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"[Science fiction is] an integration of the mood and attitude of science (the objective universe) with the fears and hopes that spring from the unconscious."
- Gregory Benford
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| Transo | ||
| Teleportation of objects and personnel, used as the basis for "Trading Post" stores across the planet. |
This is one of those great Simak stories that never go out of style. In the book, human travelers are able to bring back alien technologies from distant worlds. One of them is a workable teleportation system.
| The back door opened to his knock and they walked into the back room of the Trading Post. Up near the door that went into the front part of the store stood a massive box-like structure, and Blaine, although he'd never seen one, recognized it immediately as a transo -- the matter transference machine which made the vast network of Trading Posts stretched around the globe an economic possibility. Through that box could come, with a moment's notice, any of the merchandise for which any of the thousands of retail outlets might find itself in need. |
| Technovelgy from Time is the Simplest Thing,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Doubleday in 1961 Additional resources -
|
One of the interesting themes explored repeatedly in the book is the effect that advanced alien technologies have on Earth economic systems. In our current era of globalization, the U.S. is encountering the effects of great technologies developed in other parts of the world.
For example, Europeans demanded that cell phones work in all of the countries of the European Union. As a result, they learned to have rigorous standards; phone companies met those standards. And that's how Nokia, a Finnish company, came to be a major player in world cell phone technology.
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- Deterministic Quantum-State Teleportation Achieved With High Fidelity
| Nifty Folding Electric Bicycles! |
| Boring Company Drills Asimov's Single Vehicle Tunnels |
| Boring Company Vegas Loop Like Asimov Said |
| SpaceX Rocket Shuttle Point-To-Point On Earth |
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'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
