[polemic]

Reminds me of an excellent conference talk I went to once - landslip modellers in BC, Canada spend a lot of time trying to prevent slips from damanging the railways that wind throught the mountainous terrain.

There was a lot of research into statistical models of slips – in particular boudler movement and how they break up – which didn't really work.

It turned out that game engines with good dynamic object desctruction are pretty good at modelling them, and they were able to get much better results using the game engine vs statistical models.

[user_7832]

Also reminds me of how Plague Inc (a Miniclip game, pretty good if you haven't played) was very realisitc at modelling disease outbreaks, during ebola and covid times, prompting the makers to put out a statement.

[0] - https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/plague-inc-maker-dont...

[simne]

> There was a lot of research into statistical models of slips – in particular boudler movement and how they break up – which didn't really work.

You remembered me history from Harrington Emerson (The twelve principles of efficiency).

As railroad worker, he frequently seen rails flooded by rain. Exist at least two solutions.

First, to build Embankment, so rails will be much over water level, which will cost at least few millions dollars. And sure, suffer all problems with slips in future.

Second, to dig trench near rails (in most cases it is obvious, where to dig) and just constantly pump out water from it, so all water from rain will be pumped out - it will cost few hundred dollars for digging and less than thousand dollars per year to support (100 years ago, now, sure more). No slips at all, because when ground is dry, no slip happen.

Guess, what usually chose management and why? :)

[simne]

BTW, greetings from Kyiv, Ukraine, country now at war, and city, whole build on hills and over hundred years spent to build drainage system under hills so last decades slips are very rare.