technology
"Technology is like a giant raging river and we young turks jump in to the
middle of it and think we can master it. As time passes, we come to truly
understand how big it is and we grow tired. We drift over to the edge of the
river, where it flows a little slower, and eventually in to our own
backwater where we do our jobs and watch the new young turks try to master
the river...."
"In large organizations, technology is like an iceberg. The part that everyone sees and evaluates is the ten to twenty percent above the water. The eighty or ninety percent of the iceberg under the water is necessary to support the technology strategy in a complex, diverse environment."
Websites, smart phones, and all the other stuff, it the core of how modern culture operates. If it all stopped working, there would be major disruptions in the day to day working of just about everyone's life.
"Technology is like a steamroller: you can either drive or become part of the road. There is consequential pressure on educators to become technology-savvy. We work to harness that pressure to help teachers become pro-active rather than reactionary. If the goal is to use technology, we need to help teachers understand how professionals in the "real world" are using technology."
"Biotechnology has great benefits, but is similar to a motor vehicle: If you are irresponsible and drive intoxicated, you will have to face the consequences. We have hundreds of deaths every year on our roads, but we spare no costs in the development of the motor vehicle, its licensing or the stringency in obtaining a driver's licence. We ensure that there are measures in place for proper road infrastructure and drivers are monitored by traffic officers. Similarly any new technology requires monitoring and regulation. Everything we want is new, faster and better. Any technology will have its benefits for mankind if it is used wisely and managed well - and that was the basis of my PhD."
"Nowadays, biotechnology is like a medieval guild. Firstly, you have to get a PhD, but if you want to practise you then need venture capital, otherwise you don't have the tools." Ginkgo aims to make things easier by offering off-the-shelf biological components and a third-party service for rapid prototyping."
"Limitations of space forbid adequate discussion of this immense area of genetic engineering, but it is critical to remember that biotechnology is like electronics in the depth of implications for the ways we make what we eat, build with, or use in any way to construct our lives. Organisms are not special natural unities, whether they are fetuses, plants, or bacteria; they are particular technological solutions to a production problem. We learned from studies of capitalism and the industrial revolution that technology has been developed in the service of a redistribution and consolidation of power for the owning classes; biotechnology has been and will be no exception. Contesting for the construction of these technologies is contesting for the basic systems of production and reproduction into the next century. I will simply recall a few of the dimensions of these technologies as they are now developing."
"Edit: This may be a hyperbolic statement, as several have pointed out, but I believe in treating technology with privacy concerns the same way you would a firearm: it's always loaded, even if you just emptied it."
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.