Nathan Myhrvold Quotes

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If your kitchen smells good, your food lost something.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: If your kitchen smells good,
Most visions of extraterrestrial life are actually steeped in human hubris. The fictional extraterrestrials of 'Star Trek' or a hundred other space operas are less alien than many of my neighbors. And funny, the ones running the place are mostly WASPish men.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Most visions of extraterrestrial life
The dilemma for early 21st century journalism is this: Who will pay for the news?
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The dilemma for early 21st
I think that there is a role for food to be art; and when food is art, it can have drama, it can have spectacle, it can be theatrical. It can be this amazing experience.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: I think that there is
A 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 touching up the browning of a chicken or making creme brulee.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: A blowtorch is a wonderful
If 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 in it - people always want the new one. But I wouldn't want them to operate a plane I was on with software that happened to be the latest greatest release!
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: If I say I've got
When we first did 'Modernist Cuisine,' I think most people in cookbook publishing would have said, 'This is insane.'
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: When we first did 'Modernist
The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would be replaced by DNA from an adult cell. What law or principle - secular, humanist, or religious - says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is OK, but another is not?
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The cloning procedure is similar
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 Quotes: In the early days of
Making money from enforcing patents is no more wrong than investing in preferred stock.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Making money from enforcing patents
If you have a block of ballistics gelatin and a high-speed camera, pretty soon somebody gets a gun!
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: If you have a block
Three things about water affect almost all of cooking. First are the hydrogen bonds, which is why it has an incredibly high boiling point. Another is that it's a polar molecule, so that it dissolves a lot of things, and there are things that won't mix with it. And then there's how much energy it takes to heat water.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Three things about water affect
Cooking is an art, but all art requires knowing something about the techniques and materials. Using modernist techniques, you get more control, and that allows you to be more artistic, not less!
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Cooking is an art, but
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 Quotes: The world has shown that
If I want popularity, I go to a chef's convention.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: If I want popularity, I
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 Quotes: If you want to do
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 Quotes: I've never filed a patent
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 Quotes: People get cranky when you
Suppose that 'Unsolved Mysteries' called you with news of a long-lost identical twin. Would that suddenly make you less of a person, less of an individual? It is hard to see how. So, why would a clone be different? Your clone would be raised in a different era by different people - like the lost identical twin, only younger than you.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Suppose that 'Unsolved Mysteries' called
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 Quotes: Wine lovers have known for
Chefs 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.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Chefs think about what it's
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 Quotes: Elections, for their part, are
There's a limit to how much you can deploy renewables, like wind or solar. People will talk about getting up to 30 percent of America's power from renewables, but you can't get to 100 percent because of their unreliability.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: There's a limit to how
Economists want their discipline to be a science, and they have nailed down a few precepts, but many of their debates are still clouded by ideology.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Economists want their discipline to
When 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 it all turned out great. It didn't. But, sort of, from that point on, whenever there was serious cooking at home, I was the one who did it.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: When I was about nine
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 Quotes: The ever-growing size of software
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 Quotes: Food, like anything else, lives
Micropayments are great if you use them for a product or service with certain properties. It must be one where you can get away with usage-based pricing, and where there is a strong rationale for making it cheap, yet not free.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Micropayments are great if you
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 Quotes: For relatively modest amounts of
We pay for content that we like, and we like the content we pay for. It's a lot more satisfying to pay $7.50 for Steven Spielberg's next epic than it is to watch my home movies for free. Even for me.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: We pay for content that
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 Quotes: The first thing that is
I'm one of the first invention capitalists.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: I'm one of the first
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 Quotes: In market research I did
Age can be wonderful for red wine, but not for spacecraft.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Age can be wonderful for
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 Quotes: People who grow up in
Politicians don't like to face unpleasant realities. In truth, nobody does, but as individuals, we have no choice; if we neglect to plan ahead, we are held accountable. Fail to meet your responsibilities at work, and you get fired. Ignore your car's gas gauge, and you get stranded.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Politicians don't like to face
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 Quotes: Suppose that every prospective parent
The scientific method is the ultimate elegant explanation. It is the ultimate foundation for anything worthy of the name "explanation". It makes no sense to talk about explanations without having a process for deciding which are right and which are wrong, and in a broad sense that is what the scientific method is about. All of the other wonderful explanations celebrated here owe their origin and credibility to the process by which they are verified-the scientific method.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The scientific method is the
Business 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 in the boardroom, and, for that matter, in the bookstore, where dozens of authors counsel would-be corporate warriors.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Business is war! Its leaders
Sooner or later the space program will need to save us by detecting and deflecting an incoming asteroid.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Sooner or later the space
Within NASA, the shuttle is perhaps the least-groundbreaking project. Recall that Apollo was about creating brand-new technologies that did something unprecedented - putting men on the moon. The shuttle is, by comparison, a relic designed to make going into orbit routine.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Within NASA, the shuttle is
Microsoft, Apple, Facebook all bought huge patent portfolios to further their strategic game. They're doing what I'm doing!
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Microsoft, Apple, Facebook all bought
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 Quotes: If you take a scotch
It is better to predict dramatic things that don't happen than boring things that do.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: It is better to predict
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 Quotes: It's impossible that we're alone
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 Quotes: There's no way I'm going
One of the problems with posing a 'bold new plan' is that you can't just extrapolate from previous plans.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: One of the problems with
The new revolution in cooking can be viewed in two ways. One is that you can take any traditional food and apply modern techniques. The other approach is to create food that is quite different than anything that has existed before.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The new revolution in cooking
The 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 shrunken down in size, and a trip to New York would cost about five dollars. Those enormous changes just aren't part of our everyday experience.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The way Moore's Law occurs
The Internet is the ultimate vanity-publishing medium, and therefore, the ultimate place for those of us who like to watch. The Internet can reach an audience at lower cost than any medium before it.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The Internet is the ultimate
Regardless 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 business. They're wonderful for consumers too, making it cheaper and easier to buy things and creating new things to buy.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Regardless of how it's done,
Raw lobster tail, freeze dried, is amazing.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Raw lobster tail, freeze dried,
Why pay a fee for Internet content when a million free sites are just a click away? There's no incentive until people are too addicted to the Net to turn off their computers, yet are bored with what's available.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Why pay a fee for
My career at Microsoft really was getting in the way of my cooking.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: My career at Microsoft really
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 Quotes: By burning nuclear waste as
Life has not been boring for me.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Life has not been boring
With 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 is cooking with his grandmother's recipe, I always wonder why. Did talent skip the past two generations?
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: With cult foods, there is
If people don't get paid for their inventions, that's not a good thing. In the case of many patents, there are people who aren't in a position to take them to the next level. If you don't enforce your rights, no one is going to enforce them for you.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: If people don't get paid
Efficiency in government is a more elusive concept than efficiency in the private economy, which may be measured relatively easily as output per units of input. What is the government's 'output?'
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Efficiency in government is a
If we could create invention capitalism, that would be a helluva legacy, that would be a helluva thing to do ... We could actually turbocharge the rate at which the world invents things.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: If we could create invention
The magic words 'on the Internet,' if inserted into nearly any sentence, seem to protect it from normal critical scrutiny.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The magic words 'on the
Now, 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 have nice weather, plants grow, and you don't get any erosion, and you don't see any dinosaurs.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Now, to find dinosaurs, you
The NeXT purchase is too little too late. The Apple of the past was an innovative company that used software and hardware technology together to redefine the way people experienced computing. That Apple is already dead. Very adroit moves might be able to save the brand name. A company with the letters A-P-P-L-E in its name might survive, but it won't be the Apple of yore.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The NeXT purchase is too
Every serious nuclear accident involves operator error, so you want to eliminate the operator altogether.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Every serious nuclear accident involves
The 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 that they're both enormously valuable.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The best value for money
I have a very pragmatic approach to diets. Ones you can't stick to don't do you any good. Some people say, 'Just eat half of what's on your plate,' but I can't do that!
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: I have a very pragmatic
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 Quotes: One of the ugly secrets
In politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: In politics, religion and other
Software sucks because users demand it to.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Software sucks because users demand
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 Quotes: Some article called me the
Words can hurt you. In the larger world, it frames how people think about you, and it can hurt you in lots of little, subtle ways.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Words can hurt you. In
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 Quotes: Our reactor actually burns nuclear
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 Quotes: It's very hard for individual
Risk is the sort of word that is easy to discuss upfront but tough to handle when it comes time to pay the piper. There will always be some who wimp out and second-guess when the pain hits, but that is a childish reaction.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Risk is the sort of
The 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 Weber grill is doing your food no favors.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The simplest fix for better
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 Quotes: A person's basic humanity is
The physics of water is central to cooking, because food is mostly water. All steak that you cook is actually boiled on the inside.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The physics of water is
I wanted to figure out how long to cook things. I did some experiments and then wrote a program using Mathematica to model how heat is transferred through food.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: I wanted to figure out
Nuclear energy is a baseload - meaning it's power that you can run any time you want, day or night - and carbon-free.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Nuclear energy is a baseload
We should have more invention.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: We should have more invention.
We have the only cookbook in the world that has partial differential equations in it.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: We have the only cookbook
We'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 go lower until somebody bites. Movies are sold to the audience via a very slow Dutch auction, where each phase between price drops can last weeks or months.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: We're more familiar with what
Technological 'revolutions' don't really overthrow anything - they simply append a new and dynamic market to that which went before.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Technological 'revolutions' don't really overthrow
We collectively have a special place in our heart for the manned space flight program - Apollo nostalgia is one element, but that is only part of it. American culture worships explorers - look at the fame of Lewis and Clark, for example. The American people want to think of themselves as supporting exploration.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: We collectively have a special
Researchers 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 occasions.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Researchers who examined the voting
I was good at math and science, and I got lots of degrees in lots of things, but in a parallel universe, I probably became a chef.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: I was good at math
The whole hardware industry has experienced the phenomenon in which every time computers get cheaper, they appeal to a new set of users; every time they get more powerful, old customers upgrade.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: The whole hardware industry has
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 Quotes: There is a one-in-300 chance
Bill, we left megalomania behind a long time ago. Now we are gigalomaniacs.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Bill, we left megalomania behind
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 Quotes: Records were replaced by CDs,
Humans are a story telling species. Throughout history we have told stories to each other and ourselves as one of the ways to understand the world around us. Every culture has its creation myth for how the universe came to be, but the stories do not stop at the big picture view; other stories discuss every aspect of the world around us. We humans are chatterboxes and we just can't resist telling a story about just about everything.

However compelling and entertaining these stories may be, they fall short of being explanations because in the end all they are is stories. For every story you can tell a different variation, or a different ending, without giving reason to choose between them. If you are skeptical or try to test the veracity of these stories you'll typically find most such stories wanting. One approach to this is forbid skeptical inquiry, branding it as heresy. This meme is so compelling that it was independently developed by cultures around the globes; it is the origin of religion - a set of stories about the world that must be accepted on faith, and never questioned.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Humans are a story telling
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 Quotes: Being a visionary is a
Software-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? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Nope, it's about stock options.
Nathan Myhrvold Quotes: Software-industry battles are fought by
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 Quotes: The depressing thing about battery
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