mdda

51 ms·

481.
by mdda 15y ago
Your comment makes total sense [1] : I started looking at these collateralized debt obligations (i.e. CDOs) back in 2002. That was around the time of the first 'crash' in these structures (CBOs : structures backed by High Yield Bonds). The
482.
by mdda 15y ago
No - the ABS markets are all about slicing up pools of debt. Suppose I created a security that would give me back all the loose change found on the streets of Manhattan at any one instant. How much is that worth - $5, $20, more? (there's
483.
by mdda 15y ago
But the point of these AAA ratings is that they are the 'top slice' of a pool of lower rated debt. Suppose a typical student is has around $50 in their wallet at any one time : Demanding $50 from a student is pretty risky, and so is demandi
484.
by mdda 15y ago
At the end of the day, politicians could mandate that the government statisticians lie about the inflation rate (make it artificially low to lower CPI-index bonds payout rate). But the currency markets would not be so easily fooled.
485.
by mdda 15y ago
Why ridiculous? The treasury cannot, by law, issue more than a certain amount of debt. The politicians may change the law - but that's a vote that's yet to have been taken. Once upon a time, it would have been unthinkable for Japan to ha
486.
by mdda 15y ago
No - AAA was always meant to be the best of the best. Interestingly, there's now the question of whether the US debt should be rated AAA : Is there more than a 1-in-100 chance that the two sides can't get to some compromise (or, more likely
487.
by mdda 15y ago
In that case, I would think that the indexing stuff (i.e. hash lookups) would be way better than linear already. Cool.
488.
by mdda 15y ago
Looks great! But the stinger is in the tail : "I think the next thing to add is indexes. Currently everything works via a linear scan of the database."
489.
by mdda 15y ago
One of the arguments for the high initial valuation was the 'rock-star' team : Which would lead to a decent purchase price for the company even if the product didn't take off. However, the rock-star team is only valuable if it can stay toge
490.
by mdda 15y ago
But somewhere in the design of Outlook was an implicit 2Gb limit : The max size of a PST file. Maybe it was an OS limit, but still the decision to store all email in a single binary blob wasn't sufficiently forward-thinking.
491.
by mdda 15y ago
But that's one thing that was distinctive about GMail : it encourages you to keep (archive) everything - and searches it very quickly. Compare this to Outlook : Searching is painfully slow, and the instinctive way to use it is to delete em
492.
by mdda 15y ago
Fedora XFCE desktop. Also Fedora on laptop, netbook and servers. Non-tech wife: Fedora desktop too.
493.
by mdda 15y ago
And when the AI designs a machine that is superior to it, and superior to anything that man has designed - then what? Or are you suggesting that humans are 'by definition' the only beings that can be said to have created something? The AI
494.
by mdda 15y ago
Just to pick on one piece of your argument : the difference between 1 sense organ and 5 is only a 5-fold increase. Even worst case it's like a 25-fold increase (network effect, etc). But a 25-fold increase should take less than a decade -
495.
by mdda 15y ago
But unless you've got evidence that we've started to 'turn the other corner', doesn't your graph suggest that the level of technology is going to increase by the same factor as it did since the (say) 1950s? And even then, maybe the AI level
496.
by mdda 15y ago
Revolution in Motion. (or as another comment has it Research in Mutiny).
497.
by mdda 15y ago
Just so people can put this in perspective, a Bloomberg terminal license costs approx $1750 per month, with a two year contract. The software basically gives users a fairly raw interface to financial data, analytics and an email/IM system.
498.
by mdda 15y ago
FYI : I'm a UK national that's been running a UK-majority owned LLC in NYC for the last ~12 years (check out the E-2 visa). If you'd like to discuss doing something productive software-wise in NYC, let me know.
499.
by mdda 15y ago
I hate to say it (since I'm simply not 'turned-on' by their App) but FourSquare is more directly targeting this use-case.
500.
by mdda 15y ago
Suppose someone is selling you a house. They're desperate to sell : are you saying it makes no difference whether they're selling because their aunt just died (i.e. random sale) or they're someone within the town planning department? Or su
501.
by mdda 15y ago
IMHO, his view of the quant life was distorted by being on the 'sell-side', where the trader and salespeople reign supreme. On the buy-side, quants are much more of the revenue generators. That'll become increasingly obvious now that (soon
502.
by mdda 15y ago
I work on Wall Street. People in my office genuinely want these guys locked up : They're bad for everyone.
503.
by mdda 15y ago
The 'first order' effect of insider trading is that some well-informed people can make profits at the expense of those who know less : But the flip-side is that price-discovery happens quicker. The more insidious effect is that liquidity go
504.
by mdda 15y ago
This makes no sense. A no-doc loan is precisely that. If an applicant chooses to lie, the government is not responsible. If your claim is that the applicants are being encouraged to commit fraud (by their local mortgage broker), then the
505.
by mdda 15y ago
While it's entertaining to think of wannabe terrorists reading materials about cupcakes, surely this is a missed opportunity? Wouldn't it have made sense to plant almost-correct recipes for bomb making, back-doored advice on computer securi
506.
by mdda 15y ago
One significant problem is the pyramid of management. Everyone would want to be managed by the top person. But these are in very limited supply, and they're being rationed one-to-one. In a university, the lecturers are one-to-many. How m
507.
by mdda 15y ago
Population size of 16 is way too low : it's not surprising that he's getting premature convergence. Also, his mutation is huge : so his overall process is more like a directed random walk. More reasonable parameters would be 100-1000 for
508.
by mdda 15y ago
As a counterpoint to "that guy", what I like about GAs is the localization aspect : While modern mathematical methods can do sampling (and so optimization) more efficiently, they seem to be in the "Intelligent Design" camp. GAs can work us
509.
by mdda 15y ago
There's also the aspect of accents. Which is less applicable in America (IMHO). More small-talk = more exact understanding of where someone is coming from (in all senses). And that's why I prefer NYC : I prefer people to listen to what I
510.
by mdda 15y ago
I remember reading (and cannot find the source) that therapy has a very high happiness vs spend ratio. It makes some sense : If a couple of hours talking things over with a sensible person can make you happy with your current state, maybe t

More ›