I don't think there's nothing to the "leave bits of your memory in the cloud" issue but I also imagine
someone like Bill Keller fails to realize just how tremendous it is to be able to punch up the answer to most questions whenever we want. I bet that working for a well-funded large newspaper with a lot of resources, that's long been true for him. He had easy access to reference materials, including computer databases, that most of the rest of us didn't, and an eager intern to do the busy work.