If you want to have a productive day I suggest avoiding Assembler.
Via: “Phd”ed Man
Winners and Loser Among Hedge Funds
When sky’s fall, apparently they do not fall equally everywhere (contrary to popular theory.) A partial is of those who’ve held up the sky (and even pushed higher) in this New York Times article:
Bernard V. Drury is a rarity on Wall Street: a hedge fund manager who is making money rather than losing it.
While most hedge funds are sinking into red this year and unsettling the markets in the process, a handful of them are posting spectacular gains. Mr. Drury’s fund, for instance, is up 60 percent since Jan. 1.
How did he do it? Mr. Drury, a former grain trader, is not giving away his secrets. He relies on proprietary computer models to chart tides in the markets and to ride the prevailing currents.
Being a successful trader is often like being a good error correcting code: don’t want to reveal any information from local prying eyes!
Continue reading “Winners and Loser Among Hedge Funds”
Zotero Sued
Zotero is a Firefox browser plugin for keeping track of citations and is very useful in an academic environment. I’ve played with it from time to time and with each progressive version it is getting better and better. Apparently now its even good enought that, Thomson Reuters, makers of Endnote software, a commercial competitor of Zotero, has sued the Commonwealth of Virginia (George Mason University is where the core team developing Zotero is based) over Zotero being able to read Endnote files into the Zotero system. Yeah, if I were Endnote I’d be scared pantless that a startup which actually promotes and open standard is about to take away your market. And peoples, aren’t you happy that all of the value you’ve created in your citation databases in Endnote is effectively forever trapped inside that program. Makes you almost want to not use the Endnote software, doesn’t it. ENDnote?
Whiteboard Pong
Bacon Versus Fries
Science on blogs? We don’t need no science on blogs! We need more Bacon on blogs:
- Bacon Versus Fries. Not what you think.
- Bacon Maple Donut. Or how about Diet Coke with Bacon. If you’ve ever seen me you are all ready likely to have seen a Bacon with a Diet Coke.
The DiVincenzo Code
I wrote a paper with David DiVincenzo once. Now he is in the title of a YouTube video. Some things you can never predict.
Part of me wants to say very loudly OMG. The other part of me watched the full six episodes.
Parts 2-6 below the fold. Hat tip Aggie.
Continue reading “The DiVincenzo Code”
And I, For One, Welcome Our New Insect Overlords
“Local” politics.
Continue reading “And I, For One, Welcome Our New Insect Overlords”
Today's Keyboard Letter of the Day
F5.
Random Question of the Day
A common refrain among members of the left in the United States in the last two presidential elections has been that if the right wins then they would “move to Canada.” This was, of course, recently one-upped by Tina Fey who quipped that if McCain-Palin won this year, she would “leave the Earth.” Today I spent way to much time trying to figure out where the right would say they are going if the left wins. Anyone?
Original McEliece Cracked
Shor’s algorithm is an algorithm for quantum computers which allows for efficiently factoring of numbers. This in turn allows Shor’s algorithm to break the RSA public key cryptosystem. Further variations on Shor’s algorithm break a plethora of other public key cryptosystems, including those based on elliptic curves. The McEliece cryptosystem is one of the few public key cryptosystems where variations on Shor’s algorithm do not break the cryptosystem. Thus it has been suggested that the McEliece cryptosystem might be a suitable cryptosystem in the “post quantum world”, i.e. for a world where a quantum computer is built (and if your a commenter who wishes to simply post the quantum computers are like string theory, please…save your keystrokes.)
Continue reading “Original McEliece Cracked”