I read fanfiction. It's hard to say which book-length story I've re-read the most times, but one that I often come back to is "Process of Elimination" by Brian Randall (aka Durandall). It is a Ranma 1/2 crossover with Tenchi Muyo with very tragic overtones. The end always makes me into a crying mess.
Nothing works. Nothing at all will serve as a warning. Coastal Japan has carved stones to warn people not to build their houses below their level on a hill, to avoid destruction by tsunami. These stones are written in Japanese, and are only 600 years old. Japan has enjoyed a continuous civilization during this time, and yet some people ignored the warnings, and were washed away in the 2011 tsunami. The United States has had a concerted program of mass vaccination against preventable diseases for decades, freeing us of the scourge of disabling and deadly childhood diseases that used to infect tens of thousands of children, each, every year. And yet today we are seeing these effective and well-known measures being challenged and actively resisted. The Great Depression spurred the creation of financial regulations that prevented banks from engaging in overly risky activities using the money of depositors. These regulations and laws saved the country from the cycles of wealth, panic and crash that characterized banking in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Still, the Glass-Steagall Act and other safeguards were repealed or weakened, resulting in the global financial crisis of 2009. There is no way to warn future generations. Only a few generations are needed for people to forget. If the Department of Energy wishes to keep people away from WIPP, they should make it so openly and dangerously contaminated that anyone who ventures onto its grounds will die a horrible death within a week of exposure. This will keep the memory of its danger fresh for the future.
A two-CD set and instruction book could lead a carpool through the process of assessing singing ability and range, basic breath control and other technical considerations. The second CD would then teach the group some classic Barbershop standards.
1. I like how the guy gets out of his car, not to check on the cyclist, but to make sure his car wasn't damaged by flying bicycle parts. 2. The next woman in the crosswalk appears to be eager to be the next victim, since she is crossing against the light!
Thank you for posting this. It is fascinating to see that such experiments are still running, and to see some of the extremes of performance in otherwise-familiar devices. Neatorama often helps to stretch the mind.
Coastal Japan has carved stones to warn people not to build their houses below their level on a hill, to avoid destruction by tsunami. These stones are written in Japanese, and are only 600 years old. Japan has enjoyed a continuous civilization during this time, and yet some people ignored the warnings, and were washed away in the 2011 tsunami.
The United States has had a concerted program of mass vaccination against preventable diseases for decades, freeing us of the scourge of disabling and deadly childhood diseases that used to infect tens of thousands of children, each, every year. And yet today we are seeing these effective and well-known measures being challenged and actively resisted.
The Great Depression spurred the creation of financial regulations that prevented banks from engaging in overly risky activities using the money of depositors. These regulations and laws saved the country from the cycles of wealth, panic and crash that characterized banking in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Still, the Glass-Steagall Act and other safeguards were repealed or weakened, resulting in the global financial crisis of 2009.
There is no way to warn future generations. Only a few generations are needed for people to forget. If the Department of Energy wishes to keep people away from WIPP, they should make it so openly and dangerously contaminated that anyone who ventures onto its grounds will die a horrible death within a week of exposure. This will keep the memory of its danger fresh for the future.
Also, they bite.
This is an idea I posted at Halfbakery.com: Make Your Carpool a Barbershop Quartet.
A two-CD set and instruction book could lead a carpool through the process of assessing singing ability and range, basic breath control and other technical considerations. The second CD would then teach the group some classic Barbershop standards.
2. The next woman in the crosswalk appears to be eager to be the next victim, since she is crossing against the light!