Quotes About Innovation

Classics-based sci-fi is nothing new. To name the most recent of many examples, the novelist Dan Simmons published "Ilium" and "Olympos," science-fictional takes on Homer. When

In retrospect, the Internet had been a revolution in human affairs, but one that had taken place just slowly enough that those who'd lived through it had had time to adjust in modest increments. But, centuries from now, people—if there were any—would see it as having happened in the blink of an eye.

On the social front it was a question of Amistics, which was a term that had been coined ages ago by a Moiran anthropologist to talk about the choices that different cultures made as to which technologies they would, and would not, make part of their lives. The word went all the way back to the Amish people of pre-Zero America, who had chosen to use certain modern technologies, such as roller skates, but not others, such as internal combustion engines. All cultures

Frink and Blevins had an uber-mission (I wonder, shall it seem antiquated or inconceivable, if these words are ever brought to light?).

An idea springs out of his forehead fully formed, with no warning. This is how all the best ideas arrive.

It was no longer necessary to send out dirty yokels in coonskin caps to chart the wilderness, kill the abos, and clear-cut the groves; now all you needed was a hot young geotect, a start matter compiler, and a jumbo Source.

Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson

When he came to his senses, he was aware that a large number of telephones were singing their little electronic songs. Including his. The birth cry of a new age. IVY

For most of history those battles happen only every few centuries—you have the chariot, the compound bow, gunpowder, ironclad ships, and so on. But something happens around, say, the time that the Monitor, which the Northerners believe to be the only ironclad warship on earth, just happens to run into the Merrimack

As it happened, what actually brought the cost of graphics hardware down was videogames—in particular Doom, which came out the year after Snow Crash was published.

The end state of all this would be a Dyson sphere:

Neal Stephenson

When Hiro learned how to do this, way back fifteen years ago, a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. Now, that's no longer possible. Software comes out of factories, and hackers are, to a greater or lesser extent, assembly-line workers. Worse yet, they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves.

The Walmart was like a starship that had landed in the soybean fields.

Neal Stephenson

In trying to understand the Linux phenomenon, then, we have to look not to a single innovator but to a sort of bizarre Trinity: Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Bill Gates. Take away any of these three and Linux would not exist.

Ideas are good things to have even if they are old. Even to understand the most advanced theorics requires a lifetime of study. To keep the existing stock of ideas alive requires…all of this." And I waved my arm around at the concent spread out below us.

When he came to his senses, he was aware that a large number of telephones were singing their little electronic songs. Including his. The birth cry of a new age.

Neal Stephenson

At one point, some years previously, one of the engineers at Corporation 9592—a classic liberal-arts-major-turned-coder-so-he-could-make-a-decent-living—had identified this as the Hand met Spiegelende Bol Problem

All change happens because one man wants something different.

summary to me. I thought you couldn't summarize.

A computer is a human being.