Really amazing analysis of business, interpersonal communications, and life coming out of ribbonfarm.com.

In particular, this latest piece on capital is brilliance.

My conception of money completely changed in the years and months leading up to work Posterous. The bargain when working as an employee is completely different. Its very easy to spend money like water when times are good and you've got a steady, reliable, and more than adequate. Its a renewable resource that in the moment seems to be infinite.

But if you want to make it on your own, you can't look at each dollar as something to be spent on your own happiness. That latte won't really make you happy. The only thing that may really make you happy is to be able to reinvest the money into yourself. It is, as Venkatesh points out above, building material for your dreams.

Jeff Bezos is a trailblazer of the first order. In this Wired article he explains why the Kindle breaks from the traditional business models of subsidized hardware (e.g. cell phones for 99 cents)

It makes so much sense for Kindle. People are willing to pay more up front if it means no hidden fees later (no monthly fees for the connected Whispernet service, and no additional markup on each book). We are opened up to the unlimited nature of this sliver of a device -- imagine, every book at our disposal for cheaper than we'd pay for the treekilling one!

The alternative sucks. Yeah the device is free, but I gotta pay for connectivity and even more for books? Yechhh.

It's emotional marketing at its best.

A manager has to make many decisions for which he is accountable. Unlike an entrepreneur with his own business, however, his decisions can be reversed at any time by someone higher up the food chain (and there is always someone higher up the food chain). It’s important for your career that these reversals not look like defeats, and more generally you have to spend a lot of time managing what others think of you. Survival depends on a crucial insight: you can’t back down from an argument that you initially made in straightforward language, with moral conviction, without seeming to lose your integrity. So managers learn the art of provisional thinking and feeling, expressed in corporate doublespeak, and cultivate a lack of commitment to their own actions. Nothing is set in concrete the way it is when you are, for example, pouring concrete.

The unfortunate upshot of this style of doublespeak is that you lose transparency and honesty. When people are too busy looking for ways to cover their ass and avoid looking bad, the business suffers.

Millions of people might be tempted to erase a severely painful memory, for instance — but what if, in the process, they lost other, personally important memories that were somehow related? Would a treatment that “cleared” the learned habits of addiction only tempt people to experiment more widely?

Neuroscientists have discovered a possible way to erase memories, the New York Times reports today.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may be coming to a cul-de-sac near you. Or perhaps more sinisterly -- what might an authoritarian/totalitarian state do with this power?

Just found this illustration massively striking.

Money can lead to greater happiness for the person possessing it and those around them, if it is used to buy experiences, not possessions.

This explains why a spoiled rich kid can have all the toys in the world and still be empty inside. Buying stuff is a short term high, but money also lets you experience more too, and that's what matters in the long run. I'd add another aspect to this -- money is needed to let you connect to other people.

Last year, I spent many thousands on pro camera equipment (dSLR, pro lighting gear, top quality lenses and all the accessories). But along the way, I discovered that I absolutely loved capturing the beauty of life in photos. I got to go to concerts for free, get to know party promoters, connect with cool local SF bands, and help them on their road to stardom in some small way with my concert photography. Same with the various models I did promotional shoots with. I got to take photos on editorial assignments with a hip hop magazine Hood Star Magazine, and got to see a side of hip hop and street culture from the inside I would never have seen otherwise.

My first interaction with Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator was actually through my photos of Startup School. Shortly afterwards, one of my photos appeared on the front page of the Startup School -- with thanks from PG himself. Awesome, I thought. It might well have given us a small push when we applied for YC later that year. When Jessica invites me to an event these days, she makes sure to ask if my camera is coming too. =)

I also learned the wonder that is a great, functioning user-generated content community (Flickr), and it helped Sachin and I every step along the way as we designed Posterous. Flickr addiction taught me the virtuous cycle that can happen when personal creativity gains a very real audience.

So I think the money was well spent. The experiences it purchased altered the very trajectory of my life. It put me in touch with new and awesome creative people, let me express myself in a powerful new medium, and in aggregate I'm happier and more engaged in my life now than ever before.

The next time you're considering whether or not to drop the cash on that new gadget or that trip or whatnot, think about whether it will unlock new avenues. If it will, consider it an experiential investment. Take that path and good thngs will come.