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The 5 Coolest Hacks of '07
ancientribe writes "Nothing was sacred to hackers in '07 — not cars, not truckers, and not even the stock exchange. Dark Reading reviews five hacks that went after everyday things we take for granted even more than our PC's — our car navigation system, a trucker's freight, WiFi connections, iPhone, and (gulp) the electronic financial trading systems that record our stock purchases and other online transactions."
Coral Cache:
http://www.darkreading.com.nyud.net/document.asp?doc_id=142127&WT.svl=news1_2
One of the universal rules of happiness is always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual
http://lifehacker.com/338970/twenty-top-10s-of-2007
Print version on coral cache. theres no pictures anyway. everything on one page. no ads
http://www.darkreading.com.nyud.net/document.asp?doc_id=142127&print=true
one up.
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Actually, modern diesels are as computer-driven as gasoline engines. Maybe even more so in the case of large trucks--on every 18-wheeler I've driven in the past ten years, there was no physical linkage between the accelerator pedal ("the hammer," in trucker's lingo) and the engine. Instead, there was a digital position sensor and a multi-conductor cable that fed data to the ECU. All the gauges on the instrument panel were computer-controlled as well.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Specialists (the people who help match buyers and sellers in floor trading) can make seven figures and the average salary of a securities industry worker in NYC is nearly $300k.
The actual traders on the floor make quite a bit. However, there is a whole slew of clerks and associated people who do all kinds of odd jobs from changing batteries to punching in trades into their firm's computer systems. These guys, around 2000, seemed to make somewhere in the ballpark of 55-75k, and this involves LONG hours, and a lot of abuse. The upside is that one day you will be a trader and have your own clerks to abuse. Its been a few years since I have worked near a floor, and I have a feeling that with the rise of electronic trading, many of these positions have been eliminated (when we introduced handhelds to the floor, ~10 people were wiped out of existence just because we didn't need anyone to keypunch the trades in to our risk system). I was also not privy to any actual numbers, but these guys were all sharing apartments and living pretty modest existences, so thats my best estimate.
The financial industry has grown tremendously, back in the 60's finance really wasn't considered that lucrative- if you were top MBA student, you were far more likely to pursue a management role in a fortune 500.
The cost of living in NYC has increased tremendously since then, mostly due to real estate prices. According to the census* the average rent in NYC as a whole was $78 in 1960! The average rent for a 1BR in Manhattan is now somewhere around $2000. Also mentioned in those statistics is that the median home price was $17000. So yeah, $8k working on the floor went pretty damn far. The median for manhattan is now in the $900k range. I make in the low 6 figures in NYC, and let me tell you, I really can't begin to afford a home in a reasonably commutable distance (under 90 minutes) from NYC.
*http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/1960-61.pdf