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"...science fiction is sort of like a sociological genome. It's a huge range of possible futures, most of them useless; some vital. You never really know in advance."
- Peter Watts
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| Ironing Robot | ||
| A robot that smooths the wrinkles out of clothing. |
Future Russians use natural plant fibers to recreate what their "прабабушки" (great-grandmothers) wore.
But, there was a problem. Unlike future clothing, the vintage clothing wrinkled and somehow needed to be smoothed. How could this be accomplished? Better call "Бытовых Автоматов" - Household Automata!
| New clothes had to be protected, periodically clean, wash and dry. Build special base washing and cleaning proved unsustainable, and offered to set up production plants portable washing machines. But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...
Here plant Household Automata and received an urgent task to develop and set up production units of BTR - "бытовые тканевые разглаживатели " (a household fabric smoother). |
| Technovelgy from Iron (утюг),
by Mikhail Mikheev. Published by Not Known in 1972 Additional resources -
|
Senior designer Rodia Semenova submits one design after another; the incredible progress of Russian science causes each to be labeled as insufficiently modern. First, the heating element is replaced by "microgenerators"; then, the microgenerators are discarded in favor of elements of colliding isotopes!
Eventually (*spoiler alert!) it appears that his tough old grandmother had the solution all along - and it was made of cast iron.
This story comes from a collection called "Cute Robots", good luck getting a copy of that, let alone a translation!
(Cute Robots by Mikhail Mikheev)
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
