[Index]

LL :: Volume 23 :: LR
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  Nothing Besides Remains
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*   Potential Legal Minutiae
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  Op-foam in the living-space communities indicates that another harmonic noise petition is being readied. The last such petition -- mandating simple integer ratios between all bells, sirens, mechanical hums, and other such noises in public places -- was defeated by a 62% vote eight years ago. Discussion is divided about whether it has a better chance today.

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*   Technology Spinoffs
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  Set the windows of your living space with projection glass, and get a decorative pattern in the sunlight that falls on your walls or floor. The glass actually contains a field tool, which projects a colorant field about a foot outwards. This field is mostly transparent -- in fact, its only visible component is a cloud of microscopic black specks. They're too small to be seen individually, and even en masse they form a barely perceptible grey haze.

But along the direction of incoming sunlight, the specks line up to form a distinct dark pattern. This pattern is visible as a shadow on the wall -- an apparently sourceless one, unless you stand in it and look straight at the sun. (Naturally, the specks move as the sun moves, maintaining the image.)

An upcoming version uses polarizing field specks instead of opaque black ones. This will allow darker images with an even less visible haze. Two cross-polarized specks can block all light when they line up, but from any other angle, they block very little.

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*   Semitoys
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  Minimal-area-surface jigsaw puzzles from Eigenstate Toys. No mere flat pieces which approximately tile the surface -- these pieces are molded with appropriate negative curvature. The resulting models are smooth and nearly seamless.

The easy models have a color gradation along one axis, so that locating pieces on the growing surface is simple. If you want more of a challenge, try the monochrome, translucent, or transparent models.

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*   Fads of the Technology
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  Cartoonwear -- not a brand of software, but a brand of clothing. Colorant tools sewn into the wrists and elbows, knees and ankles, project "motion lines" into the air when their speed exceeds a given threshold. (The lines are simple unanchored persistent fields with a lifespan of a second or two.)

Optional sound effects, too. Break into a run, and zip zip!

(And before you ask, that's speed relative to nearest-large-mass, as detected by a local sensor field. A car is big enough to count as a reference frame, although if you drive very close to a thick wall your jacket may get confused. A bicycle or motorcycle is not big enough, which leads to nice braided effects if you wear Cartoonwear sweat pants.

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*   Life of the Mind
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  ...and publisher in the might one win the really conservation' is sci-fi televant people. Still does not dish the one struck death.

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