nuclear reactor
"Building a nuclear reactor is like building a house without a toilet and telling the owner you'll figure out where to put the s-t in a few years, except that human excrement is at least fertilizer, while nuclear waste is some of the longest-lasting, most insidiously deadly poison ever created, and for which there is STILL no effective means of disposal. I fear your blind faith in the "Technium" misses most of these inconvenient truths. "
"a nuclear reactor is like a woman.. ...you just have to read the manual, and press all the right buttons. "
"A nuclear reactor is like a high-performance sports car built to go 600 miles per hour in a world where the speed limit is 60. To run it safely, you'd need to keep one foot on the brake pedal--all the time. (And "game over" if the brakes fail.)"
"A nuclear reactor is like any other type of technology - it will malfunction badly if you don't design and operate it right. The same is true of hydroelectric dams, but one thing that makes them different is the absolute worst case senerio for a reactor failure is nowhere near as bad as a dam failure."
"A nuclear reactor is like the mitochondria because the nuclear reactor powers the ship just like the mitochondria powers the cell."
"Also a nuclear reactor is not like a light bulb you cannot just "switch off" a reactor when things go wrong, it is a lengthy process to "shutdown" a nuclear reactor making it very hazardous to work with. This then means that a nuclear reactor is like a childs bicycle fitted with a Ferrari Enzo V12 engine totally unnecessary, over powered, overkill, stupid and riddiculous this is the most apt metaphor for a nuclear reactor to really put this into layman perspective. "
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.