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pmchem posted:cobol isn't magic, people will learn it if paid enough This is the crux of the problem. The issue is the decision makers in finance don't understand/don't care about the returns on investing in tech. That's why it's gotten this way and that's why it'll stay this way. Put another way - your a young talented programmer. Your choices are work for Google with latest tech, or work on COBOL at some financial powerhouse. Both offer you the same $$$. What do you do? Go work at Google. You need to pay these guys a premium since you're asking them to learn and use skills with narrow application, and relatively uninteresting prospects. And its an industry that already has biases against investing in tech. The problem is real. I've asked what should be very simple questions ("does our system round at step 1 or step 2?") and been told that literally no one knows, and no one knows how to find out. I know there are chunks of systems (plural, there are dozens of these legacy systems at most big companies all running on COBOL) that are off limit black boxes. Nobody understands them and they're too important to touch so they are left alone, until the day the whole system is taken off line.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:32
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Honestly I would love to learn COBOL but there's not really any way to do so other than teach yourself.
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Dec 5, 2020 06:54
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Cacafuego posted:Trials will always continue throughout the end of the trial period unless the sponsor ends them for a certain reason, but it's never "everything worked great".
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Dec 5, 2020 07:09
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Jenkl posted:Put another way - your a young talented programmer. Your choices are work for Google with latest tech, or work on COBOL at some financial powerhouse. Both offer you the same $$$. What do you do? This is exactly what I came here to post. If I can make the same money on modern fun and sexy languages with much better features, why would I go do COBOL at a bank? Probably much better benefits at a random dot com, and for all I know banks may even drug test you (no idea here, but it seems like a possibility).
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Dec 5, 2020 07:47
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MomJeans420 posted:This is exactly what I came here to post. If I can make the same money on modern fun and sexy languages with much better features, why would I go do COBOL at a bank? Probably much better benefits at a random dot com, and for all I know banks may even drug test you (no idea here, but it seems like a possibility). banks pay pretty marginally better in cash but equity is poo poo and respect is remarkably poo poo. any pure software play that fails to respect computertouchers in the west coast soon learns the nature of its mistake cuz of the high turnover theres an entire genre of parabank institution whose basic reason for existing is to have better putertouchers than real banks
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Dec 5, 2020 08:22
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Scarodactyl posted:Trials can be halted for efficacy if the experimental therapy is proving to be so much better than standard of care that it would be unethical to deny it to the placebo arm. That's sometimes seen in cancer trials particularly, but it might not take too insanely much to get one in Alzheimer's given how horrible it is and how powerless we currently are against it. Sorry about the detail! I don’t work in oncology trials, so I’m not as familiar with them, but would they halt the trial instead of crossing all participants over to open label? Or putting everyone into follow up and offering the open label treatment that proved efficacy? I have stayed out of oncology for a reason. For content: I was assigned 100 of PLTR at $27 this morning. I did get $200 for the weekly premium, so I can’t complain too much.
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Dec 5, 2020 14:44
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Jenkl posted:This is the crux of the problem. Then the banks will have to offer more money than Google. And then the shareholders will wonder why expenses are so high, and force the bank CEOs to prioritize modernizing their back-ends.
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Dec 5, 2020 15:05
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This is interesting, I was just listening to a podcast with Michelle Leder as a guest where she claims Squarepoint Capital stole all her data to train their natural language processing algorithms. https://twitter.com/RobinWigg/status/1335151865152081920?s=20
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Dec 5, 2020 16:48
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SuppressdPuberty93 posted:Then the banks will have to offer more money than Google. And then the shareholders will wonder why expenses are so high, and force the bank CEOs to prioritize modernizing their back-ends. Hi, it's me - a guy who does business process re-engineering and modernization for the financial side of state and local government. And for a few financial institutions in the private sector. Several of them involving COBOL, Fortran, an all manner of antediluvian technological horrors. Modernization is a massive logistical and financial undertaking. Many projects have development lifecycles that eclipse the terms of the individuals who were originally responsible for their approval. Meaning you get high-level decision maker turnover during the course of the project - often before initial release or implementation even happens. And that's not even getting into projects that span multiple budget cycles and multiple rounds of budget approval. These projects are like trying to build a cathedral - the construction process often outlives the architects. We've been involved in multiple projects in the public sector that were killed off by someone's successor despite time and money having already been spent and development already being underway. Or axed by a budget committee the year after initial approval because the committee has changed. It's crazy. A lot of people say "oh well that's the public sector and there's politics and state employees don't know poo poo and blah blah blah blah..." but it can be even worse in the private sector because things can be set in motion and executed much, much faster while development still rolls along at the same pace. It's the whole analogy of "one woman can make a baby in 9 months, but nine women cannot make a baby in one month" - you can't just throw more programmers and more money at a problem and solve it faster. That's a really tough concept for people outside of development to understand, for some reason. So they get frustrated. And they get punchy. And they start striking line items from next year's budget... Basically, unless a modernization project is 100% in-house and protected by a core team of decision makers who actually understand what the hell is going on (who are themselves protected and dedicated), it can be put in jeopardy for any number of reasons. And from my experience I'd say about 25% of modernization projects die in the planning phase and another 25% die during development. If you can get through the initial development phase - to the point where you can demonstrate something to the decision makers - the survival rate definitely goes up but it's still not a sure thing. There are plenty of late-term project abortions that I've seen. Enormous amounts of time and money wasted. I can't go into details but all of this lies at the core of what caused the Xerox-Conduent split (and subsequent performance and behavior of Conduent). /derail
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Dec 5, 2020 17:22
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I can’t find articles about it because there are too many pages of Wells Fargo disasters on Google but WFC tried to modernize their backend in the early 2000s and spent 4 or 5 billion dollars (which was considered a lot of money at the time) and it was a total loss so I’m sure that probably created some industry-wide PTSD.
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Dec 5, 2020 18:02
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I’m like 8 steps removed from any of that but I see how terrible banking systems (in the U.S at least) affect the average person just wanting to send money to grandma. I don’t know about big T.D of Chase America banks, but for the ~75 small ones I work with it is comical to the point it should be criminal. Oh you made a payment online to your credit card? Yes that will be available sometime in the next 24-400 hours. No there isn’t anyone that can tell you why or precisely how long. Yes ma’am, I mean literally nobody. Actually nobody can tell you, we literally just do not know. No you cannot cancel it, it’s in gods hands now. Is there anything else I can help you with today? drunken officeparty fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Dec 5, 2020 |
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Dec 5, 2020 18:24
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SuppressdPuberty93 posted:Then the banks will have to offer more money than Google. And then the shareholders will wonder why expenses are so high, and force the bank CEOs to prioritize modernizing their back-ends. Then the CEO gets a bonus running into the $10s of millions for his vision and streamlining operations
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Dec 5, 2020 19:03
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Dec 5, 2020 20:15
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FreelanceSocialist posted:Hi, it's me - a guy who does business process re-engineering and modernization for the financial side of state and local government. And for a few financial institutions in the private sector. Several of them involving COBOL, Fortran, an all manner of antediluvian technological horrors. I agree, its really hard to create a complex system like that. But I don't think it's impossible. It's not sending a rocket to Mars or Alpha Centauri. Instead, I think it's a management issue where they don't understand how to effectively create incentives to align goals with financial resources. In banking, it seems the front end still has precedent in financial resources when the reality is that back end infrastructure is just important if not more. These banks will either need to make changes to their back end to make it more modern. Or get their lunch eaten by upcoming banking startups who already have modern infrastructure. greasyhands posted:Then the CEO gets a bonus running into the $10s of millions for his vision and streamlining operations Yup and then the CEO spends it on maids and the maids spend it on Robinhood.com puts in TSLA, and I own their asses and get all their money lol
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Dec 6, 2020 02:10
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SuppressdPuberty93 posted:I agree, its really hard to create a complex system like that. But I don't think it's impossible. It's not sending a rocket to Mars or Alpha Centauri. Instead, I think it's a management issue where they don't understand how to effectively create incentives to align goals with financial resources. In banking, it seems the front end still has precedent in financial resources when the reality is that back end infrastructure is just important if not more. That's just not how any of this works. Banks don't make money by making aesthetically appealing IT. For decades the best ROE in banking is in large regionals (like Key, Suntrust size) so the giant banks should already be suboptimal. Don't know if that still holds true when the best business plan is getting checks from the government but if it has changed it definitely favors the TBTF banks anyway. Citi, JPM, BOA, and WFC are not spending billions a year to maintain their Hogan terminals. They make money on interest margin and fees. Paying 30 COBOL consultants $300K, $500K, $1M a year is a rounding error. No one who has a cost of capital low enough to disrupt the banking industry would want to do it. Apple passed off their credit card stuff to GS. If you're already pretty big compliance is the big drag on growing your bank. If you're not already pretty big the big drag is cost of capital. A little bank is not going to disrupt the banking industry because they're a little bank. Fintechs for the most part stick to free riding on the existing banksbecause they don't want to deal with the compliance stuff.
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Dec 6, 2020 04:04
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MomJeans420 posted:This is interesting, I was just listening to a podcast with Michelle Leder as a guest where she claims Squarepoint Capital stole all her data to train their natural language processing algorithms.
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Dec 6, 2020 05:29
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Josh Lyman posted:If you have to control your language for the sake of NLP, then it’s not really natural language processing is it and maybe yo my should stop paying your people $400k/yr. You have to control it because NLP is so good at identifying the way you would naturally give bad news that traders use it to be the first to buy/sell. So please don't stop paying AMZN billions of dollars for compute resources to smash words together I don't want to be poor.
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Dec 6, 2020 06:22
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AMC’s CEO is delusional: “These coronavirus-impacted times are uncharted waters for all of us, which is why AMC signed on to an HBO Max exception to customary practices for one film only, Wonder Woman 1984, being released by Warner Brothers at Christmas when the pandemic appears that it will be at its height,” Aron said. “However, Warner now hopes to do this for all their 2021 theatrical movies, despite the likelihood that with vaccines right around the corner the theater business is expected to recover. “Clearly, Warner Media intends to sacrifice a considerable portion of the profitability of its movie studio division, and that of its production partners and filmmakers, to subsidize its HBO Max start up [sic],” Aron continued. “As for AMC, we will do all in our power to ensure that Warner does not do so at our expense. We will aggressively pursue economic terms that preserve our business.“
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Dec 7, 2020 02:03
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Josh Lyman posted:AMC’s CEO is delusional: Long PLNT, more cheap gigantic gym space and COVID means a private gym for every american
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Dec 7, 2020 02:14
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greasyhands posted:Long PLNT, more cheap gigantic gym space and COVID means a private gym for every american Lulu has those fitness mirrors. I dont know anyone who owns one but I know a handful that own a PTON
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Dec 7, 2020 02:19
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I really miss going to the movies. Too bad it'll be 2023 til I'll feel comfortable going to one, considering it's gonna take until 2022 to get everyone* in America vaccinated. *everyone who is sane and is able to get one / is not immuno-compromised.
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Dec 7, 2020 04:32
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Josh Lyman posted:AMC’s CEO is delusional: you generally don't get to become a c-level at a company of any size with a clear and coherent sense of reality. founders vs. promoted execs is basically just choosing your variety of delusoin
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Dec 7, 2020 05:56
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 Getting very real. ~35k doses of Pfizer on December 15th Another 41of Pfizer and 71k of Moderna on December 29th FDA emergency authorization expected Friday the 11th
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Dec 7, 2020 08:07
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:
C'mon baby my (pre merger) Pfizer $50c are getting tasty.
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Dec 7, 2020 09:37
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Do you get to choose your vaccine? No way I'd get the Moderna one when the Pfizer vaccine exists.
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Dec 7, 2020 09:43
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Josh Lyman posted:AMC’s CEO is delusional: I genuinely don't understand what the leverage here is. If Warner Bros has decided that Theatres are no longer a long term value adding partner, there's no forcing them to bring their films to cinema (Unless you boycott and hope someone else doesn't happily steal your lunch).
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Dec 7, 2020 09:56
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Is AMC trying to use their production subsidiary to bully studios into not releasing... what?
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Dec 7, 2020 10:02
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MomJeans420 posted:Do you get to choose your vaccine? No way I'd get the Moderna one when the Pfizer vaccine exists.
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Dec 7, 2020 10:09
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Moderna is the Kirkland Signature vaccine. Like yeah, it’s fine, but wouldn’t you rather wash your clothes with Tide?
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Dec 7, 2020 10:32
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MomJeans420 posted:Do you get to choose your vaccine? No way I'd get the Moderna one when the Pfizer vaccine exists. They’re saying no at my hospital.
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Dec 7, 2020 11:02
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I threw a few grand at this upcoming IPO: https://www.chimerictherapeutics.com/ There's a lot of nuffy energy behind this one on our WSB equivalent so I'm hoping for a quick 20% or so when it lists before I dump it.
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Dec 7, 2020 11:18
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Mom: No we have vaccines at home Vaccines at home: moderna
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Dec 7, 2020 12:26
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Isn’t the Airbnb IPO this week? Is anyone here touching that?
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Dec 7, 2020 15:02
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Yeah, on Thursday. I plan on touching
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Dec 7, 2020 15:04
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Rolo posted:Isn’t the Airbnb IPO this week? Is anyone here touching that? They are pricing it between 56 and 60 which means before you get to touch it, it'll probably be above 100.
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Dec 7, 2020 16:39
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AirBnB seems so politically dependent, and in particular, politically dependent on national, sub-divisional, and municipal rules and laws around the world. I remember going to Tokyo and having our AirBnB cancelled at short notice because they tightened regulations on it and there were only a handful left in the entire city.
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Dec 7, 2020 17:28
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Mineaiki posted:AirBnB seems so politically dependent, and in particular, politically dependent on national, sub-divisional, and municipal rules and laws around the world. I remember going to Tokyo and having our AirBnB cancelled at short notice because they tightened regulations on it and there were only a handful left in the entire city. I went to Tokyo in 2017 and it was a really shady experience. The host wouldn't give me the exact address, only a vague "it's in this neighborhood, you'll meet us at this landmark and we'll take you there" kind of address, because at the time Airbnb was in a weird gray area. The immigration people didn't like the fact that I had no address of where I was going to be staying. IIRC, they shut down Airbnb entirely shortly thereafter.
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Dec 7, 2020 17:46
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Mineaiki posted:AirBnB seems so politically dependent, and in particular, politically dependent on national, sub-divisional, and municipal rules and laws around the world. I remember going to Tokyo and having our AirBnB cancelled at short notice because they tightened regulations on it and there were only a handful left in the entire city. While I agree, Prop 22 passing in CA this year has proven yet again that money can "fix" political problems.
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Dec 7, 2020 18:19
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I've had the same thing before (not airbnb related, just didn't know where I was staying as someone else arranged it for me) and after it made immigration take 10x longer than it needed, I just started saying "I'm staying at the Hilton" when asked. There's always a Hilton.
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Dec 7, 2020 18:23
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Josh Lyman posted:Moderna is the Kirkland Signature vaccine. Like yeah, it’s fine, but wouldn’t you rather wash your clothes with Tide? That said I did seek out the Pfizer trial specifically because their phase 1/2 numbers looked the best.
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Dec 7, 2020 18:34
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