Word: scoff
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When skeptical listeners scoff at Kurzweil's sci-fi predictions, saying, "Oh, we won't see that for 100 years," he points out that when it comes to "innovation time," 100 years melts down to about 25. That's because, as he says, "our rate of exponential growth is growing exponentially." Evolution accelerates: it took 100 million years for the human brain to develop, but computing power is expected to surpass it within a generation. "By 2040 or 2050 nonbiological intelligence will be trillions of times more powerful than biological intelligence," he says...
...rigueur for the Harvardian intelligentsia to scoff at supply-side economics. But tax cuts are not the sinister sires of deficits that liberals claim they are. Low taxes provide incentives to work, save and invest. That means growth, and growth coupled with fiscal restraint means higher tax revenue. For evidence, one need only consult the historical record. Between 1961 and 1968, following the Kennedy tax cut, the economy grew by 42 percent and tax revenue rose by a third. The Reagan tax-cut, so fashionably maligned, brought a similar boom. The deficits of the 1980s resulted from spending run rampant...
...unfortunate as it may be to local vendors, the port city of Sihanoukville on the southwest tip of Cambodia remains underwhelmed by tourists, and it is that sense of peace that makes a weekend here worth the modest cost of the stay. Guidebooks scoff that there's nothing to do?it's difficult to even find an Internet connection, they harrumph?but that is precisely the point. Everything else to do in Cambodia requires hiking and studying and getting up early; Sihanoukville is for the lazy or those suffering from temple overload. The four-hour, $3 bus trip from Phnom...
...Purists scoff at multitools as gratuitous gadgetry, unfit for serious jobs, but they're missing the point. Multitools are about expecting the unexpected. When you and your buddies find yourselves locked out of your Honda Civic in the parking lot of TGI Friday's at 3 a.m., you want to be the guy who can fashion a crude lockpick using only a beer can and that wire-crimper thingy on your Leatherman...
...could argue, though, that Harvard basketball has its big moments, such as Penn-Princeton weekend when the home games are sold out. While those games certainly are fun to watch and cover, I have to scoff a little bit at the idea that the Penn-Princeton weekend constitutes a great sports atmosphere. Come on, half the fans are from the other school and even at its most fevered pitch, the crowd can’t even hold a candle to the intensity of the Cameron Crazies...