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Now he had learned that a machine, simple in its design, could produce results of infinite complexity.
Once you found the math in a thing, you knew everything about it, and you could manipulate it to your heart’s content with nothing more than a pencil and a napkin.
trout is highly nutritious but so low in fat and carbohydrates that you can starve to death eating it three times a day.
the chairman of the astronomy department called him over and said, “So, you’re the UNIX guru.” At the time, Randy was still stupid enough to be flattered by this attention, when he should have recognized them as bone-chilling words.
RESPECT THE PEDESTRIAN, the signs say, but the drivers, the physical environment, local land use customs, and the very layout of the place conspire to treat the pedestrian with the contempt he so richly deserves. Randy would get more respect if he went to work on a pogo stick with a propeller beanie on his head. Every morning the bellhops ask him if he wants a taxi, and practically lose consciousness when he says no.
This is why he hates business. He wants to tell everyone everything. He wants to make friends with people.
“In business, people rarely plan to do a thing only once,”
pregnant with sartorial possibilities:
Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker’s game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.
Waterhouse has completely lost whatever control he might ever have had over the situation and himself. His tongue seems to be made of erectile tissue.
“That is more an article of faith than a statement of fact,” Randy says, “but it might be true in the future.” “But the rest of our lives will happen in the future, Randy, so we might as well get with the program now.”
Waterhouse did not know until now that his head was damaged, which stands to reason, in that your head is where you know things, and if it’s damaged, how can you know it?
Relatable!
It is trite to observe that hackers don’t like fancy clothes.
If it will take ten years to make the machine with available technology, and only five years to make it with a new technology, and it will only take two years to invent the new technology, then you can do it in seven years by inventing the new technology first!”
his trousers, which are standing there telescoped into the floor where he dropped them
Memes can be divided into two broad categories: genetic and semantic. Genetic memes are simply genes (DNA) and are propagated through normal biological reproduction. Semantic memes are ideas (ideologies, religions, fads, etc.) and are propagated by communications.
This furniture turned out to be riddled with hidden snags that a person in bluejeans would never notice but that would destroy a pair of stockings in a moment.
“I don’t like the word ‘addict’ because it has terrible connotations,” Root says one day, as they are sunning themselves on the afterdeck. “Instead of slapping a label on you, the Germans would describe you as ‘Morphiumsüchtig.’ The verb suchen means to seek. So that might be translated, loosely, as ‘morphine seeky’ or even more loosely as ‘morphine-seeking.’ I prefer ‘seeky’ because it means that you have an inclination to seek morphine.” “What the fuck are you talking about?” Shaftoe says. “Well, suppose you have a roof with a hole in it. That means it is a leaky roof. It’s leaky all the
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Waterhouse’s conversation doesn’t go anywhere in particular. He speaks, not as a way of telling you a bunch of stuff he’s already figured out, but as a way of making up a bunch of new shit as he goes along.
I’ve already told you my name, and it meant nothing to you. Or rather, it meant the wrong thing. Names are tricky that way. The best way to know someone is to have a conversation with them.
there was a time when places like Oxford and Cambridge existed almost solely to train ministers, and their job was not just to preside over weddings and funerals but also to say something thought-provoking to large numbers of people several times a week. They were the retail outlets of the profession of philosophy.
“Yeah. Due diligence people are easy to manipulate. You just have to act really diligent. They eat it up.”
They are all nice new books with color photographs on the covers. He picked them off the shelf because (getting introspective here) he is a computer guy, and in the computer world any book printed more than two months ago is a campy nostalgia item.
It is exciting to discover electrons and figure out the equations that govern their movement; it is boring to use those principles to design electric can openers.
This is why laptops were invented, so that important business persons would not fritter away long flights relaxing.
“If you had to give a name to the whole apparatus, what would you call it?” “Hmmm,” Waterhouse says. “Well, its basic job is to perform mathematical calculations—like a computer.” Comstock snorts. “A computer is a human being.” “Well . . . this machine uses binary digits to do its computing. I suppose you could call it a digital computer.”
“Manila is full of people who claim to be the eyes and ears of the resistance. It is easy to be eyes and ears. It is harder to be fists and feet.
Sometimes wanting is better than having.
Bobby squats down and looks the little Shaftoe in the eye, wondering how to begin to explain everything. But the boy says, “Bobby Shaftoe, you have boo-boos,” and drops his club and walks up to examine the wounds on Bobby’s arm. Little kids don’t bother to say hello, they just start talking to you, and Shaftoe figures that’s a good way to handle what would otherwise be pretty damn awkward.
Doug M. raises both arms over his head and hollers “Soooo big” and the sound echoes up and down the stairs. Bobby wants to explain to the boy that this is how it’s done, you pile one thing on top of the next and you keep it up and keep it up—sometimes the galleon sinks in a typhoon, you don’t get your slab of granite that year—but you stick with it and eventually you end up with something sooo big.
Matthew Beckler liked this
Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists’ uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn’t work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.”
“Wealth that is stored up in gold is dead. It rots and stinks. True wealth is made every day by men getting up out of bed and going to work. By schoolchildren doing their lessons, improving their minds. Tell those men that if they want wealth, they should come to Nippon with me after the war. We will start businesses and build buildings.”
“What of the man who cannot get out of bed and work, because he has no legs? What of the widow who has no husband to work, no children to support her? What of children who cannot improve their minds because they lack books and schoolhouses?” “You can shower gold on them,” Goto Dengo says. “Soon enough, it will all be gone.” “Yes. But some of it will be gone into books and bandages.”
