><snip>
>>The code would defeat itself after having spread sufficiently. There's no such thing as a neutral observer. It's like dr Freud developing theory for his 6th book from patients who have read his first five and adjust their stories accordingly. If more and more players use such a prediction machine, the machine itself becomes a factor deciding a price of something. Maybe it would cause stable rates in the long run, if any number of players would start buying when it gets low, and start selling when it's supposed to get high. They'd counter the demand, and in the end you could just use last years' newspaper to read next year's rates :).
>
>This is true in theory only. It is based on the assumption that all people will act in a equally logical and rational manner. In practice however this has been shown to not be true for at least two reasons (1) not everyone is equally rational or logical, and (2) not everyone is equal in terms of their ability to comprehend and understand the information presented to them. Even if all investors are given the exact same information they will not all act upon it in the same manner or at the same time.

Thanks - this was also something I said elsewhere, but didn't think about it when I wrote the above.

So if Terry's engine ever resurfaces again, it will still be a big day... just for a different kind of artists. The kind whose art would be to interpret the predictions in their (customer's) interest.