VR and me
This afternoon, I toured a virtual reality lab. The VR space itself had four sides (three walls and a floor) capable of holding images and wireless 3-D specs and controllers. It's used for developing simulations and testing experimental setups, though I think it's most often used to give tours because there's another lab nearby with six imagable sides.
They took us through the 'fire cave,' which involved diving off cliffs, sliding down rock faces, flying, and getting hit with a great stone pendulum. It was incredibly vertigo-inducing, swooping around corners, dropping off a sheer rock face, winding rapidly down narrow twisty corridors. There were no railings to grab or chairs to sit in, nothing to ground one to the 'real' reality. I had to keep reminding myself I was standing on solid ground and even then, I almost fell over twice and had to reach out and grab the arm of the person next to me.
The thing that fills me with wonder, though, is the guy who gives the tour, who stood right with us and ran the controller. He's been taking people through, one group every fifteen minutes, for at least the last two hours, swooping and plunging and flying, and he doesn't fall over or close his eyes or say, 'whoa.' How many times, I wonder, did he go through this before he could do it so easily? How many times would I have to do it before I didn't have to close my eyes.
And the thing is, I want to know. I want to do it so many times that it's a cool, regular thing, like an everyday walk in the park. I have no idea why. But I do.