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"If I had to get a new Ph.D. now, I'd get it in polymer engineering - the manipulation of matter."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Machine Apartment | ||
| Each person lives isolated in their own room, supported by a vast planetary machine. |
Fascinating picture presented of life in isolation.
| Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk--that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh--a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs... |
| Technovelgy from The Machine Stops,
by E.M. Forster. Published by Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1909 Additional resources -
|
Everything you need - information, food, even medical care - is provided to you. No one needs to leave their room.
The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well.
See the reference for the telemedicine apparatus from the same story. See also micro-bachelor apartment from Idoru by William Gibson, automated apartment maintenance from Ubik by Philip K. Dick and Quadraturin from Quadraturin, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanowsky.
Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian music.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Machine Stops
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and Technology by E.M. Forster
Tech news articles related to The Machine Stops
Tech news articles related to works by E.M. Forster
Machine Apartment-related
news articles:
- Hotel Room Of The Future Is German, Retrotastic
| With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need |
| Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast |
| LiquidView Ersatz Windows, ala Philip K. Dick |
| Solar House Concept Unfolds Solar Panels Like A Flower |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
