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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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Nathan Myhrvold
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: January 1
Author
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Entrepreneur
Inventor
Mathematician
Paleontologist
Photographer
Seattle
Washington
Nathan Paul Myhrvold
Boring
Happen
Happens
Better
Things
Predict
Dramatic

More quotes by Nathan Myhrvold

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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
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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
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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
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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
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Most decisions are seat-of-the-pants judgments. You can create a rationale for anything. In the end, most decisions are based on intuition and faith.
Nathan Myhrvold
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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
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Raw lobster tail, freeze dried, is amazing.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Microsoft, Apple, Facebook all bought huge patent portfolios to further their strategic game. They're doing what I'm doing!
Nathan Myhrvold
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Software is a gas ! It expands to fit the container it is in !
Nathan Myhrvold