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Nowtalgia
Four days into the war with Iran, I was still getting confident answers. I had been checking in with the major models — ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Gemini — asking about shipping risk in the Strait of Hormuz. For days, across multiple conversations, the answers clustered around the same framework: patrols would continue, insurance premiums…
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The Unpriced Shape
I am looking at a text file generated on Tuesday. It is 650 tokens. The model that wrote it is, by every commercial metric, worse than the model that will replace it next month. Worse at staying on topic. Worse at following instructions. Worse at avoiding statements that might cause brand managers to perspire. The…
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Nashville
A Note On My Return They let me back into Nashville last Tuesday, which felt appropriate. Tuesday is the day of the week that has given up trying to be anything in particular—not the fresh start of Monday, not the momentum of Wednesday, not the desperate optimism of Friday. Tuesday is a day that has…
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Belief Production
Recent DOJ documents confirm: Jeffrey Epstein invested ~$3M in Coinbase’s 2014 Series C round, exited by 2018 with significant profits. No operational role, no alleged wrongdoing—just elite capital quietly entering the “decentralized revolution” through the most opaque channels possible. This isn’t a scandal. It’s a structural reveal. The crypto story: engineers building freedom tech, disrupting…
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Journey to the Center of the Blockchain
I went to the blockchain because my coins were screaming. Not metaphorically. I mean screaming. A high-pitched, margin-call shriek echoing through the fiber-optic desert like bats trapped in a Bloomberg terminal. You don’t ignore that kind of noise. You load up the laptop, spike the coffee with whatever’s left in the cabinet—two Modafinil, a microdose…
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The Conversation
INT. SOMEWHERE IMPORTANT – NIGHT In media res EPSTEIN (leans into the line, too close to the mic)—yes, yes, he’s one of the Andreesons. Or Andresens. Might be Andre-sen. There are a few of them. Like the Dulles brothers but with hoodies. BARAKIs it Mark Andreason? Or Marc Andree-sheen? I don’t want to insult Silicon…
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The Director’s Cut
I went to the movies expecting escape. That was my first mistake. The ticket app said the film was playing at 7:40. It had been playing all week. People were dressed for it—like a minor holiday, a secret handshake. Leather jackets, ironic denim, that look of mutual recognition you get when strangers agree they’re here…
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The Phantom’s Revenge
ACT I: ARRIVAL & THE PERFORMANCE. They invited me to Santa Monica, to the clean, well-lighted prison of culture called The Broad Stage. The mission: to bear witness to a “subsidized art opera,” a thing of fair quality and certain protection. A fortress against the market. A mausoleum with a liquor license. I went armed…
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The Compromise
Marcus adjusted his Hermès tie in the reflection of his office window, forty-seven floors above Manhattan. Below, protesters marched through sleet, their signs dissolving into papier-mâché resolve. He’d meant to join them. “I really was going to go,” he told his reflection. The reflection nodded. It always did. Instead, he turned to his computer and…
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Value Maintenance
The Farcaster news is being framed as a rare moment of honor in tech: Merkle stands down, infrastructure is handed to Neynar, Dan Romero and Varun “V” return roughly $180 million to investors, and the VCs applaud the discipline. On the surface, it does look clean. No slow rug. No zombified runway bleed. Capital comes…
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