PredictIt Update & Housekeeping

[This post is a smattering of topics. I like a well thought out thesis but today’s post is what it is.]

Topic 1: WordPress Is Fucking With Me

WordPress has followed the Microsoft format for software development: “People (or at least Curmudgeons) are using our software like a generic, uninteresting, useful, and reliable tool. It gets the job done and otherwise leaves them alone. It’s a hammer in world full of nails. It’s nothing but an appliance. This cannot stand. WE MUST UPGRADE!”

So, now WordPress is actively annoying. It fucks with your train of thought, interferes with mundane tasks, and generally gets in your face. It’s as if the most important thing about a blog is the software and not the content. Which, sadly, might reflect on society as a whole even if it seems foreign to me.

I shouted at WordPress “Fuckin’ leave me alone!” It responded: “No need to thank us. We’re here to help. We can’t wait to get into the business of censoring content and maybe branch out into self driving cars! In the meantime would you like New Coke and a talking paperclip?”

Ah well. These things happen. Software companies get bored and step on their own dick from time to time… it’s what they do. I’ll either get used to it or dump it. For the moment this blog post looks like it was typeset by a monkey on Adderall and I’ll let it stand as such.

Topic #2: Generic Whining:

I expected by now to be knee deep in crumpled drafts of squirrel stories; honing the final touches on my magnum opus. Alas, it’s not yet happening. You know what they say: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

My plans aren’t yet coming to fruition. They will eventually. I’m treading water plenty fine and sometimes that’s good enough. Thanks for your patience with no-squirrels and light posting. 

Topic #3: PredictIt

I promised to keep y’all up to date so here goes:

I risked a pittance on the November elections and lost a pittance. I learned from that. Good! That’s what prediction markets are all about. (I’m less a gambler than an observational amateur economist… if such a thing exists.)

I’d already picked a few other markets to keep the game going. But I was loathe to throw more money into the maw. The idea here is to make money, not lose it. So I sold out a micro-pittance in another market to free up some “cash” for a more likely market. This came at a small (sub-atomic?) profit.

Ta da! My user icon or whatever the heck you call it clicked up from whatever it was to “Novice”. There was some modest graphical fanfare. Apparently there are social media style ranks to the user account? Who knew?

First of all I’m a bit insulted to see “nudging” so obvious. The idea with mass manipulation is to be subtle. But there you have it, the instant you make a profit on even one market you’re automatically raised a level.

Not that “Novice” is impressive but it’s mathematically incorrect. I expected so long as my losses outweigh my gains I’d be labeled (quite properly) “Loser”. But it looks like only wins count. You can keep throwing bets willy nilly until you luck out and make a win? Then bask in instant social networking stature? It probably matters in the forums I don’t read.

The next market of interest was “Next justice to leave the Supreme Court”. The unstoppable, unkillable, wildly popular and equally loathed Justice Ginsberg had fallen and broken some ribs. I sensed the press wouldn’t report the whole story even if she were decapitated by Godzilla. They’d report that she was jogging and wrestling alligators right until she unexpectedly takes a dirt nap last week.

I bought in, (at a pittance level of course). Alas the share price on “Ginsberg bails first” had already climbed and I locked in at the higher value. In case you’re wondering, the second banana in the “race to bail” is Clarence Thomas, the only other oldster in the same relative dimension as creaky Ginsberg. The rest are trading in very small values like a nickel or a few pennies on a “Pays $1 if they’re the one” market.

I have mixed feelings about this. Ginsberg is clearly very partisan. She will never leave the court under her own power. I theorize she overplayed her hand. She might have gracefully retired to hand the choice to fill her seat to Hillary (the anointed one). However, that didn’t happen (I pause to smile) and now she’s hell bent upon outlasting the Orange Menace. She’ll never retire for such mundane reasons as because she’s tired of working or wants to spend time with family.

From now until won 2020 or maybe 2024 the only thing that’ll get Ginsberg out of her job is the grim reaper. I’m mildly concerned I’m betting in a defacto dead pool. It’s unseemly.

As far as I can tell, the only risk that it’s not a dead pool is Clarence Thomas. He has a personality and seems to enjoy life (no sign of that from Ginsberg). Thomas doesn’t fear the Orange Menace so he won’t fret over his replacement should he retire. He might want to actually not work until he dies. I respect that. (There’s something extremely creepy about the Robert Byrd mentality of working to extreme old age death in a seat of power. It seems an earthly hell. Some sort of Faustian bargain for power. But what do I know? I’m just a blogger who never has nor ever wants power over anyone.)

At any rate, Thomas is trailing at around half the odds of “quitting” as Ginsberg. Whether the market is taking into account actuarial or personality traits is anyone’s guess.

I’m holding tight on Ginsberg. It’s unseemly to be in a dead pool but then again I’m a vicious profiteer at heart. Nobody lives forever and Ginsberg seems about as healthy as Hillary Clinton (they would’ve made an interesting pair). To her credit, the feisty Ginsberg has survived two different cancers and bounced back broken ribs like a champ. She’d probably enter the Olympic shot put if it would keep a strict constitutionalist out of “her” justice seat. But time stops for no-one. I wish her well but going toe to toe with mortality over politics sounds like a losing bet. Time will tell.

Another notable bet was on “Will OPM indicate government shut down at noon on December 10, 2018?” I bet “no” and then a few days later bought a few more shares of “no”. I rode it all the way to a $1 payout of “that shit didn’t happen”.

I was delighted! I have no special knowledge that anyone else lacks, but I read the tea leaves better. I cleared an after fees 44% profit! Nice!

This almost, but not quite, wipes out my losses from the election. Huzzah.

Keep in mind were talking pittances here. I just about earned enough to buy a six pack. But I’m also keeping “score” with real, after fees, percentages and not just throwing money into a nerdy Vegas slot machine. 

Also, for no apparent reason, I went from “Novice” to “Prognosticator”. This is irrelevant but it happened. You can shit in one hand and put a social media title in the other and see for yourself which weighs more. I thought I’d report it in the interst of completeness.

I have some micro micro sub compact bets that won’t play out until the end of calendar year. They’re not even large enough to buy a cup of coffee but I expect to win them both. I’ll report my failure or success then. 

(One last note: PredictIt servers have conked twice on me. Once during the elections and then again near 12/10. It’s possible that PredictIt is over its head in terms of IT. It’s also entirely possible that someone is playing games Clinton style. The damn thing freezes at a critical moment and then emerges on the other side? Really? Smells bad. If I had real money in PredictIt I’d wonder if I was subsidizing inside track day traders near the finish line. Then again it has no relevance to me; I bought at price $X and waited for it to go to $0 or $1 and it’s only tiny amounts. All the math has worked out for me properly. Just be warned if you’re taking this thing seriously that it’s shaky under load.)