Best Sentence #37

Too stressed about writing... must play more.

I had this very silly idea recently to quote ABBA in my dissertation. Today, I insert that quote as an epigraph to the new chapter 2 "What's the Name of the Game? Classifying Multiple Genres of Ubiquitous and Pervasive Play". I insert it by way of saying This is MY dissertation and if I want to quote ABBA, I will quote ABBA! Somehow it puts things in perspective.

I wonder how many UC Berkeley dissertations have quoted ABBA. We do have a rather prestigous Scandinavian Studies Ph.D. program. So who knows? Maybe I am actually part of a long tradition of quoting ABBA.

Here's the complete Chapter 2 epigraph

In the case of ubiquitous computation… people are still trying to find the loose verbal grab-bag just to put the concepts into. So I would argue that this work is basically a literary endeavor. When it comes to remote technical eventualities, you don't want to freeze the language too early. Instead, you need some empirical evidence on the ground, some working prototypes, something commercial, governmental, academic or military. Otherwise you are trying to freeze an emergent technology into the shape of today's verbal descriptions. This prejudices people. It is bad attention economics. It limits their ability to find and understand the intrinsic advantages of the technology…. So language is of consequence. Those of us who make up words about
these matters probably ought to do a better job. –science fiction author and design critic Bruce Sterling, “The Internet of Things”

What’s the name of the game?/ Does it mean anything to you?— pop
group ABBA, “The Name of the Game”