Wall Street Journal, Oct 12, 2024 Business Section

choi

(1) Ben Cohen, This Family Built a $1 Billion Tortilla Business. Siete Foodswent from a startup to stores across the country. The entrepreneurial tale can be nroken down into seven steps. at page B1 (in Cohen's column evey Saturday called "Science of Success").
https://www.wsj.com/business/sie ... llas-pepsi-f1edbfb1

Note:
(a) Upon reading the first paragraphs to find out its ingredients: almond flour rather than corn flour, I thought the idea was simple and easy to imitate. I stopped reading it. But while preparing this posting, I chanced up "cash in" and read the last section. It is surprising to me  that Ppsico would pay more than a billion, probably for the Frito-Lay brand.
(b) Spanish-English dictionary:
* siete (numeral; from Latin numeral septem seven): "seven"  (The English noun September also came from Latin numeral septem, and that September meant seventh month in Latin.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/siete
* abuela (meaning grandmother; from Latin noun feminine avia of the same meaning) is feminine form of abuelo (noun masculine, meaning grandfather, from Latin noun masculine avus of the same meaning).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abuelo
* parrillada (noun feminine; from [noun feminine] parrilla [grill] +‎ [suffix] -ada): "barbecue (meal or event)"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/parrillada

choi

(2) Jason Douglas and Greg Ip, An Influential Punk Rock Economist. Michael Pettis has the attention of both Biden and Trump with his counerintuitic views on trade. He has spenttwo decades in China and runs a music label and club, and he calls free trade a mirage. at page B3.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trad ... rump-camps-edc6af77

Note:
(a) Greg IP  叶伟平 (Ip is Cantonese surname 叶)

(b) "Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University * * * Pettis isn't a trained economist. He describes himself as 'a finance guy,' with a background in physics and math."
(i) Michael Pettis (1958- ) Masters of International Affairs (MIA; in "Economic and Political Development") in 1981 and a Masters of Business Administration "in finance" in 1984.

The quotations come from Adjunct Professors Bios. Columbia University, undated.
https://www.columbia.edu/cu/busi ... 8-fall/adjbios.html
(ii) Pettis entered Columbia College (undergraduate part of Columbia University) in 1976. He should get a bachelor's degree in 980. But nowhere in the Web says when or what he got and in what field. The en.wikipedia.org says only frm "Columbia Business School" (without saying what year). I check that School in Columbia University's website; that School is mainly about MBA and PhD, but does has an undergraduate program co-developed with Columbia College.

Still, Pettis's claim "a background in physics and math" is false. Equally false is the self-described "economist" (he is a fiance guy for sure, from his time in Wall Street; that is why he is a finance not economics, professor in Peking University)  -- until today, I did not know he did not hold a PhD in economics. I lost trust in him years ago, when he kept predicting downshifts of China's economics -- and put money where his mouth  is -- by buying options against China's economy -- and lost a bundle.  
(iii) For these reason, there is no ned for you to pay attention to his economics positions, which are contrarian but likely wrong also.

(c) "In Beijing, he set up a club called D-22 [no Chinese name; Chinese websites says a bar in 海淀区五道口] in the capital's student district * * * D-22 became the crucible for a generation of edgy Chinese rock bands such as PK 14 [short for Public Kingdom for Teens 青春公共王国] and Joyside [no Chinese name]. The club hosted Western rock royalty who were passing through—Pettis recalls one night spent with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. On another, The New York Dolls lapped up performances by young Chinese acts before taking to the cramped stage themselves at 2 a.m. He founded a record label, Maybe Mars [兵马司唱片]."

choi

(3) Christopher Mims, This AI Godfather Says AI is Dumber Than a Pet Cat. Yann LeCun, an NYU professor and senior researcher at Meta, says warnings about AI's existential peril are 'complete BS.' at page B5 (in Mims's own column "Keywords").
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/yann-lecun-ai-meta-aa59e2f5

My comment:
(a) The "existential peril" in the subtitle means peril for humans.
(b) "he [LeCun] quips: 'You're going to have to pardon my French, but that's complete BS.' Born and raised just north of Paris * * *

He was indeed quipping. An American would say, "You're going to have to pardon" my English or language.

(c) I have long had serious doubts about AI. (Sure, IBM's DeepMind beats world champions in Chess and go, but * * *)
(i) Face recognition is easy to fool. And its success rate is never published. However, I do not have the personal experience to observe how the apps from Chinese fintech firms works, which allow payment with face etc.
(ii) In the West, a website may test if a visitor is a robot or human with numbers or a panel of photos (so that the visitor may identify a hydrant or a bus). If a robot can be easily fooled in this way, AI is nothing.

Months ago, I had a posting about artificial hands powered by AI, designed and made in England. I have had doubts about that. Not only has that maker not published any scientific reports (in a journal; in contrasts to Massachusetts General Hospital's publications over brain implaints that cgives voice to ALS patients who have no control over throat muscles and therefore can not talk), but also, I wonder, how the maker (or owners of the limbs) teaches the artificial limbs, by telling them (limbs) whether they make the right moves after each movement.  Most importantly, the nerve impulses that originally commands the (real but) lost limbs how to act, is within a nerve that contains, at upper-arm level, a bundle of divisions, each (division) innervating a muscle down in the lower arm of hand. How can an artificial limb comprehend which division of this nerve command what muscle and act accordingly?