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"What we're doing pop culturally is like burning the rain forest. The biodiversity of pop culture is really, really in danger."
- William Gibson
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| Shipstone | ||
| A lot of power in a small, manufactured package. |
| The Shipstone complex is mammoth, all right, because they supply cheap power to billions of people who want cheap power and want more of it every year. But it is not a monopoly because they don't own any power; they just package it and ship it around to wherever people want it... |
| Technovelgy from Friday,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Holt, Rhinehart and Winston in 1982 Additional resources -
|
In the story, Shipstones come in various sizes, some large enough to power ocean freighters and even spaceships. Others are smaller, intended to power a home or even a small tool, like a drill.
So whip out your pocket torch, Friday, powered with its own tiny lifetime Shipstone, and search.
Compare to the solid power from Revolt on the Tenth World (1940) by Edmond Hamilton and the kink springs from The Calorie Man (2005), by Paolo Bacigalupi.
...the place was dark as ink...
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Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
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- EEStor Ultracapacitor 'Battery' And Heinlein's Shipstone
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- Bloom Box Brick Powers Your Home
- Russia's Self-Contained Nuclear Lighthouses
- Nuclear Batteries Based On Diamonds Last Millennia
| When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You? |
| MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech |
| Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville |
| US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger |
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'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
