my journal 2

[Yamato]

http://www.youtube.com/user/evilsWa

 

[Yamato]

and the pivot system goes on...

As usual, a few hours after saying "I give up", I went back to it and started working on it again. I can't help it - I am compulsive and I need something to work on.

So, I was in the shower, and I came up with more ideas, such as sticking the soap up the out-of-sample's ass.

No, seriously: I will go forward in terms of both simplification and magnifying. I will literally magnify each trade with the tradestation lens and look at it and see what it does exactly and if it does what I want it to do. There's hundreds of trades, so I really found something to keep me busy during the weekend.

That is, if my friend doesn't come, because now she's got a child, and things will be quite busy for me. But maybe with a baby she's less harmful than without one. Damn, I don't know what to expect. Anyway it's not my baby.

 

[Adamus]

Hmmm, good music.

Careful with that discretionary trade, Travis.

It's like being in an asylum and the psycho has just grabbed hold of the fire axe. Here's Johnny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TVooUHN7j4

 

[Yamato]

You're right - I've switched into compulsive gambling mode again. Potentially I am in big danger. The trade went well, and I was totally right about it. But the problem is always the same: if it doesn't go well, I don't exit and blow out my account. So it doesn't matter how many times I get it right, since there will always be one wrong trade to blow out my account.

Now that it went well, next time it will be a little easier to pull the trigger and get into a trade, and as a consequence that trade will be less likely to be profitable. Yesterday's trade was an extremely oversold situation, just too good an opportunity to miss. Tomorrow's trade won't be as irresistible. The one after that, after 2 consecutive wins, will be a trade made out of: 1) boredom or 2) frustration.

Eventually - within two weeks - I will pick the wrong trade and blow out my account again. Watch me do it. Stay tuned. It will happen by the end of August. It's a small account, between 4k and 5k. That's the size of my accounts lately, and it didn't keep me from blowing out repeatedly.

 

[Adamus]

OK, well not OK actually but what else can I say - did you get back to $4k with profit from your automated trading?

You should call your discretionary trades. The only thing is though you would have to say "a sane person would get out of this trade now, but I'm staying in". And then we can see whether you've actually got a good eye for discretionary trades and know what you're doing aside from the psychotic tendencies, or if it's just the old "no-stops trading is profitable" routine.

 

[Yamato]

Yes, on this newly funded account, after my previous blow-out, I made most of my profit from automated trading. Of course, since my only discretionary trade was yesterday's.

Yes, I did call all the time my discretionary trades. I've documented everything live on this journal for the past year (see "my journal"). I even tell the readers when I take a shower.

My discretionary trading is indeed beyond my control and is definitely NOT profitable. And I cannot help but do it.... I can't help doing it (both correct). But this doesn't keep me from writing about it while I am out of control (see previous 3000 posts for out of control states of mind posts).

What hope do I have? A lot. I think what is fueling my out-of-control discretionary trading is partly my (misplaced) desire to actually make money for real. The only problem is that I cannot handle losing trades (nor winning trades, because I get euphoric), otherwise I would indeed make money. What I mean is that if I could only trade once per month, I would definitely be profitable. But the problem is that one profitable trade encourages me to make more, and to do so more carelessly than the first one... I am sure you know what I am talking about - I don't need to write more about it, after all these posts.

I will leave you with another beautiful song (well sung):

No existe un momento de día
en que pueda apartarme de ti;
el mundo parece distinto
cuando no estás junto a mí.

No hay bella melodía
en que no surjas tú,
ni yo quiero escucharla
si no la escuchas tú.

Es que te has convertido
en parte de mi alma,
ya nada me conforma
si no estás tú también.

Más allá de tus labios
del sol y las estrellas,
contigo en la distancia
amada mía estoy.

César Portillo de la Luz

 

[Yamato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_Karma!

The track features a version of the ever-changing Plastic Ono Band — Lennon on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and electric piano, Billy Preston on grand piano, Klaus Voorman on bass guitar and backing vocals, Alan White on drums, George Harrison on electric guitar and backing vocals, Yoko Ono on backing vocals, Beatles assistant Mal Evans on chimes and handclaps, Beatles then-manager Allen Klein and a dozen or so late-night pub revellers from Hatchetts Pub on overdubbed backing vocals — it was released on 6 February 1970. Backed by Ono's "Who Has Seen the Wind?" (which Lennon produced), it peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and number five on the UK Singles Chart. The pair appeared on Top of the Pops to perform the song live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops

 

[Yamato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Class_Hero

In 1973,[2] U.S. Representative Harley Orrin Staggers heard the song–which features the line "But you're still ****ing peasants as far as I can see"–on WGTB and lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The manager of the station, Ken Sleeman, faced a year in prison and a $10,000 fine, but defended his decision to play the song saying, "The People of Washington [D.C.] are sophisticated enough to accept the occasional four-letter word in context, and not become sexually aroused, offended, or upset." The charges were dropped.

 

[Yamato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Love_(John_Lennon_song)

"Real Love" is a song written by the English rock musician John Lennon. Lennon made six takes of the song in 1979 and 1980 with "Real Life", a different song that merged with "Real Love". The song was ignored until 1988 when the sixth take was used on the documentary soundtrack Imagine: John Lennon.

http://www.themoviesource.org/watch-19939-Imagine-John-Lennon

 

[Yamato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_(song)

 

[Yamato]

scent of scarface

This is just too good not to post it again. This is quality work.

 

[Yamato]

Good stuff:
http://www.letmewatchthis.com/watch-11855-Keeping-Mum

Peacefuly, positive, intelligent... calm... very good quality.

 

[Yamato]

ntoskrnl and ubuntu

Serious bug today, on the server. Each bug makes me stronger and more pissed off, too.

This time the bug got me and my friend involved for hours trying to understand what the **** had gone wrong that caused the server to freeze - first time in 4 months, but it's running xp.

Starting of server: April 14th, 2010


First bug that causes freezing of server: August 13th, 2010


It was a file called "ntoskrnl" - they made a movie about this file, because it disrupts many people's lives.

Anyway, now I am installing goddamn Ubuntu, because my friend convinced me that if I can run TWS in Unix mode (or whatever else he said), and my systems in open office, I won't have any more bugs ever, nor viruses, nor have to run avast... it will be heaven.

So i am getting off my lazy ass yet again. I am always off my ass basically.

Ubuntu is the name of "community" in an african language. I don't know about this, if it's very promising. If Ninjatrader is no good because of its name, Ubuntu should also not be good. I don't think people know much about computers in africa. I didn't see many famous african computer scientists. I am afraid something with this african software will go very wrong and i will definitely blame it on the name when it will happen.

 

[Yamato]

What?!?!

No, thanks!

I installed it fine, but the wireless doesn't work. Then I went online and found thousands of people having such problems. Yes, it also happens with windows. But the problem is that millions of people connect immediately and don't post, whereas here the norm is that you're having a hard time connecting and everyone who has it posts his problems.

No wonder this share of people has xp:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

And only 1% have linux, and even less ubuntu within it.

The widespread use of windows is both the cause of the fact that it has fewer problems and the consequence of the fact that it has fewer problems.

I am sticking with it, and preferring a bug every 6 months, rather than a problem every day. This is bull****. I can't believe I even tried it.

For Operating Systems the same applies as what I said to Adamus for brokers and back-testing platforms. The more people have it, the better. Here, we have 50% vs 1% and there are no doubts. I may consider switching when it will be 25% and 25%.

Yes, today the server crashed, and it was because of windows, most likely because of the antivirus heavy mother ****ing software, and xp has viruses because everyone has it. If i were trading sheep I wouldn't get computer viruses, so that's why ubuntu has none. Because it's underdeveloped and not spread... wait until it spreads and you'll see.

**** this. I'll work to perfect what is almost perfect: XP. Rather than throwing away something that works 99% of the time and change it for something that doesn't work at all.

 

[Adamus]

Re: ntoskrnl and ubuntu

I think you'd have to be ****ing optimistic to hope that your excel spreadsheet and vba script will run in open office. check it out first, seriously.

 

[Yamato]

As I said, I already quit. I am back on xp 100%.

 

[Yamato]

continuing frustrated emotional state

I was let down by the one thing I relied the most on: the overseas nano server.

I am very frustrated. For 4 months it ran smoothly and I had built a lot of confidence in it. Now last night it failed and my friend, ISP provider, tells me "of course, xp servers fail every once in a while", and this totally threw me off balance.

Last week was beautiful for profit, no trades were missed because of the failure, and yet I am still very frustrated because now I know it can fail. Until now I didn't think there could be a bug on the server - not caused by me - that could cause it to freeze and stop working. It wasn't even an excel bug.

I will now try to resume my work on the pivot system, despite the frustration. I am also partly frustrated by how my friend told me it was no big deal, because xp servers will fail every once in a while. It seemed as if he didn't care about my feelings and about the server he was hosting. Or maybe it was a way to downplay the failure of his server. This is not to suggest that he isn't a great guy. He even spent 4 hours with me, trying to fix the bug afterwards, and considered the hypothesis of moving the systems to Ubuntu and all that.

On the other hand, this shows me the beauty of automated trading. If you let your systems run, you could be totally frustrated because of some server or other personal issue, and the systems will perform well, regardless of your emotional state. Now I could be upset all next week and the systems will make money despite it. Of course if the server fails again, then we're all ****ed.

 

[Yamato]

problems ahead

Let me make a list of the problems ahead, to relieve some stress.

1) First problem is that today the server is down, because he said they'd possibly be changing some TCP IP stuff. So this is hopefully not another bug (I wrote him a message inquiring about it). Still, I am concerned about it. Being compulsive, I can't help worrying about this until it will all be over. It's not normal that I cannot connect to the nano server - I had grown to trust it completely. And now we have 2 unexpected things within less than 24 hours: yesterday's bug and today's tcp-ip changes. It's enough to ruin my weekend. I will now have to stress out and make sure everything is perfect by Monday morning.

2) Work on the pivot system. This is the most pleasant problem.

3) Worry about my friend with child coming to visit me next weekend. This will mean that next weekend I won't be able to do any work, and that I'll spend a lot of money on whatever lunches and dinners I'll treat her to. It's almost all bad, but I didn't feel like saying "don't come to Rome" to my friend, and former girlfriend I guess, or something close to it. I really loved this girl - err, "woman" - but she disappointed me.

4) Worry about aging and death and my other usual worries.

5) Take a shower.

6) Give myself a haircut (perfecting yesterday's). Two colleagues told me I must get a haircut at all costs because of my hair being too bushy. A while ago, this korean classmate told me - years afterwards - that I had an "afro", when we were students, suggesting she partly didn't like me because of it. I guess that's why we're still in touch but she doesn't want to come visit me unless she can come with her mom, because she's afraid of my "afro".

7) At will. Anything, neighbours slamming their door. Someone whistling in the street... memories from childhood.

 

[Yamato]

hard disk and compact disc

I was wondering about the difference in spelling between hard disk and compact disc, and I found this useful link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_disc

Disc and disk are the two alternative spellings of the descriptive word for things of a generally thin and circular geometry. These variations are due to the way in which the words originated. The discussion here somewhat focuses on how the word applies to data-storage media. See Disc (disambiguation) for other meanings.

The earlier word is disk, which came into the English language in the middle of the 17th century, and (probably following pre-existing words such as risk) it was spelled with a k. The spelling disc was introduced in the 18th century, following an increasing tendency to base the spelling of words on their roots: in this case the Latin word discus and the Greek word δισκος (note that kappa in Greek is usually transliterated by c rather than k). In the 19th century, disc became the conventional spelling for audio recordings made on a flat plate, such as the gramophone record; this usage gave rise to the modern term disc jockey.[1] Early BBC technicians differentiated between disks (in-house transcription records) and discs (the colloquial term for commercial gramophone records, or what the BBC dubbed CGRs).[2]

By the 20th century, the c-spelling was more popular in British English, while the k-spelling was preferred in American English. In the 1950s, when the American company IBM pioneered the first hard disk drive storage devices, the k-spelling was used. Consequently, in computer jargon today it is common for the k-spelling to refer mainly to magnetic storage devices (particularly in British English, where the term disk is sometimes regarded as a contraction of diskette, a much later word and actually a diminutive of disk).

Some latter-day storage device manufacturers prefer the c-spelling. In 1979 the Dutch company Philips, along with Sony, developed the compact disc medium; here, the c-spelling was chosen. The c-spelling is now used consistently for optical media such as the compact disc and similar technologies.[3]

 

[Yamato]

bad news

The nano server has failed again, this time even worse than yesterday. It basically died, after only 4 months of using it.

My friend went and bought a HP server and we'll be running windows 7 and office 2003 (I'll try the other office, too, just in case it works). Hopefully the systems will run smoothly by Monday.

I was really disappointed by the nano server, but I have to admit my excel file is very CPU intensive, and a server without a fan turned out to be too weak for it.

Here's what the "CPU usage history" looked like, all day long (I thought it would be ok but I was wrong):



Those near 100% peaks are when my excel workbook calculates the moving averages, which recently went from 9 to 13 (the symbols went from 9 to 13 and the systems from 40 to 60), which might have contributed to its early death.

Now I can surely forget working on the pivot system for the whole weekend because I will have to get on vnc or teamviewer, configure everything and test it on edemo (hopefully it will work) and get everything to run smoothly by monday. New computer, new operating system, maybe new excel version: many things could go wrong.

Overall, things are improving. Hopefully I will live long enough to the day when I won't have to update things any more. I want to have a month when i don't do anything. That's what I expect from "automated" trading.

Anyway, this is one field where being obsessive-compulsive really helps. When it comes to running automated systems you don't want to put in charge of them one of those people who get out of a car without first looking there's oncoming traffic. You want people who double-check everything and keep on worrying about the consequences of their actions and of other people's actions. You don't want carefree happy-go-lucky people running automated systems. My obsessive nature really comes in handy.