cjh@CCA-UNIX@csin.UUCP (08/26/83)
see what mundane
suggestions there were that retinal capillaries were distinct enough for
identification, and when. (Note that this was also dramatized in STAR TREK II.)
H. G. Wells is commonly considered to have been the first writer to
describe a form of television, although his story ("The Crystal Globe"?)
has something more like one of the palantiri.
The helicopter/dirigible hybrid of Verne is being developed in a different
shape for logging and cargo purposes; there are spinning versions and versions
which have excess buoyancy, requiring engines to hold them down when running
empty.
It would also be interesting to list some of the good-sounding ideas that
never took off. How many monorails are there in practical situations? There are
no high-speed people-conveyor belts ("The Roads Must Roll"), broadcast power
("Waldo", again, and others including George O. Smith) has big problems.
(Speaking of Smith, notice how many of the 40's engineering problems have been
sidestepped? Venus Equilateral with its cubic miles of tubes, the navigational
computers in STARMAN JONES that had to have all data entered in binary. . . .)