Brian Christian Quotes
Information, defined intuitively and informally, might be something like 'uncertainty's antidote.' This turns out also to be the formal definition- the amount of information comes from the amount by which something reduces uncertainty...The higher the [information] entropy, the more information there is. It turns out to be a value capable of measuring a startling array of things- from the flip of a coin to a telephone call, to a Joyce novel, to a first date, to last words, to a Turing test...Entropy suggests that we gain the most insight on a question when we take it to the friend, colleague, or mentor of whose reaction and response we're least certain. And it suggests, perhaps, reversing the equation, that if we want to gain the most insight into a person, we should ask the question of qhose answer we're least certain... Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of course, and I don't quibble with them in the slightest. But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish.
Brian Christian
Quotes to Explore
If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
To help staff recharge and think better, companies are setting aside quiet places to relax, practise yoga or even take a nap. With hi-tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft underlining the pitfalls of being 'always on,' firms are imposing speed limits on the information superhighway.
Carl Honore
I work on words quite separately to music. They're both ongoing, and I don't ever feel like I'm working in a cycle in that respect, because it's every day anyway, no matter what I'm doing. Then I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.
P. J. Harvey
After 20 years, a million written words, and nine rejected novels, I finally landed a book contract.
J. A. Konrath
The Internet is programmable information. The blockchain is programmable scarcity.
Balaji Srinivasan
I guess I was just meant to be a secretary who doesn't take shorthand. I'm a lousy typist, too - 33 words a minute.
Barbara Hale
The problem of forgetting might not torment us so much if we could only convince ourselves that remembering isn't important. Perhaps the things we learn - words, dates, formulas, historical and biographical details - don't really matter. Facts can be looked up. That's what the Internet is for.
Gary Wolf
Making a donation is the ultimate sign of solidarity. Actions speak louder than words.
Ibrahim Hooper
They can picture love affairs of chemicals and stars, a romance of stones, or the fertility of fire. Strange, fertile correspondences the alchemists sensed in unlikely orders of being. Between men and planets, plants and gestures, words and weather.
Jim Morrison
The Doors
I will say in a few words why the anarchist doctrine is wrong. The anarchists say that the working class does not need a government: what is needs is to organize production. Government, they say, is a bourgeois invention, a bourgeois machine of compulsion, and the working class does not need to take governmental power. This is wrong from beginning to end.
Leon Trotsky
I really liked the idea of creating a journal myself. It's like the way I clear my throat. I write a page every day, maybe 500 words. It could be about something I'm specifically worried about in the new novel; it could be a question I want answered; it could be something that's going on in my personal life. I just use it as an exercise.
Elizabeth George
I don't judge my effectiveness by how many words I say. I think liberals often see nuances in things... Conservatives tend to see things in black and white. It gives them an air of certainty and conviction that might make them more comfortable to watch.
Alan Colmes
For me, the perfect film has no dialogue at all. It's purely a visual, emotional, visceral kind of experience. And I think one can create wonderful depth and meaning and communication without using words. I started out as an illustrator and a cartoonist and caricature artist, so for me the visual is primary.
Bill Plympton
In our daily life a certain way of thinking makes us happy, and a certain way of thinking makes us unhappy. In other words, there are certain states of mind which bring us problems, and they can be removed.
Dalai Lama
Of course, one way of thinking about all of life and civilization is as being about how the world registers and processes information. Certainly that's what sex is about; that's what history is about.
Seth Lloyd
Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership?
Bill Kristol
I was happy being a journalist. I didn't realize losing my job, my identity went with it.
Maria Shriver
Information, defined intuitively and informally, might be something like 'uncertainty's antidote.' This turns out also to be the formal definition- the amount of information comes from the amount by which something reduces uncertainty...The higher the [information] entropy, the more information there is. It turns out to be a value capable of measuring a startling array of things- from the flip of a coin to a telephone call, to a Joyce novel, to a first date, to last words, to a Turing test...Entropy suggests that we gain the most insight on a question when we take it to the friend, colleague, or mentor of whose reaction and response we're least certain. And it suggests, perhaps, reversing the equation, that if we want to gain the most insight into a person, we should ask the question of qhose answer we're least certain... Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of course, and I don't quibble with them in the slightest. But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish.
Brian Christian
