US employment – the last of the economists’ variables spiraling out of control?
The US seems to be heading towards something scary. The last of the variables that was being flaunted by economists to ward off any suggestions of something similar to the great depression seems to be spiraling out of control.
Latest (un)employment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 533000 U.S. jobs were lost in November 08. This is almost 73% of the 723000 jobs lost in September(403000 job losses) and October(320000) put together.
The average job loss over the past 3 months has been 419,000 per month; the same figure stood at 82,000 per month from January 08 to August 08 – now that’s like over 400% increase.
But please don’t worry…let’s just get back to being optimistic, and hope that the wizards who turned us into paupers will get us back on our feet.
Or maybe, it’s already time for us to start learning to make some ‘depression cake‘, if not actually start making it.
Everyone’s pouncing on hedge funds once again
Everyone is pouncing on hedge funds once again… some of the results of a simple google news search on “hedge funds”…
Hedge funds brace for redemption wave, cash high
Asia Hedge Funds, Among Worst Performers, Close at Faster Rate
Year-end redemption requests loom over industry
Hedge funds hit by wind-ups as markets bite
Hedge Funds Wash Out of High-Stakes Game
Hedge Funds Are Bracing for Investors to Cash Out
Hedge funds face loss of investors
Why does all this coverage and analysis have to be ex-post? Haven’t they done enough of that after LTCM? Couldn’t they do some ex-ante analysis this time around?
Some elementary Chrome benchmarking
I ran the V8 Benchmark Suite on all browsers installed on one of my colleagues office PC. Given below are the results…bigger the final score, better the performance is what the benchmark page says
|
Browser |
Version |
Total Score |
|
Internet Explorer |
6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158 |
22 |
|
Safari |
3.0.4 (523.15) |
51 |
|
Flock |
2.0b1 |
116 |
|
Firefox |
3.0.1 |
126 |
|
Chrome |
Official Build 1583 |
1288 |
Some basic hygeine factors were taken into consideration while testing…nothing professional, but I hope the numbers make sense? You can run the benchmarks here and check your results.
Robert O’Callahan posts some interesting issues with Chrome
Mozilla hacker Robert O’Callahan highlights some interesting issues concerning Chrome in this post…
– Multiple processes rendering to a single window on Mac. There’s no supported way to do that AFAIK. From your docs (great docs by the way!), it seems you don’t have an answer there yet either.
– Separate-process plugins rendering in windowless mode. I haven’t had a chance to grovel through your code yet, but I didn’t see anything in the docs about it. Sounds especially tricky in Chrome since, if I understand correctly, all interaction between the plugin and the page is routed through the master browser process.
– Synchronous two-way script interaction between the page and a separate-process plugin seems like it’s hard to make performant.
– Running different-origin iframes in separate processes sounds hard; the interaction between iframes and their hosts is complex and bears on Web compatibility. (And the interaction gets more complicated with HTML5 “seamless” iframes.) But it really has to be solved, I think, because otherwise a compromised renderer process can violate the iframe security boundary — a gaping hole in the security architecture.
Would be interesting to see how google answers these.
Maximize Content, Minimize Chrome…
Just started using Google’s latest app – the Chrome Browser. I loved the minimalist design of the browser; it lives up to the “Maximize Content and Minimize Chrome” philosophy talked about in their The story behind Google Chrome video.
But I was a little puzzled by Chrome’s resource utilization. For all the speed that Google has been talking about, the browser was stuggling real hard when I started switching between just about 10 tabs.
Doesn’t look like Google will come out with a browser that bites the dust so easily. Something must be wrong with my config…or the sites i picked up…I’ll check it out later…probably next week.
One thing I want to do for sure is compare Flock with Chrome…both claim to be for the “new” web, and both are in beta. I don’t have any complaints about Flock till date.
Conference table shapes outcomes, says Ruth Haag
A round conference table hampers decisions; a thin, long one encourages informal cliques; and a U – shaped conference table is the perfect recipe for a showdown. Ruth Haag, President and CEO of Haag Environmental Company, thinks a one-ended rectangular table is the perfect solution. Read it here…
Rigged Diggs…
Everyone knows it’s tough to maintain sanity and democracy at the same time in an online ecosystem, but it’s still amusing to read about how this guy cracked open the malicious practices of some of the “sophisticated” diggers using good old “talking”
Dan Loeb’s letter on hedge fund Third Point’s losses
Alpha has this news about Third Point LLC’s outspoken and brash CEO Daniel Loeb writting a letter to his investors indicating it’s losses resulting from a sharp reversal in energy and financial stocks in the first three weeks of July have wiped out all profits made in the quarter.
To add to the firms woes, the SEC has apparently begun a formal investigation into Third Point’s communications with portfolio managers at other hedge funds.
Wall Street’s poison pen lived up to his reputation as he wrote “As a friend said to me, ‘Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.’” in the letter.
Loeb was listed in the “Bad Boys – The Meanest” category in this 2007 New York Magazine special feature ranking some of the best hedge-fund managers.
Peter Thiel in Bloomberg Markets (Jan 2007 ‘Hedge Fund’ issue)
Found this article on hedge fund manager Peter Thiel from Clarium Capital Management. It appeared in the January 2007 ‘Hedge Fund’ special issue of Bloomberg Marketsmagazine.
Apart from giving brief details of Peter’s background and a glimpse into his personality, the article gives a perspective on his investment strategies and a broad overview of the bets he’s placed.
Peter was listed in the “Whippersnappers – Legends in the making” category in this 2007 New York Magazine special feature ranking some of the best hedge-fund managers.
On interesting bit of info I found in the article is that Peter Thiel happens to have executive produced of the 2005 movie Thank You for Smoking. Didn’t know about that before!
