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Hotel Death Ray "Inconvenient" for Some Guests

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A

Amir0x

Banned
I searched for "Death Ray", "Vdara Hotel" and "My balls are on fire, HEEEELP" and none of them returned something for this subject:

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Article

And here you thought bedbugs were the biggest source of anxiety for hotel guests.

Yes, guests at Vdara hotel in Las Vegas now have something else to worry about: being burned alive by the glare of the building's "death ray."

What the heck's a "death ray," you ask? Well, first off, it's not as deadly as it sounds, since no one has actually died from it -- at least not yet. But according to the U.K. Daily Mail, the powerful beams of Nevada sunlight reflecting off the glass hotel onto sections of the hotel's swimming pool area have burned some guests and have melted plastic bags.

The building's concave design creates a sort of magnifying-glass effect. The hotel's designers reportedly anticipated that ill-situated humans might experience some discomfort courtesy of the building's blinding glare, so they placed a film over the glass panes of its many windows. Obviously that didn't quite do the trick. So for now the hotel is placing larger umbrellas in the pool area while designers try to come up with another remedy.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the hotel's employees coined the term "death ray" to describe the intense reflection. Reports of the glare have also enhanced the hotel's public profile, though almost certainly not in the way its owners would like; Yahoo! searches for Vdara have spiked by nearly 19,000 percent in the past 24 hours.

It turns out that Vdara isn't the only building out there creating intense heat and glare for hapless passersby. Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Resorts International, which owns Vdara, told the Review-Journal that in Las Vegas, the AdventureDome at Circus Circus and the Mandalay Bay produce "hot spots" that some guests have actually sought out, believing the spots will aid tanning regimens. In Los Angeles, the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall produced such a harsh glare that it heated nearby homes, forcing residents to blast their air conditioners high above their customary capacities in order for the residents to keep cool.

Bill Pintas, a Chicago attorney, told the Daily Mail that he experienced the harsh glare of the death ray firsthand during a recent Vdara stay. Pintas reported that as he lounged out by the pool, his head suffered a sensation he likened to a "chemical burn." He added, "Within 30 seconds, the back of my legs were burning."

In another interview, Pintas said: "I was effectively being cooked." Thankfully, he returned home alive. Still, his skin was burned and his hair was singed -- disproving the old saying that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
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hee hee hee
 
W

WedgeX

Banned
Either the hotel's owner has a problem with A. Ants eating all of his food while picnicking by the pool or B. pesky secret agents who are on to his little scheme to hold the world ransom with his new found obelisk of light.
 
I

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
Well, there really are no good uses for it... you know what? My wife will be glad. She's hated this whole "Death Ray" business from the beginning.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Death ray fiddlesticks. It doesn't even slow them up.

I will be so massively impressed if anyone catches this that I might actually send a cookie in the mail
 
C

cnizzle06

Banned
Hey honey, I'm really glad we decided to just lounge by the pool today and beat the heat OH MY GOD JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1277899829_termionator-2-bomb.gif
 
R

R2D4

Banned
cnizzle06 said:
Hey honey, I'm really glad we decided to just lounge by the pool today and beat the heat OH MY GOD JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1277899829_termionator-2-bomb.gif
Click to expand...


Should have laid a scan down to find those ghosts.
 
L

Leunam

Member
Reminds me of when the Disney Hall was built:

xxRN7.jpg


After the construction, modifications were made to the Founders Room exterior; while most of the building's exterior was designed with stainless steel given a matte finish, the Founders Room and Children's Amphitheater were designed with highly polished mirror-like panels. The reflective qualities of the surface were amplified by the concave sections of the Founders Room walls. Some residents of the neighboring condominiums suffered glare caused by sunlight that was reflected off these surfaces and concentrated in a manner similar to a parabolic mirror. The resulting heat made some rooms of nearby condominiums unbearably warm, caused the air-conditioning costs of these residents to skyrocket and created hot spots on adjacent sidewalks of as much as 60 °C (140 °F). After complaints from neighboring buildings and residents, the owners asked Gehry Partners to come up with a solution. Their response was a computer analysis of the building's surfaces identifying the offending panels. In 2005 these were dulled by lightly sanding the panels to eliminate unwanted glare.
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Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
cnizzle06 said:
Hey honey, I'm really glad we decided to just lounge by the pool today and beat the heat OH MY GOD JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1277899829_termionator-2-bomb.gif
Click to expand...
Good thing I wore my 3 million SPF sunblock.
 
M

Majine

Banned
article-1315978-0B6440DA000005DC-308_474x533.jpg


Mail Online said:
Guests at a new hotel in Las Vegas have complained of receiving severe burns from a 'death ray' of sunlight caused by the unique design of the building.
Due to the concave shape of the Vdara hotel, the strong Nevada sun reflects off its all-glass front and directly onto sections of the swimming pool area below.
The result has left some guests with burns from the powerful rays and even plastic bags have been recorded as melting in the heat.

Death ray: Guests at the Vdara hotel in Las Vegas have complained of receiving severe burns from the intense spot of sunlight reflected off the building

No fun: Some of those trying to sunbathe at the swimming pool had to run for cover to escape the intense heat
Chicago attorney Bill Pintas felt the power of the dangerous ray first hand last week.
'It felt like I had a chemical burn. I couldn't imagine why my head was burning,' he said.
'Within 30 seconds, the back of my legs were burning. My first though was, 'Jesus, they destroyed the ozone layer!'
Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Resorts, which owns the Vdara hotel, said they was aware of the issue and designers were working with resort staff to come up with a solution.
In fact it is claimed that the designers foresaw the issue with the reflecting sun but thought they had solved it by installing a high-tech film on the south-facing panes of glass.
However, Mr Absher, conceded it had not been enough and some of the guests had suffered as a result.
The Las Vegas Review Journal quotes one hotel employee as saying the building's design causes the sunshine to be diverted 'like a magnifying glass that shines down' over a space of about 10 by 15 feet as the poolside.
And as the Earth rotates, the spot moves across the pool area. The 'death ray' can increase temperatures by around 20 degrees.
While the designers work on fixing the problem, the hotel is looking at getting some larger, and crucially, thicker umbrellas to provide better shade for guests.
Click to expand...
 
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