収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

I want to talk about something that’s about to happen, but first, let me say something very clearly up front, and read this, because it’s important:

I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR. THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.
NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.
ANY ACTIONS YOU TAKE IN RESPONSE TO THIS POST ARE ENTIRELY TAKEN AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There. Now, let’s get into it.

For the last, oh… forty, fifty years, there has been a quiet bargain amongst Wall Street, the markets, and people who have 401(k)s and IRAs, and a common piece of advice that falls out of it.

That advice has been that if you don’t want to be an active investor, if you don’t want to have basically a whole ‘nother job researching companies, markets, and so on, you should put your money in some kind of index fund pinned to some segment of the stock market as a whole.

That might be a foreign assets fund. It might be a technology fund. It more likely might be a Dow Jones Industrial Average fund, or an S&P 500 fund, where the market manager keeps the fund invested in the set of stocks that make up the S&P 500. It might be a NASDAQ 100 fund, run the same way. They’ve called it “investing in the American economy,” or “investing in America,” or “set and forget” investing.

It’s been a simple and good bargain. “You give us your money, we’ll have averages that make sense, and have a lot of rules to them – no additions of new companies that haven’t proven themselves, legitimate valuations, corporations with a history of profit. Number will go up. Everyone wins.”

For the last several decades, it’s been real good advice. It’s been a real good deal. It’s paid off real well, and is a part of how Baby Boomers have so much money in retirement. If you had such a thing as a 401(k) and/or an IRA and you followed the advice, it’s been a real-life case of the rising tide lifting all boats. There have been some serious storms along the way, but they’ve been followed by serious recoveries.

Well, guess who’s noticed allll that money sitting there, with nobody paying too much attention.

That’s right; it’s the techbros! And they’re wedging themselves – starting with Elon Musk and SpaceX – into that system, and if that means breaking the bargain to do it, then that means breaking the bargain to do it. It’s just a bunch of NPC money, after all. NPCs, peons, ordinaries – not real people, like them. Who, you know. Actually need that money.

(That’s an interpretation, of course. An opinion, if you like. First amendment, for as long as we have one.)

As above, historically, when being added to a major index – and thus becoming part of index funds, the kinds of funds normal people with 401K and IRA accounts invest in – a company and stock have had to prove themselves first. Be in public trading for a year, so the market has worked out a base valuation. Show profit. Show competence at running a company. Steps like that.

But for Elon and the other tech bros with all these AI startups… they’ve changed the rules. At least, the NASDAQ and Russell 1000 have.

So all of that old-fashioned safety and security nonsense? Gone. Just gone. For the benefit of him, and of his friends.

SpaceX is going to start trading and then be added to the NASDAQ 100 index a whole 15 days later, with no profit, no history of profit, only one profitable division in the company as a whole – Starlink – and at a valuation a trillion dollars over what Morningstar thinks it’s worth.

For the Russell 1000, I’m seeing conflicting information – the waved rules seem to allow technical entry within five trading days, but not actual entry until September or even December, the normal index reconstitution months. I think it’s planned to be September, but it’s cloudy.

Regardless, the moment it rolls into these indexes, every 401K, every IRA, every investment fund that includes the NASDAQ-100 or Russell 1000 will automatically start buying his massively overpriced, massively overvalued stock…

…that he and his pre-IPO investors will be able to cash in early, because they’ve changed the rules around that, too.

“Once the stock price goes up, who cares where it comes down? That’s not my department!“

– sang Elon Musk, probably –

The S&P 500, thankfully, have decided not to play along, at least for now. They were looking like they’ll allow an early entry as well – and it’s a damn good thing they have not, because they’re the largest and most important of these sorts of indexes.

Even without them, though, it’s billions and billions of dollars of forced buying by index funds – money being taken out of real companies that actually make money, and being put into the stock of Spaceboy Elon’s Clown Car Show.

The defence is that this is a “20 year buy,” that it’s a long-term investment and it’ll come good – but that’s not just what every company ever has said, it’s also horseshit. SpaceX’s rockets could possibly get to profitability, military contractors usually manage to do well, and that would be the likely route. (Tho’ others disagree, with validity.) X-twitter won’t; it’s only there to spread fascist propaganda and disinformation, not make money, so while pays back in other ways, those other ways don’t show up on balance sheets. xAI, best known as the maker of MechaHitler AI, will do far worse than average amongst so-called AI companies, particularly once Anthropic and OpenAI and who knows how many others repeat Elon’s stock trick. If his incompetent lawsuit against OpenAI showed anything, it’s that Elon and his company are very bad at making AI software.

You know what all this reminds me of, though?

There’s a famous rounding-error theft scheme, have you heard about it? It’s been used in a few movies. It’s the one where a programmer for a bank starts rounding interest payments to the nearest penny and then sending the rounded-off penny fractions to a separate, personal account because all the numbers still work. Nobody “loses” anything, but those fractions of cents round up real fast at scale.

Depending upon how the fraud is run, it’s either called Rounding Fraud or Salami Slicing. This isn’t quite that – to be clear, this is legal enough not to get investigated, particularly not by the Shitstain administration – but it’s real close to that.

Not the same. Just… real close.

It’s leveraging a trust to take advantage of people who have replied on that trust, abusing it and extracting small amounts of money and value from absolutely gobsmacking numbers of workers, all for the benefit of Mr. Musk. Elon will be scooping money out of retirement fund investments into long-term proven stocks and shovelling that money into his stock that absolutely does not have the value it’s being assigned so he can be Mister Champion of Capitalism, Mister Trillionaire.

And if it works, all his little fascist friends absolutely are going to do the same thing with their companies, too. This doesn’t stop with Elon.

Funny thing is, it may not even be noticed at first. See, the thing about forced purchases of stock is that it keeps demand up for that stock, which keeps the price of that stock up, regardless of any underlying value. If the Russell 1000 roll it in starting in September – more or less as NASDAQ-100 fund fulfillments would be petering out – that could keep the support going through the entire year, maybe.

They might get away with it for a while. On paper. While the right people cash out. It certainly won’t break the bank…

….until it does.

And that’s the trick, isn’t it? If this goes through, if this works even mostly as planned, then even without the S&P onboard it still eventually breaks the bank.

It breaks the bank because it breaks the trust. It breaks the bargain. Absolutely wrecks it, because literally everyone who can will follow suit, and do the same goddamn thing, over and over again.

And that is absolutely the kind of shift that destroys a market. It’s the dynamite that sets off a collapse.

But as long as they get to cash out first, who cares, right?

It’s a mass technically legal theft, a small sip taken each time but with oh so many portions and from so, so many people, a new kind of abuse that doesn’t yet have a name, but absolutely will; we’ll make one for it, in the aftermath.

Particularly if the S&P 500 change their mind again and decide to join in after all.

People have talked about neo-feudalism and techno-feudalism, but I don’t think that’s right. Early European feudalism – which was, people forget, under the Roman Empire – was arguably the western empire trying to keep its shit together and failing. Trying in the worst way possible, maybe, but hindsight is always 20/20.

These guys? They just want to loot it all.

They aren’t the feudal lords.

They’re the barbarians who have broken through the gates. Remember that even if this fails, they still tried, and they will try again.

Prepare accordingly.

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This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot for the last year plus, and with the EFF coming out a number of days ago and strongly encouraging other people to think about it too, I thought it would be a good time to share my findings with all of you.

So here are three decent ways to have communications that keep working when both the internet AND cellphone networks go down.

1: AMATEUR RADIO, a.k.a. HAM Radio
the most capable but with the biggest barrier to entry

• THE GOOD: Longest range. Most flexible. Most capable.
• THE BAD: Difficult license. Relatively expensive equipment. Technically difficult. Unencrypted.
• THE COST: Highest of the three options here. Testing and licensing fees alone cost as much as the other options.

This isn’t going to be an option for most of you because you’re going to have to make time to study, take the qualifying exam to get a license (I’m KK7ZLU if you have one), purchase that license, then purchase a radio and antenna(s) you need and yes those are separate, and get it all set up if you want long-range communications.

On the plus side, this is filled with people who already know what they’re doing. So if you’re good at tests and have the money and time to take all the steps? Great! Please do it! The more the merrier.

2: FRS AND/OR GMRS RADIO
surprisingly capable least-effort handheld radios

• THE GOOD: REAL easy to get started, particularly FRS. GMRS can be leveraged to extend range. Trivially easy to use.
• THE BAD: GMRS requires a license, but there’s no test and it’s trivial to get. Unencrypted.
• THE COST: Probably the cheapest option. You can buy three-packs of FRS radios for like $60 and they’re fine. GMRS radios are more expensive, how much depends upon how powerful a radio you buy.

Okay, so, you want a modern walkie-talkie, and not junk? Something with some range? And maybe with a base station that sits in your house or car? But you don’t want to have to study for a license examination?

Welcome to the overlapping worlds of FRS and GMRS.

FRS (‘Family Radio Service’) and GMRS (‘General Mobile Radio Service’) are two separate but very compatible radio standards. The radios – typically hand-held – have numbered channels, many of which are used by both kinds of radio. By using them together, you improve both.

Using them is very simple: pick a channel, push the button to talk, then let off the button and listen for a reply. Done.

So: how are they different?

First, GMRS radios are much more powerful – and so longer-range – than FRS radios.

Second, GMRS radios can use “repeaters,” which are automated radios that can pick up your signals and resend them over a much larger area. I can from home talk to people across much of western Washington State because of these repeaters.

Third, Because of these two features, GMRS radios require a license, whereas FRS radios do not. But there is NO test for this license. No studying, no prep, no examination. You just buy one online, and you can do it tonight if you want. Once you have bought the license, your whole family can use it. It costs $35 for 10 years. (I’m WSLT671.)

By contrast, FRS radios can be used by literally anyone, INCLUDING SMALL CHILDREN. There are several families around here who have bought sets of FRS radios for their kids. I know this because I pick them up all the time on my GMRS base station. It’s like hearing neighbour kids play over the fence or down the block.

So how does using them together improve both?

In general, GMRS licensees have more technical leeway than FRS users. FRS radios have small, simple antennas you are not allowed to modify, which limits their range. With GMRS radios, you can buy – or even make – much better antennas.

Between the better antennas and the higher power, having GMRS on one end of any conversation extends the effective range of the FRS radios you’re talking to. Using GMRS on shared channels lets you both hear and talk to FRS users from further away.

E.g., in hilly terrain, you’ll be lucky to get one and a half to two miles with FRS alone. But with GMRS on one end and FRS on the other, you can get eight miles or more even in bad conditions. Under ideal conditions, 30 miles is not impossible. Two FRS users may not be able to talk to each other at the same time at those sorts of distances, but if they can both talk to the GMRS station, the GMRS user can pass messages along.

In short: having a GMRS radio in the mix makes FRS radios better, extending their range, sometimes dramatically, which means fewer licenses, cheaper radios, and better access in the short run.

Finally:

3: TEXT OVER RADIO
LoRa digital text radios

• THE GOOD: No license of any kind. The longest range of anything without a license. Messages are encrypted. Text-based, so more comfortable for some. Public and private texting, with restricted-access channels. Tremendous range with repeaters – CascadiaMesh extends from the southern Oregon border up through Kamloops and northern Vancouver Island.
• THE BAD: Text only. Very new, so very much in flux. There are two common communications standards and applications to go along with them: MeshCore and Meshtastic. And they are NOT compatible – they do NOT talk to each other – which means different areas are settling on one or the other. Documentation for setup is mid and usability is “yep, sure is for nerds,” a comment which I’m told is also for nerds. What that means is that getting set up and using it may dismay some people, but will particularly dismay the nontechnical who will absolutely need handholding.
• THE COST: Middle ground, closer to the cheaper end. If you use a companion device with an existing tablet, cell phone, or computer, think $60 for each. You may be able to make your own if you’re that kind of person, though that’s only ever really worth it for repeaters.

LoRa is a kind of digital two-way radio being used here for texts. If you want to be able to text across long distances when both the internet and cell phones are down, this is a good way to do it, as long as everyone involved has LoRa devices. (LoRa texting does NOT work with regular cell phone texting, in the same way that Discord doesn’t work with it either. It is an entirely separate thing.)

There are LoRa devices that bundle all the functionality into one piece of equipment, and also LoRa “companion” devices with LoRA transmitters inside which work with software on a computer, phone, or tablet.

An example of a dedicated device is the LilyGo T-Deck. If you remember Blackberry devices, it looks like a Blackberry device. But instead of using cell phone services or the internet, it’s just directly talking over radio. No cell service, no internet: just radio.

An example of a “companion” device is the WishMesh Tag. It’s a rectangle about the size of a debit card, but thicker. If you turn its GPS receivers off, it’ll run a solid four, maybe five days on a single charge. You connect your phone, tablet, or computer to it via bluetooth using special software (the previously-mentioned MeshCore or Meshtastic) and run the accompanying app to send and receive encrypted text messages with individuals or groups.

Again: even though it can work on a cell phone, NONE OF THIS REQUIRES INTERNET OR CELL SERVICE. The “phone” isn’t being used as a cellphone here, it’s being used as a small computer that has bluetooth.

In much of the US, the most commonly used software is Meshtastic. Here in Cascadia, MeshCore (download at https://meshcore.io ) is the standard, and it is a very large area network. It seems to work better than Meshtastic does in our mountainous geography, which is why everyone switched.

Both are open source, although closed-source/commercial versions also exist.

Unfortunately, as above, the two packages don’t cross-communicate! So you want to find out what’s most common in your area and use that one, whatever it happens to be.

What do I recommend? Glad you asked.

Being me, I’ve got all three options listed here up and running. I’m just like that; if I can have a contingency plan, I will have a contingency plan; my noise in fiction about how “Sombra always has a plan” is straight-up me.

But that’s not the answer you’re looking for. The answer really depends upon what people are already using around you, because it’s easier to join an existing network than make a new one. But if you’re somewhere all three are active, or somewhere none of them are active, my answer is conditional:

• If you’re working with people who have no technical background AND you don’t care about encryption, then option two, GMRS/FRS radios.
• If you’re dealing with people who like new digital toys OR you care about encryption, then option three, LoRa radio text. You can even set up your own repeaters just about as easily as you can set up a companion device. Seeed makes a repeater that comes with an onboard solar panel and is as close to set-up-and-forget as you’re going to get. As things like this go, they’re not very expensive, and the battery life is generally kind of insane. They sip power, not guzzle it.

So basically, now’s a real good time to reach out to the kind of people you’d want to be able to reach regardless. Get a conversation going amongst the willing and interested, settle amongst yourselves on at least one of these, then set up and actually use it until you know it works and you’re comfortable with how it works.

After all – you never know what kind of emergency might happen, or when. And the time to be ready is beforehand, not during… when you won’t have the time to get comfortable with anything.

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Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 2.1.1 – 15 May 2026 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 2.1.1.

If you’re on a pre-2.1 map, 2.1 was massive, filling in large swaths in the south end and you want this update to catch up.

If you’re on 2.1 already, this is a minor update unless you’re in Newcastle, where by percentage the new bike lane openings are a big deal since not much exists down there. In Seattle, there are also new facilities connecting Broad Street in front of the Space Needle to 4th Ave and the rest of the network, which is a long-awaited connection finally here.

If you’re only using the Greater Northshore map in particular, you have no real reason to update with this release. The CKC is still closed at 85th and will be at least until June. Updating that text to note the slightly-extended construction time is the only change, so you can wait ’til 2.1.2, when you will have reason to update.

2.1.1-specific changes:

• ADDED: Newly-opened protected bike lane along Broad Street in front of the Space Needle all the way to the 4th Ave downtown bike corridor. (MEGAMAP only)
• ADDED: A missing short bike lane on Broad Street from Elliot Ave to Elliot Bay Trail (northwest side only) has been added ot the map. (MEGAMAP only)
• ADDED: T-033 Phase II in Newcastle, which completes the eastbound bike lane on May Creek Park Drive east from the roundabout. Westbound got a sharrow, but no lane. (MEGAMAP only)
• CHANGED: The CKC closure-with-difficult-detours is extended at least through the end of May, and may (may!) go into June. Warning flag modified to note this. (Both maps)

Particular thanks to Shawn Wilsher/@sdwilsh@social.ridetrans.it for photos confirming the new Seattle bike lanes being open.

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get bonus map variants, like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and this month I’m throwing them an all-cautions-removed 0% compression version of the MEGAMAP to see whether people like that. Plus, I can be open to requests.

Regardless – enjoy biking!

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May Day Participation Guide

One-day general strike, via Indivisible.

You in?

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Here, two papers and two articles, all about AI, all I think better than most:

Researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania are proposing an extended model of cognition as a way of measuring and studying “cognitive surrender,” the regular handoff of cognition to LLM models. It’s long but if you’ve got the patience, it’s here. I didn’t see much in the way of surprises, but it does provide an interesting framework for analysis.

One not-emphasised takeaway is that once again, the human intervention for wrong LLM responses model is shit. It’s not emphasised because that’s not the point of their paper – they’re demonstrating their model as an explanative/conceptual framework – but it’s still there.

Scientific American writes about a study showing that AI outputs tend to sway users’ beliefs, even when users are told about biases built into the model. As many – including me – have said many times before, this is absolutely part of the point of AI, particularly but not just for people like Elon Musk. But it’s good to see numbers on it.

Combine study two with study one and you see why the tech brogliarchs so eager to turn thinking into something they sell you. They don’t want to make your life easier, they want to make you pay to think like them. Or, as Karl Bode put it a few months ago, “The problem with AI isn’t going to be Skynet. It’s going to be amoral extraction class assholes applying half-cooked automation at scale onto deeply broken sectors in exploitative ways in a country too corrupt to have functioning regulators.”

Finally, give a look of the narrowly-focused (to coding) but still worthwhile essay, “I used AI. It worked. I hated it.” It strikes me that much of what he hated about it are what people who actually want to be managers like, which explains so very, very much, doesn’t it?

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Washington State’s statewide eBike rebate applications are open! Instead of one big random selection like last year, it’ll be spaced out monthly. You do have to re-register for this year, but only the first time – after that you’re eligible for every drawing.

I can’t recommend a good ebike enough. Seriously. Second photo is what I biked home with on Sunday:

Go read Seattle Bike Blog for all the deets. But if you have any interest in biking again and live in a super-hilly area like me? Again: can’t recommend it enough. There are three-wheelers, there are cargo eBikes (so you don’t have to roll your own trailer like I did), there are four-wheelers, there are recumbents. There are bikes with different levels of assist – I have the lowest kind, a Grade 1, assist-only and a completely normal bike when it’s off, and it’s all Anna and I need.

Anyway, get into the drawing. If nothing else, as multiple people told me on Sunday – it’s a hell of a good way to beat gas prices. Neither Anna nor I have cared what gas costs in years, and you can know the joy of not giving a fuck about it either, too.

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I haven’t seen as much coverage as this as I’d’ve expected, but the MAGA FCC dropped a ban on new imported consumer-grade network routers late Monday by adding them as a class of device to the “supply chain risk” list. Maybe Ubiquiti? But they’re mostly business focused, and I can’t find where they’re made anyway.

You know your wifi box? That’s a router. If you have wired networking, you probably know that you have a router already.

I’m pretty sure banning new models of imported consumer-grade routers means banning all new models, since I don’t think anybody produces consumer-grade kit domestically.

Existing already-approved models can still be imported, as well as sold, according to the fact sheet. So it’s not that all routers are going to vanish off shelves tonight. But new models will need special approval.

It’s that feeling when you hope this is just a shakedown for more payoffs, right? When that’s the good option? That’s where we fucking are.

I guess somebody looked around and said “GPUs are impossibly expensive, memory’s impossibly expensive, storage is through the roof – but networking’s still cheap. LET’S FIX THAT”

jesus hopping christ can we have one day not completely trainwrecked by these goddamn clowns

Here, have the FCC statements. Honestly I don’t know what else to add. In any other situation, I’d just say this is some sort of trade bargaining chip, and in this situation I’m just hoping it’s a shakedown. But given that the shitstain’s role model, Vladimir Putin, has been pushing hard against internet functionality in general in Russia, I’m honestly wondering if this is groundwork for some sort of slow-build network communications shutdown.

And if you missed Putin’s actions in Russia – the west is mostly reporting it as actions against individual apps like Telegram, but it’s much more broad than that, and has included anti-Internet propaganda, complete with Sovietesque children’s musical numbers on television, singing about how “we don’t need the Internet.”

Fascist regimes always want control of communications, and, well, MAGA are fascist, so… is this part of that push? I have no way of knowing. But while I’m not saying definitely buy some spare equipment, you could definitely consider buying some spare equipment.

It might come in handy.

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Pete Hegseth either has no idea what a pocket square is and/or what it’s for, or he uses the American flag as facial tissue, for blowing his nose. You might point this out to any flag patriots who still worship the shitstain and his minions:

Normally, I probably wouldn’t bother with something this stupid and petty, but they’re trying so hard – so hard – to pretend to be old money and yet have no fucking idea what any of the symbolism means that this basically became a small but perfect snapshot of the sick delusional fraud encompassing literally every aspect of their worthless, filthy lives.

There are nearly infinite reasons to want to punch this cretin directly in the face the moment you see him, this is merely one of many.

But it’s just so completely on the nose, isn’t it?

Just like someone’s fist should be.

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Have I played my part well in the farce of life?

— Augustus Caesar, first Emperor of Rome

as reported by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
in The Life of Augustus
originally published 121 C.E., Roman Empire

Did you love my performance in Venezuela?
My performance in Iran is better, isn’t it?

— Donald Trump, President of the United States
as reported by Jonathan Carl of ABC News
originally reported March 6, 2026 C.E., United States

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It is time to declare Elon Musk’s Howard Hughes Speedrun complete? Or is there another level? I’m genuinely not sure. After all, he’s not sitting in a dark hotel room surrounded by jars of his own urine while typing with long, long, long fingernails – as far as we know – but this is some serious crazy and you are not ready for it.

Here’s an actual statement Elon Musk actually made on Monday:

“[The merger of xAI into SpaceX] marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!” Musk said.

Reuters, Archive.today

Emphasis added.

There aren’t words to describe how absolutely batshit insane this is. It’s a degree of psychosis and dissociation from reality that can’t – really shouldn’t – even be discussed rationally. It’s just… so long, rational thought! It’s the kind of thing I’d make up to describe how fucking impossible something was, so I don’t even know what I’d compare it to. Building a machine that makes it rain meatballs is more possible than this.

Why Tesla isn’t seeking zero in after-hours, I can’t tell you. Instead, it was up $3.41 at the end of aftermarket trading. Maybe by the time this goes up, repercussions will have hit. I don’t know. I can’t know, given that I’m writing this in the past of you, the reader, before Tuesday morning’s market opening. But…

Holy hell, team. I’m thinking it might be time to call it. It might be time to say Howard Hughes Speedrun complete.

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