joshuago’s Bookmarks

Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on the aches and pains of age and the solace of meditation, his struggle to build a thriving nation on a resource-poor island, and his concern that the next generation might take his achievements for granted and let them slip away.

Up and down society, people are moving away from commercial, productive activities and toward pleasant, enlightened but less productive ones.

Never tell the whole story in the headline if you want optimal click-through.

The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

Every era has its heresies, and if you don't get imprisoned for them you will at least get in enough trouble that it becomes a complete distraction.

Companies have a roving eye: they’re always more interested in the customers they don’t have. So they pour money into sales and marketing to lure new customers while giving their existing ones short shrift, in an effort to minimize costs and maximize revenue.

A good list of books to refresh, replace, or supplement a core computer science education.

If you can’t draw as well as someone, or use the software as well, or if you do not have as much money to buy supplies, or if you do not have access to the tools they have, beat them by being more thoughtful. Thoughtfulness is free and burns on time and empathy.

Our culture places less emphasis on the need to struggle against one’s own mental feebleness.

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.