[Index]

LL :: Volume 50 :: LR
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  Docked Our Living Review, I Presume
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*   Editor's Note
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  With this issue, the Left Foot Living Review returns to a state of quasi-permanent abeyance. I wrote it for a time, and it has been good. But it is not a task I can undertake indefinitely.

The Editors thank you for your enjoyment, your kind words, and your patronage. You have been generous of attention -- that being the bright specie of the Net.

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*   Technology Spinoffs
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  Experiments in precision-prestress glass construction have produced mail-fracture glass. The stress surfaces in this material tend to fracture to produce small rings, instead of the usual cubes. And the rings are (of course) interlinked. Thus, an impact -- if it is not too much over the glass's breaking force -- will tend to produce an cohesive surface; the sheet will hold together, even though it is no longer rigid. Much of the impact's energy will be dissipated in breaking the rings apart from each other; the rest, hopefully, will be dispersed in the now-flexible mail surface.

The geometry necessarily produces many small "scrap" pyramids. (The rings cannot occupy the entire volume of the glass sheet, or there would be no give when they are released.) This scrap is about 30% of the volume, and has sharper angles than the usual prestress glass shatter. Mail-fracture is therefore not ideal for the usual safety applications. It is intended for load-bearing glass surfaces, which must not disintegrate entirely when broken.

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*   City Features
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  Koriant Hill has elected to install fog lights on the standing stones that crown the District's hilltop. These tiny lights will only turn on when fog encroaches, or when cloud cover lowers enough to shroud the stones. Furthermore, they are designed to brighten as the fog becomes thicker. The stones will thus always be visible from the ground. But the thicker the mist, the more light will be diffused out and around the hilltop; in rain it will be a solid mass of light, almost touchable...

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*   Fads of the City
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  Thursdays are Climbing Days in Morvenside Park. All the trees in the park are given a field treatment originally developed for construction site safety. The effect is an infinite coefficient of friction: you cannot slide your hand along the tree's surface, no matter how lightly you are touching it. (The field actually extends out several inches, and grips evenly past the wrist -- or equivalent limb -- to prevent injury.)

Young children should not be allowed to climb unsupervised. It is still possible to fall out of a tree; it's just much more difficult. (If you start to fall, almost any flailing will get you some sort of contact, and then you can hang -- by one hand or whatever -- until help arrives.)

Alternatively, for such children -- or vertical enthusiasts -- lift belts are available for rental.

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*   Indulgence
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  The sky is dim, retaining some light, and the sea is dark. And you come to understand those people who walk down to the shore; and wade out, through the line of strife; and strike out for the center of the sea;
looking for something
that wearies
more slowly
than yourself.

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