hx2a

Iceland is not a member-state in the EU but they have close economic and political ties. They are a part of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

They once applied for membership after the financial crisis but it didn't go through; currently most citizens are opposed to the idea.

Becoming a full EU member would require them to accept the EU's fishing limitations, potentially hurting their economy. There are also other factors involved:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland%E2%80%93European_Union...

I agree. This also sets an important precedent that future investors in different funds must consider. If something seems too good to be true, there might be consequences for them. They are disincentivized to look the other way.

When I was a trader at Merrill Lynch (NYC, 2005) I traded these basket securities on a Swiss exchange through a Rube-Goldberg-like trading system employing two Excel spreadsheets. Here's how it worked:

A spreadsheet on my computer would pull data from Bloomberg using their Excel API and would price the securities. Those prices would be pulled off the spreadsheet by some Reuters application that would then send those numbers through a 56K modem to Reuter's system. Somebody I never met in London would screen scrape the prices from Reuters into Excel. From that Excel spreadsheet the prices would be posted on the Swiss exchange. I was responsible for any resulting trades and they would go into my book.

These were two sided prices (bid-ask) so if the process broke and the market moved I would get picked off. Thankfully they were mostly all delta 1 instruments with 50 bps of spread so that didn't happen too often.

This book is a classic. I've read the whole thing several times and found it to be thought provoking and helpful. The author gives you tools for "explicit cognitive processes" to aid analysis of complex situations.

Even if a non-compete is legally unenforceable in court it can still be used to bully employees or those who attempt to hire them.

I once worked at a consulting company (one of the big dot-com consulting companies) that put a clause in the contract that said no employee could leave to go work for any client of the company. That was fine when the company was small and had few clients, but when they became large it prevented us from leaving to go to any reasonably successful firm because almost all of them were clients. If anyone attempted this the company would reach out to the potential employer and warn them not to hire the person. The other company would then back down because they didn't want to jeopardize their business relationship with the consulting firm.

As the dot-com bubble burst and the consulting firm became a sinking ship they continued to enforce it. We had to wait for layoffs to be exempt from that clause.

> far more exciting party balloons filled with hydrogen gas instead.

Far more exciting, of course, because the balloons will explode. My kind of party!

I've never met Jordan but I used to work with his brother, David, whom the motion capture is based on. He was always proud of his contribution to his brother's game. What a great experience for both of them to be involved with this in their youth.

> Say you've just reminded yourself how grep works for the third time this month.

Hahaha, exactly. There are some commands that I just don't use enough for them to properly stick in my mind. Awk is another one. This utility would be helpful for me. Thanks!

Haha, I knew I was going to be rick-rolled before running this and yet I ran it anyway.

I didn't know about this utility. Awesome it does sound too. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'd really like to see a YouTube demonstration & explanation. Seriously, if you can make a Raspberry Pi and Python code cook for you, you will be my hero.

> So then like any rational person, I spent the remaining hours re-discovering awk and forgot to sleep. Pissed away the whole next day (and some part of the day after that too!) :-D

Haha! I've been there!

Awk is amazing and when paired with sed it exponentially increases what one can achieve on the command line.

There is a LaTeX version of the paper available:

https://content.iospress.com/articles/algorithmic-finance/af...

This is neat! It looks like it can do a lot of the things people use a Microsoft Kinect for.

Do you have any examples of linking this to P5 or three.js?

Also note there is fake news or a lame April fool's joke going around saying that Zuckerberg quit.

Today the WSJ has an article with the opposite headline:

Silicon Valley Rivals Take Shots at Facebook https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-rivals-take-shot...

Nope! Not for me.

She doesn't give them the prescription. Sorry I should have mentioned that in my previous reply.

No, she doesn't. Happily her job is structured in such a way that she has full control over her job and decisions. The employees can get her fired for not giving them what they want.

> I'd never be in a meeting regarding deaths of users of my software

I know what that's like.

About 20 years ago I was at a consulting firm supporting an electric and gas utility company. Among other things they had to do something called "markouts" which means they paint the ground at a location in a way that indicates exactly what infrastructure they have in the ground and precisely where it is. Markouts are a government organized thing. Before digging somewhere you can call a number and anybody that might possibly have infrastructure in the ground anywhere near your dig site is required to paint their markouts within a short time period. There are stiff fines if you "miss a markout."

Anyhow there was a data problem with a markout. The field worker was sent to paint a markout at the corner of two streets that actually ran parallel to each other and didn't meet. Instead of calling it in and questioning the task he did nothing. Shortly after a construction worker put a backhoe through an electrical conduit with 15K volts. There was an explosion that was heard for many miles. The worker died the next day. He died painfully.

> so I just cannot help but be curious as to how one of those meetings would go.

Finger pointing, of course. Data was being fed back and forth between systems and eventually somebody else took the blame. The field worker who ignored the markout also was blamed. We did add something to our system so that that kind of data error would raise an exception.

I learned a lot about care and diligence about data from this experience. Data errors are no joke.

This is a good point. I remember when I was in grad school the first time there was a guy in his 50s or 60s who would ask long meandering questions that got on everybody's nerves. Nobody liked him.

In school I add value because of my programming skills. I can program better than the other people here, so people frequently come to me asking for help debugging their stuff.

In the finance industry Adderall is very popular. I know someone who works as an in-house psychiatrist at a top-tier investment bank. Most of the employees that go to see her are looking for an Adderall prescription.

I've known a few people who use cocaine. It is useful for the people who want to stay up late at the clubs and be able to work the next day.

> Better to go reading up on the experiences of others, asking about the experiences of others, talking to people who express interest, etc.

True. That's what I'm doing, because a bunch of people here have expressed interest. I am curious why people thought it was interesting.

You are welcome.

> Do you think navigating politics is easier in academia than in the private financial sector?

I assume there will be some level of politics everywhere. I have friends who have told me sad stories about things they've seen in academia, so I know it can get ugly there too. None that compare to what I've seen in the financial world though. Not even close. I can't get into that stuff here though.

But more importantly, it's critical to my mental health that I leave and do something else. So that's what I'm doing.

My understanding of the importance of OODA Loops influenced my approach to data analysis and the tools I build to analyze data. My goal is always to build fast and flexible tools. This allows me to explore the data quickly from many different angles.

Boyd's key insight isn't that we should use OODA loops to make decisions. His genius is that OODA loops should exist, and you should set yourself up to go through the loop as quickly as possible and as many times as possible. This means designing tools or systems that can quickly go through that process. The end result is a more agile and adaptable person or organization.

I read this book years ago and it changed my life. Great understanding of the man and his life.

The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security https://www.amazon.com/Mind-War-John-American-Security/dp/15...

Very well. I'll do that this weekend when I have more time to read and reply. Should be an interesting discussion, especially since I left a career in finance to go to grad school to do something totally different. It is a big move but I've never been happier.

> I've found that any hobby that offers "casual regular events on a weekly basis, plus occasional group trips for the people who take it more seriously" is a great recipe for bonding

I used to be active in a ski club that would plan weekly trips to mountains. Made a lot of friends through that. I need to find another organization like that.

Happily the grad program I am in now is great for building a network of friends. Not only with the current students but the alumni as well.

Really? Interesting. I can do that. How would be the best way to go about that on HN? I'm new here and haven't seen any posts like that. Just start a thread with some info and answer questions?

There's definitely something to this.

What other struggles are there that we can take on to facilitate bonding?

It occurs to me that raising children is a struggle and can help someone bond with their spouse. That doesn't help single people (like me) though. Work can be a struggle, but not always a positive one, and switching jobs can end it. I imagine firefighters and EMT workers face a deeper struggle than corporate jobs and form deeper friendships.

I'm 42, and I wish someone told me in my 20's it would be harder to make new friends as I got older. I would have done things differently. I would have put more effort into making friends then.

I am able to make new friends, but they end up being more like acquaintances most of the time. Currently I am in grad school, and that's working out well for me. There's something about the shared camaraderie and shared suffering from the workload that builds real friendships.