And Now… Scientists Afflict Neural Network with Schizophrenia
May 8th, 2011I was reading along, thinking that this sounded like run-of-the-mill grant swindling, but then this paragraph damn near slapped me out of my chair:
After being re-trained with the elevated learning rate, DISCERN began putting itself at the center of fantastical, delusional stories that incorporated elements from other stories it had been told to recall. In one answer, for instance, DISCERN claimed responsibility for a terrorist bombing.
Via: Science Blogs:
Computer networks that can’t forget fast enough can show symptoms of a kind of virtual schizophrenia, giving researchers further clues to the inner workings of schizophrenic brains, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Yale University have found.
The researchers used a virtual computer model, or “neural network,” to simulate the excessive release of dopamine in the brain. They found that the network recalled memories in a distinctly schizophrenic-like fashion.
Their results were published in April in Biological Psychiatry.
“The hypothesis is that dopamine encodes the importance — the salience — of experience,” says Uli Grasemann, a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. “When there’s too much dopamine, it leads to exaggerated salience, and the brain ends up learning from things that it shouldn’t be learning from.”
More: Scientists Afflict Computers with Schizophrenia to Better Understand the Human Brain
MultiCharts Discretionary Trader – Free
May 8th, 2011I know that many of you are interested in technical analysis and trading, so I thought I’d mention that TSSupport has released a completely free version of MultiCharts. The main functionality difference between the professional and the free versions is that you can’t create your own functions, indicators and strategies with the free one. Even so, this would have to be, by far, the best free charting package available. It even supports real time data, should you happen to be using a broker that includes a compatible data feed. If you don’t have a market data service, it pulls free end-of-day quotes from Yahoo.
Why would they give something this good away for free?
My guess is that they’re trying to get you hooked with the incredible charting capabilities that MultiCharts offers, and they know that anyone who is up to learning and using MultiCharts will eventually want to modify the existing functions, indicators and strategies, as well as create new ones from scratch. I use the full version of MultiCharts for my trading and research (thanks to Pookie), and I probably have the code editor open about 90% of the time. But if you’re just learning about technical analysis and want a tool to explore the ‘conventional’ indicators and techniques that you’re reading about in books or on websites, this would be fantastic.
How I Learned Technical Analysis: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: A Comprehensive Guide to Trading Methods and Applications by John J. Murphy
Greece Considers Exit from Euro Zone
May 6th, 2011Via: Spiegel:
The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government’s actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area’s finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night.
Greece’s economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou’s government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.
Alarmed by Athens’ intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. In addition to Greece’s possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country’s debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union — regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece’s massive troubles.
Given the tense situation, the meeting in Luxembourg has been declared highly confidential, with only the euro-zone finance ministers and senior staff members permitted to attend. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Jörg Asmussen, an influential state secretary in the Finance Ministry, are attending on Germany’s behalf.
Silverfinger – The True Story Of Nelson Bunker Hunt
May 6th, 2011Via: Zerohedge:
Over 30 years ago, a man by the name of Nelson Bunker Hunt hatched the perfect plan: protect his inherited wealth (which then was one of the largest legacy fortunes in the world) from the inflationary destruction of “paper” assets by converting his assets into silver, and in the process cover the silver market, and send the price of silver to an inflation adjusted price of over $140 (nearly three times higher than the nearly record nominal silver price hit last week). Understandably, Hunt’s name has appeared very often in the popular media in recent months, since after all it was the “Hunt” price that the May 1 silver smackdown (which will most certainly never be investigated) that sent silver from $48 to $42 in seconds that was being protected by the paper cartel. Yet just who is Nelson Bunker Hunt? And how did he cover the silver market when did? What exactly did he do, and is someone doing a comparable silver cornering right now? And, most importantly, why? The answers, all of which are provided in this September 1980 Playboy article reprint, will surprise and astound many, primarily due to the myriad parallels between the world of the 1970s and our own. What follows is one man’s attempt to escape from the “system.”
From “Silverfinger”
IN THE SUMMER of 1979, an invisible hand reached out from an island in the Atlantic and quietly began tightening its grip on the world’s supply of silver. The fingers of that hand extended to London, New York, Dallas, Zurich and Jidda. But the only visible clue to its existence was a newly formed Bermuda shell corporation called International Metals Investment Company Ltd. That dull sounding little trading company was not just another offshore tax scam but the operating front for a secret partnership seemingly capable of controlling the world price and supply of silver.
Gold, Silver Prices Free Fall on Dollar Rally, Margin Hikes
May 5th, 2011Via: The Street:
Silver prices tanked after another margin hike from the CME and a stronger U.S. dollar, taking Gold prices along for the ride.
Dollar Rallies on ECB Interest Rate Statements
May 5th, 2011Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
I don’t know how to tell the difference between a sucker bounce before an index heads lower and a double bottom that touches off a rally. We are definitely in the zone where a strong rally could get started on the DX. The 20 day EMA, however, is intact as I write this, so this could just be noise and short covering.
In other news: Treasury Suggests $2 Trillion Debt Cap Raise.
Via: Reuters:
The euro headed for its biggest slide against the dollar since November on Thursday after the European Central Bank hinted interest rates were unlikely to rise next month, short-circuiting a rally that had driven the currency to a 17-month high.
The signal by ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet on rates added to a growing sense of risk aversion in markets, sparked by signs of slower growth in the United States and some other developed economies, and spurred traders to bail out of high-yielding currencies and commodities.
The dollar and yen were the main beneficiaries, as record low interest rates made it profitable to borrow in those two currencies at no cost to finance more lucrative investments.
America’s Middle Class Crisis
May 5th, 2011Via: Yahoo Finance:
Schwenninger’s recent report “The American Middle Class Under Stress” has some stunning facts that highlight the struggles the average American is having getting a decent-paying job and keeping up with rising cost of living.
Here are just some of the sobering facts:
— There are 8.5 million people receiving unemployment insurance and over 40 million receiving food stamps.
— At the current pace of job creation, the economy won’t return to full employment until 2018.
— Middle-income jobs are disappearing from the economy. The share of middle-income jobs in the United States has fallen from 52% in 1980 to 42% in 2010.
— Middle-income jobs have been replaced by low-income jobs, which now make up 41% of total employment.
— 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.
— Over the past year, nominal wages grew only 1.7% while all consumer prices, including food and energy, increased by 2.7%.
— Wages and salaries have fallen from 60% of personal income in 1980 to 51% in 2010. Government transfers have risen from 11.7% of personal income in 1980 to 18.4% in 2010, a post-war high.
Trading Disclosure
May 5th, 2011WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Bought SLV May 21 2011 41.00 Call.
How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis
May 5th, 2011If I buy a wheat contract, I should have to take delivery of the physical wheat on the specified date. If I sell a wheat contract, I should have to deliver the physical wheat on the specified date. I should not be allowed to buy or sell those leveraged contracts without having to take delivery, or deliver, physical goods. I shouldn’t be allowed to close my position without an exchange of goods.
The same should hold true for gold, coffee, palladium or any other commodity.
It is absolute madness that commodities are bought and sold using leveraged vehicles in markets that allow participation by speculators; individuals and organizations who have no interest or connection to the underlying physical commodity.
Via: Foreign Policy:
Don’t blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street’s at fault for the spiraling cost of food.
Bankers recognized a good system when they saw it, and dozens of speculative non-physical hedgers followed Goldman’s lead and joined the commodities index game, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Pimco, JP Morgan Chase, AIG, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers, to name but a few purveyors of commodity index funds. The scene had been set for food inflation that would eventually catch unawares some of the largest milling, processing, and retailing corporations in the United States, and send shockwaves throughout the world.
Related: World Food Prices Rise to Near-Record High as Inflation Speeds Up
Research Credit: coxsone, tired taurus
Massive Floods Extend Across Midwest, South
May 4th, 2011Via: CNN:
An engorged Mississippi River spilled out onto huge swaths of farmland in the South and Midwest on Wednesday, prompting massive flooding from Minnesota to Louisiana.
Heavy rains spawned flooding that meteorologists say is not expected to fully relent until early June. Areas along the Ohio River Basin also experienced heavy flooding, forcing residents to evacuate low-lying areas across the region.
Earlier, the intentional breach of a levee on the Mississippi helped to ease unprecedented flood pressure on other areas, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Ohio level had dropped about 1.7 feet at Cairo, Illinois, since Monday afternoon, before the blast, but that is expected to level off later on Wednesday.
The breach, created when engineers detonated explosives late Monday night at Birds Point, Missouri, is sending 396,000 cubic feet of water per second onto 200 square miles of fertile Missouri farmland.
The water is coursing across a floodway that Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon described as “literally the most productive part of our continent.”
Farmer Bryan Feezor said the sight makes you “sick to your stomach” as he surveyed his submerged fields.
“Farming is all I ever have done … and it’s underwater,” he told CNN St. Louis affiliate KPLR. “I really don’t know (what I’m going to do).”
A second levee blast was conducted Tuesday afternoon at New Madrid, Missouri, and a third is planned Wednesday near Hickman, Kentucky. The second and third blasts, downstream of Birds Point, will allow floodwater to return to the Mississippi River.
While the plan appeared to be working — the level of the Ohio River fell where it joins the Mississippi — record crests and relentless water pressure still threatened communities throughout the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys.
