Aug 31, 2007

A few weeks ago, someone noticed an enormous open interest position in the 700-strike calls on the S&P; 500, for September expiry. These are pretty much useless - the equivalent of just being long the index - unless the S&P; were to drop about 50% in the next month. So, of course, that’s what everyone on the intertubes assumed was going to happen. OMG OSAMA BIN LADEN IS INSIDER-TRADING, etc. etc.

Jun 21, 2007

Roy Morgan Research has just completed a comprehensive survey of AFL supporters, and found a few little gems. Compared to other AFL supporters: Carlton fans are 30% more likely to agree that “I sometimes use force to get things done”; Collingwood fans are 12% more likely to agree that “None of this stuff about the information super-highway makes sense to me”; Essendon fans are nearly twice as likely to have consumed Red Bull in the last seven days;

May 19, 2007

It’s almost done. Three weeks, five sets of going-away drinks, two eBay auctions, twelve boxes, and six articles of checked baggage later, I’m sitting in Melbourne airport waiting for my flight. Here is an appropriate picture of a cat, with a grammatically incorrect caption. Apparently it’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. If you thought that was interesting, here’s an academic deconstruction of the above, with the funniest caption you’ll see all day.

Apr 18, 2007

In 576 A.D., Japanese temple-building company Kongo Gumi was founded. In 2006 A.D, burdened by an unserviceable debt load and suffering from a downturn in demand for temples, Kongo Gumi sold itself to another Japanese construction firm, ending the company’s run as Oldest Company in the World. (The current winner is also Japanese: the Hoshi Ryokan (hotel) in Komatsu was founded in 718 A.D., making it 1,289 years old this year.

Feb 19, 2007

I like Safari. And I like Safari’s inbuilt RSS reader. But… I’m switching to (allegedly beta) Google Reader. Mostly, I wanted a web-accessible RSS reader - or, at least, one I could read from my phone and have it synchronise to my desktop. But Google Reader is also pretty cool - it’s all AJAX-a-riffic, has lots of keyboard shortcuts for speedy browsing, and all the cool kids use it. And here’s one of Google Reader’s neatest tricks: you can share your favourite items and have them automagically included in a little webclip on your site.