“Too Fast to Fail.”

“The issue here is that people are earning large amounts of money by using sophisticated computers to beat the market. This is effectively a form of insider trading…[T]he front-running high speed trader, like the inside trader, is providing no information to the market. They are causing the price of stocks to adjust milliseconds more quickly than would otherwise be the case. It is implausible that this can provide any benefit to the economy. This is simply siphoning off money at the expense of other actors in the market.”

In the wake of Michael Lewis’ publicity blitz for Flash Boys, and per his “let’s focus on solutions” argument to Piketty above, CEPR’s Dean Baker explains how to easily fix the problem of high-frequency trading. “[O]ne simple method…would virtually destroy the practice. A modest tax on financial transactions would make this sort of rapid trading unprofitable since it depends on extremely small margins.”

Pirates v. Papal.

“‘Dreadstar is one of the most important comics on the 1980s, paving the way for creators to control their own creations,’ said Gilmore. “‘After decades of Jim exercising that control and turning away countless Hollywood suitors, I’m excited he’s trusting me and J.C. to do it right.'”

Proving yet again that we live in the Golden Age of fanboydom, there’s apparently movement afoot to make a film out of Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar(!) Dreadstar — one-part Blake’s 7, one-part Conan, two-parts Star Wars — was one of my favorite comics as a kid, and the only one I remember writing a letter to, explaining my (wrong) theory about who the traitor on the team was.)

To be honest, even now in the midst of the comic-film invasion, it’s hard to imagine a Dreadstar movie making any bank — Hopefully Oedi brings in the kitteh-minded folk. But I would’ve said the same about Guardians of the Galaxy, so what do I know.

Tolkien Geek Makes Good | Sayonara Davey.

“‘I learned more from watching Dave than I did from going to my classes — especially the ones I did not go to because I had stayed up until 1:30 watching Dave,’ Colbert said.” Old news by now, but worth noting for posterity nonetheless: The inimitable Stephen Colbert — not “Stephen Colbert” — will be replacing David Letterman as the host of Late Show, and while I’ll be sad to see “Colbert” go, I can’t think of a better choice. Onward and upward.

“Letterman’s deconstructionist, at times borderline Cubist style made you laugh by mocking the very idea of a stranger needing to make you laugh…[his] sensibility had its roots in a post-World War II school of university-educated smartass comedy, which also birthed such institutions as Mad magazine, Monty Python, Second City, National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, the 1970s meta-comedy movement that gave us Andy Kaufman and Albert Brooks, and pretty much every moment of Bill Murray’s early career.”

In very related news, Matt Zoller Seitz looks over Letterman’s long and storied late-night tenure. I don’t watch talk shows much anymore, but I’m just old enough to remember how formative Letterman’s NBC run was for the rest of late-night television back in the day. (It helped that I had a well-worn copy of Late Night with David Letterman: The Book as a kid, which re-printed classic gags like Dave’s Voyagers after-school special.)

Also, an excellent point made in the comments of Seitz’s article: “One thing I’ve always respected Dave for is the fact that he really loves music, and when the show is presenting a variety of lesser-known bands, he honestly seems to enjoy them. It kind of offsets the ‘grumpy curmudgeon’ vibe at which he excels, and it feels genuine and enthusiastic to me.” True, that: Take, for example, his many visits with Tom Waits, who’s given some amazing and indelible performances on Dave’s show over the years.

Baked Potato? Not yet.

“This one commercial said ‘Forget everything you know about slip covers,’ so I did. And it was a load off my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell slip covers, but I didn’t know what the f**k they were.”

Buzzfeed offers up a ranking of every single Mitch Hedberg joke. RIP. “I find that a duck’s opinion of me is very much influenced over whether or not I have bread.”

Everyday I’m Hustlin’ (and Doublin’.)

Happy Easter. Quiet here at the Ghost, I know. Chalk up 65% of it to an extremely busy month of work — one of the busiest I can remember — 25% to the usual existential malaise that accompanies blogging these days, and 10% to the sheer addictiveness of 2048. In any event, the schedule is clearing some now, so I expect the posts will pick up around here in short order.