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"If you turn away from the natural gifts that God has given you, or the universe has given you, you're going to grow old too soon."
- Ray Bradbury
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| Rat Thing | ||
| A guard cyborg created from a living animal. |
| The body is Rottweiler-sized, segmented into overlapping hard plates like those of a rhinoceros. The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's. It must be the tail that makes people refer to it as a Rat Thing, because that's the only ratlike part - incredibly long and flexible.
The grass under the Rat Thing is beginning to smoke. "Careful. Supposedly they have really nasty isotopes inside," Hiro says behind her... "A radioactive substance that makes heat. That's its energy source." "How do you turn it off?" "You don't. It keeps making heat until it melts." The body converges to a sharp nose. In the front it bends down sharply, and there is a black canopy, raked sharply like the windshield of a fighter plane. If the Rat Thing has eyes, this is where it looks out. |
| Technovelgy from Snow Crash,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam in 1992 Additional resources -
|
Compare the Rat Thing to the slamhound from William Gibson's 1986 novel Count Zero, and of course the mechanical hound from Ray Bradbury's 1953 classic Fahrenheit 451.
Thanks to Jerry for suggesting this item.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Snow Crash
More Ideas
and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to Snow Crash
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Rat Thing-related
news articles:
- MIT's Cheetah Robot Runs Easier Than Real Cheetah
- MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
- WildCat Runs Faster Than You, Untethered
- Why, Oh Why, Must We Develop Robots That Run Faster Than I Do?
- Cheetah 2 Robot Now Leaps Obstacles To Get You
- Unitree A1 Robot ala Black Mirror and Snow Crash
| Optimus Robot Will Be A Good Nanny, Says Musk |
| LORIS Passive-Gripper Climbing Robot |
| Athena Smart Security Guard Robot With Face Recognition |
| SpaceHopper Microgravity Robot Lands On Its Feet |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
