Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Submitter Apology - Unaware Considered Spam. (Score 1) 1

by SlashGodet (#59865868) Attached to: Cytokine Storm and Covid-19 Treatment Strategy
Hey. I apologize I did not know this was a SPAM source. I found a reference to The Lancet being used to promote an unrelated pharmaceutical for an unrelated disease, which appeared to be motivated by for-profit interest. Perhaps that is why my submission was flagged, SPAM. This slashdotter did not intend to post misinformation. Mea Culpa.

Comment Cynical: Obvious. (Score 1) 128

by SlashGodet (#59861594) Attached to: McDonald's Is Closing All Its Restaurants in the UK
Cynical: Obvious. Likely the store income is enough to pay the bills, just not enough to give profits to the franchise owner. McDonalds stores are not making a big profit on take-out only. But the staff are very grateful to be bringing home a paycheck. There is *talk* of the government replacing wages, but *talk* does not pay the rent, so employees wish to work. And, risks to staff are very low since the food is take-out, with specific safety procedures for handover. But, profits to the corporation are also low, so better (say the accountants) to close the store and lay off people who NEED the money (Come on, who is working at Micky-Dee's that doesn't NEED the money?) Add to that a pity-party story to eek sympathy for the McDonalds Corporation from the media.

Submission + - climate modeller wins $10,000 wager against Solar physicists. 3

Submitted by Layzej
Layzej writes: Back in 2005, solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev made a $10,000 bet that global temperatures, driven primarily by changes in the Sun's activity, would fall over the next decade. The bet would compare the then record hot years between 1998 to 2003 with that between between 2012 and 2017. With temperatures falling from their peak during the 1998 super El-Nino, and solar output continuing to fall, this seemed like a sure bet. The results are now in and all datasets show that climate modeler James Annan is the clear winner.

At the time of the wager, Annan had supposed that the reputation of the scientists involved would be enough to ensure payment once the bet was settled. Unfortunately, as was the case with Alfred Russel Wallace's famous 1870 bet against flat-Earthers, the losing parties have refused to pay up.

Comment Re: No (Score 1) 176

You are wrong, careful sourced contributions ARE reverted, as AC stated:

I was undertaking a data analysis project at the time which led me to supplement the existing article content as well as restructure it to facilitate web scraping.

Sounds a lot like my contributions - made while I was actively working on the topic, in my field of expertise - and flow edits, carefully made to put the article in line with Wikipedia's own flow model.

AC writes clearly and lucidly. What would you have AC do, spend an hour or two coming up with examples and quotes from long-buried Wikipedia discussion pages?

As I recall there are automatic revert 'bots as well as human editors.

Comment Re: No (Score 1) 176

I suffered the same reverting of excellent and sourced facts (and professional writing.) Early days I was able to contribute occasional information in my field of expertise, but as time went on, _occasional_ careful contributions were treated dismissively.

Gradually only those with reputations in the fiefdom of Wikipedia were welcomed to contribute (bored homebounds) while careful contributions by unknowns (people with actual lives) were thoughtlessly reverted.

I assume many valuable contributions were being sidelined, not jut my own, and no longer viewed Wikipedia as a great source of information.

And stopped wasting time making careful smart edits, when it was always a dispiriting struggle against revert-ionists.

Submission + - Mosquitoes Genetically Modified To Crash Species That Spreads Malaria (npr.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that a controversial new kind of genetic engineering can rapidly spread a self-destructive genetic modification through a complex species. The scientists used the revolutionary gene-editing tool known as CRISPR to engineer mosquitoes with a "gene drive," which rapidly transmitted a sterilizing mutation through other members of the mosquito's species. After mosquitoes carrying the mutation were released into cages filled with unmodified mosquitoes in a high-security basement laboratory in London, virtually all of the insects were wiped out, according to a report in Nature Biotechnology. The mosquitoes were created in the hopes of using them as a potent new weapon in the long, frustrating fight against malaria. Malaria remains one of the world's deadliest diseases, killing more than 400,000 people every year, mostly children younger than 5 years old.

Submission + - Tech Giants Spend $80 Billion to Make Sure No One Else Can Compete (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google parent Alphabet and the other four dominant U.S. technology companies — Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook — are fast becoming industrial giants. They spent a combined $80 billion in the last year on big-ticket physical assets, including manufacturing equipment and specialized tools for assembling iPhones and the powerful computers and undersea internet cables Facebook needs to fire up Instagram videos in a flash. Thanks to this surge in spending—up from $40 billion in 2015—they’ve joined the ranks of automakers, telephone companies, and oil drillers as the country’s biggest spenders on capital goods, items including factories, heavy equipment, and real estate that are considered long-term investments. Their combined outlay is about 10 times what GM spends annually on its plants, vehicle-assembly robots, and other materials. The splurge by tech companies is behind an upswing in capital-goods spending among big U.S. companies, which is seeing its fastest growth in years, according to a Credit Suisse analysis. The $80 billion tab also is a snapshot of why it’s tough to unseat the tech giants. How can a company hope to compete with Google’s driverless cars when it spends $20 billion a year to ensure it has the best laser-guided sensors and computer chips? There are a lot of physical assets behind all those internet clouds.

Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft: 75% of U.S. Parents Want Big Tech Cos. Involved in Kids' Education 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: According to a Microsoft-commissioned survey, 50% of parents in the U.S. with children aged 18 and under believed coding and computer programming to be the most beneficial subject to their child’s future employability ("compared to foreign language skills at 28%"). From the Microsoft Education blog post: "When asked about the technology industry’s involvement, 75 percent of parents said they believe big tech companies should be involved in helping schools build kids’ digital skills. Many companies, including Microsoft and organizations like Code.org, are working to do just that. Programs like TEALS, which is supported by Microsoft Philanthropies, pairs trained Computer Science professionals from across the technology industry with classroom teachers to team-teach the subject." In 2016, Microsoft partnered with Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to help bring computer science education to every public K–12 school across the state, an initiative that Raimondo is now touting in her 2018 bid for re-election (political ad).

Comment Fiefdoms - Corporate City (Score 5, Insightful) 825

"tech companies have become independent fiefs with dry cleaning, gyms, doctors, shuttle buses and bountiful free meals...

Fantastic quote from the article. The fiefdoms of tech campuses are creating a new kind of society: the corporate city, open only to those with a badge. On the large scale practiced in the SF Bay Area, this corporate coddling certainly seems to be capable of whittling away at the vibrance of city life.

NEWS RELEASE: "The independent city-state of Google has declared war on the city of San Francisco by poaching its best chefs." LOL.

Comment Genuine People Personalities (Score 3, Interesting) 129

I deal with 2 GoogleFi phones -- 'Personality AI' agents are the most annoying feature of Google's AI Call Center.

"Hey pardner, ..." -- fake cowpoke dude.
"It certainly is sunny here, how's the weather there?" -- fake nature lover.
"Roger that." -- fake roger dodger.

Per Douglas Adams' classic - “A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature.” Arthur: "GPP? What’s that?" Ford: "Er It says Genuine People Personalities."

When I ask Google Call Center responders, "Are you a real human or an AI?" The question is completely ignored, not YES, nor NO. I THINK THE ROBOTIC AI NATURE OF MY INTERACTION SHOULD BE DISCLOSED, that way I can skip the 'how are you' pleasantries, at least.

Comment Re:$10? For $5 I can tell about updateing there sy (Score 1) 32

Update of a simple typo is annoying and boring. "FTFY" is useful only when the meaning of the sentence is changed by the typo! Develop courtesy toward others. Lack of spelling is common to many genius brains, as well as non-native english writers.

Sheesh, people trying to increase their post count...

Slashdot Top Deals

Memory fault -- brain fried

Close