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"If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Alterable License Number | ||
| A device which permits a driver to alter the license plate without leaving the vehicle. |
Mary Sperling doesn't want the traffic control cameras to identify her vehicle as she leaves the highway. What to do?
| ...she fumbled in the storage compartment on the instrument board and fumbled, apparently purposelessly.
But the registration number which the traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlway was not the number in which the car was registered. |
| Technovelgy from Methuselah's Children,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
See a slick newfangled idea for implementing the same idea in Daniel Suarez' 2009 novel Daemon - the digital ink license plate.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Methuselah's Children
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Methuselah's Children
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Alterable License Number-related
news articles:
- Lawmaker License Plates Invisible To Traffic Cams
| The 'Last Mile' In China Crowded With Delivery Robots |
| Musk Idea Of Cars Talking To Each Other Predicted 70 Years Ago |
| Waymo And Tesla 'Autonomous Cabs' Are Piloted By Remote Drivers |
| Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode |
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
