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"Retire? Yeah, I want to die with my head in the typewriter. That's my idea of retirement."
- Alfred Bester
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| Clothing Size Scanner | ||
| A device that scanned a living person to determine clothing sizes. |
Depahli De is interested in a particular suit; is it available in her size?
| "If you'd like to step into our scanner, please?"
The department's scanner raced red lights up and down her form, penetrating her sari to take her measurements. |
| Technovelgy from Sagramanda,
by Alan Dean Foster. Published by Pyr in 2006 Additional resources -
|
The first example of the use of technology to determine size without the need to take clothes off became popular in the 1940's and 1950's. Most shoe stores had an x-ray machine that would show the outlines of the shoe, and the bones of the person's feet, thus ensuring a proper fit. It has been estimated that over 10,000 of these machines were in operation. At the time, the hazards of indiscriminate x-ray use were not known; these machines were outlawed in most states by 1970.
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'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.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
