thecoppinger

> How is a non-profit trade-size limited prediction market in any way a competitor for Kalshi?

Because it was one of the longest running and largest prediction markets to ever exist.

> trade-size limited

Kalshi is trade-size limited, too.

I hear what you're saying, but I feel there is an assumption made by your counter-argument which insinuates that the CFTC is a functional and non-corrupt organization. My perspective, based on my research, seems to suggest otherwise.

Unfortunately, this seems to be endemic of American politics and government organizations.

In Kalshi's case, Brian Quintenz aside, let's talk about Jeff Bandman, who spent close to 3 years at the CFTC.[1] Well, after doing so, he became a regulatory strategy advisor for Kalshi.

Here I quote a Bloomberg article[2] on Kalshi from earlier this year:

"Eventually they tracked down a former CFTC official, Jeff Bandman, who assured them the landscape was changing; he agreed to help them navigate the agency and its characters."

So yeah, I'll concede that there are a few un-generous assumptions that need to be made to fully paint Kalshi as a bad actor in this situation, but given the various pieces of context available, I don't feel it's an overstep to call behavior like this out.

Ultimately Kalshi is set to be a unicorn startup, and I wish the founders success in their endeavors—they appear to be exceptionally bright and hard working individuals—but what appears to have transpired for them to have their shot doesn't sit right with me.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbandman/

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-05-26/kalshi-s-...

Archive link as the original has a paywall:

https://archive.ph/20220527010753/https://www.bloomberg.com/...

I went deep doing research on prediction markets a few months ago, and no, it's not an unfair conclusion.

Brian Quintenz is a Republican financial manager who was nominated to be a commissioner of the CFTC by Trump in 2017.[1]

During his time at the CFTC, as I recall, there was heavy bipartisan action, which he was praised for.

Well, there's a slightly more cynical take that he was indeed completely crooked.

My memory is foggy, and I don't have time to grab sources just yet as I have a meeting coming up so I'll update this shortly, but he was then turfed out of the CFTC under Biden and promptly hired by Kalshi.

Given his record, it's less of a jump to see what Kalshi is doing as shady, but more of a smoking gun... PredicIt, which had been operating under a no action letter (NAL) from the CFTC since 2014 just happened to have that letter withdrawn a few months after Kalshi raises $30m at a Series A to take their platform live.[2]

From my point of view, this is classic American lobbying mafia style stuff. Prediction markets have been prevented from flourishing for decades, and now that the time has arrived, the crooked CFTC et al have cleaned the house so their chosen startup that they're deeply in bed with can thrive.

The whole thing, quite frankly, stinks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Quintenz

[2] https://www.pymnts.com/news/international/2022/millions-comm...

This is my learning goal right now, I can’t thank you enough!

I'd argue that having the confidence and ambition to make the jump is also a function of privilege to some degree.

Perfect, thank you very much.

I’d disagree — I think most folks are too busy and stressed to learn to code.

Access to quality, free information isn’t enough, sadly. The average person the world over isn’t in a position to make the jump due to economic factors over intellectual limits.

Any chance you could provide a link to an example product? Air purifiers seem pretty expensive, but I expect that might be due to my location

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to listen to Six60 while on hold, I’d be rich enough to start a bank.

Noted, thank you!

Hey, no worries! Enjoy. I'll get around to having some shipped to NZ someway-somehow sooner or later, I can't wait to try the stuff myself.

> [a] How has his writing changed how you eat, and [b] have you noticed any differences in health metrics?

[a]

Well, I now avoid vegetable oils quite intensely. The higher-order effect of being more aware and intentional of what I eat & cook has lead me to much healthier eating habits over all; I now mainly consume un-processed foods.

In fact, it's nigh impossible to remove seed oil from ones diet without cutting out processed foods, as you quickly realize it's in (nearly) everything.

[b]

I track a bunch of health metrics via an Oura ring and Apple Watch, but it's hard to parse what improvements have come from the reduction in seed oils vs. the myriad of other positive changes I've made over roughly the same time period (daily weight lifting, running, improved sleep hygiene etc.).

I can say that my resting heart rate has decreased, my sleep quality has improved & my VO₂ max is better than it's been since I began recording it (about a year) etc. etc.

I recently had my bloods, testosterone, cholesterol & liver functions tested and everything came back healthy.

—

Overall, I've gone from being frequently fatigued, rundown and mentally overwhelmed (frequent anxious & depressive thoughts) earlier in the year to the other end of the spectrum as of writing. I can't recommend making the jump to cut-out seed oils enough.

On a side note, as a 20-something year old, this experience has been a real eye opener. I've always held a healthy skepticism of conventional healthcare/medical wisdom as my father was a doctor and his insider views on things were very revealing. Now that I've gone through a dietary/health metamorphosis of sorts, I feel enlightened to the fact that you simply cannot rely on populist knowledge & guidelines to ensure you're being healthy, or for much else for that matter.

Whether it be a consequence of the monolithic & slow moving nature of health science, or something more nefarious [lobbying, misaligned financial invectives, greed over health & welfare], the fact that seed oils were (and still are) praised & pushed as being a healthy alternative to olive oil, butter etc. is nigh insanity.

A few months ago I finally stumbled down the PFAS chemicals rabbit hole, and my dull sense of terror & disappointment increased further still. It's a strange world we live in. The phrase 'boring dystopia' springs to mind.

Sorry, I meant it in reference to my comment as opposed to the research you posted

Edit: reading this back, it sounds somewhat like an attempt to shill a product. So, disclaimer: I have absolutely no affiliation with Jeff or the Cultured Oils, I’m just fascinated by it.

Serial entrepreneur Jeff Nobbs recently launched a new product in the food oil space: Cultured Oil*

I came across his writings* on the perils of seed oils earlier this year and it radically changed the way I eat.

After becoming aware of the danger high linoleic acid diets pose, as well as the climate implications of other oils, Jeff’s Cultured Oil looks incredibly impressive, albeit I haven’t had the chance to try it yet as they don’t ship to New Zealand.

In summary, from their FAQ:

“Cultured Oil is cooking oil made by fermentation, resulting in high levels of healthy fats, a small environmental footprint, a clean taste, and a high smoke point!

Fermentation describes the process of microorganisms (or "cultures") consuming natural sugars and converting those sugars into entirely new foods. Just as there are sourdough and wine cultures, there are also oil cultures. An oil culture converts sugar into the healthy delicious fats that make up Cultured Oil.

Cultured Oil is primarily monounsaturated fat, the heart-healthy and heat-stable fat also found in olive and avocados.

In every serving of Cultured Oil (1 Tbsp - 14 grams), there are about 13 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, and 0.4 grams of polyunsaturated fat. Olive oils and avocado oils contain between 55-83% monounsaturated fat, and up to 21% polyunsaturated fat. Cultured Oil contains over 90% monounsaturated fat and less than 4% polyunsaturated fat

* https://www.zeroacre.com/

* https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease

Seconding this, I’m reading the book at the moment and it’s an exceptional insight into the near and long term future. It’s also terrifying.

That’s my experience and perception, too.

Agreed. The anti-Electron crusaders seem to be some of the loudest folks out there, too. 1Pass is great in my opinion, it's a shame it's being so negatively portrayed through-out this thread.

Second this. 1Password is excellent, and when I had a critical support issue, their team (and even CEO, believe it or not) went above and beyond.

The claim that they're censoring critical posts on their forum is fairly baseless until they've had a chance to respond — Occam's razor would suggest there's a much less nefarious reason for posts not showing up.

Finally, the Hacker News crowd has a clear bias towards shitting on Electron apps in the war against perceived crimes of not being performant on ancient systems. I'm sympathetic to that way of thinking, but it's not justified grounds for how much flak 1Pass is taking here.

> The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010.

I had no idea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent

> Another way to consider this is that people find it easier to divert themselves than to exert themselves only to be dissappointed.

This is an exceptionally succinct description of the problem, thank you. A societal shift from exertion to diversion. Creation to consumption. Scary stuff.

> the illusions of Bernaysian manipulation [2] certainly can

What do you mean here, in reference to Bernays? For context, I’m familiar with his work and legacy — the documentary ‘The Century of the Self’[1] is still perhaps the most important piece of media I’ve ever consumed.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

I'm very sorry to hear this has happened to you.

I, too, had my Facebook account compromised last week.

My account of 15 years that I'd grown up with: a couple thousand friends I'd connected with travelling the world, 90% of my day-to-day comms, a decade and a half of photos and memories etc.

The part that hurts the most is that I've lost countless photos of and messages from my father who passed away a few years ago. Pretty heartbreaking.

To those who would mock me for being so invested in Facebook, I'd point out that I'm 27: that is to say that I entered my teenage years just as Facebook began to take off. In retrospect, it's obvious that Facebook is evil and doesn't give a shit about their users, but alas, at the time it wasn't so clear to 13 year old me (nor my peers) that we'd risk ending up in a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Interestingly, the only conclusion I can point to as to how my account was compromised is that my session data was somehow compromised, allowing the attackers to enter my account without having my password or access to my email which served as 2fa. Apparently Facebook auth related 0days are quite common due to their incentive to keep you logged in and their lackluster security.

In my case, they didn't change my password as they didn't have it, instead they were simply able to log in and add a secondary 2fa (a hardware key) which effectively locked me out so I couldn't declare something was wrong. Pretty smart.

From there, as I understand from my research, they immediately proceed to get your personal account banned so that you can't recover your Business Manager (advertising) account, which is what they're after. It looks like I was banned within 20 minutes or so of the attackers gaining access.

Worryingly, I've read that the way they get you banned so swiftly is through uploading CSAM/terrorist content, which results in an immediate ban and potentially a notification to law enforcement. I'm guessing this is why accounts are seldom recovered when attacked in this way.

On the support front, I've had a similarly frustrating experience trying to get help from Facebook — from searching here on HN and across various blogs & forums, there seem to be two methods of recourse:

1) The mysterious 'Oops' internal ticketing system at Facebook/Meta[1] for friends and family. This allows your case to be viewed by a real human, and from what I've read leads to it being restored within 24 hours.

2) You buy an Oculus and use the serial number to raise a ticket with Oculus support, which gives you the ability to submit evidence and have your case viewed by a team at Facebook (hopefully).

I own a Rift S, so I was able to go the 2nd route, but it's been close to a week now and I haven't seen any results nor had a response.

So yeah, it's pretty bleak. Despite my account being banned, the attackers are still setting up Facebook Ads. I get multiple emails every day that new ads have been approved for their scam stores. Salt in the wounds.

Note this article[2] I came across of a similar attack a couple of months ago. I reached out to the author on Twitter[3] to see if she'd had any luck with recovery, but alas she had not, despite raising several tickets at Facebook.

So, sadly it looks like we're fucked, although I'd be glad to be wrong.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/facebook-oops-special-employ...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/03/22/...

[3] https://twitter.com/TheCoppinger/status/1529685795270864896

I imagine by finding a number with some sub-conscious relevance in that moment, then convincing our conscious self that it’s random.

Posted the wrong link. I need sleep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRsc83kXyvw

I live in NZ, and after a recent exposure to Covid, I experienced said daily check in calls from the government that really relied on trust (honesty) more than anything, as far as I’m aware — I suppose it’s possible they were tracking my phone in some way to ensure my location stayed contained/consistent? Seems highly unlikely though.

I will add that if I’d been caught leaving the house, outside of a short daily workout, I’d have been liable for a fine and/or jail time.

That’s fair, but for something like a 1080 webcam used by amateur streamers, USBC seems like a poor choice. Perhaps there’s a bandwidth issue I’m missing.

> Contrariwise, when you are speaking/presenting, use an external camera (the one in your laptop/ipad/phone is optimized for thickness and thus the lens sucks) and a good soft key light.

I recently did a fair bit of research into this exact setup and landed on a Logitech StreamCam and a Elgato Key Light.

Well worth the money if you’re interested in achieving a high consumer grade level of quality, just be sure to purchase an adapter for the StreamCam as it is (infuriatingly) wired with a USB C connector.

Happened to my personally at the gig I recently quit at. I thought I was the only one.

MrLeap! As soon as I read mechanical typewriter I knew it was you

This really resonated with me, thank you.

"Some amount of madness is crucial to hold onto"

I think I would like this as my epitaph.

As a Product Owner who conducted a painful amount of interviews last month, the solution is to talk to and observe your users.

I'd highly recommend the Product Bakery podcast as set of great resources for learning more about how to develop great user interview/research skills, whether you work in Product or in design/development more directly.

I discovered the podcast after landing on Christian Strunk's blog (one of the hosts) and it's greatly improved my Product skills and mindset.

https://anchor.fm/product-bakery

https://www.christianstrunk.com/blog

(I am in no way affiliated with the podcast and/or blog other than having found it very valuable).