* [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
@ 2001-07-12 14:02 Laura Creighton
2001-07-12 14:09 ` Lucio De Re
2001-07-12 14:10 ` Matt
0 siblings, 2 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Laura Creighton @ 2001-07-12 14:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: cnielsen; +Cc: lac, 9fans
that is Greg Benford in _Foundations Fear_ I believe. Or did he say that it
was not original with him?
Laura
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
2001-07-12 14:02 [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced Laura Creighton
@ 2001-07-12 14:09 ` Lucio De Re
2001-07-12 14:10 ` Matt
1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Lucio De Re @ 2001-07-12 14:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 04:02:29PM +0200, Laura Creighton wrote:
>
> that is Greg Benford in _Foundations Fear_ I believe. Or did he say that it
> was not original with him?
>
I can't quote him, but Robert Heinlein in "Time Enough for Love"
phrased it along the lines of: "Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic", which I'm sure is likely to give
rise to the parody quoted.
++L
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
2001-07-12 14:02 [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced Laura Creighton
2001-07-12 14:09 ` Lucio De Re
@ 2001-07-12 14:10 ` Matt
1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Matt @ 2001-07-12 14:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
> that is Greg Benford in _Foundations Fear_ I believe. Or did he say that
it
> was not original with him?
I've seen it associated with Arthur C Clark
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
@ 2001-07-12 14:43 rog
0 siblings, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: rog @ 2001-07-12 14:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
Clarke was the original source of this, I believe.
the one in the subject (actually "distinguishable"?) was just playing
silly buggers with the original quote, i think.
what does magic look like anyway?
those microsoft wizard things perform magic - you're never
quite sure why or what they're doing, and god knows what
newts' eyes will have spilt onto your disk afterwards.
what we want isn't magic, but seamlessness - things should
behave quite ordinarily and naturally (whatever that means!) on top,
regardless of what's going on underneath.
like the swan: "all grace and beauty above water and paddling like hell
underneath".
i tend to like an interface when i can understand its interactions without
having to understand how it's interacting with the layers beneath it.
rog.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-07-12 14:43 UTC | newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2001-07-12 14:02 [9fans] Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced Laura Creighton
2001-07-12 14:09 ` Lucio De Re
2001-07-12 14:10 ` Matt
2001-07-12 14:43 rog
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).