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Some Dad Books to get you back into Dad reading:
Endurance
The Wager
Shadow Divers
Pirate Hunters
Skunk Works
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea
Empire of the Summer Moon
The Wright Brothers
Undaunted Courage
The First American
A History of the American People
The Frontiersmen
The Lost City of the Monkey God
Centennial
The Greatest Knight
Empires of the Sea
Anthropic, but just stop annoying everyone when you open your mouth
Always genuflect when on the first base side of the new Royals stadium
The continued ratcheting up of the social norm to give out *full sized* candy bars on Halloween has been a major boon for the Flattery children.
My HOA sent me a letter requesting that I stop handing out full-size candy bars for Halloween this year.
-Fun-size bars are usually 15–25¢ each.
-Full-size are around 75¢–$1.
Most people give out 2–3 fun-size anyway, so the real difference is often only a few cents per kid.
Am I crazy, or is it weird for an HOA to police this?
A new illustration mocked up for the forthcoming BOYS’ BOOK
During the “golden age of illustration,” children were depicted with anatomic accuracy that was faithful to the stage of life they were in, and in poses that were natural and believable for a child. Jesse Wilcox Smith, Elsa Beskow and Mary Cassat are examples of artists who did such work and they were able to do so because they not only observed children closely, but also loved them.
However, modern illustrations of children feature joints that don’t articulate–elbows and knees don’t exist– and facial expressions that are emojis rather than anatomically correct changes that belie bone structure and fat distribution underneath.
As a circle with a triangle under it depicts a woman on a bathroom stall, so modern illustrators depict children with large heads, goofy bean mouthed expressions and noodle arms and legs. In essence, children are no longer depicted as human beings but rather emoticons of human beings.
And the reason for this is not merely due to changes in “artistic styles”, but rather the far more oily and avaricious greed of publishers, the sloth and incompetence of modern artists and most heinously, a modern disdain for children.
- An excerpt from my latest essay, soon to be published.
One simple idea to start reframing the Social Security discussion would be to rename the recipients ‘pensioners.’ As they do in Merry England.
This math will inevitably be wrong but a) Brian is goading us and b) there's call it at least a 50% chance from here that something like this plays out thanks to spot ETFs, bank custody, general consensus that 'it might go to zero' has shifted to 'fine, i guess it's probably here to stay' ->
Assumptions ->
- inflation 2.5%
- real risk free rate 2%
- equity risk premium 4%
-> stocks: 8.5%/yr
- Bitcoin = stocks + 2% premium -> 10.5%/yr
(2% premium is compensation for risk, asset still being adopted, debasement theme... presumes btc has reached 'asset class' status)
Rule of 72 -> it doubles every 7 years
2026 -> $86k
2033 -> $170k
2040 -> $340k
2047 -> $690k
around 2051 -> $1M
So if you're 75 today and make it to 100, napkin math says you see $1M btc.
Put me in the camp of believing bitcoin hits $1M in our lifetime
Seen many people spend years pursuing these kinds of financial gimmicks and their lives often become sort of disordered because of it.
I knew a teacher who had two doctorates and three master’s degrees. I asked her why. She said it was basically free money. Before Trump changed Grad PLUS loans, you could take out an unlimited amount. She found an online college with a high cost of living and was basically getting that money back every year for completing the degrees. Then she worked for ten years, making minimum payments of about $40 a month, and had the entire amount forgiven. Look at the PSLF groups and you will see many stories of $500k+ being forgiven.

























