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A "Corridor across the States" - basically a
corridor, like you might find in a typical
office building with blueish-grey carpet
tiles and neon striplights. Dead straight,
from Boston to LA, every five miles there
would be an armchair to sit down in, next
to a little table with dull business
magazines on, every 100 yards there
would be a potted plant which needs
watering in a pot on the floor, every mile
there would be a vending machine or a
watercooler, every 200 yards there would
be a strange coffee-coloured stain on the
carpet, every 500 yards there would be a
door marked "Toilet". Major cities would
be announced by a plain door in the wall
marked with the name of the city - you'd
go through the door (marked "Denver" or
"Las Vegas", for example) and it would
open into a bus station providing a shuttle
bus into the heart of the city.
Corridor_20Across_20The_20States_20(CATS)
inspired by... [hippo, Feb 07 2008]
(???) For [Texticle]
http://kunarion.com...ons_inspiration.jpg
It could happen. [Amos Kito, Feb 09 2008]
For [d_s]
http://despair.com/viewall.html
There, that didn't take long [coprocephalous, Feb 13 2008]
In my office...
http://despair.com/quality.html
[normzone, Feb 14 2008]
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Annotation:
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What about the occasional tables with leftover training session lunch items and stale birthday cake? |
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You could recreate the chase sequences
from Scooby-Do! |
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And inane framed posters that say something like INSPIRATION beneath a photo of some dude rowing a boat. |
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//And inane framed posters// yep, that's
me. |
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Those locations don't line up straight, so this idea won't be possible unless it's not exactly strait. |
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Either that, or it laps the world several times, crossing the states as often as is necessary to scribe a straight path through whatever cities you wish. |
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[childish] I wonder if anyone would notice if one produced a set of posters as per [Texticle]'s reference, with the uplifting and cheesy pictures but, for example, the word "Constipation" replacing "Inspiration". |
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Situated just to the north of this corridor would be a second corridor, this one wider, prole-free, floored with synthetic marble for maximum executive blakey clack per footfall, along which lanterned-jawed and skinny-tied men in grey suits move purposefully, brows knitted in the permascowl of the High Ups, no-one seen to be carrying anything, with each brass-handled walnut door off flanked by two ear-piece sporting, bulge-in-the-suit-jacket types, vague threat-laced utterances eliciting squeaks of distressed assent which leak out through milimetre gaps between door and floor as you pass, striding ever on, down the Corridor of Power. |
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First dibs on the lunchcart. |
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Boston - LA is something lke 2619 miles;
4,609,440 yards. |
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So we'll need 46 thousand potted plants (& watering cans),
2619 vending machines,
23 thousand coffee stains,
9 thousand doors that say "Toilet" on them. |
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How many of these doors will actually be directly to a toilet, and how many will just connect you to spookily similar corridor, with a sign saying something like:
"Toilet: 800 miles -->"?? |
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Wouldn't it be a bugger if the local toilet was out of order? |
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This would be a great place to get run over by kids on motorbikes. |
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+ Is it straight, or are there any turns?
Oh yeah, is it a one way or two way corridor? |
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<-------------
------------->
Exit. That way. |
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I would like to have some alternating carpet and flooring to ride my BigWheel on in the style of The Shining. |
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A clever holographic projection depicts an attractive receptionist with an inviting smile. The image is always the same apparent distance in front. |
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Frobisher... go to the end of the corridor
and start again. |
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This needs an anthropomorphic white rabbit. |
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//[childish] I wonder if anyone would notice if one produced a set of posters as per [Texticle]'s reference, with the uplifting and cheesy pictures but, for example, the word "Constipation" replacing "Inspiration".//
[d_s] Childish...and baked. I'll try to find a link. |
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[Jinbish], are you familiar with Bruce McCall's "RMS Tyrannic"? |
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Has anyone considered the effect of the curvature of the earth? Either the corridor is really straight, you're actually looking at LA, and at its deepest somewhere beneath St Louis, which means that you walk downhill at the beginning and uphill at the end of your journey; or it follows the curvature of the earth and you look at the ceiling. In the former case there would be lifts to the various destinations and, therefore, lift lobbies. I don't know how American fire regulations work, and if the lift lobbies would need fire doors either side of each lift lobby, which would ruin the coast-to-coast sight line. Knowing the American habit of building buildings out of matchsticks, old telephone directories, and firelighter briquettes but then having extremely gung-ho fire brigades, I suspect that the fire doors might be dispensed with. |
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[Neil]: Nope - but a quick search yeilded intruguing snippets about a humourous description of humungous ocean liner . I didn't know of McCall - but I do now. Thanks. |
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[Ned] Interesting question. If the radius of the Earth is 4000 miles its circumference is 2*pi*4000 miles. Then, if the Boston-LA distance is 2600 miles (at ground level), the angle subtended by Boston and LA is
360*2600/(2*pi*4000) degrees, or 37 degrees. So, if the corridor is at sea level at a midpoint between Boston and LA (i.e. 1300 miles from Boston or LA), then the height above the centre of the Earth of the start of the corridor in Boston or LA will be the hypotenuse of a triangle with a side 4000 miles and an angle of 37/2 degrees. Using cos(37/2) gives the hypotenuse as 4220, so the start of the corridor would be a mere 220 miles above the sea level. Starting 220 miles above the surface of the Earth makes the corridor 95 miles longer. |
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On the level below, the corridor could be white-tiled....... |
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"He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in the sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain. |
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But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." |
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The long dreary hallway sounds just like my workplace. We have the upper floor too but the guards seem to be milling about attempting to look aimless but with some hidden secret objective. |
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We do have bathrooms but they are all closed for cleaning by people who advert their eyes when they pass and speak only in foreign tongues. Periodically there are way-stations that have automated cardiopulmonary resuscitation machines to shock and awaken the dead or dying. |
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We don’t have kids with bikes but I understand that’s a problem with the large apartment complexes in Amsterdam. Instead, we have a problem with shipping clerks with overloaded powered pallet carriers attempting to defeat land speed records. Carpets are there just to soak up the casualties, the collateral damage. People, coffee tables, and fixtures are to improve the giant slalom effect for these unyielding trolls riding behemoths, racing hither and nether; their clownish beeping horns mocking our inability to dodge their onslaught. |
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Indeed the earth is round and the centers of these long hallways transcend the depths of an unfathomable abyss of which we know not. The depths serve only to accelerate and hasten the carnage wrought by the pallet bearing trolls. The air is denser and more humid at the center. The heavier element of air and fumes make breathing more difficult there. |
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What few lights that work flicker indeed; sending subliminal messages that we are only the unwashed masses, subjects of the draconian corporation, to be stripped of our jobs, fleeced then evicted just prior to retirement. |
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So why not have a coast to coast subterranean hallway. Except it should have toll booths. It’s the American way. |
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// So why not have a coast to coast subterranean hallway |
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Because the angle traversed by the corridor must be greater than pie and the USA just aint that big... |
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But will the levee be dry ? It will if all the water drains into the underground hallway .... |
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