[X-Apps] Apple Bitch Of The Day "Fix'

[Ted Burton]

At 10:56 -0400 on 7/29/03, Albert D'Amanda spoke about [X-Apps] Apple 
Bitch Of The Day "Fix' thusly:

>The interface connector is located on the extreme right hand side of 
>the card while the two hold down screws are way over to the left 
>side. If an assembler in a "hurry" places the card over the two 
>screw hole and tightens, there is no guarantee that the interface 
>connector properly seats!

Funny thing about that is that such design flaws are not all that 
uncommon in the real world. The engineering flaw is the assumption 
that the installer will correctly seat the card before tightening the 
screws. After all, that's what the installer is supposed to do; 
therefore, they think, the installer will do it. Yeah.

Once upon a time there was a lawsuit against an engineering firm and 
manufacturer of a reinforcing system for concrete slabs in a 
building. Two wedges needed to be insert on opposite sides of a cable 
to hold it in place. If the two wedges were not evenly insert, that 
is one was set deeper than the other, the strength of the anchor was 
vastly reduced. An earthquake, anchors letting go, wedges flying 
north and cables flying south, concrete floors no longer strong 
enough for their use, and down came the floors like pancakes one on 
top of the other. Happily no one was in the building at the time, for 
finishing carpentry and such were still underway.

Perfect design, poor human installation, failure to function. The 
building was a multi-million dollar loss, though.
-- 

"Blest are they who through their lifetimes sow the seeds of peace; 
all will call them children of the Lord" -- John D. Becker, Lead Me 
Lord, OCP Publications