• On Science-Fiction

    I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

    I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system.

    - Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"
  • In education as elsewhere, the broad primrose path leads to a nasty place.

    - A. N. Whitehead
  • A great war leaves the country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.
  • English is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.
  • True words are not beautiful,
    Beautiful words are not true.
  • Bishop of Bath and Wells: You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity… Have you ever considered a career in the church? Blackadder: Yes, but I couldn't get used to the underwear.

    Blackadder the Second
  • What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

    - Samuel Johnson

  • Terry Pratchett

    That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?"

    "It's still a lie. Like the lie about masks."
    "What lie about masks?"
    "The way people say they hide faces."
    "They do hide faces."
    "Only the one on the outside."

    Maskerade

  • Balzac a dit:

    Mes avis sur vos relations avec les femmes sont aussi dans ce mot de chevalerie: Les servir toutes, n'en aimer qu'une.

    Le véritable amour est éternel, infini, toujours semblable à lui-même; il est égal et pur, sans démonstrations violentes; il se voit en cheveux blancs, toujours jeune de cœur.

The ghost in the machine

Posted on 26 May, 2008 by Jon Whyte

Why does technology exhibit increasingly sporadic behaviour as time goes on? Computers, for instance, become slower, display strange habits and function in inexplicable ways compared to new models straight off the shelf. Is this truly a display of Asimov’s ‘ghost in the shell’ behaviour that he predicts will one day spawn self-conscious intelligence?
I would like [...]

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