Most police work boils down to minimizing the impact on society of stupidity; of the remainder, the overwhelming majority is about malice and deliber… - Charles Stross

It's top of the range." She pats the other side of the rack, as if to make sure it's still there: "This baby's got sixteen embedded blade servers from HP running the latest from Microsoft Federal Systems division and supporting a TLA Enterprise Non-Stop Transactional Intelligence™ middle-ware cluster‡ connected to the corporate extranet via a leased Intelsat pipe."

I’m thinking on the fly, here. (Although now that I’m in middle management I think I’m supposed to call it “refactoring the strategic value proposition in real time with agile implementation,” or, if I’m being honest, “making it up as I go along.”)

A cure for old age is a very common wish," Kurtz observed. "Dashed slug-a-beds want to be shot by a jealous husband, not a nurse bored with emptying the bedpan."