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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
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| Disease Circuit | ||
| A feature of robotic animals which indicated a need to repair by emulating animal sickness. |
John Isidore "had his job, driving a pickup and delivery truck for a false-animal repair firm; the Van Ness Pet Hospital."
| The electric mechanism, within its compellingly authentic-style gray pelt, gurgled and blew bubbles, its vileness glassy, its metal jaws locked together. This had always amazed him, these "disease" circuits built into false animals; the construct which he now held on his lap had been put together in such a fashion that when a primary component misfired, the whole thing appeared - not broken - but organically ill. It would have fooled me, Isidore said to himself as he groped within the ersatz stomach fur for the concealed control panel (quite small on this variety of false animal) plus the quick-charge battery terminals. He could find neither. Nor could he search very long: the mechanism had almost failed. If it does consist of a short, he reflected, which is busy burning out circuits, then maybe I should try to detach one of the battery cables; the mechanism will shut down, but no more harm will be done. |
| Technovelgy from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Doubleday in 1968 Additional resources -
|
It turns out that the animal that Isidore is examining is a real cat, which is why he cannot find its control panel or batteries. The head of his repair shop makes this statement:
"... the fakes are beginning to be darn near real, what with those disease circuits they're building into the new ones..."
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Disease Circuit-related
news articles:
- Robotic Dog, Cat For Cornell Sim-Based Veterinarian Hospital
- Meet Spot, The Electric Quadrupedal, Er, Robot Dog
- Sony's New, Cuter Aibo Robot Puppy
| Robots Repair And Modify Themselves |
| Robot Janitors Get To Work |
| Robots Learn To Install Charged Batteries Into Themselves |
| Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons |
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'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...'
'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
