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Press Enter
"Press Enter", often stylized ''PRESS ENTER ■'', is a science fiction novella by American writer John Varley originally published in the May 1984 issue of ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine''. In 1985 it won the Locus Award for Best Novella,Locus Award for Best Novella Winners accessed 4 March 2015 and . Plot summary |
John Varley (author)
John Herbert Varley (born August 9, 1947) is an American science fiction writer. Biography Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, graduated from Nederland High School—all in Texas—and went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship. He started as a physics major, switched to English, then left school before his 20th birthday and arrived in Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco just in time for the "Summer of Love" in 1967. There he worked at various unskilled jobs, depended on St. Anthony's Mission for meals, and panhandled outside the Cala Market on Stanyan Street (since closed) before deciding that writing had to be a better way to make a living. He was serendipitously present at Woodstock in 1969 when his car ran out of gas a half-mile away. He also has lived at various times in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, New York City, San Francisco again, Berkeley, and Los Angeles. Varley has writte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' of Oxford University Press defines artificial intelligence as: the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. AI applications include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google), recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon and Netflix), understanding human speech (such as Siri and Alexa), self-driving cars (e.g., Tesla), automated decision-making and competing at the highest level in strategic game systems (such as chess and G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apple Lisa
Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. It underwent many changes before shipping at with a five-megabyte hard drive. It was affected by its high price, insufficient software, unreliable Apple FileWare floppy disks, and the immediate release of the cheaper and faster Macintosh. Only 10,000 were sold in two years. Considered a commercial failure (albeit one with technical acclaim), Lisa introduced a number of advanced features that reappeared on the Macintosh and eventually IBM PC compatibles. Among them is an operating system with protected memory and a document-oriented workflow. The hardware was more advanced overall than the forthcoming Macintosh 128K; the Lisa included hard disk drive support, capacity for up to 2 megabytes (MB) of random-access memory (RAM), expansion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Technology
Victor Technology LLC (also known as Victor Calculator) is a supplier of printing calculators, scientific calculators, financial calculators, basic calculators, and desktop accessories with headquarters in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Victor products are sold primarily throughout the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico through independent office supply dealers. Company history Victor Adding Machine Co. was a fledgling company in 1918 when the operator of a successful chain of meat markets gave a Victor salesman $100 for what he thought would buy an adding machine. Instead, he got 10 shares of the company's stock. In an effort to protect his investment, that man – Carl Buehler – became a director of Victor in September 1918 and was elected president of the company three months later. The first Victor adding machine, Model 110, was introduced in 1919. In 1921, Carl selected his 24-year-old son, A. C., as Vice President of Operations and advised him to operate the company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VIC-20
The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. It was described as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future." The VIC-20 was called ''VC-20'' in Germany because the pronunciation of ''VIC'' with a German accent sounds like the German expletives "fick" or "wichsen". The term ''VC'' was marketed as though it were an abbreviation of ''VolksComputer'' ("people's computer," similar to Volkswagen and Volksempfänger). History Origin and marketing The VIC-20 was intended to be more economical than the PET computer. It was equipped with 5 KB of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, '' Malus sieversii'', is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe and were brought to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. Apples grown from seed tend to be very different from those of their parents, and the resultant fruit frequently lacks desired characteristics. Generally, apple cultivars are propagated by clonal grafting onto rootstocks. Apple trees grown without rootstocks tend to be larger and much slower to fruit after planting. Rootstocks are used to control the speed of growth and the size of the resulting tree, allowing for easier harvesting. There are mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inside Jokes
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It is, therefore, an esoteric joke, only humorous to those who are aware of the circumstances behind it. In-jokes may exist within a small social clique, such as a group of friends, or extend to an entire profession or other relatively large group. An example is: ::Q: What's yellow and equivalent to the axiom of choice? ::A: Zorn's lemon. Individuals not familiar with the mathematical result Zorn's lemma are unlikely to understand the joke. The joke is a pun on the name of this result. Ethnic or religious groups may also have in-jokes. Philosophy In-jokes are cryptic allusions to shared common ground that act as selective triggers; only those who share that common ground are able to respond appropriately. An in-joke can work to build c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donna Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies. She has also contributed to the intersection of information technology and feminist theory, and is a leading scholar in contemporary ecofeminism. Her work criticizes anthropocentrism, emphasizes the self-organizing powers of nonhuman processes, and explores dissonant relations between those processes and cultural practices, rethinking sources of ethics. Haraway has taught women's studies and the history of science at the University of Hawaii (1971-1974) and Johns Hopkins University (1974-1980). She began working as a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1980 where she became the first tenured professor in feminist theory in the United States. Haraway's works have contributed to the study of both human–machine and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammary Intercourse
Mammary intercourse is a sex act, performed as either foreplay or as non-penetrative sex, that involves the stimulation of a man's penis by a woman's breasts and vice versa.Alex Comfort, ''The Joy of Sex'' (1972) p. 67-9 It involves placing the penis between a woman's breasts and moving the penis up and down to simulate sexual penetration and to create sexual pleasure. It may be used as an alternative to a handjob. Practice Mammary intercourse involves a man kneeling or sitting on a woman's stomach or chest, placing his erect penis on her cleavage, and rubbing or thrusting while the breasts are squeezed around the penile shaft, by either the woman or the man, creating tightness similar to masturbation, and in simulation of penetrative sex. A lubricant, masturbation cream, or saliva may be used between the breasts or on the penis. Alternatively, the woman can tighten her breasts around the penis and move them back and forth. Other positions involves either the man standing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breast Implants
A breast implant is a prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a person's breast. In reconstructive plastic surgery, breast implants can be placed to restore a natural looking breast following a mastectomy, to correct congenital defects and deformities of the chest wall or, cosmetically, to enlarge the appearance of the breast through breast augmentation surgery. Complications of implants may include breast pain, rashes, skin changes, infection, rupture, cosmetic changes to the breasts such as asymmetry and hardness, and a fluid collection around the breast. The most serious complication is a type of lymphoma (cancer of the immune system) known as Breast Implant Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL). There are four general types of breast implants, defined by their filler material: saline solution, silicone gel, structured and composite filler. The saline implant has an elastomer silicone shell filled with sterile saline solution during sur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyborg
A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.Cyborgs and Space in ''Astronautics'' (September 1960), by Manfred E. Clynes and American scientist and researcher Nathan S. Kline. Description and definition "Cyborg" is not the same thing as , , or ; it applies to an organ ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locus Award
The Locus Awards are an annual set of literary awards voted on by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine ''Locus'', a monthly magazine based in Oakland, California. The awards are presented at an annual banquet. In addition to the plaques awarded to the winners, publishers of winning works are honored with certificates, which is unique in the field. Originally a poll of ''Locus'' subscribers only, voting is now open to anyone, but the votes of subscribers count twice as much as the votes of non-subscribers. The award was inaugurated in 1971, and was originally intended to provide suggestions and recommendations for the Hugo Awards. They have come to be considered a prestigious prize in science fiction, fantasy and horror literature. ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' regards the Locus Awards as sharing the reputation of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Gardner Dozois holds the record for the most wins (43), while Neil Gaiman has won the most awards for works of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
