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"...a market economy is essentially a genetic algorithm for solving resource allocation problems..."
- Charles Stross
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| Antigravity Plate (Antigravity Raft) | ||
| A thin, circular craft that floats. |
| As the spaceship vanished into the steamy mists of Eristan II, Professor Jamieson drew his gun. He felt physically sick, battered, by the way he had been carried for so many long moments in the furious wind stream of the great ship. But the sense of danger held him tense there in the harness that was attached by metal cables to the now gently swaying antigravity plate above him. With narrowed eyes, he stared up at the ezwal which was peering cautiously down at him over the edge of the antigravity plate.
 ('Co-Operate or Else' by A.E. van Vogt) "You and I, Professor Jamieson, understand each other very well. Of the hundred-odd men on your ship, only you remain alive. Out of all the human race, therefore, only you know that the ezwals of what you call Carson’s Planet are not senseless beasts, but intelligent beings. "I could have stayed on the ship, and so eventually reached home. But rather than take the slightest risk of your escaping the jungle dangers below, I took the desperate chance of jumping on top of this antigravity raft just as you were launching yourself out of the lock." |
| Technovelgy from Co-Operate or Else,
by A.E. van Vogt. Published by Astounding in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Winchell Chung (@nyrath) for pointing this out.
Here's another example from The Rull (1948):
The Rull flew out of a clump of trees mounted on an antigravity plate. The surprise of that was so great that it almost succeeded.
(Antigravity Plate from 'The Rull' by AE van Vogt)
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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.'
