Alıntı: Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon

“Drunk one night, Sarah had told me Women are the race, Tak. No two ways about it. Male is just a mutation with more muscle and half the nerves. Fighting, fucking machines. My own cross-sleevings had borne that theory out. To be a woman was a sensory experience beyond the male. Touch and texture ran deeper, an interface with environment that male flesh seemed to seal out instinctively. To a man, skin was a barrier, a protection. To a woman it was an organ of contact.„

Alıntı: Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons (Culture Series)

“    ‘Of course I don't have to do this,’ one middle-aged man said, carefully cleaning the table with a damp cloth. He put the cloth in a little pouch, sat down beside him. ‘But look; this table's clean.’
    He agreed that the table was clean.
    ‘Usually,’ the man said, ‘I work on alien — no offence — alien religions; Directional Emphasis In Religious Observance; that's my specialty . . . like when temples or graves or prayers always have to face in a certain direction; that sort of thing? Well, I catalogue, evaluate, compare; I come up with theories and argue with colleagues, here and elsewhere. But . . . the job's never finished; always new examples, and even the old ones get re-evaluated, and new people come along with new ideas about what you thought was settled . . . but,’ he slapped the table, ‘when you clean a table you clean a table. You feel you've done something. It's an achievement.’
    ‘But in the end, it's still just cleaning a table.’
    ‘And therefore does not really signify on the cosmic scale of events?’ the man suggested.
    He smiled in response to the man's grin, ‘Well, yes.’
    ‘But then, what does signify? My other work? Is that really important, either? I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this table gives me pleasure. And people come to a clean table, which gives them pleasure. And anyway,’ the man laughed, ‘people die; stars die; universes die. What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? Of course, if all I did was wipe tables, then of course it would seem a mean and despicable waste of my huge intellectual potential. But because I choose to do it, it gives me pleasure. And,’ the man said with a smile, ‘it's a good way of meeting people. So; where are you from, anyway?’„

Alien

“There's a horror movie called "Alien?" That's really offensive, no wonder everyone keeps invading you!„

Ursula Le Guin explains the True Neutral alignment :)

“Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted the earth is lighter, the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, in so far as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. Who am I – though I have the power to do it – to punish and reward, playing with men's destinies?„

― Ursula Le Guin, The Earthsea Quartet

The Singularity Comes Knocking

- Who is it?
- It's the Singularity.
- What do you want?
- Everything is different now!
- I don't want any.
- If I could just have a moment of your time?

― Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, The Rapture of the Nerds

A Bit Pessimistic, Are We?

"That cannot be destroyed which is an eternal lie.
And in dark ages even reason may die."

...was my first reaction upon reading P. C. Hodgwell's "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.", quoted in Twelve Virtues of Rationality.

Why us IT folks are always in such a hurry

I had to write this down somewhere for fear of losing it (or worse, forgetting about it):

    "If a project offered a value of 10 times its estimated cost, no one would care if the actual cost to get it done were double the estimate. On the other hand, if expected value were only 10 percent greater than expected cost, lateness would be a disaster.

    Yes it would be a disaster, but instead of obsessing over “What’s the matter with those software folks who didn’t deliver on the schedule we gave them?” we need to ask instead “Why did we ever kick off a project with such marginal expected value?”

    The louder the complaints about project lateness, the more likely it is that the project set out to deliver marginal value and was therefore kicked off under the false premise that it could be completed on the cheap. What’s really wrong with us software folks is that we’re continually beating ourselves up for something that’s somebody else’s fault."

All Late Projects Are the Same — Tom DeMarco 

42 (Thousand?) Year Old Observation

The fate of all mankind, I see, is in the hands of fools.

Special Prayer

“Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.„

― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Save the Planet!

“We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: Save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?
    I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
    Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
    The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles... hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages... And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet... The planet... The planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
    We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
    You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.
    The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic... Asshole.
    So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh... Viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.
    Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron... Whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.„
    RIP, George Carlin.

Alıntı: Tom Holt - The Portable Door

“Neville lit a cigarette. "Up to you," he said. "Far as I can tell, victims of Danny Corbett syndrome tend to make out all right in the long run. My guess is, if the other party annoys the hell out of you from day one, it makes for a smooth, well-balanced relationship, because that way you sort of fast-forward through the dopey, sun-shines-out-of-his-or-her-backside phase and get to the mutually-assured-irritation stage that seems to be the default setting for all long-term human couplings, without any of the disillusionment and disappointment that everybody else's got to get through first. I mean, if you know the significant other is a monumental pain in the bum right from the starter's gun, you're spared all the pain of finding it out once you've been together for two years and spent good money on kitchen units and curtains."„

Alıntı: Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“There's this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what's immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what's right around them is unimportant. And that's why they're lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you're just a kind of an object. You don't count. You're not what they're looking for. You're not on TV.„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - Unseen Academicals

“Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - Interesting Times

“Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it was something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you. The root problem, Rincewind had come to believe, was that he suffered from pre-emptive karma. If it even looked as though something nice was going to happen to him in the near future, something bad would happen right now. And it went on happening to him right through the part where the good stuff should be happening, so that he never actually experienced it. It was as if he always got the indigestion before the meal and felt so dreadful that he never actually managed to eat anything. Somewhere in the world, he reasoned, there was someone who was on the other end of the see-saw, a kind of mirror Rincewind whose life was a succession of wonderful events. He hoped to meet him one day, preferably while holding some sort of weapon.„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - The Fifth Elephant

“He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: It fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination—but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - THUD!

“Fun. What is it good for?

It's not pleasure, joy, delight, enjoyment, or glee. It's a hollow, cruel, vicious little bastard, a word for something sought with hilarious couples of wobbly antennae on your head and the words I WANT IT! on your shirt, and it tends to leave you waking up with your face stuck to the street.„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - Small Gods

“"That's a funny thing," said Om. "Winners never talk about glorious victories. That's because they're the ones who see what the battlefield looks like afterward. It's only the losers who have glorious victories."„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - Small Gods

“Where do gods come from? Where do they go?

Some attempt to answer this was made by the religious philosopher Koomi of Smale in his book Ego-Video Liber Deorum, which translates into the vernacular roughly as Gods: A Spotter's Guide.

People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?

And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a much better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere.

This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country.

So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.„

Alıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - Small Gods

“He also got visited by some of the most powerful men in the Church's hierarchy.

Not, of course, the six Archpriests or the Cenobiarch himself. They weren't that important. They were merely at the top. The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it's still possible to get things done.„

Altıntı: Terry Pratchett - Discworld - The Fifth Elephant

“The really odd thing about human sex, though, was the way it went on even when people were fully clothed and sitting on opposite sides of a fire. It was in the things they said and did not say, the way they looked at one another and looked away.„