Thursday, August 1, 2013

Christopher Anvil's "Positive Feedback" (short story, humor, free): How inflation works, & a remedy

This is hilarious stuff. And while the story is about car repair rather than programming, if you are a programmer who grew up writing C code in vi & handcrafting makefiles, & lived through the transition to Visual Studio, you'll likely find bits of it very familiar.

Story summary.

A company called Superdee Equipment has invented a new "Automated Car Service Handling Machine" but is unable to sell it to garages. So the managers figure out a way to push the machines through...

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, August 1965.
Download full text from an archived copy of what used to be Baen Free Library. [via Stephen Harker @rasfw]
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Christopher Anvil.

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