Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy read more

Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy day: managed to work in three hours of usenet. Bad day: barely squeezed in three hours of usenet.

When the lay public rallies round to an idea that is denounced by distinguished by elderly scientists and supports the read more

When the lay public rallies round to an idea that is denounced by distinguished by elderly scientists and supports the idea with great fervour and emotion, the distinguished but elderly scientests are then, after all, right. -Isaac Asimov.

The coming of the printing press must have seemed as if it would turn the world upside down in the read more

The coming of the printing press must have seemed as if it would turn the world upside down in the way it spread and, above all, democratized knowledge. Provide you could pay and read, what was on the shelves in the new bookshops was yours for the taking. The speed with which printing presses and their operators fanned out across Europe is extraordinary. From the single Mainz press of 1457, it took only twenty-three years to establish presses in 110 towns: 50 in Ita!0 in Germany, 9 in France, 8 in Spain, 8 in Holland, 4 in England, and so on.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says read more

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

... it is certain that the real function of art is to increase our self-consciousness; to make us more aware read more

... it is certain that the real function of art is to increase our self-consciousness; to make us more aware of what we are, and therefore of what the universe in which we live really is. And since mathematics, in its own way, also performs this function, it is not only aesthetically charming but profoundly significant. It is an art, and a great art.

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate read more

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

What we know is not much; what we do not know is immense.

What we know is not much; what we do not know is immense.

The NeXT Computer: The hardware makes it a PC, the software makes it a workstation, the unit sales makes it read more

The NeXT Computer: The hardware makes it a PC, the software makes it a workstation, the unit sales makes it a mainframe.

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room read more

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan. - "Time", July 2, 1956.