I’ve been doing rounded corners the hard way!  I just discovered a jQuery plug-in: jQuery Corners, that makes it easy to create nice-looking, rounded corners without using any images or super annoying markup, all you have to do is call the .corners() method.

   1:  $(document).ready( function(){

   2:    $('.className').corners();

   3:  });

(In my defense, I’ve never claimed to be a great web UI developer)

Ernest Chan has written a straightforward introduction to quantitative trading for the home trader; while this book is a great blueprint for someone who has never traded and is thinking about to doing his own trading, it’s too shallow for anyone who has been exposed to any sort of trading.

He does a good job of covering the most common trading pitfalls and he does an adequate job of discussing data gathering and backdating, nevertheless, he spends four chapters covering common sense concepts and techniques. I found his Matlab and Excel code to be of little use and I wish he used an open source package such as R instead of Matlab, in-fact, I wish he had devoted a chapter to the use of open source software packages in trading.

I only recommend this book for people who have never traded, if you have some experience in trading then skip the book and follow his blog instead.

The west has been forecasting Pakistan’s demise since the 70’s, first when Pakistan’s eastern half seceded to become Bangladesh in 1971, then during the violence that preceded General Zia ul-Haq’s coup in 1977, then again when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, when Zia was killed in 1988, again after 9/11, once more after the 2007 death of Bhutto and now after yet another political crisis.

But Pakistan is still at it, still not a failed state.