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.
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If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.
If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.
What goes up must come down. Ask any system administrator.
What goes up must come down. Ask any system administrator.
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.
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.
A friend called me up the other day and talked about investing in a dot-com that sells lobsters. Internet lobsters. read more
A friend called me up the other day and talked about investing in a dot-com that sells lobsters. Internet lobsters. Where will this end? The next day he sent me a huge package of lobsters on ice. How low can you stoop?
Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?_|.
Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?_|.
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.
Research is the act of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Research is the act of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour read more
The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.
