Brian Peiris built a live-coding web app for the Oculus Rift that lets you manipulate your virtual 3D environment in real-time. Sure, it’s just a bunch of simple manipulation of geometry for now, but it’s clearly a precursor to where the technology could take us: a metaverse where citizens of Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong are less concerned with their democratic rights than the general upkeep of their avatars. Create anything you want so long as you've got the coding skills to support your whims.

The link to the Metaverse is so obvious that it was Neal Stephenson himself, who brought Peiris’ project to our attention. Yes, that Neal Stephenson, the author who wrote the SciFi classic Snow Crash, where grotesque-looking "gargoyles" walk around wearing goggles and portable computer terminals to live nonstop in the virtual world. You know, like Glassholes.