Laying Track

:: Flying to the Moon by Russell Towle ::

I retired to the Ikea queen, my back room snooze nest, with the dog log, and the iPad, so I could drift off to the sounds of YouTube channels, at first consciously selected, then coming up in the algorithm on autopilot as I started fading in and out. 

I got into the weeds of Wall Street, with veteran traders explaining global economics and the widening living standards spread. 

What that one guy was saying is economists live in a bubble because their theories average way too much, hiding the spreads. The janitor plus the CEO, divided by two, or rather an army of janitors, divided by N, gives an income level for the matrix (algebra), whereas one of the key parameters has just been whitewashed. The economists miss the boat all too often. I've always suspected as much.

I guess the question this time is whether there's really a "no risk" option in state issued bonds, meaning US Treasuries, when the states issuing said bonds are on such shaky ground. The evolutionary clock continues ticking and a lot of the old thinking has a half life. Really, all of it does. That's why we have new thinking.

People are having a hard time making sense of what AI seems to be planning for them, but then there's a lot of trust in "the computer" however defined. Per Active Inference, we have our reality models and devote any free time to making them work, as that's a survival thing: having a sense of what's coming.

I was telling DK on the phone yesterday that I didn't think Oswald had "handlers" and it's not like a lot of people were testing the rules, in terms of going to the USSR and returning. He didn't really defect in either direction. He'd file paperwork. 

The guy (LHO) was aloof to the ways of his fellow humans but was willing to, had no choice but to, play their games. Lots of USers today are moving to Russia, meaning it's not a one way street. They might prefer the more orthodox culture, not that Oswald did.

DK mentioned the base in Japan (where LHO was stationed) was involved with U2 work, which as always, connected me mentally to the Prouty corpus. I know a lot of experts have been over this territory and know his line: that U2 was never "shot down" and there was good reason for an embarrassing-to-Dulles psyop at that time. Allen was not privy to that particular inner circle, but then I'm not saying Oswald was either, based on Prouty's elliptical writings.

On the bright side, a lot of the WW3 talk has shifted to the past tense recently, as the sense is the USG is less actively involved in poking the bear. That job has been turned over to the EU and west Ukrainians. 

My focus of late is formerly eastern Ukraine (New Russia) and intourist possibilities, not that I expect there's really any longer an Intourist. That's the agency our family booked with, for that Kabul --> Tashkent --> Moscow --> St. Petersbug --> Helsinki trip that time. The tour guides of Mariupol will tell their tale from the eastern angle, complete with new museums.

Mainly though, DK and I were focusing on Bilinski's rhombic dodecahedron, and how DK can model it with U, V, W modules, which make the fat and thin rhombohedra. Russell Towle came up in the conversation. I hadn't realized before how close that guy was to Merry Pranksters, which ties all three of us in the Cascadia culture a lot more, metaphysically speaking.

:: two BDs in an RT ::

Crypto Carts

I believe some avid researchers, hot on the trail of this or that, come to my blogs hoping for a lot of insights and tips into crypto, meaning crypto currencies. 

Why? 

Partly because Alec Nevala-Lee, a Bucky Fuller biographer, has helped spread awareness that Robert Kiyosaki the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy is a Fuller fan. I don't recall if Alec's book actually makes this connection; I'm recalling a 2022 podcast I recently came across thanks to Nurse Ratched (codename).

Well, not wanting to disappoint, I am cultivating a crypto thread, but it's somewhat narrowly focused to a template ecosystem we find here in Portland, Oregon: that of the food pod, consisting of food trucks, which all take credit and debit cards.

My mental model is especially influenced by two experiences: getting to enjoy Club Med as a family and, the The Chinook Book, which apparently died of covid (from the economic contraction associated therewith).

Image: I can stoke up my crypto account with a "tourist currency" (locals use it to), good at participating establishments, that gives me discounts if we reckon dollar for dollar. You could call these "dollars that go further than ordinary dollars" if you spend them wisely i.e. pay attention to where to go, what to buy.

The "stretched dollar" crypto, measured in units, given a name, goes to my account. I've paid for these tokens using a mainstream currency. The card and/or app associated with this account is able to pay merchants in that same crypto currency. They have the requisite device readers.

The crypto is pegged to my identity, like credit card money, meaning transactions leave more of a trace than in a strictly cash-based economy. This is part of the appeal:  transaction logging.  Big Brother, perhaps the name of a software suite back at headquarters, knows when and where you buy a burrito. We already have shopper cards that work the same way.

That's right: to my influences, I should add having a Fred Meyer card in my wallet, and getting discounts for using it, almost daily. The discount coupons Freddies sends me in the mail are customized towards what purchases I routinely make, I've noticed. Smart. I use the coupons when I think of it. My friend Dave is more of a master at this game, and I've learned from him.

What about Club Med you're asking? That's easy: we had to buy plastic beads, colored gold, copper, tan, and where these around our necks as necklaces. We might be scantily clad in beachwear, so who wants a bulky wallet? If I wanted a drink, I shortened my necklace, by handing over some beads to the vendor. 

Club Meds always seemed well-managed and well-designed. That's from a teenager's perspective. We already lived in Europe so joining the French working class on their vacations was actually more affordable than most ways of enjoying some fun in the sun. I especially remember the one in Romania, on the Black Sea. We drove there from Rome, with many stops before and after.

Getting all these ideas more concrete would require a simulation. I've written Python code to simulate a supermarket, with a shopper class, inventory class et cetera, from which instances get made. But it's too simple and has no graphical components. I'm just using it to teach Python, not research crypto carts inside the context of a SimCity.  SimCity would be another influence, or Sims more generally.

None of this crypto cart stuff really has to happen in Portland, if that's impractical. I'm thinking more in terms of refugee cities, Asylum Cities. I think refugee camps have already done stuff with crypto, am I wrong?  It's time to hit the chatbot I currently favor (Perplexity) and do some more digging.