mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)

New World Notes: -- AND HE REZZED A CROOKED HOUSE

In Robert A. Heinlein's classic short story, “—And He Built a Crooked House”, a cheerfully deranged architect builds a Los Angeles home shaped like a tesseract, a four dimensional hypercube. His idea is to invent a revolutionary new building that'll save space (after all, if a home exists in four dimensions, you get a lot more square footage to work with), but an earthquake shifts the house into still another dimension. And then things start to get strange from there.

Things get odd in the crooked house of Seifert Surface, located hundreds of meters up above an island called, appropriately enough, The Future. But it doesn't require an earthquake. To enter the hyper-dimensionality of Seifert’s home, all that’s necessary is to push the big button on the marble table in the foyer.

... it does, however, require a virtual reality. The article goes on to explain how a Stanford math student programmed the house in the online roleplaying game Second Life. Apparently it's done by moving rooms around, and only works right for only one user at a time. It would be interesting to speculate on just what kind of game software would be required to allow this sort of thing to be done right. R'lyeh, anyone? But that way madness lies.

(from Boing Boing)

mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)

1st Heinlein Prize Awarded: Press Release May 26, 2006

HOUSTON, TX (May 25, 2006) - Trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust announced today that the first-ever Heinlein Prize will go to Dr. Peter H. Diamandis. The Heinlein Prize was founded to reward individuals for making practical contributions to the commercialization of space. Dr. Diamandis will be honored at a dinner and award ceremony on July 7, 2006 at the St. Regis Hotel in Houston, Texas and receive $500,000, a gold Heinlein Medallion, the Lady Vivamus Sword (as described in Heinlein’s book Glory Road) and a Laureate’s Diploma.

“Dr. Diamandis’ accomplishments have started space settlement and commerce,” explains Art Dula, Trustee and literary executor of the Heinlein Estate. “He has catalyzed space activities by hundreds of people and organizations all over the Earth who are creating a proud and prosperous future for humanity.”

(from slashdot)

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