For what it is worth, academic research indicates that HF trading significantly increases liquidity. The main people it hurt were the floor-based stockbrokers.
There is a natural human tendency to detest the "middleman", who appears to generate nothing of value, in all economic endeavors. One notices it for market makes, car dealers store owners and so on. But middlemen actually do provide a valuable service to society. In Nature's Metropolis by William Cronon there is a fascinating study of the mutual resentment of the wood wholesalers, hardware store owners, and the public in the 1800s, even as everyone was getting much richer and healthier.
If you read TFA looks you find that, in their eagerness to get the maximum news and sentence, the prosecution chose the wrong statute to charge him under. If they had just treated this like any other case of illegally copying an employer's code and not tried to get cute with the "interstate commerce" bit, they would have had a rock-solid conviction.
I am sorry for your situation, but I am glad to hear there were consequences for your poor decision-making, pour encourager les autres. You knew, or should have known, the potential problems that would arise from failing to adhere to what even you admit is a relatively benign vaccination schedule, on both a theoretical and statistical basis.
It is unfair that other people have made the same decision and failed to suffer for it like your family has. On the other hand, some families have followed your path and experienced far worse. And yet more have adhered to the schedule and lost their children anyway.
What a parent really wants to quantify is which school is best for their child. A school that grows its median student from 5th to 35th percentile is a great school no doubt, but might have little to offer a student who happens to test at the 90th already. Thus, what you really want (but probably cannot get) is stratified statistics.
For example, if your education level (on some arbitrary scale) is 18, and your child currently tests in the 42nd percentile, then you want to compare schools on the basis of percentile improvement for 40-50th percentile children of parents with education level 15-20.
A school that generally takes such students to the 70th percentile is a far better choice for you than one that takes them to the 55th, regardless of how much improvement it offers the 5th percentile.
Why did your coworkers take the unauthorized risk in the first place, seeing as they would get fired, profit or loss? Seems more a case of stupidity, rather than malicious action.
Fair question, and I don't have an answer. It only happened twice, and all I can think is "people do crazy stuff".
In 1869, Jim Fisk and Jay Gould tried to corner the gold market, and for a time, this notorious duo succeeded...When Fisk and Gould started their manipulations, gold hovered around GB$130....Gould got some newspapers to help him in his task by printing stories that a gold squeeze had begun. By Thursday, gold had risen to the low GB$140’s, but the real fireworks began the next day, September 24th, what has become known as Black Friday... Many faced ruin as gold began to soar, and the margin calls began to mount....The gold price had risen to GB$162, when James Brown (who with his brother took over the firm started by their father, which exists to this day as Brown Brothers Harriman) stepped up to the plate. He sold 250,000 ounces to a Fisk and Gould broker at GB$160
This is a different kind of event. These guys did not take unauthorized risk (so far as we know). Instead, they manipulated the apparent profitability of their authorized trades. That's not the same thing as unauthorized trading, though it is morally no better,
By the way, there exist counterexamples to your statements. I work in the industry and have seen coworkers fired for taking unauthorized, but profitable, risks. There's no criminal prosecution in those cases of course, but the consequence of dismissal was at least there. I have also seen such cases with small losses where the guy was fired but not prosecuted.
I imagine that profitable unauthorized trading is extremely hard or impossible to prosecute. If the "victim" made money and suffered no harm I am sure the legal case gets pretty weak.
Bringing the topic back to this situation, I have never seen a coworker blatantly and deliberately manipulate marks like these guys did. Judgment calls going in the "right" direction, sure, but nothing crossing the line from judgment call to dastardly misquote.
So, these guys were fooling their bosses after the crisis had started. They must have thought prices were going to "come back" so that the deception would never be uncovered. It makes me wonder how many times in history traders have actually pulled this trick, and gotten lucky enough that prices really did revert and save their sorry behinds.
Has research established a theoretical minimum amount of joules required to transmit one bit of info, at the limits of computation?
I would think that would be coming from the Planck constant, so something like hbar per second. But then to achieve a given level of reliability there would have to be some extra juice.
Getting a programming environment is indeed a barrier which I have experienced a number of times. This contrasts with schooldays when I could start writing a basic program simply by switching the computer on.
Why don't Apple, Microsoft etc. package the stuff you need to get start programming with their OSes? (So one could begin learning with 5 mouse clicks or less.)
It is available for iOS, at least, as Python Math. It's at least as good a getting-started environment as BASIC was on the old C64, Apple ][, or TRS-80. It seems probable Android has something similar.
If you want users to submit better bug reports, you need to be responsive to them so that they feel like they're getting something out of it.
Amen to this. Bug reports that go unfixed too long not only result in a dearth of meaningful reports, but are also liable to cause the users to seek out a new development team, or a new app, or both.
I don't mean to be snide, but is there any chance you could spend a little of that vast brain power on learning some HTML list tags? I like your post but it's a mess to read!
I guess that makes sense since massive particles have energy-dependent velocities. Of course it seems weird to me that the superluminal velocity would stay so close to c over a wide energy range.
As others here noted last time this result came around, if neutrinos really travel that much faster than the speed of light, then we would have expected the neutrino burst from the 1987a supernova to arrive months, rather than hours, before the light came. Thus, I am skeptical.
I am quite aware that I "shouldn't" be browsing/usr/bin, and that apps "should" auto-add, and that coredumps "shouldn't" happen. Maybe one of the magic distros like Ubuntu, Mint or Pinguy never has such problems. I've heard that promise about various distros for nearly 15 years now, and I am sure one day it will be true!
In the meantime I use whatever they give me at work, stick with the one true constant (Debian) at home, tell my friends who need Linux to get Ubuntu, and use OSX whenever possible.
To me, a UI is about more than just the graphical design. In 2011, on my Linux box with bog-standard hardware at work, I have found myself (1) Hand-editing Xorg.conf (where's that xkcd link when I need it?) to try to get proper dual-monitor behavior (2) Running out of disk space due to coredumps (3) Spending hours trying to get sound working properly (headphone outputs versus back panel, different setting for different apps) (4) Hand-adding recalcitrant applications to the Gnome menu. Because navigating to/usr/bin give me a list of 3,181 executables (thanks, wc!) that mixes GUI apps with command-line utilities, rather than a directory of about 50 executables in/Applications/ on a mac.
I like Linux, and have been using using it since 1996, but I have no illusions about the user experience being anywhere near the quality of OSX or Windows.
Great link! I agree that the real problem is that we have these firms that are too big to fail. Asset price bubbles (like internet stocks and real estate in the past couple decades) are going to to happen, but we must not support firms that exacerbate the issue with a government guarantee.
I do not place Taleb anywhere near that league (which I otherwise agree with). There are good and original thoughts in his books, but (to repeat the old saw) what is good is not original and what is original is not any good.
Actually in this case, the CEO resigned, and much of the rest of senior management involved has been also compelled to resign. The losses have been absorbed by the shareholders and employees of UBS, which is exactly as it should be.
The 2008 crisis was a completely different animal, and everybody should be angry the giant banks are relatively unchanged since then. But even then almost all the senior management of those organizations was kicked out.
Part of the media gap may be because such an ill-informed, ill-aimed and intellectually diffuse protest is meaningless. Here's an article from the left-leaning NY Times:
Slashdot Mirror
For what it is worth, academic research indicates that HF trading significantly increases liquidity. The main people it hurt were the floor-based stockbrokers. There is a natural human tendency to detest the "middleman", who appears to generate nothing of value, in all economic endeavors. One notices it for market makes, car dealers store owners and so on. But middlemen actually do provide a valuable service to society. In Nature's Metropolis by William Cronon there is a fascinating study of the mutual resentment of the wood wholesalers, hardware store owners, and the public in the 1800s, even as everyone was getting much richer and healthier.
If you read TFA looks you find that, in their eagerness to get the maximum news and sentence, the prosecution chose the wrong statute to charge him under. If they had just treated this like any other case of illegally copying an employer's code and not tried to get cute with the "interstate commerce" bit, they would have had a rock-solid conviction.
I am sorry for your situation, but I am glad to hear there were consequences for your poor decision-making, pour encourager les autres. You knew, or should have known, the potential problems that would arise from failing to adhere to what even you admit is a relatively benign vaccination schedule, on both a theoretical and statistical basis. It is unfair that other people have made the same decision and failed to suffer for it like your family has. On the other hand, some families have followed your path and experienced far worse. And yet more have adhered to the schedule and lost their children anyway.
Why did your coworkers take the unauthorized risk in the first place, seeing as they would get fired, profit or loss? Seems more a case of stupidity, rather than malicious action.
Fair question, and I don't have an answer. It only happened twice, and all I can think is "people do crazy stuff".
Gold has no inherent value, but cannot be easily gamed.
Well, for certain definitions of "easily". Quoting from http://www.fgmr.com/move-over-fisk-and-gould.html we read that a manipulator (ironically named Gould) did just that:
In 1869, Jim Fisk and Jay Gould tried to corner the gold market, and for a time, this notorious duo succeeded...When Fisk and Gould started their manipulations, gold hovered around GB$130....Gould got some newspapers to help him in his task by printing stories that a gold squeeze had begun. By Thursday, gold had risen to the low GB$140’s, but the real fireworks began the next day, September 24th, what has become known as Black Friday... Many faced ruin as gold began to soar, and the margin calls began to mount....The gold price had risen to GB$162, when James Brown (who with his brother took over the firm started by their father, which exists to this day as Brown Brothers Harriman) stepped up to the plate. He sold 250,000 ounces to a Fisk and Gould broker at GB$160
By the way, there exist counterexamples to your statements. I work in the industry and have seen coworkers fired for taking unauthorized, but profitable, risks. There's no criminal prosecution in those cases of course, but the consequence of dismissal was at least there. I have also seen such cases with small losses where the guy was fired but not prosecuted.
I imagine that profitable unauthorized trading is extremely hard or impossible to prosecute. If the "victim" made money and suffered no harm I am sure the legal case gets pretty weak.
Bringing the topic back to this situation, I have never seen a coworker blatantly and deliberately manipulate marks like these guys did. Judgment calls going in the "right" direction, sure, but nothing crossing the line from judgment call to dastardly misquote.
So, these guys were fooling their bosses after the crisis had started. They must have thought prices were going to "come back" so that the deception would never be uncovered. It makes me wonder how many times in history traders have actually pulled this trick, and gotten lucky enough that prices really did revert and save their sorry behinds.
Has research established a theoretical minimum amount of joules required to transmit one bit of info, at the limits of computation?
I would think that would be coming from the Planck constant, so something like hbar per second. But then to achieve a given level of reliability there would have to be some extra juice.
Getting a programming environment is indeed a barrier which I have experienced a number of times. This contrasts with schooldays when I could start writing a basic program simply by switching the computer on. Why don't Apple, Microsoft etc. package the stuff you need to get start programming with their OSes? (So one could begin learning with 5 mouse clicks or less.)
It is available for iOS, at least, as Python Math. It's at least as good a getting-started environment as BASIC was on the old C64, Apple ][, or TRS-80. It seems probable Android has something similar.
Even for a chaebol, Samsung is pretty corrupt. I will be interested in this book (Think Samsung) by their ex legal officer, if it is ever translated.
If you want users to submit better bug reports, you need to be responsive to them so that they feel like they're getting something out of it.
Amen to this. Bug reports that go unfixed too long not only result in a dearth of meaningful reports, but are also liable to cause the users to seek out a new development team, or a new app, or both.
I don't mean to be snide, but is there any chance you could spend a little of that vast brain power on learning some HTML list tags? I like your post but it's a mess to read!
... Corporate p0wnership of your election process. Countrywide/BofA and the bank and wall street bailouts. Not one bailout bankster in jail. ...
Wait a minute..."p0wnership"? "Bankster"? Where have you been since Penny Arcade last saw you?
I guess that makes sense since massive particles have energy-dependent velocities. Of course it seems weird to me that the superluminal velocity would stay so close to c over a wide energy range.
As others here noted last time this result came around, if neutrinos really travel that much faster than the speed of light, then we would have expected the neutrino burst from the 1987a supernova to arrive months, rather than hours, before the light came. Thus, I am skeptical.
I am quite aware that I "shouldn't" be browsing /usr/bin, and that apps "should" auto-add, and that coredumps "shouldn't" happen. Maybe one of the magic distros like Ubuntu, Mint or Pinguy never has such problems. I've heard that promise about various distros for nearly 15 years now, and I am sure one day it will be true!
In the meantime I use whatever they give me at work, stick with the one true constant (Debian) at home, tell my friends who need Linux to get Ubuntu, and use OSX whenever possible.
To me, a UI is about more than just the graphical design. In 2011, on my Linux box with bog-standard hardware at work, I have found myself /usr/bin give me a list of 3,181 executables (thanks, wc!) that mixes GUI apps with command-line utilities, rather than a directory of about 50 executables in /Applications/ on a mac.
(1) Hand-editing Xorg.conf (where's that xkcd link when I need it?) to try to get proper dual-monitor behavior
(2) Running out of disk space due to coredumps
(3) Spending hours trying to get sound working properly (headphone outputs versus back panel, different setting for different apps)
(4) Hand-adding recalcitrant applications to the Gnome menu. Because navigating to
I like Linux, and have been using using it since 1996, but I have no illusions about the user experience being anywhere near the quality of OSX or Windows.
Great link! I agree that the real problem is that we have these firms that are too big to fail. Asset price bubbles (like internet stocks and real estate in the past couple decades) are going to to happen, but we must not support firms that exacerbate the issue with a government guarantee.
I do not place Taleb anywhere near that league (which I otherwise agree with). There are good and original thoughts in his books, but (to repeat the old saw) what is good is not original and what is original is not any good.
He is intellectually dishonest, and highly evasive when asked about specifics. Consider this:
http://www.marketfolly.com/2009/06/nassim-talebs-black-swan-examining.html
Really, Google? You hired all kinds of brilliant people, including 3 of my smartest friends, and yet you make basic quality control errors?
Sometimes the ability of organizations with multitudes of extremely smart people to achieve nothing more than mediocrity boggles my mind.
While your bitterness toward CEO packages is understandable, you are pathetically underinformed in this case.
Actually in this case, the CEO resigned, and much of the rest of senior management involved has been also compelled to resign. The losses have been absorbed by the shareholders and employees of UBS, which is exactly as it should be.
The 2008 crisis was a completely different animal, and everybody should be angry the giant banks are relatively unchanged since then. But even then almost all the senior management of those organizations was kicked out.
I am waiting for 9.0, coming next Thursday.
Part of the media gap may be because such an ill-informed, ill-aimed and intellectually diffuse protest is meaningless. Here's an article from the left-leaning NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wall-street-with-faulty-aim.html
I would say that coverage in one of the major newspapers of record is hardly a big gap. Certainly less of one than these wastrels seem to deserve.