Top ten scientific discoveries of 2007. [via Martin]
350 is the number to remember. [via Lee]
Clive Thompson points out that we're pushing a lot of information out of our own heads and relying on computers as "outboard brains." I quite liked his closing lines:
We've come to think of human intelligence as being like an Intel processor, able to quickly analyze data and spot patterns. Maybe there's just as much value in the ability to marinate in the seemingly trivial.
Of course, it's probably not an either/or proposition. I want both: I want my organic brain to contain vast stores of knowledge and my silicon overmind to contain a stupidly huge amount more.
At the very least, I'd like to be able to remember my own phone number.
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We can do more, we expand our information processing capacity by relying on external storage. I often say that the first step of this transition happened long ago, first with the invention of writing and then with widespread literacy. A lot of what I count on knowing is not immediately in my head. What I keep in my head is mostly a map of the information, where to find it and what to do with it. What happened with computers and the internet is just a continuation, a quantitative difference but not a qualitative change.
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