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"Why does a creative person create? It's a type of compulsion. I like to explore new ideas."
- Bart Kosko
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| Guide-Beam | ||
| A wireless means of controlling and directing the movement of a passenger vehicle. |
| He spun off down the road, allowing the car to operate on the New York guide-beam. It was safer that wy. And a lot quickr. He didn't mind having his car operated from a hundred miles off. All the other cars racing along the eight-lane highway were guide operated. Made accidents almost impossible, and meant he could enjoy the countryside...
Something picked up the car and hurled it from the road. The guide had failed. Interference. That was his last thought. |
| Technovelgy from Time Pawn,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1954 Additional resources -
|
This is how it appeared in Dr. Futurity six years later:
Compare with the Camden speedster from Robert Heinlein's 1941 story Methuselah's Children. Charles Stross came up with a very interesting variation on this idea in his 2007 novel Halting State; see driverless drones.
He spun off down the road, allowing the car to operate on the San Francisco guide-beam north. It was safer that way, especially on U.S. 101. And a lot quicker. He didn't mind having his car operated from a hundred miles off. All the other cars racing along the sixteen lane highway were guide-operated, too, those going his way and those heading in the opposite direction, on the analog south highway to Los Angeles. It made accidents almost impossible, and meant he could enjoy the educational notices which various universities traditionally posted along the route. And, behind the notices, the countryside.
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'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
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'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
