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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross
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| Selectacol | ||
| A device that automates the interior design process, providing a choice of color schemes for a roomful of furniture. |
Another great sixties kind-of-name. But an interesting concept; it's hard to see how it could be implemented, unless you used basically white or neutral colors and then changed the light color.
If you long for a selectacol, but are unwilling to wait for automatic decorating, find tips at The Sheffield School of Interior Design.
| Orne glanced around at the Bullone guest room: low-key furnishings with an old-fashioned selectacol for change of color scheme. A polawindow looked out onto an oval swimming pool. The glass had been muted to dark blue. This imparted a moonlit appearance to the view outside. |
| Technovelgy from The Godmakers,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Medallion in 1972 Additional resources -
|
In the novel, Lewis Orne is a person with exceptional, undiscovered abilities. One of the key themes explored in the book is the idea of free will - and whether or not people should be allowed to make choices.
The notion of being able to instantly transform your home into any of a set of interior design schemes also reveals the nature of the people who live in the house. They are also capable of transforming themselves over time to incorporate various political "colors" and schemes.
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| AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home |
| With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need |
| Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast |
| LiquidView Ersatz Windows, ala Philip K. Dick |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
