pingingz/iStock via Getty Images The Rustoleum (a product originally from my hometown, whose plant I watched burn in a spectacular fire while waiting to play baseball in James Park) is a post about the new Big Thing, which is actually something I wrote about last September - compute futures . The CME , ICE, and tokenized exchange Architect Financial Technologies have announced the launch of future...
pingingz/iStock via Getty Images The Rustoleum (a product originally from my hometown, whose plant I watched burn in a spectacular fire while waiting to play baseball in James Park) is a post about the new Big Thing, which is actually something I wrote about last September - compute futures . The CME , ICE, and tokenized exchange Architect Financial Technologies have announced the launch of futures contracts on compute. This land rush is a direct consequence of the AI boom. The main attraction. The compute market is huge and growing. As CME CEO Terry Duffy said in a statement touting the launch: “As the backbone of the digital economy, compute is the new oil of the 21st century,” CME CEO Terry Duffy said in the statement. “Every AI model trained, every transaction cleared and every byte of data processed runs on compute, which is becoming a fast-emerging asset class in its own right.” As I noted in my 2025 post, market size is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a successful futures market. Another important condition is volatility. Most of the recent angst about compute cost is its direction, not its volatility: Compute costs have been increasing steadily as demand from AI has outstripped increases in chip supply, data centers, etc. That is, the market is largely directional: A steady trend down through late 2025, then a steady upward trend through the present (with a weird blip in March 2026). Long-term trend-dominated markets are not conducive to successful futures – you need substantial variation around the trend. Not much volatility is evident there. Ironically, Don Wilson of DRW – a big proponent of these markets (one of his firms creates the index graphed above) – pooh-poohed the relevance of the failure of DRAM futures as a precedent to the prospects for compute futures precisely because DRAM prices were dominated by a (downward) trend. The same logic would apply to compute futures. As I also noted last year, another important contributor to futures...
If you've been paying attention at the pump, you may be aware that filling up your car is a more expensive prospect now than it was at the start of the year. And it's not just gas prices that are obnoxiously elevated. Inflation is up on a whole thanks to the Iran conflict. When oil prices spike, it can impact consumer costs broadly. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
If you've been paying attention at the pump, you may be aware that filling up your car is a more expensive prospect now than it was at the start of the year. And it's not just gas prices that are obnoxiously elevated. Inflation is up on a whole thanks to the Iran conflict. When oil prices spike, it can impact consumer costs broadly. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
大概在四五年前，二手市场上流行过一阵子名为「无头MacBook」的玩意。具体来说，就是屏幕坏掉的MacBook，直接把上半部分去掉，当成一款带键盘和触控板的mini主机来卖。相较于正常的MacBook，它的价格便宜很多。 不过，随着Mac快速进入到自研芯片时代，Mac mini M4这类高性价比苹果主机的出现，让无头MacBook变得没啥购买价值，逐渐淡出了大家的视线。 然而，2026是很魔幻的一...
大概在四五年前，二手市场上流行过一阵子名为「无头MacBook」的玩意。具体来说，就是屏幕坏掉的MacBook，直接把上半部分去掉，当成一款带键盘和触控板的mini主机来卖。相较于正常的MacBook，它的价格便宜很多。 不过，随着Mac快速进入到自研芯片时代，Mac mini M4这类高性价比苹果主机的出现，让无头MacBook变得没啥购买价值，逐渐淡出了大家的视线。 然而，2026是很魔幻的一年，存储价格暴涨叠加龙虾热，直接让Mac mini M4卖断货，随之而来的就是涨价。目前，苹果官方甚至直接砍掉了Mac mini M4 256GB基础版，只提供512GB以上容量版本，价格门槛上升了一大截。在这个大背景下，无头MacBook重出江湖，居然又变成了AI新宠。 Mac mini暴涨，无头苹果笔记本成新宠 在我的印象中，Mac mini M4当时发布后不久就在各大电商平台上开始降价，后来相当长的时间里百亿补贴价格都稳定在3000元左右。M4芯片的强劲性能加上16GB起步的内存，以及小巧轻量的机身，都让这款mini主机的性价比优势极为明显。但2026年年初的OpenClaw掀起的龙虾热，很快让Mac mini成为养虾的绝佳设备，这款苹果主机短时间内就销售一空，电商平台上开始缺货。 再后来，苹果官网按原价销售的Mac mini，发货时间一再延长。到了前阵子，随着存储持续涨价，Mac mini的缺货现象更严重了，苹果干脆砍掉了利润相对低的256GB版，直接512GB起步。 （图源：苹果） 这种情况下，Mac mini的性价比优势就逐渐在降低了。相对应的，无头MacBook的购买价值又上升了。 我在逛二手平台时发现，无头MacBook Pro M1 Pro版16+512GB的价格是3200元左右。作为对比，Mac mini M4 16+512GB二手价格接近5000元，而且货源很少。 （图源：闲鱼） 就性能来说，虽然M1 Pro已经是好几年的芯片了，但它定位更高端，相比M4在GPU性能上仍然更有优势。另外，考虑到无头版MacBook Pro还带有键盘和触控板，性价比就更明显了。 （图源：闲鱼） 这类无头MacBook Pro能成为AI新宠，除了价格优势外，和龙虾的应用场景也有关系。过去无头MacBook不好卖，有一个原因是屏幕缺失后，它作为笔记本的便携性就完全丧失了。 但...
Rope is easy to take for granted. It seems obvious and straightforward. But of course, it had to be invented. Early humans discovered that by twisting fibers around each other, the resulting structure would be something durable and strong. Without rope, all kinds of things aren't possible, from lifting objects into the air to whaling or modern bridges. So how was rope developed and what were the b...
Rope is easy to take for granted. It seems obvious and straightforward. But of course, it had to be invented. Early humans discovered that by twisting fibers around each other, the resulting structure would be something durable and strong. Without rope, all kinds of things aren't possible, from lifting objects into the air to whaling or modern bridges. So how was rope developed and what were the big breakthroughs in its history? On this episode, we speak with Tim Queeney, the author of 'Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization.' He walks us through the history of the technology, and its ongoing evolution, including how it might one day allow us to build elevators into outer space. (Source: Bloomberg)
America’s latest defence strategy worryingly downgrades the importance of the Indo-Pacific, a US senator warned on Saturday, even as the Pentagon chief delivered a speech reassuring allies of commitment at a defence forum in Singapore. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a staunch critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran, told a media round table at the Shangri-La Dialogue that she was concerned the Trump ad...
America’s latest defence strategy worryingly downgrades the importance of the Indo-Pacific, a US senator warned on Saturday, even as the Pentagon chief delivered a speech reassuring allies of commitment at a defence forum in Singapore. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a staunch critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran, told a media round table at the Shangri-La Dialogue that she was concerned the Trump administration was being distracted by conflict in other theatres that would dent commitment to the...