barchar's comments

On: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

[barchar]

There is a fee implicit in the market spread. It's formed out of the time value of money w.r.t. the cost of NOT trading as well as the adverse selection faced by those with standing offers.

Increased insider trading will increase spreads.

[hunterpayne → barchar]

Then explain why the average prediction market has a smaller spread than the average equity option market.

On: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

[barchar]

In that case you limit your upside as well as an insider, and have to deal with liquidity and slippage coming and going.

On: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

[barchar]

Polymarket "odds" I think are just the price of the contract * 100 right?

That's not actually the predicted odds by the market because every single bet is also a bet on interest rates.

A contract that literally 100% always would resolve to "true" in 1 year would have a non-zero price for the "false" side because selling that option (and thus taking the "false" side means you get ~$97 today and then pay $100 in a year.

Polymarket's 4% chance of jesus returning by 2026 actually represents a market consensus of basically a 0% chance.

For trump losing office there might be some bets predicated on his losing office being correlated to a higher interest rate outcome, too.

On: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

[barchar]

In theory this should limit the damage insiders can do, since as the probability of encountering an insider rises the market makers will need to widen the spread.

On: Cockpit is a web-based graphical interface for servers

[barchar]

Uhhh what? If they take control of the server they have control over the box.

On: Cockpit is a web-based graphical interface for servers

[barchar]

Cockpit tends to be less ad-hoc than others ime. Often it'll use dbus on the backend.

It's also socket activated, which is nice.

On: Aliens.gov ~ domain registered 17MAR2026

[barchar]

It's because of the time value of money. Buying no is much like buying a bond.

It doesn't mean there's a 16% chance.

It's probably more attractive to gamblers when presented like this.

On: AirPods Max 2

[barchar]

Mice can do that because they require so little bandwidth. Bluetooth has a latency/bw tradeoff (this is why Bluetooth microphones are so horrible, though the handsfree profile is also neglected generally).

On: AirPods Max 2

[barchar]

If you're using Android there's global eq available (mostly). I use an app called wavelet that lets you search for your headphone model and download a pre-made profile.

iPhone users are kinda out of luck, but the autoeq database can show you how to set Music's equalizer to approximate a flat response

On: AirPods Max 2

[barchar]

There are many. QCY makes a pair for ~$50, I think there are some other Chinese brands too. You really are paying for the brand.