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smoke-filled dark pools

An Atonomy of Bitcoin Price Manipulation

Eh 20-ish years ago the shit happening on Island and Archipelago would blow most people’s minds. Undocumented, conditional, non-displayed order types. Routine wash trading. Shear-but-don’t skin multi-venue arbitrage. The ECNs were the Wild West. Smoke-filled dark pools. Island and Arca are NASDAQ and NYSE now. But Ben, US equities have intrinsic value unlike this BTC garbage! Well unless they pay no dividend, have dual-class share structure, and IPO without a profitable quarter. What’s a share of SNAP entitle you to exactly? Ah right, you think someone will buy it for more. Crypto will have it’s 2001-style GC cycle, the useful stuff will stick around until Goldman owns it and the SEC makes a show of regulating it, the tulip garbage will wash out leaving behind a bunch of rich guys who are really annoying because they never built anything, and we’ll go back to arguing about programming languages. - benreesman

I truly appreciate your experience and cynicism here. People who haven't worked in financial markets have a hard time appreciating how deep the muck can get. Which makes them especially valuable suckers for the unregulated markets. - wpietri in reply

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eldritch sun

{% include centerImage.html url="/assets/eldritch_sun.jpg" desc="Hillarious" title="Eldritch Abomination: the Sun" alt="LMAO" %}

discussion on HackerNews about census 2020

I'm in favor of removing the race question from the census. It proliferates collectivist thinking (my people/kin vs others, based on bloodlines or appearance) over individualism. It is also used as a justification for implementing discriminatory policies, ironically in the name of fighting discrimination. - cherrycherry98

and other replies:

The census exists to inform policy. If there is discrimination based on race, then we're better off measuring it so we can address it than burying our heads in the sand. Of course, this may lead to targeted policies, just as insulin is applied to people with a diabetes diagnosis, and not to the general population. - karpierz

The comparison to diabetes has one major flaw. You either have or don't have diabetes and the fact that you are tested for it does not change your diabetes status. You can only measure it, but your measurement won't alter the situation. But by constantly reminding people of their racial category, a feedback loop is created. The more are people defined by their race, the more important will they consider their racial category. They will also start viewing more interactions through the race angle, especially the negative ones. Not "the policeman was rude because he is an asshole", but "the policeman was rude because I am of a different race from him".

I cannot imagine a scenario where constant race consciousness leads to people being less concerned about anything that can be construed as racially charged. - inglor_cz

As pointed out elsewhere in the comments on this thread, the census may have accidentally ended up enforcing white hegemony in America. See the anecdotes of people suppressing the reporting of partial indigenous or African heritage in order to pass as white. The data made America look far more white than it ever was. And despite the recent trend I doubt the effect has vanished. Are we so sure we want to be using that data for policy? - retrac

Anyway, colorblindness is inherently a pro status quo approach

If the data is bad then improve data collection - Trung Tran

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why do you suppose we're here?

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 01, 1988

Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes's namesake, didn't believe in "Divine Providence." He believed everything had a logical, natural explanation, and that men had a tendency to apply God to anything they couldn't answer. John Calvin, meanwhile, believed that everything was ordained by god, that all things were predetermined and followed a plan. This is basically a microcosm of how they differ. Calvin is asking "why," for what purpose, and Hobbes responds with an answer, but it is a reason. They have starkly different views on the metaphysical nature of the universe.

And:

I would call Calvin's view 'predestined' rather than 'predetermined', although the essence is accurate.

They arguably had more in common than set them apart tho. For example, both saw humans as inherently selfish and corrupt by nature, therefore requiring external sources of stability, the state and the church respectively, for civilization to thrive.

  • Jonas Fiebrantz

copenhagen interpretation of ethics

Current situation:

So let me get this straight... Up until now, Amazon/AWS hasn't donated anything to cURL. And noone hated them for it.

Suddenly when someone - probably some manager with a limit of \$5000 on donations - pushes through a donation of \$5000, everyone hates them? Are you serious? If I was a cURL developer this would absolutely make my day.

When you develop OSS (Open Source Software), you aren't doing it for the money, you don't even know whether anyone is going to be using your software. And sure, you could limit the license so that big corps have to pay, but because that'd become a legal nightmare for them quickly, they (and probably by extension everyone else as well) will just skip your software and use or make something else.

So you make it copyleft or fully open, and then thank for donations no matter their size. A shitton of OSS devs don't get any donations.

Philosophical followup:

Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics

The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics says that you can have a particle spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time – until you look at it, at which point it definitely becomes one or the other. The theory claims that observing reality fundamentally changes it.

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster. I don’t subscribe to this school of thought, but it seems pretty popular.

fintech 1 interview

I got through the online assessment and first round interview with a NY fintech company. Here is the reflection I have on the two parts. A learning experience that's for sure.