The New Renaissance

I had the pleasure of hearing Thomas Friedman speak yesterday. He described the concepts in his excellent new book "The World Is Flat" and made the case for his notion that we are currently experiencing a significant turning point in the history of mankind. When I first read Friedman's book earlier this year it seemed to me I'd heard some of it before. The first writer I know that made a similar case was Douglas S. Robertson in his 1998 book "The New Renaissance" and later in 2003 with "Phase Change." Robertson's reasoning was more scientific and computer-oriented with less of the political implications of Friedman's book, but the underlying notion of a "phase change" right now was clearly the same.

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John Malone on America and Obama

You just have to love Dr. John Malone. The guy's a certified genius but also a "what you see is what you get" straight-shooting kind of guy. His Ph.D. is from Johns Hopkins, BA is science from Yale, worth $2.3 billion (according to Forbes, but probably way low because they just couldn't find all of it). He ran TCI (America's largest Cable company) and sold it to ATT for $54 billion. He's the kind of person that you could just sit and listen to for hours. He's so logical, well informed and well spoken. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal here's a few nuggets from what he had to say... (I agree with him about Obama) WSJ: What are the biggest risks for Liberty right now? Mr. Malone: I think the biggest concern I have for the next year or two would be on the retail side, because of the consumer sentiment and the macro conditions. The concerns really tend to be much more macro: Is America going to make it, rather than are we going to make it?...

The Evolving Internet: A look ahead to 2025 by Cisco and the Monitor Group's Global Business Network

My employer (Cisco) published its most recent forward looking study of the Internet today. It's called " The Evolving Internet: A look ahead to 2025 by Cisco and the Monitor Group's Global Business Network " and although I haven't studied it in detail yet, I scanned it this morning and I liked what I saw. Those who know me will not be surprised that I particularly liked the three dimensional evaluation criteria that they used to frame their analysis. Lately nearly everything I do ends up finding its way into some sort of analytical cube like this. I've been wondering whether there is something wrong with me that I can't seem to frame things simply in two dimensions. Glad to have company.

Mindless Eating

I listened to a lecture today by Brian Wansink, Ph.D., author of Mindless Eating, a book about better eating habits that lead to weight loss and better health. It's amazing how simple things we get use to are really bad eating habits. Here's an example. Take two normal table glasses. One is tall and thin like a water glass, the other short and wide like a cocktail glass. Wansink's research shows that most people (even professional bar tenders) will fill the short glass with 38% more liquid than the tall glass. Why, because we're conditioned to be a better judge of the volume we want by height than by width. Same thing with the size of the plate we use to eat with. If we use a smaller plate we'll eat significantly less because using a larger plate we tend to fill it up and eat more unconsiously even though we'd feel perfectly fine with the volume of a smaller plate. I'm going to give his " Mindless Method " a try and see if I can shed this stomach o...

Douglas L. Ross - My Personal Reflections

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