<r>Is this what you're looking for (begins on page 3 of the PDF (page 522 of the proceedings))?: <URL url="http://edwardothorp.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ExtensionsOfTheBlack-scholesOptionModel.pdf"><LINK_TEXT text="http://edwardothorp.com/sitebuildercont ... nModel.pdf">http://edwardot...

<r>QuoteAt some level, physical engineering disciplines have it easy because there's a one-to-one congruency between the blueprint drawing and the final object. Even a child can tell whether a blueprint (e.g., of a triangular peg) and an object (e.g., a round peg) do or don't match.. I'm not sure th...

<r>I expect that the edX MOOC referenced by Polter, which is being presented by one of the authors of CTM, will be good -- I see it starts on 17 February.Another resource on this topic that is more oriented towards experienced professionals and that you might find interesting is: _Seven Languages in...

<t>There *is* a software engineering equivalent to the drawing you showed: It's software code. Software code is the equivalent of engineering blue prints -- the computer uses the code (in a compiled or interpretable format) to actually produce the finished product in much the same way that a mechani...

<t>A few comments on your original question:I always try to approach a problem from a least two different directions. Part of that has to do with the fact that I've been programming long enough that, when I started, there was more emphasis on "getting it right the first time". By approaching a probl...

<r>QuoteSounds like you owe the FSA a Christmas ham. And best wishes for new regulations in the new year!Haha! Yes. Although, to direct the blame more appropriately, EU bureaucrats and the banks themselves were actually the cause of most of the problem, not the FSA. Due to this project, my then-empl...

<t>QuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnA guess is that > 80% of software in the world (still) runs on COBOL and JCL with Java as the front end.Kind of puts C++ and C# in the ha'penny place.My few friends who still program in COBOL are rapidly finding it harder and harder to find work, so I'm guessi...

<t>If we simply had to report trades, Farmer, yes, it would have been done in a week. There were a huge number of rules that all had to be obeyed *exactly* about which trades needed to be reported when and to whom -- some had to be reported in less than three minutes, and some had to be reported in ...

<t>One of my good experiences, from the outsourcing end, may or may not be useful to you:One of the world's larger investment banks hired my then-employer to produce trade reporting software. There was a hard deadline: By Act of Parliament, the software had to be completed by a fixed date, or our cu...

<r>Anyone read (or, at least, browsed this book)?:Simon Hubbert, Essential Mathematics for Market Risk Management.<URL url="http://books.global-investor.com/books/816804/Simon-Hubbert/Essential-Mathematics-for-Market-Risk-Management/"><LINK_TEXT text="http://books.global-investor.com/books/ ... anag...

<t>An interesting theory, rmax. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some truth to it. :/Windows Metro was inspired by Windows Mobile -- the idea being that you can write one app for both, and some CSS will take care of presenting the app in a manner appropriate for the device. Unfortunately, both A...

<t>QuoteOriginally posted by: MHillIf it's priced in USD, it must only be tradeable between the NYSE opening & closing times...When contracted to write a trade reporting system for one of the world's larger investment banks, I had this conversation with their IT department: IT rep: "So how long ...

<t>The "how many barbers?" problem is a variant of Fermi's famous piano tuners problem. They're looking to see how well you can estimate something. I'm guessing they'll expect your answer to go something like the following (perhaps, with different numbers):There are about 150 million men in the Unit...

<t>QuoteOriginally posted by: Actuary321I think the point is that a plumber would design better plumbing tools then an engineer.Hands downNo, a plumber would not DESIGN better plumbing tools than an engineer. The plumber knows plumbing well, but he likely knows very little about metallurgy, manufact...

The gamma distribution is commonly used to model "waiting times" -- as in "waiting for death" (life in insurance) or "waiting for default" (credit derivatives).