Las Vegas Hotel Vdara an Accidental Death Ray

evanism writes "A hotel in Las Vegas is accidentally designed to be a massive parabolic dish that focuses the suns rays into a death ray! Burns hair, plastic and causes pain." It apparently lasts for several minutes during afternoons of bright sunlight, but if you need to perform science on it, you better hurry since they plan to ruin/fix it.

Comments

Re:PLEASE GO AWAY IDLE

[Ultra64]

Because it's just soooo hard to scroll past it without clicking on it. Right?

Same thing happened at Walt Disney Concert Hall

[default luser]

This is hardly a unique event. If you let an architect go nuts trying to make a "modern" and "unique" building, he will inevitably build a magnifying glass.

Architects are rarely versed in function, and are almost always about the form.

Re:Death ray

[geekoid]

It is not Orwellian. It in no way implies the opposite effect. It is the more correct term. It in no way is destructive to the welfare of anyone. If it was killing dozens of people, you might have a point.well, you wouldn't then either. Unless they where removing all references to the deaths of others from all media.

That said, the Hotel is missing a golden opportunity.

Every knows it's no actually a death ray, but they could hype it up and do a tongue and cheek promotion.

Re:Too much money to fix, thing outside the box

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure causing pain and burning hair is exactly the same Archimede's death ray. At least not from the fables I remember reading. And melting plastic, well, I'm also not sure they had much plastic back then, let alone built boats out of it.

Perhaps you could tell me more about this.

Re:Post a warning?

[smooth wombat]

Since the building is basically parabolic, won't the spot stay mostly stationary?

Obviously neither you nor the mod who gave you insightful read the article because had either of you done so, you would have read the following:

Fixing the problem isn't going to be easy. As the Earth spins, the sun moves across the horizon. But as the seasons change, the angle of the Earth to the sun changes too, meaning shadows - and in this case the hot spot - move in a different way. Putting in one row of thick umbrellas won't solve the problem because each day they would have to be a few feet back or a few feet forward from their prior day's position.

One doesn't even need a parabolic reflector to experience this. Go to any city during a clear, sunny day and you will find hot spots being created from the nice, shiny windows on the flat (non-curved) buildings. While not focused like the rays from this building, you will feel substantially warmer.

However, stand still for a few minutes, and as the Earth rotates and moves about the sun, the hot spot will move with it.

I'm not the most brilliant person when it comes to science, but even I know what you said is wrong!

Re:Or rent it out

[Majik Sheff]

That was a very mature pun, I can tell because it was fully groan.

Re:Post a warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't people just look for where the smoke and smell of charred human flesh is coming from?

That's just the tourist group from Berlin.

Re:The fix is

[sconeu]

You forgot what is the most important thing from the hotel's POV.

Significantly increased chance of lawsuit.

Re:Images

[PRMan]

Nice job. Now Slashdot is going to get sued by Righthaven media for linking to the LVRJ.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100928/16212911200/eff-comes-out-guns-blazing-in-countersuit-against-righthaven-stepens-media.shtml