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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
- Peter Watts
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| Dustplug | ||
| A cover specially made to protect one's microsoft socket; a tongue retainer for your brain. |
Since the socket for a microsoft (a small piece of electronics that is hardware, software and content all in one) is implanted directly into your brain tissue, I think that it is appropriate to take proper care of it when not in use.
There also may be particular social contexts in which one might not want to flaunt one's wired status.
| Among the dozen-odd microsofts the Dutchman had given him was one that would allow a limited fluency in Spanish, but in Vallarta he'd fumbled behind his left ear and inserted a dustplug instead, hiding the socket and plug beneath a square of flesh-tone micropore. A passenger near the back of the bus had a radio. A voice had periodically interrupted the brassy pop to recite a kind of litany, strings of ten-digit figures, the day's winning numbers in the national lottery. |
| Technovelgy from Count Zero,
by William Gibson. Published by Arbor House in 1986 Additional resources -
|
The original analog to a dustplug is a special flesh-colored earring that both conceals the hole in your ear and keeps it from closing up.
The more modern version is an acrylic tongue retainer, used to hide your tongue piercing while keeping the hole open. (BTW, you can get them in both flesh color and clear.) For use before your interview with that big zaibatsu you always wanted to work for.
You'll need one of these if you get a carbon socket to allow you to slot extra firmware into your brain - see microsoft from Gibson's Neuromancer.
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'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
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'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
