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" It is better to predict dramatic things that don't happen than boring things that do. "

Nathan Myhrvold

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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

" For relatively modest amounts of sulfur dioxide injected into the atmosphere, you could easily cool Earth by 1% or more, if you want. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" 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

" 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

" Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" 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

" Being a visionary is a new profession, but it is really just a variant on fortunetelling, which may be the world's oldest. And its marketing appeal is similar - people will pay for reassurance about the unknown. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Age can be wonderful for red wine, but not for spacecraft. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Elections, for their part, are typically popularity contests rather than measures of candidates' relative competency or effectiveness. Imagine if scientific truth were determined according to which scientist was most popular. To be successful, scientists would have to be charismatic and attractive - and human knowledge would suffer terribly. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" A person's basic humanity is not governed by how he or she came into this world, or whether somebody else happens to have the same DNA. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" The dilemma for early 21st century journalism is this: Who will pay for the news? "

Nathan Myhrvold

" An efficient government is dangerous in the hands of the wrong man. Sadly, the right sort of man never seems interested in the job. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Records were replaced by CDs, and lead type died in favor of computerized fonts. However, each had a 100-year ride of popularity, so you can't feel too bad for them. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" If you want to do interesting software, you have to have a bunch of people do it, because the amount of software that one person can do isn't that interesting. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Technological 'revolutions' don't really overthrow anything - they simply append a new and dynamic market to that which went before. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Sooner or later the space program will need to save us by detecting and deflecting an incoming asteroid. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" In 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. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" If people don't find what you are doing threatening, then it is probably not very important. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" 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

" Nobody wants a prediction that the future will be more or less like the present, even if that is, statistically speaking, an excellent prediction. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Near Marseilles in the south of France, bouillabaisse is a cult food. In Toulouse and Carcassonne, the bean-based stew cassoulet is a cult food. Spain has paella and a number of others. Italy has so many, its cuisine is practically defined by them. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" It's really hard to compete with Apple on pure coolness, and if you do, you're probably going to use some of the things they pioneered. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" I never was a popular kid in class. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" When we first did 'Modernist Cuisine,' I think most people in cookbook publishing would have said, 'This is insane.' "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Wine lovers have known for centuries that decanting wine before serving it often improves its flavor. Whatever the dominant process, the traditional decanter is a rather pathetic tool to accomplish it. A few years ago, I found I could get much better results by using an ordinary kitchen blender. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" By burning nuclear waste as fuel, we believe we can power the United States cleanly for hundreds of years without ever touching new resources. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" There'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 want to have a great ingredient and no technique. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" 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

" The 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. "

Nathan Myhrvold

Checks And Balances

" 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