Monday links (remember those?): https://blog.miljko.org/2026/10/19/monday-links-remember-those.html

📚 Finished reading: The End of Everything: A Novel by M. John Harrison. An anti-narrative which resembles the best parts of Harrison’s short story collection You Should Come With Me Now. Similar themes to Sunken Land…, only more comedic than Lovecraftian. And, to my amazement, on the Booker Prize shortlist for this year. Read it if you can. https://micro.blog/books/9798217438655

📚 Finished reading: "Inventing the Renaissance" by Ada Palmer: https://blog.miljko.org/2026/10/15/finished-reading-inventing-the-renaissance.html

A return to form from Vinay Prasad with two short and sweet articles on AI in oncology:

Terrence Tao does not understand cancer medicine
Can AI ‘hack’ a cancer clinical trial

"If mathematicians want to complain that computers are replacing them, they should seek the comfort of chess Masters complaining that they have been bested. But they should not look for comfort from doctors. We would do anything to help our patients. We would do anything to extend survival. We already do things on a wish and a prayer and a mechanism of action and a hint of bioplausibility."

True. https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/terrence-tao-does-not-understand

As heard at the NIH IRB retreat, which I sadly had to miss:

“For the incredible gift of looking at the most chaotic study designs and effortlessly deciphering their hidden meaning, this goes to Milos Miljkovic!”

Not into sharing accolades here, but I’m super-proud of this one.

🍿 The Running Man (2025) was:

Better than the 1987 Schwarzenegger version. Not a high bar.
More enjoyable than Edgar Wright’s other post-Cornetto trilogy movie, which was still quite good.
A satire as likely to be misunderstood by the average American movie critic as Verhoven’s Starship Troopers, and glancing at some of the reviews about the implausibility of its dystopian world, yep, they did not disappoint.
Easily dismissed as yet another eat-the-rich movie, but as Wright has a gift of peering into the near future — his Brexit-coded “The World’s End” came out in 2013 — if I were rich I would be a tad more worried about this one than something like Triangle of Sadness.
The kids loved it: “If it weren’t a matter of life and death it would be great to see it on TV!” Yikes. https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/798645

A calamity of our own making: https://blog.miljko.org/2026/10/10/a-calamity-of-our-own.html

But how will it happen?: https://blog.miljko.org/2026/10/07/but-how-will-it-happen.html

☕ Trader Joe’s is one of the Great Wonders of Capitalism, up there with Costco,
⊕

[Note:
It is worth remembering that capitalism of Adam Smith has, in fact, been a great net good for humanity. The problem of our time is not capitalism. It is greedy dumbasses doing stupid shit for ever-more money.
]
but the only coffee you can buy there is an over-roasted mess. Last week was the third time I bought a bag of medium roast beans — different origin each time — and again, the beans were shinier than a teenager’s moon face.

Shiny beans aren’t inherently bad, if you like a dark roast. But putting them in a bag labeled “medium roast” is malpractice. Why, TJ’s? Why?

By the way, try doing a web search for “why are some coffee beans shiny?” and you will be hit with row after row of slop, high-altitude brewing style. The Internet died in 2016, the internet is dying as I type this. https://blog.miljko.org/2026/07/17/highaltitude-brewing-and-the-agonal.html

Oh, you wanted unpopular? Let me show you what that word actually means.

🍿 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) was better than it had any right to be. You can figure out within minutes whether people know, understand and love the IP they are trying to bring to the screen, and boy does it show here. Pitch perfect family fun. https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/493529

May I propose “BSI”, for Bullshit Intelligence?

🍿️ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) was available on Apple TV and heavily referenced in Ted Lasso, and not having watched it before it was a natural choice for the family’s Saturday night viewing.

It aged much better than other 80s teen comedies (looking at you, Revenge of the Nerds).
Contains a surprising amount of cursing, but a distinct lack of alcohol, sex or violence.
A surprisingly short intro credits scene made me think that this was re-cut for the modern viewer but no, this is the original. Also has a post-credit scene. How very modern.
If this were remade, Charlie Sheen’s druggie would have been the main character, no? The mood has shifted away from celebrating rich brats like Ferris, or Saved by the Bell’s Zack Morris.
What is the message for the your audience? If you are charming enough and don’t behave too too badly you can get away with much shenanigans? Ain’t that the truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_Bueller%27s_Day_Off

📚️ Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino helped me clarify why I liked some authors and not others.
⊕

[Note:
Incidentally, M. John Harrison’s latest book is on the short list for the Booker prize this year. I eagerly await October 13 and its US debut.
]
There are in fact five memos, named in order Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility and Multiplicity. The final one, Consistency, was not to be: Calvino died, aged 61, before finishing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Memos_for_the_Next_Millennium

🍿️ The Last House (2026) was pitched, or so I would like to imagine, as a blend of Home Alone and a Lovecraftian apocalypse. Instead of Macaulay Culkin you get a whole picture-perfect nuclear family; Joe Pesci becomes Cthulhu. No surprise, then, that the ending is a soppy, schmaltzy mess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_House

🍿️ The Dead Don’t Die (2019) looked exactly like you would imagine a zombie movie made by Jim Jarmusch to look, especially if you knew that he spent his childhood watching matinee double features. Not his greatest, but it hit the right spot: between the fracking references (the apocalypse came about because some brilliant minds decided to frack the Earth’s poles), Murray and Driver’s deadpanning, Tilda Swinton’s out-of-this-world turn and the Iggy Pop cameo, there was much to love. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Don%27t_Die_(2019_film)

Dictated the first draft of this from an Index 01. Integration with Micro.blog isn’t there yet but at some point I might be “writing” blog posts with only my left index finger. https://repebble.com/index

Without having seen this week’s Apple event, I can feel it in my bones that the future of pocket devices is something small that can on demand turn into something big. No, I’m not preordering — for reasons — but surely the matte screen and other crease-hiding trickery will at some point trickle down to a sub-$1,000 inflation-adjusted level.

I can wait. https://blog.miljko.org/2026/01/07/finished-reading-apple-in-china.html

Clayton Davis for Variety:

"The smartest defense is baked into the movie’s DNA. This is not a redemption tour. It is a study of the impossibility of ever knowing what is real, which is either the perfect subject for a branch that fetishizes authenticity or a provocation aimed straight at it."

Max Fisher for Newpress:

"China quietly saved the world last month."

Max Kozlov for Nature:

"The NIH is quietly restricting funding for research that evaluates how public policy impacts human health."

Ba-dump. https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/nathan-fielder-you-can-see-everything-elizabeth-holmes-oscars-1236854109/

America tried to buy a cure for cancer and failed. Maybe it's time for a different approach.: https://blog.miljko.org/2026/09/06/america-tried-to-buy-a.html