Why rename the site?

categories:

Why rename, and why that name? The previous name was my username, which frankly was arrived at by pounding the keyboard after every thing I could think of was already in use. I guess that proves I'm just way more average than I thought.

The idea of an attic in the basement comes from Robert Heinlein's* short story “And He Built a Crooked House.” (Amazing Science Fiction, Feb 1941) In the story, the architect builds a house of stacked cubes, in a 3D version of the flattened box in the shape of a cross. An earthquake happens, the house folds up and becomes a 4D cube called a tesseract.

Back in 1941 it was damned hard to envision a tesseract, describing it in words might actually have been the best method. Nowadays, some good visualizations are available. With any VR rig, it might be possible to really get the idea of moving through one. There was one as part of a mathematics visualization exhibit at a museum.

Anyway, the idea that you could enter the attic, 1 story above the street, from the basement, 1 story below the street, would be quite straightforward in a tesseract. And thus the name's inspiration.

Since we store a lot of cast-offs, old and unused stuff in our basements and attics, it seems to me a perfect model of my blog. And since the spatial model of the interwebs is just as wrong as the pipe-model, my choice of a tesseract**—an impossible form in 3D—doesn't seem THAT weird. Or it's a weird I like.

Anyway, so with a new name, I shall with a new effort be making. Computer upgrades have happened and accessibility has been increased. Looking forward to storing more of my weird thoughts inside your head.

*While this story isn’t nearly as problematic as others by Heinlein, I wish to acknowledge the man’s terrible contributions to literature and society.

**It might be argued that in a tesseract, the basement could actually be in the attic.