability of CarPlay as we go into the age of subscription services in your Mercedes.

There was some kind of road race that a local municipality didn’t prepare adequately to host blocking the way. Lithe men on expensive bicycles racing are at least a bit more interesting than the retirees in padded spandex puffing away.

Cycling is the sport of the healthy elderly. I appreciate in some dim way their contributions to tourist economies and also keeping down the cost of medical care. But I’ll admit professional road racing is beyond my understanding. Tour de what now?

As I waited for the racers to pass and the traffic on road to clear, I tuned into the music. I’ve never been much of a Nirvana fan but somehow some playlist had been synced through Spotify and I had “Come As You Are” on my phone.

Gen X music had a lot of angst but I appreciated their attempts to warn us. I am coming as I am today and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 1218 and Start Stop

When you have to “make the most of something” you’ve already done some calculus of personal expectations. I know I will have try to pack as much into a trip to balance out the various costs of travel. It’s not always financial as time, emotions, and focus all have value in your life.

If you have too much variability across these costs or can be hard to justify against your personal expectations. I’ve been known to run as fast as I can once I’m in motion because I believe acceleration is more expensive than stasis. That’s not always true obviously as staying in the same place can be very expensive.

So when I stop-start through life I hope I’m not making the ride more uncomfortable simply because I can’t manage the fuel calculations. Being fueled to make the best of a situation means being prepared.

In other news, I didn’t eat lunch before I ran some errands and I regret it because everything always takes longer than you expect.