link.dump.01.21.2026
eyeballs, ads, prediction markets, and stable marriages
A truly gross infected eyeball and a generally scary disease progression. The bad pictures are behind links inside this link so it’s safe to click but the overall harrowing journey this guy went through was wild.
Sean Goedecke has an addiction to being useful and I feel fucking seen. It’s like he was talking directly to me as this is exactly why I thrive in my job. It’s also why I sign off for the day and have a crushing exhaustion come crashing down on me.
Stratechery’s has an interesting (and novel) take on Bari Weiss and her take-over of CBS. I was especially interested in the “death of broadcast media in ten years” future-casting. He makes a compelling case, honestly.
NYTs The Rise of Prediction Markets makes for some interesting reading. It’s corrupt as shit but that’s nothing new. And I think having real money on the line makes folks take it more seriously.
OpenAI is going to start embedding ads. It was only a matter of time. There is a larger conversation and consideration to be had about how the advertising-driven economy marches forward, and also how something as bespoke and personalized as ChatGPT can be used to super-charged things like targeted ads of the past decade or two.
On the heels of the OpenAI starting ads - they just shelled out a shitload of money to Wikipedia to train on it. This is exciting to me. I also think Wikipedia might be one of the few websites that are truly setup to weather the storm coming with LLMs. Reddit is another. The secret is that they are truly novel and have a niche within the scarcity model as I see it changing.
A strong argument that we are seeing the “last days of social media.” It’s an interesting assertion that anecdotally fits with my lifestyle I think. There’s a reason I’m spending much more time on substack than facebook/twitter/tiktok at least.
Are bees dying out around the world or are they growing in population? The answer is “yes” to both of these questions. Love Ritchie’s clarity.
As a Dev that became Ops and now is….whatever-the-fuck…I love this piece about how Ops deserves pride.
Platform Engineering in 2026. Good read.
Another fabulous read: Text is King.
Spicy headline. Why are intelligent people more liberal?
The stable marriage problem is fucking fascinating.
Sort of a tangent on the whole usefulness addiction, but on at least a weekly basis I have to remind myself that in a moment of doing “nothing”, I do not need to fill that moment with productivity. I have to forcefully suppress this internal voice shouting “you’re wasting time!!!” and thoughtfully embrace the idea that not being productive for a while *is useful*, even if it is not recognized as such by others or by my unmanaged tendencies. I’m hoping this will become more natural over time, even though it’s a bit of a terrifying prospect. P.S. the stable marriage thing broke my brain.