WIST Quotations

Stephenson, Neal -- “Class Struggle on the Desktop,” In the Beginning … Was the Command Line (1999)

Dave — Wed, 29 May 2013 11:31:42 +0000

Hostility towards Microsoft is not difficult to find on the Net, and it blends two strains: resentful people who feel Microsoft is too powerful, and disdainful people who think it’s tacky. This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments. Microsoft is the very embodiment of modern high-tech prosperity — it is, in a word, bourgeois — and so it attracts all of the same gripes.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
“Class Struggle on the Desktop,” In the Beginning … Was the Command Line (1999)

Stephenson, Neal -- “In the Kindom of Mao Bell”, Wired, #2.02 (Feb 1994)

Dave — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:30:00 +0000

For a Westerner to trash Western culture is like criticizing our nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere on the grounds that it sometimes gets windy, and besides, Jupiter’s is much prettier. You may not realize its advantages until you’re trying to breathe liquid methane.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
“In the Kindom of Mao Bell”, Wired, #2.02 (Feb 1994)

Full text.

Stephenson, Neal -- “Innovation Starvation,” World Policy Journal (Fall 2011)

Dave — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:05:48 +0000

Any strategy that involves crossing a valley — accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance — will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
“Innovation Starvation,” World Policy Journal (Fall 2011)

Stephenson, Neal -- “Mother Earth Mother Board,” Wired, 4.12 (1996)

Dave — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:37:06 +0000

The world has actually been wired together by digital communications systems for a century and a half. Nothing that has happened during that time compares in its impact to the first exchange of messages between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan in 1858. That was so impressive that a mob of celebrants poured into the streets of New York and set fire to City Hall.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
“Mother Earth Mother Board,” Wired, 4.12 (1996)

Stephenson, Neal -- “The Oral Tradition,” In the Beginning… was the Command Line (1999)

Dave — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:16:43 +0000

Windows 95 and MacOS are products, contrived by engineers in the service of specific companies. Unix, by contrast, is not so much a product as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture. It is our Gilgamesh epic.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
“The Oral Tradition,” In the Beginning… was the Command Line (1999)

Stephenson, Neal -- Cryptonomicon, ch. 11 “Nightmare” (1999)

Dave — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:10:27 +0000

The “sir, yes sir” business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. … Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 11 “Nightmare” (1999)

Stephenson, Neal -- Cryptonomicon, ch. 72 “Seattle” (1999)

Dave — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 12:41:22 +0000

Chester nods all the way through this, but does not rudely interrupt Randy as a younger nerd would. Your younger nerd takes offense quickly when someone near him begins to utter declarative sentences, because he reads into it an assertion that he, the nerd, does not already know the information being imparted. But your older nerd has more self confidence, and besides, understands that frequently people need to think out loud. And highly advanced nerds will furthermore understand that uttering declarative sentences whose contents are already known to all present is part of the social process of making conversation and therefore should not be construed as aggression under any circumstances.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 72 “Seattle” (1999)

Stephenson, Neal -- Cryptonomicon, ch. 89 “Slaves” (1999)

Dave — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:50:30 +0000

People smell all kinds of ways before they have burned, but only one way afterwards.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 89 “Slaves” (1999)

Stephenson, Neal -- Cryptonomicon, ch. 98 “Crib” (1999)

Dave — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:45:30 +0000

An idea springs out of his forehead fully formed, with no warning. This is how all the best ideas arrive. Ideas that he patiently cultivates from tiny seeds always fail to germinate or else grow up into monstrosities. Good ideas are just there all of a sudden, like angels in the Bible. You cannot ignore them just because they are ridiculous.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 98 “Crib” (1999)

Stephenson, Neal -- Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Day 4,” prologue (2011)

Dave — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:00:13 +0000

That, as far as she could tell, was the purpose of the religion she had been brought up in: It made people feel better when really horrible things happened, and it offered a repertoire of ceremonies that were used to add a touch of class to such goings-on as shacking up with someone and throwing dirt on a corpse.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Day 4,” prologue (2011)

Stephenson, Neal -- Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Thanksgiving,” prologue (2011)

Dave — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:59:33 +0000

The young woman had turned toward him and thrust her pink gloves up in the air in a gesture that, from a man, meant “Touchdown!” and, from a woman, “I will hug you now!”

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Thanksgiving,” prologue (2011)

Stephenson, Neal -- Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Thanksgiving,” prologue (2011)

Dave — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 20:25:41 +0000

As a fantasy writer, he was not highly regarded (“one cannot call him profoundly mediocre without venturing so far out on the critical limb as to bend it to the ground,” “so derivative that the reader loses track of who he’s ripping off,” “to say he is tin-eared would render a disservice to a blameless citizen of the periodic table of the elements”).

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Thanksgiving,” prologue (2011)

Stephenson, Neal -- Snow Crash, ch. 14 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 17:24:05 +0000

Y’know, watching government regulators trying to keep up with the world is my favorite sport.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Snow Crash, ch. 14 (1992)

Stephenson, Neal -- Snow Crash, ch. 14 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:26:58 +0000

Yeah, you know, a monopolist’s work is never done. No such thing as a perfect monopoly. Seems like you can never get that last one-tenth of one percent.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Snow Crash, ch. 14 (1992)

Stephenson, Neal -- Snow Crash, ch. 3 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:04:44 +0000

When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Snow Crash, ch. 3 (1992)

Stephenson, Neal -- Snow Crash, ch. 36 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 21:58:52 +0000

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Snow Crash, ch. 36 (1992)

Stephenson, Neal -- Snow Crash, ch. 55 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 15:16:42 +0000

As we learned in Vietnam, high-powered weapons are so sensorily overwhelming that they are similar to psychoactive drugs. Like LSD, which can convince people they can fly — causing them to jump out of windows — weapons can make people overconfident. Skewing their tactical judgement.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Snow Crash, ch. 55 (1992)

Stephenson, Neal -- The Diamond Age “Part the First”, “Hackworth’s situation develops new complications” (1995)

Dave — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:12:47 +0000

In an era when everything can be surveiled, all we have left is politeness.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
The Diamond Age “Part the First”, “Hackworth’s situation develops new complications” (1995)

Stephenson, Neal -- The Diamond Age (1995)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people — and this is true whether or not they are well educated — is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations — in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
The Diamond Age (1995)

Stephenson, Neal -- The Diamond Age, “Part the First,” “A thete visits a mod parlor” (1995)

Dave — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:49:47 +0000

Bud’s relationship with the female sex was governed by a gallimaufry of primal impulses, dim suppositions, deranged theories, overheard scraps of conversation, half-remembered pieces of bad advice, and fragments of no-doubt exaggerated anecdotes that amounted to rank superstition.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
The Diamond Age, “Part the First,” “A thete visits a mod parlor” (1995)

Stephenson, Neal -- The Diamond Age, “Part the First”, “A barbarian is interrogated” (1995)

Dave — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 15:13:22 +0000

But as many first-time fathers had realized in the delivery room, there was something about the sight of an actual baby that focused the mind. In a world of abstractions, nothing was more concrete than a baby.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
The Diamond Age, “Part the First”, “A barbarian is interrogated” (1995)

Stephenson, Neal -- Zodiac, ch. 8 (1988)

Dave — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:45:57 +0000

Any property that’s open to common use gets destroyed. Because everyone has incentive to use it to the max, but no one has incentive to maintain it.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Zodiac, ch. 8 (1988)

Stephenson, Neal -- Zodiac, ch. 9 (1988)

Dave — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:59:20 +0000

I don’t like sewing machines. I don’t understand how a needle with a thread going through the tip of it can interlock the thread by jamming itself into a little goddamn spool. It’s contrary to nature and it irritates me.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Zodiac, ch. 9 (1988)