Busy Days. Evil Nights
I'm sorry my friends and readers, if I have any, I haven't posted to this blog in quite some time.
Frankly at the moment, I'm nearly overwhelmed. I've started grad school, again, at Rosemont, and between that and working at the bookstore I have about no free time during the week.
I feel like a real writer, though.
No new publications, and I'm not producing all that much poetry, All of my classes this term are prose :( However, I am learning quite a bit about Flash Fiction.
Take a look at this, loyal readers:
http://flashfiction.net/
It is an interesting new form, generally less than 1000 words, a very compressed narrative structure.
So here's one of my stabs at it:
First you must prepare the ground. The area should be carefully checked for overhanging branches. Clear a circle for twenty feet surrounding the site of the fire. All loose leaves, detritus and debris should be cleaned down to bare dirt.
Most high-risk systems have some special characteristics, beyond their toxic or explosive or genetic dangers, that make accidents in the inevitable, even “normal.” This has to do with the way failures can interact and the way the system is tied together.
He would picture the alarm going off, a smell of smoke, bells distantly ringing, perhaps flashing lights, running to the fire door, those red arrows ignored during the work-day now vitally important. The untouchable doors, the ‘Alarm will sound’ doors. He always wondered if those door s would open, if the alarm would sound.
If interactive complexity and tight coupling - system characteristics - inevitably will produce an accident I believe we are justified in calling it a normal accident. The odd term normal accident is meant to signal that, given the system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable.
If you know where to look you can locate the flight path of any airline flight currently in the air, right on the internet. He estimated that any given day five airplanes flew directly over his office building, six over his home, and he passed underneath at least one travelling to or from work. He’d write the times down on post it notes, and stick them to the corner of his computer monitor, and watch the clock.
Wood should be stacked well away from the fire site. Enough should be gathered initially that the fire need not be left unattended to replenish the supply of fuel. Gather stones, at least as large as your fist, and place them in a ring.
Death by catastrophic accident more often occurs in a public place. One of the leading causes of injury in an otherwise survivable accident is trampling. He spends his time on lunch breaks watching the people walking in the mall. It is easy to imagine them panicked, he sits with his back to the fire door.
The argument is basically very simple. We start with a plant, airplane, ship, biology laboratory, or other setting with a lot of components (parts procedures, operators). Then we need two or more failures among components that interact in some unexpected way.
It is difficult to ride the train. Speeds up to eighty miles an hour, and confined to one track, a braking distance equal to four times the length of the train. No place to turn from, no control. He only can sit in the front car, and estimates times, counts the intervals between when he sees an electric pole and when they pass it. One one hundred, two one hundred, how many feet? Enough time? Enough distance?
The wood is sorted into three piles, tinder, kindling, and firewood. A nest can be made out of the tinder, and lit carefully with a match. Kindling is slowly fed into the fire, no more than a stick or two at a time. The firewood can then be placed to either side, as it lights more is added slowly, until the blaze is full.
There were 68 elevator deaths between 1992 and 2003. Riding the elevator is more a matter of listening. There may be no other indication anything is wrong before the free-fall, three seconds at most and impact. But he always imagines he could hear the cables part, that they’d make a distinctive sound, tortured metal giving up. When people in the elevator are talking too loudly he glares at them.
Conventional explanations for accidents use notions such as operator error; faulty design or equipment; lack of attention to safety features; lack of operating experience. We have encountered ample evidence of these problems causing accidents. But something more basic and important contributes to the failure of systems. The conventional explanations only speak of problems that are more or less inevitable.
Putting out a fire properly takes a good deal of time. Water should be poured slowly over the fire, until no flame is visible. With a shovel, the coals should be turned over each time a bucket of water is added. The area should not be left until the site of the fire is completely cool to the touch of a bare hand.
He goes out on the weekends to the point in the river where he can see the cooling towers, and carefully builds the perfect fire, then just as carefully puts it out. He can be ready if he watches for them. Accidents need not become catastrophes, after all, he thinks they are completely normal.
Frankly at the moment, I'm nearly overwhelmed. I've started grad school, again, at Rosemont, and between that and working at the bookstore I have about no free time during the week.
I feel like a real writer, though.
No new publications, and I'm not producing all that much poetry, All of my classes this term are prose :( However, I am learning quite a bit about Flash Fiction.
Take a look at this, loyal readers:
http://flashfiction.net/
It is an interesting new form, generally less than 1000 words, a very compressed narrative structure.
So here's one of my stabs at it:
First you must prepare the ground. The area should be carefully checked for overhanging branches. Clear a circle for twenty feet surrounding the site of the fire. All loose leaves, detritus and debris should be cleaned down to bare dirt.
Most high-risk systems have some special characteristics, beyond their toxic or explosive or genetic dangers, that make accidents in the inevitable, even “normal.” This has to do with the way failures can interact and the way the system is tied together.
He would picture the alarm going off, a smell of smoke, bells distantly ringing, perhaps flashing lights, running to the fire door, those red arrows ignored during the work-day now vitally important. The untouchable doors, the ‘Alarm will sound’ doors. He always wondered if those door s would open, if the alarm would sound.
If interactive complexity and tight coupling - system characteristics - inevitably will produce an accident I believe we are justified in calling it a normal accident. The odd term normal accident is meant to signal that, given the system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable.
If you know where to look you can locate the flight path of any airline flight currently in the air, right on the internet. He estimated that any given day five airplanes flew directly over his office building, six over his home, and he passed underneath at least one travelling to or from work. He’d write the times down on post it notes, and stick them to the corner of his computer monitor, and watch the clock.
Wood should be stacked well away from the fire site. Enough should be gathered initially that the fire need not be left unattended to replenish the supply of fuel. Gather stones, at least as large as your fist, and place them in a ring.
Death by catastrophic accident more often occurs in a public place. One of the leading causes of injury in an otherwise survivable accident is trampling. He spends his time on lunch breaks watching the people walking in the mall. It is easy to imagine them panicked, he sits with his back to the fire door.
The argument is basically very simple. We start with a plant, airplane, ship, biology laboratory, or other setting with a lot of components (parts procedures, operators). Then we need two or more failures among components that interact in some unexpected way.
It is difficult to ride the train. Speeds up to eighty miles an hour, and confined to one track, a braking distance equal to four times the length of the train. No place to turn from, no control. He only can sit in the front car, and estimates times, counts the intervals between when he sees an electric pole and when they pass it. One one hundred, two one hundred, how many feet? Enough time? Enough distance?
The wood is sorted into three piles, tinder, kindling, and firewood. A nest can be made out of the tinder, and lit carefully with a match. Kindling is slowly fed into the fire, no more than a stick or two at a time. The firewood can then be placed to either side, as it lights more is added slowly, until the blaze is full.
There were 68 elevator deaths between 1992 and 2003. Riding the elevator is more a matter of listening. There may be no other indication anything is wrong before the free-fall, three seconds at most and impact. But he always imagines he could hear the cables part, that they’d make a distinctive sound, tortured metal giving up. When people in the elevator are talking too loudly he glares at them.
Conventional explanations for accidents use notions such as operator error; faulty design or equipment; lack of attention to safety features; lack of operating experience. We have encountered ample evidence of these problems causing accidents. But something more basic and important contributes to the failure of systems. The conventional explanations only speak of problems that are more or less inevitable.
Putting out a fire properly takes a good deal of time. Water should be poured slowly over the fire, until no flame is visible. With a shovel, the coals should be turned over each time a bucket of water is added. The area should not be left until the site of the fire is completely cool to the touch of a bare hand.
He goes out on the weekends to the point in the river where he can see the cooling towers, and carefully builds the perfect fire, then just as carefully puts it out. He can be ready if he watches for them. Accidents need not become catastrophes, after all, he thinks they are completely normal.