This isn't really surprising. Poor people also spend a larger proportion of their income on food, rent and fuel. The price of a pair of Nikes or any fixed cost item is also higher relative to a lower income.
When the 'sponsor me' guy in the office comes round for donations, the poor guy doesn't want to seem like a tight-wad so in order to contribute at the socially accepted minimum, he's going to be paying a higher proportion of his net worth.
If you're 40 and have worked in the industry for a while, you'll no doubt have seen all the various hiring and firing periods that Finance IT has gone through. Since you're still here, you're good at sailing through those periods. It's really common for people to think they're the ones going to be fired any moment, usually they are underestimating their value to the company. Statistically though, it's probably not going to be you. Try to be a bit more optimistic about your situation and your worth. There's probably a lot of knowledge in your head. Guys that have been in the industry for a long time get a lot of respect from the business and you can probably teach the junior traders a thing or too.
One final thought; this might be the worst downturn our particular industry has seen but it will get better eventually. Hang in there for now and you'll be in a great position when things start improving. Although others will disagree with me, now is the time for major life changes which may or may not work out. Those decisions are for people that actually lose their jobs.
In old capitalism, you hard labours were exploited by the guy that owned the mine or owned everything in town. That guy was essentially doing nothing too. I'm not saying the current system is perfect, but I don't think a lot has changed.
This is totally correct. Most people now just locate whole junks of their algo platform in the same data center as the exchange (co-location). Once it's there, I've seen people questioning and arguing about minutiae such as which switch its connected to or length of ethernet/fibre cable vs competitors. Tiny fractions of a millisecond are very significant in this game. Then there's the kernel optimizations, assembly in-lining, FPGAs etc.
I think (probably unpopularly) that it's a bit unfair to brand these guys as 'hackers' implying that it's some sort of dirty word. Smart engineers will always find a way to make something faster, better, stronger. To think that people in finance would accept that things "have got fast enough now and we should just stop" is a bit naive. Why should finance technology be any different from any other kind of technology?
Also, bugs ARE of course there and is basic fact of having an imperfect model. These are pretty much immediately exploited in quite a Darwinian way by other market participants. This is why one model makes more money than an other. I'm not sure why the article's author thinks this is some kind of blinding revelation. Even in extreme examples such as during the flash crash, for every stupid model making disastrous trades, there was someone on the other side of each trade making a massive profit. Survival of the fittest, welcome to capitalism.
One final though is that people can't just 'hack' the exchange. Organisations like the FSA exist to ensure that each transaction that occurs is audited to make sure that it has a financially sound objective, not just gaming the system for weaknesses. Market participants can fined very significantly for getting this wrong.
This article is really just uneducated scare-mongering.
When I was his age, I really loved reading the choose-your-own-adventure type books. The wording is easy, they're suitable for boys and the gamification of reading is pretty good at holding a kid's attention.
I really recommend the Fighting Fantasy series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston, the co-founders of Games Workshop (Warhammer). Ones I fondly remember were Robot Commando, Temple of Terror and Midnight Rogue. I also really enjoyed the larger scale "Sorcery!" series that Steve Jackson did.
These gave me a pretty good appetite for getting into Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer 40K and other Sci-Fi and Fantasy reading.
I also listen to predictably rhythmic music sans lyrics since it seems to leave my concentration intact compared with lyrical or complex music. The other weird property for me is that it breaks me out of my website-checking compulsion loop.
I worry that we are heading to a real-time wikipedia of truthiness that is driven by rumour and here-say.
News outlets on occasion provided us with a reasoned and measured interpretation of events, albeit interspersed with whatever political dogma was pertinent to the writer, editor and paymasters respectively.
Now the the first "frosty piss" on twitter is rebroadcast, amplified and contorted until it's a hideous warping of one singular and imperfect being's interpretation of events. I thInk we should all lament the demise of the newspaper, if only for the semblance of balance that it brought.
One of the oldest local newspapers in London, the Evening Standard used to be 50 pence and is now free. It's online content isn't behind a paywall either. They still seem to be doing ok so it can work out in some cases.
What you say is true but the government is probably speculating that Chinese prices will only stay artificially low (subsidised) while there is competition in the market. Once that competition has been eradicated due to inability to compete, the US government fears that the price could potentially be raised again back to a level the same or higher than what the defunct US companies were selling at. That obviously would be a bad outcome for both US producers and consumers.
Perhaps more importantly, they are trying to head off another Chinese monopoly. This might be shrewd since we've seen that the Chinese have prior history of wielding monopolies as weapons to achieve political ends. A recent example being the rare earth metals fiasco.
HFCS is cheaper in the United States as a result of a combination of corn subsidies and sugar tariffs and quotas.[19] Since the mid 1990s, the United States federal government has subsidized corn growers by $40 billion.[20][21]
Maybe it would help if you read beyond one or two of those headlines you're going on about.
Devil's advocate: Maybe they should take it further and tax all products to the equivalent of government subsidies by foreign entities. Heavily subsiding is a practice that should be discouraged, irrespective of the product. While they're at it, they can stop local subsiding of things like high fructose corn syrup too.
What's funny about audiophiles is that the one thing that makes a MASSIVE difference it the one thing they never seem to do. Room Treatment. It's amazing the improvement in sound quality you can achieve with some cheap fiberglass insulation and rockwool mounted in a wooden frame and wrapped in some breathable cloth. There seems little point to me in spending thousands on stereo equipment when you have room modes the size of mountains. Acoustic panels can help control those and makes huge perceived and measurable differences.
Slashdot Mirror
Whenever I see any MS 'news' content, it seems to be mostly celebrity drivel. I suppose I get what I deserve for having a hotmail account. :)
This isn't really surprising. Poor people also spend a larger proportion of their income on food, rent and fuel. The price of a pair of Nikes or any fixed cost item is also higher relative to a lower income.
When the 'sponsor me' guy in the office comes round for donations, the poor guy doesn't want to seem like a tight-wad so in order to contribute at the socially accepted minimum, he's going to be paying a higher proportion of his net worth.
If you're 40 and have worked in the industry for a while, you'll no doubt have seen all the various hiring and firing periods that Finance IT has gone through. Since you're still here, you're good at sailing through those periods. It's really common for people to think they're the ones going to be fired any moment, usually they are underestimating their value to the company. Statistically though, it's probably not going to be you. Try to be a bit more optimistic about your situation and your worth. There's probably a lot of knowledge in your head. Guys that have been in the industry for a long time get a lot of respect from the business and you can probably teach the junior traders a thing or too.
One final thought; this might be the worst downturn our particular industry has seen but it will get better eventually. Hang in there for now and you'll be in a great position when things start improving. Although others will disagree with me, now is the time for major life changes which may or may not work out. Those decisions are for people that actually lose their jobs.
I totally agree with you. That's bullshit in my opinion too.
In old capitalism, you hard labours were exploited by the guy that owned the mine or owned everything in town. That guy was essentially doing nothing too. I'm not saying the current system is perfect, but I don't think a lot has changed.
This is totally correct. Most people now just locate whole junks of their algo platform in the same data center as the exchange (co-location). Once it's there, I've seen people questioning and arguing about minutiae such as which switch its connected to or length of ethernet/fibre cable vs competitors. Tiny fractions of a millisecond are very significant in this game. Then there's the kernel optimizations, assembly in-lining, FPGAs etc.
I think (probably unpopularly) that it's a bit unfair to brand these guys as 'hackers' implying that it's some sort of dirty word. Smart engineers will always find a way to make something faster, better, stronger. To think that people in finance would accept that things "have got fast enough now and we should just stop" is a bit naive. Why should finance technology be any different from any other kind of technology?
Also, bugs ARE of course there and is basic fact of having an imperfect model. These are pretty much immediately exploited in quite a Darwinian way by other market participants. This is why one model makes more money than an other. I'm not sure why the article's author thinks this is some kind of blinding revelation. Even in extreme examples such as during the flash crash, for every stupid model making disastrous trades, there was someone on the other side of each trade making a massive profit. Survival of the fittest, welcome to capitalism.
One final though is that people can't just 'hack' the exchange. Organisations like the FSA exist to ensure that each transaction that occurs is audited to make sure that it has a financially sound objective, not just gaming the system for weaknesses. Market participants can fined very significantly for getting this wrong.
This article is really just uneducated scare-mongering.
Since I'm using C64, I find I have to be careful with my memory usage.
It's a shame the Google Trial didn't pay out. He could have bought the last 2%...
When I was his age, I really loved reading the choose-your-own-adventure type books. The wording is easy, they're suitable for boys and the gamification of reading is pretty good at holding a kid's attention.
I really recommend the Fighting Fantasy series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston, the co-founders of Games Workshop (Warhammer). Ones I fondly remember were Robot Commando, Temple of Terror and Midnight Rogue. I also really enjoyed the larger scale "Sorcery!" series that Steve Jackson did.
These gave me a pretty good appetite for getting into Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer 40K and other Sci-Fi and Fantasy reading.
I just informed my Japanese wife, "Wow, Japanese scientists have grown a tiny liver in a lab!"
She said, "Is it tasty?"
Fascist! He's fruitarian!
It's worse when you meet them at parties.
I only played Borderlands co-op but I would say it's really good fun if you can play it this way.
I also listen to predictably rhythmic music sans lyrics since it seems to leave my concentration intact compared with lyrical or complex music. The other weird property for me is that it breaks me out of my website-checking compulsion loop.
SPLITTERS!!
I worry that we are heading to a real-time wikipedia of truthiness that is driven by rumour and here-say.
News outlets on occasion provided us with a reasoned and measured interpretation of events, albeit interspersed with whatever political dogma was pertinent to the writer, editor and paymasters respectively.
Now the the first "frosty piss" on twitter is rebroadcast, amplified and contorted until it's a hideous warping of one singular and imperfect being's interpretation of events. I thInk we should all lament the demise of the newspaper, if only for the semblance of balance that it brought.
One of the oldest local newspapers in London, the Evening Standard used to be 50 pence and is now free. It's online content isn't behind a paywall either. They still seem to be doing ok so it can work out in some cases.
What you say is true but the government is probably speculating that Chinese prices will only stay artificially low (subsidised) while there is competition in the market. Once that competition has been eradicated due to inability to compete, the US government fears that the price could potentially be raised again back to a level the same or higher than what the defunct US companies were selling at. That obviously would be a bad outcome for both US producers and consumers.
Perhaps more importantly, they are trying to head off another Chinese monopoly. This might be shrewd since we've seen that the Chinese have prior history of wielding monopolies as weapons to achieve political ends. A recent example being the rare earth metals fiasco.
I thought this was common knowledge:
Maybe it would help if you read beyond one or two of those headlines you're going on about.
Devil's advocate: Maybe they should take it further and tax all products to the equivalent of government subsidies by foreign entities. Heavily subsiding is a practice that should be discouraged, irrespective of the product. While they're at it, they can stop local subsiding of things like high fructose corn syrup too.
What's funny about audiophiles is that the one thing that makes a MASSIVE difference it the one thing they never seem to do. Room Treatment. It's amazing the improvement in sound quality you can achieve with some cheap fiberglass insulation and rockwool mounted in a wooden frame and wrapped in some breathable cloth. There seems little point to me in spending thousands on stereo equipment when you have room modes the size of mountains. Acoustic panels can help control those and makes huge perceived and measurable differences.
I wouldn't expect them to even take it out of the box since off-line single player isn't really their thing.
Ironically, they were almost certainly driving BMWs:
London 2012: BMW rejects criticism of Olympic VIPs' cars
After 9/11, we're all terrorists now.
"I had mod points and all I have to show for it are these lousy comments"