website design - Data Display of Tables: Table Cells with Must-See Values

I have a data-driven web app with horizontal resolution limit of 1280px, yet up to 15 columns (table cell data varying between 0-255 characters). I wouldn't like to display data on multiple rows as it makes the table rows different height. Once the value's become long, I would need a way to display the table cell values as they are saved in the DB.

What kind of alternatives for data display I have?

Here's some of the ideas I have thought of (side-effects on brackets):

1) Concatenate & use title attribute: concatenate the table-cell values with CSS and use title attributes to display the full data (could be hard for some users to see the find value). See example

2) Smaller text: smaller text gives more space (readability suffers)

3) Table with horizontal scroll: all the values can be seen on the UI (bad UX)

4) Reduce columns: grows table cell sizes (can't really remove anything)

5) "The Key-Value Approach": Key-value would works for some cases (I would like to see all of the data with one gaze, preferably)

6) Percentage widths for columns: estimate the max values for each column (and hope for the best, expect the worse)

7) Other suggestions?: JSFIDDLE template for your use.

Thanks.

skewness - The possible preferences of investors for higher than first 2 moments of return distribution?

Can anyone explain in an intuitive manner a justification for possible preferences of investors for moments of return distribution beyond the first two moments (i.e. mean and variance). For example, why it is often argued that positive skewed distributions are preferred to negative ones? Is it related to known concept of risk aversion?

option pricing - Jim Gatheral's claim on the decay of the effect of jumps on the final return distribution

I got a full answer for my question on Jim Gatheral's book The Volatility Surface. I am going to try my luck again on another question on the same book. In Section The Decay of Skew Due to Jumps on page 63-64 , he claims that some $T^*$ that characterizes the decay time of the effect of jumps satisfies $$-(e^{\alpha+\frac{\delta^2}2}-1)\approx \sigma\sqrt{T^*}$$ where the occurrence of jumps is Poisson and the size is lognormally distributed with mean log-jump $\alpha$ and standard deviation $\delta$, and $\sigma$ is the volatility of the diffusion.

Does anyone have a reference to a somewhat rigorous justification of this claim?

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@Quantuple made a suggestion in the comment section. While that makes intuitively plausible sense, I have been perplexed by how one exactly and rigorous describe the separate effects on implied volatility from diffusion and jumps that he alludes to and which Gatheral talks about in the paragraph right above that equation in question. Jump adds two effects on the implied volatility at the money in the long time asymptotics. One is the size, the other is the skew.

1) Size.

Is there a simple approximate addition formula to separate out the contributions from diffusion and jump?

2) Skew

Obviously, for time dependent deterministic diffusion volatility, the only cause of skew is from jumps, as there is no contribution to the at-the-money skew from diffusion. Actually, it is the ATM skew Gatheral is concerned about in this section. Since the formula above relates only sizes of jump and diffusion, I do not see what and how this relates to the skew in the long time asymptotics.

For a stochastic volatility model like Heston with jumps, how does the skew from the stochastic volatility relate and compare to that from the jump, in the long time asymptotics?

How can I quickly turn all objects of a layer to independent layers in InDesign?

How can I quickly turn all objects of a layer (text boxes, shapes, lines, etc.) to independent layers in InDesign ?

Conversion factor for bonds

Hull defines the conversion factor for a bond as the "quoted price the bond would have per dollar of principal on the first day of the delivery month on the assumption that the interest rate for all maturities equals 6% per annum."

My understanding is that the hypothetical bond underlying the futures contract has a 6% coupon, and that the (quoted) price of this bond varies with the zero curve. If this zero curve is flat and equal to 6% for all maturities, then the quoted price of the hypothetical bond should be 100 and the product of this hypothetical price and the conversion factor for a particular bond is exactly the quoted price of the bond in question. However, if the zero curve is flat and not equal to 6%, or more generally is not flat at all, then why should this conversion factor be considered a good approximation of the quoted price of the actual bond?

Suppose for the moment that the zero curve is flat. Let P(N,y,c) be the present value of a bond with semiannual coupon c and time to maturity N when the zero rate is y (for all maturities). The present value of the hypothetical bond is P(N,y,0.06). What naturally seems to be the correct conversion factor to get the quoted price of a bond with coupon c and time to maturity M is

CF = P(M,y,c)/P(N,y,0.06).

When y=0.06, this conversion factor is the same one defined by Hull, but otherwise they need not be the same. Is there some reason why it is assumed that the conversion factor is constant? y need not be close to 0.06, and M can be different from N, so it doesn't seem clear that the (constant) conversion factor gives anything useful.

adobe photoshop - How to put a design in best light before showing it on Behance or Dribbble

Often designers who are on Behance or Dribbble (or other design social platforms) do not upload there design as is, they pre-process them a bit in Photoshop to make them look better of give them some depth.

In web design, Ipad and monitor screenshots are trending. For print design, people often just adjust the light and take a picture.

When taking pictures of my print design is not possible, how can I virtually create them in Photoshop to achieve something like the followin example?

Answer

Question's a bit broad, but basically every possible way of doing this for print work will boil down to the following:

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  play around with the perspective tool in photoshop if you'd like your work to appear as if someone's looking at it laying on a table. You don't want too much of an angle as it'll disrupt the viewer from being able to see the actual work. When doing this, remember that the perspective tool will keep the same maximum height and width, so if you adjust it so that the top is smaller, making it look as if it's tilted backwards, you'll want to use the transform tool afterwards to reduce the height just slightly.

  
  



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  Rotating it very subtly can add a little more realism as well. If combining this with the perspective tool, make sure to rotate it before using the perspective tool.

  
  


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  Shadows, highlights, etc: A small drop shadow can add a lot of depth. Overdoing it will make the image look even less real, but if sized correctly, it can make a big differenct on something like a business card. Again, if the item is laying flat, and you add a drop shaddow, it needs to be very small. For drop shadows representing larger shadows, such as the page that's elevated slightly, it's a good idea to duplicate a layer of the the work, reduce the fill, add an appropriately sized and shaded drop shaddow, rasterize the layer, then take a soft eraser to shape it approprately. Remember, be subtle.

  
  


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  More shadows, highlights tips, as you can see above, the designer added a lighter gradient or gradient mask to the right side, and a darker one to the left, trying to illustrate that the pages bump up a little at the creese, and the light is coming from the left. IMHO, the designer made a nice brochure, but could've rendered its depth a little better.

  
  


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  Duplicate a layer and move it over a pixel, up, down, left, right, which ever direction, and repeat. Example, duplicate the layer and move it 1px to the left, 1px to the right. Repeat. Now you have two layers below your work that just make two of the edges 2px larger. Merge these layers (not the top one that shows your actual work) and dim it down just a tiny bit to show the thin edge of the business card, brochure, etc, just slightly elevated.

  
  

language - Methods for creating slang

I am interested in creating slang or a vernacular for a particular group in my story. I want it to be distinctive and a definite marker for in-group/out-group, but not incomprehensible. I'm not looking for industry jargon, and it's not extensive enough to be a dialect.

For example, Cockney rhyming slang: You start with a word like "phone," rhyme it with a phrase like "dog and bone," and then drop the word which actually rhymes, so the slang for "phone" is "dog." (I find this insanely complicated and I have no idea how it functions in real life other than to memorize a laundry list of slang terms.)

So what would be some techniques for me as the author to use to develop a slang vocabulary for my in-group? I may or may not have the method explained to a cabbagehead character.

(Slang of this type is also known as argot, patois, or cant, as in theives' cant.)

Answer

I think the answer has to come from who your characters are, and why they are using slang. Essentially slang is an in-group word-game. It's a way of distinguishing insiders from outsiders. It can also be a low-key form of resistance to authority.

So it depends on your group. Techie slang is filled with acronyms and shortenings. It's a way of showing off your familiarity with arcane knowledge. On the other hand, teen slang is designed to annoy adults, has an anti-authority slant, and is often filled with arbitrary words that need to be memorized rather than figured out. Many years ago, in Kenya, I learned a version of the local slang that was filled with a playfully corrupt mix of English and Swahili. It was the anti-traditionalist language of young global citizens, and it was equally an affront to both formal, school-learned English and to the native languages of the villages (and their older inhabitants).

Slang can be crude or elegant, witty or offensive, rule based or arbitrary. It's all about the group that uses it.