Category Archives: Quotable & Notes

Anathem

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“What would motivate someone to sit alone in a one-room apartment reading and thinking? What would have to be true of a person for them to consider that a life well spent?”

“What if the places you went and the things you encountered in your work were more interesting than what was available in the physical world around you?”

“They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.”

“I am tormented, or tantalized, by the sense that I am almost in view of something that is at the limit of my comprehension.” — Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (pg 543)

“All the story had been bled out of their lives.” (pg 414)

“…in the intervening hours, my brain had been changing to fit the new shape of my world. I guess that’s why we can’t do anything when we’re sleeping: it’s when we work hardest.” (pg 366)

“…we do not perceive the physical universe directly, but only through the intermediation of our sensory organs.” (pg 529)

Seth on art, love and money

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Seth Godin puts his digital digit on why I would never put advertising on this blog (assuming anyone ever wanted to do so):

“Do your art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.

And the twist, because there is always a twist, is that as soon as you focus on your art and leave the money behind, you may just discover that this focus turns out to be the secret of actually breaking through and making money.

Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it.”

Seth: “The growing productivity divide”

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Knife150I stopped being surprised by what people didn’t know –and didn’t care to learn– about “the Internet” a couple of years ago. My analogy was online ignorance was like not knowing how to use the telephone. As always, Seth Godin makes the point more clearly and forcefully with a little quiz:

  • Can you capture something you see on your screen and paste it into Word or PowerPoint?
  • Do you have a blog?
  • Can you open a link you get in an email message?
  • Do you read more than five blogs a day?
  • Do you have a signature in your outbound email?
  • Do you have an RSS reader?
  • Can you generate a PDF document from a Word file you’re working on?
  • Do you know how to build and share a simple spreadsheet using Google Docs?
  • Do have a shortcut for sending mail to the six co-workers you usually write to?
  • Are you able to find what you’re looking for on Google most of the time?
  • Do you know how to download a file from the internet?
  • Do you back up your work?
  • Do you keep track of contacts using a digital tool?
  • Do you use anti-virus software?
  • Do you fall for internet hoaxes and forward stuff to friends and then regret it?
  • Have you ever bought something from a piece of spam?

“Can you imagine someone who works in a factory that processes metal not knowing how to use a blowtorch? How can you imagine yourself as a highly-paid knowledge worker and not know how to do these things… If you don’t, it’s not hard to find someone to teach you.”

I don’t use an email signature but frequently sign smays.com which is almost the same thing. And, for now, no need for anti-virus software on the Mac.

Anyone reading this almost certainly knows how to perform these simple tasks. If you don’t, find someone to show you. Quickly.

PS: If you were only going to read 3 or 4 blogs… Seth Godin should be one of them.

Snow Crash: CIC database

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From Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, published in 1976. 22 years before Google; 29 years before YouTube; 32 years before the Bail Out/Melt Down.

“The business is a simple one. Hiro gets information. It may be gossip, videotape, audiotape, a fragment of a computer disk, a xerox of a document. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster.

He uploads it to the CIC database — the Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word “congress” means. And even the word “library is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old one. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeros. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering.

Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. CIC’s clients, mostly large corporations and Sovereigns, rifle through the Library looking for useful information, and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it, Hiro gets paid.”

“Fooled, and used, and a lot of people died.”

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Bush and Paulson say the proposed bailout plan is the only way to save our economy. The only way. Okay, Dave Winer is willing to support the plan on the following conditions:

“Bush and Cheney must resign immediately. No immunity, no pardons. Nancy Pelosi will become President, promising not to run for re-election on November 4. Her term will be one of the shortest in US history, just long enough to enact the provisions of the bill being proposed by the Republican administration. If it really is the best thing for the country and not a trick, then the Republicans, being impressed by the seriousness of it, would have to insist that Bush step aside and let the Democrats execute the plan. The entire Bush cabinet stays in office through January 20, but reports, of course to Pelosi. And that includes Paulson. It’s pretty simple. If they won’t do it, we know they’re bluffing.”