First, a word of warning. The article I'm referring to in this thread was posted on BroBible, so you probably don't want to click the link at work unless you want all kinds of alarm bells to go off in your IT department. It's safe for work, but I've been told that some banks have BroBible on their blacklist so it probably isn't worth the risk.

Now, we've had some lively discussions here on the site about drinking etiquette, and even livelier discussions about tipping etiquette. So I knew you guys would be interested to read this piece written by a female New York City bartender entitled, "Confessions of a Bartender: 10 Things Every Bartender Absolutely Hates About You".

Based on the title you'd think that it would be pretty general stuff and not directed toward any one demographic in particular, but you'd be wrong. It seems the author, one Stefanie Williams of the Upper East Side, really has it in for bankers. Like, really has it in for bankers. Her favorite story, in fact, is the one about how she basically got three bank interns fired for leaving her a shitty tip (and being assholes about it).

mod (Andy) note: "Blast from the past - Best of Eddie" - This one is originally from November 2010. If there's an old post from Eddie you'd like to see up again shoot me a message.

I have to admit, I love stories like this. I'm not making any value judgments on the morality of what this guy did, but I think we should be prepared to see more and more of this as the recession wears on and more people go underwater. Maybe a unique approach like this one will force banks to consider a more collaborative approach to crisis resolution.

Terry Hoskins had been in a beef with his bank and the IRS for over a decade when the bank finally moved to initiate foreclosure proceedings, even though Hoskins had never been late on a single payment. But here's the thing: Hoskins had taken out a loan on the land and owed about $160,000 on it, but over the course of that decade he built a home on the land and improved it to a value of $350,000. When he came up with the $170,000 to pay off the bank, the bank told him to get bent because they could sell the property for more at auction and make a profit.

1) Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail (Rolling Stone) - Taibbi's hit piece on the travesty that is the HSBC settlement. We had a lively debate on the site over this. I wonder if this piece will change anyone's mind.

2) RIM’s old CEO is so impressed with BB10 that he dumped all of his 26.8M shares in the company (Venture Beat) - LULZ. When the founder of a company completely divests himself of that company's stock, that's a buy. Right?

3) Ackman: Herbalife Could Be FTC's Madoff (FIN Alternatives) - I can't decide if this is genuine concern for the FTC's reputation or just Bill talking his book. < /sarcasm> I think he's gonna be sorely disappointed, because the FTC is gonna do even less about HLF than the SEC did about Madoff.

Enough of you guys are interested in expanding your skill set to include some basic programming/coding that I had to tell you about this one-day-only deal. This morning I got an email from AppSumo with their deal of the day. Most of the time their deals involve things that make it easier to run an Internet-based company or what have you. But today they offered a deal on something everyone can use.

You guys know I'm a big fan of MOOCs and I love that you can find top notch education online for free in many cases. The problem with a lot of it, however, is that it's really high-level stuff when it comes to programming. For example, the MIT Open Courseware CompSci series and the Stanford Java Course are available for free on YouTube and they're fantastic, but they're not ideal for someone just starting out with no background.

That's where today's AppSumo deal comes in. They're offering a one-year Gold membership to Treehouse which normally costs $490 for just $49 - but for today only. For those who don't know, Treehouse is one of the most popular services for learning to program everything from HTML to Ruby to mobile apps - all from a standing start with no computer science background.

If I didn't know better, I'd say Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle doesn't like Lloyd Blankfein. While the interview doesn't rise to the level of hilarity that her Q&A with David Tepper did, she does manage to get in some cheap shots on the Sith Lord. Examples: "How bad did it suck to lose the Facebook deal to Morgan Stanley?" and my personal favorite, "Apple CEO Tim Cook will be sitting with the Obama family at the SOTU. Why aren't you?" To his credit, Lloyd just grins and bears it and actually turns in a pretty solid interview. He makes some really good points about deficit reduction and he clarifies that he ain't going anywhere when asked what he's going to do after Goldman with a simple, "That's just how I do...". Enjoy:

This is going to be a departure from my usual Wall Street stuff, but I wanted to share a project with you guys that I did over the weekend. For anyone who's read my stuff for awhile it won't come as a surprise that I'm a closet geek. I wasn't always this way, but the Internet kinda flipped a switch in my brain and now I'm an amateur programmer and all around technophile.

When I read about the Raspberry Pi in the New York Times a couple weeks ago I knew I had to have one. The notion of a fully functional computer for $35 was too much for me to resist. Well, the fact is you can't find any for $35 unless you're willing to wait six months, but you can get a top of the line model on Amazon for $50. Sold.

So what can you do with it? Turns out a lot of things. But I found one project that really stood out and solved a big problem for me. My kids have a really nice TV in their room. They've got a DVD player and a Wii hooked up to it. Which is great, but neither of those devices will play digital files. And unless I wanted to go to the trouble of hooking up a laptop to the HDMI (I didn't), they were relegated to watching the same old DVDs.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before regular guys with a head for algorithms found a place to try their luck on Wall Street. Internet start-up Quantopian exited beta last month and promises to democratize algorithmic trading for the masses.

You can read more about the company here. I think this is a pretty cool tool, and it makes sense that something like this is finally available to the public. I can see it becoming a sort of GitHub where amateur quants can give the pros a run for their money.

mod (Andy) note: "Blast from the past - Best of Eddie" - This one is originally from February 2010. If there's an old post from Eddie you'd like to see up again shoot me a message.

It's not often that I'm surprised by a book about Wall Street. Let's face it; there are only so many ways you can tell the same story. So my expectations weren't very high when I bought The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It. I was expecting just another book about the crisis. Boy, was I in for a shock.

The book starts out just like every other Liar's Poker knockoff. The first chapter uses a big money Wall Street poker game to introduce the key players. It's narrative non-fiction; not bad, but nothing to write home about. From there the book explodes, though, and reveals the desperate quest for Alpha that has been going on since the 1960's from academic labs all the way to the major quant funds of today. I'm serious; stop whatever it is you are doing and go read this book. Here's why:

Whether or not you have faith in quantitative modeling, whether or not you believe in the very existence of Alpha, you cannot escape the fact that the financial markets are controlled in large part by quants and their Frankenstein-like creations. The emergence of high-frequency trading, stat arb, dark pools, and the various other machinations of the quants account for an ungodly percentage of the average daily volume of the markets. This book explains in plain English the various strategies and theories that guide today's markets.

I gotta go quick this week because I got stuck in a meeting and I'm way behind, but we've got some great stuff here (including an absolute MUST READ at #10):

1) PIMCO'S Gross sees U.S. economy on road to extinction (Reuters) - Admittedly not the cheeriest read to kick things off with, but definitely worth your time.

2) Even The Savviest Finance Folk Have Never Heard Of This $17 Trillion Credit Market (Business Insider) - WSO reader shaorio tipped me off to this one. I'm not sure factoring will ever become a...well...factor on Wall Street, but this is a truly massive credit market.

3) Bloomberg Billionaires: Today’s ranking of the world’s richest people (Bloomberg) - Been meaning to point this out to you guys for awhile now. It's basically the Forbes 400 updated on an hourly basis, so...billionaire porn. Grab a box of tissue and click away.

When it comes to prop trading, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. At least that's what T3 Trading Group COO Nadav Sapeika must have been thinking when he attempted this bizarre plot to gain access to competitor Chimera Securities' trading platform. There's no telling what he planned to do once he got access to their system.

So how does one gain access to a competitor's trading platform? Well, Sapeika clearly thought it was as easy as setting up a bogus LinkedIn account using an alias nearly identical to the competitor's Managing Member's name. And then opening up a Gmail account using the same alias. And then emailing Lightspeed (the platform vendor) from that Gmail account and saying, "Hey, uh, it's me and I happen to have misplaced my login credentials. Can you, uh, do me a favor and email them back to me?"

Lightspeed was obviously on the ball because they didn't fall for it. And I'm betting they didn't really think anything of it the first time. But Sapeika didn't quit. He kept emailing them until they either 1) told the guy from Chimera who was being impersonated, or 2) told the regulators. In either case, Sapeika got bounced for 90 days and then gets two years of "special" supervision when he comes back.