Nailchipper: category

I am part of the problem: being self-employed, I haven’t had health insurance in years - opting to spend my money on other things of more consequence: like paying down my school debt, traveling and creating time to do things I enjoy, like writing these articles.
But I am reminded that it is the [...]

The American auto industry epitomizes many of the issues I have with large institutions– they are wasteful and unresponsive, but worst of all, we depend on them. Few things are as unsettling as forced dependence.
Yet, we are in the midst of yet another bailout by US government - again, by institutions deemed “too big [...]

Orwell is too easily referenced, but this reassuring statement about the current financial crisis - made solely to avoid panic - is too glaring to pass over:
And in comments to reporters at the White House, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., said that consumers should remain confident about the soundness of the American financial [...]

But Google depends crucially and directly on the content created by users and more generally on the goodwill of the Internet community.
Equally, so do the many products Google creates and gives away, with no obvious path to future profit.
So, more than in the past, it makes sense for corporations to cultivate diffuse goodwill, rather than [...]

I’ve always been fond of economics. To me, economics has always felt like a logical extension of computer science. (Elaboration: the science of computers is actually done by mathematicians and computer scientists apply these ideas to become ‘computation experts’ ). Since modern economies are driven by technology, often involving computers, and technologies change the way [...]

Check out this segment of “New Rules” in Bill Maher’s “Real Time”. The first part of the clip is fairly typical Maher. He makes fun of Anna Nicole Smith, mocks “metro-sexuals”, makes a joke about the recent immigration protests and finally mocks religion.
But after all that, Maher focuses on the Americans and the “American Dream”. [...]

A few months ago my brother told me to watch a PBS documentary called “Commanding Heights“. I did. And I enjoyed it. The documentary begins at the dawn of the 20th century, when Europe first attempted globalization through colonization and the foundations of macroeconomics were being laid by John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek.
The [...]

Source: Ambrose Video

Graph: The Energy Curve of History?
Source: Community Solution

I read a very interesting article in the New York Times on how the United States is losing not only non-skilled work, like manufacturing, to outsourcing, but today even the most prestigious of jobs, scientific research, is being outsourced.

“American executives who are planning to send work abroad express concern about what they regard as an [...]