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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Bio-Energy | ||
| The first reference to extracting electricity from organic materials. |
This is certainly the first reference I can find in anything like fiction; were there any scientific inquiries at the time?
| In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals. The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes.
In a few days we came back to town; and his excellency, considering the bad character he had in the academy, would not go with me himself, but recommended me to a friend of his, to bear me company thither. This academy is not an entire single building, but a continuation of several houses on both sides of a street, which growing waste, was purchased and applied to that use. I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them. |
| Technovelgy from Gulliver's Travels,
by Jonathan Swift. Published by Benjamin Motte in 1726 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Simon Smith for this entry.
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and Technology from Gulliver's Travels
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and Technology by Jonathan Swift
Tech news articles related to Gulliver's Travels
Tech news articles related to works by Jonathan Swift
Bio-Energy-related
news articles:
- Tactical Biorefinery Turns Garbage Into Energy
| Giant Lunar Surface Test Bed Built On Earth |
| Zai Pits (West Sahel) And Dew Collectors (Dune) |
| Away Rude Mechanicals! I Want Self-Sensing Variable-Stiffness Artificial Muscles. |
| 3D Printing In Mid-Air |
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'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'If you surf over a bump... If you surf over a pothole...'
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...'
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed...'
'...copy two of the original document no longer can be superimposed on copy one.'
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines.'
'I have transferred the ego of a dog to a synthetic dog brain in the skull case of a robot dog.'
