If you memorize up to the first zero in pi, you can navigate the circumference of the universe in a perfect circle
I get your basic point about the accuracy conveyed in ten or twelve digits of accuracy, but I think you might be missing out on something rather crucial. PI is a ratio that is for a circle inscribed on a flat plane. Evidence show that the universe is probably fairly curved, so if you are trying to navigate a circumference inscribed on a 3d space with a map based off of a 2d ratio, you are likely going to be way off.
Cops have a pretty awful job and I have to say I'm happy someone is trying to do what they do.
Really? Someone is trying to do what they do, but isn't actually bothering to go through the steps to become a cop? All the responsibility and power of being an a arbiter of justice, but without any vetting or checks? Does that really sound like a good idea?
This guy has a record of being pretty level headed and all, but how long before someone with a short fuse and a chip on their shoulder decides to join in and help? The problem with vigilantes is that they are self appointed. Do you really want some random stranger who might be packing a gun roaming the streets at night looking for trouble so he can 'help'?
I was reading through a summary of the entire history of BitCoin on SomethingAwful and I lost any respect I ever had for that project and its participants. I made the right decision to not waste any electricity on it.
You are basing decisions about the validity and feasibility of BC based off of something posted on SA? Look, SA is a fucking hilarious site, but really? Do you get your investigative reporting from the Onion?
Physics allows for a clown to be in my basement, but that doesn't mean there IS a clown in my basement.
Conversely, there is nothing preventing a clown from being in your basement, so you should engage in scientific testing of that idea and go check for one.
I am fascinated by your 'clown in the basement' metaphor. I think I need to work on integrating this into everyday conversation.
What do you think would happen if we pitted a modern equivalent of the P-51 against the F-22? Take a cheap-and-quick-to-build airframe, put 10,000 of them in the air, and keep the replacements coming. What would the outcome be?
A couple of our expensive spy says notice that Canada is massing cheap vintage planes on the border, and creating fuel and ordinance dumps to supply them. They can easily track their sorties, since the planes, not being stealthy, have a huge radar cross section. The stealthy UAVs we put up to see what the hell is happening over the border, and the video they send back shows pilots and support personnel prepping for combat ops from dispersed rough airfields.
supposing that we decide to play nice guy and wait for the attack before counter attacking, we get warnings from the 3 or 4 AWAC we put up at 35,000 feet on our side of the border that massive flights of planes are being launched in a southern direction. The supersonic jets escort fighter bombers over the border while the attack is inbound, and proceed to bomb every fuel and ordnance depo and C&C installation (quite easy to find, since they are using 'cheap' electronics). They get perhaps 1 or 2 sorties before their entire support infrastructure is utter shambles. Several f-22s are casualties of mechanical problems, and several f-22 pilots make quintuple ace in under an hour when they are given a guns free order on inbound sorties. The rest of the old 'tech' attackers are savaged by ground to air missile fire, which has had an easy time finding and targeting the 350 mph non-stealthy planes. Some civilians are killed in the crossfire, and Canada has lost a large percentage of its air capabilities within 24 hours of mobilizing.
Sorry, I can't really see your argument holding a lot of water. Infrastructure and information is what wins wars, not having more guns.
Wow, I don't know a better way of driving users away from an email service, then to try to filter their content. I wonder if the stockholders could sue for mismanagement over something like this? It seems to be a gross mismanagement of the company to do something like this, given that there are a lot of clever users out there that will work out what you are doing pretty quickly.
If I value what I'm buying more than $34, and you value the $34 more than what I'm selling then it isn't zero sum.
You appear to have a solid understanding of economics, but you don't seem to to be getting the portion of the discussion that centers on Game Theory. If you value money more than I do and you win $5 from me in a game of poker, that doesn't make the game non-zero sum. Your analysis is insightful, but ultimately incorrect.
Michael Weston (Burn Notice) one used a bundle of laser pointers to burn out surveillance cameras. I suspect that would probably work very nicely in real life, too.
I separated the value of money to present a simple model and demonstrate how the market is a non-zero sum game. You are really just over complicating things with your argument.
On a transactional level, an exchange is zero-sum. I sell you a share of acme at 34 dollars. I gain $34 dollars, and you lose $34 dollars. This is a zero-sum game.
On a larger level, $34 dollars is being measured with a 'rubber ruler', where what you can buy with it is constantly growing or shrinking, in a non-zero sum fashion. ergo, the stock market is a non-zero sum game.
Money is a tool, it's part of the game but it's not the output or payoff of the game. The payoff of the game is the consumption of goods and services.
The payoff of the stock market 'game' is the cash you make when you 'cash out' and sell off stock. I think you are expanding 'the game' to include the separate issue of capturing labor value in the form of hard currency.
The point I was making about currency value being fluid is akin to the issue of measurements when dealing with relativistic physics. One of the analogies that physicists will use is to describe measuring thing with rubber rulers. It seems to be very similar to what is happening in the market, where on a micro transaction level, the game is strictly zero-sum, but on a larger level you are measuring your losses and gains with the 'rubber ruler' of currency value.
It is an interesting statement. At first i was going to disagree with the parent poster like you did, but consider the broader question, what is money? In the contemporary sense, money is issued by governments base on GNP projections and other factors. Sure, the market is zero sum in the sense that every time a transaction occurs, one person goes up x ducats and one person goes down x ducats, but it is being purchased with money from a central money source that just wills money into and out of existence on whim.
If there were an exact formula that governed the creation of money down to the last cent, I might agree with you, but it is really just a lot of really educated guesswork. Since the money is the medium that defines market values, I don't think that you can divorce the two, and money is very much an non-zero sum game.
So, I back the parent poster. The stock market is not a zero-sum game.
IANAL, but isn't it illegal and/or non-binding to try to enforce a contract that waves a legal right? For example, I could not pay you $1 in return for you signing a contract that indicates you are my property. Slavery is illegal, so such a contract would not be enforceable.
While it is an established practice to create a contract that says someone will not pursue further litigation in return for a settlement, it sounds somewhat shifty to try to proactively prevent someone from engaging in litigation.
They don't and that is their dirty little secret. Nervous? Well, the machine says you are a liar. Have a nice life, now that it has been confirmed by technology.
Go read up on how they work, its a fucking joke. The fact they are used by groups like the FBI is a national embarrassment.
On the other hand, Google does need a slap-down here. The people they are "negotiating" with don't have any standing wrt to abandoned works - if they did, the works would not qualify as abandoned.
Almost sounds like Righthaven, doesn't it? But why would Google need to get slapped down? I would think that the AG is the one getting out of line here in trying to represent people legally that it has no right to.
IANAL, so....lawyers, is it legal to represent someone without their expressed consent?
The real reason this was done, was a result of a flaw of the system.
There are people with money and a vested interest in extending the copyright, but there are no organized groups with money lobbying against this. So, every time this rolls around in ANY country with a copyright system, it will get extended.
politicians will roll over for any group with lobbyists, when there isn't any organized opposition. It is in their interest to pass laws that people with influence like.
Imagine Neo-nazis using Michael Jackson songs to promote them.
That is actually kinda funny, people who believe in the superiority of the Aryan bloodline using the music of an vaguely effeminate black man and Jehovah's Witnesses who married a white woman to promote their cause.
I am pretty sure that the ghost of MJ will rest easy, knowing it will never happen.
If the HFT really gets access to trades being made by others before they are posted, then the SEC can bust them for insider trading.
I think that HFT are just looking for patterns in trading and making short term bets against identified trends, which is just fine. You do the same thing if you buy a stock and hold it for a year when compared to someone who holds a stock for 30 years.
your analysis is only correct if the HFT is smarter than the people buying and selling. if it is 'dumber' because the people it is buying and selling from then is is just losing money. There is no evidence I have seen that HFT algorithims are actually any smarter, just more aware of micro fluctuations that may or may not be relevant.
The algorithms are just extensions of human judgement. Certain patterns in stock signal that price move is occurring or is about to occur.
...Or it could be chaotic noise generated by the interactions of multiple HFT programs. HFT has a benefit that is added to the market, that is it makes trading in a market place with them a completely liquid proposition, in that if you are willing to buy or sell at the right price, you have a traders whenever you need them. They also cause market fluctuations on a second by second basis, making it pretty much impossible for a human to 'beat the system' over very short time periods barring any logic exploits or bugs in the algorithms. Which is fine in my mind, because multiple HFT algorithms used by different actors will offset gains created by employing them for short term transactions, and people really should be looking at long term trading in the market anyway.
Some people complain that they are skimming profits from investors by adding additional costs, but really what they seem to be doing is causing a discreet (step like) graph smoother by adding in additional price points. Keep in mind that while they cause a buyer to get less of a profit while buying into a rising stock, they also can prevent a seller from losing as much when selling off a falling stock. It is a two way street.
The real thing to be concerned about in my mind, is that markets are inherently chaotic (in the math sense of the word), and using an algorithm to conduct trades in such an environment is just asking to lose money. And that is fine if you are a private investor playing with your own money, it is very worrying when you are playing with mutual funds, 401ks, etc that have large numbers of people's saving in them. Most people don't have a real grasp of chaos math, and software algorithms, and as a result don't realize the risks that are involved with HFT.
Slashdot Mirror
If you memorize up to the first zero in pi, you can navigate the circumference of the universe in a perfect circle
I get your basic point about the accuracy conveyed in ten or twelve digits of accuracy, but I think you might be missing out on something rather crucial. PI is a ratio that is for a circle inscribed on a flat plane. Evidence show that the universe is probably fairly curved, so if you are trying to navigate a circumference inscribed on a 3d space with a map based off of a 2d ratio, you are likely going to be way off.
Cops have a pretty awful job and I have to say I'm happy someone is trying to do what they do.
Really? Someone is trying to do what they do, but isn't actually bothering to go through the steps to become a cop? All the responsibility and power of being an a arbiter of justice, but without any vetting or checks? Does that really sound like a good idea?
This guy has a record of being pretty level headed and all, but how long before someone with a short fuse and a chip on their shoulder decides to join in and help? The problem with vigilantes is that they are self appointed. Do you really want some random stranger who might be packing a gun roaming the streets at night looking for trouble so he can 'help'?
From what I've seen, it's actually 80% arguing with 19% about 1%
That seems about 50% right....
I was reading through a summary of the entire history of BitCoin on SomethingAwful and I lost any respect I ever had for that project and its participants. I made the right decision to not waste any electricity on it.
You are basing decisions about the validity and feasibility of BC based off of something posted on SA? Look, SA is a fucking hilarious site, but really? Do you get your investigative reporting from the Onion?
Physics allows for a clown to be in my basement, but that doesn't mean there IS a clown in my basement.
Conversely, there is nothing preventing a clown from being in your basement, so you should engage in scientific testing of that idea and go check for one.
I am fascinated by your 'clown in the basement' metaphor. I think I need to work on integrating this into everyday conversation.
What do you think would happen if we pitted a modern equivalent of the P-51 against the F-22? Take a cheap-and-quick-to-build airframe, put 10,000 of them in the air, and keep the replacements coming. What would the outcome be?
A couple of our expensive spy says notice that Canada is massing cheap vintage planes on the border, and creating fuel and ordinance dumps to supply them. They can easily track their sorties, since the planes, not being stealthy, have a huge radar cross section. The stealthy UAVs we put up to see what the hell is happening over the border, and the video they send back shows pilots and support personnel prepping for combat ops from dispersed rough airfields.
supposing that we decide to play nice guy and wait for the attack before counter attacking, we get warnings from the 3 or 4 AWAC we put up at 35,000 feet on our side of the border that massive flights of planes are being launched in a southern direction. The supersonic jets escort fighter bombers over the border while the attack is inbound, and proceed to bomb every fuel and ordnance depo and C&C installation (quite easy to find, since they are using 'cheap' electronics). They get perhaps 1 or 2 sorties before their entire support infrastructure is utter shambles. Several f-22s are casualties of mechanical problems, and several f-22 pilots make quintuple ace in under an hour when they are given a guns free order on inbound sorties. The rest of the old 'tech' attackers are savaged by ground to air missile fire, which has had an easy time finding and targeting the 350 mph non-stealthy planes. Some civilians are killed in the crossfire, and Canada has lost a large percentage of its air capabilities within 24 hours of mobilizing.
Sorry, I can't really see your argument holding a lot of water. Infrastructure and information is what wins wars, not having more guns.
Just the list of valid e-mail addresses and credit card info is next to priceless in the wrong hands...
Wow, I don't know a better way of driving users away from an email service, then to try to filter their content. I wonder if the stockholders could sue for mismanagement over something like this? It seems to be a gross mismanagement of the company to do something like this, given that there are a lot of clever users out there that will work out what you are doing pretty quickly.
If I value what I'm buying more than $34, and you value the $34 more than what I'm selling then it isn't zero sum.
You appear to have a solid understanding of economics, but you don't seem to to be getting the portion of the discussion that centers on Game Theory. If you value money more than I do and you win $5 from me in a game of poker, that doesn't make the game non-zero sum. Your analysis is insightful, but ultimately incorrect.
Michael Weston (Burn Notice) one used a bundle of laser pointers to burn out surveillance cameras. I suspect that would probably work very nicely in real life, too.
I separated the value of money to present a simple model and demonstrate how the market is a non-zero sum game. You are really just over complicating things with your argument.
On a transactional level, an exchange is zero-sum. I sell you a share of acme at 34 dollars. I gain $34 dollars, and you lose $34 dollars. This is a zero-sum game.
On a larger level, $34 dollars is being measured with a 'rubber ruler', where what you can buy with it is constantly growing or shrinking, in a non-zero sum fashion. ergo, the stock market is a non-zero sum game.
Oh, I don't know about that. I'm sure that a lot of Canadians would like to overthrow the US government...
Money is a tool, it's part of the game but it's not the output or payoff of the game. The payoff of the game is the consumption of goods and services.
The payoff of the stock market 'game' is the cash you make when you 'cash out' and sell off stock. I think you are expanding 'the game' to include the separate issue of capturing labor value in the form of hard currency.
The point I was making about currency value being fluid is akin to the issue of measurements when dealing with relativistic physics. One of the analogies that physicists will use is to describe measuring thing with rubber rulers. It seems to be very similar to what is happening in the market, where on a micro transaction level, the game is strictly zero-sum, but on a larger level you are measuring your losses and gains with the 'rubber ruler' of currency value.
It is an interesting statement. At first i was going to disagree with the parent poster like you did, but consider the broader question, what is money? In the contemporary sense, money is issued by governments base on GNP projections and other factors. Sure, the market is zero sum in the sense that every time a transaction occurs, one person goes up x ducats and one person goes down x ducats, but it is being purchased with money from a central money source that just wills money into and out of existence on whim.
If there were an exact formula that governed the creation of money down to the last cent, I might agree with you, but it is really just a lot of really educated guesswork. Since the money is the medium that defines market values, I don't think that you can divorce the two, and money is very much an non-zero sum game.
So, I back the parent poster. The stock market is not a zero-sum game.
IANAL, but isn't it illegal and/or non-binding to try to enforce a contract that waves a legal right? For example, I could not pay you $1 in return for you signing a contract that indicates you are my property. Slavery is illegal, so such a contract would not be enforceable.
While it is an established practice to create a contract that says someone will not pursue further litigation in return for a settlement, it sounds somewhat shifty to try to proactively prevent someone from engaging in litigation.
But if microseconds mean millions in trading ... who has time for checks?"
At that price, who doesn't have time for checks?
They don't and that is their dirty little secret. Nervous? Well, the machine says you are a liar. Have a nice life, now that it has been confirmed by technology.
Go read up on how they work, its a fucking joke. The fact they are used by groups like the FBI is a national embarrassment.
On the other hand, Google does need a slap-down here. The people they are "negotiating" with don't have any standing wrt to abandoned works - if they did, the works would not qualify as abandoned.
Almost sounds like Righthaven, doesn't it? But why would Google need to get slapped down? I would think that the AG is the one getting out of line here in trying to represent people legally that it has no right to.
IANAL, so....lawyers, is it legal to represent someone without their expressed consent?
The real reason this was done, was a result of a flaw of the system.
There are people with money and a vested interest in extending the copyright, but there are no organized groups with money lobbying against this. So, every time this rolls around in ANY country with a copyright system, it will get extended.
politicians will roll over for any group with lobbyists, when there isn't any organized opposition. It is in their interest to pass laws that people with influence like.
Imagine Neo-nazis using Michael Jackson songs to promote them.
That is actually kinda funny, people who believe in the superiority of the Aryan bloodline using the music of an vaguely effeminate black man and Jehovah's Witnesses who married a white woman to promote their cause.
I am pretty sure that the ghost of MJ will rest easy, knowing it will never happen.
Well, he has been de-composing for a good 30 years now...
If the HFT really gets access to trades being made by others before they are posted, then the SEC can bust them for insider trading.
I think that HFT are just looking for patterns in trading and making short term bets against identified trends, which is just fine. You do the same thing if you buy a stock and hold it for a year when compared to someone who holds a stock for 30 years.
your analysis is only correct if the HFT is smarter than the people buying and selling. if it is 'dumber' because the people it is buying and selling from then is is just losing money. There is no evidence I have seen that HFT algorithims are actually any smarter, just more aware of micro fluctuations that may or may not be relevant.
The algorithms are just extensions of human judgement. Certain patterns in stock signal that price move is occurring or is about to occur.
...Or it could be chaotic noise generated by the interactions of multiple HFT programs. HFT has a benefit that is added to the market, that is it makes trading in a market place with them a completely liquid proposition, in that if you are willing to buy or sell at the right price, you have a traders whenever you need them. They also cause market fluctuations on a second by second basis, making it pretty much impossible for a human to 'beat the system' over very short time periods barring any logic exploits or bugs in the algorithms. Which is fine in my mind, because multiple HFT algorithms used by different actors will offset gains created by employing them for short term transactions, and people really should be looking at long term trading in the market anyway.
Some people complain that they are skimming profits from investors by adding additional costs, but really what they seem to be doing is causing a discreet (step like) graph smoother by adding in additional price points. Keep in mind that while they cause a buyer to get less of a profit while buying into a rising stock, they also can prevent a seller from losing as much when selling off a falling stock. It is a two way street.
The real thing to be concerned about in my mind, is that markets are inherently chaotic (in the math sense of the word), and using an algorithm to conduct trades in such an environment is just asking to lose money. And that is fine if you are a private investor playing with your own money, it is very worrying when you are playing with mutual funds, 401ks, etc that have large numbers of people's saving in them. Most people don't have a real grasp of chaos math, and software algorithms, and as a result don't realize the risks that are involved with HFT.
But, in practical terms, you're being obtuse. This exhibit was done as art and is being displayed by a gallery.
Hes right, Haedrian. Which is why you shouldn't blow up an orphanage. You should blow up an art gallery. THAT is art....