The pie is done, ditto the potato dish and the carrots, and the chicken is in the oven with something I've never tried before: making herb butter and stuffing it under the skin. I must say the place smells divine!!! I expect the neighbors will be telling me this when I run into them in the hallway soon.
Meanwhile, however, I'm horsing around online and checking the blogs. You may enjoy this one in particular, too: Old Phat Stu, who had a fascinating post yesterday on ejection seats (as in pilots). Stu was a flight instructor for "going on three decades," and he knows his stuff. Stu also has a policy of using email for comments. So I'm sharing my email/comments to & from him with you. He lives far, far away.
My first question regarding his post was this:
To which he replied:But how could he be killed with all those precautionary restraints? or did he pull the handle himself? you know SO MUCH! glory....
Given that I was a flying instructor for nigh on three decades, Mary, it would be an embuggerance (q.v) if I did NOT Know how an ejection seat works.And I said:
All technical devices (and even social structures) only work as intended when a (perhaps implicit) set of assumptions are satisfied.
Part of doing risk analyses is identifying those assumptions ( aka drawing a risk tree) and checking they are satisfied.
For Fukushima these (should have) included simultaneous earthquake AND tsunami;
uncovering the cores and the dampening pools, loss of electricity for more than 3 days, running out of diesel fuel , etc etc.
For crossing the road it includes looking both ways first. We teach our kids specific instances like that one, but as a rule people are not taught how to do General risk assessment.
And so on....then I asked him, since he's also a mathematician and so smart,As I read your note @technology and risk assessment, I am on the Metro going downtown to meet a friend to borrow a pie tin. An ordinary trip that usually takes abt 17 mins. And....tada....the train has stopped. A Metro employee walks through the cars shaking her head. Soon the train backs up to the platform, the doors open, and a bunch of people get on. Did the doors not open at that platform the first time? Now we're moving....and now we're stopped again. Does Metro do this to annoy us? It seems to be the law of technology these days that it always breaks down--whether it's a massive failure involving natural phenomena like Fukushima or just a Saturday morning glitch involving a worn-out switch. Ha. Soon I'll meet my friend, get the pie tin, and go back home to cook Sat. pm dinner--with apple pie. That I can do with my bare hands and my little red-handled knife (and the mostly risk-free assumption that the oven will work and the water in the sink will run).
He says:OK, so tell me. How do I pick a winning lottery number?
Buy ALL the tickets!!Of course he's right. I'm still laughing.
Mary--What we rarely see addressed is what we do with the probabalistic numbers after having arrived at them. Say...the people in Japan had done the calculation of the joint probability of the earthquake and tsunami doing just what they did. That number would most likely have been quite tiny. So...what do they do about it?
ReplyDeleteIf we design systems to take into account each and every little thing that can happen, several things will happen - among them - 1) we will spend all of our available resources on the one system 2) we will have angered people who disagreed with the value that we put on each human life that the system will save and 3) we will have driven all of the engineers crazy.
Although I was never an instructor, I can tell you that the only thing I totally counted upon when I was flying was/is this: Each time I cause an aircraft to leave the earth, I am assuring that I will need to bring it back to earth. Everything else is up for grabs!
I really enjoy Stu's postings. Thanks for carrying his link in your sidebar.
Cop Car
Cop Car: Uff da! Stu's postings are indeed enjoyable, even if I'm not edjicated enough to understand all of what he's talking about (like with you, too...ha). Stu also was very kind when I posted about my mother's birthplace in Germany. I said something about wondering if my grandmother's grave was still there in the church yard. Stu got on his motorcycle and drove there. When he arrived, the priest was walking outside, and Stu asked him about my grandmother's grave. It turns out that my mother's old parish church recycles its graves every so many years (I'm thinking 25, but maybe that's not long enough). Anyway, no, grandma's grave is not there, but I've never forgotten that kind gesture on Stu's part. He's like that--kind of like you--smart as a whip and very thoughtful of others.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words :-)
ReplyDeleteNow if I could only improve by grammar; there were at least 3 English errors in my last post :-(
Stu: Sorry about that. I don't work during leisure hours. The only thing I might be tempted to edit would be ITS with an apostrophe for the possessive form. And thankfully, you never use that barbarism. Your English is as good as or better than most, and you spend your days speaking mostly German, right? Scots is not exactly English, either, is it?
ReplyDeleteXE--How interesting about your grandmother's grave, and how surprising it is that they recycle the graves. It is not surprising that Stu would go out of his way for a friend.
ReplyDeleteStu is little like me: his intellect is an order of magnitude greater than mine. Thanks for writing otherwise, however. It proves your own kindness!
Cop Car
cop car: stu is smart, all right, but you are smarter than most of the other women i know. i have a grand niece who is studying to be an engineer (i think). her brother is an engineer, too. two of my brothers are engineers, too. i have a different kind of mind from those folks--and you and stu. so i'm always filled with admiration for anyone who can understand what you and stu do.
ReplyDelete