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You can do magic by hand, without computers, but magic performed by ritual without finite state automata in the loop—calculating machines, in other w… - Charles Stross
" "You can do magic by hand, without computers, but magic performed by ritual without finite state automata in the loop—calculating machines, in other words—tends to be haphazard, unreliable, uncontrollable, prone to undesirable side effects, and difficult to repeat. It also tends to fuck with causality, the logical sequence of events, in a most alarming way.
We’ve unintentionally rewritten our history over the centuries, would-be sorcerers unwinding chaos and pinning down events with the dead hand of consistency—always tending towards a more stable ground state because chaos is unstable; entropy is magic’s great enemy. When the ancients wrote of gods and demons, they might well have been recording their real-life experiences--or they may have drunk too much mushroom tea: we have no way of knowing.
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About Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964 in Leeds) is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.
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Birth Name:
Charles David George Stross
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Charlie Stross
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Additional quotes by Charles Stross
I imagine looking after a sixteen-year-old must be a bit of a headache.
""Oh, it's mostly about building trust. She's still in the ugh, parents, uncool stage, but she's self-aware enough to know that it's just something she's going through. So I'm trying to give her enough space that she doesn't feel the need to burn bridges she might want to maintain later. The best thing you can do is provide them with a support framework rather than a cage. Don't try to micromanage and overprotect them, let them know they can come to you when they've got problems, and as long as they've got a reasonably level head, that's what they'll do." He pauses. "And I try to keep a poker face whenever she introduces me to a boyfriend."
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Watch out for any signs—anything, however small—that suggests Billington isn't in the driving seat, if you follow my drift. Got that?"
Mo stares at him. "You think he's possessed?"
"I didn't say that." Alan shakes his head. "Once you start asking which captains of industry are being controlled by alien soul-sucking monsters from another dimension, why, anything might happen."
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