Sci-Fi Train Makes Brief Stop at Reality Junction

By now, everyone knows that magnetic levitation trains are space-age weird. They're straight out of fantasy land. These trains have no source of fuel but instead hover above an electrically charged magnetic track. The creators of the mag-lev said their train would never derail. (A derailment from those tracks, which are held above the ground on 16-foot stilts, would be even more devastating than a derailment of a regular, real-world train.) And so far, the creators have been right. In a crash in northern Germany yesterday, the wreckage never fell off the tracks, but instead, the hellish sight was suspended in mid-air by the tracks' magnetic laser beams. Magical floating trains are something we all need to get used to, but we can't expect new technology to solve the problem of human error. How does that maxim go? That's right: to be a human is to do things erringly. That's so true. There is no way to solve the problem of being human. Unless we build a time machine. I knew this back in 1972 when I woke up on a stranger's couch, the taste of hair in my mouth, and fecal matter all over my feet. "I need a time machine," I said. Vindicated.