To have a conversation with Chiang, I'm finding, is to speak with a man who weighs every word as carefully as a jeweler, and who isn't afraid to pause until he's found the right one.
When it comes to climate change, human society has been like the proverbial frog in the pail on the stove, where the heat gets turned up very slightly every hour, so the frog never thinks to jump out.
The aim of the agreement was to prevent the improper use of the country's bank secrecy laws, and its effect was to curb severely the system of secrecy.
This phenomenon has set off an intensifying discussion at hospitals and medical schools about a problem perhaps best described as "distracted doctoring".
Indeed, it is the collector of leaking buckets who knows what succor the right piece of trash could bring to a person in need—of a needle, a knife blade, or the unrotted portion of a potato.