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"There's a tendency to think that maybe if we can just throw enough hardware at the AI problem, then evolution can take care of the rest. Certainly that's how God went about making us."
- Rudy Rucker

Wandering Mine  
  A landmine with legs.  

Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them, like in a sandy wash. And they settled down in the sand and rock, burying themselves, until sand covered them. And then you went away, and the enemy entered the area. And after a preset time, if nothing had crossed them, they dug themselves up, scuttled across the Kalahari on their crab legs, found a new place and buried themselves again. You could preset the range, bury a beacon to keep them fairly close - but the beacon could alert the enemy, so mostly they were set at random, set so as not to wander more then a couple of hundred meters from where they were first buried.
Technovelgy from Half the Day is Night, by Maureen F. McHugh.
Published by Tor in 1994
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Thanks to Bob Yeager for submitting this item.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Half the Day is Night
  More Ideas and Technology by Maureen F. McHugh
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