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User: KingOfBLASH

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Comments · 1,036

  1. Re:Windows 8... no more on Windows 8.1 Update Released, With Improvements For Non-Touch Hardware · · Score: 1

    Notepad++ shouldn't be the killer app you can't leave windows for. Decades ago vi and emacs were the original Notepad++. Hell, I even remember in comp sci class many years ago we wrote our own text editors because it was sufficiently complicated for a project but easy enough that we could do it over a period of a few weeks, and some students naturally added some bells and whistles you wouldn't find in notepad. (Ahhh, memories. Now get off my lawn)

  2. Re:How does this simply not move the goalposts? on Australia May 'Pause' Trades To Tackle High-Frequency Trading · · Score: 1

    Two people hitting an offer at exactly the same trade is an EXTREMLY rare event because literally these guys are polling based on a difference of micro, nano, or picoseconds.

  3. Re:Won't work on Australia May 'Pause' Trades To Tackle High-Frequency Trading · · Score: 1

    Citation please?

    While you are correct that trades are typically allocated on a first come first served basis (creating an incentive to those who are speedy) most of what you wrote is bollucks

  4. Re:So, how much does it cost? on New Service Lets You Hitch a Ride With Private Planes For Cost of Tank of Gas · · Score: 1

    For $200 / hour a proper commercial flight will be much less expensive.

  5. Re:Won't work on Australia May 'Pause' Trades To Tackle High-Frequency Trading · · Score: 3, Informative

    Utter rubbish.

    I used to work for a high frequency firm, and I can tell you the downwards strategy is as important as the upward strategy. While in theory it is true that potential gains on the upside are unlimited and potential gains on the downside are limited to the share price this presupposes that a stock price can go to infinity. Realistically, this is not true, and realistically barring a catastrophe a stock does not go to zero. Even then a stock does not go to zero immediately when becoming worthless (see Dead Cat Bounce)

    HFT is focused in on short term moves. On a short period of time, say the order of seconds, it will dominate. On a longer period of time, say hours, days, or weeks, investor sentiment will dominate. Even when HFT goes completely wonky and accidentally manipulates the market, over a period of days investor sentiment will still dominate.

    Additionally, stock ownership represents ownership in an underlying company, that on average will experience growth. As profits grow, the value of the shares grow. Therefore growth in the present value of stocks is the natural state. Additionally, while you might take the counter argument that not all stocks should grow, most indices will cut out underperforming stocks. Therefore, an index is a bad indicator for the stock market at large because you are artificially selecting for winners and losers.

  6. Re:How does this simply not move the goalposts? on Australia May 'Pause' Trades To Tackle High-Frequency Trading · · Score: 1

    Sort of like an auction but not like an auction. There is no centralized keeper of bids, people make offers, and people take offers. HFT relies on speed because if I am faster than you I will take all the good offers and leave none of the bad offers.

    A randomization of the bidding process would require change in the underlying mechanism as well

  7. ADD! on Judge (Tech) Advice By Results · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Slashdot editors should assume all readers have ADD, and make sure in 5 seconds I can tell what the hell it's about.

  8. Re:How does this simply not move the goalposts? on Australia May 'Pause' Trades To Tackle High-Frequency Trading · · Score: 1

    Won't work. How do you suppose trades actually go through and prices get discovered? Trading and price discovery sort of works like an auction. An auction is not effective if you randomly scramble the order the bids come in.

    I say like an auction because there's not actually an auctioneer, it's more complicated than that. Some people do what's called passive execution. They put a quote out there that says "I'll buy XYZ at $x and sell at $y." Other people do what's called aggressive execution. They see your order to buy for $x and they "hit" it, and take the other side of the order.

    Algorithms ultimately move the price they're willing to buy or sell at up or down, which is what creates price discovery. So if I'm willing to buy at a higher price than you, my quotes will get "hit" and you'll either need to match my offer price, or stay out.

    That's where the speed advantage comes in. If I publish a quote to say I'll buy at $x + $0.05, and it takes my competitors 500 ms to react, and you can react in 100ms, you can buy shares from my competitors and sell to me before the market stabilizes.

    That's the point of the delay. Right now there's a speed arms race where the fastest trader basically takes all the chips. If you can react to price discovery in 100ms, and it takes me 500ms, I effectively can't trade anymore.

  9. Re:Won't work on Australia May 'Pause' Trades To Tackle High-Frequency Trading · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well let's say you want to buy a share, who do you buy it from? Or let's say you want to sell a share, who do you sell it to?

    It used to be you'd actually have to find someone to step in and take the contra side of your transaction. That's a pain in the ass, will cost you time and money, and in the event you need to sell and everyone else wants to sell you're screwed. All of this would mean that unless you had lots of money to invest, the stock market was not for you.

    Fast forward to today. We have people willing to take a position, any position. They provide "liquidity" for the market by buying the share you wanted to sell, in the hopes that they can turn around and sell it for a fraction of a cent more when someone comes along with a buy order. They actively manage their inventory of shares (yes that's a thing), and adjust prices in the event information comes out causing a large price change in the shares.

    This is a service that needs to continue if you want modern markets to maintain their efficiency.

    Now here's the problem. Back when the "marketmakers" were actual human beings buying and yelling at each other in trading pits one would not be substantially faster than another. But, using computers, there's an arms race for speed. If you can get a few miliseconds (or even nanoseconds) faster than your competition, you can take all of the profitable orders. This means if you plough enough money into speed, you can just own the market. In addition, because computers are so fast, your computer can make many millions of silly trades before a human trader can push the big red stop button.

    Now a solution needs to come about. But, because of the need for market makers speed can't really be limited to holding onto shares for months. (Sorry). 500 ms basically breaks the arms race since it's a very easy speed to obtain. So, you can't just plough money into being the fastest kid on the block.

  10. Re:Scientists warned of global warming for decades on Geologists Warned of Washington State Mudslides For Decades · · Score: 1

    Man keep up with the conspiracy theories! The intelligentsia illuminati KNOW global warming is real, but it will helpfully kill off most of the imbeciles with famine, drought, and pestilence on a biblical scale right about the time that automation put them out of work anyways. This prevent revolution, and allows the technocracy to implement "changes" that may deprive liberties but will allow the remaining knuckleheads to survive, which will encourage them to accept that privacy is dead, and that Zombie Lincoln is their new overlord.

    </Tongue In Cheek>

    Oh I'm sorry, did you want a serious answer? ;)

  11. Re:Good old 386 for secure network on Used IT Equipment Can Be Worth a Fortune (Video) · · Score: 1

    Compile BSD for it and you will have a 100% virus and trojan proof computer.

    While it may be true there are less known exploits for oddball platforms, an oddball platform is not inherently more secure, and certainly not 100% virus / trojan proof. All you do is add a level of difficulty, which may stop script kiddies, but a determined attacker (or sophisticated attacker who might see more oddball equipment then you think (read NSA)) will still get through.

  12. Re: Ridiculous. on Time Dilation Drug Could Let Heinous Criminals Serve 1,000 Year Sentences · · Score: 1

    Yeah but how much is your life worth?

    I value my life infinitely, no matter how much cash you offer me, I will not put a bullet in my head in exchange for the currency. Everyone else does as well because generally no one who gets arrested and gets the death penalty says "let's do this, it was a fair trade"

    If I HAD to do something illegal, I sure as hell would avoid the death penalty.

    But people don't think rationally. They think short term. It's the same reason why normal people have so much problem investing.

  13. Re:Not useful on Time Dilation Drug Could Let Heinous Criminals Serve 1,000 Year Sentences · · Score: 1

    What you're really pointing to is the fact that there are MULTIPLE problems with the prison system.

    The fact that you solve one problem and others exist doesn't mean all the problems shouldn't be addressed.

  14. Re: Ridiculous. on Time Dilation Drug Could Let Heinous Criminals Serve 1,000 Year Sentences · · Score: 5, Informative

    Currently I'm traveling around SE Asia. Just about every country you go to has capital punishment for anyone trafficking in drugs. Yup, bring anything into singapore and they'll hang you by the neck until dead. Of course waiting would be cruel, they'll do it quite promptly the following friday.

    (Citation? Of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...)

    The funny thing is, even though you would think most people would want to avoid the long drop I am quite often asked if I want to buy drugs.

    This to me really shows that people just are not rational enough to avoid crime no matter how harsh the punishment we mete out. Because of this, really I think the best option is to focus in on rehabilitation, and in extreme cases locking people away to protect society, because the fact of the matter is that punishment as a deterrent does not work.

  15. YES! on Ask Slashdot: Can an Old Programmer Learn New Tricks? · · Score: 1

    Learning is just about putting in the work. If you decide that you want to learn emacs LISP, and want to implement a project in it, it's possible if you're willing to put in the work.

    As others have pointed out, the more salient question is, why? If you really have progressed up the ladder, then presumably your focus is no longer about daily programming, but more about project management and general management. At that level, it becomes less important to be able to implement a widget in the newest shiny language, but to be able to bring the project (successfully) to completion.

  16. Re:Good idea on Is Analog the Fix For Cyber Terrorism? · · Score: 1

    That's interesting they have a different system cross checking. But what happens when they are in disagreement? Who wins? There might not be time for the pilots to figure it out.

    Then the minority report is filed in the brain of the female, who is obviously the smarter one. Duh. Didn't you see the movie?

  17. Re:We need to stop big tax dodgers useing loop hol on Silicon Valley Billionaire Takes Out $201 Million Life Insurance Policy · · Score: 1

    Well the tax STARTS at $1 million. So in your example he still gets to give his money to his kids (minus costs of probate).

    You are pointing out is another problem with our system.

    Nationwide, there are areas where someone with $1 million is super rich (like detroit), and areas where someone with $1 million is lower middle class (like New York City). It might make sense in some super high cost areas like NYC to raise the minimum to, say, $10 million since literally you have situations where grandma bought a house for $10k and now it's worth seven figures, and suddenly she's considered rich.

    (Yes this happens.)

  18. Re:We need to stop big tax dodgers useing loop hol on Silicon Valley Billionaire Takes Out $201 Million Life Insurance Policy · · Score: 1

    You still get to build wealth. It's just that each generation your family has to rebuild the wealth.

    Don't worry, if you really are wealthy you'll still create a dynasty of rich kids since the 50% tax comes roughly once every 80 years and your money should double (under proper management) on an order of magnitude of every 10 years or so.

    Unless the kids start eating into the principal in which case they'll be returned to your pre-wealthy state

  19. Re:We need to stop big tax dodgers useing loop hol on Silicon Valley Billionaire Takes Out $201 Million Life Insurance Policy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quite a few billionaires (Buffet, Trump) would disagree with you.

    If I am a brilliant man and create a company (and create value), I deserve to keep that. But why should my descendants, who are by virtue of their birth part of a "lucky sperm club," entitled to all that wealth?

    True capitalism should require a level playing field when you start, and to really do that, when the final score is tallied, the slate should be wiped clean.

    That's why such super high estate taxes exist. And typically they're not for you and me, it's for people over a certain threshold (say $1 mio + in assets)

  20. Re:Lots of government funding is wasted on The Billionaires Privatizing American Science · · Score: 1

    Yes, I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote down Hilbert.

  21. Re:Lots of government funding is wasted on The Billionaires Privatizing American Science · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is we don't actually know what is and isn't a waste.

    A lot of very useful science started out as just some researchers pie in the sky distraction. For instance, much of the work in number theory and pure mathematics of the past few hundred years had no clear use. In Hilberts autobiography, "Apology of a Mathematician" he apologized for spending his life playing with puzzles that he thought were fun.

    However, actually number theory (especially now that we have computers) actually turned out to be QUITE useful.

    The problem is you don't know what will or won't be useful ex-ante. There are certainly benefits to saying "we should find a cure for _____" However, perhaps some microbiologist who just wanted to see what he could grow if he tried culturing a geyser will discover something revolutionary. (Really happened. Modern microbiology relies on replicating DNA which uses a mechanism found in a bacteria that figured out how to live in a geyser).

    Really we need a mix. If a billionaire likes the idea of going into space, we should welcome him to try. However, we should still support pure research because of the probably effects on society.

  22. Re:does it add up? on Malaysian Flight Disappearance 'Deliberate' · · Score: 2

    The cabin is "pressurized" in the sense that they have 1 ATM of pressure inside it and the pressure inside the cabin won't change even if they go to 40,000 ft -- where the air is so rarified you would pass out without a mask (or die of frostbite, not sure which would happen first).

    Because this is a sealed system it's basically a big balloon. So long as you don't disarm the doors and deflate the balloon, the plane will float. And the plane is designed to have the doors opened and still float for long enough for everyone to disembark

    That's why during the "miracle on the hudson" the plane didn't just go down to the bottom and drown everyone aboard.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

  23. Re:does it add up? on Malaysian Flight Disappearance 'Deliberate' · · Score: 1

    The 777 is capable of landing on water. Theoretically you could just land it on the ocean at some pre-determined coordinates, disembark everyone on it, and sink it / tow it (an airplane floats when it's pressurized)

    Why you would want to do that is beyond me though. You certainly can't get it up in the air once you landed it, so someone REALLY wanted what was in the plane (people / cargo).

    Not like a plane has never carried $50 million in diamonds as cargo before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

  24. Re:Out of step with reality on Hungarian Law Says Photogs Must Ask Permission To Take Pictures · · Score: 1

    Because that's the law for photography and I know because I'm a serious amateur photographer.

    If you don't believe me, google would confirm this for you (or do you just enjoy disagreeing with people for no reason online)?

    http://asmp.org/tutorials/freq...

  25. Re:Out of step with reality on Hungarian Law Says Photogs Must Ask Permission To Take Pictures · · Score: 2

    Newspaper photos are "editorial use" and protected speech.

    Your facebook / flickr photo galleries are not journalistic expression.

    Hell, Facebook even has a button to report images and get them taken down if someone posts an image of you you don't like.