How much I love Citroëns?
There’s a great photo blog completely dedicated to old Citroëns!
The blog of a student from Northern Virginia
15 Year old pulled of a Pump&Dump Scheme
This case caught my eye in my Business Law textbook this afternoon as I was studying for the latest exam… I figured I’d post it here since I had written about these schemes before here on my blog.
Jonathan Lebed (born September 29, 1984) is an American notorious for using internet technology to hype stocks.
Between September 1999 and February 2000 Lebed made hundreds of thousands of dollars by posting in internet chat rooms and on message boards encouraging people to buy penny stocks he already owned, thus, according to the SEC, artificially raising the price of the stock. The SEC under Arthur Levitt prosecuted him. In 2001 Lebed and the SEC negotiated an out-of-court settlement in which Lebed forfeited $285,000 in profit and interest he had made on 11 trades without admitting any wrongdoing — allowing him to keep close to half a million dollars.
The case was controversial — the SEC had never prosecuted a minor — and produced significant media interest. Lebed contended that his activity forecasting stock prices was no different from and no more illegal than what professional Wall Street analysts do every day, only he utilized the internet. Despite the negative press and SEC inquiry, Lebed continues to trade actively and sends out a free email newsletter on a daily basis in which he gives stock picks.
Note, he was 15 at the time he pulled this off. For a fifteen year old to even think about it… fascinating. Shame that he never made his way into more legitimate ventures (here’s his current website, in which he brags he has been a “brilliant Stock Picker Since Age 12!”.)
Monsters
Pretty thrilled for this. All done for under $15,000 (apparently!)
Description from promo materials: Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life form began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain “the creatures”…… Our story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border. New poster here.
Hmm.
My blog has a virus.
I don’t know what that’s about. Nor do I really care… Some light reading says I’ll need to clean out my database and start fresh, but I don’t have access to it!
This post is dedicated to Colnago bicycles. The most beautiful of all bicycles.
Once again, credits to the wealthy blokes on WeightWeenies.
Quick bike post
I’m in between classes and I’ve got the urge to do very little but share a few more hot bicycles right now and listen to the rain hit the window. I spotted these both somewhere deep in the abyss of the WeightWeenies forum.
Starting off with the Specialized Tarmac. Surprisingly light and beautiful for a bike which complete costs only a little over $2k. One could argue that putting a $2.5k wheelset on a $2k complete bike (including other wheels) is a bit silly, but it looks nice and I bet it’s awfully quick as well.
Here’s another guy’s build (of the bike I own,) with dreamy components and those $3.5k wheels. Chelsea (one of the girls I ride with) actually let me ride on her set and yes, it was one of the best rides I’ve ever had on my bike. Too bad I’ll have to wait until the day the bank malfunctions and leaves an extra 3.5 in my bank account and subsequently forgets about it.
I’ve realized I’m in the minority: I am partial to black and white bikes.
Had a good night
Today was Denise’s birthday, so I headed down to DC with Khai. The original plan was to go to U Street Music Hall, but upon realizing that an entire 5 block radius of downtown U Street was without power, we decided to go down to the Gallery Place area to a place I’d never been, Rocket Bar. At first, I was a little disappointed to miss the show “that will render you unable to bear children;” it could be a useful excuse someday, and I’m always skeptical to try new things. It’s a good thing Denise never takes no for an answer, and besides, it was her birthday. So off we went with Denise, and Grace, who was also on the Miami trip, and Susana, who I had just met minutes earlier. After navigating DC with my low-battery iPhone, and miraculously finding a parking spot, and laughing with the bouncer at Denise’s ID (“I don’t even know what this is… or where it is from. But it’s good enough. Bring like a passport next time!”) we headed down the stairway with neon green walls and into the loud, and surprisingly gigantic room(s) that is Rocket Bar. Things got moving after cheap drinks and Khai and I began pitching some darts all while struggling to figure out the rules. We ended up just playing “whoever gets to 0 first wins” because we fully knew that getting an exact number was going to be near impossible, then we let the girls have a round. Then we went home.
I’m now hooked to this iPhone game, FlightControl, where you guide planes into runways by drawing paths for them to follow with your fingers, all while making sure they don’t run into each other. Anyway, I ended up watching Khai play this game (my phone was dead by now, and the motion sickness of the metro was catching up to me anyway) and laughing to myself as some drunk dude starting whining to his girlfriend about god knows what (and I feel sorry for him that he does.)
School is good. I am now two weeks in, which is about the amount of time it’s been since I’ve posted last. I have “College Success Skills,” a one credit required class I should’ve taken 3 semesters ago, another round of Health and Wellness (which is interesting, although half the things I’ve been learning contradict things learnt in prior Health classes, including the one I took last semester,) Writing, Public Speaking, and Business Law. The good news is it will all be over in four weeks.
Slovenia lost first round of World Cup. After that, there were a few interesting matches here and there but I was reduced to following the final play by play on my iPhone, via text. I’m now captivated by the Tour De France. We don’t get Versus Network at our house, so I’ve had to download the 45 minute recaps every night and watch them on my computer. Good stuff.
In celebration of the Tour De France I figured I’d post some sweet bikes when I feel like it. Here’s a Cervelo S3. It’s technically the successor to the bike I have. This one is verrrrrrry nice (and also, $$$$).
My Sister’s Graduation… part 2!
Here are all the photos I took of Julie’s graduation that were worthy of posting. The Flickr set can be viewed here, in which you can access larger versions of the photos.
Tysons Development
Here are two photos, taken three months apart, of the area of main construction in Tysons Corner for the Metro.
to…
…Can you spy the differences?
Film Friday
I saw three solid films in the past two weeks, and one pretty weak one. Can you guess which?
The A-Team
I always liked watching episodes of The A-Team on Netflix Streaming, so it was exciting but sort of disappointing to see Hollywood was picking it up as fodder for a Blockbuster. I was skeptical of the trailer, but was delightfully proven wrong. The kind of fun action I craved as a kid watching Indiana Jones. The movie takes place before the television series, a prequel that tells how they meet, and the “crime they didn’t commit”… and how they try to get out of it.
Splice
Went in expecting a horror thriller flick with lots of violence caused by crazy mutants. Instead I get a drama. That’s fine. It’s a damn good drama. Scientists create a hybrid human lizard (and probably some other stuff thrown in there as well) with occasional agressive behaviour. I think the trailer did a good job obscuring the actual plot and I’ll leave it that way. But it’s good, yet disturbing.
Get him to the Greek
I can’t believe I liked this movie, but it was absolutely hilarious. A record company, lead by Diddy, is in trouble. Aaron Green, played by Hollywood’s favourite fat bloke Jonah Hill, suggests that they put on a reunion show for infamous rock and roller Aldous Snow (Played by Russell Brand.) Diddy reluctantly agrees to let Aaron go get Aldous for the show… the problem being that Aldous is an out of control rock star who only seems to care about sex and drugs. Insert an hour and a half of laughable antics and typical jabs at pop culture and you have a movie.
Moon
Agh, this movie was so lukewarm at best. How many stupid psychological identity crisis movies to we really need? The helper robot was cool though.
The Slovenian versus USA World Cup game from this morning has been the best I’ve seen thus far! What a nailbiter! It’s a wonder I have any nails left… Even the vuvuzelas seemed to fit right at home! The England versus Algeria game going on now should be an interesting watch as well.