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"When you're making a revolution in cyberspace, things look rather different from the way the 1980s cyberpunks wrote it."
- Charles Stross
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| Flexible Stem | ||
| A long flexible tube that can expand and contract its length quickly. |
| "At one of the religious festivals, a platform supported by a long flexible stem raises a priestess dressed in flower petals. Another similar platform raises a table supporting certain symbolic objects...The priestess performs rites while the stems twine about each other. I learned that the stems are built up of several dozen smaller tubes, each containing a magnetic slurry: iron powder in a viscous liquid. Reacting to fields from internal windings, these tubes selectively contract with great force. By proper circuitry any contortion of the tubes is posible. It seems to me that this system might be applied to the legs of the walking fort." |
| Technovelgy from The Killing Machine,
by Jack Vance. Published by Fantastic Fiction (?) in 1964 Additional resources -
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Thanks to R. Probert for contributing this item.
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Tech news articles related to The Killing Machine
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Flexible Stem-related
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| Carpentopod Walking Table |
| Quaise Uses Beams Of Energy To Dig Geothermal Wells |
| China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones |
| Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel! |
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'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.
This is nothing new for science fiction fans!
