Frolix-8

Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Although great, this does not in any way justify the existence of Twitter. Many thanks to @olafquintessa

Sales Pitch - "In addition to carrying the woman’s shopping basket, the robot reminds her to get the mandarin oranges, recommends the apples (which the robot says are delicious this season), reminds her to get the broccoli, and suggests including lettuce in her salad along with the broccoli. On several occasions, the robot remarks on how delicious the items look."

Faith Of Our Fathers - "There are several possible side effects to the drug, according to the Mayo Clinic. They include dizziness, headaches, abdominal discomfort, confusion, sleepwalking and nightmares."

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Philip K. Dick's kid howls over Googlephone handle (Happy 81st, PKD)

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale - "Researchers have long sought to understand fear memories."

Impostor - "In addition to providing the robot with the owner’s face, body, hair, eyes and eyelashes, Kokoro will model the robot’s facial expressions and upper body movements after the buyer. The robot’s speech will be based on recordings of the owner’s voice. "

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? - "Unlike some available models, these ones can't walk (or do a two-step, for that matter) but they will sit still and smile politely -- which might be all you really want in a robotic companion anyways."

The Unteleported Man - "DARPA's cyborg HI-MEMS insects are now equipped with a transponder that uses a radioactive fuel source."

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'If You Have Something You Don't Want Anyone To Know, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing It'

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Let's count the Dark-Haired Girl Day stars. . .

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - "In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation. . ."

A Scanner Darkly - "There are a lot of unanswered questions."

The Divine Invasion - "If you're doin' business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit, not with the Good Lord tellin' him how to fuck you on the deal."

Dr. Futurity - "When paired with a robotic arm, the system would effectively let surgeons operate on a heart as if it were completely still."

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? - "The Nexus One will be featured with the Google Android OS 2.1. . ."

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Science fiction fandom is 80 today

Footsoldiers In The Gilded Insect Cyborg Army

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The Minority Report - All Staff Spam

All staff spam. It's endemic. From those treating work email as an extension of eBay or CraigsList, to endless sponsorship begging or it's-for-charity garbage, it's amazing any meaningful communication gets through at all. Reading it can make for some nice office entertainment, however. . .

Ad Min - Here we go, another breast cancer thing. Why is this breast cancer stuff pink? That’s gay.

Palmer Eldritch - Pink is the colour of cancer, generally.

Ad Min - Is it? Well, they’ve got it all wrong. It should be the colour of AIDS, if anything. Cancer should be white. Or black, if it’s tumourous.

Palmer Eldritch - Someone’s selling James Morrison tickets.

Ad Min - Didn’t he die? Wasn’t he in the Doors? You’ve been had, love.

IT Manager - [sighs, evidently reading a different email] God, they keep sending these. That's not a project, it's. . .oh, God! I told them, I couldn’t come up with a reason why a project is a project and a service request is something different. I mean, the only thing I could think of is that a project is big and a service request is ‘can you come and wipe my arse for me.’

Ad Min - You don't want to start colour-coding that.

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? - "But before we can engineer an army of house-bots and robo-slaves, they must first be able to intelligently respond to the subtle nuances of human communication: the meaning inferred from our behaviour and conversations."

Time Out of Joint - "There's no inherent validity in stories that take place in the real world."

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Stanislaw Lem on Philip K. Dick: “A Visionary Among the Charlatans”

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Clans of the Alphane Moon - "The company says autistics have a talent for spotting imperfections, and thrive on predictable, monotonous work. "

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - "Overreact now, get forced to investigate later."

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DVD: 10 Rules for Dealing with the Police

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

The Mold of Yancy - "The predisposition to murder is rooted in feelings and beliefs people have toward government and their fellow citizens."

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? - "While this humanoid is a giant leap forward technologically, if a self-aware, super-intelligent, thinking, feeling humanoid is developed, the legal system will be hard-pressed to distinguish this creature legally from human actors on grounds not stemming from a religious or moral prejudice."

The Hood Maker - "There are a lot of things that have to be done first but I think [implanting chips into human brains] is well within the scope of possibility."

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Is Biological Life the Source of Martian Methane?

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Time Out of Joint - "A painstakingly thorough archive of something that never happened."

The Zap Gun - "They need to think of something from like a movie lol."

Now Wait For Last Year - "Even now, virtual London is incomplete."

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Woman has fingerprints swapped to fool immigration

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Return to Dark-Haired Girl Day

Dr. Futurity - "After removing 60 percent of the rat’s blood, Dr. Roth managed to keep the critters alive for 10 hours using his hydrogen sulfide cocktail."

Nanny - "iRobiQ can read a story book to your child, even if your child refuses to surrender the book, and iRobiQ is forced to read it upside down."

Solar Lottery - "One of the dreams of robotics has been to create a machine that can act as a remote version of its operator - like the movie Surrogates, only cool. Now a group of Korean engineers have brought us closer to this goal."

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How Is Media Technology Changing Science Fiction?

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Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

Clans of the Alphane Moon - "How could this be real?"

Martian Time-Slip - "Having been both teacher and library media specialist - and been trained as both - I think you meant "search engines are librarians." "

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - "It's now become pretty routine to take DNA samples on arrest. So large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they've been arrested."

VALIS - "We propose that sound cues presented during sleep prompted preferential processing of corresponding object-location associations."

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Wikipedia's facts-about-facts make the impossible real

Happy 90th birthday, sf legend Frederik Pohl!

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