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622 irony and the gold standard

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They said Irony died after 9/11. At the time, I thought it was because events were so heavy that irony didn't work anymore.  These days, I'm hearing that the kids don't do irony. And it's because reality is too ironic to make fun of.  Apparently at some point in the past month, the big banks in the US got together and created a stablecoin, Genius USD. This is an attempt to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.  This is because the US debt has gotten to the point where it's obviously not going to get paid off.  This is perhaps because we've spent the $100 trillion the retiring baby boomers are expecting to receive in social security.  I'm far far far from a banker or financial person, but my understanding is the maneuver goes something like this: create stablecoin, dump debt into stablecoin, watch inflation skyrocket, presto change-o, debt is gone. (And so are you...
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621 size comparison and more intriguing visuals

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Welcome to another intriguing edition of Wake Blake.  Why intriguing? Because I'm intrigued to see where these screencraps are going to take us.  At top, in the past 20 years, TVs, toys and cell service got cheap, housing, education and healthcare got expensive. Meanwhile, pensions have more going out than coming in.  As does the Midwest. It seems like AI is in every headline that's not featuring Dear Leader. Here we contemplate that the future we're investing in is also the future we don't want to live in. Meanwhile, in China. Oh, those made up facts. Silly statistics.  Zero traffic, stars, small town feel and lakes? Sign me up.  Funny how people don't associate zero traffic with zero cars, they think it has to do with zero Californians.  And stars? Don't get me started on LED lights in your yard.  We live in a red area, but our town sure loves the service ...
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620 How do we get our thoughts back?

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Forgive me, it's been a while. Not that there's nothing to say, just that I've been saying it other places.  The long nights of winter are perfect for setting one's mind to a novel. Sadly, the slow churning up there, or rather, the distracted tumbling, has watched winter turn to spring and said novel is maybe a third of the way. Maybe.  This is the battle in the attention economy. How do we get our thoughts back?  There have been several changes over here at Wake Blake galactic headquarters.  First, our entire information technology infrastructure was rebuilt (we got a new phone), leading to the usual (un)expected total loss of everything. So we have new graphics on the blog. Yes, they were created with an AI boost. Why? Because as bad as the AIpocalypse might be, it's fun to watch them hallucinate up new-ish stuff. Second, the publisher/editor/writer has taken up with the saints/scoundrels in o...
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