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FRAUD ALERT: It was not a mathematical model that caused the problem. It was fraud. Financial organizations convinced investors that they had a "mathematical model" so that they could steal. The theft was ENTIRELY deliberate, as is described in detail in the 1997 book F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street, by Frank Partnoy. Somehow the issues were kept quiet for 11 more years until the theft could be completed in the 2008 financial crash. Traders called their work "ripping the client's face off" .

There are other editions of the book, such as this one published in 1999, Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader, and a 2009 I-told-you-so edition of the original name.

Nothing has been done to reform the extremely corrupt financial system in the United States. No one in the SEC, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the government organization that is supposed to police financial fraud, was prosecuted, even though the agency knew of the abuses. See the February 17, 2009 show Frontline: Inside the Meltdown.

Even though the U.S. dollar is experiencing rampant inflation in 2012, U.S. banks give less than 1% interest on savings. Those who would like to invest can't because the system is so corrupt it cannot be trusted. Corporations hold unprecedented amounts of cash. See, for example, the October 7, 2010 Washington Post article, U.S. companies buy back stock in droves as they hold record levels of cash.

F.I.A.S.C.O. stands for "Fixed Income Annual Sporting Clays Outing" (See page 100 of the 2009 edition.), held at a shooting range called "Sandanona, a club in upstate New York" (Page 97 of the 2009 edition). Traders would go there to shoot guns. The idea was to encourage their taste for violence so that they would be even more financially violent toward the customer.

Perhaps the April 27, 2012 BBC article, Black-Scholes: The maths formula linked to the financial crash referenced in this Slashdot story was influenced by public relations agencies trying to get people to believe that the crash was caused by errors in mathematical thinking, and not by fraud, so that the financial industry can continue stealing.

It would be helpful if Slashdot editors signed a statement about each story saying that they know of no conflict of interest, and no one was paid to run the story.

Great book about a massive hedge fund crash in the 90's: The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management

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Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland is a book that looks at exactly what it took to turn perfectly good, reasonable people into cold-blooded killers.

It's been over a decade since I read it, but IIRC most of the people the book follows were neither delusional or consciously following a warped ideology. They did what they were coaxed and coerced to do at first, but in very short order it became routine to them and they thought nothing of orders to continue.

A very chilling read, and like the Stanford prison experiment, a reminder of how thin the veneer of humanity and civilization is in all of us, no matter how much we think that WE personally are a good person and would never do such a thing.

VHDL seems to be thrown about slashdot a lot. Of course the 1990s saw heated debate about how VHDL is better than Verilog, but if you look at the ground reality, hardly anybody is doing new VHDL design. Even Europe, the last bastion of VHDL is moving to Verilog. So if you want to upgrade your skills, and are new to the field, try Verilog and System Verilog. Though SV started as a "simulation and tbench" language", its being increasingly used in design.

System verilog for design (google it) is a popular book.

PS: I am working in EDA and VLSI field for past 11 years, and have seen multiple designs from many large Semiconductor companies.

Um, no. I work for a multi-billion dollar aerospace company in the USA and we are strictly VHDL. It is simply better. Verilog is a low-level ASIC gate wiring language. VHDL can do everything from high level to low level, and reads better. If you're doing FPGAs, VHDL is the best. I consider this http://www.amazon.com/Designers-Guide-VHDL-Systems-Silicon/dp/1558602704 to be the absolute best book.

Much more dangerous, and this seems less than functional.

As cheap shots go, that's a fairly good one.
I do agree with Goldberg, though, that the Left is relatively more worrisome when it comes to fascism.

No so fearful of grey goo (nanobots) as much as nano-particles that are starting to be used more often. After all, we once went around spraying DDT on our kids during picnics because it was so safe, and the government reversed their view on DES and let it be used for menopause... then to treat pregnant women... then in our chickens... then in out beef cattle before eventually banning it outright - after all, it was perfectly safe despite each test animal having disastrous reproductive tests. (Animals do not equal humans, even if every model species has negative results we still cannot say it would harm humans, so it must be safe! - Read Toxic Bodies by N Langston if you want a real eye opening tale about endocrine disruptors.)

It's actually a labor issue. I talked this over last month with an engineer who's studied the various methods.

For a given area of land (they got this right) and given a market viable labor cost the modern farming techniques are more profitable and can produce more food.

But, if the cost of labor is factored out, the organic techniques, using intensive agriculture methods, are actually the better producers. I'm changing to this method on our farm this year as our labor is supplied by the family.

It's hard to expand beyond the family farm because a legal farm hand's cost breaks the profitability (address cost of living problems in the US if you want more organic food). Now then, let's compare the cost of labor in the US to the cost of labor in some countries where people live on $1.30 a day. Then things start to get more interesting.

Part of the problem is the way we're mechanized. It's nobody's fault, but the 19th century machines have driven our methods. When we have AI-guided robots to pick vegetables in the US, the equation may swing back the other way.

The nitrogen cycle problems can be solved with the right kinds of natural fixers, but you have to calculate, plan, and rotate. Anybody who wants to try this should spend $11 on this book - the author has worked out all the tables and methods through trial-and-error and engineering approaches (it's a full-color/full-sized well-made book - I'd have expected this to go for $28 at a book store - I think the author just wants it out there).

I recently taught myself VHDL and used Pong P. Chu's book. I liked it quite a bit. It did an especially good job of reinforcing the mindset of approaching VHDL programming as digital circuit design, not software design.

Looking on Amazon for books that are unaffordable, like the above ($50 used) is the best way to go. Any VHDL book that can be had for $2 is almost certainly worthless. I have found that digging through other people's VHDL is pretty educational. OpenCores and the Xilinx EDK have a lot of good code available to pick through.

I recently taught myself VHDL and used Pong P. Chu's book. I liked it quite a bit. It did an especially good job of reinforcing the mindset of approaching VHDL programming as digital circuit design, not software design.

I don't know why a software guy wants to learn VHDL, but here's where I started: VHDL For Designers http://www.amazon.com/VHDL-For-Designers-Stefan-Sjoholm/dp/0134734149

There is a an excellent book explaining different systems to deal with spacial positioning: http://www.amazon.com/Through-Language-Glass-Different-Languages/dp/080508195X I won't summarize the book here, but think of a culture which uses only four cardinal points resembling our North South East West to describe positioning. This leads to funny situations when describing a painting or a TV scene, the direction depends on ... the position of the painting/TV ("the bad guy came from the East") as oposed to a relative positioning system ("the bad guy came from behind").

My search terms were 'order "asus g55"', as, shockingly, I want to order an Asus-built laptop, model G55.

The top result, at least for me, is this Amazon page, which has (again, for me, not sure if Amazon does "personalized" searches):
Four other Asus laptops, including two of last year's G5x models, a similar business-class laptop, and a larger business-class laptop
Several Asus laptop accessories - bags, car chargers, batteries - none of which is explicitly compatible with the G55
A VGA Cable marked "for Asus laptops" (bogus marketing, Asus didn't change the pinouts or anything, several regular VGA cables worked with my last laptop)
A power adapter for Asus home router
Laptop backpack with "gaming console sleeve"
Notebook cooler (one of those gimmicky fan pad things)
USB charger, USB wifi adapter
Book of guitar tabs

I have seen that model up for pre-order before. I found several "news" sites that had copied each other, eventually found that the site that actually had them up for pre-order seems to have taken the page down.

The problem is that you keep going the same places that everybody else goes. There is no "Lonely Planet Effect" is Madagascar.

Lonely Planet has published for six editions now a guide for Madagascar, and even if that island nation draws fewer tourists than some other countries, I've no doubt that that the specific lodgings recommended in the guide are now patronized by a steady stream of LP-toting backpackers -- and the proprietors have jacked up the prices once they've noticed that they've a guaranteed source of customers.

Think of TFA as a plug for the Bad Astronomer's book, then go and read it. I haven't read it myself but one reviewer said it was "like being punched in the face by Carl Sagan".

UofT had a textbook for one of their software engineering courses called "Programmers and Managers: The Routinization of Computer Programming in the United States" (Heidelberg Science Library). The author, P. Kraft, pointed out that all engineering careers were "in high, out early", and that it was most visible in the programming business. He too recommended you be prepared to get out early. Still available at http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Managers-Routinization-Programming-Heidelberg/dp/0387902481

I didn't get out, nor did my smarter colleague Fred (hi, ratboy!), and we're both still happily employed, still doing the hard stuff. We each do end up doing management, you understand, but the core of what we do is programming.

--dave

Actually according to Inside Windows NT, NT was Intel i860 only, then x86, then MIPs.

Alpha didn't come along until significantly later.

What, do you live under a rock? They have and do, for years even.

.
I know none of us have them. But, hypothetically, if we did then when we find a good cheap MP3 player it is possible we might want to buy a few more pairs of them that the kids will go through in the next few weeks or at most months.

Hypothetically.

Just go to Amazon.com instead. Problem solved!

I don't see how simply being a theocracy automatically makes it "better", and death penalty for adultery and stoning may seem grotesque to a Western mind, but to a society that accepts and considers that to be just, well, that's their choice. Having spoken to Iranians, they don't have a problem with either punishment, as they consider those "crimes" to be undermining of the social fabric.

Don't even attempt to claim the moral high ground when it comes to justice as delivered from the state. Modern legal systems are no better (arguably worse) than the systems that went before them. Theyshoot people with no cause, blatantly imprison people for no valid reason and deliberately frames its own people for military ends. Not to mention such famous institutions as Guantanamo and those black op torture programs carried out by the CIA.

But wait, we have democracy I hear you say? If you call the circus that is the two party system "democracy", then I'm a flee on a baboon's arse. There's no meaningful difference between the parties, and on those occasions where they promise to fix the mistakes of the previous administration ("I'll close Guantanamo" said Barak), if the people actually give them the chance to carry out the promise, they simply renege when the time comes.

I think it's time the so-called "Free World" got off its moral high horse and recognised that it is no better than the barbaric hordes it's fighting against. Indeed, when viewed from the Other Side, we're the barbaric hordes.

Well, I wouldn't say nobody, but the SNR was very low at the time.

I have always thought exactly the same thing.

There was ONE Indian guy in an early episode of TNG -- I remember because it stood out for me as, wow, there's a non-white, non-black guy! But no Chinese at all. Sulu, Japanese. Hoshi, Japanese. Kim, Korean.

If a Trek ship was truly representative of their ideals, then 1/4 of the ship's population would be Chinese.

Which is why I wrote this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006RZNR3Y/

A sci-fi with almost all Chinese nationals, with some EU and Iranians thrown in (and a single Australian). The original draft of the story had the Indian Space Agency taking a much bigger role but it got cut for length and story flow reasons.

Indeed. I always slow-charge (trickle charge) all my batteries in order to avoid damage. I have NiCads that are 20 years old and still work! Of course it helps that my charger "refreshes" batteries as they become old and lose capacity:

http://www.amazon.com/La-Crosse-Technology-Battery-Charger/dp/B000RSOV50

Art is a selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgements.

By a selective recreation art isolates and integrates those aspects of reality which represent man's fundamental view of himself and of existence. Out of the countless number of concretes -- of single, disorganized, and (seemingly) contradictory attributes, actions, and entities -- an artist isolates the things which he regards as metaphysically essential and integrates them into a single new concrete that represents an embodied abstraction

-- The Romantic Manifesto

These artists mess up the graphics to represent their worldview of what is and what should be. It is obvious to everyone that this means they are Linux users.

I'm an Australian author (plug: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006RZNR3Y/ ) who relies exclusively on digital sales and I strongly oppose any such fucking with our legal system.

Go away, AFACT. Nobody wants you to exist. Not the politicians. Not the voters. Not the readers (listeners/viewers/etc). Not the content creators.

Nobody.

AFACT serve only the Hollywood industry who is so inept and out of touch with what's going on around them that they senselessly blunder into things like this. They are dicks and their defeat in court -- an utterly humiliating and complete defeat where they had to pay all of iiNet's costs -- makes me cackle with glee.

You mean like this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Koolertron-ELM-OBDII-Diagnostic-Scanner/dp/B0055AZ0A0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1334865807&sr=8-6

$13 with prime free shipping.

Ignore idiot reviewers. When you added it to your device it will pair but not connect. This is totally normal, torque will take over from there.

I've often gotten the impression that IT is perceived by management as Janitorial services, or Corporate Archives, or the company cafeteria by companies that are not directly selling IT services themselves, as well as government agencies in general. They are a cost center, but not a revenue center. They are not customer facing, so they are just another physical plant cost. Like keeping the lights on, the water flowing, and the elevators running.

Company cafeteria... customer facing... you don't know how right you are. It's just another symptom of out-of-touch CEOs not understanding the role of IT in their business.

I've been working for the last 6 years at a fairly well-known US-based company that designs & manufactures equipment and apparel for a certain fitness industry. We've got all kinds of engineers and designers whose work will live and die by their computers. IT supports them and the entire infrastructure that's constantly moving data from one place to another to help them get their jobs done. But I don't think the CEO notices at all.

We've been hearing the messages to "cut costs" and "do more with less" especially strong in the last two years. IT budget is slashed, and we're saving money through attrition: one person quits/leaves/fired, and their work is divided amongst the remaining members of that team. My last annual raise was less than the cost-of-living adjustment. There was no money in the budget for me to attend a software seminar earlier in this calendar year -- I was told the travel budget didn't have any room in it -- yet it was in town (no hotel or airfare, I could drive from that hotel to home in 30min) and cost under $1000, and I'd be surrendering my own personal time (a Saturday) to go (I'm salary, not paid for that time). The only exception to the IT budget crunch is one department which writes and supports software that is used by our dealers.

Last quarter the CEO had his company pow-wow and gave out his president's award: "These folks have been working hard, making improvements, and despite the fact that most of use benefit from their efforts, I don't think they're properly recognized. My president's award goes to...{IT? IT I'm thinking}... the Cafeteria!" wut. the. fuck.

CEO and HR find new and stupid ways to spend money all the time, like replacing the NOT BROKEN formica-topped tables in the cafeteria with butcher block, replacing the steel-tube plastic-seat chairs with these things at $135 a pop retail. Fancy new stonework patio with wrought-iron furniture and gas grill outside... the list goes on.

Holiday parties have been scheduled, and then indefinitely postponed. Holiday turkey gift certificates disappeared. Summer family picnic, gone. Despite record profits, the $100USD "attaboy" envelopes didn't show this year.

The CEOs spend their money on stuff they can see and touch. Stuff that will make them look good to outsiders. Even at this privately-held company. I wish he'd turn the checkbook over to an actual businessman.

Dear Amazon.com customer:

Fred, we noticed from your surfing history that you recently viewed Dinosaurs doomed by laying eggs?

You may also be interested in this exciting product!

Sincerely,

Jeff B. and Amazon.com

there is going to need to be some warrenty

At least some have "lifetime guarantee", e.g.:
http://www.amazon.com/Replacement-Lifetime-Guarantee-G7-Power/dp/B0064AE2K4

> a hardware AND software package that are differentiated from the competition in some way other than "it's a different color."

Ahahaha, you're a funny one!

Here, check all this WP7 diversity. Now contrast it with all these identically looking UIs and shapes of Android phones. Err, wait...

> a hardware AND software package that are differentiated from the competition in some way other than "it's a different color."

Ahahaha, you're a funny one!

Here, check all this WP7 diversity. Now contrast it with all these identically looking UIs and shapes of Android phones. Err, wait...

There are best seller ratings, too. Lumia 900 topped the chart for more than a week immediately after the sales start, despite being split into two separate items by color. Now the black variant is at #3, and cyan went down to #11, after becoming backordered up to 9 days ahead.

"I...I...I...I...My...I...My...I....I...I..." etc.

Pay attention now. Obama uses personal pronouns less than any modern president. Yes, there has been empirical analysis on the topic. In particular, I refer you to the work of James W. Pennebaker, a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, who specialises in the use of pronouns.

None of this matters, of course, because political discourse continues to devolve to "four-legs-good, obama-bad" for the right. One might reasonably think that the left is just as bad, and they are pretty bad; however, this is simply not true. And for that, I refer you to the obama hate machine, which chronicles just how bizarre republican vitriol has become in the last 4 years.

And your comment is a perfect case in point. In the absence of any real criticism, we have nonsensical and factually inaccurate ad-hominems. There is plenty to criticise Obama about without making stuff up.

Amen brother. More like Nokia hardware would run slower, more laggy and have to be rebooted frequently with Android on it. BTW: WP7 devices now have all top 5 spots for devices on Amazon rated by customer satisfaction I know I posted this already. It beared repeating, and you comment beared elevation.

More like Nokia hardware would run slower, more laggy and have to be rebooted frequently with Android on it. BTW: WP7 devices now have all top 5 spots for devices on Amazon rated by customer satisfaction

Just a quick google finds this to be true.

Dimmable 9 Watt LED Bulb Standard Screw Base A80 60 Watt Replacement Warm.
http://www.amazon.com/Dimmable-LED-Replacement-Ledwholesalers-1020ww/dp/B004ORMXBO

Oh, look, it uses less power 8.8 watts vs 10, and lasts longer 40k hrs vs 30k.
For 16 bucks!!

Agreed. I'll throw in "ceiling fan" to the mix as well. I have a very nice switch that works on RF control to a unit in the fan. It has two pushbuttons, and each has 12 or so lighting levels/fan speed levels set with rocker switches. Unfortunately, it only works with incandescent bulbs. So I need a dim-able, ceiling-fan safe LED that looks nice in a downward-facing fixture :)

I have a galaxy S2, unless you live in like russia, sweden, finland or luxemburg you aren't getting OTA ICS right now, so if you want that on your own... guess what you're plugging into the PC.

Nexus S on Sprint got ICS pushed last week in the United States of Texas (not my phone, a teammate's).

Where are you storing 10 gigs of music legally in the 'cloud'?

Google Music, 25GB. That or, I duhno, a 32GB card for under $25 shipped from Amazon? That is, unless you bought a phone that can't use a memory card. Why would you do that?

The banking sector was not, on the whole, deregulated over the last few years. Nor did they fail to need to document their provision of loans.

The banking sector is still highly regulated, by the important regulations have been removed. See the best way to rob a bank is to own one.

Perhaps we should all read The Terminal Man again. amazon.com link.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dumbest-Generation-n/dp/B001JQ383K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1334530582&sr=8-2

Idea was before its time. See the Apple Newton.

The story is ridiculous. What network would the phone run on in 1991? 0.1G? There was no wifi, no Bluetooth, no 3G or even 2G. In 1991 the cellphones were giant bag phones that could only display a phone number. No text messaging, no email, no Internet.

Indeed. At the time, smart phones were not adjacent possible. They were not until a couple of years before the iPhone. Then Microsoft tried, along with onder vendors. Microsoft had Windows Mobile, Nokia had Symbian which had many of the same possibilities iPhone had. They just didn't work nearly as well, which was why the iPhone was such a milestone and influenced everything after. E.g. my Nokia N95 did all the iPhone did (except touch) and more, but it was painful to use and the features felt more like "check!" than aiding you in what you wanted to do.

I wonder how many documents will mention Confessions Of An Economic Hit-man by John-Perkins?

Now she got Slashdotted too.

Isn't that interesting?

Looking at her websites and everything, she looks like one of those artsy people that would benefit incredibly from exposure. Actually, anyone doing any sort of business on the net needs exposure to get noticed.

Over the last decade, I've become extremely cynical about things like this.

If she were really getting threats and people were posting illegal things like child pornography as she said, then the cops would be involved to go after this guy and take him out. But no. Things are continuing for some reason and here she is getting all this free publicity and hits on her website.

Read up on any of the "Gorilla Marketing" type of books out there and you too will become cynical of any sort of public exposure.

From her website:

In my How Facebook Deleted My Ass article I discussed how my account was deleted because I was accused of impersonating myself.

. I don't consider FB to be that credible either, but then again, I wonder what made them come to that conclusion?

And if she is in fact truly being stalked, I blame the marketing people of the World for making public exposure of any sort a cheap way to market products, services, people, art, etc ...

After all, we do live in a World where people actually burn themselves to death to bring attention to issues. What's a little cyber-stalking?

The simple answer is that they cannot use Kinect for Windows because you aren't allowed to make games with it. It's for actual practical applications as it says in the product description: "this is not a consumer product" and "this is a Kinect development product for Windows, intended for commercial clients and developers". Even more blunt: "Not for Gaming Use". There is no way Microsoft would permit Kinect to be integrated into a PC game as an advertised feature.

Actually no. The Xbox 360's Kinect drivers will not work on Windows, and the code is very likely not cross-compilable. Also, Kinect for Windows is not meant for gaming, it's for actual practical applications. It even says it in the product description. It also says "this is not a consumer product" and "this is a Kinect development product for Windows, intended for commercial clients and developers". There is no way Microsoft would permit Kinect to be integrated into a game as an advertised feature.

In fact, this may demonstrate how far advanced General Cragg of Fomalhaut V has advanced since attempting to kidnap Kirk and Spock. They didn't even have warp drive back then...