#machines

Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on the earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 gms, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the nonliving world. ↗

— Michael Denton

#biology #factory #id #intelligent-design #irreducible-complexity

It was one of those great miracles of history that they managed to smuggle an Enigma machines out to Britain just before they were invaded by the Nazis. ↗

— Michael Apted

#britain #enigma #great #history #invaded

Phyllis is one of the tunnel boring machines for Crossrail and one of the most extraordinary characters I met, visiting some of the most exciting infrastructure in Britain. Crossrail is the new railway which will run from West to East right across London. It is the biggest engineering project in Europe - and Phyllis herself is not exactly dainty. ↗

— Evan Davis

#biggest #boring #britain #characters #dainty

Man is a fire-stealing animal, and we can't help building machines and machine intelligences, even if, from time to time, we use them not only to outsmart ourselves but to bring us right up to the doorstep of Doom. ↗

— Richard Dooling

#bring #building #doom #doorstep #even

The Apple has the fewest bells and whistles. It has simple sound and few graphics special effects. In a way, that is a weakness because markets for the other machines are getting bigger. ↗

— Bill Budge

#because #bells #bells and whistles #bigger #effects

I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. ↗

— Alan Turing

#altered #believe #century #contradicted #educated

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. ↗

— Michael Denton

#factory #id #intelligent-design #irreducible-complexity #living-cells

I think all kids need snacks. Mine are fruit machines. I give them things like apple slices, berries and melon. Do I let them eat ice cream? Absolutely. But not every day. ↗

— Emeril Lagasse

#apple #berries #cream #day #eat

Manufacturing takes place in very large facilities. If you want to build a computer chip, you need a giant semiconductor fabrication facility. But nature can grow complex molecular machines using nothing more than a plant. ↗

— Ralph Merkle

#chip #complex #computer #fabrication #facilities

One has to look out for engineers - they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb. ↗

— Marcel Pagnol

#atomic bomb #begin #bomb #end #engineers