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"There was a time when one old eccentric guy with a notebook could do something important to science. Now even the resources of a major university are often not enough."
- Jerry Pournelle
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| Automatic Delivery Library | ||
| A library able to deliver any volume within a few moments. |
Everyone with piles of books around the house would really like to have one of these.
| "Knock you cold? Kidnap you? Circus costume?" repeated the dictator, with a puzzled expression. "I do not know those words. They have a very queer antique sound. If you will excuse me, I shall investigate." While his visitors looked on with wide, gaping eyes he pressed a lettered button that stood with hundreds of others on a dial at one end of the room. A few seconds passed in silence; then a panel on the wall rattled open, and a huge volume slid in through a pneumatic tube and arranged itself neatly on a table. "This dictionary isn't exactly up-to-the-minute," remarked Spratt, as he thumbed through the thousands of pages. "It dates back to the late twenty-four twenties. ... Ah, here we are. 'Kidnap. Obsolete. To steal bodily. Refers to a barbarous practice of the Ages of Confusion, no case of which has been known for over three hundred years." |
| Technovelgy from The Lord of Tranerica,
by Stanton A. Coblentz. Published by Dynamic Science Stories in 1939 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the universal dictionary from The Star Beast (1954) by Robert Heinlein and the robot librarian filer from The Robot Who Wanted to Know (1962) by Harry Harrison.
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and Technology from The Lord of Tranerica
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Tech news articles related to The Lord of Tranerica
Tech news articles related to works by Stanton A. Coblentz
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- The Library Of The Future
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| Centipede Robots Down On The Farm |
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| Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
