A computer does not think, it feels nothing, and what it is said to "know"--bits of information all cast in the digital mode--has ...no fringe. Nor has it a memory, only storage room. On any point called for, the answer is all or none. Vagueness, intelligent confusion, original punning on words or ideas never occur, the internal hookups being unchangeable; they were determined once for all by the true minds that made the machine and program. When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity; the greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In a play ... a psychological loop is established between performers and audience. Nothing like this can occur in a movie theater.... The images on the screen are patterns of light, not living actors. They are not affected by applause or hissing. They will be the same in a packed house or an empty one. And they will be the same every time the movie is shown. This affects the audience. Occasionally, movie audiences applaud or hiss or walk out, but for the most part they are passive. No social bond between the audience and the actors can exist.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age, new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes;... if you see my Anna, likely young mulatto branded E on the right cheek, R on the left, catch them if you can and notify subscriber.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Loving a baby is a circular business, a kind of feedback loop. The more you give the more you get and the more you get the more yo...u feel like giving.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The difference between digital and analogic forms is exemplified in the two different types of watches and clocks now available. A... digital watch presents the time in discrete units. It is either 12:57 or 12:58 (or some discrete unit in between, such as 12:57 and 10 seconds as opposed to 12:57 and 11 seconds). With the analogic watch, however, time is continuous. A person who sees the time as "12:57 and 10 seconds" on a digital watch, may see the time as "about one o'clock" on an analogic watch. A similar difference exists between a digital calculator and the analogic slide rule. The slide rule is excellent for making "approximations," but it cannot yield precise digital data.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Speedometers, for example, may be digital and give a numeric readout, or analog and produce a lengthening rectangle (or rotating p...ointer). The analog output is less precise, but puts one's speed in some perspective. An 82 and a 28 are almost indistinguishable, but a long rectangle is quite distinct from a short one, and if its length is changing, that too is manifest. The same trade-off is present with clocks and watches, digital timepieces producing precision, but lacking in all the associations a clockface can engender.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission a...s he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For weeks or months they moved through their separate lives and slept side by side as though they were two strangers who had mista...kenly been assigned the same hotel room. And then something would happen and he would find himself staring at her as though he could see the soul of her, looking for an end to his troubles inside the loop of her arms, and he would be snagged with the fishhook of herself, with the barbed hook of his powerless infatuation with something that she seemed to have, some answer that she seemed to offer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »