Nathan MyhrvoldPeople get cranky when you burst their bubble. Over time, advances in astronomy have relentlessly reinforced the utter insignificance of Earth on a celestial scale. Fortunately, p… ▶371HumanityPoliticsTime
Nathan MyhrvoldThere's no way I'm going to stand up for bad ingredients. We love seasonal ingredients. It's a false dichotomy to say that modern cooking is at odds with that, but some people wan… ▶372DeathHumanityLove
Nathan MyhrvoldAnother random thing I do is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. And you may be familiar with the movie 'Contact,' which sort of popularized that. It turns out … ▶372Humanity
Nathan MyhrvoldWe're more familiar with what economists call an English auction - prices start low and rise as people bid. However, there is also the Dutch auction, where prices start high and g… ▶363DeathHumanity
Nathan MyhrvoldThe way Moore's Law occurs in computing is really unprecedented in other walks of life. If the Boeing 747 obeyed Moore's Law, it would travel a million miles an hour, it would be … ▶352LifePolitics
Nathan MyhrvoldThe idea behind a dish - the delight and the surprise - makes a difference. Great literature surprises and delights, and provokes us. It isn't just 'Here's the facts - boy meets g… ▶341ReadingThoughtTruth
Nathan MyhrvoldMany of the things the slow food people honor were innovations within historical times. Somebody had to be the first European to eat a tomato.352HumanityTime
Nathan MyhrvoldIf I want popularity, I go to a chef's convention.352Time
Nathan MyhrvoldWhen I was about nine years old, I announced to my mother that I was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And I went to the library and got this whole pile of books. I'd love to say… ▶342LoveReading
Nathan MyhrvoldThe prize for ultimate inefficiency goes to America. We have built in so many checks and balances that our 'leaders' are the most thoroughly hogtied of any on Earth.364Death
Nathan MyhrvoldThe first thing that is not obvious to people is global warming is a less-than-1% effect. It's like being shortchanged at the bank by a penny every dollar. Over a long period of t… ▶331HumanityTime
Nathan MyhrvoldThe best value for money in cooking equipment, in my mind, is first a digital scale and digital thermometer. They're both about $20. They help you cook so much more accurately tha… ▶365Thought
Nathan MyhrvoldThe reason societies with democratic governments are better places to live in than their alternatives isn't because of some goodness intrinsic to democracy, but because its hopele… ▶333HopePolitics
Nathan MyhrvoldThe simplest fix for better grilling is to line the inside of your barbecue with tin foil. It dramatically affects how evenly the heat is distributed. That crusty black hibachi or… ▶366Hope
Nathan MyhrvoldSoftware-industry battles are fought by highly paid and out-of-shape nerds furiously pounding computer keyboards while they guzzle diet Coke. The stakes aren't very dramatic. Life… ▶311DeathLife
Nathan MyhrvoldIf I say I've got two versions of Word - that old one from 1982 that's perfect, with zero defects; or the new one that's got all this cool new stuff, but there might be a few bugs… ▶366Humanity
Nathan MyhrvoldChefs think about what it's like to make food. Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works.344Thought
Nathan MyhrvoldElections, for their part, are typically popularity contests rather than measures of candidates' relative competency or effectiveness. Imagine if scientific truth were determined … ▶377HumanityTruth
Nathan MyhrvoldSome article called me the most feared man in Silicon Valley. Good Lord! Why? My teenage boys got a kick out of it: 'Dad, how could this be true? You're not even the most feared p… ▶378Truth
Nathan MyhrvoldResearchers who examined the voting records of wine judges found that 90 percent of the time they give inconsistent ratings to a particular wine when they judge it on multiple occ… ▶323Time
Nathan MyhrvoldRegardless of how it's done, transaction costs will continue to plummet as computers get more powerful. Low transaction costs are a wonderful thing if you're in the transaction bu… ▶323Politics
Nathan MyhrvoldNow, to find dinosaurs, you hike around in horrible conditions looking for a dinosaur. It sounds really dumb, but that's what it is. It's horrible conditions, because wherever you… ▶356Time
Nathan MyhrvoldBusiness is war! Its leaders are strategic commanders, who boldly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat - and who perform other acts of derring-do. This kind of talk sounds great… ▶324Reading
Nathan MyhrvoldAnybody who can afford a box of business cards can afford a Web site. Any company with an 800 number can move its services to the Web for peanuts by comparison. The extreme case o… ▶302Reading
Nathan MyhrvoldSoftware is a gas; it expands to fill its container.324Politics
Nathan MyhrvoldWith cult foods, there is an underlying assumption that the best cooking ideas came generations ago. Yet culinary innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. When a chef tells me he i… ▶358ThoughtTime
Nathan MyhrvoldThe magic words 'on the Internet,' if inserted into nearly any sentence, seem to protect it from normal critical scrutiny.281Politics
Nathan MyhrvoldOne of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see w… ▶359HumanityLoveThought
Nathan MyhrvoldA blowtorch is a wonderful thing. You can get one of those for about 25 bucks at Home Depot. And there's a ton of things that you can use a blowtorch for, in browning a steak or t… ▶3610Truth
Nathan MyhrvoldIn the early days of the software industry, people cared about copyright and didn't give a damn about patents - they copied each other willy-nilly.326Humanity
