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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
 |
| Talking Speedometer | ||
| A gauge that tells you its value verbally |
This is an early use of the idea of a gauge that does not need you to look at it to get a "reading."
| He pressed the accelerator under his finger, and as he passed the 150-k.p.h. mark the speedometer's mechanical whisper cut in- "One sixty- One sixty-eight- One eighty-" |
| From Biddiver,
by Theodore Sturgeon. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Sturgeon couldn't resist adding another example:
"Four hundred twelve k.p.h.-"
"Altitude twenty-three thousand fifty-"
He went quite peacefully to sleep then, ignoring the new whispering voice that joined that of the speedometer:
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Tech news articles related to Biddiver
Tech news articles related to works by Theodore Sturgeon
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| DARPA's Virtual Caves Explored By Virtual Robots |
| Samsung Gets Transparent Smartphone Patent |
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'... with large padded feet, who were apparently polishing their way the whole length of Rama's six artificial suns.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray on its upper surface...'
'the human seats took up two-thirds of the room in each'
'the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits...'
'Over her lacerated right shoulder he sprayed art-derm...'
Now, that was a Pontiac Trans Am with some real style.
'There is a built-in microphone that hears everything you say, and an electric brain that selects a suitable answer.'
