Miljenko's Blog

So we had a flooding in our basement. So that is where all of my files were. So I am going through my old files and found this e-mail from 1994: "It is a cultural thing at work in Russia. It is part of the same context as magnetic storms, 'complex lunch', not being able to come to work before 9 on Monday mornings; driving with no lights on; turning off lights; drinking champagne for any reason whatsoever; terribly salty appetizers; no hot water in the summer for a month; kinds bundled up in the winter so much that they look like the Michelin man; desire for World domination; propensity on the part of the female population to cry inexplicably during the months of Nov - March, in particular in November; sunbathing standing up; disregard for the environment; superstition and belief in "chudo"; man in space but no local furniture; cult of the "otdih"...." Well, now that I look at it quite a bit has indeed changed. Certainly nobody drives their cars wit...

We live in an era of a "Blackberry fallacy" where the assumption is that we are more "efficient" and things move along faster, better, if we type with our thumbs. The fallacy is that it is not properly understood that the "time constraint" is only one the sending end meaning on the thumb using end. On the receiving end, meaning on the head using end, reading a message of a word count of 70 is one minute different from reading a message that has a word count of 400. So we are having these truncated half-conversations or 1/3 conversations believing it is the same thing or somehow even better. It is not and I am no Luddite but I do believe it truly is a fallacy and as such, it should be exposed in order to be understood in order to be remedied not by stopping to text message or use Blackberries but to understand there has to be more to complete an interchange of thoughts in full rather than just "brb" and "lol". TTYL he he

Rush Limbaugh said "I want him to fail". I can kill a man with a pencil and I've never come closer to wanting to. But I have decided that rather than remaining angry at the idiot, I would share with friends some things recently read or heard which I found amusing, insightful and sometimes both. Here goes: - I have been told that I inspire an "intellectual gag reflex" (as in just being too freakin cerebral about everything). - "Instead of the mahi mahi, could I just get the mahi cause' I am not that hungry" - "the eyes are the nipples of the face" - when referring to a commuter plane - "we were travelling half the speed of smell" - referring to Nancy Pelosi - "there are less frenetic humming birds than that woman" - "I just think better lying down" - "life is much like the Four Seasons in Maui - you get off the elevator and you either make the turn towards ocean front suites or the other way with 99% of t...

Desperately trying to find a silver lining here but this has got to be the weirdest start to a year ever (and end of one too). German billionaire steps in front of a train; Madoff thing; Satyam thing; 500,000 jobs gone? I mean we need some good news, seriously. OK, I'll take a stab. The "investment banking model" is no more. Derivatives "have no clothes". Interest rates are low. After the worst year since 1931 how bad can 09 be? We all have too much information, that is part of the problem. I cut back this Xmas too - literally - bought a tree that was at least a foot shorter than the years before (they price them by the foot here). And even locusts would die with the weather we've been having!

Bill Maher would sometime get on my nerves with his relentless anti-Bush stuff but his "documentary" is excellent. You just need to watch it because it is hard to talk about everything that is in it but one example is the question of how did the US as a nation get from founding fathers who said - "Lighthouses are more useful than churches" (B. Franklin) and "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" (T. Jefferson) - to having "In God We Trust" printed on its currency. Just the basic act of asking questions is so powerful that one cannot but cumulatively be struck by the sheer ridiculousness of religions as such, not singling out any particular one. So while for the past number of years I would have taken the usual cop out of "agnostic" or "spiritual but not religious" in part due to those things being more PC, I must say I am now willing to throw it in with Dawkins and Hitchens (and by implication Maher...

So far Barack Obama's steps to build his cabinet have been nothing short of the Barcelona Olympics US basketball Dream Team. Is he the Michael Jordan of leadership? For all of ours sake I hope he is. The only true answer to that question is that it is too early to tell but the first steps were nothing short of brilliant. Larry Summers at the White House and Geithner at the Treasury were exactly the right moves. Summers will be much better out of the limelight and pulling at more levers, while Geithner at the Treasury is just the right technocrat (and is 47, as is Obama, as is your truly, which I like to point out). To get two Clinton's, and it is the two Clinton's that he is getting, is the ultimate twofer. It says a lot about his ability and that of the people around him to smooth over ruffled feathers. However, the more important thing is that they are perfect for the job - they will be the face of America to the world and one could hardly find two Americans that the worl...

There are only 3 possible reasons to do anything in life and they are: One, to make a lot of money. Two, to change the world and three, because you can't help it. The first one does not merit much discussion - you need to put food on the table, provide for the family and you do what it takes to maximize your marketable skills to make the most of it. The second is different in that you have to decide in which way are you going to try to "change the world" or at least contribute to it. Do you help starving children or do you work to help the elderly. Do you try to make a difference in Darfur or do you try to make a difference in the inner city Detroit. The easiest of them is the third one. I asked a friend who is a singer "if you were on a deserted island and there was nobody else around, would you still sing every day even if there is no fame or fortune to be gained?". People who have born talents just can't help but use them and of course she said yes. Most ...