Some thoughts that get stuck in my mind:

• If you can't find something, does it exist? A search engine on the internet has more power in what it can not find.
• The phrase "hapax legomenon" refers to a word that has only occured once in the written record of a lanugage. What we need is a phrase for an obscure reference in a paper or idea in physics, so people will be able to talk concisely about different lectures I've given.
• I bought some coffee from Rwanda, and it got me thinking about conflict diamonds. Is there such a thing as conflict coffee? I am ethically bound not to purchase anything from a place with which I have ideological differences? Who does coffee help? Who does it hurt?
• Being a twin and having read the Amphitryon, I wonder if I am Iphicles or Heracles?
• There is something in geography call a pole of inaccessibility. It tells you where on Earth you can be furthest from land or water or a highway or a man-made object or whatever you are interested in. I figure we should figure out where the Starbucks poles of inaccessibility are for when I travel to make sure I can't get a good cup of coffee while driving.
• Don't fight it. The library of Alexandria burned down in 391 AD by order of Theodosius I, and via the new computer technologies we can finally top the ancients, and bring all known knowledge together -- linked and searchable. That is if money doesn't get in the way. It's been thousands of years since all the world's knowledge could fit in one building, and soon I expect it to be accessable in all buildings.
• Why did it take so long? It seems that in ancient cultures the staus quo was much stronger than it is today. It must have been harder to think about improving things when you live hand to mouth. Perhaps we should think of this when we want to by a new product on credit.
• How is anything left? How did it survive? As I read about several book collections, they almost all end up burning to the ground or being sold off by people who didn't understand. Where did it all go?
• When the history of my age is written, it won't talk about terrorism and wars. It won't talk about bad politics, bad leaders, the stock market, technology, privacy, or drugs. It will say that the world stood back and watched as Africa slowly died. Every one of us.
• Real dialogue is rare, we mostly speak past each other.
• How much information is in the number 243?