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Back to the Trees
circletimessquare writes "This story should excite the nerd in anyone. Build a luxury treehouse! The New York Times reports on an entire subculture devoted to an idea which sounds funny at first... but really, why not? Much serious discussion in the article about the technical considerations involved in treehouse construction. Also mention of 'treesorts' at the bottom of the article (one being called 'Lothlorien Woods Hide-a-way' lol). I hunted down some links to two of the big players mentioned in the article, TreeHouse Workshop Inc. and the World Treehouse Conference. No mention as to whether or not they support Banyan VINES (sorry, I couldn't resist)."
No mention as to whether or not they support Banyan VINES (sorry, I couldn't resist).
Apology DECLINED.
With the ADA, anyone foolish enough to build a tree house hotel or restaurant will get sued out existence. A proper tree house would have a wheel chair ramp and elevator. You would also need to chop down the adjacent forest to make room for the legally specified number of handy capped parking spots.
I say sue 'em and sue 'em good.
Yeah, but still, if it's good enough for Chewbacca, Wicket, Prince Barin, and Cosmo Fishhawk, it's got to be good enough for us, right? ;)
One word: trebuchet.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
When I was visiting some of my in-law's relatives in China in 1997, one apartment had a section that reminded me heavily of a tree-house. It was clearly "hacked" together in bits over time with winding hall-ways. I don't know about it's safety, but it was pretty cool to walk around in. If you want to make some changes you just get some boards, nails, and a hammer. No need to call in contractors and get permits, etc. I have never seen anything like it before. I suppose you could call it a "multi-level shanty town".
Table-ized A.I.
They use extra strength bolts, and use them as sparingly as possible, spaced at least a foot apart. They also claim that the trees will adapt to the house, growing to support it rather than putting pressure on it. I'm not 100% sure if I believe that last bit, and clearly this is not what you want to build if you want a house you can pass on to your grandkids. Still, I think it's obvious that they know a hell of a lot more about building treehouses than you or I do.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD