Technology & Innovation — September 11, 2010

Toward Private Public Services

“Anyone who’s ever waited at the Post Office, applied for a driver’s license, or filled out a tax return knows that government is no model for efficiency.” The Adam Smith Institute Blog opines.

bigthinkeditor

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

“Anyone who has applied for a student loan or completed a tax return or renewed a passport can tell you how thoroughly useless the government and its executive agencies are at providing services. … These government failures take on even ghastlier appearances when viewed from the towering heights of private sector accomplishment. It seems a comparative miracle that I can buy groceries at midnight from my local Tesco with one hand and simultaneously book a flight to the other side of the world using the i-Phone clasped in the other. Anybody (I’m looking at you Ed Balls) who maintains that the public sector can lead innovation need only look around him to realise how mistaken he is.”

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Pixelated red human figure on a black grid background with blue symmetrical curves and white geometric shapes adjacent.

Hard Science

The Arecibo Message fifty years later

In November 1974, astronomers used the radio telescope at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory to send a hello to the universe.

Bronze statue of a bearded man embodying stoicism, riding a horse with one arm extended forward, set against a black background.

Thinking

3 clues that Stoicism is a religion in disguise

All religions have three traits: metaphysical commitments, ethical guidance, and daily rituals or practices. So does Stoicism.

An open book with abstract designs: the left page displays a horizontal row of color blocks, while the right page features a hand touching a network of connected circles, highlighting strong connections.

Business

Why our “weak-tie” connections are actually super-strong

Sure, “who you know” matters — but your best contacts will be the ones you don’t know very well.

Starts With A Bang

Could dark matter be the same thing as dark energy?

Two parts of our Universe that seem to be unavoidable are dark matter and dark energy. Could they really be two aspects of the same thing?

Close-up of an analog weight scale needle pointing to zero grams, with a black background.

Hard Science

You’re made of energy: The strange truth about where mass comes from

“A person’s mass is made not of ‘stuff’ in the way we normally think about it, but rather our mass is made of energy.”

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

How to Fix the Housing Crisis

“Government policies to prop up the housing market not only have failed to fix the problem, they are prolonging the agony.” Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on how to fix the housing crisis.