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"The idea I want to push next is that the United States should make Siberia a Protectorate. Pay the Russians off – a hundred, two hundred billion dollars – and simply run Siberia in an ecologically responsible way."
- Gregory Benford
 |
| Disease Circuit | ||
| A feature of robotic animals which indicated a need to repair by emulating animal sickness. |
John Isidore "had his job, driving a pickup and delivery truck for a false-animal repair firm; the Van Ness Pet Hospital."
| The electric mechanism, within its compellingly authentic-style gray pelt, gurgled and blew bubbles, its vileness glassy, its metal jaws locked together. This had always amazed him, these "disease" circuits built into false animals; the construct which he now held on his lap had been put together in such a fashion that when a primary component misfired, the whole thing appeared - not broken - but organically ill. It would have fooled me, Isidore said to himself as he groped within the ersatz stomach fur for the concealed control panel (quite small on this variety of false animal) plus the quick-charge battery terminals. He could find neither. Nor could he search very long: the mechanism had almost failed. If it does consist of a short, he reflected, which is busy burning out circuits, then maybe I should try to detach one of the battery cables; the mechanism will shut down, but no more harm will be done. |
| Technovelgy from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Doubleday in 1968 Additional resources -
|
It turns out that the animal that Isidore is examining is a real cat, which is why he cannot find its control panel or batteries. The head of his repair shop makes this statement:
"... the fakes are beginning to be darn near real, what with those disease circuits they're building into the new ones..."
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Disease Circuit-related
news articles:
- Robotic Dog, Cat For Cornell Sim-Based Veterinarian Hospital
- Meet Spot, The Electric Quadrupedal, Er, Robot Dog
- Sony's New, Cuter Aibo Robot Puppy
| Epirus High-Power Microwave Defeats Drones |
| It's A Giant Robot! You Reporters Have Been Warned! |
| Tactile Skin Supplier Map |
| Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo |
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
