I would imagine that a small, microscopic perhaps, fissure in many a prophylactic has led to the creation of untold numbers of jerks.
I would imagine that a small, microscopic perhaps, fissure in many a prophylactic has led to the creation of untold numbers of jerks.
Legend has it, the aquatic plant water hyacinth was introduced to the United States in 1884 at the World Fair for its beauty.
Well, without any natural competitors, it has become a bit of a problem. This is what it does to bodies of water when it's left to its own devices:
It kills just about everything else in the water, but I'm sure that the mosquitoes love it.
Story of the retarded immaculate conception, as told by Henry Rollins:
Two pairs of teens, boy-girl, boy-girl, are on a double date. Boy-girl in front seat start getting it on. Boy-girl in back seat think that that's a good idea, but, alas, no condom. "Say brother, could you spare a condom?'
"No, I only have this one but...I'm almost finished . Here you go."
Now not wanting to be gay and touch some other guys rapidly cooling man-goo, backseat boy gets an idea! I'll just flip it inside out. Proceeds to have sex.
Yes, nine months later, girl gives birth to baby who's father is the boy in the front seat.
hindenburg?
MitchellC wrote: Legend has it, the aquatic plant water hyacinth was introduced to the United States in 1884 at the World Fair for its beauty.
The dandelion was supposedly brought to the US in a similar manner.
IIRC this is a bood I read years ago about disasters throughout history. Big ones like the Space Shuttle, to Chernobyl and Bopaul and the DuPonts. Mr.s DuPont was big into TNT but safety was a lears-as-you-go kinda thing. Yeah, he killed himself.
Oil platform in the North Atlantic in winter, freshly painted over the summer; a painter slathered paint into a crack thinking he was doing a good thing.
My take away on the book: Every single failure has no less than three warning signs.
At the end of the bood were short incidents one or two paragraphs long. What the heck were you people thinking?
Dan
I had seen that book but forgotten about it. Thanks for reminding me! Now I'm going to request it from my library.
I do believe the prototype B-17 crashed on an early test flight because someone forgot to remove the control locks.
A new word I learned is "Preflight".
Preflight? 
IIRC that Concorde crash was due to a strip of aluminum about 6" long that fell off the plane in front of it and caused a tire failure.
MitchellC wrote: Legend has it, the aquatic plant water hyacinth was introduced to the United States in 1884 at the World Fair for its beauty. Well, without any natural competitors, it has become a bit of a problem. This is what it does to bodies of water when it's left to its own devices:
sounds about right.
Curmudgeon wrote: Preflight?
Yes please!
914Driver wrote: My take away on the book: Every single failure has no less than three warning signs...
This is generally very true.
If you look into aviation crashes you will find that almost all are the result of of a Series of failures / problems. These of course are in an environment where great effort is put into making things a fail proof as possible. Once you start stacking those failures...
I read a book on this - "To Engineer is Human" I think. Talked about a variety of engineering berkeleyups.
JoeyM wrote: Mars Probe Lost Due to Simple Math Error [Edit: My example will definitely be listed in the link Apexcarver gave]
This was indeed used as an illustrative warning in my classes at georgia tech everytime someone whined " I got the right answer, it's just units...."
Wrong is WRONG buddy. 12mm doesn't equal 12", and -1 doesn't = 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanair_Flight_5022
Just one of the many....
914Driver wrote: IIRC this is a bood I read years ago about disasters throughout history. Big ones like the Space Shuttle, to Chernobyl and Bopaul and the DuPonts. Mr.s DuPont was big into TNT but safety was a lears-as-you-go kinda thing. Yeah, he killed himself. Oil platform in the North Atlantic in winter, freshly painted over the summer; a painter slathered paint into a crack thinking he was doing a good thing. My take away on the book: Every single failure has no less than three warning signs. At the end of the bood were short incidents one or two paragraphs long. What the heck were you people thinking? Dan
I tried to find that book in both the major Libraries in town today and struck out. I guess I will have to look into buying it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlf5ucFanpY
One of these led to the following failures
I had too include him... lol
http://www.cracked.com/article_16521_5-tiny-mistakes-that-led-to-huge-catastrophes.html
Cracked has other similar lists too.
DrBoost wrote: I'm looking for a few ideas from you folks. I'm looking for epic failures that are the result of something very simple. The only thing I can really think of is the space shuttle Challenger. A simple o-ring killed 7 people and cost billions. Any ideas?
There's the plane that ran out of fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
Maybe you want more mechanical things but World War 1 killed many millions by the hand of one man killing an Austrian Prince.
Kram wrote: Maybe you want more mechanical things but World War 1 killed many millions by the hand of one man killing an Austrian Prince.
I seem to recall Korean Air Line Flight 007 was off course due to an input error into the flight computer when it was shot down by the Russkies.
I seem to recall an airliner crash caused by icing of a pitot tube that made the ASI not work and there was no alarm. That meant the crew didn't know they were close to stall speed.
Found it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124411224440184797.html
It also seems that wasps may have nested in another plane's tubes!
Thanks guys, good stuff!!
You'll need to log in to post.
