Cryptonomicon fortune file

Dr. G.E.B. Kivistik had a few things to say about the Information Superhighway. He was a fiftyish Yale professor who had just flown in from someplace that had sounded really cool and impressive when he had gone out of his way to mention it several times.

Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: "What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young Marines on their way to Guadalcanal?"
Shaftoe doesn't have to think very long. The memories are still as fresh as last night's eleventh nightmare: ten plucky Nips in a suicide charge!
"Just kill the one with the sword first."
"Ah," Reagan says, raising his waxed and penciled eye-brows, and cocking his pompadour in Shaftoe's direction.
"Smarrrrt - you target them because they're officers, right?"
"No, fuckhead!" Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they've got fucking swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a fucking sword?"

The word's came out of Randy's mouth before he had time to think better of it. "The information superhighway is just a fucking metaphor! Give me a break!" he said.
There was a silence as everyone around the table winced in unison. Dinner had now, officially, crashed and burned. all they could do now was grab their ankles, put their heads between their knees, and wait for the wreckage to slide to a halt.s