"Anyone who is doing anything sensible right now is either losing money or is out of the market entirely."
A very interesting data point, provided by the NYSE, implicates none other than administration darling Goldman Sachs in yet another potentially troubling development.
Key to note here is that Goldman's program trading principal to agency+customer facilitation ratio is a staggering 5x, which is multiples higher than both the second most active program trader and the average ratio of the NYSE, both at or below 1x. The implication is that Goldman Sachs ... trades much more often for its own (principal) benefit, likely in tandem with the other top dogs ... For conspiracy lovers, long searching for any circumstantial evidence to catch the mysterious "plunge protection team" in action, you should look no further than this.
The invention of the Internet was a reverse Black Swan—unexpected, extreme impact, and inevitable in retrospect. More generally, the positive Black Swans are the technological innovations which could not have been anticipated ahead of time, and which work so well that we have experienced 200 years of rising living standards, despite the downward Malthusian pressure.
Because technological innovation really is fundamentally unpredictable, increasing the amount spent on R&D and innovation does not lead to diversification and a reduction of uncertainty.
Taleb wrote: "The American economy has leveraged itself heavily on the idea generation."
1) Unexpected technological breakthroughs are possible. That's good.
2) The timing and nature of the breakthroughs cannot be controlled. That's bad.
3) Unexpected large bad events are possible as well. That's bad. In fact, we can get bad events which have as big an impact, in the negative direction, as the technological innovations.
This is how discovery works: returns on research investment do not arrive steadily and predictably, but erratically and unpredictably, in a manner akin to intellectual earthquakes. Indeed, this idea seems to be more than merely qualitative.
If the path to discovery is full of surprises, and if most of the gains come in just a handful of rare but exceptional events, then even judging whether a research programme is well conceived is deeply problematic.
Are we doing our best to let the most important and most disruptive discoveries emerge? Or are we becoming too conservative and constrained by social pressure and the demands of rapid and easily measured returns?
In the short run, what the mavericks do will almost always seem less successful, perhaps even like wasting their time, and it is easy to think that this is the kind of research we should not pursue, even if this is actually very much mistaken.
This is a trap into which modern science planning has fallen.
What we need, in general, is to put policies in place that will judge young scientists not on whether they are linked into programmes established decades ago by now-senior scientists, but solely on the basis of their individual ability, creativity and independence.
Malcom Gladwell:
We should be lowering our standards, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don’t track with what we care about.
Richard Hamming:
If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work.
Honestly? It's like literally I felt like I was in this alternate universe. You're so almost out of whack with reality.
Do the kids actually inhale the candy? Do they simply take it into their mouths and blow a smokelike powder? Is it one piece, several, an entire roll? These distinctions are not discussed.
"We'll be announcing additional things in that area literally very, very soon," said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt after the company reported first-quarter profits Thursday.
"It's a social scene," said Savant, who is 62, with a smile. "But it's not our social scene. Let me just say that." A few minutes later, when a serious-looking man happened to make a goofy swish right in front of them, Savant and Jarvik caught each other's eye and couldn't help laughing. Not long afterwards, they took a taxi home, to their midtown penthouse. "We usually dance more, a lot more," said Savant as they are leaving. It is only 8.30pm. "And then we go back to the office."
Fifteen years after Rwandan Hutu massacred hundreds of thousands of their Tutsi countrymen, one survivor and the man who cut off her hand tell the horrible truth about the genocide and explain how, even with so much suffering between them, they eventually made peace.
Freeman Dyson from the archive:
In my opinion, the moral imperative at the end of every war is reconciliation. Without reconciliation there can be no real peace.
See also, Evil has ruined my life, an excellent Reading in the March 2009 issue of Harper's:
From recent interviews with survivors and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, by Jean Hatzfeld, in the Fall issue of The Paris Review. In 1994, Hutu attacks on Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed 800,000. Since 2003, the Rwandan government has released more than 50,000 prisoners accused of involvement in the killings. Hatzfeld’s new book about Rwanda, The Antelope’s Strategy, will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale. Hatzfeld’s “Machete Season” appeared in the April 2005 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
The AlloSphere at the California NanoSystems Institute, UC Santa Barbara
Topic: Science
7:41 am EDT, Apr 17, 2009
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin:
Visualizing, hearing and exploring complex multi-dimensional data provides insight that is essential for progress in a number of critical areas of science and engineering, where the amount and complexity of the data overwhelm traditional computing environments. The need for richer and more compelling visualizations continues to receive attention as a US national science priority.
The AlloSphere is a unique, one-of-a-kind scientific instrument that is a culmination of 24 years of Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin's creativity and research efforts in media systems and studio design. She approached the design of the AlloSphere in much the same way that she composes a piece of music.
See also the just-released TED talk on the AlloSphere.
A new book by Ted Striphas, freely available under a CC license.
Although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, "Late Age" tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead.
From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah's phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities.
Striphas's provocative analysis offers a counternarrative to those who either triumphantly declare the end of printed books or deeply mourn their passing. With wit and brilliant insight, he isolates the invisible processes through which books have come to mediate our social interactions and influence our habits of consumption, integrating themselves into our routines and intellects like never before.
Cutting back financial capitalism is America's big test
Topic: Business
7:41 am EDT, Apr 17, 2009
Martin Wolf, the world's preeminent financial journalist, responds to Simon Johnson's The Quiet Coup.
Is the US Russia?
The question seems provocative, if not outrageous.
The answer is Yes, but only up to a point.
Wolf continues:
Unquestionably, we have witnessed a massive rise in the significance of the financial sector. Now, the golden age of Wall Street is over. And I agree with the critique of the policies adopted so far.
Yet do these weaknesses make the US into Russia? No. Like Japan, the US is caught between the elite's fear of bankruptcy and the public's loathing of bail-outs. This is a more complex phenomenon than the "quiet coup" Prof Johnson describes.
According to Wolf, Americans can sleep soundly because the corruption is still relatively covert.
From the archive:
The average Afghan spends one-fifth of his income on bribes.
