Isaac Asimov on technology

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…’

Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers…and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn’t even ask for erasers.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

Albert Einstein1879–1955

• Science

The function of RAM is to give us guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest, most tumescent MEMORY. This is important, because with today’s complex software, the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages. So the bottom line is, if you’re a guy, you cannot have enough RAM.

Dave Barryborn 1947

• Dave Barry

Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth.

Dave Barryborn 1947Cyberspace (1996)

• Dave Barry