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"I would say 75% of the economy is now being run by ex-science-fiction fans."
- Greg Bear
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| Shipstone | ||
| A lot of power in a small, manufactured package. |
| The Shipstone complex is mammoth, all right, because they supply cheap power to billions of people who want cheap power and want more of it every year. But it is not a monopoly because they don't own any power; they just package it and ship it around to wherever people want it... |
| Technovelgy from Friday,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Holt, Rhinehart and Winston in 1982 Additional resources -
|
In the story, Shipstones come in various sizes, some large enough to power ocean freighters and even spaceships. Others are smaller, intended to power a home or even a small tool, like a drill.
So whip out your pocket torch, Friday, powered with its own tiny lifetime Shipstone, and search.
Compare to the solid power from Revolt on the Tenth World (1940) by Edmond Hamilton and the kink springs from The Calorie Man (2005), by Paolo Bacigalupi.
...the place was dark as ink...
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- Bloom Box Brick Powers Your Home
- Russia's Self-Contained Nuclear Lighthouses
- Nuclear Batteries Based On Diamonds Last Millennia
| ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's |
| When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You? |
| MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech |
| Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville |
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Science Fiction
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'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
