A WOMBAT is a Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time: the non-IT equivalent of a PEBCAK. (A PEBCAK is a Problem that Exists Between Chair And Keyboard. #Stross #quotes

I argued for a Kindle but they pointed out that if it could be associated with me, then the information bleed—Amazon logging every page turn and annotation—was a potential security hazard. Not to mention the darker esoteric potential of spending too much time staring at a device controlled by a secretive billionaire in Seattle. The void stares also, and so on. #Stross #quotes

A philosophy professor earns about thirty thousand bucks and costs maybe another five thousand a year in office space and chalk. A marine earns around fifteen thousand bucks and costs maybe another hundred thousand a year in barrack space, ammunition, transport, fuel, weapons, VA expenses, and so on. Supporting all the philosophy departments of the USA costs about as much as funding a single battalion of marines." She looks wryly amused. "They're looking for a breakthrough. Knowing how to deconstruct any opponent's ideological infrastructure and derive self-propagating conceptual viruses based on its blind spots, for example. That sort of thing would give them a real strategic edge: their psych-ops people would be able to make enemies surrender without firing a shot, and do so reliably. Cybernetics and game theory won them the Cold War, so paying for philosophers is militarily more sensible than paying for an extra company of marines, don't you think. #Stross #quotes

*I guess it's Bluesky Old Home Week here, but I'm gonna read that book. #Stross #Doctorow #Greenfield #EvenRodneyBrooks #HeyEvenYudkowski

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oq5e3he3vdrrukzcauokdhpj/post/3lzxmh2wl6k2k

"Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children." - Bob in Charles Stross' story "Antibodies"
#quotes #Charles #Stross

'Baseball court' - the merchant wars p115 (hardback) #stross #american-english #typo