HOWTO build a giant D12 to meditate in
From Popular Science's short-lived "groovy" period, this November, 1970 article on constructing your own 12-sided "Meditator":
Link
The fun, then, in making your personal Meditator, is double: First you create 11 pholages (only the access panel is left bare), then discover the unexpected cross-referencing when you wrap yourself in the assembled panels. Beyond that, you’ll be able to compare responses with your friends. And when you feel you’ve exhausted the potential of a given assembly, it’s easy to paste new pictures over the old.I think you’ll be surprised by the new perspectives you’ll get toward the world about you, and your own part in it. I’ll soon be taking the Meditator with me (knocked down, it fits into a station wagon or sedan) on a college lecture tour as part of my demonstration of design technique. Teachers who have had an advance look at the - Meditator feel that—with changeable panels—it could be utilized in schools as a teaching environment. [Editor’s note: College groups interested in booking Isaacs to speak should write him in care of Popular Science. ] A breeze to build. When you go to the lumber yard for the 3/8″ plywood, see if they’ll saw the 4-by-8 panels in half for you. Four-foot squares are easier to handle.
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Ah yes; I remember that issue. (Yes, I remember the 60's, which proves I wasn't there.)
The question is, who's going to take this and redesign it into an immersive user interface chamber?
Thanks be to Ti!
"Twelve sided died! Man, that's rough"
-Strongbad (TGS narration)
The guy doesn't have a clue, though. The advantage of this is isolation. You have to roll the Mediator over so that the entrance is on the carpet.
Then you can't be bothered by your yakky wife! Especially if you insulate it well.
What are pholages?
This is a devious Die Siren, notorious for luring unsuspecting AD&D players into their dodecahedral traps. In this picture, she tilts the trap back to taunt him with freedom he will never know.
I would be too distracted by being able to roll around in it to meditate which is why I should just build this (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/04/howto-have-picnic-ge.html) instead (1d20).
Pffft!-- this has only a fraction of the magical regenerative power of the classic pyramid!
From a time when the average American could fit thru that opening.
"What is it general?"
"Uhhh..."
"What is it general? Honeyyy, please say it? Please?
"Uhhh... This is stupid. This thing takes up the whole room."
"It's no fun unless you play along, will you just say it?"
"Uhhh... My Lord, the fleet has moved out of light speed, comscan has detected an energy signal..."
Jimh: Yeah, I'm thinking George Lucas definitely got this issue of Popular Science...
...Oh, if only we could have buried Gary Gygax in one of these!
#9, so true. That hole must be supersized for this modern world!
I'm saving the 'How to' page and building my future kids one badass treefort. Anyone know where to get cheap, plastic dome, skylights?
What did John Kerry NOT invent!?!?
The point of a pholage is to confront the viewer with immediate access to a far greater variety of visual “information” than he could obtain by leafing through a magazine, page by page. Many experiments have proven my theory that such a confrontation expands the consciousness. The viewer begins to see unique relationships between seemingly isolated incidents.
Clearly, JAKE0748, Boing Boing is a pholage.
Tak-kun,
Maybe we should sell our refrigerator boxes and set up housekeeping in one of those. What do you reckon?
I dunno, I think a d20 would be more comfy.
...
I'm such a nerd. T_T