"I always felt like computers were meant to be used with at least a hand poised on the home row, because without that arsenal of verbs things just take too long. As a power user, watching someone who isn’t familiar with all the shortcuts can put your patience under observation. To some folks, everything about the desktop is a hindrance, like swimming in molasses. But to the geeky or trained, the desktop is a fount of power and speed. Documents are side by side, text flies from here to there, IMs are answered and dismissed, mockups reloaded, batches processed, all with tiny movements of the fingers. For those of us who work all day on computers, touch interfaces are not an impending disruption. While the future of the desktop is bright, like some maturing stars it also becomes more concentrated. If I place a bet, it’ll be that the desktop negotiates its place among tablets to settle on a role we haven’t seen in a while: the workstation. As for interface designers, we will sometimes shift out of the one-size-fits-all mindset to ask ourselves: Which device is this app really for? The workstation or the tablet?"

"They’d do it because they’d be able to set the curriculum. When you have kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don’t learn until you’re older - yet you could learn them when you’re younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school? God, how exciting that could be! But you can’t do it today. You’d be crazy to work in a school today. You don’t get to do what you want. You don’t get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?"

"‘Citizen’ is the key word. It’s what we do as individuals that count. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government’s role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you’ll give up and what you’ll contribute. Here’s the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up: bike to work, plant a garden, do something. So again, the oil spill is my fault. I’m sorry. I haven’t done my part."

"While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war."

"The premise is simple: to drink a wine from the region where the football match is being played."