If you think about computer programming, it's as antisocial as it gets.

That's why I ended up leaving school - because it required so much time, and it was such an excellent idea. I figured I would regret not going full force with this idea. It seemed we could make something of it.

If you think about computer programming, it's as antisocial as it gets.

I think in terms of the work we're doing now a lot of the UI cleanup... I see it getting much prettier.

It's been all over the press, and schools are deciding to shut it down. We released a public announcement saying that we had some potential solutions that we were working with, and once we had something concrete we would start implementing it and approach schools.

He said this has the potential to be the first broadband killer application, and it has sort of become the truth because obviously it's so bandwidth intensive. I mean, it has been an issue.

I think it's pretty obvious to most people that Napster is not media specific, but I could see a system like Napster evolving into something that allows users to locate and retrieve different types of data other than just MP3s or audio files.

Well, user feedback was excellent. Even when the software didn't work at all, there were few people who were avid users, and there were people who were just sending excellent feedback and excellent ideas.

It was very early, and we were still like beta or alpha stage, and so we started receiving a ton of download. The server became overloaded, and that's when I realized that this had a huge market.

Napster works because people who love music share and participate.

I think the most difficult thing had been scaling the infrastructure. Trying to support the response we had received from our users and the number of people that were interested in using the software.

I had to actually purchase a book to learn the API and write the client. It was pretty frustrating trying to learn the API and develop a product quickly.

If you're a musician or actor, you know that if you're successful, some level of fame goes along with that. You're prepared. But how often does that happen to a programmer?

Nobody has ever built a reliable peer-to-peer service, where people can really access all the music they want in one location,... Once I got it into my head, I couldn't imagine the media space without one.

I think then, when we started receiving the first of the user feedback, feedback from people that I had not specifically told about it, but had spread from friend to friend and then they were giving us feedback.

So the bandwidth issue is definitely a big concern of ours.

Independent artists and labels have always been the trend setters in music and the music business.

There really was nothing like it at the time. We had good ideas for implementation, so we proceeded. I think it was an excellent solution to the reliability issues with existing search engines.

But I just really think there is a natural extension into other types of media because it's an excellent system for reliably locating and retrieving content.

Unfortunately, the client that exists today is still pretty much the prototype design.

Bertelsmann understood our vision when they first invested in us... They still believe in that vision.

I'm thinking of going to programming school. Learn how to sit down at any computer and learn to do anything on it. That's all I have left and have interest in.

I said, 'Okay, it's the year 2000, I'm getting a computer and a Palm Pilot.' I know how to check my e-mail, and I've listed some phone numbers on it. Half the time the battery has gone out so I can't use it.

To better understand why you need a personal computer, let's take a look at the pathetic mess you call your life.

I've got a computer, but I won't go near it.

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.

All we can do when we think of kids today is think of more hours of school, earlier age at the computer, and curfews. Who would want to grow up in that world?

In OK Computer, the guitar was already moving towards a tone generator as well as a riff generator.

If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.

Then in my early teens, when the home computer bubble was blowing, I had one of the first, an Acorn Atom, and used to write primitive adventures on that.

I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer.

I always say that my favorite game was Original Adventure, published by both Microsoft and Apple Computer back in 1980.

To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so.

I think computer science, by and large, is still stuck in the Modern age.

It would be nice to design a real briefcase - you open it up and it's your computer but it also stores your books.

I am the farthest thing from a computer genius.

I wish I could have 25,000 years of my personal family history documented in a very powerful computer or a CD-ROM that I could just pop in and my computer would never crash.

The basis of computer work is predicated on the idea that only the brain makes decisions and only the index finger does the work.

In my second year in graduate school, I took a computer course and that was like lightening striking.

Some people may have noticed the new computer shelf at the anchor desk. Rather than phone calls, we want to take real time e-mails, and we'll be starting that very soon.

The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.

The fact that biological, or "natural" rules might help in the creation of a computer generated work of art is interesting, but even a wonderful work of art made in this fashion isn't the same as a person, with all his or her experiences and emotions involved, making art.

Computer modelling for weather forecasting, and indeed for climate forecasting, has reached its limits.

The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.

I have a son, Mason, who is disabled - cerebral palsy - and he does not walk independently, sit independently or speak. He uses a talking computer. I started becoming an advocate for him when he was 3 years old.

At the risk of being a fuddy-duddy I don't have a computer; I don't have e-mail; and I really don't need something in my house that I would be sitting in front of for hours.

A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.

Stories where the author has known very little, but run a computer program that tells him how to construct a planet, and looked up specific things about rocketry and so on, really suck.

Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?