High frequency trading isn't the issue. The banks are the real "insiders", and are pointing fingers at small, high frequency prop shops to deflect attention from themselves, and to get back to the bad old days when they could really gouge their customers with wide spreads.

High frequency traders make their money by having better pricing models, narrowing spreads in the market, and being able to execute and then get out of a position quickly to lock in their profits and eliminate risk. The banks like to be the middleman, with wide spreads, so that they can pocket the difference.

The net result of high frequency traders is that the rest of us can get a stock much closer to their actual value (due to narrow spreads). Yes, the high freqency traders make good money by selling the stock $0.005 off the "real" value to me and then immediately getting out of the position by reselling it a millisecond later and locking in that $0.005 profit, but I have only paid a premium of $0.005 instad of the $0.35 or worse the banks would love to gouge me for (and used to, a few short years ago).

We get rid of high freqency trading and we'll be back to the bad old days, when the real insiders really did gouge us, and we all paid far too much for our investments, and were able to sell at far too little, with the likes of Goldman Sachs pocketing the enormous difference.

As for the front-running nonsense on 60 Minutes, that's always been illegal (contrary to what we're being told), and it is not at all how high frequency trading works. If someone was in fact doing that, then they're in a whole world of hurt with the SEC (and rightly so), but this entire exercise appears much more like a distraction: blame small outsider firms who've made the marketplace more effecient and tightened spreads for problems created by corruption within the big banks, and hope no one notices...at least until the next bank-induced crash.

By that definition Windows XP is itself a huge piece of malware that needs to be constantly rid of the numerous bugs and defects. It has been for the past 10 years thus, and still not fully fixed.

That makes MS an untrustworthy source of poor quality software, or intentionally buggy software aka malware.

Every hypothesis is "an assumption". But some stand up to scrutiny and offer a lot of explanatory value.

As for evolution, what you said isn't heresy - it's a claim that you didn't try to back up.

That's one spin you could put on it.

Another choice is "How is a country full of people that believe nonsense going to survive the 21st Century?"

I guess that means I'm not a Slashdotter, because I don't believe any of those things exist (or are possible).

(Too bad...)

You're trying to pee in the punch with a "both sides do it" argument. The not-so-subtle difference is that "the left" doesn't deny that nuclear power and GM foods exist. To paraphrase the famous saying, everyone is entitled to their own policy opinions, but not to their own realities.

But then the Republicans aren't generally as bad as they get a rap for. Their only substantial reality-denying party positions are on evolution and global warming, and both of those are for easily understandable political reasons (the former too keep the dwindling numbers of the faithful faithful, the latter to please their corporate masters).

Like Prolog, where anything you can't prove is taken to be false?

Yeah, they would have gotten so much better a deal on gay rights if they had supported McCain & Palin.

Cough. Your freedoms end where other's begin. Cough.

Elon Musk is no ordinary car dealer. Perhaps he could totally understand. Where many car dealers would consult their Chilton's, not find the problem or time to fix, and just make up something which allowed them to smile broadly, very broadly indeed.

While that's true, it's also flying in the face of Progress We must strive to make things as complicated and feature rich as possible (and also shiny).

See, it worked, it detected the fire by melting. Success!

This mesage appproved by Slashtod Quallity Assurence

At the time the Internet was the (D)ARPANET and export to other countries wasn't really on the horizon anyway. I think had this gone into place, the headline would be "Internet may have been commercially adapted decades sooner, if not for built-in security mechanisms."

My oldest sister informed her work-aholic husband she was tired of him not coming home from the office, he was already a success and it was time to delegate some responsibility. He didn't take it seriously and was shocked when she finally filed for divorce.

IMHO, she could have found more to do with her own time, but guess she was too lovey-dovey to be alone.

People who spend dark to dark in their offices often lose sight of life, while scrambling to the top. Give your endorphins a chance to work out, too. We're all headed to the grave, make sure your journey there isn't all work and no play.