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koalala

115 karma · joined April 27, 2014

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koalala··on Show HN: High-frequency trading and market-making backtesting tool with examples
yes, this would be non-colocated on AWS. wouldn't everyone have the same network latency if they had a node in the same AWS region? and wouldn't that even the playing field, making FPGAs relevant again (you can rent an FPGA there)? i guess the importance of low latency also depends on the update rate of the exchange server.
koalala··on Show HN: High-frequency trading and market-making backtesting tool with examples
i've been looking into doing this, the basic algorithms you can get from research, but building a top of the line FPGA design for this is beyond my capabilities as a single engineer, does anyone know of anyone doing this with just some really well optimized c++?
koalala··on Unconfirmed video showing potential LK-99 sample exhibiting the Meissner effect
the original poster said that this video was sent to him by a fellow researcher who received it on telegram from 'a colleague'. no further details given. if this is truly lk99 showing flux pinning, then that would be very strong evidence that it's also a superconductor. (physics bsc here, my only experience with condensed matter is 1 course and nothing more)
koalala··on Stochastic Parrot
From the article: A "stochastic parrot", according to Bender, is an entity "for haphazardly stitching together sequences of linguistic forms … according to probabilistic information about how they combine, but without any reference to meaning."

It seems to me that the great success transformers are now enjoying is precisely due to the fact that 'probabilistic information about how they combine' _is_ meaning.

koalala··on Binance commingled customer funds and company revenue, former insiders say
there was a run recently, everything was paid out and life continued normally. the binance CEO actually encourages this as it's a stress test [1].

[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-community-members-disc...

koalala··on Ocean Warming Study So Distressing, Some Scientists Didn't Want to Talk About It
sorry, I'm aware that climate change is a serious problem requiring decisive action, but could you explain exactly your claim that 'humanity is done for' by 2026? this sounds somewhat exaggerated and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
koalala··on Prompt injection: what’s the worst that can happen?
as long as an LLM is a black box (i.e. we haven't mapped its logical structure) then there can always be another prompt injection attack you didn't account for.
koalala··on Joint statement by the Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC
so they would've been fine if only everyone could've waited 30 years? isn't that completely irrelevant to probably every depositor?
koalala··on Ask HN: Why do you find your job satisfying?
Algorithmic trader, quantitative researcher, 'retail trader' here. When your strategies are trend-heavy, most of the time you're slowly bleeding out, waiting and doubting your simulations, wondering whether the market has fundamentally changed etc, but a few times a year it's like you're printing money and you finally don't feel like an idiot anymore.
koalala··on ChatGPT in an iOS Shortcut: Smart HomeKit Voice Assistant
AFAIK that's exactly what it is.
koalala··on There was nothing “wasted” about my youth spent clubbing on ecstasy (2021)
i tried nearly drug under the sun back in the day, played in bands, wrote the best songs during drug comedowns and partied like an animal until suddenly growing up around 30 and getting my bachelor's in physics, a family and starting a business. i have no regrets. mdma, lsd, ketamine and nitrous were my favourites. i still smoke weed now and then on weekends, never drink because i don't really enjoy it. i'm from the netherlands in case that matters.
koalala··on What ChatGPT can't do
from the comments on the blog; couldn't this issue be solved by prime-prompting it with instructions to always lay out its steps before answering? this way the answer wouldn't be 'tainted' by the first few words being the wrong answer.
koalala··on I am done. I give up
Have you considered just duplicating an existing business in a still growing market and then hiring a PPC/seo marketing agency? You don't have to invent anything new perse, and you absolutely need professional marketing in most cases.
koalala··on Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work
i just checked this and i'm still verified. i'm in europe though.
koalala··on JFK Assassination Records – 2022 Additional Documents Release
of course, statistically, for everyone high-profile assassination there will be people who a. don't agree with the prevailing narrative and b. die under strange circumstances. but how would you determine the mean and variance for such a thing?
koalala··on Ken Thompson really did launch his "trusting trust" trojan attack in real life
Do any mathematicians around here know if this is a special case of Gödel's incompleteness theorem [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_...

koalala··on Unified Quant Ecosystem
Have been using this for the better part of the year, probably the best backtest and live platform I've seen. Love it!
koalala··on Algorithmic stablecoins are provably impossible without continuous funding
My grandfather who lived through the Dutch famine in world war 2 did fine buying food with gold while people were eating flower bulbs and grass, so in that case at least it worked.
koalala··on Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?
What worked for me was a LOT of tiny things. There was a post on HN where someone kept a journal of what they ate, how they slept and their weight. Turns out sleep was the most important factor in weight loss by far. This seems to be the case for me too. So, the most important things in my experience, not in order of importance because theyre all necessary:

* enough sleep, if you don't sleep enough you get extreme hunger pangs and all the other tricks will be useless.

* strength training every other day. it reduces your hunger by a lot and doesn't have to take long or very be intense at all, 2-3 sets of 5 pullups is enough for me and can be done in 10m or less.

* skip breakfast. this doesnt work for some people, so if it doesn't, just go to 4.

* eat small meals, you can feel satiated from 250-300kcal so have that every time you eat, max 550 kcal for dinner.

* count calories and make sure you eat around 500 kcal under your TDEE, calculate yours at tdeecalculator.net

* your weight fluctuates 2 kg in either direction constantly, only when it moves beyond that there's been a significant gain or loss.

* eat more protein, you feel full quicker

* drink as much of your 0 kcal soft drink as you want, it's 0 kcal and can get you through tough moments.

* have one or two cheat days every week and just eat whatever you want, i did this and kept losing weight throughout.

* have go-to instant or low effort meals with the right amount of kcal and preferably high protein ready at all times, you want to conserve as much will power as possible.

* be kind to yourself.

that is all.

koalala··on Ask HN: How do you cope with possible nuclear threat?
The idea that an all-out nuclear war will trigger a civilization-ending nuclear winter has been on shaky ground for a while now. It appears the likelihood of it happening to such a degree was based on the political/idealist desire to reduce the nuclear stockpile. [1][2]

For a more realistic view of nuclear war and its survivability, check out [2] (with a foreword by Edward Teller and author's note by Eugene Wigner of Wigner's friend fame).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d... [2] Kearny, C. Nuclear war survival skills

koalala··on My app failed: lessons learned
Exactly, I would recommend spending a few thousand on a good PPC marketing agency and let them set up your marketing. You might be amazed at what this would accomplish since your product seems fine.
koalala··on MoviePass actively tried to stop users from seeing movies, FTC alleges
amazing how they're settling and not being sent to prison.
koalala··on Starting a crypto project
It's the 'laser eyes' meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/laser-eyes-bitcoin-trend-lase...
koalala··on Hawking Hawking
i got into physics because of a copy of a brief history of time my grandmother gave to me. whoever wrote it, i am grateful.
koalala··on Webmention.io
thanks, you just transported me back to my twenties :D
koalala··on [dead]
forcing voters to shut up in a time of increasing polarisation will always get you more polarisation, or worse.
koalala··on Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December
can you give an example of popular drugs that have been approved with smaller trials?
koalala··on Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection
The way these studies (most of the big trials finishing up soon, and this one too) are set up is that they measure the percentage of people that will not get symptomatic covid-19, so the only thing that is measured is whether they get symptoms or not. So the result is that 90% (within a confidence interval) of people who are given this vaccine will not develop any covid symptoms. Transmission may be impacted, and the data will reveal hints about this, but it's impossible to draw hard statistical conclusions about that, and in general a different type of vaccine technology will be needed to end transmission and thus the pandemic. This will save countless lives though, and may end lockdowns, so a great day nonetheless.
koalala··on The New ‘Gold Rush in Space’
Specifically a manned flight to mars, which before depended on the cyclic political will and state of the cold war to be funded. There are also other uses for starship like 30 minute suborbital flights between new york and london. Maybe it's easier to see if you look at the limits: given an infinite amount of money and labour, we wouldve seen a manned mars landing in the 1980's perhaps. If on the other hand funding was finite and reaching mars cost 100% of world gdp, it would never happen.
koalala··on The information catastrophe
perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea, as there's an interesting link with emergent gravity, the central claim of which is that the density of quantum entanglement in a volume is proportional to how strongly space curves there.
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