No, the reason why they choose not to have checks, is so that most of them can get away with this kind of fraud without getting caught. I guarantee - this guy is like one in one-hundred, who got reckless, and got caught.
. . . because that's the reason I do NOT run IE at all.
I require a Firefox browser, that runs... FLASHBLOCK, AdblockPro, Noscript, Ghostery, TrackMeNot, HTTPSEverywhere, (and many many more) - - and IE just doesn't run those. So I don't run IE. Ever. So. . this Win8 change won't be a big deal for me.
The web, without these plugins, is a fucking absurdity. Hell, it's bad enough WITH these plugins, and separate mailinator accounts for every login. Fucking spammers need to eat shit and die.
Well; for something as simple as a CA Cert list, that could be updated pretty frequently (these days, LOL!) - you'd be popping that jumper on and off every Tuesday.
I skipped Vista. ENTIRELY. Win 7 is okay, at least they solved most of the incredibly HORRIBLE performance issues introduced with Vista - but like every version of Windows since 1.0 - I have needed to change many "stupid" defaults. (we all know this one: Tools->Folder Options->View->uncheck: Show hidden files, folders and drives, Hide empty drives, Hide extensions, Hide protected operating system files. . . etc. etc.)
Every Windows user I know makes this change to every new profile when they log into Windows, since it became standard in Windows 95. (Now, of course, we must make the Tools menu even VISIBLE by pressing the Oh So Intuitive ALT key!) -- And I'm in Win7, and I enable the "Windows Classic" theme - lol! I guess I'm an old fogey. I also install Cygwin.
Sometimes - I feel as if Microsoft just doesn't "get it". But then again, I remember the big "Mac Rush" in 2006, 2007 (etc) when all the developers I knew were lusting after Macs, saying they were the greatest development platform EVAR (because they had just switched to Intel, so they could run Windows and Linux in VM, MacOS, of course, was Unix-based, and Apple's developer tools were pretty awesome at that time).
And now I see the direction Apple is headed in as far as the AppStore, basically kicking developers in the nuts.
I don't think that lately, Apple "gets it" any more than Microsoft.
And then there's Ubuntu. Don't get me started on fucking Ubuntu.
FTA: Artificial intelligence is allowing automation to take positions held by people with advanced degrees.
I think that this is referring to law firm associates that used to do law-library research for cases, that is now being done by search engines. This has received a high amount of press, largely because it affects a relatively SMALL number (thousands, compared to the MILLIONS of people impacted by manufacturing labor problems), with relatively LARGE (six-figure) salaries.
These individuals, if they have "advanced degrees" (4-yr liberal-arts matriculation + law school, CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER!) - will find jobs elsewhere. Period. Their specialty field has evaporated. Poor babies.
WRONG: Because it was actually less profitable (long-term), but "politically", the owners of capital, were happy to "poke domestic labor in the eye" by moving manufacturing overseas. Bonus points for going to a supposedly "Communist" country. (My prediction: when Chinese labor becomes too expensive - - and this is already happening, expect the "North Korea" labor market to open up. I am only half-joking.)
Owners of capital are actually shooting themselves in the foot by undermining their own consumer base, destroying their own domestic R&D and innovation, and relying on having to ship materials and goods all over the world in a world with declining availability of transportation energy feedstock (petroleum). But, ideologically, when they support their domestic labor base, (by empowering them with stable manufacturing careers, healthcare, retirement packages, etc) - they undermine their domestic political control. That's been their dilemma. They chose to destroy the US middle class, instead of to continue to enable another generation.
Um, mass extinctions are okay, I guess. That's cool. Earth's biosphere will adjust, and in a few dozen million years, I'm sure new species will arise. All kinds of nice little microorganisms. It will be FABULOUS!
It's just that when we extinguish 99% of species (including ourselves, DIG?) for the CONVENIENCE and WEALTH of a very small minority among us. . . for a few decades. . . the trade-off doesn't seem quite fair. That's all.
Intel may have done some evil in the past. But look at how badly they got screwed over by Rambus. I hate to think that something as nebulous as "a corporation" can learn a concept like social responsibility, that is not encoded into corporate bylaws. But perhaps the current crop of individuals who hold influence there, are still stinging from the whole Rambus submarine patent crap.
A friend of mine has this condition, and had this treatment. He has had white hair all his life. After the treatment, he lost his hair, but it grew back black. They do not know if he's "cured", but he's doing better. His condition brought with it, many secondary tumors, and those have stopped.
Solid rocket propulsion is inappropriate for manned spaceflight. This message has been brought to you by: Basic Common Sense.
What was wrong with the X-33? The concept had flaws. In 1996. So. . . we turn our backs and never try again for a fully, TRULY reusable system? Just so we can continue to funnel billions of dollars of pork to powerful senators from Louisiana and Utah? Wow. We do not deserve space. We just don't.
Climate science - when you look at the implications - ATTACKS YOU, on an ethical, and moral level.
When you have children. When you drive to work. When you flip on a light switch to read a book. All the things that you were taught were "good and proper and right" things to do. Maybe things that GOD wants you to do, or even things that are just "good" for people, in general to do, even if there is no such thing as GOD. . . you now must face the fact that the act of living a comfortable modern life, is destroying the planet, and causing life for future generations to become unsustainable.
In psychological terms, for many people, the basic reaction to an attack like this, is guilt. But many people feel such deep personal pain, that they have defense mechanisms to deflect from this. They blame others. They deny that its happening. They transfer the guilt to anger. They project their guilt onto others. They rationalize. These are common defense mechanisms. Not all healthy. (in adults, of course). But they are common. Especially in our culture.
So the natural response for MOST emotionally stunted and unhealthy people is to try to rationalize that this message is somehow a lie. They attack the politicians. They attack the scientists. They attack their brothers and sisters who are concerned, and want to come to a mutual understanding about civilized behavior. (ie. we clean up after ourselves, we don't pollute, we contribute, we work, etc.). Look at some of the exact attacks they make against Liberals, Al Gore, Climate Scientists, and plans to mitigate carbon: "they are lazy and want to take my stuff", "he spews all kinds of carbon just jetting around the country making his speeches, he's a hypocrite.", "they're trying to scam us to get rich", "it's a scheme to limit our freedom and steal our money". All of these attacks are a form of "projection" because they very much apply to: Conservatives (who typically are not in favor of equal rights, want to preserve social inequality, because it promotes entrenched exploitation, and upper-class laziness), Rush Limbaugh (who emits plenty of his own carbon, as a counterexample to Al Gore - but instead isn't even trying to solve any problems, other than the problem of "people don't hate each other enough"), Climate Deniers or - let's say, promoters of Free Market Theory, as a superset (Economists have been observed publishing "scientific papers" on their Free Market theories - while failing to disclose affiliations with private employers and professional organizations which pose ethical conflicts of interest - yet these same economists, and promoters of "Free Market" theory, inform our government policy without open peer review - as a scientific community, Economists lack anywhere near the same scrutiny of Climate Scientists), and finally, the Lassez Faire approach to mitigating "bad solutions" to our economic requirements for clean energy: if we FUCK our planet, there is no way to UN-FUCK it.
So basically - this is all the result of our culture, raising generation after generation of emotionally stunted, and unhealthy children, who grow up to be adults who are incapable of rationally dealing with serious life-threatening problems without resorting to the tried-and-true emotional coping-skills of an alcoholic or heroin addict: When life gets hard, dive into a bottle (or a barrel) to avoid the hard problems.
Do a little wikipedia search on Euler's Number, and read about how Bernoulli used it to calculate continuous interest. Then you'll understand why this is all a scam.
yeah, well, not to shoot-down Clinton. . . but he didn't actually balance the budget. He accomplished a political capitulation, that had disastrous long-term financial results, and gave the short-term appearance of balancing the budget. The approach, was correct, but the trade-offs, in implementation, (market deregulation), brought us the dot-com bubble, Worldcom, Enron, a whole host of horribly destructive fake IPO's, HP's Carly Fiorina (and subsequent downfall of HP), probably the destruction of DEC. The entire thriving silicon valley innovation industry was pumped-and-dumped, on these deregulation policies. Oh - the free-soda was good, while it lasted. The stock options, of course, are toilet-paper now.
. . . at least the budget/tax balance approach was the most responsible and fiscally-sane approach in the two decades prior, and far saner than anything seen since. But it was based on revenues from the massive stock-price inflation . . . which was fake. (ie. short-term, and unsustainable).
What Clinton SHOULD have done, was to fight back on the deregulation, kicked-up capital gains tax rates, NOT signed-off on the DMCA, and fought the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Unfortunately, by that time, thanks to the Lewinsky scandal, he was so politically weak - he no longer had the political capital to pull that off, and his own party had stabbed him (and voters) in the back. Had he been able to pull off that progressive agenda, the stock market gains would not have happened, the budget would NOT have been balanced, but we would have been in much better shape, going into 2001, and probably would NOT have had a crash. Though, 9/11 was a big wild-card - and you have to venture into conspiracy-theory land and speculation as to who would have won the 2000 election, and whether VP Lieberman would have done the same (Iraq war) as VP Cheney. (I think we were going to invade Iraq, one way or another, whether Bush or Gore won in 2000, with or without 9/11 - it was set-in-stone in 1997. - - and given that - - our budget, surplus or not, was going to get FUCKED anyway.)
Well, that's true - and this all kind of goes back to Euler's number (base of the natural logarithm) which was originally discovered by computing the instantaneous interest derived on a loan (rather than periodic interest).
Lenders were actually generating obscene amounts of undue profits by charging extra rounded-off interest by charging for the period of the loan, instead of instantaneous compounded interest. Euler proved that this practice was unfair, and revolutionized lending, (and mathematics), when he discovered the natural logarithm. But when you loan somebody money for 5 years, you loan it to them for 5 years, even if they make monthly payments. . . Euler's number calculates the amount of interest for the smallest time interval (which approaches the same amount, for one-over-infinity).
So - looking at an investment, as a loan, and looking at a loan interval as a unit of time, in-fact, IT *IS* VALID, to cut it down to infinitely small units of time. And that's what algorithmic traders are trying to do - shave off every last penny of profit from those rounded-off moments in time.
This is why the market was changed from fractional dollar amounts to decimals a few years back. To allow computer-driven trading. No computer could calculate 1/3 or 1/7 cleanly. So now, those amounts simply do not exist in decimal form. They're all quantities that boil down to binary units that a CPU can deal with in real-terms, when calculating trades.
Now - when you talk about getting rid of these stupid banks. . . that's a whole 'nother argument. Google "Bank of North Dakota" for an interesting alternative.
mainly, we've come to rely and depend on it on such a scale, that we're now, terrified to regulate or ban it. (much like with derivatives in the 1990's) - lest we "tamper" with some beneficial uknown in the market.
However, the benefit that HFT offers is that it mitigates risk for the very large players, by providing automatic small-scale reactions to very sensitive changes to widespread markers in the market that human traders can't possibly track or monitor.
(on the other hand, there is NO reason that the instrumentation available to HFT programs can't be made available to a human trader, in the form of some kind of infographic or dashboard - and allow a human to make the decision to trade, based on a machine recommendation. . . . IF there is some kind of regulatory action against HFT at some point.)
Does HFT creep a lot of people out? Sure. Probably especially people who use automatic checking-account payments, and who have been screwed-over by accidental double-billing, or payments unexpectedly not-clearing in time, or unforseen overdrafts. The point is - the online checking interfaces provided to customers BY the banks, are crappy ON PURPOSE, so that they can make fees. You stick your dick in a machine, and it gets cut-off.
But HFT algorithms are designed with safety in mind, for the operators' side of the interface. (not necessarily the REST of the market though). That doesn't mean that they don't or can't ever fuck up, and screw the investor over. Tough luck, right? Flash-crash, anyone?
There are a lot of reasons why these things ought to be banned. Creeped-out feelings and lack-of-understanding isn't one of them. But they shouldn't be banned "because they're soulless machines". They're just tools. What needs to be scrutinized is the overall market, and trading practices - the purpose it serves in our broader economy, and how we all benefit or suffer from those practices.
I have to obey a speed limit when I drive to work. Both for my own safety, and the safety of other drivers. If I had a robot driving program that allowed ME to safely drive 200 miles per hour, it would still be unsafe for other drivers. I think a car-analogy is a perfectly acceptable analogy in this case.
A lot of what he says sounds like the same canned rationalizations that were common in the "hacker" community in the 1980's and 1990's. Much of that became what was later known as the "Hacker ethic" and has, in my opinion, eclipsed into legend. Because when it comes down to it, when someone REALLY wants to do that - - - do the hard work of being a PROFESSIONAL computer security person, they quickly realize that they have two choices. They can work inside the law, or outside the law. Working outside the law, you throw your ethics and morals away, because you're making a living writing spambots and rootkits. Working inside the law, you need a reputation and trust, because the market is now saturated enough that unless you have a name LIKE "Kevin Mitnick", you're not going to get hired, if you've got a record. That means not getting caught, and that means staying on the straight and narrow.
The other difference is, there is a whole lot more learning opportunity out there now, in terms of open source code, than there was in the 1980's. For aspiring young coders looking to get into the security biz. (and then you find out, that in practice, 90% of the actual "work" is documentation, and covering your ass - for most).
Mitnick endured a gross miscarriage of justice at the hands of an inexperienced FBI, and a terrified financial and industrial community, who did not know how to react to the "Hacker code of ethics" and the trash-talk. They reacted much like the East India trading company reacted to Privateers (Pirates). (revocation of civil liberties). Unfortunately for the rest of us, this revocation was universal, and not limited to the law breakers. This was not Mitnick's fault.
In any case, I can certainly see why he dissembles like he does. It's the rationalization and justification he used to allow him to do these things in the first place. Being in solitary confinement for a year, I doubt that he had anybody else to "work things out with" - emotionally. It's a fine rationalization, but it's just that. It's not a highly-developed ethical and professional code. And people hiring him for security work are doing so for his practical reputation for effectiveness, but not necessarily out of professional responsibility.
Kevin should take a basic IT ethics class. If not to change how he reasons and rationalizes. . . to learn how to "talk the talk", to at least set a better example for a younger generation of security professionals, who are not going to be able to get by on "old skool hacker street-cred."
It wasn't getting killed that Americans feared. (and it wasn't really American Voters that drove resulting policy anyway).
It was the fact that the disaster of the loss of the twin towers, WTC 7, (etc) - was a huge FINANCIAL loss. In a real sense, the "big boys" had to set down their champagne glasses, sit up, and take a look and say "WTF was that?" and "What happened to Jimmy, working at Cantor Fitzgerald doing trades for us?" (etc). --- THAT was what got "America" so riled up and pissing in our adult diapers about "the terror threat".
Of course, we all knew DAMN WELL about the threat posed by our dependency on foreign oil in the politically unstable middle east, as early as 1973. In some areas of government, we knew it as early as 1953 (Operation AJAX). We probably had an idea much earlier than that: after watching the Japanese and German empires implode on themselves due to lack of easy access to readily available petroleum resources during WWII; when the US and Britain embargoed them. (This is why Germany took over Norway, and attacked Britain. This was way Japan attacked the US - the US was the world's largest exporter of petroleum at the time. Our embargo of Japan was ILLEGAL. But moral, and correct, considering what Japan was doing in China, the Phillipines, and Korea. )
In 2001, we were 28 years past our peak production, into deep dependence on Saudi oil. And 19 Saudi hijackers struck at the very heart of Financial America.
If you think your typical American Voter's cowardice of terrorism had much to do with setting USA policy, you are hugely mistaken. They don't set policy. Those people are just stupid, angry sheep. The financiers on Wall Street, who took a multi billion dollar shot in the shorts on 9/11 set policy. They run our economy, they run the CIA, (check out where every single head of the CIA over the past 40+ years comes from - CEO's and board members of major banks) - and they tell the government what to do.
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No, the reason why they choose not to have checks, is so that most of them can get away with this kind of fraud without getting caught. I guarantee - this guy is like one in one-hundred, who got reckless, and got caught.
. . . because that's the reason I do NOT run IE at all.
I require a Firefox browser, that runs. .. FLASHBLOCK, AdblockPro, Noscript, Ghostery, TrackMeNot, HTTPSEverywhere, (and many many more) - - and IE just doesn't run those. So I don't run IE. Ever. So. . this Win8 change won't be a big deal for me.
The web, without these plugins, is a fucking absurdity. Hell, it's bad enough WITH these plugins, and separate mailinator accounts for every login. Fucking spammers need to eat shit and die.
Fuck them in both eye sockets.
Well; for something as simple as a CA Cert list, that could be updated pretty frequently (these days, LOL!) - you'd be popping that jumper on and off every Tuesday.
I skipped Vista. ENTIRELY. Win 7 is okay, at least they solved most of the incredibly HORRIBLE performance issues introduced with Vista - but like every version of Windows since 1.0 - I have needed to change many "stupid" defaults. (we all know this one: Tools->Folder Options->View->uncheck: Show hidden files, folders and drives, Hide empty drives, Hide extensions, Hide protected operating system files. . . etc. etc.)
Every Windows user I know makes this change to every new profile when they log into Windows, since it became standard in Windows 95. (Now, of course, we must make the Tools menu even VISIBLE by pressing the Oh So Intuitive ALT key!) -- And I'm in Win7, and I enable the "Windows Classic" theme - lol! I guess I'm an old fogey. I also install Cygwin.
Sometimes - I feel as if Microsoft just doesn't "get it".
But then again, I remember the big "Mac Rush" in 2006, 2007 (etc) when all the developers I knew were lusting after Macs, saying they were the greatest development platform EVAR (because they had just switched to Intel, so they could run Windows and Linux in VM, MacOS, of course, was Unix-based, and Apple's developer tools were pretty awesome at that time).
And now I see the direction Apple is headed in as far as the AppStore, basically kicking developers in the nuts.
I don't think that lately, Apple "gets it" any more than Microsoft.
And then there's Ubuntu. Don't get me started on fucking Ubuntu.
FTA: Artificial intelligence is allowing automation to take positions held by people with advanced degrees.
I think that this is referring to law firm associates that used to do law-library research for cases, that is now being done by search engines. This has received a high amount of press, largely because it affects a relatively SMALL number (thousands, compared to the MILLIONS of people impacted by manufacturing labor problems), with relatively LARGE (six-figure) salaries.
These individuals, if they have "advanced degrees" (4-yr liberal-arts matriculation + law school, CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER!) - will find jobs elsewhere. Period. Their specialty field has evaporated. Poor babies.
WRONG: Because it was actually less profitable (long-term), but "politically", the owners of capital, were happy to "poke domestic labor in the eye" by moving manufacturing overseas. Bonus points for going to a supposedly "Communist" country. (My prediction: when Chinese labor becomes too expensive - - and this is already happening, expect the "North Korea" labor market to open up. I am only half-joking.)
Owners of capital are actually shooting themselves in the foot by undermining their own consumer base, destroying their own domestic R&D and innovation, and relying on having to ship materials and goods all over the world in a world with declining availability of transportation energy feedstock (petroleum). But, ideologically, when they support their domestic labor base, (by empowering them with stable manufacturing careers, healthcare, retirement packages, etc) - they undermine their domestic political control. That's been their dilemma. They chose to destroy the US middle class, instead of to continue to enable another generation.
Someday, the only job left will be "destroying robots".
Did you not watch the movie Terminator?
I read this as. .
"Submission: Neal Gafter on Java"
That sounds about right.
Um, mass extinctions are okay, I guess. That's cool. Earth's biosphere will adjust, and in a few dozen million years, I'm sure new species will arise. All kinds of nice little microorganisms. It will be FABULOUS!
It's just that when we extinguish 99% of species (including ourselves, DIG?) for the CONVENIENCE and WEALTH of a very small minority among us. . . for a few decades. . . the trade-off doesn't seem quite fair. That's all.
Think about this.
Intel may have done some evil in the past. But look at how badly they got screwed over by Rambus.
I hate to think that something as nebulous as "a corporation" can learn a concept like social responsibility, that is not encoded into corporate bylaws. But perhaps the current crop of individuals who hold influence there, are still stinging from the whole Rambus submarine patent crap.
A friend of mine has this condition, and had this treatment.
He has had white hair all his life. After the treatment, he lost his hair, but it grew back black. They do not know if he's "cured", but he's doing better. His condition brought with it, many secondary tumors, and those have stopped.
Solid rocket propulsion is inappropriate for manned spaceflight.
This message has been brought to you by: Basic Common Sense.
What was wrong with the X-33? The concept had flaws. In 1996. So. . . we turn our backs and never try again for a fully, TRULY reusable system? Just so we can continue to funnel billions of dollars of pork to powerful senators from Louisiana and Utah? Wow. We do not deserve space. We just don't.
Climate science - when you look at the implications - ATTACKS YOU, on an ethical, and moral level.
When you have children. When you drive to work. When you flip on a light switch to read a book. All the things that you were taught were "good and proper and right" things to do. Maybe things that GOD wants you to do, or even things that are just "good" for people, in general to do, even if there is no such thing as GOD. . . you now must face the fact that the act of living a comfortable modern life, is destroying the planet, and causing life for future generations to become unsustainable.
In psychological terms, for many people, the basic reaction to an attack like this, is guilt. But many people feel such deep personal pain, that they have defense mechanisms to deflect from this. They blame others. They deny that its happening. They transfer the guilt to anger. They project their guilt onto others. They rationalize. These are common defense mechanisms. Not all healthy. (in adults, of course). But they are common. Especially in our culture.
So the natural response for MOST emotionally stunted and unhealthy people is to try to rationalize that this message is somehow a lie. They attack the politicians. They attack the scientists. They attack their brothers and sisters who are concerned, and want to come to a mutual understanding about civilized behavior. (ie. we clean up after ourselves, we don't pollute, we contribute, we work, etc.). Look at some of the exact attacks they make against Liberals, Al Gore, Climate Scientists, and plans to mitigate carbon: "they are lazy and want to take my stuff", "he spews all kinds of carbon just jetting around the country making his speeches, he's a hypocrite.", "they're trying to scam us to get rich", "it's a scheme to limit our freedom and steal our money". All of these attacks are a form of "projection" because they very much apply to: Conservatives (who typically are not in favor of equal rights, want to preserve social inequality, because it promotes entrenched exploitation, and upper-class laziness), Rush Limbaugh (who emits plenty of his own carbon, as a counterexample to Al Gore - but instead isn't even trying to solve any problems, other than the problem of "people don't hate each other enough"), Climate Deniers or - let's say, promoters of Free Market Theory, as a superset (Economists have been observed publishing "scientific papers" on their Free Market theories - while failing to disclose affiliations with private employers and professional organizations which pose ethical conflicts of interest - yet these same economists, and promoters of "Free Market" theory, inform our government policy without open peer review - as a scientific community, Economists lack anywhere near the same scrutiny of Climate Scientists), and finally, the Lassez Faire approach to mitigating "bad solutions" to our economic requirements for clean energy: if we FUCK our planet, there is no way to UN-FUCK it.
So basically - this is all the result of our culture, raising generation after generation of emotionally stunted, and unhealthy children, who grow up to be adults who are incapable of rationally dealing with serious life-threatening problems without resorting to the tried-and-true emotional coping-skills of an alcoholic or heroin addict: When life gets hard, dive into a bottle (or a barrel) to avoid the hard problems.
Your prose is beautiful.
Do a little wikipedia search on Euler's Number, and read about how Bernoulli used it to calculate continuous interest. Then you'll understand why this is all a scam.
yeah, well, not to shoot-down Clinton. . . but he didn't actually balance the budget. He accomplished a political capitulation, that had disastrous long-term financial results, and gave the short-term appearance of balancing the budget. The approach, was correct, but the trade-offs, in implementation, (market deregulation), brought us the dot-com bubble, Worldcom, Enron, a whole host of horribly destructive fake IPO's, HP's Carly Fiorina (and subsequent downfall of HP), probably the destruction of DEC. The entire thriving silicon valley innovation industry was pumped-and-dumped, on these deregulation policies. Oh - the free-soda was good, while it lasted. The stock options, of course, are toilet-paper now.
. . . at least the budget/tax balance approach was the most responsible and fiscally-sane approach in the two decades prior, and far saner than anything seen since. But it was based on revenues from the massive stock-price inflation . . . which was fake. (ie. short-term, and unsustainable).
What Clinton SHOULD have done, was to fight back on the deregulation, kicked-up capital gains tax rates, NOT signed-off on the DMCA, and fought the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Unfortunately, by that time, thanks to the Lewinsky scandal, he was so politically weak - he no longer had the political capital to pull that off, and his own party had stabbed him (and voters) in the back. Had he been able to pull off that progressive agenda, the stock market gains would not have happened, the budget would NOT have been balanced, but we would have been in much better shape, going into 2001, and probably would NOT have had a crash. Though, 9/11 was a big wild-card - and you have to venture into conspiracy-theory land and speculation as to who would have won the 2000 election, and whether VP Lieberman would have done the same (Iraq war) as VP Cheney. (I think we were going to invade Iraq, one way or another, whether Bush or Gore won in 2000, with or without 9/11 - it was set-in-stone in 1997. - - and given that - - our budget, surplus or not, was going to get FUCKED anyway.)
IMO - Japan (like Iceland) is likely PERFECTLY suited for geothermal.
NO
BRAINER!
Jonas Salk, discoverer of the Polio vaccine, gave his discovery away, did not make any money. A failure?
Then there's Linux. Another fail?
Must be a profit motive to succeed?
Basic logic fail.
It's roughly equivalent to: A landmine doesn't give a fuck who stepped on it. It's blowing a god damned foot off right fucking now.
Well, that's true - and this all kind of goes back to Euler's number (base of the natural logarithm) which was originally discovered by computing the instantaneous interest derived on a loan (rather than periodic interest).
Lenders were actually generating obscene amounts of undue profits by charging extra rounded-off interest by charging for the period of the loan, instead of instantaneous compounded interest. Euler proved that this practice was unfair, and revolutionized lending, (and mathematics), when he discovered the natural logarithm. But when you loan somebody money for 5 years, you loan it to them for 5 years, even if they make monthly payments. . . Euler's number calculates the amount of interest for the smallest time interval (which approaches the same amount, for one-over-infinity).
So - looking at an investment, as a loan, and looking at a loan interval as a unit of time, in-fact, IT *IS* VALID, to cut it down to infinitely small units of time. And that's what algorithmic traders are trying to do - shave off every last penny of profit from those rounded-off moments in time.
This is why the market was changed from fractional dollar amounts to decimals a few years back. To allow computer-driven trading. No computer could calculate 1/3 or 1/7 cleanly. So now, those amounts simply do not exist in decimal form. They're all quantities that boil down to binary units that a CPU can deal with in real-terms, when calculating trades.
Now - when you talk about getting rid of these stupid banks. . . that's a whole 'nother argument. Google "Bank of North Dakota" for an interesting alternative.
HFT is deemed beneficial and necessary.
mainly, we've come to rely and depend on it on such a scale, that we're now, terrified to regulate or ban it. (much like with derivatives in the 1990's) - lest we "tamper" with some beneficial uknown in the market.
However, the benefit that HFT offers is that it mitigates risk for the very large players, by providing automatic small-scale reactions to very sensitive changes to widespread markers in the market that human traders can't possibly track or monitor.
(on the other hand, there is NO reason that the instrumentation available to HFT programs can't be made available to a human trader, in the form of some kind of infographic or dashboard - and allow a human to make the decision to trade, based on a machine recommendation. . . . IF there is some kind of regulatory action against HFT at some point.)
Does HFT creep a lot of people out? Sure.
Probably especially people who use automatic checking-account payments, and who have been screwed-over by accidental double-billing, or payments unexpectedly not-clearing in time, or unforseen overdrafts. The point is - the online checking interfaces provided to customers BY the banks, are crappy ON PURPOSE, so that they can make fees. You stick your dick in a machine, and it gets cut-off.
But HFT algorithms are designed with safety in mind, for the operators' side of the interface. (not necessarily the REST of the market though). That doesn't mean that they don't or can't ever fuck up, and screw the investor over. Tough luck, right? Flash-crash, anyone?
There are a lot of reasons why these things ought to be banned. Creeped-out feelings and lack-of-understanding isn't one of them. But they shouldn't be banned "because they're soulless machines". They're just tools. What needs to be scrutinized is the overall market, and trading practices - the purpose it serves in our broader economy, and how we all benefit or suffer from those practices.
I have to obey a speed limit when I drive to work. Both for my own safety, and the safety of other drivers. If I had a robot driving program that allowed ME to safely drive 200 miles per hour, it would still be unsafe for other drivers. I think a car-analogy is a perfectly acceptable analogy in this case.
Yeah, actually, Kevin was over at my house the other night, where we put a fake interview with him up on CNN's home page. It was hilarious! :)
A lot of what he says sounds like the same canned rationalizations that were common in the "hacker" community in the 1980's and 1990's. Much of that became what was later known as the "Hacker ethic" and has, in my opinion, eclipsed into legend. Because when it comes down to it, when someone REALLY wants to do that - - - do the hard work of being a PROFESSIONAL computer security person, they quickly realize that they have two choices. They can work inside the law, or outside the law. Working outside the law, you throw your ethics and morals away, because you're making a living writing spambots and rootkits. Working inside the law, you need a reputation and trust, because the market is now saturated enough that unless you have a name LIKE "Kevin Mitnick", you're not going to get hired, if you've got a record. That means not getting caught, and that means staying on the straight and narrow.
The other difference is, there is a whole lot more learning opportunity out there now, in terms of open source code, than there was in the 1980's. For aspiring young coders looking to get into the security biz. (and then you find out, that in practice, 90% of the actual "work" is documentation, and covering your ass - for most).
Mitnick endured a gross miscarriage of justice at the hands of an inexperienced FBI, and a terrified financial and industrial community, who did not know how to react to the "Hacker code of ethics" and the trash-talk. They reacted much like the East India trading company reacted to Privateers (Pirates). (revocation of civil liberties). Unfortunately for the rest of us, this revocation was universal, and not limited to the law breakers. This was not Mitnick's fault.
In any case, I can certainly see why he dissembles like he does. It's the rationalization and justification he used to allow him to do these things in the first place. Being in solitary confinement for a year, I doubt that he had anybody else to "work things out with" - emotionally. It's a fine rationalization, but it's just that. It's not a highly-developed ethical and professional code. And people hiring him for security work are doing so for his practical reputation for effectiveness, but not necessarily out of professional responsibility.
Kevin should take a basic IT ethics class. If not to change how he reasons and rationalizes. . . to learn how to "talk the talk", to at least set a better example for a younger generation of security professionals, who are not going to be able to get by on "old skool hacker street-cred."
It wasn't getting killed that Americans feared. (and it wasn't really American Voters that drove resulting policy anyway).
It was the fact that the disaster of the loss of the twin towers, WTC 7, (etc) - was a huge FINANCIAL loss. In a real sense, the "big boys" had to set down their champagne glasses, sit up, and take a look and say "WTF was that?" and "What happened to Jimmy, working at Cantor Fitzgerald doing trades for us?" (etc). --- THAT was what got "America" so riled up and pissing in our adult diapers about "the terror threat".
Of course, we all knew DAMN WELL about the threat posed by our dependency on foreign oil in the politically unstable middle east, as early as 1973. In some areas of government, we knew it as early as 1953 (Operation AJAX). We probably had an idea much earlier than that: after watching the Japanese and German empires implode on themselves due to lack of easy access to readily available petroleum resources during WWII; when the US and Britain embargoed them. (This is why Germany took over Norway, and attacked Britain. This was way Japan attacked the US - the US was the world's largest exporter of petroleum at the time. Our embargo of Japan was ILLEGAL. But moral, and correct, considering what Japan was doing in China, the Phillipines, and Korea. )
In 2001, we were 28 years past our peak production, into deep dependence on Saudi oil. And 19 Saudi hijackers struck at the very heart of Financial America.
If you think your typical American Voter's cowardice of terrorism had much to do with setting USA policy, you are hugely mistaken. They don't set policy. Those people are just stupid, angry sheep. The financiers on Wall Street, who took a multi billion dollar shot in the shorts on 9/11 set policy. They run our economy, they run the CIA, (check out where every single head of the CIA over the past 40+ years comes from - CEO's and board members of major banks) - and they tell the government what to do.