Plays are frequently infected with ideas that came from actors or even sound engineers. Some Shakespeare scholars wonder whether some of the Bard's lines came from onstage improvisations by actors.

When you're an expert in a subject, you can retain new factoids on your favorite topic easily. This only works for the subjects you're truly passionate about, though. Baseball fans can reel off stats for their favorite players, then space out on their own birthday.

Truly huge artistic collaboration on the Internet seems to work only if the gang has a well-defined objective.

If you, or any public-spirited programmer, wanted to figure out what the software on your machine is really doing, tough luck. It's illegal to reverse engineer the source code of commercial software to find out how it works.

Though 'Fat City' was written long before cellphones or the Internet, its human apparatus is state of the art.

When I was in Japan on tour in 2010, I felt like I was 30 years into the future. I love technology and they are so advanced with their phones, computers, everything. I think they had the iPhone way before we did in the U.S. I love gadgets, games, social media and I try to stay ahead on all that stuff, but they get it all first.

BlogHer is an incredibly important conference because it really taps into the power of women. It gives women an ability to do what they do - take care of the home, go to work - and, at the same time, spread their power through the power of the digital world.

I don't want to be famous or recognizable. I don't want to be critiqued about the way that I look on the Internet... I've been writing pop songs for pop stars for a couple years and see what their lives are like, and that's just not something I want.