Mt Everest had its first documented climb in 1953. The first person went to space in 1961. It's kind of crazy to think about how "new" mankind's spread over the world is. My father was already a teenager the first time someone climbed Everest, and in his twenties by the time someone went to space. If we start the "modern era" as roughly coinciding with the telecommunications age (ie the dawn of the cross-continental telegraph in the1860s), it's less than two consecutive human lifetimes old. Everything is new.

Whenever we go to the local Italian restaurant, the waitress asks if we want dessert or coffee afterward. I know it's a common thing, but for the life of me I don't know why anyone would want coffee after a big meal at night.

My December public macro newsletter has been published. You can check it out here:

Lyn Alden

The So-Called "Debasement Trade"

December 3, 2025 This newsletter issue analyzes what has become known as “the debasement trade” to see where it is true, and where it i...

What if the world as you knew it consisted of infinite rooms and staircases, each partially flooded and filled with strange statues, and it only had two living people in it? That would be nuts right? Anyway, I read Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke, and that’s the world in which the titular character finds himself. Notably, Clarke has only written two novels in her career, they were 16 years apart (“Jonathan Srange and Mr Norrell” in 2004 and “Piranesi” in 2020), and both were award-winning massive bestsellers, beloved by critics and readers alike. Piranesi lives in a realm of infinite rooms and staircases, inhabited by birds and fish and shined on by the sun and moon and stars, and in which seawaters routinely rise and fall. He has a rather meager existence as he lives off fish and seaweed and catalogues the various rooms, and he is grateful that the world is generous enough to provide for him. For the most part he’s the only person around, except occasionally he runs into one more guy he calls “The Other.” He also knows of 15 human skeletons that he has names for. Clarke did plenty of historical research and makes a lot of allusions in the work. It’s rather literary, and the whole thing is quite a surrealist artsy story and it’s much loved by people who enjoy sophisticated things. I am, perhaps, not very sophisticated. To me this felt like the kind of book I’d be assigned to read in high school. It was rather dry and boring to my unsophisticated palate, though short enough to breeze through in several sittings. I predicted most of the mystery in advance, and as things happened I’d be like, “alright.” When something occasionally did surprise me, it was always mildly to the downside. Like someone tells you lunch will be a mystery, and then come lunchtime it’s revealed to be a sandwich. I know a lot of people who rave about this book, so it’s been on my to-read list for a while, and now I have that good feeling of finished homework. When people talk about Piranesi I can be like, “Ah, yes, Piranesi. Fine literature, that is.”

Too many shows and book series go on for too long. Rather than end at an ideal spot to maximize the art/story of it all, they keep going until the creators get bored or the money isn't flowing anymore.

Finally getting a moment to start watching The Boys season 4. Watched up to season 3 a while back, which is where it was up to at the time. Anyone else watch it?

Moorish Spain was the period from the 8th to 15th centuries when Muslims ruled the Iberian peninsula. Anyway, here's a book review of The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I've had time to finish on this fine Thanksgiving day. It's historical fiction written back in 1995 about the final years of Moorish Spain. Guy Gavriel Kay is known for writing stories that are mostly historical fiction, but with a small touch of fantasy. In this story, Al-Rassan refers to the southern part of Spain/Portugal controlled by Muslim city-states, while three Christian kings rule their mini-kingdoms in northern Spain/Portugal. In this book, Muslims are called Asharites and identify with the stars, Christians are called Jaddites and identify with the sun, and Jews are called Kindath and identify with the twin moons over this world (which is a touch of the aforementioned fantasy element). Ultimately, it's a story about love and friendship across cultural boundaries, but duty that sometimes has to separate them. The three main characters are Ammar (an Asharite poet-swordsman), Rodrigo (a Jaddite noble knight-leader), and Jehane (a Kindath physician), and it spans a few years as the Jaddites and Asharites grow increasingly hostile toward each other. The story is probably best summed up when Ammar laments that the concerning way things are headed, it's likely not going to be his poetry that he's remembered for. It's not as simple as two sides of a war, though. The Asharite city-states of Al-Rassan are rather secular, as are the Jaddite mini-kingdoms in the north. But the Jaddite clergy seeks to push those secular Jaddite kings to have a holy war and retake the peninsula, and the Asharite warlords back across the strait seek to push those secular Asharite kings to reclaim their peak of power of the peninsula as well. So there are basically four powerful factions in conflict, along with the Kindath as the fifth minor element. The word "Lions" in the The Lions of Al-Rassan refers to men without equal. Ammar and Rodrigo both represent basically the pinnacle of their sides, and it's a story about what happens as those two "Lions" meet in the waning days of Al-Rassan. I mostly enjoyed the plot, as well as the main three characters. Guy Gavriel Kay is kind of an "author's author", meaning that several authors consider him one of the top authors out there, but his books only have moderate popularity compared to the top bestsellers. Kay also helped Tolkien's son edit The Silmarillion back in the 1970s after Tolkien's death. Although Kay is praised for his prose, it's not my favorite. I prefer more concise, straightforward prose, whereas this is somewhat poetic in nature. To me there's a slight distracting element when prose is written like that. The author Brandon Sanderson has used the analogy of clear glass vs stained glass when it comes to prose style. Sanderson's prose is "clear glass" meaning you read for the story, not the prose. Kay's prose is "stained glass" meaning that you read partially for the prose itself, with the trade-off that it's harder to see the story/characters as perfectly clearly through it. And then of course there are many subtypes. Kay's prose just doesn't vibe with me well. I think it's a great book, with strong themes and intricate politics and a broad cast of fascinating characters. Some will quite enjoy the prose, but it made me slightly detached from the characters as I read it.

Receiving zaps from users is a way better incentive model than paying out a share of advertising revenue to posters based on engagement. Zaps tend to reward quality and sincerity. Giving an advertising share in proportion to engagement rewards slop and rage.

I find Bladerunner 2049 frustrating, because I *almost* love it. The characters, themes, acting, and the overall plot structure are great, imo. However, villains give melodramatic exposition monologues, villains leave heroes alive for no reason other than the plot needs them to, important things are left thinly guarded for no reason other than the plot needs the heroes or villains to easily get at them, etc. In other words, there are distracting writing/execution issues in what could otherwise be a masterpiece. The first time I watched it, I didn't love it. It did stick with me though; I think about it sometimes, for years afterward. And watching it a second time I appreciated it more, but still was frustrated by the same things. What does everyone else feel about it?

It was around autumn 2012 that Japan ramped up its central bank balance sheet dramatically. Notably, that's also when their GDP peaked in dollar terms, and their stock market had its generational bottom. Japan serves as an example that what's going on economically can be very different than the stock market.