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User: columbiatch

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  1. Or.... on Citizen Scientists Help Explore the Moon · · Score: 1

    ...these citizens could spend their time volunteering their time and skills in their community and actually make a fellow human's life better on this planet. While this might be a good ploy to pique the interest of some students, I'm trying to figure out how this effort won't be moot in a few years when the computer image recognition/analysis software can do the same task much more efficiently.

  2. Re:Correct, but also incorrect on Stock Market Sell-Off Might Stem From Trader's Fat Finger · · Score: 1

    You don't have to be too far into the industry to know the answer to this. This problem is that the Fed had to balloon it's balance sheet to support the market during the credit crisis, they took sacks of dog poop in exchange for US Treasuries.

    So the Fed is sitting on flaming bags of poo, but we already know that. Some career politician discussing a useless audit won't throw our semi-pseudo-efficient market into chaos.

    This is likely the result of a HFT program error. The responsible party will be fined and trades will be cancelled, no huge story here. Traders today knew that the market sliding that hard, that fast was nothing more than a bug in someone's code.

  3. Trades will be cancelled on Stock Market Sell-Off Might Stem From Trader's Fat Finger · · Score: 1

    Just like all the other unusual trading activity or glitches, the exchange will cancel the trades and minimal harm will have been done. This has happened several times before. Stocks settle trade+3 days, so the just bust all the trades prior to settlement, control send the funds back through the NSCC and it's a wash.

  4. Re:About $2K savings per month on Fuel Cell Marvel "Bloom Box" Gaining Momentum · · Score: 1

    Your calc is too simple. If you're really gonna model time-value of money accurately, you're going to have to account for inflation, income tax, future energy costs, exchange rates, possibility of reserve currencies being switch from the US$ to other currencies, etc. This could be a savvy business decision; but it's up in the air given that rising future energy prices would make this a good decision vs. the Weimar Republic of America printing $ like they're going out of style (which they are).

  5. L Ron was a failed entreprenuer? Not anymore... on AU Senator Calls Scientology a "Criminal Organization" · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone else shocked that a failed entrepreneur discovers a religion that requires significant capital outlay from it's followers? Hm....me either. Just google "e-meter"

  6. Re:not err on Coding Flaws Caused Moody's Debt Rating Errors · · Score: 1

    Close but not quite. The prices of homes taking a nosedive don't necessarily effect existing MBS. The problem is that when people default on their loans, the "guaranteed income" of AAA securities goes away and the security deleverages. This has scared everyone from the CDO/MBS/ABS market and now liquidity has dried up too. I don't agree with your statement about regulation and the credit crunch. Poor risk pricing didn't help. But proper risk assesment wouldn't have prevented morons in booming housing markets from "keeping up with the Smith's"

  7. Re:not err on Coding Flaws Caused Moody's Debt Rating Errors · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These structured products are broken into what are known as tranches.

    Even if you know you're holding a pile of dog crap mortgages, you know that most will be able to make first months payment. Each successive monthly payment pool is likely to have more defaults, and thus uncertainty grows. If you take 1000 loans, and group the payments together, you can theoretically predict the risk of each band of payments. If you buy the first band, aka tranch, you're far more likely to get paid than if you buy the junior tranches that are expecting payments 30 years from now.

    Here's where the fun stuff happens. Those earlier tranches that are more likely to get paid will usually be given very high credit ratings, as it's likely that the owner will collect the income from the pooled debtors. Since the security their holdings is so highly rated, perhaps AAA, then other institutions are willing to accept that AAA security as collateral for additional borrowing. This all continues on in a crazy cycle of leveraging until you have hunders of dollars of leverage to cents of actual income. All the while, these leverage products maintain a high credit rating, because it's all based off of AAA securities.

    What happens when people start to default on the orignal loans and the person who bought that orignal pools of loans doesn't get paid? They can't pay their interest to a person who in turn can't pay their interest to a person who gets screwed and has to bring this "safe" security onto their balance sheet and write it all off as a loss. TADA! Credit crunch.

  8. Re:Their side of the story on Arcade Kit Seller Applies for MAME Trademark [updated] · · Score: 1

    Doesn't anyone recognize this? It's just like Senator Palpatine in Star Wars. Suuuuure I'll give back all of my power once the bad guys are defeated. There is no guarantee that Ultracade won't go back on it's word and eventually sue the developers of MAME. And you can't stop them once they have the TM, because legally it is now theirs. STOP THE DARK SIDE!!!

  9. Re:Headmouse on Gaming With a Headmouse? · · Score: 1

    I think turn-based games would be a great way to go, since you still get a lot of the action and can take your time planning strategy. I would suggest Civilizations's X-Com's Jagged Alliance 2 to name a few.

  10. You must pay!! on Arcade Kit Seller Applies for MAME Trademark [updated] · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry to inform you that today I procured a copywrite for the letter "t". All individuals whom use this letter "t" or any character resembling it will be prosecuted. Thank you.