Various and human frailty

• ·     Verena Vogeler tweeted this photo. Here's the story. Last week two men "escaped" the nursing home in rural Dithmarschen (Germany) to join 75,000 heavy metal fans at the 20th Wacken Open Air festival near Hamburg. Event promoters said, "You're never too old to rock." Nursing home managers panicked when they couldn't find them, and police escorted them back after two days of head banging. Looks like they weren't the only mature fans. #NewsYouNeed        
• ·     In case you missed the announcement, Patrick Stewart will reprise the role of Jean-Luc Piccard in a new Star Trek series for CBS All Access. There are no scripts yet. EDITORIAL COMMENT: You can bet that CBS All Access is going to be added to the cable mix in nursing homes across the US soon. #NewsYouNeed
• ·         Technology and social media are relatively new corporate activities, and make a lot of the “errors of enthusiasm” when they occasionally need the “wisdom of complacency.” In the end, these faux pas are human errors, producing egg on the face. Today I want to talk about Human Error, and some avoidable errors that were costly. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         http://time.com/5361999/facebook-indonesia-earthquake-balloons-lombok/ Sunday 5-Aug Indonesia had a 6.9 earthquake. When people used Facebook to say they were safe, or to say that they hoped people would be safe, Facebook ran into a teensy bit of future shock. The word “selamat” can mean “safe” or “congratulations.” A feature of Facebook saw the word and put animated balloons and confetti on the messages and posts. By Wednesday they were apologizing. EDITORIAL COMMENT: Finding out that context matters and making your program smarter is a growth process, and it’s become very obvious that Facebook’s product managers are helping their developers build immature features into their apps while they sell access to your information.  Bless their hearts. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         https://www.adweek.com/digital/american-apparel-mistakes-challenger-explosion-as-fireworks/ On the 4^th of July in 2014, American Apparel put a picture of fireworks on their Tumblr account. Only it wasn’t fireworks. It was a picture of the Challenger disaster. When they posted their apology they blamed a young “international social media employee” who didn’t know what it was. EDITORIAL COMMENT. The adult supervision went AWOL and was not accounted for. Somebody has to watch what the kids are doing, in case there’s a teachable moment BEFORE you disgust the whole internet. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         AOL bought Bebo for $840 million and sold it later for $10 million. EDITORIAL COMMENT: There are many stories like this one, where a bet was placed on the future – or wasn’t – and it became clear later that it was a bad idea. That’s not really preventable human error. That’s failing to predict the future, and not something I’d criticize a person or business for. It’s a fine line. Let’s find it. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         Western Union rejected Alex Bell’s patent offer for the telephone. Decca Records rejected the Beatles. Twelve publishers rejected Harry Potter. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         Ron Wayne is a little-known co-founder of Apple. In 1976 he sold his 10% share for $1500. Today it would be worth more than $50 billion. EDITORIAL COMMENT: Predicting the future is hard. Sometimes a bird in the hand is not worth two in the bush. #NewsYouNeed
• ·         “To err is human.” Seneca the Younger, 30 AD. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         In May 2016 researchers from Johns Hopkins estimated that “medical error” was the 3^rd leading cause of death in the US, responsible for 251,000 hospital deaths a year. EDITORIAL  COMMENT: The  world’s most expensive healthcare system may be a big-time killer. But it may also be the victim of some very sloppy statistical tricks. The researchers themselves erred – they smurfed up the stats so much that 1 of 3 hospital deaths became a mistake. The real number is more like 1 in 30. Alarming, but not mass manslaughter. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         NASA accidentally taped over the moon landing video. No original tapes left. They erased 200,000 tapes and reused them to save money. Years later they paid a contractor to restore them from CBS file tapes. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         They spent 177 years building a tall tower in Pisa, Italy. #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty
• ·         On 23 Sept 1999 the Mars Climate Orbiter disappeared near Mars. As it happened, the software that detected fuel needs rendered measurements in pounds, and the software that fired the rockets to maintain orbit used measurements in newtons. A pound is 4.45 newtons, and the craft didn’t get enough newtons and burned up in the martian atmosphere. EDITORIAL NOTE: We like to pick on NASA, but their Mars Rover missions were planned for 90 days and are still going six years later. Great case of underpromise, overdeliver! #NewsYouNeed #HumanFrailty