Ten of Swords

Halt and Catch Fire 4×10

Risa: Comet was... a miracle. Wish we could've done it longer.... You made the right call. Like you said, it would've been a bummer to sit around here and watch the world swallow us up.

Cameron: You know, there's this thing in CompSci I remember... recursion. Where a specific function calls upon itself repeatedly within a program. So in order to solve the big problem, it uses the same small problem over and over as the solution to increasingly complex issues. And that, my friend, is how my software runs.

Donna: I know it's... If you stay, it's hard. If you leave, it's hard. It's all hard. It's... Sometimes it's not even about what you want. It's about what it wants for you. All you can do is... listen and see if you can hear what it's saying.

Donna: Hey, if it's what you want to do, it's what you want to do.
Cameron: Yeah, man. If you do what you always did, you're gonna get what you always got...
Donna: If the elevator's broken, take the stairs. It works if you work it. Unless it's more and more of what doesn't work.
Cameron: Meetings?
Donna: Oh... A few.

Cameron: Hey, I'm sorry that we couldn't recover your data.
Haley: It's fine. Like what Joe said.
Cameron: What's that?
Haley: Fresh start.

---

Donna: I wanted to thank you guys for coming out tonight. "You guys." See what we're up against?
    When I graduated from Berkeley in '75 with a degree in computer science, nobody batted an eye. That's probably because back then, coders were like secretaries and engineers, meaning little solder soldiers on the assembly lines, were kind of invisible. And we're used to that. But somewhere along the line, these jobs became important. And ... I hope that by the time my daughters are my age that they don't have to have gatherings like this anymore to remind themselves that they're actually here.

Donna: ...I've done things. That always comes with a price, but I did them. One of the many things I've learned is that no matter what you do, somebody is around the next corner with a better version of it, and if that person is a man, it might not even be better. It just might get more attention. And sometimes, that person is you. The you that's never satisfied with what you just did because you're obsessed with whatever is next. The one constant is this. It's you, it's us.

Donna: ...even if we see each other across the corporate battle lines one day, ... you will know that I am rooting for you. I can't help but not. Because I am a partner by trade and a mother and a sister by design.

Gordon: 'Close your eyes... Does anything feel weird?.. 'Cause that's what this is. Feeling weird is... is how you know you're still here.
    All right, now, when was the last time you ate? Because all a human needs is food, water, and rest. You got to remind yourself that you're just 160 pounds of goo in the middle of a very big universe. So whatever's burning you up right now, just know that it'll fade. Every problem feels big in the moment, but, Gordon, you know better. So... focus on just being being. And then try to look up from your computer every once in a while.'

Donna: Cameron.
Cameron: What is it?
Donna: I have an idea.

Joe: Let me start by asking a question...

--
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Search

Halt and Catch Fire 4×9

Joe: ...this isn't just a product. It isn't. It's a new way of connecting. A new way of being.

Joe: ...this is a family business. Comet began with Haley Clark.
Her dad and I met back in 1983.
And I told him, "Computers
aren't the thing.
They're the thing that
gets us to the thing." And this is the...
Cameron: Com-IT! Com-IT!
- Com-IT!...

Levecq: Any shortness of breath, chest pains?
Bosworth: No. No. Get a little light-headed sometimes if I shit real big.
Levecq: ......

Levecq: You're in good health, John. If you take care of yourself, you'll live well into the 21st century.
Bosworth: ..... 21st century. Son of a...

Bosworth: He said I should live well into the 21st century. You imagine that? Jet packs and robot overlords.

---

Bosworth: It's weird, isn't it, how much stuff you remember from early in life? And how all that stuff in the middle just kinda... just kinda runs together.

Bosworth: Anyway, it just seems to me if you want something, best to go get it done. Now.

Bosworth: All right. I'm done. Done, I say. How about you and I do some actual living?

Joe: That looks worse than it did before.
Cameron: I know. It's part of the... process. Maybe you shouldn't watch how the sausage is made.

Joe: Wait, wait... What is that? That wasn't there before.
Cameron: What the hell is Yahoo?
Joe: Two guys. Stanford. Used to be called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web."
Cameron: But... This sucks. The design's terrible, there's no image support, they're...
Joe: On the toolbar!..

Joe: The thing that gets you to the thing.
Cameron: Huh?
Joe: It was you.

--
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Goodwill

Halt and Catch Fire 4×8

Donna: Oh. I'm always amazed at what my mom can do with a glass of Chardonnay in her hand. She could join the circus.

Donna: I'm concerned about everything that she sees and eats and touches. And you... you're exploding fireworks next to her head.
Gordon: Oh, my God. Donna, it was one goddamn bottle rocket, okay?

Donna: Do you want to live here forever?
Gordon: Look, Donna, we are not gonna live here forever, okay? Okay, we're gonna build something, a machine, okay? And we're gonna sell it together.

Donna: Oh. I guess I'll go get her, then.
Gordon: No, just let her cry!

Joe: How are the girls doing?.. That's a stupid question. We're all doing terrible. Everyone's terrible.

---

Cameron: She wants to be a jerk. Just let her be a jerk.

Cameron: This is why college is so great. You get to go and be by yourself for the first time, you can do whatever you want to do, smoke whatever you want to smoke, learn about the things that interest you, and if you don't know what those are, you... you get to figure it out.

Bosworth: Joe, you ever have my chili?.. It's an old Bosworth family recipe, handed down. The secret's in the cinnamon. Yeah. See, what you do is, you take that cinnamon, and you put it in the cupboard and keep it away from your chili 'cause it got no damn business being there in the first place.

Cameron: Nobody knows how to act.
Donna: Well, I really love it when people say, "How are you doing?"
Cameron: I'm pretty sure I asked you that.
Donna: Yeah, of course you did. 'Cause what else are you gonna say? And then, yeah, how do you answer? Hangin' in there.
Cameron: That's right.
Donna: 'Cause to answer honestly, you'd have to talk incessantly for days, and who wants to listen to that, right?

Donna: I... I miss him.

Donna: He'll be back soon. Oh, I know, I know. He'll be back soon. He will. I know.

Donna: Don't you ever do that to me again, okay?
Gordon: I won't.

--
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Who Needs a Guy

Halt and Catch Fire 4×7

Kisker: You take care of yourself. No one else will. Am I right?.. I'm right.

Joe: We should have a fireplace in every room... even the bathroom.

Cameron: I swear to God, two minutes.
Joe: I know you believe that when you say it.

Cameron: Hey, wish me luck!
Joe: Luck? What the hell would you need that for?

Donna: Rover's doing twice that. The average user finds what they're looking for in 35 seconds.
Gordon: That's impressive.
Donna: Yeah, it is. But it's also what makes it vulnerable. ... I'm not convinced this fight gets won by the site that keeps traffic moving. I think it might go to the one that keeps users around.

Joe: ...It makes possible a truly symbiotic relationship between user and content. People will be interested in the site because the site is interested in them.
Gordon: Yes, exactly. This is what I was getting so excited about.
Joe: We could have entertainment, news...
Gordon: Sports.
Joe: ...sports, uh... stock market. And, yeah, sure, we would deliver people to other sites, but they always come back to us.

Joe: I think "re-launch" would be better.
Gordon: Oh. That's a substantive change. Saved the whole project.

Donna: Jesus Christ, you won!! Okay, you won! You got Haley and Gordon and Cam! You got everybody! What more do you want from me?!!

--
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Σ !!!

A Connection Is Made

Halt and Catch Fire 4×6

Joe: «Catch the Comet.»
Cameron: Oh. No. .... Because it sounds like the flu. Or the clap.

Joe: «Let’s Comet»?
Cameron: How ’bout, let’s not.

Joe: «Search it, find it... com-it.»
Cameron: It’s perfect.

Cameron: El Gordo!.. You know what it means, right?
Gordon: Yeah. «Handsome.»

Gordon: Haley drew it. Sailors get one tattooed for every 5,000 miles. But you know what she said? Since the rocket’s 1/100th in scale, it only needs to cover fifty.

Gordon: Come on, I know you. You dream in code.

Donna: Don’t ever stop yourself ’cause you’re scared...

Cameron: Oh, yeah, kids are great... if you can give birth to a fourteen-year-old.

---

Haley: Um, school was not good. I mean, no one was torturing me or anything like that, but it’s just, like, everyone’s always pretending, you know? That’s why the Web’s so great, ’cause no one pretends. You just put it out there, who you really are. And if people respond to it, that’s great. But if not, who cares? At least they saw you and not just some projection, you know?

Donna: With Rover we cannot only count the number of users, we can track what they click on, how long they look at it... I mean, it’s an advertiser’s dream.
Bobby Aron: So, it is about selling.
Donna: No, it’s... It’s about change. At Rover, you could be part of a universal, decentralized platform that’s already changing the world.

Donna: Look. You could join Microsoft and let them tell you what the future will be. Or you could join us and tell them.

Donna: The truth is, I am trying to build another version of Community. Except, this time, it’s the entire Internet. It’s everyone.

Risa: I’m sure they still don’t even come close to what you saw in your head.
Cameron: Well, the computer for that doesn’t exist yet.
Risa: You sure? Processor speed is growing at an exponential rate. I’ve seen what’s happening, and it’s mind-blowing. ’Cause here’s the thing: I don’t think you’re a game designer.
Cameron: Oh.
Risa: I think you’re a world builder.

--
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Nowhere Man

Halt and Catch Fire 4×5

Joe: I guess I’m trying to say is... you were right. Algorithmic search is the future...

Joe: Cam, Rover is gonna kick our ass.
Cameron: That’s not my fault!

Joe: They’ve managed to make the results accurate for the average user while still accounting for the outlier. It’s brilliant!

Donna: Let’s put a pin in expanding the programming department for now. Cecil performed so well under pressure, let’s, uh, let’s see if he surprises us again...

---

Gordon: Is this what you saw 10 years ago? Because it’s not what I saw for myself when you showed up in my garage.
Joe: That’s the point. It was never about where it ended up. It was... about how it felt.

Joe: ...I don’t know what comes next.
Gordon: Most of us in the human race, we don’t get to know what’s next. I mean, we just feel shit as it’s thrown at us. This right now is all there is. Welcome to the future, Joe MacMillan.

Gordon: Search bar is a good idea. We should do that.

Donna: You know, I’m as competitive as they come, but I can’t imagine what compels a person to cheat so brazenly.
Diane: A long life of being told that winning is your birthright. John had a good line. What was that?.. John?... About Elias.
Bosworth: Oh, yeah, man’s just a little lobster, convinced he’s king of the crawdads.

--
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Tonya and Nancy

Halt and Catch Fire 4×4

Haley: Hey, is Scientology a religion or a cult?
— Cult!
Haley: They obtained non-profit status in October... Never mind, I’ll figure out where it goes.

Cameron: This wouldn’t be hard to beat, you know? You just have to come up with a more sophisticated algorithm.

Joe: People need a curated list, a guide through the disorganized maze of the web... not a bunch of impersonal math.
Cameron: .... curation is fine if you guys have 500 websites, or 5000. But what are you guys gonna do when you have 5 million? How are you gonna guide people through that?

Joe: I’m just saying that math can’t tell a qualitative difference between good and bad. A computer can’t tell me what I want.
Cameron: Not yet.

Joe: Okay, one final thing... How would you list a website about «barks»?
Katie: Depends if you mean dog noise, tree layer, root beer... that’s Barq’s with a «q»... or boat.
Gordon: Wait. «B-Bark» is a boat?
Katie: Mm-hmm. Uh, technically, it’s a sailing ship with three or more masts.
Gordon: Huh. We don’t even know the answer to our own trick question.

---

Bosworth: The top search on Rover is «sex.» The second most popular search... is «Comet.»

What I know, in my gut, is that search is poised to be a billion-dollar business.

Donna: I told you to come in here and present a united front. Don’t come whining to the boss. This is 101 bullshit. Do better. Both of you.

Haley: Skating is coming on. It’s Tonya and Nancy, and all of America is watching, so I want to see what happens.

Cameron: I know how this looks, by the way. Like I’m having some pathetic, early mid-life crisis. Got the bike, the truck, the trailer...

Bosworth: We’re screwed. We’re so screwed, the light from screwed gonna take a thousand years to reach us.

Bosworth: We don’t got the leadership, we don’t got that algorithm, and we don’t got that talent. In a word, darlin’, we don’t got you.

Donna: I just... I have to ask... Who wrote the new algorithm?

--
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Miscellaneous

Halt and Catch Fire 4×3

Cameron: There’s no loving Joe. He’s impossible to love. He’s empty and... he just becomes whatever circumstance needs him to be.

Joe: Why are we talking about Cameron?
Gordon: Because I know you two!
And it’s like... it’s like... it’s like you’re a train and she’s a train, and you think, «Oh, we’re both trains. We should get along great»! But then both the trains are on the same track, and they’re both headed right for each other, and guess what... both the trains are carrying dynamite! Look, I’ve seen this a thousand times. I know how it ends.

Donna: I was hoping you could talk a bit about the relationship between a creator, such as yourself, and the business side of gaming. You seemed to indicate earlier that there was some difficulty for you there, and I was wondering if you felt you had any culpability in that.
Cameron: Well, it’s inherently a fraught relationship, right?
Donna: Huh. How so?
Cameron: Well, in that we have the ability to create something out of nothing, and that can be threatening to people on the business side because... they can’t.
Donna: Well, in my experience.... someone on the business side could help shepherd a project that’s meandering or... headed off a cliff. Could be an ally, no? Seems like that relationship should be symbiotic.
Cameron: I would say it’s parasitic. There’s little regard for the well being of the host because a parasite can always scuttle away, on to the next warm body.

Donna: You keep giving me bad news with a smile on your face. Do you know that you’re doing that?

Donna: And what do you have to show for it? Let’s search «president...» No Clinton. Well... What I see are generic president results. My guess is that somewhere buried among them are results about the current leader of the free world, which is what I assume people are looking for when they type in «president.»

Donna: I guess I was just trying to make sure that someone had my back. You know this office is a boys’ club.
Diane: It is a boys’ club, and I made managing partner without anyone holding my hand. Does he have an advantage? Of course he does. But that has nothing to do with you. Your success here is based on results, and I don’t think you kicking the crap out of your team is the way to get ’em.

---

Joe: I want to spruce up the interface... not too slick, but it should be, like, clean and efficient...

Donna: Guys, we don’t have to talk about work. This is fun. You’re not on the clock.
Bosworth: Well, if we’re not gonna talk about work, what we gonna talk about?

Donna: ...I think I’ve got this guy completely fooled, and then one day, he leans over to me very casually, and he says, «Before you know it, they’ll be grown. You kiss that baby every chance you get.» Well, he was right.

Bosworth: Here’s to baby-smooching, then.

Cameron: Sorry, I just needed someplace to play...
Gordon: You playing Doom?
Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, I guess this is where everything’s going. You just... kill everything.
Gordon: It’s pretty awesome, right?

Cameron: You’ve played?
Gordon: Yeah. Pretty good at it, too. Deathmatch?

Gordon: You do know the object of the game is to not die, right?

Gordon: Do you want to work on Comet with Joe?... Then there are conditions. One, you don’t let him or anyone else push you around. If you have an idea, you say so. If you don’t like an idea, you say so, okay? Number two, this is fun, okay? And the second that it stops being fun, you say so, and we both walk away.

Joe: What are you doing?
Cameron: I’m unpacking.

--
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Signal to Noise

Halt and Catch Fire 4×2

Joe: I had to tell you my Hawaiian name... It’s just Joe, but with an I instead of a J.
Cameron: Eye-oh-ee?
Joe: I actually think that’s it’s «Yo.» Right?
Cameron: Right. I’m not calling you «Yo.»
Joe: That is such a Kamelonu thing to say.

Shed: We’re not talking Chernobyl-style meltdown yet, but we’re in Three Mile Island territory for suresies.

Bosworth: ...And what we thought was, why not take their idea and scale it up? Make something a guy like me can buy off the rack?
Donna: Uh, doesn’t Garmin already do that?
Bosworth: Mm, yeah, but them and Magellan got a stranglehold on the market, and, Donna, they charge up the wazoo. We’re talking about disrupting the price point, bringing the costs way down.

Joe: What do you believe?
Cameron: Um, well... I saw this shrine in Japan. And, uh, the locals tear it down, right to the foundation, every 20 years. And then they build it right back up again, back to its original state. And they’ve been doing this for 1,300 years. Nothing in it’s original anymore, but it still looks identical to the day it went up.
Joe: That’s beautiful.
Cameron: Well, no. I mean, I don’t think these people are doing it for some spiritual reason. I think they’re doing it because they’re holding onto the process of it, you know? The doing of it, that that’s all that matters. That’s what I think. I don’t know. I’ve been trying to find some solace in that lately.
Joe: How’s that working out for you?

---

Donna: Rover has enough runway to rework their core technology and index the entire web, make it searchable. It’s low-risk, high-reward.

Bosworth: It wasn’t all about the money... You don’t know what it’s like being retired. Hell, you just turned forty. You got a dozen more tricks up your sleeve no matter what. I’m sixty-five...

Joe: I know... I know it’s hard to swallow this right now, but you are so good at what you do.
Cameron: Joe...
Joe: No, really. Don’t let that asshole take that away from you. He’s a parasite. You create. You make something out of nothing, and I have always been in awe of that. And not to ruin the moment... but I really, really got to piss.
Cameron: Oh, my God, me too.

Cameron: You missed the moon.
Joe: Oh, well.

Joe: So, do you know what you want?

--
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So It Goes

Halt and Catch Fire 4×1

Joe: What time is it there?
Gordon: They’re 17 hours ahead, so whatever time it is here...

Joe: It’s called Mosaic.
Gordon: All right, so there’s another browser in the game. We still got Nexus, Viola, Midas...

Joe: But those aren’t this. Inline images, Web forums support, available on every platform.

Joe: Hey, Gordon... happy 40th.

Cameron: Guys, this is not our target demographic. We need to be going after higher GPAs, readers with immersive fantasy and sci-fi interests... This isn’t a game you play. It’s a game you live.

Gordon: How many websites now?
Joe: 561. And I found a new one for you.
Gordon: Look, if this is the one that translates your name into Hawaiian, I already did it.
Joe: And?..
Gordon: Kolekona.

Joe: It’s a coffee pot. That is a coffee pot at he University of Cambridge, 5,000 miles away. That’s not a picture. That’s a live video feed.

Gordon: Have you seen Mosaic?
Cameron: I saw Mosaic.

---

Gordon: Man, Donut Plains 3 is impossible.
Cameron: Battle mode?
Gordon: Yeah, you’re on. ... All right, you got to pick a guy... What, Toad? Really?
Cameron: Mm-hmm. He corners the best.
Gordon: Interesting.

Donna: Uh, have you seen Mosaic?

Cameron: Do you want to talk about what we’re really talking about?

Joe: I’ve got something. We can still be the door. Maybe it’s not a browser. In fact, it shouldn’t be. We’re gonna build a website that is accessible from any browser. Like a... Like a website of websites, an index of everything, like a directory.
Gordon: What, like the Yellow Pages?
Joe: Yes, but more than that.

Gordon: Isn’t that why God created hangovers... teach teenagers not to drink so much?

Gordon: ...he suddenly thinks he should index every website in existence.
Donna: How would you even do that?
Gordon: Trust me, he’s been meticulously building a list of URLs... by hand... for the last three years.
Donna: That sounds awfully tedious.

Gordon: Here’s to Mosaic... and the respective death of our competing browsers.

Donna: What’s growing? What can we apply the algorithm to that’s dynamic? We’re in the future business here. ....
Cecil: Uh, well, what about the Web? The... The number of websites has grown 500% this year alone. By next year, it could grow exponentially. At that point, the data pool’s theoretically limitless. We’d have to adjust the algorithm, but we could endeavor to index the entire Web, make it searchable.
Donna: And how would you index it?
Cecil: W-With the algorithm. It’d be fully automated and computerized. That means it’d be up to date almost instantly with every new site addition.
Donna: ... That’s it. That’s the idea.

Joe: Don’t tell me the reward for solving Enso puzzle was getting transported back to the beginning of the game.
Cameron: I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.
Joe: Oh. So the Enso is a zero, and I’ve got to start over.
Cameron: Or maybe... it means everything. Now you can approach the path you’ve taken in an entirely new way.

Cameron: Do you want to hear this?
Joe: I want to hear whatever you want to tell me.

Joe: Uh, did you know that Bill Clinton is the president?
Cameron: Yeah. They love him in Japan. All those cheeseburgers. So, what else?
Joe: Um, the Cowboys won the Super Bowl. Audrey Hepburn died. And so did River Phoenix. Uh, some crazies tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and, uh... you can be gay in the military, but nobody can ask you about it, and you can’t tell anybody. Did you know IBM lost $5 billion?...

--
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NeXT

Halt and Catch Fire 3×10

& Donna: Glad you’re here.

& Donna: Okay, let’s just hold off for a second on trying to talk about what the World Wide Web is and let’s focus on what it could do...

& Gordon: America Online. What kind of name is that, anyways?

& Joe: Remember, the World Wide Web and NSFNET, or the Internet, or whatever you want to call it, are two different things. The Web runs on top of the Internet. It unifies everything. It makes it one network.

& Joe: ...And it’s running on state-of-the-art NeXT hardware and software.
    Gordon: That’s my biggest problem.
    Joe: NeXTSTEP is not a problem; it’s perfect. ... The NeXT is a state-of-the-art system.
    Gordon: Designed by a disgraced megalomaniac who loves form over function. No wonder you love the NeXT.

& Gordon: Look, if we’re talking about a network that lives exclusively on a ridiculously overpriced machine that doesn’t really play nice with anything else in the technological landscape, what we’re really looking at... is this.

& Gordon: Hey, guys, we are early. ... We are years and years early on this. ... Okay, the World Wide Web could be the next best thing since sliced bread. But right now, it’s a tiny little academic petri dish running on a NeXT computer.
    Tom: In Europe.

& Donna: Just... let’s not lose the shared idea here. There’s a shared protocol. This is a universal language.
    Gordon: So it’s Esperanto.
    Tom: What the heck is Esperanto?
    Cameron: It’s a language for idiots that failed.

& Joe: Okay, so, Hypertext Conference. Berners-Lee was there and he was talking to anyone who would listen. He handed out the entire Web toolkit, the transfer protocol, the mark-up language, the server software, everything.

& Joe: I’m actually talking about HTML, the mark-up language. What’s so interesting about it is its simplicity. With a very basic set of rules, you can create pages of information, objects, and eventually media when the bandwidth increases.

---

& Joe: Berners-Lee handed out guidebooks not only for HTML, but HTTP, the transfer protocol, the call-and-response process for moving information like this across to potential networks.
    Tom: Addressing protocol is TCP/IP.
    Joe: But HTTP is the abstraction application layer protocol that sits on top of TCP/IP symbiotically, right, Tom? With HTTP, any machine can become a client, any machine can become a server, easily exchanging files.
    Tom: No, files are FTP, as in File Transfer Protocol. It’s the one that has «file» in the name of it.

& Joe: I’d like to get back to an important point... simplicity. Both HTML and HTTP are breathtakingly simple. And this kind of elegance allows for versatility, it allows for universality... And the best part is, the online catalogue viewer, the transfer protocol, the Web server software, all of it is free.

& Tom: I have a problem with open source... Because open source allows the lunatics to run the asylum. And every time... every time... you put well-made code out into the world, for people to screw around with, it causes major problems.

& Cameron: Or you could look at it a different way. That with everyone creating something like the Web together, some potentially amazing things could happen.
    One, it gets built very fast.
    Two, it becomes huge in size.
    Three, it’s constantly being edited and refined, so it’s improving at a massive rate.
    And four... there’s no overlord controlling things.

& Cameron: I’m so sick of hearing about the future... The future is just another crappy version of the present. It’s some bribe people offer you to make you do what they want instead of what you want.

& Cameron: Permission to come aboard?
    Bosworth: ... Permission granted.

& Bosworth: Well, Donna says it’s a pretty hot idea. Had to be to get all you yokels in the same room again.

& Gordon: The key to the bisque is the Parmesan toast.
    Donna: Four years ago, the only Parmesan you knew about was powdered.

& Joe: You’re all here. Let’s get started. Berners-Lee wrote HTML to view and edit the Web, HTTP so that it could talk to itself. The chatter could be cacophonous. It could be deafeningly silent. Big picture... what will the World Wide Web become? Short answer... who knows?

& Joe: We don’t have to build a big white box or a stadium, or invent rock and roll. The moment we decide what the Web is, we’ve lost. The moment we try to tell people what to do with it, we’ve lost. All we have to do is build a door and let them inside.

& Joe: ... And that is the best part of the trip... the amazing possibility to be able to go anywhere within something that is magnificent and never-ending.

& Joe: It takes up one whiteboard... that’s basic concrete and steel. But we can take this and we can build a door, and we can be the first ones to do it. Because right now, everyone else sees this as...
    Donna: As an online research catalogue.
    Gordon: Running on NeXT.
    Cameron: On a network in Europe.
    Joe: And with this handful of code, we can build the Holland Tunnel.

& Gordon: The DSP in this cube is amazing. Not only are we getting clean 56K, we can do this at the same time... Sounds pretty good, huh?

& Gordon: You know, seven grand a pop is still insane, and I don’t know why the cube is magnesium, but I still appreciate a good machine.
    Donna: Yeah, well... you know what they say, software comes and goes...
    Gordon: But hardware is forever.

--
+ quotes on the IMDb

+ Soundtracks.

NIM

Halt and Catch Fire 3×9

& Bosworth: Donna Emerson, senior partner. My God, that does have a ring to it, doesn’t it?

& Bosworth: Hey, now, that’s the good stuff. Remember, respect the dirty bird or fear the kickin’ chicken.
    Donna: «Kickin’ chicken»?

& — Gordon Clark, this here is...
    Donna: Donna. Donna Emerson.
    Gordon: Nice to meet you.

& Gordon: So, what now? Just casual sex and cosmos?
    Donna: Casual sex and martinis. Oh, but «casual» makes it sound boring, lazy. I’d rather go with «hot and dirty» sex.

& Gordon: So, congratulations, it’s official. Donna Emerson. You really couldn’t stand being a Clark, could you?
    Donna: Emerson has three syllables. It’s got stature, you know? Plus, it takes up more space on the sign, so.

& Donna: Gordo?
    Gordon: Ms. Emerson.

& Cameron: .... That means, «I don’t want the shrimp with the heads on.» It’s a very useful phrase in Tokyo.

& Joe: ...like a... like a switch... flicked in your brain?
    Cameron: Yeah. It’s just, you go through life and you have this idea of who you are, and what you do, and then... you discover it’s total bullshit. It’s a defense mechanism, and once you stop defending yourself you can be all these other things, and that...

---

& Cameron: Well, you can skip all the laptops. They’re just variations on a theme. Uh... the Microsoft booth is «ugh.» Gates’ speech is overrated. Just get the transcript. Oh, Phillips just released a recordable CD and Adobe added some cool stuff to this thing called Photoshop...

& Gordon: Oh, it uh, it says «kiss the cook» but in binary code.

& Joanie: Well, «shonen» is Japanese for «boy.» So, it means «boy knife.» «Boy knife» means «dick.»

& Cameron: I wonder how high you’d have to be up for your spit to actually kill someone.

& Joe: Okay. What is it that I do?
    Cameron: It’s so hard... to bring about actual change. Real change. The whole world conspires to stop that from happening. But you bring people together. You... create change. I think that that’s... really great.

& Gordon: Do you know why most people screw up their pasta? Not salting the water enough. You know, it should taste like the ocean. You know, when properly portioned, salt will not make food taste salty, but instead will enhance the flavors that are already present.

& Joanie: Did you know that almost all beef you buy at the supermarket tests positive for E. coli?.. Because cows, when they’re slaughtered, are decapitated. And when you decapitate a cow, all the stuff in the intestines and the stomach flies out through the neck hole, all over the body. And E. coli is found only in excrement. Basically... there’s shit in your Bolognese.
    Gordon: .... Well, did you know there’s a detectable level of cow piss in most milk?

& Joe: Hey, I think I figured it out.
    Cameron: You can’t beat me. It’s... It’s a system. You have to count in Nim sums. It’s just a trick.

& Joanie: I can’t totally commit to a label. People aren’t one thing.

--
On the IMDb

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You Are Not Safe

Halt and Catch Fire 3×8

& Ryan: What the hell is that?
    FBI Agent: Oh, kid, you’ve never seen a packet sniffer? Meet your worst enemy.

& Donna: Do you have a better suggestion?
    Bosworth: Something with a faint hint of truth to it, maybe?
    Donna: Oh, so I should say that she’s a temperamental narcissist with self-destructive tendencies who doesn’t work with others?!

& Joe: Look at us. Two unemployed CEOs both ousted from our companies. Mine’s toast and yours is going public.

& Cameron: Joe can be... surprisingly forgiving. Maybe it’s because he’s screwed up his own life so many times.

& Bosworth: Well... you never know what might hit a nerve.

---

& Cameron: It’s called the «Spacebike Chronicles.» ... And when she arrives at a new place, she tries to win one of the five senses. Each one arms her with a different power. A sense of proportion allows her to change size. A sense of humor allows her to fend off most forms of attack. A sense of self allows her to appear and disappear. Okay, well, decency doesn’t give her an actual power, but it makes it possible for her to win the rarest sense of all... common sense, which lets her see everything more clearly.
    Tom: It’s beautiful. How do you win?
    Cameron: You don’t, you just get to keep playing.

& Joe: I’m done.

& Ryan: «I, Ryan Ray, released the MacMillan Utility source code. I acted alone. No one helped me, and no one told me to do it. I did this because ’security’ is a myth.
    Contrary to what you might have heard, my friends, you are not safe. Safety is a story. It’s something we teach our children so they can sleep at night, but we know it’s not real.
    Beware, baffled humans. Beware of false prophets who will sell you a fake future, of bad teachers, corrupt leaders and dirty corporations. Beware of cops and robbers... the kind that rob your dreams. But most of all, beware of each other, because everything’s about to change.
    The world is going to crack wide open. There’s something on the horizon. A massive connectivity. The barriers between us will disappear, and we’re not ready. We’ll hurt each other in new ways. We’ll sell and be sold. We’ll expose our most tender selves, only to be mocked and destroyed. We’ll be so vulnerable, and we’ll pay the price. We won’t be able to pretend that we can protect ourselves anymore.
    It’s a huge danger, a gigantic risk, but it’s worth it. If only we can learn to take care of each other. Then this awesome, destructive new connection won’t isolate us. It won’t leave us in the end so... totally alone.»

--
On the IMDb

+ Soundtracks.

The Threshold

Halt and Catch Fire 3×7

& Cameron: Just... just for the record. This is my house, you’re unemployed, and this is an absurd, sexist tradition.

& Bosworth: Have you heard of the Midas Touch? Well, I got the... opposite of that.

& Donna: We have an acquisition offer in hand. People are paying attention to us right now.
    Cameron: But what we have right now is broken.
    Donna: What we have right now, CompuServe thinks is worth $20 million.
    Cameron: Yes, but if we make the improvements the way I know we can, we’ll be worth $100 million.

& Gordon: Man, this is one kick-ass view. You can see the bridge from here.

& Joe: The truth is... and this is the truth...

---

& Donna: Your ideas are good, Cameron, and some of them are even great... But why can’t we do that after we’ve gone public? We don’t have to wait to try and make something perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good, and Mutiny is very, very good right now as it is.

& Cameron: We can’t afford to be naive here. If we put off these changes, we won’t be able to make them the right way... I mean, we’ll be so focused on PE ratios and shareholder value, that we won’t be able to innovate and respond quickly. Mutiny won’t be Mutiny anymore. We’ll lose the company’s soul.

& Donna: Why don’t we see if your marriage lasts the year before you start doling out relationship advice?

& Donna: Show of hands! Who’s in favor of doing the IPO now with all that that entails?

& Joe: If it wasn’t gonna be me, I’m glad it was you. Write me from the future.
    Gordon: 49 percent.

--
On the IMDb

+ Soundtracks.

And She Was

Halt and Catch Fire 3×6

& Joe: Soon it’ll be hardware and handshake deals, endless troubleshooting and upgrades. But right now... right now it’s perfect.
    Ryan: The room?
    Joe: The idea.

& Gordon: Do you ever try to be the bigger man in this business, but the universe just gives you a shit sandwich for your efforts?
    Bosworth: Indeed I have.

& Diane: I have news. You have an acquisition offer... From CompuServe.
    Cameron: Uh... CompuServe?
    Diane: I know. I don’t think it’s a good fit either, but it sets a floor...
    Donna: How much?
    Diane: 20 million.

& Joe: Modern society sits on a foundation of services we now take for granted... Railroads. Highways. Water. Power... Network computing will be the next great public utility. My actions have placed us at the vanguard and we are poised to reap vast rewards.
    America’s early entrepreneurs were bound by space and time. This new network will be limitless.
    Ken: Just... I just... just to be clear, ahem, the N... what?

---

& Joe: Well, this is the process, you know? You should have seen their faces when I told them the Citadel was going to be free...

& Cameron: Let’s beat the game today... Come on, Donna’s away. When else are we gonna do it?
    Gordon: Let’s just see how far we get before the girls get back... ......
    Cameron: If we could just skip the water world. I hate the water world.
    Gordon: «Your princess is in another castle.»

& Gordon: Wish I could pelt Joe with fireball...

& Bosworth: Here’s to me, Doris.

& Donna: It’s there all the time. It’s deafening. Cam is the genius. Donna is the mom.

& Joe: Is it what’s his name? It doesn’t matter. Could have been anyone. You were happy for a moment and you thought the person standing closest to you was the source. Trust me. I’ve been there.

& Ken: And before you even dream about running a fire hose into the bullpen or some other such bullshit, I would meditate on the Joe MacMillan clause our lawyers had such fun drawing up. One destructive move from you, and every point of equity you got goes up in smoke.

& Joe: I, Joe MacMillan, stole the code to the security software from Gordon Clark...

--
On the IMDb

+ Soundtracks.

Yerba Buena

Halt and Catch Fire 3×5

& Donna: It’s clunky. Our users want an easy way to buy things and they’re frustrated it doesn’t exist.
    Cameron: Our users want the Police to get back together, but Sting’s not interested.

& Donna: I don’t want to slow our growth. And you keep acting like accepting credit cards is some devil’s bargain. They make people’s lives easier. That’s the whole point.
    Cameron: Okay, Mutiny is a castle. You and I built it and then we gave a little piece to Diane. And then a little piece to freakin’ Doug and Craig. But making deals with credit card companies is just lowering the drawbridge.

& Ryan: Stanford’s over here right next to Moffett. Over here is jackboot central. DoD, NORAD, the NSA. And I printed out all the directories for every mainframe on the network. And we can leverage some of the weak access points I found. Now, the Pentagon is nearly impenetrable, but some of these other guys...

& Joe: What is this right here?
    Ryan: That’s not really part of ARPANET. That’s just the new network the National Science Foundation just rolled out.
    Joe: Yeah, NSFNET. Steve Wolff’s baby.

& Joe: This city. I can’t decide if it’s beautiful or horrifying... Nothing lasts in this place. The whole city burned down seven times in the first couple years of its existence. Even its name has been reinvented. You know what San Francisco used to be called?
    Ryan: Yeah, Yerba Buena.

& Ryan: Look, that’s what makes this city so great. You can screw up, you can fail, and so what? You get another chance.

---

& Bosworth: True fact... a banana peel will shine your shoes like no other. Saved me a mint in my 20s.

& Cameron: So let’s say I want to buy a, I don’t know, first Superman comic for $100. Mutiny charges my AmEx, adds five bucks.
    Donna: As a transaction fee.
    Cameron: But AmEx takes three of those dollars as their transaction fee, so Mutiny is only making two bucks. Meanwhile, I’m really pissed because yesterday I could have shelled out 100 DBs for that Superman and today I’m shelling out an extra five bucks for nothing.
    Donna: It’s not nothing. We’re providing a valuable service.
    Cameron: Oh, spoken like a true middleman.

& Donna: Okay, so what’s your solution?
    Cameron: Routing numbers. It’s how banks move money. And our subscribers pay by checks, so their account numbers are already on file.
    Donna: Okay, you sell me Superman.
    Cameron: Mutiny pulls funds directly from my bank and deposits them into your account using our own ABA routing number as a pipeline. Oh, and it’s basically free because we don’t incur a transaction fee and we don’t charge one either because our expenses haven’t skyrocketed.

& Joe: Wolff created a bottleneck, right?
    Ruan: Yeah, no support for regional networks. The guy is insane.
    Joe: The guy is brilliant. He’s sending a signal. He’s like our Gorbachev. Do you know what Glasnost is?
    Ruan: I want to say either a vodka or a satellite.

& Joe: The past... the past is a bunch of fortresses all closed off from the rest of the world. We don’t have to build a faster computer or dream up the next killer application. That’s what you do in a fortress. We are going to pave a road between them.

& Joe: Money is just a side effect. Glasnost. It means openness. And it’s always a bad idea to bet against openness.

& Joe: Just take a good look. That’s what’s next.

--
On the IMDb

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Rules of Honorable Play

Halt and Catch Fire 3×4

& Doug: It’s not structured. It’s not maintainable by anyone. There are reentrant forks, no way of knowing which branch invoked a function. We don’t do that in C++. It’s officially deprecated in the language.

& Doug: It’s a bug factory! The old code makes it impossible to keep track of the reentrant looping.
    Cameron: But I don’t need the object-oriented language, okay? I can keep track of the looping in my head.
    Doug: Oh, I get it. You’re that good.
    Cameron: Yeah, I am. Aren’t you?

& Donna: She thinks we’re a couple.
    Cameron: You’re not my type.

& Cameron: It’s Thing One and Thing Two. God, I can’t stand them! Especially the bigger Thing, this arrogant frat boy. The smaller Thing’s not so bad.
    Donna: You know their names.
    Cameron: Yes, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Heckle and Jeckle. Frick and Frack...

---

& Joe: If we can just find the right vector...
    Ryan: Router tech is promising...
    Joe: Ah, Cisco’s already way ahead on that one.
    Ryan: Uh, 3-D graphics. Uh, AI. 5th gen systems...
    Joe: It’s a billion-dollar road to nowhere. I give it a year.

& Joe: Good is the enemy of great. If anything’s worth pursuing, we’ll remember it tomorrow.

& Craig: Can I ask you something? Why won’t you change that original block of PL/M?

& Gordon: It’s Judgment Day, sinners!

& Ryan: What happened?
    Joe: I traded them for something more valuable.
    Ryan: What’s this?
    Joe: The log-in credentials for the ARPANET, the Department of Defense packet-switching network.

& Ryan: You know, the ARPANET isn’t new tech. It’s sort of rusty. It’s not like missile codes or fighter plane blueprints. This is... this is mundane stuff.
    Joe: I do know that. It’s antiquated. And that means it’s ripe for an upgrade.
    Ryan: So what should I do?
    Joe: I need you to go into it, map it, and help me figure out what’s next.

--
On the IMDb

+ Soundtracks.

Flipping the Switch

Halt and Catch Fire 3×3

& Denna: Is it the antenna, maybe?
    Gordon: I don’t know. Could be. Or... it could be that all the guys that were out there when I was a kid are too busy running companies to have time for hams.
    Denna: Yeah, or they moved online... There must be some new kids out there.

& Gordon: CQ, CQ, for shit’s sake, is anybody out there?!

& Joe: What do you do for fun?
    Ryan: Oh, um, you know, the usual. Video games. Movies... But mostly I just love to code.

& Gordon: That’s my wife. This is KC4L signing off.

& Donna: You still wear your ring, huh?
    Diane: For work. Men can’t seem to handle the idea that sexual availability and business acumen can exist in the same body. It simplifies things.

---

& Bosworth: There are men out there who’ve done a lot worse, Donna.
    Donna: Yeah... But it’s hard to turn that into good news.

& Investor: Of course we’re gonna charge. I mean, what’s the point of developing a user base if we don’t turn them into paying customers at some point? And my gut is telling me sooner rather than later.

& Diane: I thought this was supposed to be handshakes and how do you dos.
    Bosworth: You see an opportunity, you take it. That’s the sport of it.

& Joe: What I’d really like to say is... is thank you.
    Cameron: Really? For what?
    Joe: Everything, I guess. How could I have risen from the ashes... if you hadn’t burned it all to the ground?

& Joe: ...maybe I got tired of being told I was just a salesman who couldn’t code.

& Cameron: It was quiet.
    Bosworth: Yeah, that’s not always a good sign.
    Cameron: Well, it’s better than screaming.
    Bosworth: I’ve heard quiet make you beg for screaming.

& Joe: Don’t smile. We might fail.

--
On the IMDb

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One Way or Another

Halt and Catch Fire 3×2

& Donna: This is the world’s first virtual handshake deal.
    Cameron: A trade.
    Donna: A trade made on your computer that swaps tangible items between users. You get everything you want without ever leaving your home. You do everything from your keyboard.
    Cameron: The only person you’ll ever see is the mailman.
    Donna: We’re looking for the right partner.

& Donna: 14 VC firms and nobody’s stepped up, why?
    Bosworth: Well, these clowns want to make you wait. They think it gives them some kind of an allure. But it just takes one of them to ask you to the dance.
    Cameron: God, I love how even the metaphors in this business are sexist.

& Bosworth: Look, the fact that you two are women I’m sure doesn’t help matters.

& Bosworth: These smiling VCs out here love to grin and screw you, don’t they? At least in Texas they stab you in the front.

& Gordon: No, you can do that without the GOTO statements. And it’s always better without spaghetti branching. Structured programing. Böhm-Jacopini style.

---

& Yo-Yo: Walking the floor, not really working, wearing a tie. You looking to become management?

& Tim: Wow, okay, my apologies if he misread things.
    Donna: What could he have possibly misread?
    Cameron: We have been nothing but professional.
    Tim: Are you kidding? You guys call every day for two weeks. You drop everything the night he calls you to dinner. And I’m sorry, but... nobody wears that shade of lipstick unless they have come to play.

& Ryan: Okay, this is gonna sound weird and I feel ridiculous even saying this, but I know that something’s coming. Something big. Like a train and all I want is to jump on board. But it’s getting faster and faster and I’m terrified that I’m gonna miss it.

& Donna: Imagine a place you could go where whatever your passion, whatever you collect or love, it’s available to you at the push of a button...
    Cameron: A rare Spider-Man comic, a bootleg Dylan concert, first edition Fitzgerald, even a hard-to-find part for your Apple II... It’s all there.

& Joe: ... 60%... 70%... Come be my partner and 70% of the company is yours.

& Gordon: No one designs in a vacuum. What’s the point in reinventing the wheel if your true innovation is creating the tire?

--
On the IMDb

+ Soundtracks.

Valley of the Heart's Delight

Halt and Catch Fire 3×1

& Donna: Is he doing Frank Sinatra?
    Gordon: He can do Frank Zappa for all I care.

& Gordon: The Death Star is online and operational.
    Donna: Alderaan will never know what hit it.

& Ryan: You cover tracks, you rebuild private chat separate from Mutiny, but also still talking to Mutiny outside Mutiny. Second but separate Mutiny. Users here, here, and here network, remote, program, hub, RSA filters one, two, three. No cache. Voila.
    Donna: Ryan, that’s an entirely new and very expensive something using techniques that our coders don’t even know, so...
    Ryan: I can do it. I can do it.

& Gordon: How do you do it? How do you deal with all this nonsense?
    Bosworth: Oh, well... You know, it’s like feeding animals at the zoo. Dangle a couple kippers out for them and they dance and keep them locked up in their cages the rest of the day.

---

& Bosworth: You talking about the queens of the jungle, that’s a different story... Advice? I find it wise not to interfere with the brain trust. They run the place. I just work here.

& Bosworth: ...And that, gentlemen, is how you jerk off a dinosaur.

& Gordon: No, no, no, no, no. Don’t you do that. Don’t you underestimate him. That’s when he’s most dangerous. No, Joe’s... Joe’s brilliant.

& Donna: They’re getting along so well, they want to talk on the phone. Maybe that’s obvious.
    Cameron: Sometimes they even want to meet up in person.
    Donna: Or they want to make a trade...

& Donna: Transactional interactions?..
    Cameron: Like, what if you didn’t have to sign off when you wanted to make a trade? You could just...
    Donna: Do it online.

& Donna: Okay, that’s... That’s interesting. I’ve never seen that before.

& Donna: You smell like Berkeley, Gordon.
    Gordon: I could take a shower...
    Donna: No! When’s the last time our bedroom smelled like weed?
    Gordon: That’s the great thing about California. Our bedroom can smell like weed whenever we want.

& Joe: Fear... it’s a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. You know, ever since I started MacMillan Utility, I’ve been accused of selling fear. But let me ask you... is it fear? Or is it truth?

& Joe: ...here’s another one from that same ancient tradition. The whole secret of existence is to have no fear at all. Never fear what will become of you. Depend on no one. Only in the moment that you reject all help are you really free. Only by moving past fear can we ever arrive at the truth. And the truth is freedom from fear is a right, not a commodity.

& Joe: I charge my corporate clients millions. Well, they can afford it. But tomorrow I’m releasing our user version, Citadel, the version I created for all of you. Mainframe-quality security for your personal computer. Wait, wait. And I’m charging you... nothing. For you... it will be absolutely free.

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On the IMDb

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