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"I was involved in a cloning project. .. to send me into outer space along with a lot of other people. Not the whole me - just a hair from my head, while I still had some. I would thus pop up in another galaxy in the distant future."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Mechanical Cow (Nibbler) | ||
| An autonomous mechanism that performs some of the actions of an ordinary bovine. |
| The hard, irregular shape of the self-adjusting Nibbler moved over the grassland like a gigantic mechanical cow, only it had caterpiller traction bands instead of legs. Its thirty-two jaws, working alternately in echelons of eight, opened . . shut . . . nipped . . . tore . . . rhythmically. Professor Obinson had well remembered the importance of achieving conditions as identical as possible with those produced by the teeth and jaw action of herbivorous animals before the fodder went into the Metabolisers.
 (Mechanical Cow [Nibbler] from 'Down on the Farm' by Simpson Stokes) |
| Technovelgy from Down on the Farm,
by Simpson Stokes. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937 Additional resources -
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Fans of the science fiction and fantasy webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court welcome this reference to a laser cow:
(Laser cow from Gunnerkrigg Court)
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More Ideas
and Technology from Down on the Farm
More Ideas
and Technology by Simpson Stokes
Tech news articles related to Down on the Farm
Tech news articles related to works by Simpson Stokes
Mechanical Cow (Nibbler)-related
news articles:
- SwagBot Robotic AI Cattle-Herding From Down Under
| Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot |
| Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art |
| Scary Grid Safety Robots |
| Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout! |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
