Word: pickings
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...government last week regained control of Pakanbaru, the heart of the U.S.-owned Caltex oilfields. The rebel commander, Major Sjamsi Nurdin, and his 800 troops were taken completely by surprise. Even worse, the rebels had cleared the airstrip of oil drums only the day before, to enable trucks to pick up guns and ammunition dropped by a four-engined plane of unidentified nationality...
Plugged In: ready for action; e.g., a Missile Miss, stopping by to pick up a friend before repairing to the beach to watch a missile launching, asks: "Are you plugged...
...make it produce contour maps from air photographs. It will do such monotonous jobs 24 hours a day without getting tired or bored. Human factors will have little effect on the seeing-eye computer. It may even learn in time to search through a rogues' gallery and pick out a single face. It will judge by the stable features and will not be misled by beards, scars or other embellishments...
This rough aiming is not good enough, either to hit the moon or to orbit around it. So toward the end of the journey a scanning device will pick up the moon's sunlit face, fix its position, and an artificial brain will figure out what to do next. It can light a small steering rocket to correct the course. If a landing on the moon is scheduled, a backward-acting retrorocket can be fired to reduce speed and impact. A different use of the two control rockets will make the vehicle orbit around the moon to report...
Ever since 1955, Cleveland's M. A. Hanna coal and iron company has had its eye on a South American lode that would make any miner sharpen his pick. The property: Brazil's St. John D'el Rey, which Brazilians romantically labeled the "heart of gold within a breast of iron." Spreading over 100 square miles in Minas Gerais state, some 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, the D'el Rey mines produced only gold for 120 years-and in recent times some heavy deficits for the company's British owners. What magnetized Hanna...