MPAA DDoS

The Paypal Screwjob

Now imagine my surprise when I got an email from PayPal last Wednesday with the subject "PayPal appeal denied". Because I never had to appeal anything with my PayPal account. Reading through that email I discovered that my account was blocked because they've decided that I'm not allowed to receive donations.

This had me puzzled. Because I know that if a big company like Geeknet Inc., the owner of sourceforge.net offers to their users to use PayPal to receive donations, something had to be wrong with PayPals decision to block my account. So I asked for clarification and of course how I could get all the money I have in my PayPal account back. All I got was some lame default answer.

Classic PayPal move - they freeze your account for "suspicious activity" and you're done. Best to set up with a real back that can't arbitrarily take your funds.

LISA Conf

The Large Installation System Administration conference is coming up in a couple of months. Looks like a hoot! Too bad I can't go.

How's that database working out for you?

No Sybase or DB2?

DeLaTeX

Good for when you see a LaTeX symbol in a paper and you can't figure out how to make it.

An exchange by any other name

This madness was based on a conceptual fallacy. ECNs really weren't broker-dealers; instead, they were exchanges and should have been regulated accordingly. Exchanges traditionally have charged their members fees for accessing exchange trading services. Persons who are not members can only obtain access to the exchange through the facilities of members. Confusing the broker-dealer and exchange models led to unanticipated consequences.

. . . .

Eventually, this road led to Regulation NMS. To level the playing field, all regulated participants--exchanges, ATSs and broker-dealers--were permitted to charge access fees to non-customers, but the amount that could be charged was capped. Among other things, this forced the transformation of the NYSE into a huge ECN forced to compete on a level playing field with other exchanges. It also led surviving ECNs to merge with exchanges or to register as national securities exchanges.

It is a nice conceit to imagine that competition spurs innovation, lower prices and increasing social welfare. But innovation and lower prices are not the only ways to compete, and some methods of competition do not increase social welfare. The flash order is an example of competition's dark side.

What is an ATS, what is an exchange? Who gets screwed? Chaos abounds from ill thought out market structure reform, it seems.

Know your DNS: Chaosnet and Hesiod

While everyone in their right minds uses the IN/Internet class in their DNS servers, Chaosnet (CH) and Hesiod (HS) are still supported if you want to be obscure.