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"Concepts of religion may now be goals of science and engineering."
- Bart Kosko
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| Scuttle-bot | ||
| An all-purpose surveillance robot that climbed rather than flew. |
I like to think that the clever name of this robot is back-formed from "scuttlebutt", a nautical term for gossip or rumors. The scuttlebutt was a ship's equivalent to a water cooler, a cask of fresh water for drinking.
| A scuttle-bot could climb a tree and anchor itself, just listening and watching, sniffing and measuring, constantly reporting back. Usually scuttle-bots worked in teams, with one on the ground and several more at various heights all the way up. |
| Technovelgy from Hella,
by David Gerrold. Published by DAW Books in 2020 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the robot tracking device from Vulcan's Hammer (1960) by Philip K. Dick, the robot snake spy from Mariposa (2009) by Greg Bear and the tracer bird from Changeling (1980) by Roger Zelazny.
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'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
