Move the Markets

Life • Some New-Age Myths

2010-03-19T11:56:56-05:00

I'm constantly surprised by the amount of people that believe they have magical powers.

All you have to do is look at their lives to know it can't possibly be true. I was at a convention last year, where someone was selling "prosperity bowls." These were plastic dishes with plastic fake jewels inside. They had apparently been blessed with a magic spell. I hung around a bit, listening to her talk to a friend about her day-to-day problems. So I wondered, if this woman can make a working prosperity bowl, why can't she pay her own rent (why is she renting in the first place)? Why is she wearing old tattered clothes? Why is she charging so much money for these plastic baubles?

(I ask the same about "successful traders" that charge lots of money for their help...)

I also met a woman last year that claimed she saw the ghost of Linda's mom loitering around our living room. And, with a wave of her hand she claimed to successfully banish her. Think about it... she has enough spiritual perception and force that she can control the ghosts of dead people effortlessly (it must suck to be dead, having to obey the whims of so many "gifted" people). But, despite also hearing about her tough job situation, she hasn't been able to leverage this incredible ability into a living of some sort. I don't even mean a living as a medium... just send some ghosts to spy on people and use their inside information!

I met a woman a couple weeks ago that said she has control over clouds. She can stare at the clouds, and cut them so that they separate. Also, she can stop tornadoes. I would think she could make a nice living as a professional tornado stopper, but I guess she cares too little about people to put her amazing power to good use. (actually she's one of those people that thinks everybody can control the weather and they just don't realize it.)

Wow. Of course, most of these people, either consciously or unconsciously, make sure they don't walk into situations where their "gift" is testable. When they want money for services, you might wonder if they are a fraud. But often you have to assume that they actually believe what they are saying. Sometimes, they even agree to demonstrate their skill on TV:

object

I'll have to remember that alternating toe defense.

Statistics: Posted by Richard — Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:56 am

Math and Programming • Re: The Joy of Pseudo-Science

2010-03-18T16:11:45-05:00

taotree wrote:
Isn't this what all the "zen" stuff is about? "Forgetting" what the mind thinks things are: "when a book is not a book" or something, and seeing things as they really are without the labels, etc.

Or to put it in weirder terms, a large part of it seems to be about taking on a feminine attitude, and letting the world penetrate you; as opposed to a masculine approach in which you put your world in some kind of order. I'm not sure if a zen master would say it's more than that or not, because I'm not one. Where I am, I can appreciate that kind of experience, but I also know there are limitations on the amount of raw data I can deal with. So, once I know I have no choice but to apply some labels, how do I increase my chances of choosing the correct ones?

I think you may have found a good first step: At least make sure you only label what's actually there. More on that below.

taotree wrote:
Twisting the words a little bit... Replacing objective with mechanical and subjective with discretionary... I could easily stick to a mechanical trading strategy if I had one that worked--but I don't have one. But the successful traders I see use discretion--some would say "subjectivity" to determine their trades and yet they are highly successful. Is that pertinent?

True enough, if I knew enough to spell out exactly how my decision-making process worked, and the learning process that updates it, I could imagine programming it up or writing explicit rules out. In some ways, it's like I can't write down exactly how to walk, either. Because I don't know exactly how I do it. I suppose if I were a machine I wouldn't have any problem explaining how it's done. Again, putting a brain in the middle of the mix causes information-laundering.

I hadn't thought about it from that angle, though. I was really focused on what happens between my eyes and my brain. Like, I've learned that it's a real danger to imagine the next few bars, because I tend to believe in my own imagination. I see price might make a double bottom, and some part of me already believes it... and wants to press the button to get the best price. So, in some sense I've confused reality with my imagination in those cases. I wrote about this some in the team area not long ago. Another example: when I see price make a fast jerky movement, my mind scrambles to explain it, and the excitement of the speedy movement seems to impair my judgement as well. I guess this part of the problem is really the non-zen aspect you mentioned before.

Statistics: Posted by Richard — Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:11 pm

Math and Programming • Re: The Joy of Pseudo-Science

2010-03-18T14:53:54-05:00

Richard wrote:
How do we help the brain see what's really there, instead of what it's inclined to see?

Isn't this what all the "zen" stuff is about? "Forgetting" what the mind thinks things are: "when a book is not a book" or something, and seeing things as they really are without the labels, etc.

I'm not sure how to define this as a worthy goal without saying an objective view is "better" than a subjective one. But, if we measure right and wrong in dollars... then you could say an objective view is worth more in the markets, anyway!

Twisting the words a little bit... Replacing objective with mechanical and subjective with discretionary... I could easily stick to a mechanical trading strategy if I had one that worked--but I don't have one. But the successful traders I see use discretion--some would say "subjectivity" to determine their trades and yet they are highly successful. Is that pertinent?

Statistics: Posted by taotree — Thu Mar 18, 2010 2:53 pm

Math and Programming • Re: The Joy of Pseudo-Science

2010-03-18T12:38:01-05:00

I'm struggling with the point taotree mentioned about defining some sort of value system. But, what if we wanted to identify ways to reduce the effects of typical cognitive biases in our everyday lives?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

How do we help the brain see what's really there, instead of what it's inclined to see? I'm not sure how to define this as a worthy goal without saying an objective view is "better" than a subjective one. But, if we measure right and wrong in dollars... then you could say an objective view is worth more in the markets, anyway!

I wonder, can anything be done? Any work in this area I should be aware of?

Statistics: Posted by Richard — Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:38 pm

Technology • Re: Integrating Wordpress and Phpbb3

2010-03-18T11:56:37-05:00

Hmmm. I noticed today that unmoderated posts were making it into the rss feed. Sorry about that. A search revealed that phpbb3 knows about it and is fixing it. But, I have no idea when they'll finish so I made a fix of my own. Here's what I did, which was good enough to work for me at any rate.

I changed the code in class 'feed_overall', 'get_sql' method to say:

Code:: 'WHERE' => $db->sql_in_set('p.topic_id', $topic_ids) . ' AND (p.post_approved = 1) AND p.post_time >= ' . $min_post_time . ' AND u.user_id = p.poster_id',

.... in its "WHERE" clause. If you compare this to the 3.0.7 implementation, all I did was remove the $sql_m_approve part, which seems to have broken the query.

Statistics: Posted by Richard — Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:56 am

Trading • Re: Price Inertia

2010-03-18T11:54:40-05:00

Richard wrote:
Some of the best trading concepts are the simplest. Price often has a kind of inertia.

What I found interesting is the next part of that chat...

I thought I was the only one that was seeing the importance of TrendLines.
It seems as if they are the most important indicator in my tool belt.

Chat excerpt:

Richard wrote:
now isn't it funny that we have all these complicated methods, and meanwhile trendlines are a fantastic tool

Scotte wrote:
I know what you mean. No matter what I use, it works best with TrendLines

Scotte

Statistics: Posted by ScotteNet — Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:54 am

Trading • Price Inertia

2010-03-18T10:15:09-05:00

Some of the best trading concepts are the simplest. Price often has a kind of inertia. So, one of the things I try to keep in the forefront of the team's consciousness is to notice when price is stuck. When it is, expect it to stay stuck, until it proves to you that it wants to go somewhere.

Chat excerpt:

So, clearly we're rangebound here. Since the open. I'm waiting for a breakout, or a reversal at the extremes. | Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:28 am

may try for a little action on the long side here | Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:47 am

awww yeah. Here we go. | Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:58 am

Statistics: Posted by Richard — Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:15 am

Entertainment • Re: Aphex Twin Covers

2010-03-18T09:50:00-05:00

I have always enjoyed Aphex Twin's beautiful song. I love it.

Statistics: Posted by pauljuzza — Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:50 am

Trading • Re: Enjoying the chat/Trade Example

2010-03-17T14:31:27-05:00

Today was a good day! Finally got a little movement in ES toward the end of the session. I had fun talking about what I was doing in the chat. Though I post charts to the "team-only" area, anyone should feel free to register for the forum and participate in the chat part. I usually have the chat up when I'm watching my charts, and there's often 3 to 5 people around.

Statistics: Posted by Richard — Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:31 pm

Entertainment • Re: Aphex Twin Covers

2010-03-17T12:17:34-05:00

Richard wrote:
Wow, if he pulled that off without knowing in advance he was going to need to do it, that's pretty impressive. Good think he knew the song so well.

(p.s. I edited your reply to fix the video link... in the [ youtube ] tags you only put the part after v= in the URL. Maybe I can beef up the code to parse the full URL one day.)

So tomorrow mans problem.

Beardyman way rocks. Took top beatboxer in 2006 and 2007 now uses a few bits of tech to record, loop, and mix things up.

The whole show.. NSFW btw heh
object

Statistics: Posted by Eric — Wed Mar 17, 2010 12:17 pm