ZD 25.45: Prediction Market Madness
Is it gambling if they call themselves a market?
Studying prediction markets, what to make of the elections, how to be your own cloud, AI & the future of hip-hop, browsers becoming your agents and more.
The Distilled Spirit
Predictions and Markets
Prediction markets are blowing up. They are certainly interesting, but are they good? Here are two ways to look at them.
📉 Prediction Markets and the Suckerification Crisis ()
Casino-market hybrid tools like Kashi or Polymarket attract a certain sort of sucker to fuel them. The companies that run these prediction markets might even be fueling the fire.
Kalshi and Polymarket intersperse their “BREAKING: Trump Might Win Nobel Prize” posts with enticements to bet on the strange and volatile world depicted in the other tweets.
📈 A New Way to Hedge ()
Prediction markets represent an interesting way to hedge your portfolio, cheaper than buying enough options to cover.
I was recently listening to a TBPN podcast, and they mentioned that Polymarket just recently added the ability to “bet” on a company’s earnings.
🕵️ Unofficial Jobs Data ()
ICYMI the market did not have a great week. The ongoing government shutdown has prevented the typical job data releases one would expect. The unofficial data does not look promising and might be hinting at deeper problems coming.
)As of October 31, job postings had slumped to their lowest level since 2021, with year-over-year declines recorded in almost every sector tracked by Indeed.
Some things you believe might not actually be true, and he has the charts to prove it.
Election Lessons
Democrats had a big night last week. Here is some thought on just how good a night and what that could mean for the midterms and beyond.
🤴 Mamdani Channeled Fandom (Wired)
Zohran avoided AI slop and built authentic engagement with fans on his way to a historic win.
He uses social media with the same seriousness he brings to issues like housing and affordability. This approach provides his audience with something tangible that they can engage with online in their own language, creating a community around Mamdani that exists online as well as in real life.
7️⃣ Seven Data-Driven Lessons ()
Was last week’s 10/10 night for the Democrats just the typical thermostatic backlash or something more?
Charts of results show the scale of the Democratic victories. The exits show that voters prioritized affordability and the economy, and acted on their near-historic disapproval of the president.
Computing Today
Is the cloud a good idea? What does the bleeding edge of vibe coding feel like?
🪚 You Need to Become a Full Stack Person (Den Delimarsky)
AI makes it a lot easer to make the thing. Differentiating yourself requires actually understanding the thing well enough to know when the AI is lying.
With a lot of the CRUD-like development capabilities becoming within reach of anyone with a keyboard and $20 to toss for a monthly subscription, this also means that anyone can start bringing their software ideas to life. But just like the invention of the 3D printer didn’t magically destroy the manufacturing market, LLMs won’t destroy the tech one.
🤖 The Most Proficient Claude User ()
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to spend $50,000 on Claude Code?
That $50,000 monthly burn rate is no longer achievable. Anthropic has imposed three successive usage caps, each more restrictive than the last. Now I can consume roughly $20,000 per month, while new users max out around $6,000-$7,000.
🧠 Managing Context in AI Coding ()
Context engineering is the emerging art of providing your LLM all the context it needs to complete a task. It is how to get your agents to agent right.
Other than thinking about what’s important per se, and how to keep things neat and tidy, you need to identify what matters for the task at hand. Things are usually not black-or-white here, so, for any category of task, I find it useful to identify what is mandatory to know, vs what is best effort.
☁️ Be Your Own Cloud (rameerez)
Renting servers costs 1/10th what you would pay for AWS. It can make sense to be your own cloud. AI makes it much easier to run your Linux boxes.
In fact, there has never been a better time to get good at servers. Claude and ChatGPT are both extremely knowledgeable about Linux, and can guide your steps like it’s never been possible before in the history of technology.
AI Headlines
Wither the AI backlash, Jensen goes to Korea, the top 100 firms and how will AI change hip hop?
🧵 Luddites Always Fail ()
Holding back new technology waves is neigh impossible. Scribes failed to stop the printing press, weavers failed to stop industrialization. Will Lawyers be able to stop AI?
There are very few examples in history of any group of workers, trade union or guild being able to entirely block a new technology in the long run, even if the workers impacted represent a supposed social elite.
🍻 Jensen’s Beer Summit ()
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang made a $7.8bn deal over beers this week. What will companies like Samsung, Hyundai and SK do with the chips?
Other than the US and China, the southern half of the Korean peninsula has arguably one of the most full-stack technology ecosystems, spanning digital services, consumer electronics, cloud computing, and advanced manufacturing.
🎙️ AI & The Future of Hip Hop ()
We are at an inflection point — AI artists are hitting the charts while hip hop acts seem to be fading. Here are some thoughts about how this commoditization will play out.
Commercialism already watered down the product, but with AI now being used to remove the actual artist from the work, and labels figuring out how to adjust it, it feels like a movie we’ve seen before (one that ends with the devaluation of the art form on a mainstream level).
AI In Your Browser
Is there a difference between an AI and your browser when your browser has an AI?
🌍 The Browser Becomes and Agent ()
AI companies are making browsers, Browser makers and shoving AI into their browsers. Browsers are becoming the OS for agents.
For decades, the browser has been a passive surface, one that shows what we ask it for. But in the emerging agentic era, that surface is becoming dynamic and is capable of understanding context, intent, and even helping us act.
👆 Your Custom GPT Just Got Promoted ()
If you have invested time in making Custom GPTs, Atlas gives them superpowers.
ChatGPT’s Atlas browser turned those specialized GPTs you built (and probably forgot about) from passive chat partners into active teammates who can actually see what you’re looking at.
Memory, Schooling and Self-Improvement
The state of memory, schooling and ways to improve yourself.
📳 Under 40’s Declining Memory ()
People under 40 have significantly increased self-reporting of cognitive disability. Has the machinery of dis-attention robbed them of the ability to pay attention?
🏫 Schooling at the Juncture of AI ()
Schooling was developed around the turn of the 20th century and barely developed throughout the next century. The last few decades have seen some experimentation, but we are not ready for AI changing what knowledge means.
🚨 How To Tolerate Annoying Things (Psyche)
Some good ways to deal with the annoying things in life.
👎 Logical Fallacy Field Guide (Sahil Bloom)
Logical fallacies undermine your arguments. Avoid them.
Cool Things
🔋 Building a Whole Home Battery (Chris Doel)
If you ever looked at your disposable vape and wondered how you could recycle hundreds to make a 50-volt battery pack this video is for you. Even if you haven’t it is pretty cool to see the engineering in action.
🍣 What to Bring to Japan ()
What should you take to Japan? And what should you grab when you get there?
🎤 Why You Love "Take On Me” (Washington Post)
Aha’s hit Take on Me turns 40. Learn how the song came to be and what makes it so sticky with this gratis link.
The Look
Drawing Dayton’s holiday market via
.
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