Again, provided by Dave.
From AdAge.com's "BizarreSpot of the Week".
Contributed by my buddy Dave. Not safe for work or delicate ears.
I have seen this topic alluded to in the pasted, but this book comes out to say that the movement in the middle class from single to dual income families has resulted in a commensurate (or great) rise in costs. And the result is less fiscally stable families that get into financial crisis when faced with hard times.
Here is an except from the book:
By the usual logic, sending a second parent into the workforce should make a family more financially secure, not less. But this reasoning ignores an important fact of two-income life. When mothers joined the workforce, the family gave up something of considerable (although unrecognized) economic value: an extra skilled and dedicated adult, available to pitch in to help save the family during times of emergency. When Junior got sick, the stay-at-home mother was there to care for him full-time, without the need to hire a nurse. If Dad was laid off, Mom could enter the workforce, bringing in a new income until Dad found another job. And if the couple divorced, the mother who had not been working outside the home could get a job and add new income to support her children. The stay-at-home mother gave her family a safety net, an all-purpose insurance policy against disaster.
If two-income families had saved the second paycheck, they would have built a different kind of safety net — the kind that comes from having plenty of money in the bank. But families didn’t save that money. Even as millions of mothers marched into the workforce, savings declined, and not, as we will show, because families were frittering away their paychecks on toys for themselves or their children. Instead, families were swept up in a bidding war, competing furiously with one another for their most important possession: a house in a decent school district. As confidence in the school system crumbled, the bidding war for family housing intensified, and parents soon found themselves bidding up the price for other opportunities for their kids, such as a slot in a decent preschool or admission to a good college. Mom’s extra income fit in perfectly, coming at just the right time to give each family extra ammunition to compete in the bidding wars — and to drive the prices even higher for the things they all wanted.
A story from Wired on Amazon's Search Inside the Book.
Also talks about the Million Book Project I mentioned before.
Since only a small fraction of all books in libraries are in the public domain, there are significant legal problems with making a comprehensive digital library. But, on the other hand, only a small fraction of those books still under copyright protection are still in print. Perhaps something like the Public Domain Enhancement Act is needed. This expires the copyright after a period of time if no effort is taken. This would move the majority of out of print texts into the public domain, where they then could legally join a digital library.
Found on Samizdata.net:
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods. - H. L. Mencken
I saw Raj Reddy speak about his current project, the Million Book Digital Library.
Here is a good cause where a few dollars could go a long way.
I like this idea. Electronic voting should be tested to the same standards as slot machines are.
The idea of moon base power is attractive, but is it practical? No endorsement. May not be practical. Have to read more.