Nathan Myhrvold Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The 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 hopeless inefficiency helps blunt the basic potential for evil.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Government, Evil, Democracy

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• If your kitchen smells good, your food lost something.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Smell, Kitchen, Lost

  "Nathan Myhrvold’s Counterintuitive Advice On Red Wine, Foie Gras, Salad" by Joe Satran, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 16, 2012.

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• The depressing thing about battery technology is that it gets better, but it gets better slowly. There are a whole bunch of problems in materials science and chemistry that come in trying to make existing batteries better.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Depressing, Technology, Get Better

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• The 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 time with lots of transactions, that piles up.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Long, People, Dollars

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• What you do on a dinosaur expedition is you hike and look at the ground. You find bones sticking out of the dirt and, once you see something, you dig.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Looks, Dinosaurs, Dirt

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• It's impossible that we're alone in the universe. Every time we think we're more special than others, we're proven wrong.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Thinking, Special, Impossible

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• There is a one-in-300 chance that Earth will be struck on March 16, 2880, by an asteroid large enough to destroy civilization and possibly cause the extinction of the human race. But, on the bright side, Prince could re-release his hit song with the new refrain 'We're gonna party like its twenty-eight seventy-nine.'

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Song, Party, Eight

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• One 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 where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, work backwards and say, 'Well, really, what were they thinking?'

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Past, Opportunity, Thinking

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• In market research I did at Microsoft Corp. in the early 1990s, I estimated that the 'Wall Street Journal' took in about 75 cents per copy from subscribers, $1.25 at the newsstand and a whopping $5 per copy from ads. The ad revenue let them run a far bigger newsroom than subscribers were paying for.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Running, Wall, Microsoft

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• Cooking is for chefs. Science informs us and lets us cook while knowing what we are doing, but it is not a replacement for the skills of a chef.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Skills, Knowing, Cooking

  "Nathan Myhrvold on Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking". Interview with Michael Y. Park, www.epicurious.com.

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• Our reactor actually burns nuclear waste as fuel. So not only is it safe and powerful, it solves an important issue: It actually reduces nuclear waste instead of creating. It's the reactor of your dreams.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Dream, Powerful, Creating

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• It's very hard for individual inventors to get paid. For the same reason that private equity is valuable - broadly, that's a good thing - in the case of patents, many that own them aren't in a good position to take the next step.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Next, Steps, Patents

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• One of the problems with posing a 'bold new plan' is that you can't just extrapolate from previous plans.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Problem, Posing, Plans

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• Food, like anything else, lives in the physical world and obeys the laws of physics. When you whisk together some oil and a little bit of lemon juice - or, in other words, make mayonnaise - you are using the principles of physics and chemistry. Understanding how those principles affect cooking lets you cook better.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Law, Oil, Understanding

  "Nathan Myhrvold on Modernist Cuisine 'Culinary History Has To Be Analyzed Like Art History'". SPIEGEL Interview, www.spiegel.de. April 21, 2011.

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• If you take a scotch whiskey and distill out the alcohol, what is left has an amazing taste to it and can be used as a flavoring for a dessert.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Scotch, Alcohol, Taste

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The ever-growing size of software applications is what makes Moore's Law possible: 'If we hadn't brought your computer to its knees, why would you go out and buy a new one?'

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Law, Growing, Knees

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• Some 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 person in this house.'

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Dad, Teenage, Men

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• Bill, we left megalomania behind a long time ago. Now we are gigalomaniacs.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Long, Bills, Internet

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• I've never filed a patent lawsuit. I hope never to file a patent lawsuit. That may be unrealistic, but it would be great if I could avoid doing it... Lawsuits are a ridiculous way to do business.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Patents, Would Be, May

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• Software is a gas ! It expands to fit the container it is in !

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Fit, Software, Gas

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• The world has shown that if you provide capital and expertise to an area that is starved for capital and expertise, really good things will happen.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  World, Good Things, Expertise

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• People 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, political and religious leaders stopped barbecuing astronomers for saying so, turning their spits with human-rights activists instead.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Religious, Rights, People

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• People who grow up in a region doubtless have a better cultural awareness of their own cuisine, but it's also true that a lot of locals go to McDonald's, Applebee's and the like.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Growing Up, Mcdonalds, People

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• Raw lobster tail, freeze dried, is amazing.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Lobster, Tails, Freeze

  "After Microsoft, Bringing a High-Tech Eye to Professional Kitchens". Interview with Kenneth Chang, www.nytimes.com. November 16, 2009.

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• One of the ugly secrets of the renewable-energy industry is that its products make no economic sense unless they are highly subsidized.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Secret, Energy, Ugly

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