George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, 1946:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for ( Read more... )

"I understand Mitsubishi is working on a robot truck designed to run over Asimo." -- John M Ford on the When is a Cyborg? panel

"It's like typing on a keyboard that's embedded in an aircraft carrier flight deck while facing an IMAX screen." -- Charles Stross on his 17" PowerBook

Security Tradeoffs panel:Jim Macdonald: "If any of you were buying ( Read more... )

Goth panel:
TNH on HP Lovecraft: "A Yankee xenophobe with a tolerably good prose style is menaced and then overcome by seafood."

Infodump panel:
TNH on summaries: "Nouns are hard to metabolize."

Mary Sue panel:
Kim Kindya on Masterharper Robinton: "He's become the Fonzie of Pern." (She later explained that bishonen is Japanese for "Orlando Bloom ( Read more... )