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One of the big news of today is the precipitous drop in valuations of the US stock indexes. Dow Jones, the most popular and most widely known o such indexes (albeit probably not the most informative) dropped more than 400 points, largest single day drop in several years. This sell-off seems to have been caused by a similar sell-off earlier today of Chinese stocks, another very palpable demonstration of the influence of Chinese economy on the US.

Over the years watching the stock market indexes has become yet another one of my daily routines, together with checking up on weather and sports scores. The idea that there is a single number, or a set of numbers, that indicate in some way how good or bad that day was has certain intrinsic appeal to me. This appeal of numbers is probably at the root of my decision to pursue a career in science to begin with.

Posted by Bojan Tunguz at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As if I needed any more confirmations that UN is an essentially a corrupt-to-the core useless institution, the news came today that Serbia was cleared of the accusations of genocide in Bosnian war by the UN's International Court of Justice. It is a huge slap in the face to all of us who were running away as the Serbian war machinery had unleashed all it could to ethnically cleanse all the areas that it could. And oh yes, Serbia is still harboring most of the worst war criminals connected to that war and refusing to take any meaningful action to catch them and hand them over. UN, please do us all a favor, leave Manhattan, and set up your shop in, say, Belgrade. You'll feel right at home. Trust me.

Posted by Bojan Tunguz at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning the Season of Lent. It is one of those interesting Christian holy days, that people rarely think about. And yet, more people go to church on Ash Wednesday to receive their ashes than they attend either Christmas or Easter masses. As far as I know, no one has come up with an adequate explanation for this. It may be for the better. In the era of commercialization of all holidays, some holy days should have an aspect of mystery about them.

Posted by Bojan Tunguz at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The weather is finally getting warmer and it doesn't feel bad to walk around in gym shorts any more. When I go to the gym I usually wear shorts, although I bundle up my upper body appropriately. Taking sweatpants off is usually a pain, and there are no more than a few steps from the place where I park my car to the gym, so just going in shorts is not that much of a problem. But it still usually feels really cold, and my poor legs lose all the feeling in them. Finally, though, it is possible to walk around with my legs exposed. Which is good, since I have really nice legs.

Posted by Bojan Tunguz at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week we've had one of the worst snow storms in a long while. Both University of Illinois and DePauw had to cancel classes for the first time in decades (1979 was the last time this happened at UIUC and 1976 for DePauw). One could do nothing but stay indoors, read, watch TV or engage in some similar wintry activity. The additional problem was the fact that snow was falling together with ice, so it was not possible to shovel it on one's own. We needed to pay the professionals to do it for us. Makes one wonder what happened to global warming. It is starting to increasingly look like false advertisement.

Posted by Bojan Tunguz at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few weeks back Sharmin and I went for a visit to California. It's sort of our fall-back option for vacation, since I am really familiar with the place, it's nice and (usually) sunny over there, and it's really cheap to fly there. Add to that the fact that a lot of my friends live there, and it's almost a no brainer to decide to go there. This time around my friend Marin Šarić was our host. He and I can talk about almost anything for hours at the time, and it was really hard leaving the house in the morning because of all the BS the two of us were talking about.

This time around I was really starving to go hiking, and I made it a point to do as much of it as possible. I went on three hiking trips all together, and it was a lot of fun. Unsurprisingly, most of the pictures I took are of the woods. And trails. I think they are awesome, but I know some people might disagree.

Posted by Bojan Tunguz at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)