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"I forged a concept which is relatively simple and possibly unique in theology, and that is, the irrational is the primordial stratum of the universe."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Communication Disk | ||
| A wearable device that told the time as updated from a central source. |
| Back in his room, Garry pressed the 'time' button on the tiny communication disk strapped to his left upper-arm. "Eight-twenty-six," the metallic voice of the Central Chronometer Broadcast responded. |
| Technovelgy from Exiles of the Moon,
by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat). Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
The innovation here is that a person could get the time from a central source, rather than a local timepiece that had been synchronized with a central source (but which now varied).
As early as 1904, the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) was broadcasting time signals from the city of Boston as an aid to navigation. In 1922, the BBC added time "pips' to their broadcast to aid in time synchrony. In the 1850's, a Meridian Circle Telescope was installed in the University of Michigan's Detroit Observatory in Ann Arbor; the time as determined from observation of stars and the Sun was used to coordinate shipping and trains in the Great Lakes region.
Today, of course, we all carry smartphones that get their time directly from a central source.
The communication disk also served as a telephone:
But the dead flatness of her voice against the tiny diaphragm told her that this device too was altered to enforce obedience to the edict her parent had but now pronounced...
Compare to the pulse-timer from Heretics of Dune (1984), by Frank Herbert and the voice-clock from The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury.
She seized her jewelled communication disk and in a voice rendered almost unrecognizable by fury, called: "Father! Father!"
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
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'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
