“The dispirited scientists of the LHC have announced that this will create a 24-month delay while tiny bits of hamster are cleaned out of the tunnels and anti-hamster-materialization fields are installed in the collider.” (Eliezer Yudkowsky, reporting live)
“Any sufficiently advanced riddle is indistinguishable from gibberish.” (Parson ruminates on conversing with a spellcaster, Erfworld)
“Urgent before big.” (rule 16 of kyu go, according to Vultur)
“In summary, a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most … Continue reading
“I assert no copyright nor do I claim any rights, and if you ask questions or for other support, I may just laugh cruelly.” (Tim Bray, shooing a hunk of feral Ruby out into the public domain)
“Akrasia is what happens when we maximize our hedons at the expense of our utilons.” (from a post on Less Wrong)
“Zero-sum settings are relatively harmless: you minimax and that’s it. It’s the variable-sum games that make you nuke your neighbour.” (from a review of Thomas C. Schelling’s Strategy of Conflict)
“On the first day of training, the Order gives Foreman a sword. It’s smooth, polished wood, with a dull edge, not sharp enough to cut. Foreman tries very hard not to take that as an insult.” (
“But if we’ve learned anything from fantasy books, it is that any cabal of ancient wise men destroyed by their own hubris at the height of their glory must leave behind a single ridiculously powerful artifact, which in the right … Continue reading
“…You can get 80% of what the customer wants in a remarkably short time. The next 10% of what they want is possible, but takes a lot of effort. The last 10% is flat out impossible because you can’t get … Continue reading
“You know you have no social life when the only person you can tell your problems to is your sworn enemy.” (Leigh Butler, on rereading The Fires of Heaven)
“In a volunteer based non-profit people don’t have the shared goal of making money. Instead every single person has their own personal agenda to pursue.” (Adam Shand, lessons learned from previous employment)
“1995 – Yukihiro “Mad Matz” Matsumoto creates Ruby to avert some vaguely unspecified apocalypse that will leave Australia a desert run by mohawked warriors and Tina Turner.” (James Iry, at last telling the truth)
“War exists because civil means have failed.” (Mark Bowden, on the reasons for coercion)
“Conservation of outrage is the wrong answer.” (Clay Shirky, on making up reasons to give Amazon.com a kick)
For values of heaven.
“You are in a writer’s room. Exits are north and east. The door leading north has “This Way to Fame, Fortune, and Free Beer!” painted over it. There is a chair here..”
“In front of every door that you really shouldn’t walk through stands an angel with a flaming sword.” (Barbara Hambly, contemplating recent events)
“Malware code is often written very simply and quite securely, server administration isn’t nearly as good.” (Peter Gutmann, professional paranoid, on Malware as a Service)
“As in any crisis, I looked around for chocolate. But found tea instead. Which was almost as good. And my brain exploded. Which wasn’t so good.” (NannyOgg contemplates attacking an L+1 group) “It’s odd that people think of programming as … Continue reading
“There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.”
“Children are the wealth of nations, provided that their nations can put tools in their hands and the rule of law at their back.” (Spengler, in the Asia Times)
“The silence I’m talking about, the silence we as writers must have to be productive, is silence inside ourselves. That silence travels anywhere. We carry it with us as if it were a private retreat in the mountains nestled next … Continue reading
“Readers swallow these inconsistencies because people are also adaptable, and if you’re already suspending your disbelief to allow magic, it’s not too hard to stretch it a little further and believe that an Empire could stand unchanged for five thousand … Continue reading
