Message #1078

From: Andrew James Gould <agould@uwm.edu>
Subject: [MC4D] Re: Recommended TV: new Futurama
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:52:27 -0500

I found the specific scene online: http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=342436&title=central-bureaucracy . It does have some analogies to a 3^6 magic cube…the initial four twists being n-1 dimensional faces, and the last three are 2-d twists. Like you said (I think), it’s not completely analogous to a 3^6 magic cube…whether you use the n-1 face definition of a twist or mine. i.e. some n-1 faces can’t be twisted certain ways, and the 9x1x1 sections of cubicles can’t be twisted…unless they made a lot more space. Nonetheless, very funny and interesting to watch.

Twist and shout,
Andy

—– Original Message —–
From: "deustfrr" <deustfrr@yahoo.ca>
To: "4D Cubing" <4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 8:19:59 AM
Subject: [MC4D] Re: Recommended TV: new Futurama

I don’t have cable, but that’s pretty cool. Anyways, I thought you were going to say the entire thing was 4-d lolz

— In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com , "David Vanderschel" <DvdS@…> wrote:
>
> The latest episode of Comedy Central’s Futurama series, titled
> "Lethal Inspection", should be especially amusing for members of
> the 4D_Cubing Group. Rebroadcast times in next week: Monday
> 11:30PM, Tuesday 7:30PM, Thursday 8:30PM - all Central Daylight
> Savings Times. (I also believe you can already find a torrent
> for this program.) (The introductory Sith Invasion Recreation
> segment does not bear on what I consider interesting about this
> show.)
>
> Hermes and Bender go to Hermes’s cubicle at the Central
> Bureaucracy. In the Cubicle Room, we find what could be regarded
> as a 3D presentation an order-3 6-pile. I.e., a 3x3x3 x 3x3x3
> pile of cubicles. More specifically, it is a 3x3x3 pile of 3x3x3
> piles of cubicles. If we call the 3x3x3 piles of cubicles
> "pods", then the 3x3 slices of pods in the pile of pods can be
> twisted and the 3x3 slices of cubicles in any of the pods can
> also be twisted. It is not entirely analogous to a 6D analogue
> Rubik’s Cube because the cubicles always retain their upwards
> orientation. (The animation of the pod twists does not show this
> quite correctly.) Furthermore, a twist in a pod is not applied
> uniformly to all pods, as would be required for a faithful
> analogy to the order-3 6-puzzle. Nevertheless, it is an
> interesting animation to observe. One may wonder how the idea
> was conceived.
>
> The show also includes more amusing in-jokes than usual for us
> techies.
>
> Regards,
> David V.
>