Haxle

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

It's not a device that Sagan goes into much detail about, aside from it being a new and less-than-reliable technology in the early parts of the story. I always imagined it as a laptop-sized, wireless fax machine using cellular networks to share data. Characters mostly use paper documents throughout the book, and while there are some sci-fi technologies like holographic displays that advance throughout the story, Sagan never describes anything like portable computers or smartphones. Even the internet(or its closest approximation) never goes beyond a rudimentary data-sharing network for astronomers, never open to the public.

A quick google search tells me EFax would probably work over that network, sending documents from a desktop straight to someone's Portable Telefax like an email, so you're not far off.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (9 children)

I recently read Contact(the book by Carl Sagan, still need to watch the movie), which features a tech billionaire who built his wealth doing exactly that. He developed a chip that could block TV commercials, and later one to filter televangelists as well.

For a book that was published in the 80s and set in the late 90s, it's prescient in a few very specific ways. We weren't exactly communicating by Portable Telefax in 1999, but adblockers were not far away either.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This guy went in expecting wacky on-ice hijinks and pranks, instead he got a heartfelt and weirdly wholesome comedy about a genuinely kind man trying to use his talent for violence to make something of himself and help his friends and teammates, often at great expense to his own health.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Herbert West just can't catch a break.