Thursday, May 15, 2008

Thought Before Tonight's Tournament Game

"(He) was by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo--which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time."

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

Yeah, that's me.

5 comments:

transformation said...

in Seattle, there are some young men here who think that they have more rights here or more class than me, because their family was, for example, on Queen Anne (Hill, near downtown, read mountainous earthquake zone, techtonic plates pushing and pulling under vehement forces) 65 years ago, whereas i have only been here for 18 years???

in New Jersey, where i am from, seriously: we greet everybody. in metro New York, is there really any other choice? you gonna get your dandruf up in a place people have been settling for hundreds of years, and is still the big melting pot? but here, folks dont say hello for fear you arent norweigen or swedish or gay or pan handling or too busy on a handheld communication device.

no way. bad ass.

David K, in Seattle

Unknown said...

it's true, i think when neal wrote that, he was thinking of you. you are a stupendous badass...

rockyrook said...

The quote, the review and the user reviews at Amazon have piqued my interest. This might be the next book I read.

Gook luck with the game, you badass.

Robert Pearson said...

Rocky, I highly recommend the book!

Blue Devil Knight said...

On the book: the beginning was so crackling with brilliance and wit and intensity (the great allusions to evolution and Godel with Turing and his lover hanging out at the dish), but unfortunately then for me it sort of petered out and got a little boring.

Is the whole series good? Maybe I should give it another shot.