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"The only real way to maintain privacy is to be uninteresting. It may be that privacy is a passing fad."
- Larry Niven
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| Floating Island | ||
| Large artificial islands floating on Earth's seas. |
Putting aside questions about maintenance and seasickness, a floating island makes good sense. If you don't like the weather, just tow it to a new location.
| Xanadu was the second of the Floating Island chain of independent international corporate entities. Ultimately they would be strung along the world's equator; new islands bringing life to a watery desert. Six of the islands were in place, two as mere skeletons. From the air they looked a little like lily pads, a little like snowflakes five kilometers in diameter. Counting ponds and water recreation areas, the farms and breakwaters, each enclosed an area closer to forty square kilometers. |
| Technovelgy from Saturn's Race,
by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes). Published by Tor in 2000 Additional resources -
|
This is island-building on a grand scale. For something a little smaller (and more intimate), try the float-home, from Frank Herbert's Whipping Star.
If a more permanent sort of island is desired, try Rumoko, from My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Saturn's Race
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)
Tech news articles related to Saturn's Race
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)
Floating Island-related
news articles:
- Maya Hotel Floating Pyramid Island In Caribbean Sea
- Lilypad City Floating Island Concept
- Blueseed Offshore Floating Corporation Ready By 2014
| Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin |
| Elegant Bivouac Shelter Produces Water And Electricity |
| AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home |
| With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
