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"What we're doing pop culturally is like burning the rain forest. The biodiversity of pop culture is really, really in danger."
- William Gibson
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| Servok | ||
| An 'automatic' or clock-set mechanism to perform simple tasks. |
| Every available space in the room was crowded with exotic wet-climate plants. Something rustled in the greenery. She tensed, then glimpsed a simple clock-set servok with pipe and hose arms. An arm lifted, sent out a fine spray of dampness that misted her cheeks. The arm retracted and she looked at what it had watered: a fern tree. |
| From Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
In the appendix to the book (provided by Herbert), servok is defined this way:
Compare to the asteroid garden from Asteroid of Fear (1951) by Raymond Z. Gallun, Martian sawgrass" from QRM - Interplanetary (1942) by George O. Smith and lifezones from Tides of Light (1989) by Gregory Benford.
SERVOK: clock-set mechanism to perform simple tasks; one of the limited "automatic" devices permitted after the Butlerian Jihad.
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'... sweating, heat-blistered engineers at every interplanetary radiograph station on three planets.'
'The huge plow... seemed to shake itself - and began to move back southward.'
'... he went to the hall closet to get his pith helmet and his mandatory cooling-unit.'
'We still use people at the main gates, but here it's an automated sentry.'
