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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko
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| Mass Pointer | ||
| Tells you where the really large (star-sized) masses are while you travel in hyperspace. |
| The mass pointer is a big transparent sphere with a number of blue lines radiating from the center. The direction of the line is the direction of a star; its length shows the star's mass. We wouldn't need pilots if the mass pointer could be hooked into an autopilot, but it can't. Dependable as it is, accurate as it is, the mass pointer is a psionic device. It needs a mind to work it. I'd been using mass pointers for so long that those lines were like real stars. |
| Technovelgy from Crashlander,
by Larry Niven. Published by Del Rey in 1994 Additional resources -
|
From the short story At the Core.
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| First Trips To Mars Announced By Elon Musk |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
