Five Stories About Saying To Hell With Rules and Regulations

[james_davis_nicoll]

Why let safety or common sense get in the way of fun?

Five Stories About Saying To Hell With Rules and Regulations

Comments

[patrick_morris_miller]

Also, every RPG party ever.

(I think one of my fellow Traveller players has never once been pulled over by the cops or gone through Customs, because last session she volunteered information. When we had been intercepted in an interdicted system. Sure, we could prove force majeure for being there, but now it's turned into a thing and we stand to gain nothing real by it.)

[sturgeonslawyer]

Once again, ReacTor will not let me post though I am logged in.


Heinlein came up with a brilliant workaround for nanny-state regulations in his creation of the Shipstone, created (in an astonishing coincidence) by someone named Shipstone: a portable battery or generator or atomic reactor or, well, something; Shipstone chooses not to patent the darn thing, so there is no helpful diagram on file; so nobody knows much about it except that (a) it provides beaucoup electrical power for cheap, and (b) if you try to open or otherwise figure out what's inside it it blows up real good, generally taking the would-be investigators, their laboratory, and several city blocks along with it.

The real victory against the nanny state, however, is that -- what with these devices being so friggin' useful -- (1) they aren't outlawed after the first such incident; (2) nor is the facility where they are manufactured, or grown, or whatever, raided to discover Shipstone's secret, purely for the betterment of humankind, of course.

I think it safe to say that, at least as regards the second of these two victories, RAH was a sincere and fervent optimist.

[armiphlage]

Laurence E. Dahners wrote multiple series where the brilliant protagonist invented something novel, and evil faculty, mobsters, bosses, and/or government officials kidnapped them, stole their devices, and/or attempted to reverse engineer the invention.

In all cases, they were defeated by incorporating an extra short circuit or open circuit in the plans sent to the factory; the inventor would then cut a trace or add a wire to make it work.

In some cases, the inventor also added thermite, opaque conformal coatings, or passwords on the software that ran the invention.

[(Anonymous)]

My post wouldn't post in ReacTor until I edited it shorter. I think in particular I took out "quote marks", but I still had some in. Specifically one, but it was meant to be two, ands I was allowed to edit it (apparently) to be right. Or else a length limit is involved. Or it's "smart quote" symbols, in case I had that by mistake. Or some actual reason that I may have been told and I forgot. Actual but not a good reason? I'm using the browser "Opera", with Chromium. Like Microsoft Edge.

Robert Carnegie

[scott_sanford]

I needed new glasses, I thought the raccoon was an unfamiliar, perhaps feral, cat, so why wouldn’t I try to pick it up and pet it? Aside from it not being a cat and not wanting me within arm’s reach, the plan was perfect.

Didn't you also once have an encounter with a raccoon attempting to pass itself off as an adoptable stray cat?

[james_davis_nicoll]

That was a very hopeful skunk.

[bunsen_h]

Seanan McGuire has mentioned going to check on the cat-food bowl one morning, and discovering a skunk that had joined the feeding mob via the cat door. Everyone was mutually respectful and there were no issues. The skunk family lived under her porch and never caused her any trouble.

The neighbors, on the other hand... the kids never did learn not to try to maul the black-and-white kitty. With the predictable consequences.

I had a medium-close encounter with a skunk a couple of evenings ago, when it crossed my sidewalk at speed before hoofing it across the street. More usually in my neighborhood, when I encounter a skunk in the evening, it's poking at someone's lawn, probably looking for grubs. I don't bother changing my path, since I'm going to be passing a metre or two away from it; I just say "hello" as I walk by, and it doesn't appear to be paying any attention to me. No huhu.

[patrick_morris_miller]

Don’t start none, won't be none.

[(Anonymous)]

Everybody's already seen that unspeakably cute video showing a cyclist peacefully meeting a skunk family on a forest road, right?

[bunsen_h]

I hadn't, but found it easily. That's very cute. I can't help but think that the skunks thought that the bike tire smelled sulfurously familiar.

[james_davis_nicoll]

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