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User: cazzazullu

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Comments · 141

  1. Re:Wow, on Undiscovered Country of HFT: FPGA JIT Ethernet Packet Assembly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you allow trades only every 10 minutes instead of continuous, you will end up with a whole lot of additional problems, and the big players will take advantage of it again anyway. Let me explain.

    First of all, the "price" of a security is the price at which the last transaction happened. Normal people like me and you consider this "the price" of that security if we want to buy it. Suppose you want to buy a security at a certain price. You give an order out, buy 10 shares at price X. If a sell order for shares at price X exists, these orders are matched up, and depending on the sizes of the orders, executed partly or completely. These order are public knowledge, and the order books are visible: I can see that there are 1000 shares bid at price X, 900 at X-1, 789 at X-2 etc..., The same for the ask, so many shares at X+1, X+2, and so on.

    Several algorithms use this knowledge. If I want to buy a gigantic amount of a given stock at once, I will be forced to buy the 1000 shares that are offered at X, then the next 900 offered at X+1, etc., so I will end up paying way more than X on average. The final price paid will be "the" price of the security after my buying spree, and will be significantly higher than X.

    Now how can you make this work with 10 minute trading intervals? Normal people can't find out the current "price", since the last transaction was 10 minutes ago. You could look at the bids and the offers, and their volumes, to get an idea of what the price might be in the next trading slot, but these bids and offers can be made and cancelled within milliseconds. If I bid X, and see an offer for X-1 appear, I can cancel my bid, and bid X-1. It would be stupid otherwise.

    HFT firms will still run their algorithms, manipulating these orderbooks to steer the price, and putting in bids in the very last millisecond. It might end up being even more profitable for them, since all the "sheep" that cannot trade so fast, or god forbid, use a keyboard to enter trades, will be fleeced even more: Now you see an order come in, you quickly frontrun it and make one cent of gains (before someone else is able to react). In a 10 minute system, you see order coming in, and have plenty of time to manipulate and steer the price before the orders will be executed.

  2. Europe versus USA on What's Causing the Rise In Obesity? Everything. · · Score: 1

    I'm a European living in the USA for half a year now. In Europe, I cook every day, usually with nothing but fresh vegetables, sometimes canned veggies, some herbs, and high-quality meat (no antibiotics or hormones are allowed in Europe). We bake our own bread, use olive oils and butter, drink plenty of wine, and generally feel healthy.

    Here in the USA, some people don't even have a kitchen. The bread tastes horrible, spongy consistency and very sweet. People eat breakfasts that look more like dinner to me. Eating out 3 times a day seems the habit, not the exception. Go into a bar and everyone is chugging pint after pint of beer, often accompanied by liquor. My wife didn't want anything alcoholic, and she got a very confused look from the bartender, "so, a coke then?". People are walking around with large recipients of ultrasweet soda's or stuff that has to pass for coffee but tastes more like melted ice cream. The entire country smells like bacon. In Europe, people try to avoid eating fries more than once a week, here it is considered a vegetable, and I see people eating them twice a day.

    I gained 30 pounds in 6 months here, and I know why. I also know that once I am back in Europe I will lose all of it without any effort or ever going hungry. In fact, my body craves all the veggies I am currently not eating, and even thinking about a nice veggie soup or ratatouille, and then looking down to a supermcfatburger with extra everything makes me want to trow up.

  3. Re:If they said it was supported for one year on Apple Revises Warranty Policies In Europe To Comply With EU Laws · · Score: 1

    It is very simple: If you, as a customer, buys an electronic device in the EU, and it malfunctions within 2 years, you are entitled to a free repair or replacement. There is no discussion possible. The store you bought it from has to take care of it, whether it is the manufacturer itself or some reseller. Its their problem.

  4. Re:VG Advantages Go Much Further Than Visual on Video Gamers See the World Differently · · Score: 1

    Agree completely. I used to be a gaming addict back in the university days, mainly counterstrike and racing games, and these skills once almost saved my life. Driving to my parents house, we were on a busy road when the car in front of me had a collision and spun around. I could immediately respond, and avoided hitting it myself. My brother that was with me in the car was terrified, and didn't even realize what happened until we stood still much further. I am sure the gaming made the difference between an adrenaline-fueled insta-response, and a panic-driven "whathappens! whatdoIdo! crash!".

  5. Re:What's the pay for peer reviewers? on Hacked Review System Leads To Fake Reviews and Retraction of Scientific Papers · · Score: 5, Informative

    For IEEE journals, the pay for a reviewer is zero. As other people stated, it is considered part of the job, and an honor actually, since you are regarded an "expert" in the field.

  6. Smoking! on Why It's Bad That Smartphones Have Banished Boredom · · Score: 1

    Back in the days when I was young, you could smoke almost everywhere (Europe here), and nobody cared. There are still ashtrays in the trains and bathroom stalls at our university, however you cannot use them anymore (at least for their original purpose). Whenever someone got bored, they smoked. And put a bunch of smokers together, and they start chatting...

  7. Re:Helium features on Scientists Speak Out Against Wasting Helium In Balloons · · Score: 1

    Helium-3 is used in neutron detectors. Very handy if you want to monitor whether your collider or neutron source is behaving well.

  8. Re:Doctors, Dentists and Hospitals *love* cash on Ask Slashdot: IT Contractors, How's Your Health Insurance? · · Score: 2

    Here in Belgium it was in the news some weeks ago that delivering a baby was getting disgracefully expensive here, up to 1000 euros for normal delivery, and up to the outrageous sum of 1500 euro for a cesarean. This includes everything by the way, no really, everything.I guess it's all relative...

  9. University costs in Belgium on Universities Hold Transcripts Hostage Over Loans · · Score: 1

    Here in Belgium, any degree in any university (bachelor or master level) costs around 500 euro tuition per year, for anyone. Additional costs are housing (around 250-300 euro a month for a room in a university dorm or in a shared house), food (subsidized by the university, a decent meal in the university restaurants costs around 3-4 euro's), and books (most courses are printed as a stack of A4 paper and distributed by the university itself, for only the cost of the paper). Of course there is the occasional prof that insists you buy book XYZ for 50-100 euro's, but that is rather rare, and generates a lot of complaining. There are almost no other costs.

    Furthermore, if you are a "needy" student (e.g. your parents died when you were 17), the tuition is dropped entirely, you get almost free housing, and about 1100 euro's a month for living expenses (nothing of this needs to be paid back by the way). It is almost impossible to go into debt for your higher education here... By the way, anyone is welcome here, we have great beer, and still have a decent old-style education.

  10. USA only on DARPA: Reconstruct Shredded Docs, Win $50K USD · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, this is for United States citizens only. Sounded like a nice project to give a try.

    What would I have to do if I can solve all puzzles, but cannot claim the prize? Sell it to the Chinese?

  11. cloud generation, gliders on Massive Solar Updraft Towers Planned For Arizona · · Score: 1

    Won't such a concentrated injection of hot air high in the sky generate a massive cloud cover right above the solar installation? Must be fun to fly in the neighborhood of these things with a glider though :)

  12. Re:Could happen on The LHC, the Higgs Boson, and Fate · · Score: 1

    But the mind is a little thing - with such a limited set of tools and perceptions, on such a tiny scale.

    Borg queen, is that you?

  13. Cobol error? on Software Glitch Leads To $23,148,855,308,184,500 Visa Charges · · Score: 1

    This seems a common COBOL error I've seen numerous times: Define an alphanumeric field, redefine it as a numeric field, and don't bother checking your input for "performance reasons" (or just plain stupid/lazy programming). Read the alphanumeric fields from a DB or a flat file, where everything is nicely padded with spaces, and use the redefined numeric field for your accounting. Errors like this can occur easily by novice COBOL programmers, or by too lax compilers (the compiler at the developer's firm is configured to quietly convert these spaces to zeros in such cases, while the mainframe compiler at the client is not).

  14. Re:I'll bid this on MS Word 2010 Takes On TeX · · Score: 1

    It's like the "peg in hole" experiment they did with the local cops here, a while ago. They discovered two kinds of cops: dumb cops, and very strong cops...

  15. Re:Does that mean it can run on BIOdiesel? on Ford's 65MPG Due In November, But Not In the US · · Score: 1

    In Europe diesel is cheaper than gasoline with about 20%... Still costs way more than in the US though.

  16. Re:Flashlessness kills it on Sub-$100 Laptops Have Finally Arrived · · Score: 1

    Twice as much?? Come to Belgium: An Iphone (the SMALL memory version) goes for 550 euros here (but with no strings attached, like subscriptions). With the current low dollar, an Iphone costs an amazingly 8 times as much as this 100$ thing.

  17. Re:COBOL has loops? on Why COBOL Could Come Back · · Score: 1

    Uh? What about

    PERFORM VARYING I1 FROM 1 BY I
    UNTIL I1 > 100 ...
    END-PERFORM

  18. Re:Don't they have anything better to do? on Facebook Photos Land Eden Prairie Kids in Trouble · · Score: 1

    pfieuw, you guys should live in Belgium. Here it is legal to drink alcohol anywhere from age 16 (pubs, parties, ...), and at any age with parental consent. Also it is considered completely normal to drink, and there is barely control on age, because nobody really cares. Combine this with a very wide choice of good Belgian beers, some of which can be 12% in alcohol, and most Belgians already have quite some experience, and responsibility, with drinking by the time they become 21.

    I cannot imagine never having drunk alcohol until I was 21... It would be an utter disaster the first time I could get my hands on it, I'd probably end up comatose.

  19. Re:Who the heck is buying these cards? on Cheap New GeForce 8800 GT Challenges $400 Cards · · Score: 1

    Me. I love gaming, I am single (wow, surprise on slashdot...) and I earn nice money. Why wouldn't I buy one of these? They were best bang for the buck a couple of months ago, and I can miss the money. I guess there are thousands (millions) of people in similar situations as me. And I don't like consoles, since you can't use them for other stuff (you can use a gaming machine to do some work as well you know...)

    Of course it always hurts a little to know that I could have got the same gaming rig now for a couple hundred euros less, but isn't that always the case? Furthermore, I already got to play probably hundreds of hours on this new machine. I wouldn't have liked to play the orange box on my previous 5-year-old gaming machine...

  20. Re:Good News & Bad News on Cracked Linux Boxes Used to Wield Windows Botnets · · Score: 1

    Nice hints!

    I can also recommend tripwire. This is a program that generates a signature of your entire file system, and stores this in an encrypted database. It then checks the integrity of your file system whenever it is run, and reports on possible modifications, additions, removals, etc... Change a single bit in a single file, or add any file anywhere, and you will notice it.

    We run this program every night, and have already once detected an intruder (stupid phpbb...) which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

  21. Re:Still ATX power supply? on Via Debuts Smallest PC Mobo Format Yet · · Score: 4, Informative

    I got me one of these for my via epia board. It plugs right into the power connector, is barely bigger than the connector itself, and runs from 12V DC. My Epia now runs for several hours on a small lead acid battery. Also perfectly fit for use in cars I guess...

  22. Re:The trick is projection on String Theory Put to the Test · · Score: 1

    a dot is zero dimensional :)

  23. reset possible? on Seagate To Encrypt Data On Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    What happens when you accidently forget your password? OK if your data becomes inaccessible, your own mistake, but can the drive be reset one way or the other so I can at least still use it, with a new key? Or is your drive good for the scrapheap then?

  24. Re:French this, French that on Free PC With French Broadband Connection · · Score: 1

    Indeed, and the french in french fries has nothing to do with France, but comes from the verb "to french".

  25. Re:The punchline on University of Virginia Student Graduates in One Year · · Score: 1

    Well, Einstein also started his after-education career in a patent office...