Quotes from Scott Patterson

I'd like to settle down eventually, but acting is emotionally draining.

I get bored very easily.

I never worked in a coffee shop and I don't drink coffee, so I never thought I would become a coffee pusher on TV.

Passion is the thing that sustains you in acting. If you're doing it for fame and money, don't even bother because it will never happen. The last thing I ever expected was to be paid for this.

In 10 different takes, you can do a scene 10 different ways.

I throw the best parties.

Popstars really draws you in. It's fascinating. It's interesting to watch people thrown together in that kind of a situation. Even if the egos weren't involved and they weren't trying to be world famous. It's the Real World, only better.

I think L.A.'s terrific. You fly an hour and a half and you're in the mountains in three feet of powder. I also think it's a much better city if you're working as an actor. If you're not working and you don't see your dreams coming true, there can be a lot of heartache.

Popstars really draws you in. It's fascinating. It's interesting to watch people thrown together in that kind of a situation. Even if the egos weren't involved and they weren't trying to be world famous. It's the Real World, only better.

The Algo Wars were leaving a path of destruction in their wake. "HFT algos reduce the value of resting orders and increase the value of how fast orders can be placed and cancelled," wrote Nanex researcher Eric Hunsader. "This results in the illusion of liquidity. We can't understand why this is allowed to continue, because at the core, it is pure manipulation.

The morning of the offering, NYSE officials on the floor passed out silver bells emblazoned with NYX on the handle. Traders were told to ring them with abandon at the open. While they were billed as a shiny memento, their true purpose—to drown out the expected chorus of boos and catcalls from disaffected specialists—spoke volumes about the turmoil behind the scenes.

Insiders say the pressure to succeed at Renaissance can be brutal. One mathematician at the fund may have succumbed to the pressure on March 1, 2006. That's when Alexander Astashkevich, a thirty-seven-year-old MIT graduate who worked at Renaissance, shot and killed his estranged wife in the small town of Port Jefferson, Long Island, before turning the shotgun on himself. He left behind a six-year-old son named Arthur.

People assume that if they use higher mathematics and computer models they're doing the Lord's work," observed Buffett's longtime partner, the cerebral Charlie Munger. "They're usually doing the devil's work.

This has the effect of forcing marketplaces to compete in latency. You end up with exactly what you have now—people spending millions (billions?) of dollars to save milliseconds (microseconds soon?). What an expensive and needless mess. You could probably find a cure for cancer in a year if you just reassigned all the smart people who are now working on this artificially created and otherwise useless problem.

Just as quickly, as stocks bobbed and weaved, those orders were canceled and resubmitted at different price points—at different exchanges and dozens of other trading venues, such as dark pools (incredibly, a staggering 90 percent or more of all orders placed into the stock market were canceled).

What an expensive and needless mess. You could probably find a cure for cancer in a year if you just reassigned all the smart people who are now working on this artificially created and otherwise useless problem.

whisper of a smile

At the end of World War II, the average holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight months. By 2008, it was two months. And by 2011 it was twenty-two seconds,

At a cost of up to $10,000 per pod per month, it was a highly lucrative business for the NYSE. How the setup fit in with the notion that electronic trading created a level playing field for all investors was another question.

At the end of World War II, the average holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight months. By 2008, it was two months. And by 2011 it was twenty-two seconds, at least according to one professor's estimates. One founder of a prominent high-frequency trading outfit once claimed his firm's average holding period was a mere eleven seconds.

My accountant worships me because I'm so cautious with my money.

I think L.A.'s terrific. You fly an hour and a half and you're in the mountains in three feet of powder. I also think it's a much better city if you're working as an actor. If you're not working and you don't see your dreams coming true, there can be a lot of heartache.

I write a lot of music in my time off and I compose most of the songs on guitar. I've actually gone into the studio and recorded a few things, but it's tough trying to sell a song. It's all about finding that hook, that melody.