jeffy124's Journal: Human Factors of Engineering Safety

Experts often say that no matter how much computing technology gets thrown at it, security will still come down to a human, such as easy passwords, etc.

I was watching something about engineering disasters on the history channel when a choice quote was made by a structural engineer describing the collapse of the Hartford Civic Arena in the 1970s. "No matter how much a computer is used, a human is still the one who has to use it." The building was one of the first to be constructed with the aid of an early CAD system. But the transfer of the computations and design plans onto paper for the contracter didnt go smoothly, which introduced the set of errors that allowed the collapse of the building.

I missed the show

[memfree]

but I'm curious if they mentioned *which* CAD software ... or if they deeemed that too close to a slur against the particular package.

Re:I missed the show

[jeffy124]

no they didnt. but even so, they mentioned that they had done everything correctly on the computer, but didnt translate it properly into the structure.