Robin Sloan Quotes

He has the strangest expression on his face—the emotive equivalent of 404

The internet: always proving that you're not quite as special as you suspected.

Oh, I am very familiar with the internal monologue.

We take the subway.Grumble's next message came through after breakfast, and it said:

theres a grumblegear3k waiting for you at 11 jay street in dumbo. ask for the hogwarts special. hold the shrooms.

Veniamo alla luce e stringiamo alleanze e conquistiamo imperi e moriamo, tutto in un solo battito di ciglia. O forse in un unico, breve ciclo di un gigantesco processore, chissà dove.

This is Mat's secret weapon, his passport, his get-out-of-jail-free card: Mat makes things that are beautiful.

"Neel cuts in: "Where'd you grow up?"
"Palo Alto," she says. From there to Stanford to Google: for a girl obsessed with the outer limits of human potential, Kat has stayed pretty close to home.
Neel nods knowingly. "The suburban mind cannot comprehend the emergent complexity of a New York sidewalk."
"I don't know about that," Kat says, narrowing her eyes. "I'm pretty good with complexity."
"See, I know what you're thinking," Neel says, shaking his head.
"You're thinking it's just an agent-based simulation, and everybody out here follows a pretty simple set of rules" — Kat is nodding — "and if you can figure out those rules, you can model it. You can simulate the street, then the neighborhood, then the whole city. Right?"
"Exactly. I mean, sure, I don't know what the rules are yet, but I could experiment and figure them out, and then it would be trivial — "
"Wrong," Neel says, honking like a game-show buzzer. "You can't do it. Even if you know the rules — and by the way, there are no rules — but even if there were, you can't model it. You know why?"

My best friend and my girlfriend are sparring over simulations. I can only sit back and listen.

Kat frowns. "Why?"
"You don't have enough memory."
"Oh, come on — "
"Nope. You could never hold it all in memory. No computer's big enough. Not even your what's-it-called — "
"The Big Box."
"That's the one. It's not big enough. This box — " Neel stretches out his hands, encompasses the sidewalk, the park, the streets beyond — "is bigger."

The snaking crowd surges forward."

feeding people is really freakin’ great. There’s nothing better.

When I was a kid reading fantasy novels, I daydreamed about hot girl wizards. I never thought I'd actually meet one, but that's only because I didn't realize wizards were going to walk among us and we'd just call them Googlers.

... nothing lasts long. We all come to life and gather allies and build empires and die, all in a single moment - maybe a single pulse of some giant processor somewhere.

I tell him, and I write it down as I go. It makes me feel better, as if the weirdness is flowing out of my blood and onto the page, through the dark point of the pen

I walk alone in the darkness and wonder how a person would begin to determine the circumference of the earth. I have no idea. I’d probably just google it.

You know, I’m really starting to think the whole world is just a patchwork quilt of crazy little cults, all with their own secret spaces, their own records, their own rules.

I can't just sit at my desk and let this web of weirdness spin around me. (That describes a lot of jobs, I realize, but this is potentially a special kind of magick-with-a-k weirdness.

I did not know people your age still read books,' Penumbra says. He raises an eyebrow. 'I was under the impression they read everything on their mobile phones.'
'Not everyone. There are plenty of people who, you know — people who still like the smell of books.'
'The smell!' Penumbra repeats. 'You know you are finished when people start talking about the smell.' He smiles at that — then something occurs to him, and he narrows his eyes. 'I do not suppose you have a...Kindle?'
Uh-oh. It feels like it's the principal asking me if I have weed in my backpack. But in a friendly way, like maybe he wants to share it. As it happens, I do have my Kindle. I pull it out of my messenger bag. It's a bit battered with wide scratches across the back and stray pen marks near the bottom of the screen.
Penumbra holds it aloft and frowns. It's blank. I reach up and pinch the corner and it comes to life. He sucks in a sharp breath, and the pale gray rectangle reflects in his bright blue eyes.