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"Another reason why privacy could be just a passing fad, terrorism is going to get too good. [1997]"
- Larry Niven
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| Screensaver (Inventor of) | ||
| Screen savers are used to prevent phosphor burnout in CRTs, and to provide restful entertainment on computer screens. |
As far as I know, this is the first reference to what later became known as "screensavers." The current implementation of the aquarium screensaver is pretty good, but only in two dimensions.
| They went to the living room; Jill sat at his feet and they applied themselves to martinis. Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known winchell Augustus Greaves. |
| Technovelgy from Stranger in a Strange Land,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Putnam in 1961 Additional resources -
|
For those who have already forgotten, "screen savers" received their name because they were used on computers that used cathode ray tubes as output devices. A CRT uses an electron gun to shoot particles at the phosphor on the back of the screen, causing tiny points of light to appear; constantly varying the images prevents the screen phosphor from being permanently marked if the electron gun points at the same point of the screen.
Today, of course, screen saver is a term for something entertaining to put on your computer screen while you are not doing anything with it.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Stranger in a Strange Land
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Stranger in a Strange Land
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Screensaver (Inventor of)-related
news articles:
- Electric Sheep Distributed Screen-Saver: Collective Computer Unconsious
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
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'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...'
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...'
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
