Sorry if that offended anyone, but it was intended as a joke, not a troll. (I never know how my jokes will go over here - some have been well received, some less so, but I've never had one marked as a troll before.)
BTW, this one also isn't a troll, it's just an explanation.:-)
Predicting when proteins will dock with targets is fine, but I'll really be impressed if Google's "supercomputers" can predict when users will dock with healthcare.gov.
I find that I consistently omit the apostrophe whenever I use the plural possessive form of the word "other". I wonder if the bot will pick up on that? Heck, my human editors never seem to even notice. Or, if they do, they don't want doctor others text, so they just indulge my Joycean literary genius and publish exactly the text I submit.
You can't beat the averages. People who try always finish behind the averages because their costs are higher or they take on more risk.
There are a few things I disagree with here (YYMV). First, it's quite possible to beat the averages over time, but it take a lot of study and discipline, a little time, and probably some aptitude. But most folks are lacking one or more of those things, and for those folks, I agree that a low-cost index fund probably is the best option.
Second, regarding cost, investing in individual stocks is actually the lowest cost option available for buy-and-hold investors. Most online brokerages now will do a trade of any size for less than $10. (I paid $8 for one today.) So, for example, if you buy $10,000 worth of a stock for $10 and hold it for 5 years, your cost is 0.02%. Compare that to the expense ratio of 0.17% for Vanguard's S&P 500 Fund. Even if you hold for only one year, your cost is 0.1%, which is still less than spending a year in an index fund. Of course, for investors who trade regularly (not recommmended), the cost is much higher than the index fund. So, the cost comparison between the two really depends on the habits of the investor.
Third, individual investors who follow a disciplined, value-based approach actually take on less risk than the market indexes. Basically, buying a small set of highly selected excellent companies for less than they're worth is less risky than buying a broad basket of stocks via an index fund. Just ask Warren Buffett.
With the S&P 500 up about 28% for the year, yet corporate profits up by only a fraction of that, what I think what we're seeing is "multiple expansion", that is, higher P/Es, which indicates investors are willing to pay more per dollar of profit. I don't think that's reached "bubble" status yet, but it's hard to find bargains in the market at the moment, and the bargain stocks I bought a couple of years ago now seem to be fully valued.
With regard to the NASDAQ, I think we're seeing a mixture of new things that are overvalued and old things that may be undervalued. (Disclosure: I'm long on a couple of the old things.) As always, it pays to be choosy when investing in stocks.
The better criticism of FB's current valuation is that it projects too much growth. The user base is kind of saturated. Once you have a double-digit percentage of the entire planet, it's hard to go much higher. If they try to grow revenue through increasing advertising, they run the risk of alienating users.
Spot on. Facebook is a classic example of a good company that's a bad stock, due to its high valuation. As shown by Yahoo Finance, Facebook's trailing P/E is over 100 and its forward P/E is over 40. That's compared to a typical "growth" company that might have P/E's of 15-30. So why is Facebook worth several times what investors are currently paying for companies that still have room to grow? Just doesn't make any sense.
However, that's not surprising for a company that has a double-digit percentage of the entire planet in its user base: there are enough folks among its users who don't understand stock valuation to purchase it at any price. (BTW, the same is true for Amazon, which has a similarly high valuation - though perhaps Amazon has more room to grow.)
On Slashdot, I never post except as "Anonymous Coward". As you can see from the examples above, that prevents anyone from attributing my many contradictory, inane, and often foul opinions to my real pseudonym.
Although the Tardis has its many fans worldwide, it's most popular in the UK. Which proves once again that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
(Disclaimer: I don't know if that's really true, but it was necessary to construct the above "joke".)
What a position to be in: you give away all your products but are well funded by a wealthy patron. Yet the patron gives away a product comparable to your primary product, and gives away a service that provides many of the features of your secondary product.
Wealthy patrons are nothing new, and those who rely on patronage have always been in a precarious position. But rarely have they been in direct competition with their patrons.
I currently have a Matlab script that produces slightly different FIR filter design coefficients each time I run it - when run on the same version of Matlab on the same machine. And this is with Matlab, whose primary selling point is its industrial-strength mathematical "correctness".
Also, I once used a C compiler that wouldn't produce consistent builds, and not just by a timestamp. The compiler vendor said that a random factor was used to decide between optimization choices that scored equally. We finally had to ask the vendor to remove that "feature" so we could reproduce a build, which was required as a condition for software release.
So, good luck reproducing math results in the cloud, and over many years.
Actually, I haven't read it yet. I only recently heard about it while reading a biography of Joseph Priestley. I hope to read the Kuhn book soon.
Anyway, sorry if I got that wrong. I was just trying to further the always-erudite discussion here. To that end, thanks for setting me straight in the most condescending and pedantic way possible.;-)
Likewise, the automation is not designed to handle extreme failures of the aircraft. For example, the situation many years ago in Iowa where the hydraulics failed and the pilot had to steer the plane using only the engine throttles is an example of something that no computer system is designed to do. Yet a veteran pilot managed to pull it off.
"Insensitive prick"? Well, maybe...but that's none of your darn business. It'll happen to you too one day, just wait and see. Meanwhile, let's have a little respect for our elders...
'It's important to have people who are willing to work in isolation and buck the conventional wisdom,' says Tao. Polymath, by contrast, is 'entirely groupthink.' Not every math problem would lend itself to such collaboration, but this one did."
History is rife with examples of the lone genius making a leap forward, thereby allowing the crowd to take it even further. See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.
They'll be lauded as extraordinarily smart businessmen—perhaps smarter than the folks at Instagram who sold for a 'measly' $1 billion (and all this despite Snapchat making no revenue)
This billions-for-no-revenue thing reminds me of "The Change Bank" commercial that appeared on Saturday Night Live years ago:
A lot of people don't realize that change is a two-way street. You can come in with sixteen quarters, eight dimes, and four nickels - we can give you a five-dollar bill. Or we can give you five singles. Or two singles, eight quarters, and ten dimes. You'd be amazed at the variety of the options you have....All the time, our customers ask us, "How do you make money doing this?" The answer is simple: Volume. That's what we do.
Slashdot Mirror
that photons are quantized. Otherwise, I bet those MIT guys could do it with even less than one photon per pixel.
Sorry if that offended anyone, but it was intended as a joke, not a troll. (I never know how my jokes will go over here - some have been well received, some less so, but I've never had one marked as a troll before.)
BTW, this one also isn't a troll, it's just an explanation. :-)
Predicting when proteins will dock with targets is fine, but I'll really be impressed if Google's "supercomputers" can predict when users will dock with healthcare.gov.
I find that I consistently omit the apostrophe whenever I use the plural possessive form of the word "other". I wonder if the bot will pick up on that? Heck, my human editors never seem to even notice. Or, if they do, they don't want doctor others text, so they just indulge my Joycean literary genius and publish exactly the text I submit.
You can't beat the averages. People who try always finish behind the averages because their costs are higher or they take on more risk.
There are a few things I disagree with here (YYMV). First, it's quite possible to beat the averages over time, but it take a lot of study and discipline, a little time, and probably some aptitude. But most folks are lacking one or more of those things, and for those folks, I agree that a low-cost index fund probably is the best option.
Second, regarding cost, investing in individual stocks is actually the lowest cost option available for buy-and-hold investors. Most online brokerages now will do a trade of any size for less than $10. (I paid $8 for one today.) So, for example, if you buy $10,000 worth of a stock for $10 and hold it for 5 years, your cost is 0.02%. Compare that to the expense ratio of 0.17% for Vanguard's S&P 500 Fund. Even if you hold for only one year, your cost is 0.1%, which is still less than spending a year in an index fund. Of course, for investors who trade regularly (not recommmended), the cost is much higher than the index fund. So, the cost comparison between the two really depends on the habits of the investor.
Third, individual investors who follow a disciplined, value-based approach actually take on less risk than the market indexes. Basically, buying a small set of highly selected excellent companies for less than they're worth is less risky than buying a broad basket of stocks via an index fund. Just ask Warren Buffett.
With the S&P 500 up about 28% for the year, yet corporate profits up by only a fraction of that, what I think what we're seeing is "multiple expansion", that is, higher P/Es, which indicates investors are willing to pay more per dollar of profit. I don't think that's reached "bubble" status yet, but it's hard to find bargains in the market at the moment, and the bargain stocks I bought a couple of years ago now seem to be fully valued.
With regard to the NASDAQ, I think we're seeing a mixture of new things that are overvalued and old things that may be undervalued. (Disclosure: I'm long on a couple of the old things.) As always, it pays to be choosy when investing in stocks.
The better criticism of FB's current valuation is that it projects too much growth. The user base is kind of saturated. Once you have a double-digit percentage of the entire planet, it's hard to go much higher. If they try to grow revenue through increasing advertising, they run the risk of alienating users.
Spot on. Facebook is a classic example of a good company that's a bad stock, due to its high valuation. As shown by Yahoo Finance, Facebook's trailing P/E is over 100 and its forward P/E is over 40. That's compared to a typical "growth" company that might have P/E's of 15-30. So why is Facebook worth several times what investors are currently paying for companies that still have room to grow? Just doesn't make any sense.
However, that's not surprising for a company that has a double-digit percentage of the entire planet in its user base: there are enough folks among its users who don't understand stock valuation to purchase it at any price. (BTW, the same is true for Amazon, which has a similarly high valuation - though perhaps Amazon has more room to grow.)
I'll believe it when I see it.
On Slashdot, I never post except as "Anonymous Coward". As you can see from the examples above, that prevents anyone from attributing my many contradictory, inane, and often foul opinions to my real pseudonym.
You're right, sorry. I'd promise that it won't happen again, except it probably will.
Although the Tardis has its many fans worldwide, it's most popular in the UK. Which proves once again that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
(Disclaimer: I don't know if that's really true, but it was necessary to construct the above "joke".)
I bet it works even better than fingerprint recognition.
What a position to be in: you give away all your products but are well funded by a wealthy patron. Yet the patron gives away a product comparable to your primary product, and gives away a service that provides many of the features of your secondary product.
Wealthy patrons are nothing new, and those who rely on patronage have always been in a precarious position. But rarely have they been in direct competition with their patrons.
I currently have a Matlab script that produces slightly different FIR filter design coefficients each time I run it - when run on the same version of Matlab on the same machine. And this is with Matlab, whose primary selling point is its industrial-strength mathematical "correctness".
Also, I once used a C compiler that wouldn't produce consistent builds, and not just by a timestamp. The compiler vendor said that a random factor was used to decide between optimization choices that scored equally. We finally had to ask the vendor to remove that "feature" so we could reproduce a build, which was required as a condition for software release.
So, good luck reproducing math results in the cloud, and over many years.
Actually, I haven't read it yet. I only recently heard about it while reading a biography of Joseph Priestley. I hope to read the Kuhn book soon.
Anyway, sorry if I got that wrong. I was just trying to further the always-erudite discussion here. To that end, thanks for setting me straight in the most condescending and pedantic way possible. ;-)
Man, at six million dollars, that comes out to $100K per pixel. But if it comes with a bionic arm and a couple of bionic legs, I'm in.
(sorry, somebody had to make the predictable joke)
Likewise, the automation is not designed to handle extreme failures of the aircraft. For example, the situation many years ago in Iowa where the hydraulics failed and the pilot had to steer the plane using only the engine throttles is an example of something that no computer system is designed to do. Yet a veteran pilot managed to pull it off.
...if any sheep genomes were found?
"Insensitive prick"? Well, maybe...but that's none of your darn business. It'll happen to you too one day, just wait and see. Meanwhile, let's have a little respect for our elders...
Haven't we seen stories in this vein before?
(Or not.)
'It's important to have people who are willing to work in isolation and buck the conventional wisdom,' says Tao. Polymath, by contrast, is 'entirely groupthink.' Not every math problem would lend itself to such collaboration, but this one did."
History is rife with examples of the lone genius making a leap forward, thereby allowing the crowd to take it even further. See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.
I hope doing "The Ministry of Silly Walks" doesn't cause Cleese to break a hip.
The reunion comes after several failed attempts to reform by the group.
The Pythons may reunite but they'll never reform. Especially Chapman.
They'll be lauded as extraordinarily smart businessmen—perhaps smarter than the folks at Instagram who sold for a 'measly' $1 billion (and all this despite Snapchat making no revenue)
This billions-for-no-revenue thing reminds me of "The Change Bank" commercial that appeared on Saturday Night Live years ago:
A lot of people don't realize that change is a two-way street. You can come in with sixteen quarters, eight dimes, and four nickels - we can give you a five-dollar bill. Or we can give you five singles. Or two singles, eight quarters, and ten dimes. You'd be amazed at the variety of the options you have....All the time, our customers ask us, "How do you make money doing this?" The answer is simple: Volume. That's what we do.
...to a McDonald's near you: "Meat McMummy". And don't peal off the simulated gauze wrapping: it's edible. Yum!