How can I throw my life away in the least unhappy way?

Science is the only news. When you scan a news portal or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same cyclical dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness; even the technology is predictable if you know the science behind it. Human nature doesn't change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly

Historians will consider this a dark age. Science historians can read Galileos technical correspondence from the 1590s but not Marvin Minskys from the 1960s.

There's no unemployment in squatter cities. Everyone works. One-sixth of humanity is there. It's soon going to be more than that.

Want to know where the action in a culture is? Watch where new language is turning up and where the lawyers collect, usually in that sequence.

Tool - something with a use on one end and a grasp on the other end.

If you don't like bacteria, you're on the wrong planet.