Automated Trading Championship 2008 has begun!

This is my second year entering the automated trading championship. Basically, you write a program that automates your trading strategy. In this case it's currency trading. Then you put your program in the contest and watch it do its thing against other (in this case, over 700 other) programs. At the end of 3 months, whoever's program has generated the highest gains is the winner. Winner gets $40,000. Second place, $25,000. Third place, $15,000. It's a serious competition and it's fun to watch these things perform their magic.

Here's my status online.

Here's the thing about this contest. Imagine (if you have a child) teaching your child to play chess. You work with him and he gets pretty good at it. Then you send him off to a contest to play against his peers, but you...

• can't coach him during the contest
• have no access or influence on him the whole time
• can only watch as he applies what you taught him

The idea is kind of nerve racking especially if you see him making a mistake and headed down a different path from what you taught him. Or even worse, he does exactly what you taught him but it turns out that what you taught him might have been a little off, and you realize that but can't do anything about it.

These automated trading programs are just robots that have to decide for themselves when they recognize an opportunity to trade, then place a trade and monitor it to make profits or prevent excessive loss. The authors cannot interact with them at all during the contest and can only watch from a distance. In alot of ways it's like the DARPA Challenge, but instead of navigating a car through various terrain it's navigating a "virtual trader" through the currency markets. Instead of using GPS to find your way around it's using periodic charts to determine what the market is doing. Instead of the $2,000,000 prize it's only $40,000 :-)

Anyway, I'm totally into automation of any kind and would probably do the DARPA thing if I had several hundred thousand bucks to throw into research and development. That's why AME Labs (me) calls itself an Automation Consultant and not Code Monkey. So... enough babbling. This stuff just really gets me excited. :-)

Blade Board Rocks!

I have always had a fascination with the Ripstik since it first came out, but never wanted to spend the $100 to get one. Recently, while looking for a ripstik on ebay, I discovered someone selling something similar called a Blade Board. A little research into blade board convinced me to get one. Both Blade Board and Ripstik are on casters, but the blade board is designed in such a way that it can be ridden forward and backwards, while ripstik cannot.

Anyway, I'm so glad I bought the thing because it feels great to ride one once you figure out how to make it work. I imagine it's similar to snowboarding. A skateboard, scooter, bike, etc., can only go in the direction they're facing. However, a caster board can go one direction while the board faces another. Like a snowboard, which goes downhill regardless of which way it's facing, the blade board can do the same thing but not quite to the degree that a snowboard can.

The other thing about a blade board (caster board) is the fact that you can propel yourself without ever taking your feet off the board. Watch the video below and you'll see what I'm talking about.



My son in the video (he's actually quite good but his wheel kept falling into the crack in the concrete) has just mastered the technique for propelling yourself. It's not as easy as it looks but once it "clicks" then it's like you've always been able to do it. The next thing to master is 180 and 360-degree turns. I am able to do the turns but often get tripped up by the rear caster at the end of the maneuver. When I get a chance I'll post a video online.

Anyway, it feels great to ride this thing. It has me very curious about snowboarding too, so I'll probably try snowboarding this winter.