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"I identify with the weak person; this is one reason why my fictional protagonists are essentially antiheroes."
- Philip K. Dick
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| Clothing Size Scanner | ||
| A device that scanned a living person to determine clothing sizes. |
Depahli De is interested in a particular suit; is it available in her size?
| "If you'd like to step into our scanner, please?"
The department's scanner raced red lights up and down her form, penetrating her sari to take her measurements. |
| Technovelgy from Sagramanda,
by Alan Dean Foster. Published by Pyr in 2006 Additional resources -
|
The first example of the use of technology to determine size without the need to take clothes off became popular in the 1940's and 1950's. Most shoe stores had an x-ray machine that would show the outlines of the shoe, and the bones of the person's feet, thus ensuring a proper fit. It has been estimated that over 10,000 of these machines were in operation. At the time, the hazards of indiscriminate x-ray use were not known; these machines were outlawed in most states by 1970.
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
