Humor4u

Join me and many other developers at Droidcon London at the end of October. "Why Droidcon London?," you ask? Great question, thanks for asking! The answer is simple. But because I wanted to write more than six sentences to justify taking up your time reading this, I'm going to take longer to explain. For one thing, there will be developers. Everywhere. Hanging from the rooftop, dangling from the balcony, occupying every seat - nothing but developers, developers, developers. None of these business-blogger types, no management consultants (well,  very few anyway ) peddling their wares; just developers. So the people you talk to are exactly the people you want to connect with; other programmers learning the same stuff to solve the same problems that you have. Also, there are always great technical talks. Developers aren't just in the seats and hanging from the fluorescents; they're up on stage talking about the stuff they know. In many conferences, the people on sta

Based on Adele's song from her third album 25 , this  activity  can be used with Intermediate level and up. The main focus is listening to chunks, followed by discussion of the song and reviewing  the use of like/as. UPDATE (23.7.2019): After consulting Adele's official website  it does seem that the bridge of the song goes It's hard to admit that... and not "It's had to win me back" as previously believed - thank you to my wonderful teacher trainees for pointing it out. The handout and the teacher's notes have been updated accordingly. It's been a while since I posted a song-based activity, so here's one for one of my favourite songs this year. Handout Procedure Activity A (Pre-listening) Play just the second chorus - from 2.58 to 3.51 in the video embedded above. Activity B (Listening) Play the whole song (from 0.42). Students listen and tick the chunks they hear. Allow 1 min to compare the answers in pairs before taking feedback. The answer ke

You have a cross-country trip to take, and it's a must-do trip.  You have to leave immediately and all that are available is a charter plane and your choice of two available pilots.  The first pilot has flown this plane before but has a longstanding negative reputation as being someone who will overcharge you and most likely take you to unannounced stops before (p ossi bly) arriving at your destination.  The second pilot loudly announces how great the ride will be and how dishonest the other pilot is, but has never flown a plane before. Must-do trip. Two pilots. Your choice. Further Reading:  Why Character Matters .

One question active traders too often fail to ask is, "What would I be doing with my life if I weren't trading?" We're familiar with the direct costs of trading, such as the expenses we incur for software, commissions, and the like.  Less clear are the indirect costs--and especially the opportunity costs--associated with trading.  When we're glued to screens, there are many activities we cannot participate in.  Some of those activities may represent areas of strength, ones where we could excel and contribute.   I meet many traders who limp along in their profitability, afraid to ask the big questions, because they not sure what they would do with their lives if they weren't trading.  They justify trading as a "passion", when in fact it's a black hole that has sucked them in so far that they cannot see an alternative future. Is your trading giving you the financial and emotional returns you desire? Are you a better person for your trading, or does

Traders are often concerned that their ideas might fail simply because they have become "too consensus".  That is, if many other participants are positioned in the same idea, the risk/reward may become negatively skewed.  There aren't many traders left to move the position further in the desired direction and, should prices start to move the other way, there can be a stampede for the exits quickly putting positions under water. Sentiment in the stock market is one way of gauging market psychology and whether there may be a bullish or bearish consensus.  Unfortunately, the standard measure for assessing sentiment, the put/call ratio, has several weaknesses.  First, it often mixes together put and call trading for stock index options and for the options on individual equities.  My work shows those are different distributions, with different impacts on markets.  The equity-only put/call measure, where options across all exchanges and all listed issues are included, has been

I recently posted on the importance of identifying who is in the market as a way of gauging how the market is likely to move, tracking the behavior of large institutional participants.  A different way of assessing market participation is by looking at speculative sentiment in the market.  This can be accomplished by looking at total options volume, not just the ratio of put volume to call volume.   When total equity options volume (volume of options trading for stocks listed across all options exchanges) is in its lowest quartile going back to 2014, the next 10 days in SPY have averaged a loss of -.51%.  When total options volume has been in its highest quartile, the next 10 days have averaged a gain of +.91%.  If we strip out the role of total trading volume from total options volume in a regression model, we find that when pure options volume is in its lowest quartile (as was the case after Monday's close), the next 10 days in SPY have averaged a loss of -.41% versus an average

PENANTIAN BERHARGA By : RIZKY FEBIAN Intro : F D7 Gm C 2x F D7 dahulu kita terbiasa Gm C selalu menunggu terus menunggu F D7 berharap datang seseorang Gm C untuk melengkapi kisah hidup ini F D7 terlalu sulit melangkah Gm C tuk temukan yang selalu dinantikan F D7 hingga kita pun berjumpa Gm C tiada lagi alasan untuk menunda Chorus : A# Gm akhirnya kita bersama Am D7 setelah menanti lama A# Gm semoga selalu terjaga Am Dm ahaa wouuu wouuu ..... A# Gm waktu telah berbicara Am D7 menanti tak sia-sia A# Gm karna kau yang kini ada Am Dm ahaa wouuu wouuu..... Gm C sangatlah berharga F D7 bertahan di kesendirian Gm C telah menuntunku menemukanmu F D7 tanpa ragu aku berikan Gm C semua rasa cinta yang tersimpan lama F D7 penantian selama ini

SAAT HUJAN By : FADE2BLACK feat AUDREY TAPIHERU Intro : F C Dm A# F C ku tumbuh berbunga Dm harum dan berwarna A# karena kau hujaniku F C ku tumbuh dewasa Dm dan tambah percaya A# kau hujaniku F aku merangkai banyak hal dari setetes racun C seperti butiran embun di permukaan daun Dm menceritakan banyak hal dari ratusan pantun A# buang pedoman tuk tentukan mana buru mana santun F meskipun jatuh dari angkasa C partikel hydro meteor sentuh bumi basahi jiwa Dm jadi air ini punya tujuan ketika turun A# memberi harapan di setiap tetes mengalun F ini waktu yang tepat untuk kita bertemu C saat air langit menutup jejak rindu Dm basahmu redakan ragam letpuan emosi yang terjebak A# sejak langit lupa akan bumi Dm saat hujan apa kabarmu A# lesu roman bersinar di lidah yang kaku Dm bahagia mengalir di deras air yang turun A# menyamarkan air mata yang t

TraderFeed will be taking a sabbatical during the month of October, with occasional postings on the market and on trading psychology.  During the sabbatical, I'll be finishing a co-edited book on brief therapy and completing a personal project.  That personal project will be a major subject during November's posts. Over the October sabbatical, I'll also provide occasional updates of scores from my multivariate model , which I've revised to include a new measure of sentiment.  That new measure views put volume and call volume as independent variables, rather than simply taking the ratio of the two.  So we look for occasions when put volume is unusually high or low and the same for call volume. Model scores range from +6 (very bullish) to zero (neutral) to -6 (very bearish).  The chart above shows average 10-day returns as a function of model score from 2014 to the present.  Hit rates on trades taken mechanically have been as one would expect from the above chart, with 64