Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| Homeostatic Newspaper | ||
| An autonomous news-gathering and publishing entity; abbreviated as homeopape. |
In the story, representatives from CURB (Centaurus Urban Renewal Board) newly arrived from Proxima Centaurus try to make sense of what happened during "the Misadventure" - an atomic war that destroyed almost all life on Earth.
| "The structure," the minor CURBman said, "was once a great homeostatic newspaper, the New York Times. It printed itself directly below us... We haven't located the newspaper yet; it was customary for the homeopapes to be buried a mile or so down..."
"...the entire network of newspaper communication and news-creation has been idle since [the Misadventure]... Early the next morning the report from the corps of engineers reached Hood in his temporary office. The power supply of the newspaper had been totally destroyed. But the cephalon, the governing brain structure which guided and oriented the homeostatic system, appeared to be intact... |
| From If There Were No Benny Cemoli,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1963 Additional resources -
|
The homeopape is also described as "a vast complex electronic organism buried deep in the ground, responsible to no one, guided solely by its own ruling circuits." The homeopape gathered information by utilizing "news-gathering services" and "news receptors."
Each edition of the homeopape is printed up and then delivered to a variety of outlets, including kiosks.
In this story, the homeopape begins to describe the political progress of a certain Benny Cemoli, a pre-Misadventure activist political figure who certainly no longer exists. However, the 'pape continues to chronicle his progress throughout the story.
In the story, Dick uses the idea of a newspaper that creates itself to mock our certainty that there is a single, shared sequence of objectively verifiable events. However, a homeopape is more than just a literary device; Google News, which is created without any human intervention, is certainly the first homeostatic newspaper.
PKD continued to work with this literary device; see the article on homeopape for more information.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from If There Were No Benny Cemoli
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to If There Were No Benny Cemoli
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Homeostatic Newspaper-related
news articles:
- Computational Journalism The Homeostatic Newspaper
- Narrative Science And Phil Dick's Homeostatic Newspaper
| 'Facetime Facelift' Beautifies Video Chats |
| Meeting Wendy Of Wendy's |
| Narrative Science And Phil Dick's Homeostatic Newspaper |
| BookTrack Adds Sound To Books |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Copseyes floated overhead... each a sonic stunner... they were there to enforce the law...'
'It was not a large office, but it was quite spy-proof and quite undetectably so.'
When you hear that music, you know you're in for adventure - and predictions of possible technological futures!
'Vergil had trained the lymphocytes in the past six months to interact as much as possible with each other and with their environment...'
'This was really free power... Power carried across millions of miles on Addison's tight-beam principle.'
'Whoever was placed inside the apparatus instantaneously experienced all the charms, lures, wiles, winks and witchery of all the fairer sex in the Universe at once.'
