Inviting Disaster
by James R. Chiles · first published 2001
6mentions
4recommended by
4HN commenters
2012–2026first – last mentioned
100% recommend
Combining captivating storytelling with eye-opening findings, Inviting Disaster delves inside some of history's worst catastrophes in order to show how increasingly "smart" systems leave us wide open to human tragedy.Weaving a dramatic narrative that explains how breakdowns in these systems result in such disasters as the chain reaction crash of the Air France Concorde to the meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, Chiles vividly demonstrates how the battle between man and machine may be escalating beyond manageable limits -- and why we all have a stake in its outcome.Included in this
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If you're into this, you might also like: Inviting Disaster: Lessons From the Edge of Technology: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0066620821
on “Nuclear Plant Accidents: Sodium Reactor Experiment” ↗…much about correctness at the expense of feelings, community, and personal relationships. Maybe. Or, maybe like other engineers we care more about having things that work than your hurt feelings. In Inviting Disaster [1], Chiles talks about how the most successful engineering cultures don't cover up mistakes. They expose them and correct them at the earliest possible instance. This does sometimes require people to…
A book to greatly add to your perspectives about large complex systems failing: Inviting Disaster https://www.amazon.com/Inviting-Disaster-Lessons-Edge-Techno...
on “Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?” ↗…accidents and would like to know more about it. Nice books: 1. Normal Accidents: living with High-Risk Technologies 2. The Logic of Failure: Why Things Go Wrong and What We Can Do to Make Them Right 3. Inviting Disaster 4. The design of everyday things
on “Airplanes broadcasting parameters, why not? Or am I missing something?” ↗Read "Inviting Disaster" for a lot more about this topic. Many very high profile disasters were caused by operator error or more precisely complex systems not designed for what you might call failure ergonomics.
on “Half of European flights delayed due to system failure” ↗Learn about failures. Inviting Disaster: Lessons From the Edge of Technology was one of the texts for an aerospace class I didn't take but friends did, but honestly you can just read the book. There are lots of frameworks for teaching safety…
on “Artemis II is not safe to fly” ↗