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"It's hard to tell stories about critters that are not human. John W. Campbell tried it, in "Twilight," and everybody says it's a wonderful story, and nobody ever reads it twice."
- Jerry Pournelle

Boulder  
  A device that homed in on a person's brain wave pattern; a very specific assassination device.  

The weapon which Herb Lackmore had been provided with contained a costly replica of the encephalic brainwave pattern of James Briskin. He needed merely to place the device within a few miles of Briskin, screw in the handle, and then, with a switch, detonate it.

It was a mechanism, he decided, which provided little if any personal satisfaction.

Technovelgy from Cantata 140, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1964
Additional resources -

This device is a perfect example of needle-eyeification, a concept that Dick elucidates with gusto in his 1965 novel The Zap Gun.

Compare this device to the mechanical cobra from Roger Zelazny's 1967 masterpiece Lord of Light

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Cantata 140
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Cantata 140
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