Category: Writing

Woo, one month down. So far, February has been in the mid 40s, which gives me hope for the predictive outcome of our scrawny Knob-dwelling miscreant tomorrow.

Inputs

1: Little Elon has decided to try and take his ball and run home. Typically, companies incorporate in Delaware for insanely permissive and business-friendly terms and organizational structures. That somehow even this was not permissive enough to let Elon get away with all of the various shenanigans he wished to do with his, ahem, PUBLICLY OWNED CORPORATION, is laughable.

Maybe he really should have gone private at whatever whackadoo valuation he wanted to make up as being financed rather than lie about it and get slapped so hard he decided to buy Twitter¹Which he only did because he joked about doing so, had his bluff called, and couldn’t get out of it like he wriggled out of the funding he claimed to have for Tesla. so he could use it however he wanted to control public narrative rather than feel shackled by the continual oversight of the SEC.

2: John Rogers, who was one of the forces behind Leverage, as well as many other great pieces of entertainment, is working on a series called Cons & Heists 101, which has started off great (he’s big on loading on the nuance and detail, which my squirrel brain fuckin’ LOVES) and portends more greatness to come. It’s a newsletter that I ingest via RSS, so get it however ya like, but the first issue is here.

Also, a quote for you as a teaser, which is a sidebar that he noted on Bluesky and which I’m thrilled he paid off in the newsletter, on the Rules of Crime:

SIDEBAR: THE RULES OF CRIME

I mentioned “the rules” over on Bluesky the other day and someone requested the whole set. It fits this week’s context, so let’s do it here. There’s no theme here other than “In twenty-five years of researching crime, this is what appears to be universally, without exception, true.”

Rule 1: Where there is value, there is crime.

Rule 2: A fine is a price²Whenever I hear this, I’m reminded of the story about Steve Jobs, who had no license plate on his car and parked wherever he wanted around Cupertino, because chancing the ticket and paying it was more effective for him than having to fuck around with parking. The man is not full of only positive stories, and yet he was a force of nature..

Rule 3: Nothing ever stops until a Rich White Guy goes to jail.

Rule 4: There are no Moriartys

Rule 5: Everyone can be conned.

https://buttondown.email/kungfumonkey/archive/cons-heists-101-orientation/

3: Well, holy hell, Lewis is moving to Ferrari. I have so many questions, that may never truly get answered. I suspect there’s a level of consternation on his behalf about how George Russell has started to be viewed as their focus over the seven-time champion of the world, as well as the lack of progress being made on the car over the past couple years and the massive engineering missteps that continue to plague the setup.

I’m a big fan of Lewis’s, mostly for how much he annoys staid fans who would rather he be less outspoken and supportive of diversity and inclusion in the sport, and his willingness to wave a flag of acceptance in places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where they’d so, so rather he wouldn’t. Ferrari’s cars are on the cusp, and if they can stop pulling insane hijinks mid race, they might have a chance at returning a title to the group. Or they might continue being Wacky Races. Regardless, will make for an interesting 2024 season as Lewis is riding out his last season with Toto and Mercedes. Here’s hoping he takes every instruction to give up spots for George and tells them to shove it.

Notes:

• 1
  Which he only did because he joked about doing so, had his bluff called, and couldn’t get out of it like he wriggled out of the funding he claimed to have for Tesla.
• 2
  Whenever I hear this, I’m reminded of the story about Steve Jobs, who had no license plate on his car and parked wherever he wanted around Cupertino, because chancing the ticket and paying it was more effective for him than having to fuck around with parking. The man is not full of only positive stories, and yet he was a force of nature.

Went out last night with an old friend for what started as dinner and turned into a 6 hour venture. As such things do. Also, no hangover, which is an unqualified win at my age.

Inputs

1: An interesting quandary I hadn’t thought of before, that the Jones Act is negatively affecting offshore wind farm building because the US doesn’t have a steady manufacturing supply of the specialty ships to build the windmills. The Jones Act, star of every post-hurricane story for its impediment to supplying and rebuilding because we’re happy to let globalization into every part of our economy except our shipping to ourselves, which, 🤷‍♂️.

A telling quote for how dumb this all is:

No existing WTIVs¹Wind turbine installation vessels comply with these restrictions, barring them from transporting wind turbine components to installation sites from nearby US ports.

Instead, these vessels must use a workaround. One method is operating out of a foreign port, such as in Canada. Another is for the vessel to position itself at the installation site and have the needed components transported to it by Jones Act‐​compliant “feeder barges.”

https://www.cato.org/blog/jones-act-contributes-offshore-wind-growing-pains

I’m sure there are specific reasons to keep the Jones Act in place, but they’re growing increasingly asinine in a globally connected world.²I’m also very aware I’m linking to the Cato Institute, which does not exactly have the most even perspective on such things, but on this they and I are in some form of alignment.

2: Got a notification from Once that their first product, a you-buy-it-you-own-it distro of Campfire, is available for purchase. Once, from Jason Fried’s 37signals team, is fighting against the tide of SaaS and turning life into a subscription to everything, which is both a noble cause and one I sincerely hope succeeds. While I don’t, at present, have a real strong use case for hosting my own chat software, I’m still tempted to buy it to support the mission.

3: Hahahahahahaha, get fucked buddy.

Notes:

• 1
  Wind turbine installation vessels
• 2
  I’m also very aware I’m linking to the Cato Institute, which does not exactly have the most even perspective on such things, but on this they and I are in some form of alignment.

Two days left in the first month of the year. How’s things? Feel accomplished? Feel like you put the shoulder into the yoke of 2024? Yeah, me neither. However! We do not exist to live in our disappointments, but to remember to strive ever forward, and to choose what direction forward is in for ourselves. Forgive yourself first, so that you can forgive everyone else. Feet shoulder-width apart, bend at the knees, good first step and punch, and drive your hips. You’ve got this.

Inputs

1: I maintain that one of the more profound and important things said during the Bush the Second administration was one of the more mocked in the media, which was Donald Rumsfeld talking about known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. The four quadrant theory of knowledge is vitally important to understanding one’s own limitations and to making better and more informed choices, even when those choices are informed by knowing what you don’t know.

Venkatesh Rao goes in a bit on this in relation to cultural identity and AI here. He discusses attempts to turn what we know into something we don’t, and evolving that generated freedom from truths to create new truths around which to rally, a danger that is easily weaponized against those who those truths look to cast as others, as outsiders, as opponents to a mobilized belief. As he says in the post, “You have to eventually come to terms with what you choose to unknow.”

2: Speaking of unknown knowns, Sam Altman would prefer that we not know how ChatGPT and generative AIs came to know what we don’t know that they know, especially as they’ve gotten very good at replicating their inputs so exactly that they show clear signs of plagiarism inherent in their models. Instead, he’d prefer we willingly give up the mass of human knowledge to him for free, and that we pay for the right to know it back again.

Gabe and Tycho get at the heart of it fairly precisely.

3: Finally, something we thought was a known known, that cloning would be our history. It wasn’t until reading this piece that my memories of the hype around cloning bubbled back, from Dolly to popular media with cloning-related plotlines, to the fears around the theological and moral implications of cloning humans. And all of that sort of went up in smoke, falling straight off the Hype Cycle past the trough of disillusionment into the nether of unrealized futures.