Wrong. I can wipe my ass with a dollar. I can't do that with bitcoin.

Another difference is that we are talking about supercomputers here.

Not really. In the systems I have used, the supercomputers are composed of a cluster of nodes, with each node containing several compute cores. Each compute core is basically equivalent and fully capable of general tasks.

No. This figure is probably based on the actual rates that the supercomputing facility charges to research projects. For example, look at:
http://www.nersc.gov/users/acc...

Minor thing, but it's more likely a scientist than an engineer.

Supercomputing clusters generally have sophisticated job queues for handling job request by thousands of users. In my experience (in NERSC and TACC), utilization is pretty high, and it can take hours or days for a job to make it through the queue, depending on many factors. I doubt ze was running only on truly spare nodes, since someone can usually find a use for them.

No it doesn't.

Interesting. Why was the symbol table implemented in such a way that it could be full? Is it not dynamically allocated?

If both sides have the full tape, then this is impossible.

We have judges to make these kinds of calls. Legislators can't make these calls and fuck things up when they try.

Decreasing the spread does not reduce the cost to long term investors on average. It perhaps reduces the costs to less savvy investors and increases costs to more savvy investors. But the aggregate effect is to increase the cost on average.

Of course it harms us. It hurts long term investors by increasing the prices when they want to buy. Some HFTs are winners and losers, but on an aggregate scale they are taking money from long term traders, mutual funds, (ie you, unless you are some kind of mountain hermit).

How can it be 20% cheaper for everybody if everybody uses different amounts of water? Do you mean it will be 20% cheaper on average, or do you mean everybody.

To be fair, it's a lot easier to tell people they're doing it wrong than to tell people the right way to do things.

Wrong. This got serious media attention, and Adam Silver was basically forced to act on it.