Recti Ficial

Referring to the tesselation of rectangular form underlying all modern technology.

Relevance to wiki?

Rectangles are so universal to technological humans they frequently seem invisible. Consider, for a moment, the page you're editing. In your mind there is nothing RectiFicial about it. But it is composed of characters with rectangular extents placed on the page in a recctangular grid embedded in a rectangular textbox within a rectangular subwindow of a rectangular browser on a rectangular screen of a rectangular monitor against a rectangular wall beneath a rectangular ceiling (unless you're outside). Around you are furnishings - tables, wardrobes, doors, windows, packing crates, stairs ... I'm not you but just glance around. All rectangular. Inside your computer there are many chips and diodes and heat sinks and so on, all composites of rectangles inside and in relation to one another. You are inside a rectangular building laid out on a rectangular block within a rectangular suburb of a rectangular city. The iconic moment of our times concerns the destruction of two big rectangles. The CosmicTwoByFour is intentionally a reference to the tetragrammaton, a popular externalization of UniversalMind. The fundamental instrument of human physical intuition is the RectiFicial CartesianProduct as represented by rectangular grids on rectangular paper in rectangular books on rectangular shelves in rectangular libraries ...

It may surprise you, but rectangles are not particularly efficient forms. They don't pack well compared with, say, hexagons in 2D or truncated octohedra in 3D (GeneralizedBalancedTernary, anyone?). This means their corners invariably waste material, space, thermal efficiency, ... whatever quality you'd like to conserve, they don't serve well. They are structurally inefficient, requiring much more bracing than, say, GeodesicSpheres. In almost any engineering or aesthetic context, they're a compromised compromise. We use them because we are not concerned with efficiency. They are symbols of human indolence and thoughtlessness.

RectiFiciality is relevant to wiki because wiki is not RectiFicial. The net is not RectiFicial. Information is not RectiFicial. Any time you see a RectiFicial representation of the net - a server rack, a ZachMann? grid, a table of any sort, you are looking at an unquestioned FrameProblem. Question the frame and you'll find relations, combinations, dimensions, opportunities, insights, and frequently money to be made, hiding in the corners. RectiFiciality is the fundamental human AntiPattern. --PeterMerel

Category ... um, help me out here.