Indermit Gill of World Bank: “India has to invest in more in capital of all kinds: human, physical, financial and infrastructural capital. On infrastructure capital, India has been doing well. On physical and financial capital, things could be better: India’s private investment to GDP ratio has been essentially stagnant for the last decade and has room to grow. But India’s investment in human capital–especially in secondary schooling, polytechnics, and higher education–needs to increase massively over the next decade. The main problem is not a shortage of money; the problem is more likely a serious shortage of political will to radically reorganize public education to prepare young people for a world of work that will be completely different from the time when these institutions were conceived. But I don’t sense any urgency when I speak with state governments. I get a sense of urgency when I talk to government officials in Delhi, though I also detect frustration that they can’t do much without state government support.”
A train ride across America, from the Washing Post. “This summer, I was determined to take a train across the United States. I started in Northern California, and over the course of 80 hours, 11 states and 3,397 miles, I meandered my way alongside deserts, forests, mountains, rivers; through coal plants, suburban backyards, vast cornfields, and the occasional Big American City — and ended in the very Biggest of them all, New York City.” I had done the train ride from New York to Oakland via Chicago in 1991.
FT on why we game: “The first is that gaming is a lot of fun: whether you choose poker, Dungeons & Dragons, or Fifa, an evening with friends playing collaboratively — or competitively — over food and drink is an evening well spent. Whether in the present or as a break from that distant Trojan war, we all have a craving for joyful escapism. But the second reason is that gaming doesn’t only entertain: gaming often reveals. The kindly aunt who, it turns out, becomes a vicious, win-at-all-costs type whenever they are playing Scrabble or poker. The arch-cynic who points out a possible triple word score to a younger relative. The friend who loves to gloat upon triumphing at a game of Chameleon. Yes, games amuse us but they also tell us truths about our characters that are often kept hidden.”
NYTimes: “Throughout the 1980s, a series of spirited young strips — including “Bloom County,” “Calvin and Hobbes,” “Cathy,” “The Far Side,” and “For Better or Worse” — together drew hundreds of millions of daily fans. In the same period, established hits like “Peanuts” and “Doonesbury” reached new levels of power and popularity. “It was this delightful time when newspapers still held a bonding role in both the culture and the popular zeitgeist,” Breathed wrote in an email. That bond was reflected at bookstores, where compilations like “The Far Side Observer” and “Garfield Swallows His Pride” were reliable hits. The demand for comic strip collections was so fervent that when Andrews McMeel Publishing released “The Essential Calvin and Hobbes” in 1988, the company ordered a cautiously optimistic print run of a million copies. They quickly sold out…Decades after the comic strip boom, readers still want funny, visually dynamic, and deeply personal stories — even if they’re told in a completely different format.”
Alex Falcone: “We all know that one- and five-star reviews are useless; those are just crackpots and bots. Three stars are for cowards, obviously; if you can’t be bothered to have a courageous opinion, I can’t be bothered to read it. And four stars are for liberal arts majors who had a three-star experience but grew up with grade inflation. But a two-star review, that’s a thing of beauty. Somebody who goes through the trouble of logging into an app and typing full sentences on a keyboard to give a place exactly two stars has a story to tell.” [via NYTimes]
