American - Author | August 1, 1954 -
At its most fundamental, information is a binary choice. In other words, a single bit of information is one yes-or-no choice.
James Gleick
WordsInformationChoiceSingleMost
Every time a new technology comes along, we feel we're about to break through to a place where we will not be able to recover. The advent of broadcast radio confused people. It delighted people, of course, but it also changed the world.
TechnologyTimePeopleWorldFeel
Patent battles have become a strong catalyst for mergers, reducing competition in various domains. The largest corporations, with gigantic patent portfolios, routinely enter into cross-licensing agreements with their largest competitors.
CompetitionStrongBecomeBattles
Type 'What is th' and faster than you can find the 'e' Google is sending choices back at you: 'What is the cloud?' 'What is the mean?' 'What is the American dream?' 'What is the illuminati?' Google is trying to read your mind. Only it's not your mind. It's the World Brain.
American DreamMindBrainWorldYou
For the modern physicist, reality is the whole thing, past and future joined in a single history. The sensation of now is just that, a sensation, and different for everyone. Instead of one master clock, we have clocks in multitudes.
FutureHistoryPastRealityNow
Children and scientists share an outlook on life. 'If I do this, what will happen?' is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist.
LifeChildrenMottoChildPlayWill
As for memes, the word 'meme' is a cliche, which is to say it's already a meme. We all hear it all the time, and maybe we even have started to use it in ordinary speech. The man who invented it was Richard Dawkins, who was, not coincidentally, an evolutionary biologist. And he invented it as an analog for the gene.
TimeManSpeechSayMemeStarted
As soon as the printing press started flooding Europe with books, people were complaining that there were too many books and that it was going to change philosophy and the course of human thought in ways that wouldn't necessarily be good.
ChangeGoodPeopleThoughtPrinting
Genes themselves are made of bits.
GenesMadeThemselvesBits
I take the view that we all have permission to be a little baffled by quantum information science and algorithmic information theory.
ScienceViewInformationQuantum
Google is where we go for answers. People used to go elsewhere or, more likely, stagger along not knowing.
PeopleNot KnowingGoGoogleKnowing
It is seldom right to say that anything is true 'according to Google.' Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for 'hamadryad,' and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it's a rock band, too, wouldn't you know).
FreeYouGoKnowTrueRock
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