Charles Platt Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“Scaremongering is an age-old political ritual. There are public officials who have benefited by playing up the 'hacker threat' so that they can win approval by cracking down on it.”

“The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of additional value, there's no net gain.”

“The idea of an e-book has been around since the late 1970s, when researchers at Xerox PARC got on the case. Their prototype used millions of little magnetic particles, black on one side and white on the other, loosely embedded in the surface of a soft sheet of rubber.”

“Unsurprisingly, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) - once a luxury for room-sized computer installations - is now a standard item both in home offices and all the networked tiers above, protecting servers and online service providers, Internet backbones, phone companies, and even cable TV networks.”

“Watching cold fusion is like watching water boil in slow motion. First, sufficient deuterium has to penetrate the palladium electrode. This can take a few weeks. Then, if excess heat is generated during the next month or two, accurate temperature readings require extreme precautions to exclude environmental effects.”

“When the International Space Station is finally launched, it will be fitted with special nickel-hydrogen batteries weighing a total of several tons, with a lifetime of just five years, requiring spares to be brought up from Earth at literally astronomical expense.”

“When you shop online, wouldn't you like to sample the bouquet of wines, the aroma of cigars, or the subtle fragrance of flowers before surrendering your credit card number? Surely more companies will want to aromatize their Web presence when they realize there's a device that can produce genuinely pleasing, authentic fragrances.”