Sometimes the biggest disasters aren’t noticed at all—no one’s around to write horror stories. - Vernor Vinge

Civilizations rise and fall, but all technical civilizations know the greatest secrets now. They know which social mechanisms normally work, and which ones quickly fail. They know the means to postpone disaster and evade the most foolish catastrophes. They know that even so, each civilization must inevitably fall.

He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind—but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.

Life is a green madness just now, trying to squeeze the last bit of warmth from the season.