FYI -- You've heard of buildings -- e.g., MIT's main corridor -- that become aligned with the suns rays one day per year. Now we have buildings which focus the sun's rays (inadvertently or vertently) on areas on the ground (e.g., the hotel's pool area). This recalls A.C.Clarke's 1950's short story about the daytime soccer game where all the fans were given programs made of silvered material. After a "bad" call, one of the referees was vaporized... http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/29/vdara-hotel-death-ray-claiming-victims-in... Vdara hotel 'death ray' claiming victims in the Las Vegas Strip By Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 29th 2010 9:09PM "Death ray" is probably one of the most tantalizing phrases in the blogger's vocabulary, so our ears perked up when we heard talk of one out there in the Las Vegas Strip. A totally unforeseen and unpredictable consequence of building a 57-foot curved mirror in the desert, the Vdara Death Ray is the affectionate nickname given to a phenomenon that's been plaguing poolside loungers staying at the hotel / spa. Among the victims is one Bill Pintas, whose tale of woe was recently printed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: [A]fter a brief dip in the hotel pool, he was sunning on a recliner. He was on his stomach, relaxed, eyes closed. But suddenly, the lawyer became so uncomfortably hot that he leaped up to move. He tried to put on his flip-flop sandals but, inexplicably, they were too hot to touch. So he ran barefoot to the shade. "I was effectively being cooked," Pintas said. "I started running as fast as I could without looking like a lunatic." Then he smelled an odor, and realized it was coming from his head, where a bit of hair had been scorched. A spokesman for MGM Resorts International (which owns Vdara) claims that it is working to fix the problem. In the meantime, if you're going to be in town for any random tech shows that might pop up, we suggest that you either get a trailer or barricade yourself into your suite at Circus Circus. Both have worked for us in the past.