Software development, like professional sports, has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. Neal Stephenson More Quotes by Neal Stephenson More Quotes From Neal Stephenson "Sorry," she said, "I got out as fast as I could, but I had to stay and socialize. Protocol, you know." "Explain protocol," Nell said. This was how she always talked to the Primer. "At the place we’re going, you need to watch your manners. Don’t say 'explain this' or 'explain that.'" "Would it impose on your time unduly to provide me with a concise explanation of the term protocol?" Nell said. Again Rita made that nervous laugh and looked at Nell with an expression that looked like poorly concealed alarm. Neal Stephenson expressionsorrylaughing The best way to know someone is to have a conversation with them. Neal Stephenson best-wayconversationway Clearly Mr. Drkh has had a long career of being the weirdest person in any given room, but he's about to go down in flames. Neal Stephenson flamescareerslong It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists. Neal Stephenson malessmartbelieve How could your cover be blown in Canada? Why even bother going dark there? How could you tell? Neal Stephenson canadabotherdark The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard’s unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along. Neal Stephenson gpstwoideas She's not afraid. She's wearing a dentata. Neal Stephenson not-afraid The sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness Neal Stephenson levelssightinspire 'It’s, like, one of them drug dealer boats,' Vic says, looking through his magic sight. 'Five guys on it. Headed our way.' He fires another round. 'Correction. Four guys on it.' Boom. 'Correction, they’re not headed our way anymore.' Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. 'Correction. No boat.' Neal Stephenson oceanfiresight If you sincerely believed in God, how could you form one thought, speak one sentence, without mentioning Him? Neal Stephenson one-sentenceformspeak An old market had stood there until I'd been about six years old, when the authorities had renamed it the Olde Market, destroyed it, and built a new market devoted to selling T-shirts and other objects with pictures of the old market. Meanwhile, the people who had operated the little stalls in the old market had gone elsewhere and set up a thing on the edge of town that was now called the New Market even though it was actually the old market. Neal Stephenson gonepeopleyears I always tend to assume there's an infinite amount of money out there." There might as well be, "Arsibalt said, "but most of it gets spent on pornography, sugar water and bombs. There is only so much that can be scraped together for particle accelerators. Neal Stephenson bombstogetherwater So, you're worried that a pink dragon will fly over the concent and fart nerve gas on us? Neal Stephenson worriednervesdragons They went inside. The young ones shuffled to a stop as their ironic sensibilities, which served them in lieu of souls, were jammed by a signal of overwhelming power. Neal Stephenson signalsironicsoul I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor. Neal Stephenson processorsusemight Like any place in Reality, the Street is subject to development. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality, such as vast hovering overhead light shows and special neighborhoods where the rules of three-dimensional spacetime are ignored. Neal Stephenson lightspecialreality I am on an expense account that would blow your mind. Neal Stephenson expensesblowmind Am 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 Stephenson guycoupleyears Crappy old OSes have value in the basically negative sense that changing to new ones makes us wish we'd never been born. Neal Stephenson designwishnegative Wired people should know something about wires. Neal Stephenson wireshouldpeople
