Word: functional
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...demands of the student body for Harvard's computing resources have skyrocketed, the resources that the University has provided to those who make the system function has lagged far behind...
...clean 3-D perspective at the blink of an eye and are updated dynamically. (An aside for those who like to tinker: the multi-colored Apple logo from the Puzzle desk accessory may be copied and pasted into Calculator, where it will properly map onto the surface of whatever function is being graphed--pretty cool...
...vast that the underlying $14 trillion involved is more than three times the total value of all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a month and twice the size of the nation's gross domestic product. Collectively, these new financial instruments are called derivatives. Financially, they function like some giant unseen asteroid -- they influence the markets' movements with a powerful and dimly understood gravitational pull. And if they wobble out of orbit, they could conceivably come crashing into the sphere of day-to-day investments with cataclysmic effects...
...after the swap it would hold the floating-rate note that called for larger interest payments. "The fundamental advantage of derivatives is that they let you buy the risks you want and hedge the risks you don't want," says Columbia's Greenwald, "and that's an extraordinarily useful function...
...what has Wall Street finally wrought at the end of the day? Like nuclear power, derivatives perform a useful function. But they also contain a great deal of risk that must be carefully controlled. "Are derivatives here to stay?" asks Friedman of Goldman Sachs. "Certainly they are. Like many other instruments, they can be used to excess. But they can also be used for extremely beneficial purposes." It will be up to watchdogs in government and on Wall Street to ensure that the beneficial side of derivatives prevails, and that they do not follow pyramid schemes and savings and loan...