Sometimes a news report involves how tech impacts our lives.
The report from Indonesia on the Boeing 737 Max got my attention. High tech we simply accept that enables our ability to travel just about anywhere relatively quickly.
Systems installed without letting the user know they exist, sensors installed 21 degrees out of calibration, flight crew unaware a flight system exists, no less how to shut it off, and unable to find an emergency procedure in over 4 minutes.
High tech is great, but we literally put our lives in its hands. How many of us spend more time trying to figure out why something will not work as expected, instead of taking immediate action to find an alternative.
I think the problem for me is frequently trying to ask questions to solve what I think the problem is, instead of asking for help with what the problem is.
I end up spending more time trying to figure out what it is I actually want to know than I do with the problem itself simply because I think I’m saving time by short circuiting what I perceive the problem to be, all the way to what question I think will provide the answer.
I always worked in real time operational situations. As we became more reliant on computers, I found people started to focus on the computer issues, and ignoring the actual problem related to what the computer was monitoring and/ or controlling. Go to manual control, reboot system if and when you can.
So, as we add iPad sized displays to cars, and computer aided flight controls to planes, I worry about systems hitting “bugs”, and the operator worrying more about the display than worrying about the imminent crash.
Our Solid Waste company here lost $280k because of a phishing email sent. Some scammer sent an email that said “hey I’m one of your vendors and I need you to update the accounting info”.
They literally got an email and then just sent $280k to these scammers. Not only do we put our lives in the hands of tech but we do so with nearly all base level users having no idea how to keep themselves safe and secure while using it.