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"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Death-rattle File | ||
| A cache of information set to destroy itself upon the death of its owner. |
| "I note everything, Lars. Yes, it's in my death-rattle file." Death-rattle ... the fireproof, Third-World-War proof, Titanian bolecricket-proof, well-hidden file-cases which were rigged to detonate in the event of Morris' death. He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat. Even Lars did not know where the files currently existed... |
| Technovelgy from The Zap Gun,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1965 Additional resources -
|
One of the reasons I included this item is that it is a very early reference to the idea of a tag or medallion that performed a medical monitoring function, and then communicated particular events wirelessly to another location.
For us today, this is an old idea; we've all seen the commercials for medic-alert medallions worn by people who say "I've fallen, and I can't get up..."
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| Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans |
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'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.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'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...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
