Re: psychoceramics: grudge match of the decade: Moravec vs Penrose

[Robin Stephenson <r.stephenson @ elsevier.co.uk>]

>>>>> On Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:51:33 -0400 (EDT)
>>>>> "Karl" == Karl Mamer <k--@i--.com> wrote:

Karl> Did anyone catch that item about one of Penrose's mathematical
Karl> objects (a "tile" or something, sorry don't know the lingo)
Karl> being used on bathroom tissue.  Penrose hit the roof! He was
Karl> talking about suing.  He had a great line, something about you
Karl> don't take the work of a Knight of the Realm and let people wipe
Karl> their ass with it.

This was reported all over the shop - certainly the Guardian and New
Scientist carried it.  To summarise: Kleenex put a nonperiodic tiling
pattern on their `quilted' toilet roll to avoid unsightly bunching.
Penrose objected, and as far as I know is in the process of suing
them.  The `knight of the realm...' stuff is from his legal
representative, and there's more about Penrose tilings at the
following addresses:

* <http://rysy.msm.cam.ac.uk/~msms/penrose.html>
  Some blurb from Cambridge University about Penrose himself.

* <http://www.cs.uidaho.edu/~casey931/puzzle/penrose/penrose.html>
  Cut-out-and-colour-in Penrose tiles (toilet paper is a bit flimsy, I
  suspect - try cardboard)

* <http://www.aie.nl/~geert/java/public/Penrose.html>
  A Java version of the above: quasitiling in an applet.

* <http://www.nbn.com/people/davew/installations.html>
  Some actual honest-to-god real-world (not computerised) non-periodic
  tilings.

-- 
 Robin Stephenson - send mail with subject `send pgp key' for my key
 Do Not Apply To Broken Skin