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BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won't hog your phone line

BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won't hog your phone line
If the third digit of your birth year is a nine (or heck, a zero), you'll likely never have experienced the true agony joy that was BBS or Bulletin Board Systems. Well, thanks to nostalgic developer Norbert Landsteiner, you can take a glimpse at how your dad got online with an HTML / JavaScript emulation BBS Google. Likewise, more seasoned travelers of the internet can take a trip down memory lane and see what Mountain View's search engine might have looked like "back in the day." All the details are there, right down to the familiar modem tones and ASCII graphics, it's even somewhat functional (when the API isn't over its limit.) So, want to appreciate that browser you complain about on twitter all the time over your LTE connection? Tab on down to the source link for a lesson in gratitude.

BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won't hog your phone line originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Echo Nest Grabs More Data: Partners With Concert Listing Provider JamBase & SongMeanings

echonestMusic intelligence startup Echo Nest, which you might know better as the company powering Spotify Radio and?Vevo's recommendations, is announcing two new partnerships today which will give developers access to more data to build their apps with. The company is teaming up with?JamBase, which provides concerts listings and tour schedules,?and?SongMeanings, which you've surely come across while Googling to find out what the eff?that guy is actually singing about.

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A Jewish synagogue makes a comeback in Lebanon

The last remaining synagogue in Beirut is undergoing restoration, and will soon host its first rabbi in nearly 40 years. Only 150 members of the Jewish community remain in Lebanon.

? A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.

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Amid the new tower blocks that are changing this city?s skyline rises a newly restored symbol of Beirut?s multireligious society.

The Magen Abraham synagogue is the last Jewish place of worship to survive in Beirut, a lone reminder that a few decades ago a thriving Jewish community lived in the city center.

The Jewish faith is one of the 18 officially recognized sects that exist in Lebanon. When the synagogue was built in 1920 there were some 12,000 Jews in Lebanon. But the Arab-Israeli conflict and Lebanon?s devastating 1975-90 civil war spurred Jews to emigrate, and today there are only around 150 left here.

The last rabbi departed in 1975, and the synagogue fell into disrepair. Much of the structural damage was inflicted, ironically, by shelling from Israeli gunboats in 1982.

Restoration began two years ago and was funded by donations from Lebanese Jews both in Lebanon and overseas. The interior has been restored to its original d?cor with sky-blue walls, arched windows, and whitewashed columns with small brown painted streaks that mimic the fossilized shells in the original limestone columns. Work is expected to be completed by summer, and the first rabbi in nearly four decades is expected to arrive soon.

?Once the rabbi is here, we will be able to hold weddings again,? says a Jewish Council member in Lebanon who oversaw the restoration. He declines to allow his name to be quoted, illustrating that Lebanese Jews still prefer to maintain a low profile.

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Does Quantitative Investing Have a Future? | Enterprising Investor

CFA Institute recently asked its members if quantitative investing has a future and, surprisingly???at least to me, nearly one-third expressed doubts.

What a difference a few years make! It wasn?t that long ago when quants were rock stars on Wall Street. Since they first arrived on the scene in force in the mid-1990s, there have been great successes, including LSV Asset Management and Renaissance Technologies, as well as the occasional and spectacular failure, like Long-Term Capital Management. By and large, though, quantitative investing enjoyed a nice run until 2007. But from the second half of that year through well into 2009, quants underperformed both traditional managers and the market indices by significant margins. Since then, according to Morningstar, relative performance has stabilized. Quants edged out their peers in 2010 and then beat them soundly in 2011.

Be that as it may, the recent CFA Institute member poll results strongly suggest that quantitative investing has a perception problem.

CFA Institute Member Poll: Does Quantitative Investing Have a Future?

There are myriad hurdles for practitioners who pursue this style of investing. The headwinds facing quantitative investors were addressed in great detail in Challenges in Quantitative Equity Management, a Research Foundation of CFA Institute monograph published in 2008. Through surveys and interviews, authors Frank J. Fabozzi, CFA, Sergio M. Focardi, and Caroline Jonas sought to understand the factors that contributed to the recent period of poor performance as well as the ongoing challenges faced by quantitative managers. The monograph remains relevant today and is a quick and interesting read.

A few highlights:

Quantitative Investing?s Appeal

The authors identified three primary objectives motivating investment management firms to pursue a quantitative process: tighter risk control, more stable returns, and better overall performance. An earlier study by Casey, Quirk & Associates in 2005, titled ?The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth?,? found that quantitative-driven processes did offer better risk-adjusted performance than did fundamental managers. Product diversification and scalability were also cited as reasons for implementing a quantitative process.

Assessing What Went Wrong

It is widely believed that the primary reason quant funds stumbled badly beginning in mid-2007 was correlation between managers, compounded by leverage. Common metrics of value and momentum, the argument goes, led quants to hold similar stocks. Then, when stocks began to sell off, many quant managers found themselves racing for the exits at the same time. Leverage employed by some players only compounded the problem. The authors confirmed this hypothesis in the monograph, quoting one manager as follows: ?Everyone in the quant industry is using the same factors. When you need to unwind, there is no one there to take the trade.??As the financial crisis unfolded in 2008 and 2009, the value bias of quant managers drew them to beaten-down financial and cyclical stocks ? the proverbial falling knife. And as the market rebounded in 2009, they were too slow to fully recover.

The improved performance of quants over the past two years may be attributable to the funds? momentum-based models adjusting to the market?s upward trend as well as less competition on both the buy and sell side, as quantitatively-managed assets have???by some estimates???been halved in recent years.

Challenges Ahead

Going forward, the authors argue, the significant challenges facing quantitative managers include correlating markets, style rotation, fundamental market shifts, and insufficient liquidity. They also point to ?too many people using similar models and the same data? as a critical issue facing the industry. Underscoring this observation, the quant managers surveyed by the monograph?s authors cited innovation, or the identification of new or unique model factors, as the most important strategy for improving performance.

Quant managers and their investors would also be well-served by reading ?The Quant Delusion: Financial Engineering in the Post-Lehman Dodd-Frank Landscape? by Stephen Blyth,?managing director and head of internal portfolio management at Harvard Management Company.?In this March 2012?CFA Institute Conference Proceedings Quarterly article, Blyth?discusses how the post-financial crisis investing landscape has been altered???and how quantitative investors must adapt to reshaping forces.?In Blyth?s view, uncertainty abounds: government interventions, including quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Swiss National Bank?s efforts to weaken the franc, have distorted traditional value assessments in some fixed-income markets. Similarly, quantitative managers must assess the market impact of new and evolving regulatory reforms, including Basel III and the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation in the United States.

So does quantitative investing have a future? The answer likely hinges on the industry?s ability to adapt and innovate.

Those themes should sound familiar to all investment managers. Fans of Fabozzi, Focardi, and Jonas, in particular, will appreciate the trio?s more recent monograph entitled?Investment Management after the Global Financial Crisis.

Business abstract illustration from Shutterstock.

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If I file my taxes online, is there a maximum I can claim for donations ...

Question by Worship Jesus or Burn In Hell : If I file my taxes online, is there a maximum I can claim for donations charitble ?
I might use Turbotax to do my taxes online, how do I list charitable donations? Last year I cleaned out my attack and must have given at least three carloads of clothes old furnature, and junk to Goodwill and Salvation army shops-Is there a maximum I can claim? As I?ll be filing online, how do i prove i donated what and when? Best answer:

Answer by Judy
maximum is half your income, so unless it?s really low, not much likelihood of hitting that.You sound a little vague though on just what you donated. You can not take a deduction unless you have an itemized receipt from them. So, household goods, including clothing, must be in good used condition at least, to deduct them. Your deduction is their thrift shop value, not their original cost.You prove what you donated by the IRS showing your receipts if and when they ask for them.


Add your own answer in the comments!

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