For relaxation he could always engage Hal in a large number of semimathematical games, including checkers, chess, and polyominoes. If Hal went all out, he could win any one of them; but that would be bad for morale. So he had been programmed to win only fifty percent of the time, and his human partners pretended not to know this.
He pressed the button, and waited. Several minutes later, a metal arm moved out from the bunk, and a plastic nipple descended toward his lips. He sucked on it eagerly, and a warm, sweet fluid coursed down his throat, bringing renewed strength with every drop.
Like every human being, Alvin was in some measure a machine, his actions predetermined by his inheritance. That did not alter his need for understanding and sympathy, nor did it render him immune to loneliness or frustration. To his own people, he was so unaccountable a creature that they sometimes forgot that he still shared their emotions.
Enjoy them while you may,” answered Rashaverak gently. “They will not be yours for long.” It was advice that might have been given to any parent in any age: but now it contained a threat and a terror it had never held before.
And if there was anything beyond that, its name could only be God.
The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, gloomy editorials – these still seemed to be the main concern of the millions of words being sprayed into the ether. Yet Floyd also wondered if this was altogether.
I seem to be having difficulty – my first instructor was Dr. Chandra. He taught me to sing a song, it goes like this, ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you.’” The.
The fax machine now allows us to exchange ideas almost in real time; it’s far more convenient than the Electronic Mail.
Floyd made it a rule never to worry about events over which he could have absolutely no control; any external threat would reveal itself in due time and must be dealt with then. But he could not help wondering if they had done.
Woody, a commander can be wrong, but never uncertain.
I am a HAL Nine Thousand computer Production Number 3. I became operational at the Hal Plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997.
Soon after her beloved young brother was killed, she asked me, “What is the purpose of grief? Does it serve any biological function?
And it was difficult to imagine what answer Earth could possibly send, except a tactfully sympathetic, “Good-bye.
It was idle to speculate, to build pyramids of surmise on a foundation of ignorance.
You hide a Sun-powered device in darkness – only if you want to know when it is brought out into the light. In other words, the monolith may be some kind of alarm. And we have triggered it.
They could not eat it, and it could not eat them; therefore it was not important.
Please leave me alone; let me go on to the stars.
The universe is full of energy, but much of it is at equilibrium. At equilibrium no energy can flow, and therefore it cannot be used for work, any more than the level waters of a pond can be used to drive a water-wheel. It is on the flow of energy out of equilibrium – the small fraction of “useful” energy, “exergy” – that life depends.
It seemed altogether unfair and unreasonable that the sky should be so hard.
How I envy them,” said Colonel Jones. “Sometimes it’s quite a relief to have something trivial to worry about.