There must be a rule of thumb in pop-culture archaeology that states that the allure of any topic is inversely related to its assigned importance in the affairs of humanity. The more trivial the subject, the dearer it is to most of its partisans and the more worthy of scholarship. The smallest things in life often mean the most to people.

For centuries, economic thinkers, from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes, have tried to identify the elusive formula that makes some countries more prosperous and successful than others. My curiosity about this topic spurred me, as a young professor of economics in the late 1970s, to research new ways of measuring national competitiveness.

I appreciate the fans who come out here, and they support us, but it's football. We're not saving lives. We're not police officers. We're not doctors. We're football players, first and foremost. If you want to stop watching the game because a guy feels strongly about a very serious topic that's going on in our society, then that's your choice.

Scientists need the infrastructure for scientific search to aid their research, and they need it to offer relevancy and ways to separate the wheat from the chaff - the useful from the noise - via AI-enabled algorithms. With AI, such an infrastructure would be able to identify the exact study a scientist needs from the tens of thousands on a topic.

I find myself asking questions that as a filmmaker I never thought I would ask. Like I get a call from a magazine for a feature and my first question is, 'Cover or not?' Interview invite from a leading channel? I have stopped asking the topic. I'm just like 'Primetime or not?' If I am invited and put in the second row, I can be distraught for days!

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