investing etc. 0007
YouGov, Treatt, Victrex, keeping company adjustments honest, Dune 2, Counterfeiting human minds, Google Gemini, the best of Women’s Super League football
investing etc. 0007
YouGov, Treatt, Victrex, keeping company adjustments honest, Dune 2, Counterfeiting human minds, Google Gemini, the best of Women’s Super League football
It’s a small step but, I hope, a big step forward for readers.
For many years we have published the Decision Engine table once a month on Interactive Investor.
Each share is scored for its long-term investment potential. The Decision Engine ranks those shares, factoring in the latest share prices.
We chose a monthly schedule so readers could see how the Decision Engine informed my trades in the Share Sleuth portfolio.
But recently that all changed! From now on we're publishing the table weekly, at the end of every share write-up.
That way you can also compare the newly scored share to the scores of all the other shares jockeying for a position in the Share Sleuth portfolio.
You can see the new format in the most recent write ups; market researcher YouGov, flavour maker Treatt, and polymer manufacturer Victrex.
How much profit did RWS really make? is a postscript to my previous evaluation of translator, RWS. It explains why I didn't panic when the company reported a statutory loss. I reckon it made a substantial profit.
The article received some pushback from readers. I'm not surprised. The practice of adjusting profit, a number that is already subjective, can be used by companies to create a more positive impression of how they are performing than they deserve.
But accountants must make sure the balance sheet still balances after a period of trading, and the contortions they must do to achieve that can sometimes obscure how well a company is actually doing.
Sometimes adjustments are useful.
Thou shalt not counterfeit a human mind
Have you booked your cinema tickets for Dune 2?
The first part of the forthcoming trilogy was a majestic slow burning film, which set things up nicely. My expectations for the sequel are so high, I press-ganged other members of my family into watching the first film recently and I am listening to the audiobook, both in preparation for the second.
Dune: The Audiobook is easier to listen to than the book is to read!
Dune’s universe has a place for space ships but no place for artificial intelligence. The machines were overthrown, a backstory explained in a scene reminiscent of that other 1960’s classic Blade Runner:
The sound of her voice contained a difference then from any other voice in his experience. The words were outlined in brilliance. There was an edge to them. He felt that any question he might ask her would bring an answer that could lift him out of his flesh world into something greater.
“Why do you test for humans?”
“To set you free...”
“Free?”
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind.”
“Right out of the Butlerian Jihad, the Orange Catholic Bible, but what the OC Bible should have said is, ‘Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.’”
My counterfeit human mind
Even though it could be the beginning of the end, I have subscribed to the advanced version of Google Gemini. It’s an AI sidekick that also offers help writing Google Docs and organising information in Google Sheets.
Hopefully it will make me more efficient. Perhaps it will make me redundant. Possibly it will destroy the World. At the moment, there is no danger of it doing any of that.
So far, Gemini, which has gained fame for its faux-pas, has proved itself to be better at creating false facts than uncovering true facts, and its writing styles are contrived*.
But the excitement around artificial intelligence reminds me of the internet in the late 1990s. Although it sometimes seemed trivial at the time, ever since then the Internet has been my medium.
Perhaps AI will have a similar impact.
* That’s not to say all AI is unreliable or contrived, see these probably carefully selected “videos” generated from text prompts, for example.
Thank you
Gratuitous pic. of the fortnight: Kim Little scores Arsenal’s third goal from the penalty spot. The 3-1 victory over Manchester United in the Women's Super League, had everything; comedy, drama, skill, flair, and a capacity crowd at the Emirates.
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