Trading Spaces
What navigating digital worlds can teach us about our own.
I've just left the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The air is stagnant and humid, and my friend and I are looking for a metro station. "There's one by the National Archives," I say. "I think it's up here on our left."
The National Archives are situated north of the Mall, about halfway between the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building. I know this because I once had to go there to steal the Declaration of Independence from a robot who believed he was one of its original signers.
Then, D.C. was a post-nuclear wasteland, fairly unrecognizable except for a few surviving landmarks. It was also virtual, housed in Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3. Now, I'm in the actual city for the annual conference of the American Library Association-but my friend and I are still using the Fallout 3 map to find this metro entrance.
