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"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson
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| Directional Ticket | ||
| A ticket that also has the property of glowing while you are going toward what you bought. |
Here's another handy device, one that could be implemented in real life in a variety of ways. For example, how about a theater ticket that actually helped you find your seat. It could be implemented with a system of scanners, with an embedded RFID tag in the ticket itself. Ushers - enjoy your sinecures while you can! The fact that they are lighted would be of help also.
| "Where do I go?" "Follow the light. The ticket will keep glowing as long as you're pointed in the right direction." |
| Technovelgy from Foundation,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Doubleday in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Another example of a device that gives you valuable feedback is a battery that has a test strip built-in. I don't know how cheap the test strip has to be before it makes sense to put one on every battery, but I'll bet theater tickets are expensive enough provide the necessary margin. Maybe the ticket itself doesn't light up, but when you pass through a set of gates, a sensor in the gate tells you if you are going in the right direction.
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
