Wine lovers have known for centuries that decanting wine before serving it often improves its flavor. Whatever the dominant process, the traditional decanter is a rather pathetic tool to accomplish it. A few years ago, I found I could get much better results by using an ordinary kitchen blender.

We pay for content that we like, and we like the content we pay for. It's a lot more satisfying to pay $7.50 for Steven Spielberg's next epic than it is to watch my home movies for free. Even for me.

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.

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.

Some article called me the most feared man in Silicon Valley. Good Lord! Why? My teenage boys got a kick out of it: 'Dad, how could this be true? You're not even the most feared person in this house.'

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?'

Ultimately, my Ph.D. is in mathematical physics, focusing on quantum field theory and curved space-time, and I worked with Stephen Hawking.