GRE Words ₁₃

Catherine Fitzpatrick: “I hate this kind of vacuous sectarian twaddle.”

The unique culinary art of Dim Sum originated with the Cantonese in southern China, who over the centuries transformed Yum Cha from a relaxing respite to a loud and happy dining experience.

In Germanic paganism, Thor (from Old Norse Þórr) is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind. The cognate deity in wider Germanic mythology was known in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German Donar (runic þonar ᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱ), stemming from a Common Germanic *Þunraz (meaning “thunder”).

as long as you wish to fuss about minutiae, at least get them right.

“How many engineers does Microsoft have?” Page asked.

About 25,000, he was told.

“We should have a million,” Page said, in all seriousness.

At that point, Schmidt put an avuncular hand on Page's shoulder and brought him back to the real world. Now, with Page as CEO, that hand is less likely to be there.

The fact that I had to market the book myself, and that onus was solely on me, was actually a blessing in disguise. It forced me to get expert help. In the past, I've tried on many occasions to promote my products myself. I've called up journalists, built up a mailing list of media contacts, blogged, Facebooked, twittered and done everything the marketing experts recommend you do, but it's never quite worked for me. And over the years, I reached a key epiphany. I've come to realise that there's something fundamentally different about you yourself telling a journalist that your product is great compared with someone else telling a journalist that your product is great.

Mostly consisting of dialogues between the titular Sophie and a mysterious man named Alberto Knox, interwoven with an increasingly bizarre and mysterious plot, it acts as both a novel and a basic guide to philosophy.

… and I frankly do not quite understand the depressingly defeatist attitude of those who think there is no use — a long journey starts with the first step …

The estimable James Gleick takes on four books — with emphasis on In The Plex — in this New York Review of Books article on Google. I especially appreciate his calling my book the most authoritative to date and also entertaining! As always, Gleick has interesting things to say about Google, particularly on its role in our efforts to deal with privacy in the Internet Age.

The Lexx is a bio-engineered, Manhattan-sized, planet-destroying bioship in the shape of a giant wingless dragonfly and also reminiscent of male genitalia. It was grown by ingesting organ collections from the protein bank on the Cluster, the seat of the Divine Order, for use by His Divine Shadow. The Lexx was originally intended as the ultimate deterrent: the threat of a weapon that could instantly obliterate any planet would keep the remaining “Heretic” worlds of the Light Universe in line, and those that refused to capitulate would be summarily destroyed to reinforce the point. This plan was foiled when the crew commandeered it to escape from the Cluster.