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"I have a standard axiom: all governments lie. Don't believe anything they say. And corporations are only kinds of government."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Housefly Monitor | ||
| A living fly that is outfitted with sensors for surveillance work. |
| "I'm Bill Behren... Operator of fly 33408. Now, as you may or may not remember fly 33408 is a real winner. I mean it really gets in there and tackles its job and really gathers up the stuff, the real hot stuff. I've personally been operator for, say, fifty flies... but in all this time, none has really performed true blue like this little fella. I think he - or it, or whatever they are these days - deserves a vote of thanks from all of us involved in this delicate work we do. Right, Herr von Einem?" operator of Housefly 33048 Bill Behren paused hopefully.
"There are just plain virtually no houseflies as intelligent as this..." |
| Technovelgy from Lies, Inc.,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Fantastic in 1964 Additional resources -
|
Behren's supervisor is somewhat unhappy with his work; he has an interesting idea for a replacement:
Followers of this technology know that this sfnal idea has been actively pursued by DARPA; see these articles on the HI-MEMS: Cyborg Beetle Microsystem and Control Circuits Embedded In Pupal Stage Successfully . One reason for the choice of insect for this and other programs is that the size of the insect allows the developer to add more features to embedded electronics.
Time for a replacement of both Behren and his dipterous insect, both of them with one arboreal, American orthopterous katydid; it would carry twice the minned receptors and recording spools of 33048 and probably would possess the brain convolutions of Behren and his housefly put together.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Lies, Inc.
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to Lies, Inc.
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Housefly Monitor-related
news articles:
- DARPA Cyborg Insects With Nuclear-Powered Transponders
- Is Noam Chomsky As Paranoid As Philip K. Dick?
- Bee Narcs To Perform Drug 'Stings'
| FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers |
| Perching Ambush Drones |
| India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking |
| LingYuan Vehicle Roof Drones Now Available, ala Blade Runner 2049 |
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'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
