A number of visualizations of High Frequency Trading at youtube. In this video: Watch the stock of Mylan, Inc (symbol: MYL; market cap $11.6 Billion) drop 2.8% in the blink of an eye (200 milliseconds), wiping out $325 Million in shareholder equity. More at nanex.net.
Adam Thirlwell writing on ‘How Baudelaire Revolutionized Modern Literature’: The investigation of tone in Baudelaire is an investigation into humiliation; and this humiliation, in Baudelaire’s theory, is the result of his conviction—to us, perhaps, counter-intuitive—that everything natural is corrupt. […] All of Baudelaire’s writing is based on this refusal of Nature as natural. Instead, what is…
John Lanchester on the urgency of reform to the banking sector at the London Review of Books: Another global crisis is coming, as sure as Christmas. The euro? China? Who knows – but it’s coming, and when it does, we need our banks to be safe, for all sorts of reasons, including, right at the…
At priceonomics, a discussion of a classic psychological experiment goes on to consider the social forces which encourage the work ethic: …when South Korea and China were mired in poverty, Westerners described their people as hopelessly lazy, with a culture that did not value industriousness and taking initiative. As time has shown, however, this is not…
A neat digest from xkcd of worries about the pace of modern life here, including the following from 1907: Our modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual with his head buried in his favourite magazine, is the somewhat natural outcome of the banishment of colloquy from the school. Meanwhile, one hundred and four…