Category: ideas

The Spike Jonze film “raises two questions that have long preoccupied philosophers. Are nonbiological creatures like Samantha capable of consciousness – at least in theory, if not yet in practice? And if so, does that mean that we humans might one day be able to upload our own minds to computers, perhaps to join Samantha in being untethered from ‘a body that’s inevitably going to die’?”

So said Alain de Botton in a talk at the Brooklyn Academy of Music about the way we consume news today.

Jeff Bezos, who grew up reciting lines from Star Trek, at one point considered calling the company MakeItSo.com, after the iconic command of his hero Captain Jean Luc Picard.

“With rote work, you get a feeling of accomplishment, but you haven’t exerted a lot of mental activity. It gives you a feeling of fulfillment, but there’s not frustration or stress.”

“At U.S. Starbucks stores, nearly one-third of the transactions are now handled with the company’s pre-paid cards — which act as tiny de facto savings accounts. How long before Starbucks takes this to the next level?”

“Our moment-to-moment psychological reactions to the threat of illness, [some researchers] suggest, … may explain many of the basic differences we observe between cultures. How does your culture behave toward strangers? What kind of government do you live under? Who are your sexual partners? What values do you share? All of these questions may mask a more fundamental one: What germs are you warding off?”

“Try offering your child ‘a piece of fruit’, and then when he accepts, handing him a chili pepper.”

“Guitars, trombones and violins are so last century. A device about the size of a credit card lets you transform a plant into a piano or make a glass of water behave like a drum.”

“Amazon needs to figure out how to hold onto Prime members, its most valuable retail customers. Since keeping them happy is so vital, any additional Prime offerings can’t just be afterthoughts. If Amazon does music, it has to do it right.”

On her recent self-titled surprise album, the queen of pop music references novelist Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie – and that sets off a chain reaction of knowledge.