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The cloudy crystal ball
Nov. 7th, 2012 02:07 pmFrom The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth (1952):
A team of designers went to work on an automatic [spacecraft] pilot. When it was done it worked pretty well. And weighed four and one half tons in spite of printed circuits and relays constructed under a microscope.
However, that book does contain, somewhere, the following timeless characterization:
The government --- odd how we talk about that clearinghouse for pressure groups as if it had a will of its own ---...
Speaking of government, it is a pleasure to observe that (as I expected) an attempt to base a majority coalition on desperate meanness has failed.
A team of designers went to work on an automatic [spacecraft] pilot. When it was done it worked pretty well. And weighed four and one half tons in spite of printed circuits and relays constructed under a microscope.
However, that book does contain, somewhere, the following timeless characterization:
The government --- odd how we talk about that clearinghouse for pressure groups as if it had a will of its own ---...
Speaking of government, it is a pleasure to observe that (as I expected) an attempt to base a majority coalition on desperate meanness has failed.
