On modern marriage

First, The Cato Institute publishes this issue on marriage. Do read, in particular, Stephanie Coontz's lead essay on the history of marriage.

Then comes this reaction essay reframing the history of marriage in economic terms. The authors then try to (briefly) address some of today's hot-button political issues.

For example: Divorce rates are climbing! False. They have, in fact, been falling in the US, and the authors present a logical economic explanation. If you buy this argument, you can also see why in societies that are in earlier stages of economic empowerment, it is reasonable to expect this pattern to repeat.

Why do I read blogs?

Blogs are a great way to exchange views with others whose opinions I respect. I can find out what they are thinking, maybe leave a comment or two or (this happens rarely) write a post in response to something I read.

But equally importantly, a daily dose of well-written blogs has the advantage that they refer to other material - often something well worth reading that I wouldn't have found on my own. Here's a sample of what I read today because someone else thought it was worth writing about.

• Presentation Zen. Garr Reynolds on presentation lessons from recent TED talks
• Dean Kamen shows off the Luke arm at TED
• How Green Was My Valley. Glenn Kelman, founder of Redfin and resident of Seattle, criticizes Silicon Valley
• An Outsider's Flawed View of Silicon Valley. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch responds to Kelman
• Free Speech and Radical Islam. Very thoughtful op-ed piece on WSJ.
• Six Principles for Making New Things. Paul Graham.

On hungering for books

We live in a world where "busy" is arguably the most commonly used word. We spend hours at work. We spend hours in meetings and on email. We spend hours watching TV, or reading blogs or just surfing the net. We spend hours in bars, busy in meaningless conversation with people we will likely never meet again. We barely have time to acknowledge the existence of a world around us, let alone live in it.

There is another world where people desperately struggle for an education, for access to books. In that world, education is more important than food. Here, in the words of someone far more eloquent than I, is an introduction to that world.

Doris Lessing's Nobel lecture.

The long tail of technology

The editor of WIRED magazine talks about the long tail of technology. Briefly, his point is that every major technology goes through four stages in its life cycle:

• Price falls below a critical amount
• Adoption gets to critical mass
• Replacement of another (previous incumbent) technology
• Price approaches "free"

This talk is from 2004. Four years later, it is interesting to sit back and see how many of the trends he pointed out in this talk fulfilled their potential in the interim. Accuracy of prediction nothwithstanding, the "stages" he outlines in this talk is a useful takeaway.

In which we see a sailboat

In the month of November last year, this vessel sailed on Lake Llanquihue at the foot of volcano Osorno.

The fog and the setting conspired to evoke thoughts of the Marie Celeste, which excited considerable comment a little over a century ago. The facts of that case can be found here.