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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Cutteray | ||
| A laser used in a range of tools - including mining equipment. |
The planet Dune presented a very harsh environment to its human inhabitants. The most sensible way to live was to burrow underground in solid rock. What sort of mining equipment would be needed to cut rooms in rock efficiently?
| He found himself in the assembly hall through which he and his men had been led by Tuek's aides. It was a long, fairly narrow area chewed out of the native rock, its smooth surface betraying the use of cutteray burners for the job. The ceiling stretched away high enough to continue the natural supporting curve of the rock and to permit internal air-convection currents. Weapons racks and lockers lined the walls. |
| Technovelgy from Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
These tools were also used by the Fremen once they were able to work within the system to get the tools of the Imperium to do their work in transforming Dune:
Read more about the future of mining equipment, including software simulations and tele-remote operated underground machinery.
See also the slaver disintegrator, a rather effective technology used in "digging tools" in the novel Ringworld, by Larry Niven.
Station tools began finding their way into the sietch warrens -- especially cutterays which were used to dig underground catchbasins and hidden windtraps.
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Additional
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Tech news articles related to Dune
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Cutteray-related
news articles:
- Microwave Drill Heats And Pokes
| DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures' |
| Robot Bricklayer Or Passer-By Bricklayer? |
| Organic Non-Planar 3D Printing |
| Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories |
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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...'
