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Biographical coincidence

Submitted by dave on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 22:43

In the passage about Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw's biography it is mentioned that he attended the Iowa State University of Science and Technology in Ames. As Stephenson reveals in his essay In the beginning was the command line he spend part of his youth in Ames, where his family moved in 1966 and where he graduated from Ames High School in 1977.

Fubar

Submitted by dave on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 08:41

In the passage describing Source Victoria it is mentioned that "ecosystems were especially tiresome when they got fubared" (emphasis not in the original). The meaning is that ecosystems are hard to control from an engineering point of view, once they are destroyed, the term fubar meaning fucked up beyond any repair.

Fine golden beer from Pilsen

Submitted by Da5id on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 22:47

Golden beer from Pilsen usually refers to Pilsener Urquell, according to its own marketing department: "Das erste goldene Bier der Welt" (The world's first golden beer). The formula for Pilsener beer (usually called lager in English) only dates back to 1842, when a brewery in Pilsen started brewing it under the aformentioned name. Nowadays Pilsener Urquell is owned by the multinational SAB Miller group.

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