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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Lens Image | ||
| A presentation of the night sky, calculated for any planet or point in space. |
The key point about this is that it is not simply a planetarium, which has a fixed viewpoint - namely, the earth. The Lens Image is calculated anew for every presentation.
| The Lens was perhaps the newest feature of the interstellar cruisers of the day. Actually, it was a complicated calculating machine which could throw on a screen a reproduction of the night sky as seen from any given point of the Galaxy.
Channis adjusted the co-ordinate points and the wall lights of the pilot room were extinguished... Slowly, as the induction period passed, the points of light brightened on the screen... "This," explained Channis, "is the winter night-sky as seen from Trantor..." |
| Technovelgy from Second Foundation,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Doubleday in 1953 Additional resources -
|
You cannot yet (as far as I know!) buy a program or device that will let you calculate the night sky for anywhere in the Galaxy.
However, you can get software programs like Starry Night that will calculate the night sky view from the major planets of the solar system.
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
