John Brown's Notes and Essays

A New York Times investigation examines why traffic stops can escalate into fatal encounters and how hidden financial incentives increase the risks. This is what we found. A Valley Brook, Okla., police officer calling in the serial number of a gun found inside a car during a traffic stop in July. The gun was legally owned and returned to the driver.  Credit...Nick Oxford for The New York Times By Michael Levenson , The New York Times , Oct. 31, 2021 Updated 5:32 a.m. ET  Excerpt:  Now, a New York Times investigation reveals the scope of such cases [traffic stops] across the country — and why traffic stops for minor offenses can escalate into fatal encounters.  -- Over the last five years, The Times found, the police killed more than 400 drivers or passengers who were not wielding a gun or a knife or under pursuit for a violent crime. -- Traffic stops — which are often motivated by hidden budgetary considerations because of the ticket revenue they generate — are the m...

There have been a series of beneath-the-surface meetings between the two countries as the Biden administration applies a more sober approach to relations with the Kremlin.  Image from article: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Biden in June in Geneva. The summit set off a series of contacts between the two countries. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times   image (not from article) from ; jb comment: "two anglophiles meet?" By Anton Troianovski and David E. Sanger, The New York Times , Oct. 31, 2021 Updated 3:10 p.m. ET [ original article contains links and additional photographs ] MOSCOW — It might seem as if little has changed for Russia and the United States, two old adversaries seeking to undercut each other around the world. Russian nuclear-capable missiles have been spotted on the move near Ukraine, and the Kremlin has signaled the possibility of a new intervention there. It has tested hypersonic cruise missiles that skirt American defenses and cut all...

CNBC   PUBLISHED SAT, OCT 30 2021 8:16 AM EDT UPDATED SAT, OCT 30 2021 1:21 PM EDT Salvador Rodriguez @SAL19 SHARE Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via Email KEY POINTS --In 2018, an Oculus executive named Jason Rubin wrote a 50-page document headlined “The Metaverse” that he sent to a Facebook board member and some top execs. --The paper described in detail Facebook’s need to own the virtual reality market with a product that would shut out any future competition. --“If delivering the Metaverse we set out to build doesn’t scare the living hell out of us, then it is not the Metaverse we should be building,” Rubin wrote. Small toy figures are seen in front of displayed Facebook’s new rebrand logo Meta in this illustration taken, October 28, 2021. Dado Ruvic | Reuters In June 2018, Oculus executive Jason Rubin sent an email to  Facebook  board member Marc Andreessen with the subject line “The Metaverse.” “We belie...

The inaugural dinner of the Society of Presidential Descendants NEW YORK, NY - OCT 23:  A group of Presidential Descendants gather and get a group photo at the inaugural dinner of the Society of Presidential Descendants  [ jb -- see ] in Manhattan on October 23, 2021.   (Photo by Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Headline and photo  FROM

[JB: No, no, pls -- evidently not the degenerates ...]  image (not from below entry)  from From Wikipedia : The digerati (or digirati) are the elite of digitalization, social media, content marketing, computer industry and online communities. The word is a portmanteau, derived from "digital" and "literati", and reminiscent of the earlier coinage glitterati (glitter and literati). Famous computer scientists, tech magazine writers, digital consultants with multi-year experiences and well-known bloggers are included among the digerati.

image (not from article) from By Kevin Roose , The New York Times , Oct. 29, 2021 Excerpt:  If it works, Mr. Zuckerberg’s metaverse [ jb: see ] would usher in a new era of dominance — one that would extend Facebook’s influence to entirely new types of culture, communication and commerce. And if it doesn’t, it will be remembered as a desperate, costly attempt to give a futuristic face-lift to a geriatric social network while steering attention away from pressing societal problems. Either possibility is worth taking seriously. ...

YURAS KARMANAU Fri, October 29, 2021, 11:01 AM, Yahoo! news Image from article: Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko gestures while speaking during his visit to the Dobrush Paper Mill "Geroy Truda" in Dobrush, Belarus, Friday, Oct. 29, 2021. (Sergei Shelega/BelTA Pool Photo via AP)   KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus has forced the closure of the U.S. Embassy’s Public Diplomacy and USAID offices in a move that comes amid the tensions with the U.S. and its allies over Belarusian authorities' crackdown on protests.   Samantha Power, the U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, said Friday that the Belarusian authorities aim to “severely disrupt U.S. development assistance and public diplomacy in Belarus by forcing the closure of facilities that house key U.S. Government operations, and by ending employment of all of USAID’s local staff and Department of State public diplomacy staff.” She added that the move, which is effective Nov. 20, demonstrates the auth...

  A dated image (not from article) from :  Mr. Schmidt, left, was hired at Google to guide the founders Sergey Brin, center, and Larry Page. Credit...Ben Margot/Associated Press By Maureen Dowd , Opinion Columnist, The New York Times , Oct. 30, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET [ original article contain a recent photograph of Schmidt and additional links ] The first time I interviewed Eric Schmidt, a dozen years ago when he was the C.E.O. of Google, I had a simple question about the technology that has grown capable of spying on and monetizing all our movements, opinions, relationships and tastes.   “Friend or foe?” I asked.   “We claim we’re friends,” Schmidt replied coolly. Now that the former Google executive has a book out Tuesday on “ The Age of AI ,” written with Henry Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocher, I wanted to ask him the same question about A.I.: “Friend or foe?”   image (not from article) from “A.I. is imprecise, which means that it can be unreliable as a partn...

image from "Analysts, economists and other forecasters are no better at predicting inflation than at predicting anything else: They stink at it . "   Jason Zweig, "Deflating Your Inflation Fears [:]Rising prices eat away at the purchasing power of your assets. But taking on more risk to fight inflation can do more harm than good," The Wall Street Journal , Oct. 29, 2021 11:05 am ET

 BBC News  [original article contains links] Published 9 hours ago [10/29/2021]   IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS Image caption, Facebook announced the company's name change on Thursday Facebook's announcement that it is changing its name to Meta has caused quite the stir in Israel where the word sounds like the Hebrew word for "dead". To be precise, Meta is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word. A number of people have taken to Twitter to share their take on the name under the hashtag #FacebookDead. The emergency rescue volunteers Zaka even got involved, telling their followers on Twitter: "Don't worry, we're on it".  Another Twitter user said: "Thank you for providing all Hebrew speakers a good reason to laugh." Facebook isn't the only company to be ridiculed over translations of its branding. Here are a few examples of when things got lost in translation.  'Eat your fingers off' When KFC arrived in China during the 80s, ...