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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Monthly (Score 1) 114

Yes, most of the numbers companies report are available automatically from the accounting software, at least monthly if not more real-time. However, financial statements contain items that aim to give a more relevant picture but are subject to judgment. Examples include likely losses from ongoing court cases, estimates of bad debts, degree of completion for ongoing projects (and therefore items not yet invoiced but already happening) or an updated list of substantial risks. So yes, internal reporting does happen monthly but the numbers are not as precise or solid as required by accounting rules for the "proper" quarterly reports that go out to the public.

Comment Going against the tide here... but it looks useful (Score 1) 55

Good use case: =COPILOT("These cells contain fulltext feedback we collected about the new coffee machine",A1:A100,"Assign one of these categories next to each comment",D1:D5)

Bad use case: =COPILOT("Take this export from our sales system",A1:AK1000,"give me three names of people who should be promoted. Be careful. Good luck.")

Comment Who responded? (Score 2) 111

My scientific heart reads: (blah blah) ...Mechanical Turk... (blah blah) and thinks - a representative sample is where good research starts, not big words in the abstract... Wasn't there a recent post about most of these "respondents" actually being AI bots?

Comment Makes sense (Score 1) 18

I am not sure it could be done any other way. "AI, write a novel about a proud princess" -> no copyright. "AI, make my new handwritten novel 30 % shorter" -> work is still copyrightable. And yes, it means that lawyers will still need to be involved because there is a million cases in between these extremes.

Comment Re: AI = magic stones in a hat (Score 1) 52

Correction: regarding the word for homosexuality, you are criticizing human scholars by linking to an Imgur image of a post that complains about how a Greek word was wrongly translated and how that changes the meaning of a verse from Leviticus that was actually written in Hebrew. Also, "arseno-koitai" means literally "male-bed" - the meaning has nothing to do with a child.

While a discussion may be had about the nuances of translating that particular word, I would not use it to show the stupidity of Bible translators.

Comment Re: Cuppa Josephus (Score 1) 188

This. Why does the Slashdot crowd so often fall for headings like "cheese consumption last year was the highest on record" or "Google shares hit a new high" or "warmest year yet" or "never before have so many domestic cats died in a year"? We are still living in a growing world that has inflation - big news :)

Comment Re: Warren Buffet has ALWAYS laughed at this! (Score 2) 42

How can the value of a business change so quickly? For example when investors assumed that a successful business will grow at 13% per year for 5 years, but then the assumption changes to 10% growth. This may be due to a small change in expected demand, due to new information released about its product, due to a change in interest rates... Small changes in future projections of how much cash the business will generate will accumulate quite a bit to a large change in current business value (today's value of those future cash flows). There are large numbers of large investors who do their homework because that have a lot at stake.

Comment Re:Night trains are really good. (Score 4, Insightful) 140

Czech Republic here. Our rail network has one of the highest densities in the world, together with Switzerland. Trains are safe, clean and cheap. High quality apps allow you to find connections (across all providers and modes of public transport) and easily buy tickets that you can cancel for free 15 minutes before departure. Then the apps shows you not just the platform, but a map, real time train delay and any irregularities. Buffet cars have rotating menus by well known chefs but on some trains you get some drinks and food for free, or order over an app and have it brought to your seat. Yes it is true, no showers on sleeper trains, but it still beats driving to the airport, parking there, waiting in various queues for 1.5 hours, arriving to the hotel too late in the night to really enjoy them, and don't get me started on comparing the price of flight + hotel to the price of a train. But hey - loved your joke about cheap station food, that would be me as well :)

Comment Flamebait? (Score 0) 147

If only there were a way to mod the whole submission "flamebait". Are there any "news" in the article apart from the posters's impression that "Google search now sucks" and a decision to pin it on a single person...?

Comment Re:Corporate speak (Score 1) 14

When people decide about buying or selling stocks, they want to make comparisons - how does this company compare to Blizzard? To Electronic Arts? Trouble with companies that do several things at once (AAA titles, boardgames, free-to-play games) is that you cannot easily compare them, which makes it harder to see if they are over- or undervalued. And if there's not much synergy between, say, AAA and free-to-play studios, games and marketing, it may be easier to split off into separate entities and help investors decide what they actually want to invest in.

Comment Re:Now that we are saturated with ads ... (Score 1) 146

So imagine you want to run a news site like Slashdot, it is successful, you want to start doing it part-time and want to recover your expenses (maybe some hosting, maybe some staff). Your options: a) monthly subscription that charges people large amounts no matter whether they use the site or not, b) ads that need to be intrusive enough for advertisers to pay your website enough, c) letting people buy something and get commissions on the links to, say, Amazon, d) some system of micropayments, e.g. a cent for each article people read. How exactly is c) the most evil of these choices?

Slashdot Top Deals

The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.

Working...