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.

Another random thing I do is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. And you may be familiar with the movie 'Contact,' which sort of popularized that. It turns out there are real people who go out and search for extraterrestrials in a very scientific way.

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!

Age can be wonderful for red wine, but not for spacecraft.

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.

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.

Age can be wonderful for red wine, but not for spacecraft.

Nuclear energy is a baseload - meaning it's power that you can run any time you want, day or night - and carbon-free.

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.