Word: backwardation
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Elektro is seven feet tall, weighs 260 Ibs., is clad in gleaming aluminum. He is operated by 48 electrical relays (circuits actuated by current variations in other circuits) which control his eleven motors by remote control. He can walk forward or backward, with a peculiar limp (only one leg bends at the knee and both huge feet are equipped with rollers). He can salute with either hand. He can count up to ten on his fingers, bending each finger individually. By means of photoelectric cells equipped with color filters, he can tell red from green. He can talk and sing...
...wording of a command are not delivered just right, Elektro may apparently disobey. In Pittsburgh last week the robot made nice publicity for himself by disobeying his master. His designer, Engineer J. M. Barnett, practicing signals for reporters, ordered him to raise one arm. Instead he started walking backward, kept on walking backward even when commanded to stop by the engineer, who grew a little excited-and still less careful of his phrasing. Elektro might have backed through a wall had not Robotmaster Barnett shut off his supply of electric power...
...Words that originally produce results have a lasting effect. Children specifically instructed to wind a toy "backward," for example, were more likely to do it correctly without instructions a week later. To this rule there was, however, a significant exception. Although a simple command had a more potent immediate effect than a verbose explanation, the effect of the explanation was more lasting. Thus the children who were confused by a teacher's discourse on the glass animals the first time, a week later were more likely to play with the animals and put them away voluntarily...
...Nazi economy of warfare, Czecho-Slovakia can no longer fulfill its economically useful purpose. The same thing happened after Anschluss, but fortunately for the Reich, Czecho-Slovakia, unlike Austria, can feed herself. Best hope for Czech as well as Austrian industry is that Dictator Hitler will soon grab some backward, goods-consuming neighbor States. Otherwise it goes without saying that the Czech standard of living will be lowered, for Germans, in general, far from expecting the Czechs to cost them money, hope to profit from them. Next best hope is that other countries will relax and open their markets again...
...Hospital he said that his name was John Bellinger, that he was 35 years old, that he was a cafe dishwasher, that he had always followed his nose until a few days before. Then he found it impossible to walk forward and, driven by an irresistible urge to walk backward, he began to follow another part of his body. Since hospital physicians found Bellinger in excellent physical health, they called in two psychiatrists...