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The death penalty—like all state actions—exists within a context constructed by humans, not gods. Humans tend to have biases, and the systems we construct often reflect those biases. Understanding this, it is worth asking whether our legal system should be in the business of doling out an ultimate punishment, one for which there can never be any correction. Citing racism in our justice system isn’t mere shaming, it’s a call for a humility and self-awareness, which presently evades us.

–Ta-Nehisi Coates

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I suspect that developers of Bitcoin services who are responsible for security consistently and dramatically underestimate what it takes to build a secure Bitcoin service. Coding and operational practices that are perfectly adequate for building a typical e-commerce site turn out to be utterly inadequate for, say, a Bitcoin exchange.

via Bitcoin hacks and thefts: The underlying reason.

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After making a big, bold promise to wire every corner of America, the telecom giants are running away from their vow to provide nationwide broadband service by 2020. For almost 20 years, AT&T, Verizon and the other big players have collected hundreds of billions of dollars through rate increases and surcharges to finance that ambitious plan, but after wiring the high-density big cities, they now say it’s too expensive to connect the rest of the country. But they’d like to keep all that money they banked for the project.

It looks like the entire telecom industry spent twenty years raising fees, and now they’d like to shaft most of the country.

Telecom Giants Drag Their Feet on Broadband for the Whole Country

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Focusing on making a partnership work is more profitable than focusing on making money.

Love your employees more than you love your clients.

The best new business is your current business.

Price projects by asking yourself what the client’s lawyer would charge.

It’s better to be hired for your work than for your price.

When it comes to getting paid, the first of the month is better than the thirtieth.

Making money off mechanicals, printing and computers turns your business into a commodity.

The books in your library are more important than the numbers on your balance sheet.

In order to love your work, take vacations.

Power, in business, comes from sharing money and valuing love.

What Bill Knew

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The most mendacious phrase in the American language is “black on black crime,” which is uttered as though the same hands that drew red lines around the ghettoes of Chicago are not the same hands that drew red lines around the life of Jordan Davis, as though black people authored North Lawndale and policy does not exist.

– Ta-Nehisi Coates