Shells are much better than python at managing and orchestrating process execution. Also the pipes and filters model is simple and powerful when it fits your problem, which for me is many times a day.
The interviewer was clearly annoyed at my questions, it was not that I didn't discuss the right things, it was that I asked too much and drew too little.
I've failed system design interview where they repeatedly asked me to design "for scale" but all the volume and latency requirements I could get from them could be handled by a single HA pair running a monolithic server+ external managed data store.
They also seemed annoyed that I am asking them questions that are not part of the problem statement instead of getting down to drawing a fancy diagram.
I'm sure they hired someone who drew a lot of boxes with cute logos because webscale.
If you don't like fiat there is always gold. If you really care about value, independent from the monetary system (post-apocalyptic safety), buy tools, grain, generators and oil, though many of these things are perishable and storage comes at a cost.
One must ask whether the Bitcoin valuation has raised 1000% because the fiat has inflated as much, or is it mostly driven by speculation. For reference point, the buying power of fiat currency has not changed dramatically during the same period.
Some years ago, at the height of the Augmented Reality bubble, I had a hackathon idea about smart sunglasses that would replace any detected poster and billboard with information of your choosing - your favorite art, personal photos, notifications about upcoming alarms.
I am no longer into hackathons, but I would pay good money for such a product. Bonus points if it is styled like Nada's glasses from They Live.
I tried to skim-read through the Unison About page, but all I saw was an under-designed variation of Jetbrains MPS for a single language. I assume you have spent longer with the project - do you care to summarize the differences?