The "Somebody Else's Problem" field, or S.E.P., referred to by Sharon in this strip comes from the brilliant Douglas Adams, and was in his third Hitchhiker's book, Life, the Universe, and Everything. It is a sort of cloaking device which works on the principle that people will ignore things they don't want to see. So for instance, you can take a very weird looking space ship and plop it down in the middle of London with an S.E.P. field on, and because most people do not want their lives interrupted by such a thing, the field will amplify their native tendency to want to ignore it and go on about their business.

If you have not read Adams, then what are you waiting for?

- Grayson Towler
June, 2005