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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Needle Pipe | ||
| A device that could project slivers of metal at near light speed. |
| The electronic needle pipe was a foot-long metallic pipe with a diameter the size of a small human finger. It had a large, round metallic base, to be operated with two hands.
It projected a very small stream of electrons, which carried with them a tiny, sharp-pointed fragment of metal, like a needle. But when it struck it solidified. There was a range finder for aiming, and a device for curving the electronic stream, so that the beam could be sent around almost any degree of curvature. |
| Technovelgy from Beyond the Stars,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Ace in 1928 Additional resources -
|
David Gerrold, in his War Against the Chtorr novels of the 1980's, wrote about something very similar to this. It was a gun that sprayed (I think electromagnetically) thousands of stainless steel needles per minute. See AMD Needle Rifle from A Matter for Men (1983) by David Gerrold.
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'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'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.
