For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If read more

For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If you hit a tuning fork twice as hard it will ring twice as loud but still at the same frequency. That's a linear response. If you hit a person twice as hard they're unlikely just to shout twice as loud. That property lets you learn more about the person than the tuning fork. - When Things Start to Think, 1999.

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in read more

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in read more

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
PL/I --'the fatal disease'-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.