I have started a page devoted to excerpts from my book on art and science in flying. The first excerpt is about the invention of aviation checklists and related concepts, in the late 1930s. It turns out that the much-repeated story about a crash of a B-17 prototype is probably only partly true. The US Navy came out with a checklist at almost the same time.
Here is the page where I will post this and future excerpts.
Why do doctors and lawyers practice their professions as an art, while pilots treat flying as a science? Is the comparison even appropriate? For several years I have been working on a book showing how flying changed from a dangerous art, to a very safe science. On this blog I will be posting excerpts from the book as it progresses. My goal is to entertain, and to get comments, corrections, and criticisms.
100 years ago, pilots (men and women) learned to fly by doing it. If they survived the learning process, they got good. Now, computers do most of the flying. Human pilots manage the computers, and communicate with other aircraft and with the ground, but they do very little direct hands-on flying. How did this situation come about? Is it an appropriate model for other industries, or are there unique circumstances for aviation that make it different?
My first excerpt looks at the origins of the Aviation Checklist, which is advocated by famous surgeon Atul Gawande and others. This style of flying was a re-invention of what engineer Frederick Taylor had done for manufacturing about 40 years earlier. In both, the idea was that some ways of flying/manufacturing were best. The best methods could be found, and taught to everyone.
It’s a very hot summer, and that brings babies dying of heatstroke after they are accidentally left in a parent’s car. Years ago I thought “I could never make such a stupid mistake,” but after the research I’ve been doing on aviation safety, I no longer believe it. My own children are grown up, but many of my former students have small children, and it’s a terrible tragedy for anyone. So I’ve been thinking about how to reduce the incidence, using ideas from aviation.
<rant> One quick pet peeve: if you see someone’s kid in a back seat looking unconscious, don’t stand around calling 911. Break the damned window and get them out! Yell at someone else to call 911. I’ve seen multiple articles about people standing around in parking lots! </rant>
My classes have been working on international treatment of Internet Censorship. It’s led to interesting discussions about company and national policies. But it’s easy (for me at least) to fall into the Internet is new and unique trap. It’s true, but sometimes it’s also irrelevant.
Here is an excerpt from Craigslist’s list of items that are forbidden to be advertised. These restrictions are the results of prosaic US laws on advertising and commerce. As far as I know, they are exactly the same for ads in newspapers, flyers, or even word of mouth. I don’t “like” certain of these restrictions, but by and large it’s a sensible list.
- Tickets you are not allowed to sell, including airline tickets that restrict transfer.
- Coupons or gift cards that restrict transfer or which you are not authorized to sell.
- Lottery tickets, sports trading card grab bags, raffle tickets, sweepstakes entries, slot machines, other gambling items.
- Used or rebuilt batteries, or batteries containing mercury.
- Used bedding and clothing, unless sanitized in accordance with law.
via craigslist | about > prohibited items.
There are a few controversies about Craigslist ads that seem to have more specific Internet nuances. Sexual crimes seem to feature prominently in them.
An injunction issued by an Indian court in a copyright infringement case has forced Indian Internet service providers to block access to the video-sharing sites Vimeo and DailyMotion, Bittorrent-tracker The Pirate Bay, text-sharing site Pastebin and a number of other websites.
via Indian court orders Pirate Bay, Pastebin blocks, Supreme Court gets DDoSed | Ars Technica.
Exporting copyright: Inside the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership
Meet “ACTA plus,” and the people trying to stop it.
via Exporting copyright: Inside the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership | Ars Technica.
Some much needed skeptical talk about the current state of Internet innovation. -RB
That’s the microversion of the state of affairs. Here’s the macro version. Thousands of startups are doing almost exactly the same thing, minor variations on a theme. Tech journalists report endlessly on the same handful of well-established companies. Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft’s dominate pieces of the web, and they don’t appear to be in shaky positions. Good, long-time tech journalists like Om Malik are exhausted. He recently posted this to his blog after much ink was spilled over who Twitter hired as a public relations person:
Sure, these are some great people and everyone including me is happy for their new gigs and future success. But when I read these posts [I] often wonder to myself, have we run out of things to say and write that actually are about technology and the companies behind them? Or do we feel compelled to fill the white space between what matters? Sort of like talk radio?
via The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future.
Art and Science in Technology - Roger Bohn's Blog 