[Index]

LL :: Volume 40 :: LR

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  When Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Mud
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*   City Features
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  The D4 Building introduced a new skyline treatment last week. Its surface has a rectilinear pattern -- apparently ranks of windows in the usual arrangement. However, they do not correspond to the true windows of the building's offices. Furthermore, they are not actually evenly arranged. The scale compresses subtly as you move up the building. The reduction is logarithmic; when you reach the top, the "windows" have vanished into an infinitely fine blur.

This pattern, of course, gives a dizzying aura of unbounded height to the building -- particularly if you stand at the base and look upwards. But the effect goes beyond that. The pattern constantly moves upward, at a pace just visible to the eye. Thus the building appears to be rising forever, vanishing into its own event horizon at the roof.

The original plan, according to D4-interest foam, was to have the pattern move sideways. But everyone who tried a visualization came out screaming that the building was toppling over...

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*   Fads of the City
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  The Tooth Twinkle is exactly what you think it is.

Smile! twing

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*   Technology Spinoffs
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  Verbal Afterimage is a new neuroplugin from Wheatgrass Labs. It's inspired by the adaptation-afterimages that the unaugmented eye picks up from strong stimuli -- seeing patches of red after staring at blue, areas of upward movement after seeing downward movement, and so on.

The plugin produces an analogous visual effect for words. If you stare at the word "blue" for a few moments, and then shift your attention to a neutral background, you will sense the word "red" hovering there -- not quite visible, but implied. The logic uses your own verbal association network to determined the "true" opposite of a word. (Actually it uses a context-sensitive balancing algorithm, so you may -- often will -- see two or three words, each contrary in a different sense, dancing about.) The negation extends up to the granularity of short phrases, though usually not complete sentences.

The effect is weak enough not to be distracting when reading prose. But if you glance away from your book, you will get the impression of fleeting clouds of text, commenting on and contrasting with what you have read. Surprisingly often, we have found, the generated text leads to an interesting thought -- if only for a moment.

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*   Sport and Match
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  Joke-Getting Races are a slightly odd outgrowth of neural-sensor analysis. A group of contestants gather, put on sensor tabs, and -- after calibration round of knock-knock jokes -- listen to a series of original jokes (spoken aloud). The sensors watch for the sudden neural symbol-resolution which indicates that the joke-connection has been made. The first sensor to light up wins. (In some variations, it wins a free drink, which provides for a certain egalitarian leveling in later rounds.)

The sport does not appear to be taken too seriously, even by devotees. Some foam alleges that the true challenge is the creation of the jokes, which is done by the spectators of the matches, beforehand...

You may ask which are the spectators and which the contestants. Do not, however, ask it at a joke-race. No one will laugh.

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*   Life of the Mind
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  I know that you might "Rule 1: Spell correctly."

...self-illuminately some other poster said (and yes, and what the money for handling thermal equivalent on my MG puzzle construct the monitor screen, it's some of the backstory here I once reading diversity of a though. I'm guessing -- a couple constand what is, it looks at least, counterintuitive) results. But I this in any more -- at the patch totally and night?

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