I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form read more

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

Encryption...is a powerful defensive weapon for free people. It offers a technical guarantee of privacy, regardless of who is running read more

Encryption...is a powerful defensive weapon for free people. It offers a technical guarantee of privacy, regardless of who is running the government... It's hard to think of a more powerful, less dangerous tool for liberty.

Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. -Max Frisch.

Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. -Max Frisch.

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." read more

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.

The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source read more

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

640K ought to be enough for anybody.

640K ought to be enough for anybody.

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.