Philosophy is written in this grand book - I mean universe - which stands continuously open to our gaze, but which cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.
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Galileo (1623) via
An Introduction to Fractals
by Paul Bourke
May 1991
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I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter and to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.
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Leo Rosten (via alecshao)
Does someone think Life has a purpose?
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thedailyfeed:
The Lord giveth, apparently. A new study found that the most religious states are also the most generous in charitable giving.
The study released yesterday by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, based on 2008 IRS data, found that residents in states where religious participation is higher than the rest of the nation, particularly in the South, gave the greatest percentage of their discretionary income to charity.
The Northeast, with lower religious participation, was the least generous to charities.
Does ‘charitable donation’ include donations to religious organizations?
thedailyfeed:
A new rule at the U. of Colorado places students who own guns and those who don’t into separate buildings. Some are up in arms, accusing the school of discrimination.
The decision is the outgrowth of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that struck down the university’s campuswide gun ban. University policy under the ruling still allows students with concealed firearm permits to carry guns.
To obtain a concealed carry permit in Colorado, you must be 21 or older, pass a federal background check and demonstrate competence with a firearm, either by completing a course or through military or police service.
School officials estimate only about 400, or 1 percent, of its students and faculty members — 30,000 in Boulder and 10,000 in Colorado Springs — have concealed carry permits.
“We believe this approach balances the right of the concealed carry permit holders with the need for the campus to have a safe learning environment,” university spokesman Bronson Hilliard told The Daily.
The University bans smoking and permits handguns in classrooms.
thedailyfeed:
Creepy, or cool? Google revealed a killer new benefit for the tech giant’s employees: posthumous salaries.
The perk, which has been in place since last year, offers the company’s 34,000 employees (or, rather, their next of kin) half their salary every year for a decade after they die. Stocks are vested immediately, and children of bygone Googlers will receive $1,000 a year until they are 19 — or 23 if they are full-time students.
“There is, of course, research that show employee benefit programs like ours can improve retention, and appear to improve performance on some level,” Bock told Forbes. “But it turns out that the reason we’re doing these things for employees is not because it’s important to the business, but simply because it’s the right thing to do. When it comes down to it, it’s better to work for a company who cares about you than a company who doesn’t.”
I worked 30 years at IBM research. At first, the company did what was right. It was a wonderful place to work. Post-Gerstner, it became another ‘stock holder first’ bastion of American capitalism. No longer either a best place to work or a place where best work is done.
