Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"One can see the free software movement as a precusor for a "free hardware" or "free wetware" movement--one that will provide free libraries of designs for biological or nanotechnological products that replicators can be programmed to churn out."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Decibel Alarms | ||
| Alarms that would go off if the noise in public gathering places was rising to riotous levels. |
This item not only predicts recent developments in surveillance technology by thirty years (see related links below), but also provides some instruction on how to evade this technology as well. That's full-service futurism.
| Decibel alarms were legally required in every meeting hall, including churches, but clever agitators could and had sabotaged them so that the suppressant gases were not released when the "noise" level reached the sharp pitch of incipient riot. The professional agitators had also learned how to modulate their voices below the danger level, carefully goading their victims into the spontaneous combustion which neither gas nor water jets could control. |
| From A Bridle for Pegasus,
by Anne McCaffrey. Published by Analog in 1973 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Erika for sending in this item.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from A Bridle for Pegasus
More Ideas
and Technology by Anne McCaffrey
Tech news articles related to A Bridle for Pegasus
Tech news articles related to works by Anne McCaffrey
Decibel Alarms-related
news articles:
- Detect Aggressive Voices With Sigard By Sound Intelligence
| Phil Nuyttnn's City Under The Sea |
| Stick-On Tape Speakers, As Predicted By Bruce Sterling |
| Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens? |
| Skin Electronics 3D Printed |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Of course not a vehicle moved by means of internal explosions of a derivative of rock oil...'
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
'If you couldn't see the ads, how would you know what was fashionable?'
'Its lines wavered, flowed, and then painfully reformed.'
'Had these machines in some incredible fashion been provided with brains?'
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE what we wanted and she took care of it'
'Under the lower roof there was no water, but a clear and luminous atmosphere...'
