From the category archives:

alarms

Ahem…your heart has stopped

by Richard Pak
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Darin Ellis sends along this radio story about a woman’s robotic heart that has a malfunction warning system that literally breaks the textbook HF rules of alarm design.  I’ll let Darin explain the unfortunate issue:
This woman, who is living thanks to a robotic heart, related a story of the “heart” malfunctioning.  Apparently, although not prone to malfunction, there is a [...]

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1960’s Human Factors : The Titan II Missiles

by Anne McLaughlin
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I went on a trip to Tucson over the holidays and toured the last Titan II missile silo. A brief history: from 1963-1982 these missiles were part of the cold war “peace through deterrance” and “assured mutual destruction.” In essence, they provided one reason not to attack the US: even were we destroyed, these missiles would still launch to destroy [...]

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Trust in Automation

by Anne McLaughlin

I’ve heard a great deal about trust and automation over the years, but this has to be my favorite new example of over-reliance on a system.
GPS routed bus under bridge, company says
“The driver of the bus carrying the Garfield High School girls softball team that hit a brick and concrete footbridge was using a GPS navigation system that [...]

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Unusually quiet morning radio show

by Anne McLaughlin

What if a Radio DJ hosted a morning show and no one heard?
Lesson learned! I will try to make certain to hit ‘publish’ at the end of this post.
From the article:
“”I’ve been doing the show three days a week for 10 months and always pressed the button at the right moment. Goodness knows why I forgot this time.
“Mr Dixon, the [...]

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