Neal Stephenson Quote
Hiro and Y.T. have eaten a lot of junk food together in different joints allover L.A. -- doughnuts, burritos, pizza, sushi, you name it -- and all Y.T. evertalks about is her mother and the terrible job that she has with the Feds. Theregimentation. The lie-detector tests. The fact that for all the work shedoes, she really has no idea what it is that the government is really workingon.It's always been a mystery to Hiro, too, but then, that's how the government is.It was invented to do stuff that private enterprise doesn't bother with, whichmeans that there's probably no reason for it; you never know what they're doingor why. Hackers have traditionally looked upon the government's codingsweatshops with horror and just tried to forget that all of that shit everexisted.But they have thousands of programmers. The programmers work twelve hours a dayout of some twisted sense of personal loyalty. Their software-engineeringtechniques, while cruel and ugly, are very sophisticated. They must have beenup to something.
Hiro and Y.T. have eaten a lot of junk food together in different joints allover L.A. -- doughnuts, burritos, pizza, sushi, you name it -- and all Y.T. evertalks about is her mother and the terrible job that she has with the Feds. Theregimentation. The lie-detector tests. The fact that for all the work shedoes, she really has no idea what it is that the government is really workingon.It's always been a mystery to Hiro, too, but then, that's how the government is.It was invented to do stuff that private enterprise doesn't bother with, whichmeans that there's probably no reason for it; you never know what they're doingor why. Hackers have traditionally looked upon the government's codingsweatshops with horror and just tried to forget that all of that shit everexisted.But they have thousands of programmers. The programmers work twelve hours a dayout of some twisted sense of personal loyalty. Their software-engineeringtechniques, while cruel and ugly, are very sophisticated. They must have beenup to something.
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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.