Google is where we go for answers. People used to go elsewhere or, more likely, stagger along not knowing.

At its most fundamental, information is a binary choice. In other words, a single bit of information is one yes-or-no choice.

Writing comes into being to retain information across time and across space. Before writing, communication is evanescent and local; sounds carry a few yards and fade to oblivion. The evanescence of the spoken word went without saying. So fleeting was speech that the rare phenomenon of the echo, a sound heard once and then again, seemed a sort of magic.

Vengeful conquerors burn books as if the enemy's souls reside there, too.

The Internet is like a town that leaves its streets unmarked on the principle that people who don't already know don't belong

The microwave oven is one of the modern objects that convey the most elemental feeling of power over the passing seconds ... If you suffer from hurry sickness in its most advanced stages, you may find yourself punching 88 seconds instead of 90 because it is faster to tap the same digit twice.

Tiny differences in input could quickly become overwhelming differences in output.... In weather, for example, this translates into what is only half-jokingly known as the Butter- fly Effect—the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York.