Labyrinth Quotes

“The pandemic is over. It’s been over for years. But the world never recovered. People never went back to work or school or restaurants or ball games or concerts.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“The list of files never seems to end. It’s got every Star Trek series and movie”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Life is not about what you’ve lost. It’s about what you have left.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“we set off toward one of the most daunting labyrinths in modern American life: Costco… on the weekend.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Fifty percent of the entire global population will develop a mental health disorder in their lifetime.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“The thing is, some who venture into the cave of self-awareness don’t like what they see. And most avoid it altogether.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“lean over the table. “Look at me.” The modified Q character leans back in the chair. “Jean-Luc, I can’t look at you. I have no eyes. Or mouth.” She drops her voice and playfully adds, “That’s a Harlan Ellison reference.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“porte-cochère”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. Intrigued, I keep scanning the page. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string acts like a particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. With a finger, I highlight vibrational state. Several passages below that jump out at me as well. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. And farther down the page: In everyday life, there are three familiar dimensions (3D) of space: height, width and length. Einstein’s general theory of relativity treats time as a dimension on par with the three spatial dimensions; in general relativity, space and time are not modeled as separate entities but are instead unified to a four-dimensional (4D) spacetime. And later: String theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“The puzzle was a spiral shell. Daedalus put honey at the end of the shell and attached a string to an insect that crawled through. Still, that doesn’t make sense.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Fermi Paradox.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“You are not humanity, Alan. You don’t need to know because the backup plan doesn’t include you surviving. Or your daughter or anyone you’ve ever met. The backup plan is what I can accomplish with the power I have left. It would leave a much smaller surviving human population. And it would be a far darker future for humanity. Keep in mind, my programming compels me to ensure humanity survives. It makes no requirements on how many humans survive. My current offer is the only one that gives you and the group and your daughter a chance to live. And to clear your name and get your life back.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“The most important thing in a survival situation is the will to live. All those people in Europe who survived the Black Death—they still had the will to live. When I told you about transformer architecture, you said it was dangerous because it could make humanity obsolete. You were right about the danger, but wrong about why it was dangerous. It’s a threat to humanity because it enables us to create a virtual reality that is better than actual reality. We gave humanity a better offer than real life. What it cost us was the will to survive—here in this world. Everyone lives in Labyrinth now.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“benzodiazepine.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Signs of alien life. SETI@HOME provides access to tons of volunteer computing power, enabling the project to search the stars for extraterrestrial signals much faster.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Shuttering projects. Laying people off by the thousands. Trying to get their company back on track. Trying to get it focused. After a bunch of Don Quixote passion projects.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Growing up, my mom had a few favorite sayings. There was ‘Your habits determine your future.’ Bet I heard that a million times. That was her habit: dispensing wisdom.” Rose smiles. “Her other favorite was ‘Show me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“It told me, ‘You just have to keep going. Even when it feels hopeless.’ That part makes sense. But the thing I keep thinking about is what she said after: ‘It’s all about the numbers. When you’re stuck, consult the numbers.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“The first time was after the surgeries, when my leg was wrapped up, and I was lying in that bed, and the doctor came in, and I will never forget what he said to me: “Life is not about what you’ve lost. It’s about what you have left.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Thanks to the numbers website, it’s free, and all the world loves a free sample, especially of something new.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“archipelago,”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“I’ve been thinking about points of failure on this journey. I’m using the 3-3-3-3 survival rule of thumb. The logic goes that the average person can survive for about three minutes without oxygen. In extreme conditions, you can make it for roughly three hours without shelter. Without food? Generally, three weeks. Without drinkable water, three days is about how long someone can survive.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“On paper, by the numbers, our subspecies of humans looks inferior to other human subspecies at the time. Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthals, had bigger brains. On average, their cranial capacity was about 1,500 to 1,600 cc. We,” June motions to the group, “humans have a volume of about 1,300 to 1,400 cc. On average.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“The most well-known are Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and us.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“June’s summary begins with Homo habilis, which some believe to be the first member of the genus Homo, and a direct ancestor to modern humans. Based in Eastern and Southern Africa, Homo habilis is believed to have emerged 2.4 million years ago and to have gone extinct roughly a million years later. Its existence overlapped with another human ancestor—Homo erectus—which emerged 1.9 million years ago in Africa. The fact that Homo habilis and erectus existed in the same place—and at the same time—has led to speculation that the two species competed for resources and that erectus, the surviving hominin, may have outcompeted its predecessor. Other scientists argue that habilis actually evolved into Homo erectus. Whatever the case, what is known is that Homo erectus, compared to habilis, had a larger brain, could control fire, and exhibited greater mastery of tool creation and use than any human before it. The archaeological record indicates that Homo erectus migrated out of Africa to Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, with some individuals even traveling as far as present-day Indonesia. The human ancestral tree becomes harder to follow after that. Archaeologists have found several human ancestors that emerged from Homo erectus. It’s not clear if they are separate species or simply a subspecies.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“SEO”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Well, VR—and what we call Virtual Reality Augmented Rehabilitation or VRAR—has been studied for years. And used very effectively to treat patients who have had a stroke or traumatic brain injuries, even dementia and spinal cord injuries.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“VR triggers something called vergence-accommodation conflict, or VAC. Your eyes point (converge or diverge) to match the depth of virtual objects, but they must focus at a single, fixed optical distance. That split instruction—‘look near, focus far’—tires the eye muscles and can leave you woozy. It could leave the user with blurry vision, eye strain, and even headaches. A 360-degree environment like Labyrinth would exacerbate the effects.”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“vergence-”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth

“Do you know what happens to first movers?” “I think you know the answer, and I’m going to hear it now.” “They get trampled—by the fast followers. Google didn’t have the first search engine. They launched years after—and in a crowded market. Microsoft didn’t have the first disk operating system. Facebook: not the first social media network. Remember Tom from Myspace?”
― A.G. Riddle, Labyrinth