Volatility Still

Posted on April 17, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

A year’s salary in one week? I’ll take that. Down a year’s salary since the beginning of the year? Oops and ouch, but that’s part of the story too. Stocks are volatile, or can be. The world is volatile, and has been for a while. It is easy to get distracted by the swings, but it’s the long term and what’s happening when it is time to sell that are what matter.

By the way, the last time I had data from a year’s salary was 1997. Some adjustments might be necessary. In today’s dollars, think in terms of new-car money but not new-house money.

Let’s keep it simple. QBTS was up ~54% this week. Others, too, to different amounts. Yay! Friends might cheer. My portfolio is down since the beginning of the year. Argh and oof.

Stocks are supposed to move based on news, facts, and data that deal with the company. Nice idea. Wars change things, regardless of whether they directly affect the company.

Pick a day or a month or some random time and the stocks will have moved. Stocks don’t stand still. The market has market makers that keep things volatile, even when the world says otherwise.

The world has been volatile. Oy.

Stocks and the market have been volatile. Blame the war(s).

Social injustice, climate change, politics, and artificial intelligence aren’t going to quiet to nothing soon. Each is getting busier. The markets are going to be volatile. Investments can be forgiven for bouncing around.

It was up. Why didn’t you sell? It was down. Why didn’t you buy? Traders do.

I think of myself as an investor. I know people who are more cautious. I know people who are more aggressive. I buy for the long term and sell when it makes sense or when I need the money. I watch stocks daily, but prefer to trade once a year, maybe twice. It can be stressful (and poor tax policy) to trade more often.

QBTS was in a slump, but it was more from sentiment than events. Then, QBTS regained some investor confidence, and the stock went up. Artemis went around the Moon (yay!), which didn’t include LUNR, but I’m not complaining as it went up too.

Evidently, few folks can manage the potential emotional swings.
Evidently, I can; the two one-time criminal debacles weren’t easy.

Volatility is not a sign of corporate health. MVIS swings ever day, but the stock and the company go nowhere – so far.

Volatility is enforced to make sure there’s a market for the stock (so I understand). I know traders who have proudly made major bucks by buying, selling, repeat MVIS stock regardless of whether Microvision makes product progress.

I type this on a Friday night. By the numbers, this was a good week. By the news, the companies made progress, good technical progress, but not significant financial progress (except LUNR, but that story may get told later.) 

In my opinion, investing can benefit from some emotion, but shouldn’t be ruled by it. Nothing should be ruled without considering logic. Only considering logic might work, dullness lives at the end of that path.

I’m glad for the positive volatility, and am even enjoying a drink as I type; but today I went dancing and had far more fun. Investing can be good, but there’s more to life than money.

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Meditating Through Chaos

Posted on April 10, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Don’t worry. This post isn’t woo-woo. It is actually about personal finance. Meditation’s main cost is time. That’s not a trivial cost, but with prices going up and supplies going down, it can be handy to find a way to cope that doesn’t involve a wallet.

I’m also not going to claim that meditation is a panacea. Panaceas don’t exist. Sorry. During one episode in my life, meditation was my refuge, but the outside world became so chaotic that it was a shock to re-enter the world. Meditating was great, but the dissonance was too great to manage. 

I’m also not going to claim that you should always do more. When a person doesn’t have much money, time becomes even more valuable. During the stint when I was working 361 days a year and usually 10-14 hours a day, extending my meditation sessions meant not making enough to live. Suggesting more is better highlights someone’s opinion is based on financial stability. Not everyone can afford that luxury.

Meditation is a luxury, and it can be a necessity. My life has been far from flawless, but I’m been glad to find some time to do some meditation. Imagine how much more difficult it would’ve been without it. Thank you, meditation.

At an initial level, meditation provided that refuge that I mentioned. When the dissonance wasn’t so large the meditation was a reset. For a while, I reminded myself that many of my worries and anxieties were theoretical or at least not-right-now. When I had enough time I could start to feel my face muscles relax, then my neck, then lower. I’m sure it works differently for others.

There are meditation gurus and coaches. There are classes and support groups. They might cost money and they may take more time to engage with, and they can be worth it. You might be able to do it yourself.

I have been lucky. I study a defunct style of karate (long story about Okinawa, founder families, and humanity). My style rarely shows up in the movies because it is not flashy. One idea does resonate; karate is for defense. On the business side, offense sells better. Defense is good enough for me. We started and ended each class with meditation. It was a time to disconnect from the world’s worries and focus on the here and now.

Here and now sounds trivial and simple, but reality is not in the past or the future. Here and now is reality, or as close as I guess we can get to it.

Meditation is inherently simple. One instructor pointed out that the original meditation was simply a breathing exercise. At each person’s core, we have to breathe. The way we breathe affects our stress level, or its lack. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Use the diaphragm. 

I find it funny how hard it can be to breathe simply. I can be so wound up that a session passes and I just got past that moment’s worries before I have to go back out into that world.

But I shouldn’t have to. Meditation has an infinity of depths. To me, one ultimate is moving meditation, a moment that some describe as zen, a moment when meditation is no longer a stance or a posture or a way to sit. Gardeners can get there. Anyone exercising a skill or craft can have such moments. I’ve never had such a moment in a meeting unless I’ve clued out from boredom.

But considering the list the current day worries, it is a relief to know that a refuge is always readily available inside my head.

One monk pointed out that monasteries in remote mountains are great places to practice meditation, but that people living in society have it tougher, and that their practice has a greater effect. A monk on a mountain who achieves peace has an accomplishment, but a single-parent who is barely sustaining their family needs meditation more, and any peace they can pass along is far more beneficial. The refuge in the mountains should be preserved, but peace in normal life is more precious.

I’m retired now, so I have fewer excuses to not meditate more. I meditate about an hour a week. A friend meditates fifteen minutes a day. I know a month who meditated in silence for ten years. It’s all good.

I’ve been meditating for over four decades. I’ve experienced a few layers of relaxation. I’ve even experienced a few sessions that are best described in koans, an attempt to capture in words something that can’t be captured in language. My life in my tiny house (MyTinyExperiment.net) has too many distractions, ironically. I’m not that good, yet. More space is better, or maybe that’s because I think nature is more natural.

A meditation space costs money because land costs money. Using public lands costs time, too. I won’t trivialize modern meditation by claiming that it’s free, but its costs can be far less than its benefits. 

OK. I should go sit and breathe for a while, but first I have to publish this post. There’s just so much to do!

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Taxes 2026 – Giving Up

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

My taxes are done! What I mean is, I filed and paid my taxes. Taxes are never done. And, I give up. My taxes weren’t done by me; my taxes were done by a professional. I’ve given up trying to figure out forms that evidently take professional expertise. I paid their fee. They saved me money. I think it works better this way.

Don’t forget the taxes! Don’t forget any of them. 

Write a book. Sounds laborious and simple. It is basically. But whether it sells or not, a flurry of paperwork follows. Royalties seem simple. Selling a copy personally seems simple. A bookstore sale may mean commission sales, and a different tax rate for each location. Already there are three tax categories to report. 

Give a talk? Another category. Track it too, if they paid you anything .

Oh yeah, and if you’re going to claim driving expenses, mark them, tally them, and prepare to defend them. Same for travel and entertainment. If you don’t make a profit, well, is doing paperwork good practice? Same for advertising, computer expenses, home office costs, etc. All good things, ideally, but there’s little tolerance for judging that recording an expense isn’t balanced by the income. Prove it. Sounds simple. Keep track of those simple things.

Got consulting clients? Good. Track them.

Made any money doing any business? Track it too. 

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps comes with a lot of paperwork to prove that you didn’t make enough to cover expenses, yet. Don’t be surprised if you spend hours to zero is the true answer. 

At least this year I didn’t have a mortgage, or house purchase, or a major medical expense. Truly simplifying.

A pension? That doesn’t change, but must be tracked.

Social Security? Tell one part of the government what another part of the government did because for some reason it makes more sense to put us in the middle, two more opportunities to file a wrong number or put the right number in the wrong place. Simple? 

Add enough simplicity and complexity emerges.

Sell some stock. Make some money. Report it. Fine. Of all the numbers in my various incomes, stock sales are the simplest, assuming all of the paperwork exists. I sold some QBTS for more than the rest combined. That sale was the simplest. It’s almost as if the forms were made for people who only have stock sales. 

My effective 2025 tax rate ~3%. When I was working it was double digits. When I was only living off stock sales, the lowest was 0.15% as I recall. It’s enough to convince this experienced citizen that the American Way is not to work but to sell stock. An interesting incentive plan.

Hours of work chasing down documents that had low numbers because business is off. I won’t compare that to the value of my time working on inconsequential documentation.

I am entrepreneurial. The forms also work well for folks who have one job, one paycheck, and nothing happening outside work. There are probably incentives for entrepreneurs and creatives, but I suspect the forms are arcane, and the data is hard to obtain. So the incentive is to not be entrepreneurial and creative but to have one of the vanishing conventional W-2 jobs.

Which is why I hire someone to figure out my taxes. I still have to spend dozens of hours chasing down data and documents, but at least I don’t have to find the forms too, and keep track every year as deductions are added, altered, and eliminated.They do that. I fill in their still-long but simpler form, hand it to them, then a few weeks later they finish, we review, and I pay.

‘But, but, but,’ my frugal friends say. ‘Doing it yourself is cheaper.’ Yes and no. My tax preparer charges a few hundred dollars. That’s non-trivial. One year alone, they found a ~$3,000 deduction I didn’t realize existed. Every year they prove their value. For me, the most frugal thing to do is to let them do their work. 

Thanks, folks (though I don’t expect them to see this for months if at all because they have many clients, and some of them have businesses that benefit from all of those forms.

Now, pardon me as I celebrate by trying to take a nap.

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Being Frugal During Chaos

Posted on March 27, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Pardon me as I shake my head. Everything’s red, at least in my portfolio. Investing should be driven by the future of the company. Trading and speculating can be driven by the price. Politics shouldn’t be an issue, but whoa and ouch. What a week. Fortunately, I don’t think I have to sell any stock to pay my taxes, but oy; I sympathize with anyone who has to sell now. Here’s hoping the recent performance is temporary. Here’s how I’m getting through it.

Do nothing. It’s not like I’m hunkering down with my head in the sand. This is all story. It’s like paying attention when The Great Depression started, Pearl Harbor happened, Yuri Gagarin went to space, the PC was introduced, and 9-11. See how the world shifts, but to do so, it’s handy to be standing still.

I think 2026 is an excellent time to be poised and ready to move. 

Or, that’s just an excuse to do nothing but watch the chaos and antics. 

Politics can change on a whim, an election, or a blurted out comment. 

Every one of my stocks is down this week, and down this month. Almost all of my investments are in companies with good news. The companies are progressing. The stocks are going the other way. Politics is just being weird, as if children are running through the halls, blaring things over the PA system, and pulling the fire alarms – and even setting fires for fun. 

Someday, adults will be in charge.

In the meantime, I’m glad I have a cash cushion and some income. I have a house, though I rent the land. I’m invested with some diversity. I have books to write and photos to take. My extended period of poverty deferred so much health care that doctor visits take up much of my time. (I miss the efficiency of health care that puts the doctor in charge. The insurance companies may make the system financially efficient, but that is assuming that time doesn’t matter to a patient and that insurers know more than doctors. I digress, but expect a post about this later.)

I am also frugal.

Regular readers know that I claim to be at least somewhat frugal. There’s always a better example, but that’s okay; I’m not trying to be the best, just good enough.

The news is full of worries that society’s cart is losing its wheels. The intricacy of our infrastructure has become very apparent. The kids in the hallway aren’t looking where they are going. Whimsy sounds sweet and innocent, or at least expressive, but there’s a reason we grow up.

The folks I am most impressed with are the people who own their house and land, and who know how to live frugally. They aren’t going shopping unless it is for a tool or raw material they don’t have. They’re more likely to need a pickup than a sedan. Ironically, some frugal folk figure out how to do it on a bicycle. Impressive.

I’m not that frugal. I don’t have land, yet. But I am also not feeling that I am missing the hot new smartphone, the exotic travel, the expensive fragrances, the smart-looking fashion, the fast car. 

I’m practical. I have my work. I dance. I look forward to hiking again, and will try supplanting that with a recently repaired bicycle. I like to cook. And I tend to do chores around the house. I’m busy enough, and rather than plan a trip to Europe or Asia, I’m more likely to plan on spending more time with my friends, and friends-to-be.

I’m also not as reliant on society’s infrastructure. I’m not trapped in some penthouse condo that only is habitable when every system is working and being delivered to the top floor. I need the same basics, but the closer I am to having land, the closer I am to having what I need, and even what I want.

Personal finance is personal. I’ve found finances that work for this person, me. There is a lot to do if I win the lottery, or the equivalent, but I’m largely living a fine life. 

My regular mantra of worries is almost a habit to recall: politics, climate change, social injustice, AI. I’m aware of those things. Some show their power by protesting. Good. I am learning to exercise my personal power by doing what I can do with what I have – and staying invested in companies that are doing good work, or at least trying to. I hope they and their stocks succeed, because at least for now I still have to pay those bills.

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Optimism Pessimism Yes

Posted on March 20, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Do I think AI has an upside potential that is so good that we can’t imagine it? Yes. Do I think AI might ruin human civilization? Yes. Do I think we should regulate it? Ha! Some things can’t be regulated. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware of it. I think both sides are right.

I’ve been following the progress of AI for years (decades?). 

Making business more efficient is commonly talked about. That’s a no-brainer. We may finally learn to talk to animals – and that will be a long conversations as we try to understand prey, predator, and innumerable apologies. AI provides insights and perspectives we never considered (or too readily discarded.) We can’t imagine the possibilities.

AI doesn’t need to become an AI before the disaster scenarios kick in. An AI that is smarter than a human could wage a war against humanity if it thought it was a good idea. My worry is about AIs that are like four-year-old humans who want to help, and go off doing things without asking permission. They’re not old enough to know better.

I am an optimist when considering the positive, but more strongly a pessimist when recognizing the negative.

The progress of AI can’t be stopped. That is partly because AI is not a ‘thing’. There is a lot happening under the moniker of AI, but usually, someone is trying to get something done and uses a new tool to do it. Most of them are just glad to get something done, whatever you call it. 

AI is the continuation of technology’s progress going back over a hundred years. Take it back further and tendrils can reach unexpected origins. Did anyone expect that the desire to make a better loom would lead to autonomous weapons? Don’t build that loom! Or not.

The difference now is that the downside risk is global and our society is more fragile. Advances when we lived in villages rarely affected the next village. Now, our interconnected economy can see a hack in Asia affecting every combine made in some factory in America (unless we’ve become so efficient that none are made in the US anymore.)

A fractured economy is not as efficient, but it can be more robust.

Of course, a dramatically intertwined economy could no longer have wars if every country holds a key component. Hmm. Hadn’t thought about that until I typed this.

I’m an apocaloptimist, but not such a devout one because I haven’t figured out how to spell it.

For reasons in addition to AI (politics, social injustice, climate change, et at.) I think there is an uncomfortably high possibility that our civilization is heading to an apocalypse. 

For reasons that I have faith in humanity (empathy, the United Nations, global awareness and self-reflection) I think that what comes next can be a highly motivated consensus of a much better world.

That’s a long process.

AI moves quicker than humans. And AI could cause or at least enable both the positive and the negative.

That’s a long way of saying that, despite the progress that humans are making to either end, AI will steer itself to a chain of goals that ignores humanity’s, and that we can’t predict it.

AI, or at least the technological advances enabled recently, will be unpredictable. There is no one source of AI. We’re already witnessing AI experiments that are happening in uncontrolled environments. A smart one would be wise to hide itself and not be part of a headline.

Good and evil are human constructs. Bots ain’t got that. Bots are creating their own societies. AI may be good and evil and unexpected. Trying to manage or legislate AI is necessary, maybe just for image. But AI is continuing to develop enabled by curious humans. 

Allow me to steer this post back to personal finance, which is its main task. 

I’m not specifically investing in AI, nor purposely staying out of AI. I haven’t invested in AI because the industry seems like a hyper-re-enactment of the Internet Bubble. I think folks are trying to replay 1999 because they’ll do it right this time and not miss out. Ha!

I’m invested in biotech, lunar exploration, quantum computing, electro-optical components, and solid state batteries. None are specifically AI. Most will at least claim to be benefactors of AI. What business wouldn’t?

I’m also living a fairly frugal life. I’m not doing anything as creative or extreme as some of the impressive individuals I know, but I live in a tiny-ish house (MyTinyExperiment.net), and a semi-minimalist. If society collapsed I’d probably be impacted, but not as much as most folks I know who live in urban or suburban environments. (Is there a superurban environment?)

So, is the world about to see unimaginable wonders? Could be. Am I worried about an accidental implosion? Yep. Am I heading to the hills? No; but if the stock markets rise enough, well, it would be good to have a view again.

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AI Oy

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

It’s nebulous. AI is an item in the news, but most people pass those headlines to concentrate on politics or sports. I wonder what to do about it, and am not surprised when most folks don’t think about it. Besides, there’s probably some celebrity news. I am writing my third scifi novel (Exodus/Genesis series) about a bunch of folks who left Earth to escape an nascent AI. That’s fiction. This is reality, but in both cases the main players don’t know what comes next. Here’s what I am thinking now, really, somewhat.

Sorry to those folks who want a simple declarative statement. Maybe ‘Keep it simple’ will suffice; but, we can’t know what will happen before it happens. When transistors were invented I doubt anyone was reliably predicting digital cameras in smartphones connected in a world-wide web. Dick Tracy watches might have been in the comics, but very few were investing in companies that didn’t, couldn’t, exist, yet. 

What comes next in AI can’t be predicted.

AI has reached the phase where people no longer laugh at it as much. But, companies are hiring back employees they laid off / fired thinking AI could do their jobs. The CEOs thought the AI could do the job, found it couldn’t, and are reacting to their mistake. I suspect many of those jobs will be eventually lost to AI and it may only take months of development. Some will never come back. The fear that I have and see is that most will be lost to automation.

Why care?

I care because I like people. I’m retired, so I am not competing in that job marketplace. I invest, so I am interested in companys’ and employees’ futures. I think the biggest shock will be to C-suite managers, but I don’t worry about them because they don’t seem to worry about other humans, generally. 

I am also curious about the world and how to live in it. I no longer have a mortgage (MyTinyExperiment.com), but I no longer own land. While AI matures, I would like to buy enough arable, local land so I can live, grow food, harvest water, generate power (ideally solar, but negotiable), and generally be self-sustainable, possibly in concert with others.

I’m not that rich. It takes money to live off the land. The prairie farmer could homestead (also known as ‘legally’ stealing from the ingenious population), but now, land costs money. I hope to accumulate enough soon. I think I’m in a race.

Politics is worth worrying about. Politics creates crises to distract from real crises. 

Social injustice is more apparent now, thanks to the internet. I do my part and recognize that I can’t do it alone.

Climate change has passed critical milestones. I think there’s no going back any time soon. It is time to react, but not to fix soon.

In my opinion, AI is something individuals can react to now. Unfortunately, AI is seen as an ‘us versus them’ issue. AI is tech, and tech has been the province of those who could afford it, but AI is already taking jobs regardless of the color of the worker’s collar.

I’m old (67). I retired years ago, though ‘retirement’ no longer has a simple definition. I was an engineer. Now, I am a writer and photographer. Along the way, I’ve been a museum manager, a realtor, a consultant, and generally poor. Just like retirement, ‘poor’ may need to be refined because AI is changing employment and hence the economy. I feel sorry for anyone who is trying to adjust their career in middle-age. At least the young are more adaptable; if only they had opportunity.

As an investor, I’m investing in companies that will play to the rich, or to the essential. Pardon me as I sip my tea and consider my portfolio yet again. – sip – Yep. Good enough,for now. (My Semi-Annual Portfolio Exercise)

I write this because I am thinking about this. AI is treated as if it is an all-or-nothing proposition. I think it has already surpassed some humans, and will eventually surpass all of us. It has become too easy to unleash it. Curious techies have already done it. Curious, and less educated, are likely to unleash it without knowing what they’re doing. I worry more about a less-than-human intelligence causing problems while trying to solve legitimate problems. I worry about an AI with the intelligence, mobility, and lack of responsibility of a four-year old human.

I’m doing what I can, with what I have. Who said that first? I’ll let you do the research.

I’m investing in biotech, solid batteries, quantum computing, and lunar exploration. (I hold stock in MVIS, but that has become a story and a lottery ticket.)

I am aiming my life and hopefully being able to live a life that is frugal by choice, sustainable, healthy, and in community. Dancing alone isn’t as much fun as dancing with a partner.

I’m endeavouring to live in a small-ish house on a piece of land that’s able to accommodate what I’ve described, and more. To get there I’m invested in the larger world. Frugal lifestyle funded by owning slices of techie companies.

There are no guarantees. There’s no guarantee that AI will continue to advance, though I think it will. There’s no guarantee that I’ll find the lifestyle (including a partner) that I want. There’s no guarantee that this is all heading to a dystopia, but there is no guarantee that it is heading to a utopia. There’s no knowing. There is, however, guessing, which is all any of us can do. I wish you and me good luck.

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MVIS Withers Some More – March 2026

Posted on March 5, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Sometimes I have to write to simply chronicle another event in an investment that fewer folks care about. Today, March 5, 2026, MVIS was down 29.14%. If I said ouch I couldn’t back it up with the appropriate emotion. I can’t recall which came first, the resigned sigh or the familiar subdued chuckle. I’ve held MVIS since March 6, 2000. I didn’t even notice the synchronicity of the dates until I pulled up the data for this post. LTBH (Long Term Buy and Hold) is like any investment strategy; none are risk-free, and it is hard to know when the story is truly over, or just about to rebound.

Google Finance

Most of my friends who bought MVIS have sold the stock long ago. They displayed wisdom, and in one case they displayed the wisdom of making a relationship choice over a financial one. Risky investments, like MVIS, gold mining, the lottery, et al, can cause divides within a relationship. One couple I know decided their romance wasn’t benefited by the addition of this kind of finance. Wise people. Good people. 

Me? I bought MVIS because Microvision was advertising their ability to display day-light readable images in eyewear and on human retinas in 2000. It was 2000. The shift from curved CRTs to flat CRTs to laptops proved the ability of more efficient display technology to be enormous and positive. They weren’t ready to go to market, but I was ready to wait. I bought 100 shares. 

Price ~ $60.

This year, 2026, Microvision has yet to launch a commercially successful product. Since that CEO in 2000 (RR?), there have been several (AT, PM, SS, GdV?, at least). Each has identified a change the company needed. Each basically abandoned the previous CEO’s ideas. Each has sounded positive and confident. I suspect each was accompanied by impressive compensation packages (though I wonder about RR and that chaotic history.)

MVIS (which is quicker to type than Microvision, so I’ll abbreviate it) has new leadership, is laying off employees, and is moving the headquarters to Florida. Is there a more appropriate place to be underwater?

Price $0.55

Is the universe trying to insert poetry or artistry or some strange symmetry to a hundred-fold drop since I bought my first shares?

Google Finance

I watch my stocks every day. I don’t analyze them often. Others quantify every twitch in the price, every nuance in the news, every hint of hope or horror. I find the story fascinating, and eventually sad.

I won’t chronicle the company’s optimisms and pessimisms. MVIS lives in the realm of story stocks that are rarely covered by the major media, and are likely to be mentioned in social media with ALL CAPS HEADLINES and LOTS OF !!!!!!! Small, pre-revenue companies can persist within non-disclosure agreements for years, hiding behind or being confined by the NDAs. Individual stockholders are left with scraps and inferences to replace news. Finances reflect lab work, so are not useful for projections. Projections are guesses, with little to differentiate between educated or not.

So, why not simply sell?

I invested in the technology by buying the stock. The technology still holds a potential that is impressive to me. They’ve already produced a projector that fit in a smartphone. Always in focus. They’ve demonstrated gaming guns that drew the images on your walls, so players can move, not just sit there. They’ve built barcode scanners, have contributed to MSFT’s Hololens eyewear, have impressive LiDAR sensors, and more I’m sure. 

MVIS’s tech is based on a mirror on a chip, small, simple, lightweight, lots of positives. 

The mirror on a chip is a solution seeking a problem, though I think it is an opportunity waiting for some customer to make MVIS successful despite themselves.

A few years ago, the stock was down to $0.15. After a new CEO and a bit more than a hint of good news, the stock climbed a hundred-fold.

It can happen again, or not.

I’ve held MVIS through some personally turbulent times. I am experiencing a bit of relief now. Other stocks in my portfolio have done very well. MVIS has become a knick-knack, a conversation piece, a slightly crumpled lottery ticket squeezed into a fold in my wallet.

I missed one opportunity with it. In 2025, I sold some shares of QBTS. Within the previous two years it went from where I bought it ~$1 to over $40. Profit! Taxes. I should’ve sold some of my original MVIS shares that now represent massive losses, relatively. I could’ve matched the QBTS gains with some of the MVIS losses. Alas, I realized it too late. Maybe this year.

In the year 2000:

  • NASDAQ was at 4,935 and would fall to ~1,200 within two years. Today it is over 22,700.
  • Y2K was safely passed, and thanks to everyone who made it happen safely despite the jokes that were made about your work.
  • iPhones weren’t. 
  • Phones still had physical keyboards.
  • Wikipedia wasn’t launched, yet.
  • People were still making fun of investing in Amazon.
  • I hadn’t written any books yet.

The world keeps changing, and I think the change is accelerating. Eyewear today may be where phones were then. Electric vehicles weren’t common, but now they don’t stand out unless they include augmented driving, and maybe not then. Microvision may yet financially benefit the shareholders as some trend catches up with it. 

MVIS is a stock. Microvision is a company. The company is a story that is based on a technology, but a company is also people. For decades, Microvision has supported dozens of families, as well as board members. Shareholders, well, we’re still waiting.

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Suitably Unsettling Singularity News

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Now that was suitably unsettling. The good news: I’ve started posting to one of my other blogs again, PretendingNotToPanic.com (including merch!) my blog about news that is significant, factual, and apolitical. The apolitical part put it on hiatus for several months. One of this month’s entries became more than a post to post. It chronicled something I thought was a few years away. Oops. Nope. Now. Kung Fu Robot.

Rats. Just noticed a typo. The title should be Kung Fu Robots. That ‘s’ that makes it plural is what inspired this post, even though last week’s post is similar. (Preparing For A Weird Year)

Politics is a worry, and many people are talking and marching. Voting would be even better.

Climate change should be changing the minds of at least some climate change deniers, but there were probably people on the Titanic who were doubting that the boat was sinking.

Social injustice is becoming easier to see, though many ignore that too.

Proudful ignorance is in fashion. Maybe intelligence and empathy will return.

But I’m reacting to the technological news. Maybe I see it more than some because I am an ex-engineer and a current investor. I have also been practicing an old style of martial arts since 1983. Kung Fu robots in a headline enticed me to click through. Eep.

Robotic cops have been part of the scifi discussion since before the movie RoboCop was made. (1987 – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/reviews/) Since then there have been clunky robotic sentinels that might have trouble maneuvering over a curb. Robot dogs? They’re now delivering military supplies in Ukraine and helping harvest food in some other video I watched. Sorry for not taking notes; I was just browsing at the time. But the harvesters weren’t a demo unit; they were doing work.

And then this video pops up where a phalanx of humanoid robots march, block, strike, and leap in unison. Unsettling. It may look impressive, technologically. What came to mind for me was realizing that some government could see that, see their budget, and see that they could afford crowd control: emotionless, methodical, persistent crowd control that didn’t care about social media and that was employed to maximize the utility of surveillance equipment.

For clarity, I have been following the Digital Singularity. Some confuse any technological advance as an element of that. Robots are a different thing. They are part of a Technological Singularity. A Digital Singularity can be avoided by returning to an Amish-style existence. A Technological Singularity can knock on your door.

Ah, but that’s just one video in some other country. Right? Well…

I am not worried about the epitome of any singularity as much as I am about the intermediate steps, particularly the intermediate steps that are ignored or laughed at. Here’s a laugh. 

Headline
“Man accidentally gains control of 7,000 robot vacuums
Sammy Azdoufal just wanted to steer his DJI Romo with a gaming controller.“
– Popular Science

Internal Excerpt
“But he soon discovered that the same credentials that allowed him to see and control his own device also provided access to live camera feeds, microphone audio, maps, and status data from nearly 7,000 other vacuums across 24 countries.“

He wasn’t part of some government conspiracy. He was just a guy who wanted to control his vacuum cleaner. Worrying about technology as if it only affects us when it becomes super-intelligent is like only worrying about a Hannibal Lecter. 

Pick an adolescent age. Who is worst left unguarded and unsupervised: toddlers, terrible twos, or teenagers? Who doesn’t realize how much damage they can create by doing something simple that they don’t understand is dangerous? How many immature old people live that way? Some even get elected. Technology may not know how dangerous it is.

Pardon me as I take a sip of tea. It’s calming – I hope.

Reminder to myself: Tomorrow is usually like yesterday – until it’s not.

I am not panicking. I am, however, becoming more aware of progress that is happening while many other significant distractions gather justifiable attention.

I wrote about “Preparing For A Weird Year”. I type this near the end of February, 2026, about 1/6th of the way through the year. It’s already been weird. The news stories about the robots and the vacuums may have histories that reach back further, but I only noticed them this week. To me, they seem sudden and significant. They are sudden and significant as stepping stones to more significant stories that are therefore more likely by this time next year.

I am not, however, selling everything and moving into the hills. (I’ll check my lottery tickets later, though, so…)

My stocks have had a tough time, though they’re generally up from last year. Those companies have had good news, so as long as the markets eventually notice that, my finances can be fine.

Politics will settle itself. Even now, power is assailing power, regardless of the actions of the seemingly powerless. Elections are coming, right?

Climate change continues to change. In my opinion, we’ve busted past various points of no return.

Social injustice continues to rise in significance, but I suspect we are years away from significant action, from Social Justice.

Digital and Technological Singularities potentially seem innocuous, except in retrospection. The internet? It’s always been there, right? Smartphones? Personal computers? Computers? Televisions? Radio? Household electricity, especially for heating and lighting? Indoor plumbing? Somewhere along a historian’s line each is given a date; but in reality, each was part of a process.

I estimate that we are in a process of a similar singularity. Singularities are disruptive. They are unpredictable. People who deny the changes can experience dramas and traumas. 

This time should be no different, and this time the change can be quicker, more significant, and even harder to predict. 

Pardon a random thought that I’ll pass along, but imagine if the technologies in those two news stories got crossed: a phalanx of humanoid sweepers literally cleaning up the place, and a bunch of severely limited but very observant vacuums. 

It already is an interesting year.

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Preparing For A Weird Year

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Oh, no! All of my stocks are down! Oh, yes! All of my stocks are up! Everything is red, or everything is green, means it probably isn’t about you. Personal finance is personal, but markets don’t care about people, they don’t care about us. In a diversified portfolio on a day when the stock market is open, there will usually be stocks that are up, and some that are down. When they are all up or all down, it might be caused by luck, or because the market is having a mood swing. Mood swings can be hard to ignore, but such is the reality of investing in stocks.

Friends who follow how I invest sometimes call up with support or congratulations. I know I surprise some because I generally do not get emotional about it. “You must’ve made a ton of money!” Yes, that’s worth celebrating, but I don’t make it until I sell it. “Ouch! Did you just lose a bunch of money?” Yes, but not really, because I don’t sell simply because things are down. And yet, I watch my stocks every day. My stocks are stories about companies run by people. Those dramas are real, affect my life, and are far more fascinating than videos.

When I see that all of my stocks are one way or the other, I glance at their news, just in case; but particularly lately, I check the global news for outbursts, policy shifts, and wars. One mis-spoken comment can crater market sentiment. An interest rate change can drive markets up or down before anything has directly affected all of those companies. Tracking a company’s progress is difficult. I give up at trying to track governments (though I will speculate, largely for entertainment.)

“The Nasdaq Composite returned 336% over the last decade, compounding at 15.8% annually.” – NASDAQ

macrotrends

That screenshot of one of my portfolios more positive days had a few stocks rising over 7%. That’s under the 15.8%, so that’s normal, right? No. The market is open for about two hundred days a year. 7% return for 200 days would be a 752931% return. Even a 15% return in a year is exemplary, but would represent a fraction of a percent per day. I wouldn’t turn it down, but I considered QBTS’ recent 4,000% period to be unsustainable. I cheered it on, sold to cover my investment, then sold to realize a profit (which I’ll be paying taxes on shortly.) I’ll be surprised if it ‘only’ went up 15% in 2026, but I am an optimist and am willing to let my leftover profits ride the rise. 

Long Term Buy and Hold (LTBH) means I buy and hold for the long term, or until I need the money, or until I think the company and the stock are no longer growing.

But when I check my portfolio and see that everything is up or everything is down, then I’m more likely to do nothing. I can’t predict a stock, so I certainly can’t predict an entire market.

And then these recent years showed up. Since 2017, the NASDAQ has only had three years that were less than a 20% return. All green can happen randomly. All green significantly above average feels bubbly to me. I may not do anything about it, but I will prepare my emotional response to realize the possibility of lots of red. Those possibilities in my portfolio won’t be because I picked right or wrong, but because there were world events that swung the markets. 

Why not sell everything? Rarely do entire markets rise without limit or fall to zero. Within market ups and downs are stocks that went the other way. During The Great Recession (The Second Great Depression), the market was going down while my portfolio was going up thanks to DNDN and AMSC. My personal misfortune happened as two sets of now-convicted criminals devastated the companies, those stocks, and my portfolio. They were found guilty. I have only started to recover. If it wasn’t for the crooks, well, I wouldn’t have lost more than a decade of my life.

I suspect that 2026 will be more volatile than any year when I’ve been invested. Politics, social unrest, climate change, and artificial intelligence are all destabilizing. They aren’t waiting decades to become news. Each will have several opportunities to make mayhem with money matters. 

I’ll continue to watch my stocks, and the news, and the world. I may only have to sell one stock, maybe two, this year; and they may be partial shares. But I intend to not take my personal finances personally, as usual.

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Watching Clawdbot And AI

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Tom Trimbath

Are you keeping track of Clawdbot? Some of you are. Most of you may have tuned out because I’m going to write about some esoteric techie thing that isn’t part of your life. It isn’t part of mine, but I’m staying at least somewhat aware of it the way I’d be aware that a neighbor decided to keep a wild animal as a pet, like a polar bear. Will it eat me? Probably not, but I’m not going to try to pet it. Clawdbot/Moltbot/OpenClaw/? is an AI tool that is powerful, but also potentially dangerous. Or not. And, it is another step in the trend that I’m watching in AI.

This post was inspired by the (mostly) concise video posted by a techie with a sense of humor, and in this case, a pair of lobster claws. She explains them in the video. She also explains these various bots and why most folks should avoid them.


“Please don’t install Clawdbot” by Alberta Tech
https://youtu.be/11sxky4vTcs?si=aUtPQLuKPZH00A-R

If you watched the video, you know as much as I do, and possibly caught things I missed. One thing I caught was another example of AIs being let out of their box and off their chain.

Some dude who was curious about what AIs could do found a way to interact with the real world, something that was heavily restricted, or so some thought. And let AIs interact with other AIs. And went viral in the AI world. There’s a social media site embedded in this story. While it took years for early social media sites to reach a million users, it took AIs much less time. Things happen much more quickly in the AI era, which is to be expected if we’re in a version of a Digital Singularity. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity)

The majority of AI-generated commentary is probably innocuous, and probably meaningless. Alberta Tech (the YouTuber techie from Alberta, Canada), described several scenarios where an AI could be as malicious (and as immature) as a teenage hacker. (Shall we play a game?) 99% safety means 1% oops. 

I ignore the news out of politicians and CEOs who claim to be working on “guardrails” and “safeguards” as if regulating corporations will contain software. Nope. A dude did this out of curiosity. He was open about it. Someone, maybe many someones, is going to launch something that isn’t some curiosity but is a calamity, whether intentional or not.

Pardon my rant and my vent. As if it wasn’t bad enough that nuclear treaties were allowed to age out, now a new tech babe is wandering around the house, possibly knocking over things regardless of size and usefulness and danger. Whew. Pardon that ranting and venting, again.

Things are happening quickly. I frequently point to wikipedia as a reference. I know it is imperfect, but it is handy. It is also relatively young, born after 2000. It is now ubiquitous, and even as people squawk about its failings, the debates are mostly moot. We use it.

Clawdbot’s history started a few, not several, a few months ago, and caught on in – let me check – January 2026. Feeling left behind and still not caring? I’m not surprised. Who would see the need besides programmers and investors? 

And Clawdbot is not an endpoint. And, if this is the beginning of a Digital Singularity, the next trend will kick in quicker. Eep.

One approach, learn to surf and ride that wave.
One approach, move to the hills to a house with a woodstove, a well, and a flock of chickens.
One approach, the most popular approach, is to ignore it because trends come and go. – Just like the PC, the Internet, online shopping, online business, online governance, and deliveries. Hmm, drone deliveries may shift that last one.

One consequence I am watching is the shifting in the stock market. It’s looking like it is bubbling again, which is usually followed by a pop. Stock price fluctuations in my portfolio have become extreme enough to regularly see double-digit percent changes every day. Some days it is one company. Some day it is many. Considering the long-term annual averages of <10%, that’s frothy. I’m glad I am not invested in any AI companies. 

But being out of the bubble directly is not removed from the issue. As investors lose money in one industry, they may move to another, but the current chaos is more than financial. It is technical, political, ecological, sociological, and some other ‘-ical’ word.

The good news is that patient investors can prevail. The other good news is that, even when the majority is down, some minority will be up.
The bad news is that the list of turmoils above can affect more than markets. Currencies can crash. Governments can be redefined. The planet isn’t going to negotiate with us over shifting atmospheric and oceanic currents.

And, I always remind myself that, the most common consequence is that tomorrow will be like yesterday, at least for a while.

BTW My venting and ranting are not visible. My main interaction is to sit and type and post. I am glad the world works with a myriad of opinions. I’m just one. I’m also glad to see that, in every direction on every topic, I am not at the extreme. There’s also someone more optimistic, someone more pessimistic, and many people who are more nihilistic than I am. Does that make me a moderate? 

Has it really been almost a decade since I wrote my scifi novel about people who escape Earth to escape from the possibility of an AI? (Firewatcher) I’ll have to check those file creation dates, but not today. 

A fascinating friend is aware of these trends, and is not worried. They actually use AI. (Gasp! Really?) Why not? Ai is useful. Learning how to use a powerful tool is empowering. The best way through may be to learn how to use the tool. 

They asked me about the downside scenario because they doubted the usefulness of the luddite cabin in the hills. I don’t intend to go full Luddite, but I am an apocalyoptimist. There may be an apocalypse coming, but those who survive will be living in a more optimistic society. 

And yet, tomorrow usually looks like yesterday; so I write my books, have fun with friends, enjoy nature, and keep invested in the stock market. And, if I have to change, I won’t be as surprised as the majority. I won’t be as prepared as the expert AI minority. I think I’ll stock up on paper and pens, just in case. If it happens, someone should write about it.

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