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"The best fuzzy rules, the best knowledge, deal with the turning points of the system. If a race-car driver teaches you how to drive, you don't need him to show you how to drive on the straightaway. It's how he handles the curves that matters."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Ether Boat | ||
| A space craft. |
The "ether" referred to here is not a soporific gas, but rather the theorized transmission medium of light and gravity in the absence of all matter - the emptiness of space.
| In the dim interior of an ether boat, two men labored over a pile of rock lumps. They were dressed warmly in sweaters and thick skin-tight trousers. The inner sections of an ether boat were hard to keep warm, especially when the vacuum locks to the outside were used frequently. Every time the lock was opened and the air rushed out, the new air that filled the space when the outer door closed absorbed the intense frigidity of the bare metal wall of the lock chamber. Then, when the inner door to the boat proper was Opened, this frosted air swept in and quickly lowered the average temperature. It was all the electric heaters could do to keep the heat up to just past the freezing point of water. |
| Technovelgy from Murder on the Asteroid,
by Eando Binder. Published by Wonder Stories in 1933 Additional resources -
|
More details:
With a mighty rumble the rear tubes blasted
their song Of power and in a graceful arc the little blunt-nosed, cylindrical ether boat left its roosting
place. Once safely away from the asteroid, Timothy
reset the keyboard for a straight course...
He climbed the short ladder to the pilot room which
was a little one man cell whose roof was glass almost
as tough and strong as steel. He seated himself in
the pilot seat and gazed around with bleary eyes.
From this position the pilot commanded the entire
view on all sides and also upward...
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
