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From: WATERMAN%USC-ECL%SRI-NIC@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: 'von-neumann probes' and clarke's sequel to 2001
Message-ID: <14837@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Dec-83 13:12:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.14837
Posted: Wed Dec 21 13:12:00 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Dec-83 10:45:06 EST
Lines: 14

Some time ago, i read 2010, clarke's sequel to 2001.  He uses the
'von-neumann-probe' idea as the denoument for the odyssey.  I thought
that his 2010 was a base and anachronistic trivialization almost as rank
as the first star-dreck film where the great,exalted mystery of the universe is
reduced to an andy wharhol soup-can!  Anyway, Clarke goes on and on about
these g.d. 'von-neumann' probes as the meaning of the obelisks etc. and he
makes all kinds of anachronistic use of terms like 'teselation automata' etc.
jeeeeezuuuuuz hhhhhhh chiiiiirrrriiiist ! It sounded like going into the
'science section' of a used bookstore and choking on the dust of some dusty
tome describing advanced buggy-whip-technology.  Probably any 'really'
advanced stage of space-time-differentiation has already dispensed with the
explicit use of 'technology' (the 2001 movie handled that well)....
...flame out of fuel....
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