[b]Neal Stephenson
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world… Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.[/b]
Here of course that would be Mr Reasonable.
Or you, right?
No linear indexing system is adequate to express the multi-dimensionality of knowledge, Dr. Waterhouse reminds him.
Tell that to, among others, Ecmandu.
For most of the day and night, time oppresses me. It is only when I am at work on the innards of a clock-or a lock-that time stops.
The clock stops, you mean.
No. Time stops, or so it seems. I do not sense its passage. Then something interrupts me-I become aware that my bladder is full, my mouth dry, my stomach rumbling, the fire’s gone out, and the sun’s gone down. But there before me on the table is a finished clock-" now suddenly a snicker from the mechanism, and a deft movement of his hands. "Or an opened lock.
Yes, more futile speculation about time.
I would say that the ability of people to agree on matters of fact not immediately visible—states of affairs removed from them in space and time—ramped up from a baseline of approximately zero to a pretty high level around the time of the scientific revolution and all that, and stayed there and became more globally distributed up through the Cronkite era, and then dropped to zero incredibly quickly when the Internet came along.
That’s close enough, isn’t it?
Reader, if you don’t know what a database is, rest assured that an explanation of the concept would in no way increase your enjoyment in reading this account.
Any databases here?
Do you reject the glamor of Evil, and refuse to be mastered by it?
Or, for some, Good.
