Give me an adventure. I'm not talking about some massive adventure. Just something that would make getting fired seem small. Something that I might remember when I'm old." "I can't predict the future," I said, "but based on what little I know so far, I'm afraid it has to be a massive adventure or nothing." "Great!" "Probably the kind of adventure that ends in a mass burial.
Neal StephensonLeibniz is at the disadvantage of not having seen it. Or perhaps we should count this as an advantage, for anyone who sees it is dumbfounded by the brilliance of the geometry, and it is difficult to criticize a manโs work when you are down on your knees shielding your eyes.
Neal StephensonAm I a technocrat? Im just a guy who went down to the bookstore and bought a couple of textbooks on TCP/IP, which is the underlying protocol of the Internet, and read them. And then I signed on to a computer, which anyone can do nowadays, and I messed around with it for a few years, and now I know all about it. Does that make me a technocrat?
Neal StephensonThe imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rulers - It's the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments - Too bad we've forgotten how to do it
Neal Stephenson