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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Self-Igniter | ||
| A self-lighting cigarette. |
| Blantham stepped into the room, flung
back his cape.
“Thank you,” he said. He seated himself on the edge of a chair, extended a case. "Cigarette ?” “Thank you.” Magnus Ridolph gravely helped himself. He inhaled, frowned, took the cigarette from his lips, examined it. “Excuse me,” said Blantham, producing a lighter. “I sometimes forget. I never smoke self-igniters ; I can detect the flavor of the chemical instantly, and it annoys me.” “Unfortunate,” said Magnus Ridolph, after his cigarette was aglow. “My senses are not so precisely adjusted, and I find them extremely convenient. Now, what, can I do for you?” |
| Technovelgy from The Howling Bounders,
by Jack Vance. Published by Startling Stories in 1949 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the self-lighting cigarette from Methuselah's Children (1941) by Robert Heinlein.
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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...'
