As 2025 draws to a close, the calendar delivers a fitting quartet: National Bacon Day (offering crispy, unadorned truths), the Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, National Resolution Planning Day, and National Bicarbonate of Soda Day (essential for neutralizing the seasonal excesses). It is a quirky assembly, yet it resonates with year-end reflection, savoring the substantive, effervescing the indigestion, and plotting significant shifts before the chronological toll of midnight.
Sitting here in Mountain View, observing the persistent Silicon Valley haze, I am reminded of divergent paths. My brother Erik Toomre — whose trajectory through MIT, a Stanford PhD, Sun Microsystems, Clarent, and early Tesla operations culminated in co-founding Seurat Technologies — stands as a monument to technical probity and industrial impact. Proud does not begin to encapsulate it.
Closer to home, Dad approaches his 89th birthday. He has summoned his sons for the celebration — and, I suspect, for those delicate, atavistic conversations regarding legacy and equitable distribution among descendants. It is arduous terrain, yet his intent is manifest: fairness without later obfuscation. Like the current state of the New England Patriots, we are in a "rebuilding year" for the family estate; it requires a disciplined playbook and a refusal to settle for mediocrity. We do not play for "participation trophies" at the Toomre kitchen table.
These moments necessitate the question: Which apertures must close to permit new entry? My health and mental acuity remain intact — a fact for which I am profoundly grateful. What is the grander challenge for 2026?
On the professional front, a decision looms regarding the launch of a SaaS utility tentatively titled BSD (a dual homage to “Bull Shit Detector” and the “Big Swinging Dick” archetype of Liar’s Poker fame). The tool is engineered to penetrate the narrative fog within financial reports, earnings calls, and prospectuses using Machine—Readable Reporting ("MRR"). Regarding the nomenclature: designating power users as “Bull Shit Detectors” possesses a certain irreverent charm — the rare truth-tellers in a landscape of corporate spin. However, should we opt for the more decorous “Veracity Analysts” to circumvent trademark altercations? Your feedback is solicited — a pivot may be imminent.
Many observers have still not revisited my December 27, 2022 WILT regarding the digital transformation of financial reporting. Through the unflagging efforts of pioneers such as John Tierney and Steven MacLaird, the lexicon of “taxonomy” and “ontology” is now codified in law via the Financial Data Transparency Act (FDTA). Specifically, Section 5821 of the NDAA for FY2023 mandates that data standards must be "nonproprietary" and "searchable and machine-readable." To dismantle this would require a total deconstruction of Voluntary Consensus Standards Bodies ("VCSB") — frameworks that take over half a decade to mature.
California possesses a certain allure, yet the call of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in summer and the anchor of Palm Beach County, Florida, in winter remains constant. Meanwhile, the intellectual ferment at MIT regarding tokenization and systemic risk modeling will inevitably draw me toward Cambridge and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The United States may initiate the cadence, but the ECB, Bank of Japan, BoE, and SNB are all listening.
So much is swirling — family, legacy, and global innovation. It is time for another cup as 2025 recedes.
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May your coffee be strong, your resolutions bold, and your enormous changes precisely calibrated.