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| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| Winners get stiffed at the Nasdaq casino |
| 12:01:11 am mst / 3 March 2001 found by paul / filed in business / source NY Times 28 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Because a large hedge fund trader misplaced a decimal point on an order, orders were placed to buy shares of a company's stock at $95.00, not $9.50. As expected, the price quickly rose fueling takeover rumors. Several day traders make large amounts of money until the Nasdaq exchange belatedly cancelled the hedge fund trader's orders on the grounds that the prices were "clearly erroneous", thus turning the day trader winners into big losers. The situation is still being sorted out. |
| I agree with the NY Times in their assessment of one of the day traders who got shafted: "It was not Mr. Parson's fault that the hedge fund trader erred. It was not his fault that RediBook's systems did not stop the ridiculous orders. It was not his fault that Nasdaq failed to halt trading, or to put out a warning, or to act promptly to adjust or cancel trades. But he and other traders like him are the ones who lost. Wall Street should find a way to compensate them. Otherwise, Nasdaq looks a lot like a casino that values a customer's business only until he starts winning." |
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| Palm passwords don't protect data |
| 2:14:45 am mst / 3 March 2001 found by diana / filed in security / source ZDNet 67 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The security feature on handhelds using the Palm OS is surprisingly weak, and the "Private" feature can be bypassed through a backdoor. |
| A detailed description of the security hole is available here in the advisory from @stake Research Labs. |
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| The Web Page from Hell |
| 5:18:25 am mst / 3 March 2001 found by paul / filed in humor / source BBspot 401 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| The title pretty much speaks for itself. (Link via BBspot.) |
| read 1 comment |
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| Intel Inside My Ears |
| 9:14:40 am mst / 3 March 2001 found by paul / filed in digital media / source Business Week 75 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Business Week writer Sam Jaffe has a surprisingly positive review of the new Intel MP3 player. In particular, he likes the lean, simple user interface as well as its durability. |
| Interesting quote: "I was initially confounded by the absence of a Stop button. The only way to kill the music was to hit Pause. After thinking about it a bit, I realized that, since an MP3 player stores data on flash memory, it has no moving parts. That means 'stopping' the music is the same as 'pausing' it." |
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| Hunting For Digital Easter Eggs |
| 3:37:37 pm mst / 3 March 2001 found by paul / filed in fun / source CBS News 126 hits / 0 comments / 1 e-mail |
| Unadvertised "Easter Eggs" are becoming increasingly common in DVD movie releases. The article includes links to some of the websites containing lists compiled by fans. |
| If you don't want to read the article, you can go straight to the links at DVD Review, CheatCC, DVD Easter Eggs, and DVD Angle. |
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| Banner Ads Within Banner Ads? |
| 9:17:43 pm mst / 3 March 2001 found by paul / filed in internet / source Segfault 154 hits / 2 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Geeknews.org pointed us towards this unbelievable article from Segfault on the future of banner ads. Basically, the Remora company proposes putting banner ads within banner ads in an effort to rejuvenate internet advertising. |
| The worst part is that I can't tell if this is a serious article about a crazy web practice or a cleverly done parody article! The pictures of the doubly (and triply) nested ads are quite funny... |
| read 2 comments |
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