Ray Dalio says cash is more attractive than stocks and bonds on the back of rising rates - CNBC
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Thursday, February 2, 2023
Ray Dalio says cash is more attractive than stocks and bonds on the back of rising rates - CNBC
Ray Dalio says cash is more attractive than stocks and bonds on the back of rising rates - CNBC
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N.S. groundhog, lobster agree there will be 6 more weeks of winter - Global News
Two very different prognosticating animals share the opinion that Nova Scotia will have at least six more weeks of winter.
Locals in Barrington held a Groundhog Day celebration Thursday morning with a decidedly south-shore twist.
Lucy the Lobster crawled out of the ocean at the Cape Sable Island Causeway at 8 a.m., ready to show her rodent rival how a prediction is made.
While it was difficult to see where her beady little eyes went, organizers of the event declared she saw her shadow, indicating six more weeks of winter.
In what is perhaps a cruel turn of events for her lobster friends, Lucy’s prediction kicked off the Nova Scotia Lobster Crawl in Barrington, which is considered the lobster capital of Canada.
Meanwhile, more than 300 kilometres away at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park, the province’s most famous groundhog made a prediction of her own.
Emerging from her burrow butt-first, Shubenacadie Sam wandered around her enclosure for a few moments before organizers declared she had seen her shadow.
The event was closed to visitors for the past two years due to COVID-19 gathering restrictions. A storm also cancelled the event in 2020.
“It’s great that we’re able to gather for this tradition again,” Andrew Morrison, manager and veterinarian at the wildlife park, told the crowd gathered there in the cold morning air.
Sam is the first groundhog in North America to make a prediction due to the province’s Atlantic time zone.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
N.S. groundhog, lobster agree there will be 6 more weeks of winter - Global News
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Regulating artificial intelligence: Things are about to get a lot more interesting - CBC.ca
This column is an opinion by Jonah Prousky, a management consultant based in Toronto, focusing on data, analytics and artificial intelligence. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.
On May 12, 1997, the front page of the New York Times read, "Swift and Slashing, Computer Topples Kasparov."
The article, for those who may not remember, broke the news about one of the most infamous chess matches of all time, in which an IBM supercomputer, Deep Blue, defeated reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov in six games.
For many, this was far more than a chess match between man and machine. It was a sign that the gap was closing between artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence. And in a big way.
OpenAI's release of ChatGPT will go down as another extraordinary encounter between man and machine. Only this time, it isn't a game. Language and its infinite applications are at stake.
Not coincidentally, Garry Kasparov's words when reflecting on his loss to Deep Blue 10 years later in an interview with the CBC seem most appropriate for this moment. "I always say, machines won't make us obsolete," he said. "Our complacency might."
And while it doesn't look like ChatGPT will in fact make us obsolete, it has provided us with a sobering reminder of AI's potential to disrupt many aspects of the human experience: education, medicine, law, commerce, and everything in between.
In response, we need to be mindful of Kasparov's words and fight our tendency toward complacency. We, most notably our politicians, need to manage the future of AI, not vice versa.
A regulatory conundrum
Members of the House of Commons are currently mulling over Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, which includes what could become Canada's first piece of AI legislation, the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).
If passed, the AIDA would place several guardrails on the uses of AI and enforce penalties for noncompliance up to $25 million.
This is certainly a step in the right direction, though it's easy to foresee several challenges the AIDA or any policy like it will face when enacted.
Firstly, technology develops exponentially, but the legislative process is linear, where bills plod through the House and Senate before being passed into law. It might be many months or years before AI legislation is passed, yet it's difficult to predict what AI will be capable of at that point.
Managing risks that grow exponentially has been acutely challenging in the past. Consider how badly COVID-19, which came in exponential spikes, stressed hospital capacity and other essential services.
I think that's the speed at which AI will spread as the technology improves. It took less than one week for ChatGPT to amass over one million users. What's more, the next, more powerful iteration of the software has already been announced by OpenAI.
Secondly, AIDA is chiefly concerned with uses of AI that are deliberately harmful, such as data privacy breaches or financial crime. But it's the grey zones that are more concerning. In education, for example, some have posited that this new step forward in AI will make homework a thing of the past. But will that make the next generation of students more or less intelligent?
Zoom out, and many of the applications of AI — in social media, or national defence, perhaps — start to look the same way. That is, they may not be deliberately harmful but their net effect on society is largely unknown.
Thirdly, corporations will ultimately own this technology and that has the potential to be both a blessing and a curse.
Microsoft is poised to invest an additional $10 billion in OpenAI and, like any corporation, will have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for its shareholders. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Consider how quickly corporations developed and distributed vaccines for COVID-19. The incentive to use AI to turn a profit may lead to the next breakthrough in science or medicine.
However, when corporate and social interests are at odds, corporations have a funny way of getting what they want — usually through effective government lobbying. If there are profitable applications of AI that are detrimental to society, AI legislation alone might not be enough to stop them.
The path forward
Canada's proposed AI legislation is lenient enough to allow for a future where many aspects of human life are augmented by AI. The technology is arguably in its infancy, yet already capable of carrying out highly nuanced tasks such as weeding through job applications, predicting verdicts in legal trials or diagnosing sick patients.
It will be fascinating to watch regulators ponder the ethical boundaries of life with AI, and nobody knows exactly how this will play out.
In the years that followed Kasparov's defeat, Deep Blue's successors, such as Google's AlphaGo, got a lot more powerful. But what people tend to forget is that the technology made human chess players better as well.
AI didn't make chess obsolete. In fact, it made the game more interesting.
ChatGPT has many flaws. It struggles a bit with ambiguity, and it has a so-far-amusing tendency to present false information as fact. In that sense, ChatGPT looks more like the Deep Blue from Kasparov's first bout with it in 1996, where Kasparov came out ahead four games to two.
If history repeats itself, ChatGPT and its successors will continue to improve and encroach on many aspects of human intelligence. Along the way, things will get a lot more interesting.
Our job, as Garry Kasparov reminded us, will be to guard against complacency.
Do you have a strong opinion that could add insight, illuminate an issue in the news, or change how people think about an issue? We want to hear from you. Here's how to pitch to us.
Regulating artificial intelligence: Things are about to get a lot more interesting - CBC.ca
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Wednesday, February 1, 2023
After more than 3 decades, West Edmonton Mall's Mindbender roller-coaster closes for good - CBC.ca
The Mindbender roller-coaster, a fixture for decades at Galaxyland in West Edmonton Mall, has come to the end of its triple-looped track.
In a news release this week, the mall confirmed the closure of the "iconic" roller-coaster that had thrilled riders since it opened in 1985.
"While the Mindbender will be missed, we are excited to announce that we are working on groundbreaking new plans for family thrills that will immerse our guests in an out-of-this-world experience," Lori Bethel, WEM's vice-president of parks and attractions, said in the release.
Redevelopment of the area has begun and the roller-coaster will be decommissioned and removed, the mall said.
The Mindbender, dubbed the world's largest indoor triple-loop roller-coaster, had been closed to the public since 2020.
The ride gave adrenalin rushes to untold thousands of thrill-seekers over the years, but its reputation was tarnished by a 1986 accident that killed three people and critically injured another.
Matthew Dutczak, a self-proclaimed WEM historian and creator of the Best Edmonton Mall YouTube channel, said he was shocked to learn the ride was permanently closing.
"I heard the rumours like everyone did over the last few years, and I was the biggest, most vocal opponent of it at the thought of it closing," he told CBC.
"I never in a million years thought they would close it."
Dutczak recalls being too scared to ride the Mindbender when he was young. But after he picked up the courage to ride it as a teenager, he was hooked.
"And now I'll never get to ride it again, which is very sad," he said.
From a tourism perspective, the roller-coaster made for one of the mall's most iconic images, right after the pirate ship and indoor waterpark, Dutczak said. It was featured in the majority of tourism photos he has seen of the mall, he said.
The ride was a favourite of roller-coaster enthusiasts like Andrew Cunningham from San Francisco, who has been on 717 roller-coasters around the world.
Radio Active6:07The Mindbender is no more
Cunningham told CBC's Radio Active on Monday the Mindbender was popular with enthusiasts because of its intensity.
"It has a very long ride time and it's a very aggressive ride," he said.
"It goes upside down three times — extremely powerful loops; they're not just like little floaty things. You get really pushed down into your feet throughout the entire ride."
The roller coaster ranked No. 4 for highest G-force — short for gravitational force — on Coasterpedia, an online resource about roller-coasters and other amusement rides.
Cunningham said that in his experience, most roller-coasters transition out of the high G-force to give riders a chance to breathe and recover.
"But the thing about Mindbender is it was just relentless [in] how long it held those G-forces for, and it really just pins you to the seat throughout the entire ride," he said.
1986 fatal crash
On June 14, 1986, the ride's last car derailed at about 100 kilometres per hour, hitting a concrete pillar and hurling four passengers to the concrete floor below.
Three of the ejected riders died and the fourth was critically injured. Nineteen other riders were treated for minor injuries.
The ride shut down for more than a year and underwent safety modifications.
A provincial inquiry blamed the crash on a defunct West German company for design and manufacturing flaws. The inquiry found that four bolts had worked loose, allowing a wheel assembly to fall off the roller-coaster car.
Edmontonian Brian McMorran was on the ride with his friends a day before the crash.
"It really rattled me," he told CBC on Monday.
McMorran never rode the roller-coaster again.
"It could have just as easily been me and my friends," he said.
Dean De Benedetto, who was 15 when he worked at the amusement park in 1987, remembers the Mindbender being the most fun ride in Edmonton, but also the scariest.
"I do remember thinking about it a few times," he said, referring to the crash.
"When you're on the ride, you're just like, 'We only hope this thing holds together.'"
Many of De Benedetto's colleagues at the amusement park — then known as Fantasyland — were around his own age and ran most of the rides, he said.
But the Mindbender was supervised by adult employees.
"It was kind of the one, the one ride that you had to have a bit of a bit of technical expertise to run, from what I remember," he said.
Edmonton AM6:40Mindbender rollercoaster shutting down for good
After more than 3 decades, West Edmonton Mall's Mindbender roller-coaster closes for good - CBC.ca
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Enzo Fernandez transfer news: Chelsea complete British record £107m fee for Benfica midfielder - BBC
Chelsea have agreed a British record 121m euro (£107m) deal with Benfica for Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez.
The deal eclipses the £100m Manchester City paid for Jack Grealish in 2021.
Fernandez, who only joined Benfica for a reported £10m in August, was named young player of the tournament during Argentina's World Cup triumph in Qatar.
The 22-year-old's arrival takes Chelsea's January spending to £289m, according to transfer website Transfermarkt.
He has signed an eight-and-a-half year contract at Stamford Bridge.
The deal follows an outlay of £270m in the summer - a record for a British club in the summer window.
It is the joint-sixth most expensive signing of all-time, equalling the 120m euros Barcelona paid for France forward Antoine Griezmann in 2019.
Fernandez, signed by Benfica from Argentine side River Plate, has scored four goals in 29 appearances for the Primeira Liga side.
Benfica confirmed on Tuesday night that River Plate will earn 25% of the transfer fee, around 30m euros.
He scored once during the World Cup, netting Argentina's second goal in their 2-0 group-stage win over Mexico.
Earlier in January, Benfica accused Chelsea of trying to unsettle the midfielder, with the Portuguese side's manager Roger Schmidt declaring their pursuit "closed".
Chelsea have signed Noni Madueke, Mykhailo Mudryk, David Datro Fofana, Andrey Santos, Benoit Badiashile and Malo Gusto on permanent deals in January.
They have also brought in Joao Felix on loan from Atletico Madrid.
The Blues are 10th in the Premier League, 10 points adrift of the competition's Champions League places after 20 matches.
The club was bought for £4.25bn by a consortium led by American investor Todd Boehly last May, after previous owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned over his links to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Enzo Fernandez transfer news: Chelsea complete British record £107m fee for Benfica midfielder - BBC
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Tuesday, January 31, 2023
James Webb Telescope: More stars created Southern Ring Nebula - CTV News
The central star forming the Southern Ring Nebula is dying, emitting the "messy" red dust that forms its titular rings, and researchers now understand the phenomenon visible through a high-powered telescope is caused by multiple stars, not just one.
A team of 70 researchers found there were two or more "unseen" stars that created the circular shapes around the nebula.
A nebula, as described by NASA, is a term for a cloud of dust and gas in space formed from the explosion of a dying star.
The Southern Ring Nebula is about 2,000 light-years away from Earth.
The team behind the research, led by Orsola De Marco of Macquarie University in Sydney, analyzed 10 of NASA's James Webb Telescope images and existing data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory.
The discovery was published in Nature Astronomy on Dec. 8.
"With Webb, it’s like we were handed a microscope to examine the universe," De Marco said in NASA's press release."There is so much detail in its images. We approached our analysis much like forensic scientists to rebuild the scene. "
The Southern Ring Nebula is aging, which is why researchers are interested in how it was created and what is happening. The processes of the dying star created red gas forming the nebula, making for what researchers call a "messy death."
"We think all that gas and dust we see thrown all over the place must have come from that one star, but it was tossed in very specific directions by the companion stars," Joel Kastner, a team member from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, said in NASA's press release.
The team was able to pinpoint the mass of stars that created the nebula, which shows the central star was nearly three times bigger than the sun at the time. After it started shedding layers of gas and dust, which happens as stars age, the team was able to see how many stars created the shapes of the Southern Ring Nebula.
"Knowing the initial mass is a critical piece of evidence that helped the team reconstruct the scene and project how the shapes in this nebula may have been created," the NASA website reads.
The team believes the central star interacted with one or two small companion stars which spread out the dusty red gas seen circling around.
By understanding how the nebula got its rings, researchers can apply the evidence to other systems in deep space answering questions on how stars are created and why the dust forms circles.
James Webb Telescope: More stars created Southern Ring Nebula - CTV News
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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: GM, McDonald's, UPS, Pulte, International Paper and more - CNBC
General Motors CEO Mary Barra speaks to reporters while she waits for the arrival of President Joe Biden at media day of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, September 14, 2022.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading Tuesday.
General Motors — The automaker's stock surged more than 7% after the company cruised past analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines for its fourth quarter. The company reported an adjusted $2.12 per share on $43.11 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were looking for $1.69 in earnings per share on $40.65 billion in revenue. The outperformance came despite profit margins narrowing year over year. GM also said it expected earnings to fall in 2023, but that guidance was still above analyst estimates.
related investing news
Caterpillar — Shares fell about 3% after Caterpillar reported a 29% earnings decline. The construction machinery and equipment maker said higher manufacturing costs and foreign currency effects weighed on its quarterly results.
Paramount — Shares of the entertainment giant shed 1% after a downgrade to underperform from neutral by Macquarie, which cited its exposure to advertising. CNBC reported Monday that the company will integrate Showtime's streaming service into its main streaming platform, Paramount+.
A.O. Smith — Shares skyrocketed 9.6% after the manufacturing company reported earnings of $0.86 per share, beating consensus estimates. The company has beat EPS estimates three times over the last four quarters.
McDonald's — Shares dipped 2.60% after McDonald's reported its latest quarterly results. Although the fast food company's earnings and revenue beat expectations, management cautioned that rising cost pressures are likely to continue in 2023.
UPS — Shares of United Parcel Service gained 4% after shipping and transportation giant posted earnings of $3.62 a share, slightly ahead of the $3.59 expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. UPS also raised its dividend and sanctioned a new $5 billion stock repurchase plan.
PulteGroup — Shares of the homebuilder soared 9% in midday trading after the company reported better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings. The company reported $3.63 in adjusted earnings per share on $5.17 billion of revenue, and its homebuilding gross margin rose year over year.
International Paper — Shares of the packaging and paper products company rallied more than 8% after reporting fourth-quarter adjusted operating earnings of 87 cents per diluted share, exceeding StreetAccount's estimate of 69 cents per diluted share. International Paper also gave fiscal year 2023 guidance of $2.8 billion compared to the $2.4 billion expected.
Pentair — Shares of Pentair surged 6.7% after the water treatment company reported earnings that topped Wall Street estimates for earnings and revenue. The company also gave solid forward guidance for earnings for the full year 2023.
Lam Research — Shares were up 2.3% after Citi added a positive catalyst watch on the semiconductor company and said it expects the stock to outperform.
— CNBC's Samantha Subin, Alex Harring, Jesse Pound, Yun Li, Carmen Reinicke, Michelle Fox Theobald, and Hakyung Kim contributed reporting.
Stocks making the biggest moves midday: GM, McDonald's, UPS, Pulte, International Paper and more - CNBC
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