Baltimore Digital Commerce Society-- Korhammer on Lava Trading, Nov 6

This event was originally scheduled for October 2nd, but it is being pushed back to November 6th because Lava Trading used to be located on the 83rd floor of the WTC. Richard Korhammer's office was only 50 feet away from where the plane hit. Miraculously all of the company survived. Korhammer was across the street with a client during the entire event. But please come to listen to hear about their company not about the WTC. They're almost back on-line after having their entire office destroyed. These guys are building a very cool, cross-exchange tool. It constantly keeps track of the bids and asks on a number of exchanges letting you send your business to where the prices are best. It's fascinating to watch the screen update the quotes in real time. This kind of semi-automated, trading assistance is bound to become more and more prevalent. I think Lava Trading is doing some of the most interesting stuff around. -Peter Baltimore Digital Commerce Society Tuesday November 6, 12:30 Speaker: Richard Korhammer, CEO of Lava Trading (www.lavatrading.com) Topic: Networks as Markets-- Why Exchanges are Becoming Virtual Richard Korhammer is the CEO of LavaTrading, one of the startup companies in New York diving into cross-market arbitrage. Their network links together all of the important market makers in ECNs and keeps track of all bids and offers. Buyers and sellers using the technology automatically get pointers to the best price possible. Traders with large blocks of stock do substantially better because Lava Trading will break up their block to match it with the best price available across all of the markets. This cross-market arbitrage improves liquidity for the market and makes it simpler for traders with large blocks of stock to wade into the marketplace without leaving a wake. In his talk, Korhammer will explore how fast networking and sophisticated servers can supplement and potentially replace the old fashioned stock exchange. Traders won't need to come to one place or one exchange to search for the best price because the network can constantly sort through all buyers and sellers. Korhammer believes that adding intelligence to the network and the servers supporting is more efficient than requiring traders to manually manage an otherwise complicated marketplace. Will these cross-exchange tools supplant the exchange? Will they eventually become the exchange? Will the disintermediation eventually make all trading a transparent event? Location: 11 West Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD Directions: The Engineering Society lies in the shadow of Baltimore's Washington monument in the center of town. From downtown, take Charles St north to the monument. The Society is to the left on Monument Street. From the north, take 83 south to Maryland Avenue exit. Follow Maryland Avenue south until Monument Street. The Society is to the left. Or look at this map: http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?BFCat=&Pyt=Tmap&newFL=Use+Address+Below&add r=11+Mount+Vernon+Place&csz=Baltimore%2C+MD+21201&country=us&Get%07Map=Get+M ap Cost: $14 for a lunch buffet Questions: pcw@flyzone.com Write me (pcw@flyzone.com) to tell me if you're coming. Reservations are required.

Peter Wayner wrote:
But please come to listen to hear about their company not about the WTC.
But when do we hear about the really important stuff the company employees learned from 80 feet away, to hell with hearing more online trivia of phonexing the ashes. Not that the lucky CEO knows any of that stupefying experience first hand. Can he offer anything up to date or should another company rep with hands on do the gripping show and tell. !!Rebuild New York NOT!!

At 9:53 AM -0700 10/1/01, John Young wrote:
Peter Wayner wrote:
But please come to listen to hear about their company not about the WTC.
But when do we hear about the really important stuff the company employees learned from 80 feet away, to hell with hearing more online trivia of phonexing the ashes. Not that the lucky CEO knows any of that stupefying experience first hand. Can he offer anything up to date or should another company rep with hands on do the gripping show and tell.
Gads, I suppose he can repeat a few stories about Sept. 11th, but the main focus will be on cross-exchange arbitrage. It's not exactly a cypherpunk topic, but certainly one that might interest the libertarian believers in the power of markets. -Peter

On Monday, October 1, 2001, at 09:53 AM, John Young wrote:
Peter Wayner wrote:
But please come to listen to hear about their company not about the WTC.
But when do we hear about the really important stuff the company employees learned from 80 feet away, to hell with hearing more online trivia of phonexing the ashes. Not that the lucky CEO knows any of that stupefying experience first hand. Can he offer anything up to date or should another company rep with hands on do the gripping show and tell.
There have been a couple of very interesting eyewitness, close-at-hand reports that I have seen. One was a long report from a survivor from around the 50th floor, posted in misc.survivalism. Another, which few of you have probably seen, was from a UCSC graduate who had just started in a clerical job at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. This was the cover story for one of our Santa Cruz weekly freebie papers. This guy's story of escape pretty much matched the above story. In both cases, something leapt out at me: The "authorities" (the voice over the building PA system) were advising employees not to panic, to return to their desks, to await orderly evacuation orders. When he heard/saw the first impact, his supervisor said they should "not panic" and should await further orders. As he was quoted in the newspaper, his view was "Fuck it, I'm OUTTA HERE." He headed down the stairwell. The other survivor reported much the same story. Those who stayed behind, or who returned to their offices, or who turned around in the stairwell and headed back up, most of them probably are now human smoked puree in the rubble. The moral: look out for yourself, and maybe a few others, friends or even strangers. But don't trust "authority"--trusting the soothing voices over the PA got a lot of people killed. --Tim May

The moral: look out for yourself, and maybe a few others, friends or even strangers. But don't trust "authority"--trusting the soothing voices over the PA got a lot of people killed.
That is a good point. I'm sure the passengers on the hijacked planes were doing the same thing: waiting for the "authorities" to rescue them. The standard advice is "comply with their demands and let the authorities handle the problem". It's part of the "dial 911" mentality that is common in America, which basically says, "You are not responsible for your own personal safety; the authorities are." Unfortunately, in the long history of the world, it has been proven time and time again that the only person you can really count on for your safety is your own self, and America has not discovered some magic formula that makes that no longer true. Obviously, the passengers on the one plane that didn't hit its target knew from information from the other planes that if they didn't take their own action to solve the problem, they would end up slamming into some target, and they heroicly decided to take matters into their own hands. One good thing to come out of this is that people will question that old advice. Gun sales are up apparently.
participants (5)
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Dr. Evil
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John Young
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Peter Wayner
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Peter Wayner
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Tim May