Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
Replace "light" with "sausages" and this may work...

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Instantly Reconfigurable Room

Choose from a menu of furniture layouts, hit a button, (or give a voice command) there it is.
  (+14, -1)(+14, -1)
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Wildly expensive, equally impractical but pretty snazzy.

The floor of the room would be a giant version of those pin screens or pin art sculptures shown in the link.

Each of the thousands of 4' long, 1" square "pins" would be pneumatically raised to a particular height to form a specified living room set. Two for tea? A small table with two chairs. Big game day? A big wide couch and coffee table. Relaxing with your sweety watching tv? A nice little love chair.

Of course it would be voice activated so when you wanted to put your drink down you'd say "Give me an end table please." and it would pop up. Want to kick back with your feet up? "Ottoman please." Up it comes.

The tips would be slightly soft, as soft as you'd want a floor to be since the pins will act as furniture or floor depending, but the main thing to make them comfortable would be that they would sense pressure points and conform to the particular user so it should be pretty comfortable for everybody.

Like I said, wildly impractical but very showy.

You could also say "Massage for chaise lounge please, program number six." and get a nice customized shiatsu massage while you're sitting there in your million dollar living room.

Additionally, pet owners could tell the floor to knock a ball around for the dog or cat to chase. Put a ball down and say: "Cat toy program" The floor would sense where the ball is and knock it around using a wave action.

When you're getting that massage the floor would mimic the waves of a calm ocean just for effect.

Something to buy when you don't feel the need for yet another Lamborghini.

doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2011

Your floor would do this only with furniture http://www.youtube....watch?v=eiaZLurEtLY
[doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2011]

Some of the kinds of furniture that would pop up http://www.google.c...q=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=
Space age modern of course [doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2011]

Computer controlled animation of pin screen http://www.youtube....8_M&feature=related
It would be pretty easy to have the program open and close pneumatic valves to control the rods [doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2011]

Another one http://www.youtube....mbc&feature=related
Kind of cool [doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2011]

The pin screen as fine art http://www.youtube....J4Q&feature=related
[doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2011]

Electromagnet Mattress Electromagnet_20Mattress
The bed-themed version of this idea [hippo, Mar 03 2011]

Moveable windows Moveable_20windows
...and your room should have these windows too [hippo, Mar 03 2011]

(?) Flinstones public service add for children http://video.google...350785167330427171#
It wasn't just about mindless entertainment back then. There was a message as well. [doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2011]

This is what I was talking about only on your floor http://www.youtube....watch?v=lvtfD_rJ2hE
Please turn the obnoxious music track off or you WILL go insane. [doctorremulac3, Mar 27 2014]

[link]






       Make it 1/4 inch for my bun
Voice, Mar 01 2011
  

       Of course, there's the deluxe model for discerning home owners like Voice who don't want to slum it with the million dollar model.   

       Each "peg" is a comfortable 1/4" square for added comfort.   

       Twice the comfort at only 3 times the price.   

       (bun please)
doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2011
  

       Thank you.
doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2011
  

       Who doesn't feel the need for yet another Lamborghini?
mouseposture, Mar 02 2011
  

       I wonder if anyone's ever actually built a computer controlled pin screen.   

       The budget version could have servants underneath pushing chairs and tables into the ceiling.
mitxela, Mar 02 2011
  

       Well, I liked it until I saw the choices of furntiture!! oh Yuck, I'm not a fan of modern, sleek, or otherwise shiny metal furniture. Can you please add an antique version? I'll vote with a pin screen bun, though.
xandram, Mar 02 2011
  

       I'd love to have your bun Xan, but I'm not sure this would lend itself to classic antique styles which I'm a big fan of myself. The thing that makes older styles of furniture so nice is their intricate design work, the beautiful woods etc.   

       Although it might be worth a try, I'd certainly attempt a classic furniture program for you if this was real. Best I can do.
doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2011
  

       And presumably, rather than buying a treadmill, one would produce an endlessly rising stair?   

       ...This would be amazing. Next question: Can you do it with ferrofluid?
Hive_Mind, Mar 03 2011
  

       That's a great idea. Yea, you could just say "Treadmill".   

       You mean like ferrofluid under some kind of flexible membrane? I couldn't do it but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done.   

       What I'd like to do with this idea is have it featured in a science fiction movie. For that at very least, I think it would be a great idea. I believe people would refer to the scene with the pop up furniture living room if it was done right. Maybe a nice feature for a James Bond villain's lair. "Welcome Mr Bond, have a seat." (seat pops up)   

       I think I'll put it in my sci-fi novel.
doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2011
  

       Because of the rapid auto-adjustment, you would be nice and steady during an earthquake. With the exception that the walls and ceiling are collapsing around you.
lurch, Mar 03 2011
  

       I know, you could also have a "grotto" configuration where it's shaped like a big cave with people sitting on hollowed out boulders, kind of like a Flintstones caveman deal. Use if for theme parties.   

       I don't know if you English people ever had the Flintstones over there in Englandia, but it was a really stupid cartoon where cavemen ran around using animals instead of power tools, the chicks were really hot and the men were shaped like boxes. It was from the golden age of "there's nothing else on".
doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2011
  

       // don't know if you English people ever had the Flintstones //   

       The "Flintstones"?? No, never made it over here. Doesn't sound like it would catch on, really.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 03 2011
  

       You didn't miss anything. As Shakespeare would say "It sucketh".
doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2011
  

       Yabba dabba don't. Honestly, the things they think of over there.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 03 2011
  

       He was actually saying "Grab-dab-a doodoo".   

       I won't go into what he did with the "dab of doodoo" but it wan't pretty.   

       Here's a public service add for children that they were featured in. (see link)
doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2011
  

       Piss off a hacker, and he configures these pin into a spike that that activates while you are standing over it.
mofosyne, Mar 04 2011
  

       Nice idea, maybe that's how James Bond gets the bad guy.   

       Actually, great idea.   

       Scene: Badguy in billion dollar mansion in his instantly reconfigurable room. Bond's tied up and they're about to watch the missiles launch on the free world because they didn't pay the ransom.   

       "Looks like I win Mr Bond, I'm going to watch from the comfort of my chaise lounge as the world is incenerated and you drop through the floor into the shark tank. 'Chaise lounge' (couch pops up, villain reclines with his cat and puffs his cigarette holder with a smug grin.) Any last words Mr Bond?   

       "Just 4: HEAD SPIKE CHAISE LOUNGE!"   

       [dramatic orchestra sting] Cut to beautiful girl he's tied up with (face to face of course) averting her eyes and gasping in horror. (Or is it sexual excitement?)   

       Aaaaaand, scene.
doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2011
  

       Please check out the amazing link I just found that more clearly describes the concept. Those MIT guys have all the fun.
doctorremulac3, Mar 27 2014
  

       Interesting. I particularly liked the function plotter aspect, and the idea of working the other way (from physical to numerical model, instead of the other way round - or rather, the idea of going back and forth).   

       The cabling for a room-size version wouldn't take as much space, proportionally, even in a prototype.   

       For your room, I think you'd need an extra dimension or two. Imagine a protruding pin is, itself made of a 2D matrix of cubes like the floor. Now popped up pins that meet a few constraints (eg not being adjacent to another popped-up pin) would be able to protrude out lateral shoots, so to speak. Your grid becomes a tree (in all sorts of ways, it becomes a tree).   

       Keep repeating the pattern on an ever-finer scale, and you might even be able to replicate say an antique coat stand.   

       A variant might allow branches from only a certain height, thus allowing space to keep extensions rolled up below. You could feed out tall arch halves between pillars.   

       -- Oh and the name "chaise lounge" ... it comes from "chaise longUE". Say "shezz long", and apparently that's close enough. A chaise (which they ought to have spelt "shezz") is just a chair. Longue is a hoity toity la dee dah way of writing "long". So "long chair".   

       I know the Anglicisation into "lounge" is a correct mutilation of that language, but the etymology is ... OK, boring.   

       Anyway, now, if someone says, "Non! Shezz longUE!" to you, at least you'll know the origin of their mistake (parlering Francais), and you can explain how actually you are speaking Anglais, and that in Anglais, the word has been lawfully violated into the form,"loUnge", so as to make better use of the "U".   

       It would be a nice touch to tell them there's no need to apologize.
skoomphemph, Mar 27 2014
  

       // Say "shezz long"//   

       In England, the French pronunciation would be "shays lawng".   

       As for the French themselves, they are not to be trusted on any aspect of pronunciation.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 27 2014
  

       Certainly a nation that mandates the misspelling of a simple word like long can't be trusted with ... well ... anything, really?
skoomphemph, Mar 27 2014
  

       I'll have you to know the French invented spelling. A girl named Christelle Barre in the year 7000 BCE got tired of jokes about crystal balls and demanded anyone writing her name do so in a particular manner. Soon other people who were teased about their names demanded the same privilege and it kind of caught on from there.
Voice, Mar 29 2014
  

       So now she's Ch'risque' elle ce qu'il Balronforque d'est.   

       In Seffrrickun Fahnnêtteaks that would be pronounced (well prrneouwnst, actually, but lets not get têk-nikkul) ... pronounced "Krrussi Bawrrr". (I use this model of English for the krrruspness end klerrruti ut prrr-vahyeeds.)   

       These French ... eyish!
skoomphemph, Mar 29 2014
  
      
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