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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
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| Truffle Skins | ||
| Genetically unique skins are the common currency; their special genetic makeup makes forgery impossible. |
How to solve the problem of counterfeiting? We've been working on that one for thousands of years. We put serrated edges on quarters to keep people from shaving them smaller and smaller.
We use special ink and special paper. You can even buy counterfeit detectors.
But what if it was impossible to duplicate money?
| Seating himself at the table beside the display case, Mr. Icholtz brought out his wallet and began counting out skins. "Very little publicity will be attached to this at first.
But eventually--" He offered Hnatt the stack of brown, wrinkled, truffle-skins which served as tender in the Sol system: the only molecule, a unique protein amino acid, which could not be duplicated by the Printers, the Biltong life forms employed in place of automated assembly lines by many of Terra's industries. |
| Technovelgy from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Doubleday in 1965 Additional resources -
|
A remarkable idea; it also builds on the origin of the word 'skins as a slang term for money. In the early history of North America, fur trappers would bring their catch to a trading post to barter for supplies. How many buck skins for that rifle? How many bucks?
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and Technology from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
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Tech news articles related to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
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Truffle Skins-related
news articles:
- DNA Authenticators: Anti-Counterfeiting Proposed by Philip K. Dick
- Unique DNA To Foil Parts Counterfeiters
| Sleep Pods At Daxing International Airport |
| Amazon Blimp Parent Drone Concept |
| Tortoise Mobile Smart Stores |
| Sony Pocket Air Conditioner Is Phil Dick's Idea! |
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'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
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'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
