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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Ecstasy Plug | ||
| An implanted module that allowed a wirehead to plug himself into ordinary house current. |
Gil Hamilton is investigating the death of his friend Owen, finding him in a chair mere feet from food and water. What killed him?
| It was a standard surgical job. Owen could have had it done anywhere. A hole in his scalp, invisible under the hair, nearly impossible to find even if you knew what you were looking for. Even your best friends wouldn't know, unless they caught you with the droud plugged in. But the tiny hole marked a bigger plug set in the bone of the skull. I touched the ecstasy plug with my imaginary fingertips, then ran down the hair-fine wire going deep into Owen's brain, down into the pleasure center.
No, the extra current hadn't killed him. What had killed Owen was his lack of willpower. He had been unwilling to get up. |
| Technovelgy from Death by Ecstasy,
by Larry Niven. Published by Galaxy Magazine in 1969 Additional resources -
|
See also the entry for droud from the same story.
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Tech news articles related to Death by Ecstasy
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Ecstasy Plug-related
news articles:
- 'Sex Chip' Like Niven's Ecstasy Plug
- Ultrathin Brain Needle Developed At MIT
- PEDOT Polymer Could Enhance Brain-Machine Interfaces
| Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea. |
| Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts |
| Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick |
| ErythroMer Artificial Blood |
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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.'
