Think you’ve got idiot peers at work? Well the award for this year has to go to this guy who’s trader typo sold 610,000 shares valued at $3.1 billion dollars at 1 yen (about a $1) each, resulting in a $244 million dollars. While technically it IS his fault, one really has to wonder WTF system designer let someone arbitrarily have THAT much control over a stock price. That’s scary that the trade desk software, especially in the billions of dollars would 1. allow a price that deviates from the standard deviation of the current price, and 2. allows the sale of such a huge block of trades without safegards. Most trade desks would sell such a block in smaller chunks to avoid tanking the price. The other theory could be that the system is so severely outdated that you can punch in anything. I’m guessing a 1/4 billion dollar loss will fix that issue. Press more for my cache of the article.
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Ok, so what the heck. Anyhow I was away in Redmond, WA for a Microsoft conference (plus I couldn’t visit or do anything since they were 8AM-10PM sessions), and had to bolt home late night Thursday (Friday 2AM) since my flight was going to be cancelled due to the snow. Anyways, while I was away apparently a mystery maple-syrup smell engulfed NYC, and apparently this happened in October as well. Hazmat and NYPD tested the air, but found nothing, and were unable to trace the source of the smell. Threat or guerilla marketing? Here’s the ABC News Link, or press more for my cache of the story.

Also Google Transit is now available. It’s like google maps but it’ll plot what public transportation you can take to get to your location. REALLY cool.
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