andrewlb notes

Altered Carbon

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Altered Carbon

Metadata

Highlights

  • “Archive précis I ran on the way over here says it got done a couple of centuries back, when the corporate wars turned nasty. Makes sense. With all that shit breaking loose, a lot of buildings were retooling to cope. Course, most of the companies went under shortly afterwards with the trading crash, so no one ever got around to passing a decommissioning bill. The Hendrix upgraded to artificial-intelligence status instead and bought itself out.” (Location 1102)
  • “Shopping is physical interaction, exercise of decision-making capacity, sating of the desire to acquire, and an impulse to more acquisition, a scouting urge. It’s so basically fucking human when you think about it. You’ve got to learn to love it, Tak. I mean you can cross the whole archipelago on a hover; you never even need to get wet. But that doesn’t take the basic pleasure out of swimming, does it? Learn to shop well, Tak. Get flexible. Enjoy the uncertainty.” (Location 2265)
  • The truth is that a robot human is a pointless collision of two disparate functions: artificial intelligence, which really works better strung out on a mainframe, and hard-wearing, hazard-proof bodywork, which most cyberengineering firms designed to spec for the task at hand. (Location 2318)
  • If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference—the only difference in their eyes—between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life, and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal. (Location 3035)
  • like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying. (Location 3528)
  • The essence of control is to remain hidden from view, is it not?” (Location 5300)
  • “There are some arenas so corrupt that the only clean acts possible are nihilistic.” (Location 5375)
  • You take what is offered, Virginia Vidaura said somewhere. And that must sometimes be enough. (Location 8609)

public: true

title: Altered Carbon longtitle: Altered Carbon author: Richard K. Morgan url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2018-01-02 type: books tags:

Altered Carbon

rw-book-cover

Metadata

Highlights

  • “Archive précis I ran on the way over here says it got done a couple of centuries back, when the corporate wars turned nasty. Makes sense. With all that shit breaking loose, a lot of buildings were retooling to cope. Course, most of the companies went under shortly afterwards with the trading crash, so no one ever got around to passing a decommissioning bill. The Hendrix upgraded to artificial-intelligence status instead and bought itself out.” (Location 1102)
  • “Shopping is physical interaction, exercise of decision-making capacity, sating of the desire to acquire, and an impulse to more acquisition, a scouting urge. It’s so basically fucking human when you think about it. You’ve got to learn to love it, Tak. I mean you can cross the whole archipelago on a hover; you never even need to get wet. But that doesn’t take the basic pleasure out of swimming, does it? Learn to shop well, Tak. Get flexible. Enjoy the uncertainty.” (Location 2265)
  • The truth is that a robot human is a pointless collision of two disparate functions: artificial intelligence, which really works better strung out on a mainframe, and hard-wearing, hazard-proof bodywork, which most cyberengineering firms designed to spec for the task at hand. (Location 2318)
  • If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference—the only difference in their eyes—between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life, and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal. (Location 3035)
  • like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying. (Location 3528)
  • The essence of control is to remain hidden from view, is it not?” (Location 5300)
  • “There are some arenas so corrupt that the only clean acts possible are nihilistic.” (Location 5375)
  • You take what is offered, Virginia Vidaura said somewhere. And that must sometimes be enough. (Location 8609)