On 27-Jul-11 6:29 PM, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > The reading proceeds apace, in its own leisurely way. I read a chapter > and then lay the book aside for a week or so while I chew on it and > read other stuff. Currently, inspired by the chapter on Babbage, > re-re-re-reading _Cryptonomicon_, which I almost know by heart. :)
QotD which I had to share. For someone who can be so prolix, Stephenson can pack an amazing amount of implication into a relatively small number of words. "Is the analogy clear?" Interesting question. I shall leave the various matches to some of the other listmembers, who work in these areas. :) Udhay _____________________________ "You know, back in the forty-niner days, every gold mining town in California had a nerd with a scale," Avi says. "The assayer. He sat in an office all day. Scary-looking rednecks came in with pouches of gold dust. The nerd weighed them, checked them for purity, told them what the stuff was worth. Basically, the assayer's scale was the exchange point--the place where this mineral, this dirt from the ground, became money that would be recognized as such in any bank or marketplace in the world, from San Francisco to London to Beijing. Because of the nerd's special knowledge, he could put his imprimatur on dirt and make it money. Just like we have the power to turn bits into money. "Now, a lot of the people the nerd dealt with were incredibly bad guys. Peg house habitues. Escaped convicts from all over the world. Psychotic gunslingers. People who owned slaves and massacred Indians. I'll bet that the first day, or week, or month, or year, that the nerd moved to the gold-mining town and hung out his shingle, he was probably scared shitless. He probably had moral qualms too--very legitimate ones, perhaps," Avi adds, giving Randy a sidelong glance. "Some of those pioneering nerds probably gave up and went back East. But y'know what? In a surprisingly short period of time, everything became pretty damn civilized, and the towns filled up with churches and schools and universities, and the sort of howling maniacs who got there first were all assimilated or driven out or thrown into prison, and the nerds had boulevards and opera houses named after them. Now, is the analogy clear?"
