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The Diamond Age

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The Diamond Age

Metadata

Highlights

  • alamodality. (Location 267)
  • In an era when everything can be surveiled, all we have left is politeness. (Location 3418)
  • Unremitting exposure to this kind of thing produced mediatron burnout among the target audience. Instead of turning them off and giving people a break for once, the proprietors had joined in an arms race of sorts, trying to find the magic image that would make people ignore all the other adverts and fix raptly on theirs. The obvious step of making their mediatrons bigger than the others had been taken about as far as it could go. Quite some time ago the content issue had been settled: tits, tires, and explosions were the only things that seemed to draw the notice of their supremely jaded focus groups, though from time to time they would play the juxtaposition card and throw in something incongruous, like a nature scene or a man in a black turtleneck reading poetry. (Location 3784)
  • The post office was a big one, sporting a variety of matter compilers, including a ten-cubic-meter model directly adjacent to the loading dock. (Location 4131)
  • From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. (Location 4413)
  • He could see the nanosites in his skin. But for all he knew, he might have a million more living in his brain now, piggybacking on axons and dendrites, sending data to one another in flashes of light. A second brain intermingled with his own. (Location 4506)
  • Constable Moore had reached the age when men can subject their bodies to the worst irritations—whiskey, cigars, woolen clothes, bagpipes—without feeling a thing or, at least, without letting on. (Location 4729)
  • “the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. (Location 5041)
  • But the story never changes. There are many people and many tribes, but only so many stories.” (Location 6749)
  • Princess Nell resolved these bugs and made the mechanical Duke into her devoted servant. The Duke in turn had the knack of putting simple programs into all of the soldiers, so that an order given him by Nell was rapidly disseminated into the entire force. (Location 6950)
  • This castle grew its own food and was suffering a terrible famine because the arrangement of gates had in some way become fubared. (Location 6986)
    • Note: Funny to see Fubared used so casually in writing.
  • Nell would have been dazzled by Colonel Napier if she had not recently seen him strapped to a rack. Still, there was something about this very contradiction that made him, and by extension all Victorian men, fascinating to her. They lived a life of nearly perfect emotional denial—a form of asceticism as extreme as that of a medieval stylite. Yet they did have emotions, the same as anyone else, and only vented them in carefully selected circumstances. (Location 7238)
  • A makeshift bar amidships had drawn a dozen or so congregants, but Hackworth knew that he could not join in with them. He had been born without the ability to blend and socialize as some are born without hands. (Location 7511)
  • “But the dynamic theatre allows one to interface with the universe of data in a more intuitive way,” Hackworth said. (Location 7713)

public: true

title: The Diamond Age longtitle: The Diamond Age author: Neal Stephenson url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2014-04-05 type: books tags:

The Diamond Age

rw-book-cover

Metadata

Highlights

  • alamodality. (Location 267)
  • In an era when everything can be surveiled, all we have left is politeness. (Location 3418)
  • Unremitting exposure to this kind of thing produced mediatron burnout among the target audience. Instead of turning them off and giving people a break for once, the proprietors had joined in an arms race of sorts, trying to find the magic image that would make people ignore all the other adverts and fix raptly on theirs. The obvious step of making their mediatrons bigger than the others had been taken about as far as it could go. Quite some time ago the content issue had been settled: tits, tires, and explosions were the only things that seemed to draw the notice of their supremely jaded focus groups, though from time to time they would play the juxtaposition card and throw in something incongruous, like a nature scene or a man in a black turtleneck reading poetry. (Location 3784)
  • The post office was a big one, sporting a variety of matter compilers, including a ten-cubic-meter model directly adjacent to the loading dock. (Location 4131)
  • From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. (Location 4413)
  • He could see the nanosites in his skin. But for all he knew, he might have a million more living in his brain now, piggybacking on axons and dendrites, sending data to one another in flashes of light. A second brain intermingled with his own. (Location 4506)
  • Constable Moore had reached the age when men can subject their bodies to the worst irritations—whiskey, cigars, woolen clothes, bagpipes—without feeling a thing or, at least, without letting on. (Location 4729)
  • “the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. (Location 5041)
  • But the story never changes. There are many people and many tribes, but only so many stories.” (Location 6749)
  • Princess Nell resolved these bugs and made the mechanical Duke into her devoted servant. The Duke in turn had the knack of putting simple programs into all of the soldiers, so that an order given him by Nell was rapidly disseminated into the entire force. (Location 6950)
  • This castle grew its own food and was suffering a terrible famine because the arrangement of gates had in some way become fubared. (Location 6986)
    • Note: Funny to see Fubared used so casually in writing.
  • Nell would have been dazzled by Colonel Napier if she had not recently seen him strapped to a rack. Still, there was something about this very contradiction that made him, and by extension all Victorian men, fascinating to her. They lived a life of nearly perfect emotional denial—a form of asceticism as extreme as that of a medieval stylite. Yet they did have emotions, the same as anyone else, and only vented them in carefully selected circumstances. (Location 7238)
  • A makeshift bar amidships had drawn a dozen or so congregants, but Hackworth knew that he could not join in with them. He had been born without the ability to blend and socialize as some are born without hands. (Location 7511)
  • “But the dynamic theatre allows one to interface with the universe of data in a more intuitive way,” Hackworth said. (Location 7713)