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"I'm strictly an ivory-tower person. I can explain things but I can't do things."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Homotropic News Vending Machine | ||
| An autonomous news-selling robot, that was able to specifically seek out human beings. |
I especially like the fact that this robot is "homotropic," meaning that it turns towards and seeks out human beings. By analogy with heliotropic flowers, so-called because they track the motion of the sun.
| At the door of the restaurant an automated news vending machine appeared, with a late edition of the Chronicle. It's Rushmore Effect bleated out "Special coverage of the Luckman murder case." The restaurant, with the exception of their party, was empty; the news vending machine, being homotropic, headed toward them, still bleating. "The Chronicle's own circuit investigates, and discloses startling new details not found in the Examiner or the News-Call Bulletin. It waved the newspaper in their faces.
Getting out a coin, Sharp inserted it in the slot of the machine; it at once presented him with a copy of the paper and pulled back out of the restaurant, to hunt for more people. |
| From The Game Players of Titan,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Ace Books in 1963 Additional resources -
|
This news vending machine and its habits match up well with the homeostatic newspapers or homeopapes used to create the news in other stories.
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and Technology from The Game Players of Titan
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and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Game Players of Titan
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
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| Narrative Science And Phil Dick's Homeostatic Newspaper |
| BookTrack Adds Sound To Books |
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'Out in the New Moon, just ask for what you want...'
'For long-distance calls the ratio of commercial to conversation was as high as 10 to 1...'
'...unseen mechanical entities... that are in our very midst. One of them following each of us.'
