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After managing an overdue breakthrough of sorts in my FYP, and tying up more loose ends (including applying for further studies at NUS), I decided to just take a few days off as Reading Week looms again. Broke out the old Simcity 4 and plonked down several cities, breaking past the 100000 population mark with one of them - the big one million probably will take some serious creative destruction. 
Gilberta Central Took the opportunity to spend more time with the hamsters too. Mr. Ham G. Bacon got interrogated for his part in the great escape (refer previous post) by my grandmother, who has years of experience with this business under her belt. A few minutes of tough-guy holding out and defiant squeaks of "I'll never tell!"/"Are you trying to steal the food in my mouth?" soon were all that poor Ham could sustain. Okay, actually all that my grandmother wanted to know was whether a hamster has two (bottom) teeth, or three. I had internet evidence, but she insisted on the most direct observational evidence: 
Two teef or three? You decide If that distressed you, click on over to the Puppy Live Cam (recommended). Signing off with the predictions of the week (on $880.75/$1100): $50 on Man Utd (-2.5) vs Stoke City (at 2.00) - Long odds against the long-throw specialists, but a sneaky feeling they'll storm through this one $50 on Tottenham to beat Fulham (at 2.10) - A dramatic turnaround of fortunes by Spurs under Redknapp. What a difference a manager makes.
- + hamsters - ...a found hamster (HamWire) Convicted Campbell's hamster Mr. Fish F. Chips, 1, was recovered from under the bottommost shelf at the back of a storeroom behind a heap of items after a 12 hour-long search that involved multiple family members. Chips was promptly given food resuscitation, and returned to jail. Chips was last seen wrestling with longtime cellmate Mr. Ham G. Bacon on the second storey of their deluxe cell at approximately 4 a.m. on November 8. That was the last that was to be seen of him for over twelve hours, as the dastardly duo staged a prison break between then and 5 a.m., when the rotund Bacon was apprehended by Uncle M after scurrying aimlessly across the living room floor tiles. Partner in crime Chips was nowhere to be found, though, and the worst was assumed after a comprehensive search of the house was completed. Beds were peered under, cupboards opened and flashlights shone, but to no avail. Grandfather even went on a fruitless search about the void deck, in case the intrepid hamster had taken a fifteen-storey plunge off the balcony. No body was located. No signs of life were observed either, though advice from the Internet indicated that the species was known for its nocturnal habits, and could very well lay low for days on end. Several searchers concluded that Chips was lost forever after a few hours of their best efforts, and suggested a replacement cellmate for a blissfully ignorant Bacon, who spent much of the intervening time dozing off. Explanations along the lines of Chips having a more magnificent destiny as a wild hamster after floating to the grass unscathed were suggested. Uncle P was one of the few dissenters, and following standard practice, food caches (including peanut butter) were laid out more in hope than anything. 
Chips' hideout Things were looking bleak until Uncle M returned from work and set about the rescue operation methodologically, as befits an engineer. The television cabinet was first to be dismantled, but it was not until something furry was felt huddled in the shadows of the storeroom, was the matter resolved. Chips put up a valiant last stand, having taken a dust bunny hostage, but gave himself up after an offer of three honey stars and a dab of peanut butter. 
Chips, back behind bars The prisoner was returned to his rightful location amidst much rejoicing, whereupon having tasted liberty he embarked upon an energetic spate of wheel-running, in between bouts of attacking Bacon for already having taken possession of his secret stashes in his short absence. The two will continue serving their life sentences, with Chips' additional ten years for his latest transgression to be run concurrently. Reaction to the breakout has been mixed - while it has caused many to be able to better appreciate life's little pleasures, various hamster freedom fighter groups have hailed Chips as an inspirational hero, and reaffirmed their pledges for "Liberty or Death, or at least four honey stars". ...a written report Or reaching campus for a meeting with my advisor with not much new to report, and realising that he wasn't free anyway. Figured out some extra stuff about the Torque Game Engine, so I'll probably be able to survive the 10-15 page CA Report to be submitted by Wednesday. Come to think about it, I probably don't need to be concerned overmuch about the page limit, since it's more common to have to slash than to stuff in my experience. A literature review being part of the report helps alot. More news - Caligari trueSpace 7.6 [127 MB], a 3D modelling/animation package which used to cost upwards of US$800, is now absolutely free of charge (thanks to Microsoft). It's gonna take time to learn humanoid character modelling, but when there's a will, there's a way. MakeHuman [28.6 MB] will probably help in producing the initial body frame, but there are of course multiple ways. I've already tried Blender for an MNO movie, and will probably need its DTS Exporter some time or other. Of course, I suppose just modelling rigid structures first is much easier, and indeed doing the easy stuff first is the way to go - at least there will be a guaranteed end product. ...Man Utd to beat Arsenal One can hope. Despite all of Arsenal's troubles, the Fink Tank still gives them a 41% chance of winning outright, as opposed to 35% for United, based on computer modelling. Singapore Pools has United as the favourites at 2.25 for the win, compared to 2.77 for the Gunners though, and they actually put their money where their mouths are. My unlikely draw trifecta last week nearly materalized, if not for a Roman Pavlyuchenko winner in injury time (again, not that I minded). That still paid out a virtual $236.25 for the best week so far this season, and corrected my overall numbers to a more respectable $880.75/$1000. The selection this week is obvious: $100 on Man Utd to beat Arsenal (at 2.25)
- outings - - Kate Monster, on getting the wedding bouquet #2 Quote of Avenue Q (Spoiler) - Bad Idea Bears, on beer logic Caught the Singapore run of the musical at the Esplanade Theatre (Circle 2, HH-22) on Tuesday night with fake chong, occ & joseph, and thus will never look at Sesame Street the same way again after a dose of "full frontal puppet nudity". I again heard another familiar-sounding song that no-one knew the title too before the show began. Argh. At least I recalled one of my life's ambitions, to beat up a Teletubby, on the trip there. Once again, I didn't manage to find the names of the cast members on the official site, though it seems that most of them are from the Philippines. Maybe the details were in the programme, but since I already owed fifty-five bucks to occ for the ticket, more purchases were not on my mind. Okay, on to the show proper. General spoilers coming on, but you wouldn't care, would you? The opening numbers, "What Do You Do with a BA in English" (Youtube clip) [or Computer Science/Economics for that matter] and "It Sucks to be Me" (Youtube clip) fairly resonated with me (btw I don't want to talk about my FYP). Tidbit: The real Gary Coleman (if you know him, your American pop culture-fu is strong) supposedly wanted to sue the producers for the inclusion of his character. Gay issues surfaced between the puppets Rod (i.e. Bert from Sesame Street) and Nicky (i.e. Ernie) in "If You Were Gay" (Youtube video, Harry Potter version). "Purpose" (Youtube video) ["that little thing that lights a fire under your ass"] was okay, nothing too special relatively. "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" (Youtube video), it's true (but a milestone was passed today on that, on which more later). So just be careful where and to who you tell your must-listen ethnic jokes to. Then probably the most famous song of the lot: "The Internet Is For Porn" (Youtube clip, Harry Potter version again) [indeed. it seems safe to say that at least close to half the bandwidth of the whole Internet is devoted to, what else, happy people] - Kate Monster, Delusion of the Year Award Winner, probably right up there with Quote #1 and #2 Twenty minute intermission, then Act Two. After we have "There is Life Outside Your Apartment" and "The More You Ruv Someone", there comes Schadenfreude (Youtube clip - Wikipedia definition) ["When I see how sad you are... it makes me sort of... happyyyyy" - "Happiness at the misfortune of others... that's German!"] Despite what happens in the show, it's probably impossible to get badly hurt by a penny dropped from a high place. Just saying. "I Wish I Could Go Back to College" (Youtube clip) [the idea is not to leave in the first place - oh and "to f**k my TA" must have brought back memories for someone :P] Next: "The Money Song" and "School for Monsters" (go look them up yourself). Despite Trekkie Monster's suddenly revealed riches ["In volatile market, only stable investment is porn!"], it turns out that porn probably isn't recession-proof any longer. Two songs repeat, then it all closes with "For Now" (Youtube clip). ["George Bush - is only for now!" (more later)] Yup, things are only for now! In a way it does suck a little to be me, but surely there are people far worse off, though that doesn't (and shouldn't) completely negate that sucky feeling. A little more hope, a little change needed? RMBR (no, not remember)  Always wondered what the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (at S6) was all about, but never found an excuse to drop by until demanded to by my LSM1301 module. I have to say it's the place to go if you have a thing for dead animals. Here's a slice of the tree that possibly gave Changi its name, cut down without approval (preservation process):  There was a landmark Changi Tree before WW2 - supposedly over 20 stories tall, imagine that!    Yep, if staring at dead stuff is your kind of thing, you'll have a wonderful time. Joking aside, the colours on the specimens were quite brilliant, impressive given that some of the specimens date from the 19th century.  This is a lousy photo of a cute reminder not to touch the specimens. Nice, but I would have missed both it and the "No Flash Photography" sign had I been slightly less attentive. The exhibition closed off with a bunch of dead rats, and due to the influence of my hamsters I managed to find some of the smaller ones rather cute. In fact rats are supposedly friendlier to young kids than hamsters (no biting). While we're on the subject of animals, here's one of the School of Computing Cats that I took a photo of some time ago:  Obama Wins  The landmark that was often predicted has actually been reached - America has its first (partly) black president. Good day all around for people of pigment as Hamilton picked up the F1 title (and Massa must be cursing his pit team's mess-up in Singapore). The Onion got it spot on again as they declared that the USA "was finally shitty enough to make social progress" (remember how prescient "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'" [2001] was?) Still, behind all the Hope and Change and GOBAMA chants, a few interesting things to note:
 (Source: CNN)Still, interesting times ahead, and whatever happens Obama couldn't possibly be worse than Bush. Right?  So will a great nation be United again? Stay tuned.  (Source: goalsforamericans.org) New FIFA Rule  (Older examples) The Laws of the Game aren't rewritten often, but it seems a new rule has been added: "A direct free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any of the following offences in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force..." "...being jumped at by an opponent." True, everyone's a bit of a hypocrite, but when someone who rails against diving in his autobiography and in the press does his best dying swan impression, I guess he can take some stick for it. And if you have some time to spare, check out what it was like in 1783 courtesy of The Onion.
- changelog - changelog v1.09b --------------- * New comments, regardless of age of original post, will now trigger an email for Instant Response:  Only a week and a bit left to the Interim Report for the HYP to show what I've done on it so far (hint: not that much), but I think I'll keep my mind off it tonight at least, since there are still five or six months remaining, and my advisor seems to be hinting that the Report is not that important anyway (first batch to kana it. Gah) - I'll just have to bone up on my Desperation Programming feat once the examinations end. I think I'm pretty decent at that, by the way. So, just in case anybody was wondering what a Computer Science university undergraduate does (other than First off, I opened the Word document describing the lab. "Lab III: Neural Networks for Decision Making". Hmm. Next up was several pages mostly describing the classes and methods in the provided skeleton code, which weren't very inviting. A summary: The lab is about implementing a simple neural network AI for (sixteen) robot enemies in a simple first-person shooter game (so simple that there's only one weapon, and not even any walls). There's Data Collection program code, Neural Network program code and the actual Simulation (game). The idea is to collect data using the Data Collection program, feed this data into the Neural Network program to create a neural network, and have the robots use the neural network to make decisions in the Simulation, and we're done. Ta-dah! The high-level overview is simple enough, but coding all the nitty-gritty stuff isn't that straightforward. Furthermore, I didn't have any practical experience with neural networks (thereafter NN). The general idea behind NNs (AFAIK) is that they allow, given a selected set of inputs, to predict (certain) outputs. Let's have a simple example with two inputs: Age and educational level, and one output, the probability of getting refunded on a bad investment. Using this, we set up NN with three layers - the input layer, the output layer and a hidden layer (with perhaps two cells [why?]) in between them. Having defined the structure of the NN, it's time to train it with actual data. Each input is ideally normalized such that it has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 1. So, for age, we can have 0 years old as zero, and 122 years (current record) as 1. For educational level, we can probably work out some scale with no formal education at all as 0, and a terminal degree as 1. So let's say we encounter Mr. X, a 70 year-old retiree with primary school education, who got his money back. Then, the input data would be something like (0.57,0.2), and the corresponding output data is (1). Next is Mr. Y, a 30 year-old investment banker with an MBA who probably isn't going to get anything back. His data would be (0.25,0.9),(0.01). By feeding all these data into the NN and iterating many times, the weights for the cells in the hidden layer(s) are eventually adjusted such that feeding the exact same data back into the NN corresponds very closely to reality, i.e. the NN is sort of a black-box function that will take (0.57,0.2) as input and give a value that is very close to the actual output of 1 back. Why is this useful at all? The answer is that the NN allows output to be predicted with a certain level of intelligence for new data. Even given only the two sets of data so far, it wouldn't take much to guess that (0.71,0.15) should have an output closer to one than zero, and the other way around for (0.22,1.0). While this (and the Lab 3 NN) are rather simple examples that a human should have little trouble working out, I suppose NNs really shine when things get complex with dozens of inputs and outputs, which probably can't be adequately expressed with basic rules-based logic (e.g. FSMs). Now, using only the age and educational level probably will not be enough to successfully determine whether a person gets back his cash all the time, since other factors like proportion of assets invested, evidence of misselling etc will come into play. Now one can of course model all the inputs one can think of (such as the last digit of the person's NRIC), but many will obviously be of minor or no consequence to the decision and only serve as unwanted noise. Thus, a balance is required - another win for Common Sense. The next step was then to peruse the module's online forum on the IVLE, to get up to date on any time-wasting bugs, receive other students' insights so far (i.e. learning through others' experiences) and get a general idea of how to proceed. One of the few benefits of starting a lab assignment late. Data Collection to a text file wasn't too hard - just dump S sets of L lines, where S is the number of samples taken and L = I+O, where I is the number of chosen inputs and O the number of required outputs respectively. I chose I = 4 and since robots have three available actions (Idle, Flee and Attack), O = 3. Now on to the NN code. Reading the data in from the previous phase wasn't hard, and running the NN was easy too. Then the first major hitch struck. The actual NN structure (complete with weights, biases etc) had to be exported out to a file, to be read in by the Simulation code. The NeuralStructure class is constructed by incrementally adding new Layers, and there was no provision for injecting attributes directly within them (instead of building those attributes through training). I wasted a good few hours trying to serialize the object (the cheapskate way), though I should have gotten the hint that nested objects don't serialize easily (yes, sometimes C++ makes me want to bash my head against the wall). I ended up just adding new constructors that take in saved data in array form, which wasn't quite that hard since the values have a fixed structure behind them. Finally, the Simulation program itself. I loaded the NN within the RobotManager instance and just had each Robot send their current input values to it every so often. They would then get back output values for the Idle, Flee and Attack actions, and perform whichever was the highest. I daresay even this very simple implementation shows a flicker of intelligence - see below video for example (using a NN which has the robots pursue and attack if close enough, and flee once their health is low enough compared to the player's). Note that in the group battle at 0:40, a robot flees once it is hurt sufficiently, but turns back to give support fire once the player switches his attack target - without this behaviour being explicitly specified! Okay, in this application a few lines of logic would probably have performed just as well, but that takes all the fun away, doesn't it? In the end, this lab took the better part of two days, with a big chunk of time sucked up by the ill-fated serialization attempt. So, moral of the story is, just get your head down and code, and things won't be too bad. Chins up!  More random stuff: My cousin gave me an overgrip for my tennis racket. It truly feels non-slip now as compared to the original smooth one, though the handle's become a teeny bit too fat for my liking. Also found a Buddhist intro-book, I Wonder Why, by Thubten Chodron (an American nun, and History major) lying around. A sign that it's time to branch out and widen my range of exploration (and likely critique)?
- + hamsters - Got a few lingering tasks done today - did the sole Econs tutorial released so far, cleared up some more legacy issues from the summer job, booked my IPPT (ulp) for January, started reading up for the Game Development Lab 3 etc... The last (all-MCQ) midterm was returned, and on this one I got a rather average score. Some I could put down to not having gone through the notes ("top of ivory tower syndrome"), but getting the income and substitution effects confused was something I would have kicked myself over, had I been flexible enough. They were introduced in junior college, for beep's sake! Looking at the big picture, I probably shouldn't even be caring about these bits of carelessness; The main concern should be how dumb I am, all things considered. Doing pretty well in Economics as far as grades go is one thing, but then it's all been down to recycling a few key concepts. In the end, pretty much all I did was some combination of solving (admittedly sometimes tedious) simultaneous equations, performing basic differentiation, and applying Bayesian (read: common-sense) probabilities across most of my Economics modules, with some domain knowledge linking it all together. Nothing special at all. 
Worse, It'll probably be more of the same inadequacy in grad school. Cue old joke about mathematicians faced with canned food on a desert island beginning "First, assume a can opener..." (Source: PhD Comics) Some proofs in Game Theory were quite satisfying - I wouldn't have realised that first-price and second-price auctions differed so much in their theoretical underpinnings, though they do converge in cases where there is a large number of bidders (for one particular first-price equilibrium at least - the rigorous and complete derivation appears out of the scope of this module). Still, my speed at solving such questions isn't particularly impressive, and I'm ashamed to say that even moderately complex simultaneous equations are potentially draining for me - often, after a few steps in, my mind would be wandering onto what I could be doing instead (like conquering the world in Civ 4 on epic speed at gigantic map size). Oh, for that wonderful technical ability to be able to look at abstract symbols and manipulate them effortlessly! Then again, the history of science occasionally appears weird to me. For instance, algebra and counting numbers have been around for easily thousands of years, but a systematic study of probability came into being only about five hundred years ago. While it is difficult to believe that the ancients did not have an intuition about chance, it seems that none of them managed to relate it to fractions, or thought of them multiplying (i.e. an army is less likely to attack when it is raining, and less likely to attack when it is weak. The enemy army is weaker, and it is raining, so...) in any formal way. Indeed it is well known that Pascal introduced the notion of expected value (which by the way is sufficient to get through a lot of economical toy problems) only in the 1650s, thanks to a gambler friend. I suppose since proving a known result is almost always much easier than getting the result in the first place (related: P=NP), what seems so obvious from being commonly taught nowadays, might have taken a quite superhuman leap of intellect to originate. Imagination >>> Knowledge. Apart from this, there are other bothersome issues, chief among the non-FYP related ones being that of the hamsters. I thought that we were all best buddies after one of them presumably felt comfortable enough to relieve himself in my hand, but recently they have come to arbitrarily reject sunflower seeds again. It seems my post as official hamster food delivery guy has come up for grabs, but no fear: 
A campaign is in order (Effect from: Vectortuts) The fate of the civilized world will be determined in three days by the good people of America, but as I have a more important consideration in my FYP I regret that I will have to give it a miss. It would be entertaining if McCain scrapes out a come-from-behind victory, but the thought of Palin as Most Powerful Human on Earth in the not-improbable event that McCain passes on while in office is equal parts scary and hilarious. While we're at it, why not get Paris Hilton on the ticket too? Oh, and Obama knows Computer Science too. Should be worth some geek votes. Eked out a positive return on last week's play-predictions with Sunderland doing it over Newcastle (now up to $644.50/$900). Spurs incredibly came from 4-2 down in the last few minutes to consign Arsenal to a "4-4 defeat", which pulled Redknapp another few notches up in my estimation. Hull are somehow 12/1 outsiders to beat United despite being on top of them in the league table, with United again being quoted a 2.5 goal handicap. Singapore Pools must know that there are a lot of Man Utd fans/brandname consumers out there. Nothing especially exciting this week, and I don't feel like going with the usual Big Four wins, so I might as well let loose on some draws: $50 on Middlesbrough to draw West Ham (at 3.15) $25 on West Brom to draw Blackburn (3.15) $25 on Tottenham to draw Liverpool (3.20)
- LSM1301 lecturer on deuterostomes "NUS Fights Climate Change" - banner at entrance of Arts Canteen, next to LT9 "Buy Tiger Tooth Necklaces" - temporary stall outside LT9, next to Arts Canteen Yum yum. It turns out that a person is quite often not wholly correct in his assertions, unless of course (s)he is a politician, in which case (s)he is always right and the response is to deny everything and sling mud at opponents. Or (some) teachers, in which case (s)he was only testing if you're alert (however I can sympathize with the [sometimes undeserved] lack of respect [some] teachers get). Or... Okay, let's move on. Puzzlecrack 2008 Team FourOKOJ/C.fckbsds solved all four daily puzzles in this year's edition of Puzzlecrack, sadly not fast enough to claim any prizes. But hey, it's for the challenge! Keeping on theme, I can't count the number of times we went down the wrong track here, although that's only to be expected. Did most of the stuff for Monday, helped a bit on Tuesday (thanks to some nice tools), next to nothing on Wednesday (major credit: twm) and finally solved Thursday by myself (this is not saying much, since the winning team for Thursday settled it in seven minutes - it may be a good one to try if you're new though). As team member C.Wenhoo said, "breadthwise search power increases exponentially with number of team members", so I guess we could be in with a shout with more (i) organization and (ii) participation. I'll see what I can do about a one-input decrypt-many-ways script one of these days. Puzzlecrack worryingly resembled my HYP, which is my major concern after this semester's mid-term exam results were probably the best of all my semesters so far (again, that's not saying much - the marks from CS4213 reinforcing the impression that one can score well without actually knowing much in detail). Actually, research is probably worse, since for Puzzlecrack you know that there surely exists a solution, since somebody (sadistic) set the problem up. And this brings us to... Grad School Sought the opinion of my main mentor-professor, but didn't get any earth-shattering insights that could tip my decision firmly one way or the other. There seems to be a consensus that it would only be surely worth it to forsake NUS for a top-10+ ranked CS department in the USA, though, with the distinction in quality of education blurring between 10+ and 20+, with NUS probably a better choice once we hit the low twenties and thirties (which seems reasonable considering stuff like the Engineering & IT rankings from THES [criticism], since direct comparism between grad schools internationally appear hard to find).
Actually, I'm teetering towards NUS (as I don't see myself as a professor-type, for now anyway). With each application to a USA grad school costing upwards of a hundred bucks, just shooting them off sounds rather unattractive... so, spend the cash, or eat the words? More on Minibonds Last month, I expressed the opinion that the general public/stakeholders should not be made to indirectly subsidize (i.e. pay) for the mistakes made by particular individuals who went in search of higher returns (but got unlucky). Well, it turns out that some who got caught up in Lehman-linked investments were old uncles and aunties, who with all due respect aren't the sort whom would be comfortable calculating portfolio risk variances. Quite a few of them were going for the tried-and-tested zero-risk (well, if the bank doesn't collapse) fixed deposits, but were persuaded into "very safe" structured investments instead. It turns out that some of them may have been badly advised by their relationship manager, and thus probably should get something back (though the worst-case scenario remains to get nothing). Taking DBS as an example, as they expect to pay out $70-80 million in compensation to investors who put in about $360 million, it seems safe to say that for each fully-compensated person, four will go empty-handed. Quite clearly these likely younger/better-educated persons aren't too happy at losing out to the "vulnerable" group, with some among them claiming to be quite as "ignorant" too. Now, such investments are inherently risky to an extent - the fact that it offers a higher interest rate illustrates that by the universal No Free Lunch rule, and really, investors should be expected to know that at the very least. Of course, if a relationship manager explicitly told an 80 year-old granny that there was "absolutely no chance" of default, then it's the bank's fault. Continuing on to investors who recognized the existence of risk - did they bother to ask about the worst-case scenario, and did the relationship manager volunteer this information (probably not)? Opinions can differ on this, but really I feel that anybody who is going to entrust a substantial portion of his wealth to a financial institution should at least have taken the responsibility to ask that one question (and also weighed the chance of the institution failing). The alternative is of course to quietly collect the higher returns (as doubtless some structured products have managed to give) if things go well, and make a lot of noise and demand one's money back when things go wrong. Obviously if authorities cave in each time this happens, there would be no downside at all to buying risky investments - heads I win, tails I can't lose. Therefore, in principle and in general, such bailouts should not be (and in reality usually are not) done. The solution, as often happens, is knowledge. As I have suggested, the worst-case scenario for any financial product could be printed prominently at the top of each contract or brochure (like those lung cancer pics on cigarette boxes). If mandated by the government to all banks, no bank would be worse off under this regulation. Yes, a bank might argue that hey, though the worst-case is to lose everything, we calculate that there's only a 0.1% chance of it happening, so making us reveal this makes us look unfairly bad. To this my answer is that if the risk is that low, why not have your quant wizards work their mathematical magic and whip up a product which guarantees a minimum of like 90% (backed by the bank) in the worst case, by reducing returns when good things happen? In effect, this shifts the work of portfolio balancing from clients to banks, eliminating doomsday outcomes, while leaving those who want to take their own risks in stocks or other derivatives (with or without private non-bank funds) with no excuses. One can argue that while this might reduce the choices of informed investors, these investors should be okay with going it themselves, instead of desiring the pseudo-assurance of having their funds administered by a big bank with all the connotations of trust and responsibility that brings. Allowing banks to double as investment agencies is problematic this way (but of course when the going is good, "free market" and "liberalization" are the iron-clad mantras). I would gather that most investors are risk-averse anyway, and would be happy with such an "innovation". Then again, there will always be the greedy breed who will be attracted solely to the highest returns with "reasonable-looking" risks, but then there are inveterate gamblers too, and neither have my sympathy. Misc. Cool Links Nothing particularly wrong with these - just had to post them before I forgot about them totally.
Nifty treemap by WinDirStat
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