joshuago’s Bookmarks
Is capitalism Christian? No. It neither advances existing human virtues nor corrects ingrained personal vices; it merely reflects them. But socialism is less consistent with several Biblical tenets for it exacerbates the worst of men’s flaws. By divorcing effort from reward, stirring up covetousness and envy, and destroying the freedom that is a necessary precondition for virtue, it tears at the just social fabric that Christians should seek to establish.
Fixing bugs is only important when the value of having the bug fixed exceeds the cost of fixing it. You should also charge the support cost of a product to the product division, not the support division. This will properly align incentives and increase transparency.
Why does HCL Technologies, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, not hiring more people in America? The CEO's answer: because most American college grads are "unemployable." Beyond the need to bolster competencies in math, the hard sciences, and basic problem solving, U.S. schools at all levels must place a greater emphasis on global history, foreign languages, and other subjects that prepare students for jobs and life outside this country.
The regions of the brain that become active during mind wandering belong to two important networks: the executive control system and the default network. Regions in the executive control system exert a top-down influence on our conscious and unconscious thought, directing the brain’s activity toward important goals. The default network becomes active during certain kinds of self-referential thinking, such as reflecting on personal experiences or picturing yourself in the future.
Given the realities of America's debt situation and the trajectory of spending, a value-added tax (VAT) seems more and more likely as the only solution. Income taxes won't cover the shortfall.
This large collection of recently released icon sets is supposed to help designers improve their designs on their web-sites and in web-applications. All icon sets are free.
Paradoxically, the situation may be better at second-tier schools and, in particular, again, at liberal arts colleges than at the most prestigious universities. Some students end up at second-tier schools because they’re exactly like students at Harvard or Yale, only less gifted or driven.
Justice Louis D. Brandeis’s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments is perhaps the most familiar and clichéd image of federalism. Contrary to common belief, however, Brandeis’s famous dictum had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. That substantive view proved even more influential, in political thought and constitutional jurisprudence, than the metaphor that flowed from it. To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics.