While last night's Wikipedia searches landed me to Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, I had forgotten I had already referenced Douglas Adams previously while at work.
I refered to the Ford Prefect Crisis Management System to which this post derives its name. Babylon 5 creator Joe Michael Straczynski (JMS) believes the proper term for it is being "a hero in the Heileinian tradition" (as he labelled Sheridan in response to jumping into a pit), though a proper "Heileinian hero" is listed by Wikipedia as more properly classified as a Competent Man, not necessarily precluding but not explicitly expressing the motivation behind JMS's depiction.
The Ford Prefect Crisis Management System as I would describe it, is the aspect that JMS liked: doing what's logical at that precise moment to survive. If you're on the 95th floor of a skyscraper wired with explosives and a timer counting down from 8 seconds, what do you do? Answer: Jump off, of course. You do what now? Well, exactly what the tiny font orders from you. At 95 stories, we're talking a height of around 393 metres† above the ground, meaning that our familiar
t=(2*y/g)^1/2formula for finding the freefall time of an object gives you 8.94 seconds to figure out how you're going to safely stop before you hit the ground. Not only is this 0.94 seconds longer than you had before, it also has the advantage of being proactive.
The big guy with the rocket launcher was moving it up into position for another shot.So speaketh Douglas Adams in "Almost Harmless", the final book of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" five-part trilogy.
Ford was completely at a loss for what to do next.
"Look," he said in a stern voice. But he wasn't certain how far saying things like "Look" in a stern voice was necessarily going to get him, and time was not on his side. What the hell, he thought, you're only young once, and threw himself out of the window. That would at least keep the element of surprise on his side.
†This data comes from a calculation involving One Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York, which is 60 stories tall translating to 248 metres. The advantage is that OCMP is a building which is floored all the way to the top of the building, so the roof of the 60th story is the height of 60 stories (making the 248/60*94 calulation more likely to be accurate), without any spires or transmission towers or the like.
So where do the southeast asian girls come in? Well, I'm not a huge fan of asian girls myself (I know a few people who are unhealthily obsessed), but I did come across "karmelkutie"s public photo album. May I recommend the Metropolis album? Still don't have time to browse? Okay, fine: one picture.
