The Big Switch

What it means, simply, is that the more products they sell, the more profitable they become.

the more that people converse or otherwise share information with other people who hold similar views, the more extreme their views become.

increased the workforce’s educational requirements.

“Uncounted men and animals,” Hunter writes, “contributed most of the energy for the small enterprises that comprised the

Virtualization breaks the lock between software and hardware that made client–server computing so inefficient and complicated.

single census card, for instance, might hold all the data collected on one family. A hole in one place on the card would indicate that the family had three children, while a hole in another place would indicate that the family lived in an apartment.

Soon, electricity was being generated everywhere at 60 cycles and delivered through wall sockets in homes and offices at a steady 120 volts.

Because every machine could receive power separately, factory owners would gain a new flexibility in their ability to design work flows—and expand their operations. They would no longer be constrained by a complicated array of belts and pulleys that was difficult to modify. Electricity was also cleaner and easier to control than water or steam powe

That spurred heavy investments in oil fields, refineries, and filling stations, flooding the market with inexpensive gasoline and making driving even more attractive.