7-13-13 Hodgepodge

Appreciating Ayn Rand

Tom Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute points to a thoughtful essay on Atlas Shrugged by Brad Keywell, who co-founded Groupon and Lightbank.

Keywell doesn't claim to be an Objectivist, and even though I disagree with some of his formulations, I can highly recommend reading the entire essay, available here.

If you're undecided about reading the whole essay, Bowden supplies some good excerpts at the first link above.

Weekend Reading

"People who are together but aren't very happy have, in most cases, simply neglected their relationship." -- Michael Hurd, in "To Love is to Cherish", at The Delaware Wave

"Do you share the widespread assumption that morality has to be based on  religion? If so, are you willing to check that assumption?" -- Harry Binswanger, in "Capitalism Without God: Freedom is a Secular but Absolute Value", at Forbes

My Two Cents

The Binswanger piece is one of those that is difficult to pull a teaser quote from because it is so tightly integrated. Fortunately, his first two sentences provide an excellent motivation to read it, whether you wonder where he's going, or are already there.

Eyes Great and Small

The following Richard Feymnan quote appears, with further context, at Futility Closet:

So the same artist who made the smallest drawing ever has also made the largest. Let's go up another scale, the same amount again, another hundred thousand, and then try to draw an eye: Where would we have to draw it? Well, it turns out that it's there -- it's a beautiful eye in the heavens, namely Saturn with her rings!

Follow the link to see Tom Van Sant's drawings, whose scales differ by a factor of ten billion.

--CAV