LinkedIn was already bad enough, but now it's really bad. 98% of posts are LLM generated, and the few software engineering jobs posted are getting over 100 applicants in 30 minutes hah!
It's from the ground up at this point. I'm in my last Master's course at a very well known and expensive private university in the Northeast. When we have presentations it sometimes feels like maybe 10 to 20% of us actually know the material in our slides. I'm all about generating templates and whatnot, but when every bullet point has an em hyphen and you are stumbling over your words, reading the sentences verbatim and having a hard time expanding on them... That is not someone worthy of being a Master in their field IMO. But these people pay full tuition so I'm assuming they graduate and are all working amongst us.
> just clear evidence that someone must have done it
I would love to hear more about this clear evidence. There is smoke, sure, but clear evidence, I would love to hear more on your investigation.
I've been algorithmically trading for several years now, collecting data, running machine learning prediction algorithms and whatnot. Anyway, I made 4500% off a high risk 1 DTE options play between Thursday/Friday. This trade was put in right before the geopolitical announcements sent the Russell 2000 into Captain Insano mode overnight. This isn't the first time I've done this - it's a valid trading strategy with the continuous drama/volatility that Mr DJT brings to the markets. I'm sure if there are any insider trading flags I set them off on Friday, and for people who have no idea how markets work and what volume normally looks like, it would definitely look like an insider.
I realized long ago that to make money doing this, all bias/emotions need removed and the only thing that can be relied on is math. Have you ever considered that some of the bigger prop shop trading firms with a lot of buying power are just extremely good at what they do?
The source article details multiple cases where trading volume spiked 15 minutes before a market-moving Trump announcement. I don't think it's plausible that prop shops have such good math that they can predict Trump's announcements so precisely.
There are a slew of things that were going on that make it much more probable than you might realize. One non-mathematical factor was that oil was already spiked, the perfect time to short is when it's on the rise, especially with intent of a mean reversion trade. You don't short oil on the trough's, you short on the spikes - the probability of a short working that day was much higher than average.
Next, there are definitely ML algorithms running in prop shops as we speak that are trained on the probability of DJT and media announcements, especially in volatile weeks like we've had. I cannot post the data here, but there is an article on Axios that shows this:
https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/how-and-when-trump-tweets-1...
So not only was a mean reversion probability high, but there were probably prop shop ML algo green lights going off for the probability of an announcement that would give the mean reversion some more fuel. Regular algorithmic trading shops probably added to this volume when their programs saw larger orders coming in, which made the volume spike even larger.
Lastly, Nick Marsh is a journalist, not a professional trader or a professional in algorithmic trading. If he was, he wouldn't be making shock and awe articles for the BBC. For one low hanging fruit, why did he not pull historical data on oil futures - including other derivatives (not only Brent)? He would have needed to pull at least several years of data to understand if this was an actual outlier spike or not. If you have ever even remotely paid attention to the oil futures markets, you would know there tends to be higher volume spikes at any given time, especially after the futures market closes and re-opens between 5 and 6pm, and especially during volatile times like the last couple months.
This article isn't the full picture at all whatsoever and comes from someone who has an elementary understanding of the equity and futures markets. But it served its purpose, which was triggering an easily triggered society. Surely there has been some DJT-linked insider trading, but I personally cannot jump on board until there is more evidence - AKA the scientific method.
Generally losing your well paying tech job in the US is terrible and it is definitely traumatic for people. I've fortunately never been part of one, but at my first real career job at a well known tech company I watched co-workers eliminated like this. Not only was it traumatic for them, it was traumatic for our team as well. They received very nice severance packages, but they still had to find another job within 6 months so they could keep the lights on in their homes. It was a great learning lesson for me. All my career moves after that have been preemptive and from the standpoint that I'm on offense at all times. Never feeling stagnant in a position, keeping options open, etc...
Because in reality no one except for good engineers actually care about what the code looks like. The only thing most users care about with Claude Code is having it quickly vibe code the crappy idea they came up with that is going to 10x their lives, or whatever.
I agree with your last organized religion comment somewhat, but the jump to devout Christians based off some anecdotes comes off as a bit prejudiced. The "not trying to be inflammatory" is a decent pre-emptive hedge attempt, but still falls flat when reading. This is a pattern I see here sometimes, which is criticism of religion drifting into assumptions about specific groups, and it tends to weaken an argument that was otherwise reasonable. And I'm saying this as someone who is extremely critical of Christianity.
The truth is that people are perfectly capable of making bad decisions regardless of their beliefs. Appealing to authority is not unique to religion. You see this same thing in corporate environments, academic circles, political groups, etc... It's probably more useful to focus on that broader dynamic than tie it to a specific group.
There plenty of other criticisms of groups and systems and people in general. But the "God Says So" crowd is very real and has been with us the whole time.
I consider myself to be deeply spiritual and understand the appeal and would even join in the faith if I thought it was real. But I don't. I wish I didn't have to pay any attention to it or care about it or think about it at all. But I do.
The reason I care, and I speak up about it, is that there are factions in power that embody exactly what my "prejudice" criticizes. This is everyone's business because they are making their faith everyone's business.
Edit: I believe this dialog is germane to HN because the subject is literally about the hacking of democracy itself.
I'm not sure what there is to prove wrong. You are biased and have a heart at war against Christianity. There is no way I will convince you of anything. This is a very common bias - I actually shared it at one point years ago. The same line of thinking can be applied to a lot of different groups.
I don't really read the news, so thanks for that link. I am not so sure Hegseth and Co. are great examples of Christianity. I'm also thinking Jesus would not approve of “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy", so the dude's prayers probably will go unnoticed. That political/news sphere doesn't represent Christianity at all IMO and is all just noise. I personally saw thousands of Christians and secular people volunteer side by side during the TN and NC floods. There were even some Islamic people in there as well. It was really wonderful.
There are a lot of good people out there, whether Christian or not. Unfortunately the worst are the best at speaking the loudest. And I'm telling ya... I am harder on Christians than any other type of person, because they should be held to a higher standard. Anyway, instead of being proven wrong, I'd probably just get out and meet some good people, Christian, Muslim, whatever. Have a good time, make some great friends, and definitely not pay attention to the news.
This place is out of control. It's not sane to think that every police encounter is going to be violent. And yes, there are different areas than California. Do you have a chance to be treated poorly or rudely by a police officer? Of course. Is that going to be all the time? Of course not.
Yep, you definitely can't compare the USA to Germany. The rate of non-gun violence alone is a good starting point, then the slew of other stuff. Guns, mental health and tendencies towards violence in both rural and urban low income areas. Icing on top is the deeply polarized attitudes towards police. The list goes on and on...
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