Neal Stephenson Quote
Hey, Hiro, the black-and-white guy says, you want to try some Snow Crash?A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. Youignore them. But this gets Hiro's attention.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. But people have ways of gettingthat information. It's probably nothing.The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. Which would be normalin front of a Reality bar. But this is the Metaverse. And you can't sell drugsin the Metaverse, because you can't get high by looking at something.The third: The name of the drug. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crashbefore. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year, andeach of them sells under half a dozen brand names.But a snow crash is computer lingo. It means a system crash -- a bug -- atsuch a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controlsthe electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the screen,turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. Hiro has seenit happen a million times. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug.The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. He has anutterly calm, stolid presence. It's like talking to an asteroid. Which wouldbe okay if he were doing something that made the tiniest little bit of sense.Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face, but the closer he looks, themore his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering, hardedgedpixels. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. Itmakes his teeth hurt.Excuse me, Hiro says. What did you say?
Hey, Hiro, the black-and-white guy says, you want to try some Snow Crash?A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. Youignore them. But this gets Hiro's attention.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. But people have ways of gettingthat information. It's probably nothing.The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. Which would be normalin front of a Reality bar. But this is the Metaverse. And you can't sell drugsin the Metaverse, because you can't get high by looking at something.The third: The name of the drug. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crashbefore. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year, andeach of them sells under half a dozen brand names.But a snow crash is computer lingo. It means a system crash -- a bug -- atsuch a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controlsthe electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the screen,turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. Hiro has seenit happen a million times. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug.The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. He has anutterly calm, stolid presence. It's like talking to an asteroid. Which wouldbe okay if he were doing something that made the tiniest little bit of sense.Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face, but the closer he looks, themore his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering, hardedgedpixels. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. Itmakes his teeth hurt.Excuse me, Hiro says. What did you say?
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About Neal Stephenson
Stephenson's work explores mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes nonfiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.
Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and also co-founded the Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. He was Magic Leap's Chief Futurist from 2014 to 2020.