I knew this was possible: """
One very popular variety of high-frequency trader is the statistical
arbitrageur, or "stat arb." Stat arbs make their money by vacuuming up
mountains of historical data and looking for correlations between
various datapoints and asset prices. The stat arb's trading platform,
which is basically a large computer system manned by programmers and
financial engineers, uses those correlations to build predictive
models that take in a stream of information inputs like news reports
and stock prices (Thompson Reuters sells a service that fires wire
reports at very low latency to these systems), and output a rapid-fire
stream of "buy" and "sell" orders for different assets. For instance, a stat arb HFT platform might identify a direct
correlation between positive news about Steve Jobs' health and
increases in the price of AAPL; then the microsecond that the platform
receives and processes an in-bound Reuters news packet containing a
statement about Jobs' cancer-free status, it would immediately spit
out a "buy" order for AAPL on the expectation that Apple stock is
about to increase in price once this news becomes more widely known.
""" -- from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/-it-sounds-like-something.ars/2
social networking
As I've just packed all my things (mostly), and have a few hours to
kill before the BART starts running, here's an idea. So I had the thought that Twitter was like the America of the Social
Networking Sites. * new to the scene ( think: geopolitical sense of the term )
* distinctly, extraordinarily vain. you're just saying to the world: hey I'm basically potentially just
talking to myself, but hey why not? So, because America rocks, let's tweet. let's vote by email - this is security through annoyance, security
against corruption. e.g Constitution
2.0, which is backwards compatible and open source, and driven by
social networks. each vote is a #hash (#^2? hashhash? haha :) and it's publicly tweeted
by some appropriately named
piece of software on a server we can all see. And we all DM this open
source bot. And we all know
that there is a log on that hard drive that has recorded every vote
and every ID, encrypted, with a
random, annoyingly long password. The bot tells us what choice wins, (by the rules and algorithms we've
told it, in published code) and
then self destructs. If *anyone* calls for a recount, they can have
it, for the cost of whatever computing
power it takes to crack that annoyingly long password; or, should they
lack the funds --let's be fair to
all challengers who may arrive-- everyone makes the same vote again,
honor system. So initially, eventually, potentially, any and every stupid ass little
thing would take absolutely forever,
because someone who loses will go 'waah, the code is broken', and
demand a recount. Even though
those of us who can speak python have already read and written the
code and know that it's not. But
who knows, maybe God scrambled the wires or something. It's fair,
that's the point of democracy, right? initially, eventually, potentially, this will force us to compromise
so that we can spend the money locked
up in the system. ( I explained that part, right? Let's just
acknowledge that if you consider life a competition,
you also acknowledge that $ is one way of keeping score. ) or, not; it could also force us to agree on how a bit of code should
be written. The fundamental thing a
modern government does is collect and spend and produce money. It's
the same damn thing a corporation
does, and the same models work.
It might make for a fun twitter implementation of amihotornot. :) J
kill before the BART starts running, here's an idea. So I had the thought that Twitter was like the America of the Social
Networking Sites. * new to the scene ( think: geopolitical sense of the term )
* distinctly, extraordinarily vain. you're just saying to the world: hey I'm basically potentially just
talking to myself, but hey why not? So, because America rocks, let's tweet. let's vote by email - this is security through annoyance, security
against corruption. e.g Constitution
2.0, which is backwards compatible and open source, and driven by
social networks. each vote is a #hash (#^2? hashhash? haha :) and it's publicly tweeted
by some appropriately named
piece of software on a server we can all see. And we all DM this open
source bot. And we all know
that there is a log on that hard drive that has recorded every vote
and every ID, encrypted, with a
random, annoyingly long password. The bot tells us what choice wins, (by the rules and algorithms we've
told it, in published code) and
then self destructs. If *anyone* calls for a recount, they can have
it, for the cost of whatever computing
power it takes to crack that annoyingly long password; or, should they
lack the funds --let's be fair to
all challengers who may arrive-- everyone makes the same vote again,
honor system. So initially, eventually, potentially, any and every stupid ass little
thing would take absolutely forever,
because someone who loses will go 'waah, the code is broken', and
demand a recount. Even though
those of us who can speak python have already read and written the
code and know that it's not. But
who knows, maybe God scrambled the wires or something. It's fair,
that's the point of democracy, right? initially, eventually, potentially, this will force us to compromise
so that we can spend the money locked
up in the system. ( I explained that part, right? Let's just
acknowledge that if you consider life a competition,
you also acknowledge that $ is one way of keeping score. ) or, not; it could also force us to agree on how a bit of code should
be written. The fundamental thing a
modern government does is collect and spend and produce money. It's
the same damn thing a corporation
does, and the same models work.
It might make for a fun twitter implementation of amihotornot. :) J
LAPD
Cops hit a woman, then get caught on their own tape how to cover it up.Classy!
I love this business model
http://www.scoutlabs.com/ basically crawls real-time conversations, searching for keywords
related to their corporate clients, and doing some content analysis to
see if people are saying nice things or complaining. Brilliant!
related to their corporate clients, and doing some content analysis to
see if people are saying nice things or complaining. Brilliant!
Yoga for Hackers
this gem:
from a thread on reddit about "is programming fun?"
Education is the key
This is an interesting analysis of education's role in the rise of India as an IT heavyweight.
When I ran for mayor, my main thesis was that education was the only way to create permanent change in Benton Harbor; I think this analysis adds some weight to that argument.
lulz
via @sweetums
( If you don't see the animation, clicky clicky )
Posterous | Re: Posterous | Re: emailing a blog
The first one is the hardest, right?
Govt Spooks? Terrorists?
I am absolutely in love with Posterous right now. Has someone already
written a #python lib for it?
these screen shots have been floating around my home folder for ages;
I think they speak for themselves.
[ Do you see the automatically generated photo galleries?! ]
