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"We each live in a somewhat unique world of our own psychological content."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Servok | ||
| An 'automatic' or clock-set mechanism to perform simple tasks. |
| Every available space in the room was crowded with exotic wet-climate plants. Something rustled in the greenery. She tensed, then glimpsed a simple clock-set servok with pipe and hose arms. An arm lifted, sent out a fine spray of dampness that misted her cheeks. The arm retracted and she looked at what it had watered: a fern tree. |
| Technovelgy from Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
In the appendix to the book (provided by Herbert), servok is defined this way:
Compare to the asteroid garden from Asteroid of Fear (1951) by Raymond Z. Gallun, Martian sawgrass" from QRM - Interplanetary (1942) by George O. Smith and lifezones from Tides of Light (1989) by Gregory Benford.
SERVOK: clock-set mechanism to perform simple tasks; one of the limited "automatic" devices permitted after the Butlerian Jihad.
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'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
