Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container.

If you talk about sous-vide, then you have to talk about food safety, and microbiology, and heat.

Many of the things the slow food people honor were innovations within historical times. Somebody had to be the first European to eat a tomato.

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.

Efficiency in government is a more elusive concept than efficiency in the private economy, which may be measured relatively easily as output per units of input. What is the government's 'output?'

An efficient government is dangerous in the hands of the wrong man. Sadly, the right sort of man never seems interested in the job.

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.