Kirjahaku

More absurd, horrifying, and downright inexplicable shorts from the author of "The Man Who Stands in Line." Included are such soon-to-be classics as Buzz-Saw Bob, the sport of pendulum watching, yet another secret to ultimate success, the art of gasping, a neighbor who is definitely not Mr. Rogers, and Buddha's morning commute.

A mysterious Front, originating in Scotland and slowly expanding outward, threatens humanity's existence. In defiance of the known laws of physics, it only kills humans and is otherwise undetectable. Panic-stricken nations struggle against both the advancing menace and a tide of civil unrest. Desperate individuals must find their own paths, and find them quickly. Although very slow, the Front can be deceptively difficult to escape. Mankind has only a few years to pool its rapidly dwindling resources and save itself from extinction. Amid growing chaos, the novel follows the choices made by a Glaswegian shopkeeper fleeing her rioting city, two National Guardsmen facing an impossible situation in the mountains of Colorado, a young girl whose family is disintegrating around her, and a desperate Chinese prisoner facing the unknown. A last ditch effort by a brilliant scientist and her inexperienced protege may represent humanity's only hope.Through the lens of these lives, and a variety of other stories, essays, and TV transcripts, we experience a world struggling to come to grips with its impending mortality. Prisoners are sacrificed, governments bomb their own people to halt the waves of refugees, suicidal sports form, and life becomes a race for survival against the slowest but surest of enemies.

A mysterious Front threatens humanity's existence. In defiance of the known laws of physics, it only kills humans and is otherwise undetectable. Panic-stricken nations struggle against both the advancing menace and a tide of civil unrest. Mankind has only a few years to pool its rapidly dwindling resources and save itself from extinction.

When hard-nosed lawyer Beth follows a strange man into a hidden cave, she finds herself in a massive subterranean world known as "The Below". As she learns about this secret place and grows closer to her guide, she discovers a surprising side to herself. But all is not as it seems in The Below, and the apparent tranquility of the path she treads may obscure a darker truth. The Below is a novella about change, purpose, and self-discovery.

In this monograph we attempt to mathematically codify a notion of "moral systems," and define a sensible measure of distances between them. Along the way we delve into a number of related topics, and propose mathematical proxies for otherwise vague concepts such as hypocrisy, judgment, world-view, and moral trajectory. In addition to detailed derivation of a number of candidate metrics, we offer several examples, including a concrete distance calculation for a simple system. The framework we develop is not confined to the analysis of moral systems, and may find use in a wide variety of applications involving decision systems, black box computation, or conditional probability distributions.

Just because Rin is indestructible doesn't mean she can't be hurt. On her quest to remedy an ancient sin, a single act of casual cruelty sets off an avalanche of events which threaten to destroy everything. Rin must rein in her assistant, a man of fierce attachment and questionable conviction, while avoiding a devious ex-husband who will stop at nothing to reclaim her. In the balance lies her heart and the fate of the world.