"Here, let’s not get distracted. This reading machine of yours, it must do something, it must make some kind of record. What happens after you get the sound waves?"
"That’s the beauty of it," said Professor Entwhistle. "The sound waves are converted into light waves, of a different character from the original light waves, and these are communicated to an automatic typewriter, working at inconceivable speed. This transforms the light impulses into legible typescripts, in folders of a hundred pages each. It tosses them out the way a combine tosses out sacked wheat. Thus, everything the machine reads is preserved entire, in durable form. The only thing that remains is to file it somewhere, and for this you would need only the services of a capable filing clerk."
"Or you could read it?" persisted the Professor of Amphibology.
"Why, yes, if you wanted to you could read it," said Professor Entwhistle.
An indigestible silence hung over the Faculty Club.
"I see where the Athletic Association has bought a pitching machine," said the Assistant Professor of Business Psychology (Retail). "Damn thing throws any curve desired, with a maximum margin of error of three centimeters over the plate. What’ll they be thinking of next?"
"A batting machine, obviously," said Professor Entwhistle.
(1947)
BABY H.P.
by Juan Jose Arreola
Juan José Arreola Zúñiga (1918–2001), whose formal education was disrupted by religious civil conflict, is remembered one of Mexico’s most revered authors and academics. He fell in love with reading while apprenticed to a bookbinder, trained as an actor, wrote stories that first saw print in the early 1940s, and over the next twenty years turned out stories, sketches, fables – even a bestiary. Jorge Luis Borges described his work with one word: "freedom. Freedom of an unlimited imagination, governed by a lucid intelligence." You can find further robotic delights lurking inside Confabulario and Other Inventions (1993): "Anuncio" sings the praises of something called Plastisex®, while "Parable of the Exchange" tells the story of a strange merchant who offers men a new (though rather corrosion-prone) wife in exchange for their old one.
To the Lady of the House: Convert your children’s vitality into a source of power. Introducing the marvelous Baby H.P., a device that will revolutionize home economics.
The Baby H.P. is a very strong and lightweight metal structure that adapts perfectly to an infant’s delicate body by means of comfortable belts, wrist straps, rings, and pins. The attachments on this supplementary skeleton capture every one of the child’s movements, collecting them in a small Leyden jar that can be fastened, as needed, to the infant’s back or chest. A needle indicates when the jar is full. Then, madam, simply detach the jar and plug it into a special receptacle, into which it automatically discharges its contents. This container can then be stored in any corner of the house, and represents a precious supply of electricity that can be used at any time for the purpose of light and heat, or to run any of the innumerable appliances that now and forever invade our homes.
From this day forward you will look upon your children’s exhausting running about with new eyes. No longer will you lose patience when your little one flies into a rage, for you shall see it as a generous source of energy. Thanks to Baby H.P., a nursing infant’s round-the-clock tantrum is transformed into a few useful seconds running the blender or into fifteen minutes of radiophonic music.
Large families can meet their electricity needs by outfitting each of their progeny with a Baby H.P. and can even start up a small and profitable business supplying their neighbors with some of their surplus energy. Big apartment high-rises can satisfactorily cover lapses in public service by linking together all of the families’ energy receptacles.
The Baby H.P. causes no physical or psychological trauma in children because it neither inhibits nor alters their movements. On the contrary, some doctors believe it contributes to the body’s wholesome development. And as for the spirit, you can foster individual ambition in the wee ones, by rewarding them with little prizes when they surpass their usual production records; for this purpose we recommend sugar treats, which repay your investment with interest. The more calories added to a child’s diet, the more kilowatts saved on the electricity bill.
Children should wear their lucrative Baby H.P.s day and night. It is important that they always wear them to school so as not to lose out on the valuable hours of recess, from which they return with their storage tanks overflowing with energy.
Those rumors claiming that some children are electrocuted by the very current they generate are completely irresponsible. The same can be said of the superstitious fear that youngsters outfitted with a Baby H.P. attract lightning bolts and emit sparks. No accident of this type can occur, especially if the instructions that accompany each device are followed to the letter.
The Baby H.P. is available in fine stores in a range of sizes, models, and prices. It is a modern, durable, trustworthy device, and all of its parts are extendible. Its manufacture is guaranteed by the J. P. Mansfield and Sons company, of Atlanta III.
(1952)
THE STEAM-DRIVEN BOY
John Sladek
John Sladek (1937–2000) claimed to read very little sf but the devastating precision of his parodies suggests otherwise. Most of his brilliant, surreal novels and stories were written during the eighteen years he lived in London. (He was born in Iowa in 1937 and moved to the UK in 1966, where he became involved with Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine.) His favourite protagonists were robots and artificial intelligences, who were invariably much more sympathetic than their trend-obsessed, culture-programmed human foils. The Reproductive System (1968) overruns America with little grey boxes that eat technology and spawn more boxes. The hero of The Müller-Fokker Effect (1970) meets several bizarre fates when he is converted to computer tape. Roderick, Or The Education Of A Young Machine (1980–83) is an exploration of human follies modelled closely on Voltaire’s novel Candide. Sladek, incidentally, came up with the best Creationist argument ever: "The so-called apes in zoos are only men dressed up in hairy suits."
Capt. Charles Conn was thinking so hard his feet hurt. It reminded him of his first days on the force, back in ’89, when walking a beat gave him headaches.
Three time-patrolmen stood before his desk, treading awkwardly on the edges of their long red cloaks and fingering their helmets nervously. Capt. Conn wanted to snarl at them, but what was the point? They already understood his problems perfectly – they were, after all, Conn himself, doubling a shift.
"Okay, Charlie, report."
The first patrolman straightened. ‘I went back to three separate periods, sir. One when the President was disbanding the House of Representatives, one when he proclaimed himself the Supreme Court, one when he was signing the pro-pollution bill. I gave him the whole business – statistics, pictures, news stories. All he would say was, "My mind’s made up."’