http://innerpilgrimage.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/oh-the-places-youll-go/ and other things got me thinking, each generation must learn the same lessons, if nothing changes. If something changes, it is a new lesson, or a slightly different lesson.
We geotechnical engineers are now seeing the long term effects changes in the building code from 1995 changes, but I digress. These are the same lessons from the 1962 building code, that stopped being a problem after changes were made. It make the problem clear though, we change, and something else comes up, and forces more change. Life is constant change, and we need to recognise and adapt to the new changes.
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Having grown up in NorCal? I definitely appreciate the geotech engineers whose levee system kept most of Sacramento from flooding in 1986 and who worked with structural engineers to develop earthquake safety standards which kept quake deaths to a minimum during the quakes I or my family rode through during the 1980s and 1990s. Oh, and that my parents' home was built on a shelf of some stable tidal zone rock, so when the 1997 El Nino hit? They didn't slide down the hill or into the ocean like a lot of other tidal-zone homes did.
I agree with your statement about change; it reminds me of George Santayana's often misquoted principle about history. And, well, I paraphrase Einstein in relation to what you said about geotech engineering: our predecessors and peers who advance humanity's knowledge deserve the respect of having us do the same in equal measure.
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