Constellation Fund is hosting Bright Night, a free virtual fundraiser tonight at 6:30pm! 💡 You can join the stream with just an email address. They are spotlighting great causes and great artists! I’m going to be there. 🎟 You free tonight? Join online! 👋
Paul Boswell, creator of the Turing Tumble, just launched Spintronics on Kickstarter. I’m in! Turing Tumble was brilliant, and this looks equally great! I love how he turns digital concepts and logic into something physical to interact with.
Disintegrating Shoes
Thanks to the miracle of vaccines we were able to enjoy some drinks on a patio this evening with our board members for the first time in over a year. I got on some nice slacks, a good shirt, and some dress shoes! 👞
It was great to see folks that I hadn’t seen in-person for so long. As we were mingling and chatting I happened to look down and noticed some black debris on the floor under me. I didn’t know what it was but it didn’t raise any concerns. Some time later I looked down again and I noticed there was more of this debris. Upon closer inspection I realized that the soles of my shoes were disintegrating with every movement! 😳
I was wearing comfortable and high-quality Ecco shoes. As I looked closer I noticed the entire heal was crumbling into pieces! What an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. I gingerly made my way a few feet so I could chat with some other people. As I was making my way someone asked if my shoes had mud on them. Ugh!
I got myself to the far side of the patio and decided to stake an area out. I managed to stay put for the rest of the evening, with an ever growing pile of debris under my feet. As the night wound down I shared with some folks my shoe catastrophe. It was the source of great laughs! 😂
The shoes went in the garbage as soon as I got home. At least I got a good story out of it.
By the time I got home this is what was left of the soles.
Add this to other wardrobe fiascos like Finding Pants in Manhattan.
Minnesota Twins v Oakland A's
Minnesota Twins v Oakland A’s. Great afternoon for a baseball game! ⚾️ Let’s go Twins!
Three run homer for the Twins!
Kramarczuk’s Polish Sausage with Kraut at Target Field. Nothing better.
Tammy and I getting some baseball and sun! ⚾️☀️
Simmons with two run homer to tie game 6-6! ⚾️
Flooded Forest Kayak Tour
My brother Isaiah and his family were visiting this weekend and we drove to Wabasha for the Flooded Forest Kayak Tour with Broken Paddle Guiding.
Everyone else had nice Solara 135 kayaks and Tyler and I joined up in a Solara 145T Tandem. I enjoyed the kayak. It was one of the most stable kayaks I have been on. There were about 15 people in total on the tour and there were a lot of guides to cover everyone. We took a bike trip a number of years ago with Broken Paddle and we’ve had nothing but amazing experiences with them. If you are looking for a fun day or weekend trip I would strongly recommend them.
There was a large Bald Eagle checking us out as we paddled down the creek.
We also saw a handful of different snakes swimming in the water. That was a bit creepy.
Four Years of the Weekly Thing
Today marks the four year anniversary of the Weekly Thing! Issue 1 was sent May 13, 2017. When I started this project I figured I would do it for a year and then see. Now it is four years later and I’m still enjoying it.
Here are some learnings I would share.
- Having a well defined structure that I flow content “through and in” has been key to making this something I can do over the long haul. If I started each week with a blank document I don’t think it would work well.
- It is surprising how often the hardest thing is writing the little intro bit in the beginning. Sometimes I find myself with traditional writers block. Other times major things in the world have brought a seriousness to the week that needs to be addressed. I didn’t expect this when I started this project.
- Getting a new photo every week is difficult in the winter when the daylight is so short.
- I’ve been able to get to know a lot of readers more than I ever would have any other way. Email is much more personal than blogging or social media.
- The rare times that an issue doesn’t go out on Saturday at 7am CT, I often get pings from people asking what is up? I love that. It’s fun that this has become part of a few peoples Saturday morning routines.
- It is harder to keep up with the email replies I get from people. If you sent me a reply and I didn’t get back in a few days, or at all, I’m sorry. I read it all!
- I love the archive that is created by writing every week. In addition to blogging, this is a very rewarding activity that I plan to keep doing.
- Automate as much as possible. This keeps the busywork down. I’ve got extensive automation to keep everything humming.
And now onto the years ahead!
Wish: Tesla "Learn to Drive" App
Mazie is taking drivers education and soon we are going to find a vacant parking lot and I’m going to have her get behind the wheel and drive. Contemplating this I decided we are going to use the Honda Pilot for this, and not the Tesla Model 3. Driving a Tesla is so different from a gas car that I worry it wouldn’t set her up well. I actually wish I had my Mini Cooper S with manual transmission for this exercise.
While the differences between electric and gas are so large, there are a lot of ways that the Model 3 could be a better platform for a learner.
This all made me think that it would be really neat if Tesla had a “Learn to Drive” app. What would it do?
- The app would allow you to put the car in learner mode. This would not only reduce the power output of the car, similar to valet mode, but also change the power curve to match that of a gas engine. Electric motors have so much low end torque, and I would worry about that amount of power with a brand new driver. I would think software could change that to emulate a gas engines curve, and simulate a gas experience.
- This app would allow the user to have controls for the car, most notably to safely stop the car. A big red “STOP” button on the screen would give the parent or teacher the ability to override.
- The car could be put in a defensive mode, where the radar system that detects nearby objects doesn’t just give you a warning but the car would actually stop to avoid any collision.
- The main display in the Model 3 could be swapped out with a learning display, taking realtime feeds from all the cameras and overlaying driving paths. Maybe even engage the autopilot system to not drive the car, but show on the screen where the car should be driven.
All of this highlights the power of a car being thought of as a software platform. The software can change the entire characteristic of the car could change for this special, and very important, exercise.
Crypto Markets and Kids Soccer
On Wednesday May 12 at 5:06pm CT Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin to buy cars. The company also has $1.5B of Bitcoin on their balance sheet, reported $300M of which they’ve sold. Musks message is about the carbon footprint of Bitcoin. Odd since this isn’t new information.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
Anyway, my commentary is not about Musk’s position but the market reaction. Immediately, as one would expect, Bitcoin dropped 10%.
BTC
Now lets talk about kids soccer. Any parent that has watched their kids play soccer knows what it looks like. There is a big group of kids chasing the ball around with no tactics or strategy. Ball is over there, run and get it.
The crypto market was all kids soccer with this. Filecoin, which has nothing in common with the Bitcoin news dropped nearly the same, with a slight time lag.
FIL
Then Cardano drops the same too. Cardano however is a massively more efficient blockchain. The fundamental argument doesn’t apply. They even told that story.
ADA
The point here is that these markets and investors are still treating all of these assets as a single thing. Only Ethereum in recent months has broken out and moves materially on its own. I put this in my approach, but I think it is really important. You need some mental model of the utility for each of these assets. That utility should drive how you value them, and how you differently value them.
I love the #TeamSPS Cyberweek 2020 Shirt, and for the first time a paired challenge coin! 🪙 The challenge coin was also minted as an NFT. We also included the themed deck of playing cards. ♠️ Thank you to Kat Alberts for the great design.
Sat down to figure out what was wrong with my 27-inch 2019 Retina 5K iMac. Beach balls. Terrible performance. Random crashes.
Turns out the Fusion Drive had “split” and the machine was completely confused about the disk system.
Complete rebuild and it is fast again!
A very Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom!
We just published the very first issue of Reading Things! 📚 If you enjoy books check it out! This is a new project from our whole family. 👋
Ethereum is up 32% in the last week, over 11% in just the last 24 hours! Hard to say what is driving it up, but it has definitely diverged significantly from Bitcoin.
We’ve had our pontoon for a few years and the hassle of taking the cover off and on each weekend was resulting in less trips on the water. This year we got a canopy! I’m so happy to put the boat cover away for the summer and we will definitely get more time on the water!
Today is Boat Day 2021! I got the boat out of storage from LaCanne’s Marine and took it back up the Cannon River for the summer! This is such a fun tradition for me. The kids both made me cards to celebrate Boat Day!
Tammy put together her 50 Puzzle today. It was so rewarding seeing the final puzzle at full size. The images came out great. The little details all hit the right spots. The kids and I are proud of this one! Create Jigsaw Puzzles.com did a great job with it.
Upcoming reading list: Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro, A Man at Arms by Pressfield, Evicted by Desmond, Radical Markets by Posner and Weyl. Excited to read all of them. 📚
Ten Richest Men, Thirteen Divorces
It seems completely predictable that Elon Musk and Larry Ellison would represent over 50% of all the divorces amongst the 10 richest men.
The world's 10 richest men have had 13 total divorces. pic.twitter.com/fIQwJjvUdJ
— Edwin Dorsey (@StockJabber) May 4, 2021
My daughter is taking drivers ed., and the classes are online so we can all hear. I can report that just like the 1980s, drivers ed. is mostly filled with content to scare the crap out of you. They haven’t done the screening of “Death on the Highway”, at least not yet…