Category: ideas

“The modern world has largely inherited the ancient view that oratory is a matter of technique. True, we do have a romantic notion that some people are ‘naturals’ at public speaking … But modern speech-writers always stress the importance of technique, and they advocate many of the same old tricks that the ancients used.”

“An engineering lab and a culinary school have teamed up to construct novel edible objects with 3D printers that use pureed foods in place of ink.”

“We will simply know that we are not alone. This will permanently change the trajectory of our world view in ways similar to the Copernican revolution, discovery of the New World, or Darwinism.”

“A few months ago, the city’s population dropped below 60,000. There are now two foreigners for every Venetian. Many believe that Venetians will be gone altogether by 2030.”

“The study is the first to show in detail that the dynamics underlying cat-human relationships are nearly identical to human-only bonds, with cats sometimes even becoming a furry ‘child’ in nurturing homes.”

“According to comScore data, the number of e-mails sent by adolescents between 12 and 17 years old dropped off 24 percent in 2010, and overall visits to web-based e-mail sites declined 6 percent.”

“We decided that Monopoly was hostile to a free market because it restricted the number of houses or hotels one could buy. We voted that a player could buy as many hotels as a property could physically bear and rents would be raised proportionally.” And so the unfettered free market ran wild on Atlantic Avenue and Park Place …

“The vision of the future as an infinite playground, with an unending sequence of mysteries to be understood by an unending sequence of players exploring an unending supply of information, is a glorious vision for scientists. Scientists find the vision attractive, since it gives them a purpose for their existence and an unending supply of jobs. The vision is less attractive to artists and writers and ordinary people.”

“People wonder whether it’s legitimate to talk of Watson as a He, but really the more pressing question is whether we can even speak of an It. In an important sense, there is no Watson. If Watson is a machine, then it is a machine in the way that a nuclear power plant is a machine.”

“Imagine a world in which there is no need to express your thoughts or emotions in words, where you can let others experience your brain states directly. This is what Michael Chorost calls ‘telempathy’: the ability to feel another person’s emotions through a technological connection to their brain.”