Quotes About Technology

Remember that thing Truman Capote said years ago about Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, it's typing"? I keep thinking that what we do now, with this medium of instant delivery, isn't writing, and doesn't even qualify as typing either: it's just sending.

That's why they came up with the emoticon, too—the emoticon being the greatest (or most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne.

by tragic historical coincidence a period of abysmal under-educating in literacy has coincided with this unexpected explosion of global self-publishing. Thus people who don't know their apostrophe from their elbow are positively invited to disseminate their writings to anyone on the planet stupid enough to double-click and scroll.

Come inside," it says, "for CD's, VIDEO's, DVD's, and BOOK's.

Anders took the phone, but his attention was on the computer on his lap. It had gone into standby mode. As he waited impatiently for it to start up again, he muttered, "I should have told her." "Told who what?" Mortimer asked, distractedly. "Valerie, I should have told her I love her. But I figured she'd think it was too soon and—" He didn't bother finishing.

star charts this time, but rendered in calligraphy and gold and silver leaf, stunning juxtapositions of the technological future and the hand-crafted past.

Some inventions change or die; even institutions die; but the clock is definite and perpetual. The last man on earth, as he bids farewell to the cold, dead sun, is sure to have a watch in his pocket, so as to know the exact hour of his death.

We human creatures can make watches and clocks and sensitive timing devices, but we don't understand what we're timing.

We can't absorb it all. We know too much, too quickly, and one of the worst effects of this avalanche of technology is the loss of compassion.

They've never known a time when people drank rain water because it was pure, or could eat snow, or swim in any river or brook. The last time I drove to Washington the traffic was so bad that I could have made better time with a horse.

The notion of students as customers combined with greater reliance on technology has led to the increased blurring of work and life, with, for example, "demands such as 24-hour limit for responses to student queries" (par. 22).

It occurred to me that kids could easily take over the world. They could hack in and use our own technology against us. Or just decide to stop helping us figure it out to begin with. Either way, we adults would be relegated to a life of servitude and there would be weekly keggers in the White House rose garden. The only reason this hasn't already happened is that the kids haven't figured it out yet. When

It occurred to me that kids could easily take over the world. They could hack in and use our own technology against us. Or just decide to stop helping us figure it out to begin with. Either way, we adults would be relegated to a life of servitude and there would be weekly keggers in the White House rose garden. The only reason this hasn't already happened is that the kids haven't figured it out yet. When they buy a clue, it's gonna suck to be a grown-up.

The new information technology, indifferent to human suffering, does not accommodate humane needs unless we harness it and make it do so.

We can admire Curtis LeMay, respect him, and try to understand his choices. But Hansell is the one we give our hearts to. Why? Because I think he provides us with a model of what it means to be moral in our modern world. We live in an era when new tools and technologies and innovations emerge every day. But the only way those new technologies serve some higher purpose is if a dedicated band of believers insists that they be used to that purpose.

High-tech companies like Google or Microsoft carefully measure the cognitive abilities of prospective employees out of the same belief: they are convinced that those at the very top of the IQ scale have the greatest potential.

The most expensive single undertaking of the Second World War was the B-29 Bomber, the Superfortress. The second most expensive was the Manhattan Project, the massive, unprecedented effort to invent and build the world's first atomic bomb. But the third most expensive project of the war? Not a bomb, not a plane, not a tank, not a gun, not a ship. It was the Norden bombsight, the fifty-five-pound

the most advanced computer science programs in the world, and over the course of the Computer Center's life, thousands of students passed

movie 2001: A Space Odyssey." Off to the side were dozens of keypunch machines—what passed in those days for computer terminals.

computer would come along that was small and inexpensive enough for an ordinary person to use and own. That day had finally arrived. If January 1975 was the

the day when a computer would come along that was small and inexpensive enough for an ordinary person to use and own. That day had finally arrived. If January 1975 was the dawn of the personal computer age, then who would

neighborhood was filled with engineers from Hewlett-Packard, then as now one of

And do you know who wrote much of the software that allows you to access the Internet? Bill Joy.

Gates without mentioning the computer at Lakeside is false, or accounting for Asian math prowess without going back to the rice paddies is false. It leaves out my mother's many opportunities and the importance of her cultural legacy.