Close to the Machine Quotes

“The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

“The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-it notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

“I’ve managed to stay in a perpetual state of learning only by maintaining what I think of as a posture of ignorant humility. This humility is as mandatory as arrogance… There is only one way to deal with this humiliation: bow you head, let go of the idea that you know anything, and ask politely of this new machine “How do you wish to be operated?” If you accept your ignorance, once you really admit to yourself that everything you know is now useles, the new machine will be good to you and tell you: here is how to operate me.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

“I've managed to stay in a perpetual state of learning only by maintaining what I think of as a posture of ignorant humility.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

“The nerd flavor of masculinity has overwhelmed the macho kind in real-life power dynamics, and therefore in popular culture.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

“There is a purpose of life in the nerd world, which is treating reality as code, and optimizing it. Life becomes a problem-solving activity, and the problem is some sort of lack of optimization.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

“I peered over at Morty, whom I'd clearly never seen before. This round old man in his empty store, for whom I'd never felt anything but pity, had just told me off in ways he could not imagine. He put it all together: Brian's networks, the bank vice president's universe of transactions, the software I write, the systems I install, the sexy bouts of software writing—all that was suddenly and clearly related to the world's financial center now all emptied of people. It's the modems: computing as a kind of neutron bomb, making all the people disappear, leaving the buildings.
   In my world, it would be so easy to forget the empty downtowns. The whole profession encouraged us: stay here, alone, home by this nifty color monitor. Just click. Everything you want—it's just a click away. Everything in my world made me want to forget how—as landlord, as programmer, as landlord/programmer helping to unpeople buildings like my very own—I was implicated in the fate of Morty and the bag shop.”
― Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents