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When he returned to the air field, Bob Hoover walked over to the man who had nearly caused his death and, according to the California Fullerton News-Tribune, sa
by endymi0n 10y ago
When he returned to the air field, Bob Hoover walked over to the man who had nearly caused his death and, according to the California Fullerton News-Tribune, said:
“There isn’t a man alive who hasn’t made a mistake. But I’m positive you’ll never make this mistake again. That’s why I want to make sure that you’re the only one to refuel my plane tomorrow. I won’t let anyone else on the field touch it.”
- bgilham 10y agoNice!
- justifier 10y agothis is a great anectdote, but the reason i am replying to your comment is because of your user name i am a huge fan of the turn of the century dancer isadora duncan and her lover who she first had a child with, the theatre set design theorist, edward gordon craig who she affectionately called endymion a complete aside, but if you have, or anyone reading this has, yet to read duncan's autobiography 'my life' i highly recommend it to anyone and everyone she is a brilliant writer, lived an eccentric life, and she was and her writing is imbued with a mad passion for expression and both life's hardships and joys
- ryanmarsh 10y agoSeems like something my wife would like to read. Just bought her a copy. Thanks for the tip.
- sjcsjc 10y agoGood idea. I've just done the same. Thanks both
- edraferi 10y agoThat is some really quality nerd stuff right there. Thanks!
- tominous 10y agoI can't resist chiming in with another Endymion reference: the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. Fantastic series.
- danohu 10y agoI'm now reading My Life because of this comment. I'm greatly enjoying it so far -- thanks!
- pfarnsworth 10y agoThere are two schools of thought, especially in stock trading. 1) Reversion to the mean. This is what the above person believes and that this likely won't happen again. 2) Indication of a trend. The pilot is actually incompetent, and this will happen more frequently with this pilot than an average pilot.
- racl101 10y agoTotally ruined that warm feeling I got from the anecdote with your damn logic.
- wyago 10y agoI know you're probably not implying regression to the mean is causational, but that was my initial reading so I want to clarify for those who may not be familiar with the concept. Regression to the mean is simply that any given datapoint is most likely to be the mean, or close to it. This means that any exceptional data point,up or down, can be expected to be followed up by the mean. The example of this being misinterpreted that I am familiar with is that of a flight instructor's belief on training. When a pilot performed well, they wouldnt comment. If a pilot performed poorly, they would be punished. They believed this was better because when they praised a pilot, they would usually do worse the following run, and when they punish them they do better. This isn't technically wrong, they are just ascribing causation where there is none. I think I saw this example in Signal vs. Noise, but I'm not sure. Basically, regression to the mean isn't a reason to pick someone who did poorly, it's a reason that that person will do no worse or better than they do normally.
- gbog 10y agoThe pilot performance example is in Thinking Fast and Slow, I think.
- vmarsy 10y agoI've read that story in "How to win friends and influence people" https://www.google.com/#&q=%22how+to+win+friends+and+influence+people%22+Bob+Hoover https://www.google.com/#&q=%22how+to+win+friends+and+influen...
- CuriouslyC 10y agoIn my experience, while someone might be extra careful not to repeat a mistake that has burned them in the past, making a serious mistake is often a sign that someone is careless, and more likely to make other, different mistakes in the future.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago> making a serious mistake is often a sign that someone is careless, and more likely to make other, different mistakes in the future. Or under external pressures they have no control over.
- RUG3Y 10y agoRight. I've been in a situation where I attained a huge amount of responsibility and authority in a short amount of time. I was learning a dozen new tasks simultaneously and getting something like 4 hours of sleep a night (military). I made some pretty big mistakes, and I think it's fair to assume that anyone would under those circumstances.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoAgree. Some people simply have unrealistic expectations.
- brazzledazzle 10y agoThis doesn't jibe with my experience. As long as the person doesn't evaluate their mistakes in a vacuum they become more careful in general because they learn that things can bite you in the ass in totally unexpected ways. So I'd say it depends on your environment combined with the individual. Someone who is apathetic and/or lacks critical thinking skills will probably learn very little beyond avoiding that specific mistake again.
- NoPiece 10y ago*jibe (jive is a dance, jibe is agree)
- huangc10 10y agoLink to the Bob Hoover story: http://www.squawkpoint.com/2014/01/criticism/ http://www.squawkpoint.com/2014/01/criticism/
- patio11 10y agoThere is a perhaps apocryphal story about the time when Mizuho Securities lost ~$225 million by attempting to sell 610k shares at 1 yen instead of 1 share at 610k yen. When asked whether he intended to fire the person who physically keyed in the order, the relevant department head stated that he did not intend to waste the firm's substantial investment in teaching them to act with due deliberation.
- JoshTriplett 10y agoI've seen several versions of that story, often with the quote "Why would we fire you? We just spent $X million educating you." Probably some combination of truth and exaggeration, but it makes for a memorable story regardless.
- hughes 10y agoI wish that story ended with the developer of the trading software learning a lesson about user interfaces
- barsonme 10y agoThis is a good point--I remember even the online game "Runescape" had a warning that would pop up if you tried to sell an item worth X for a very low price. It would seem to me (somebody who knows squat about stock trading) that a warning screen would be much more beneficial for stock trading software than it is for an online video game.
- Karunamon 10y agoYou'd think that, but then what happens is users get used to the warnings coming up and consciously/unconsciously adjust to click by it without reading. I'd imagine in the case of the stock trader, where quick reaction is valued, he'd have quickly entered whatever key combo is necessary to dismiss it the warning and made the same mistake.
- cortesoft 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Arjuna 10y agoI was not familiar with this story; that prompted me to research it. I found it interesting that this aviation incident had a positive outcome, in the form of safety innovations: the Hoover Nozzle and the Hoover Ring. Wikipedia states: "A perhaps-undesired recognition is the Hoover Nozzle used on jet fuel pumps. The Hoover Nozzle is designed with a flattened bell shape. The Hoover Nozzle cannot be inserted in the filler neck of a plane with the Hoover Ring installed, thus preventing the tank from accidentally being filled with jet fuel. This system was given this name following an accident in which Hoover was seriously injured, when both engines on his Shrike Commander failed during takeoff. Investigators found that the plane had just been fueled by line personnel who mistook the piston-engine Shrike for a similar turboprop model, filling the tanks with jet fuel instead of avgas (aviation gasoline). There was enough avgas in the fuel system to taxi to the runway and take off, but then the jet fuel was drawn into the engines, causing them to stop. Once Hoover recovered, he widely promoted the use of the new type of nozzle with the support and funding of the National Air Transportation Association, General Aviation Manufacturers Association and various other aviation groups (the nozzle is now required by Federal regulation on jet fuel pumps)." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hoover#Hoover_Nozzle_and_Hoover_Ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hoover#Hoover_Nozzle_and_H...
- eppeltert 10y agoIn general, this design principle is known as poka yoke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke
- hodgesrm 10y agoIt's probably not unrelated that American air travel is very safe because there's a no-blame, learn-from-the-issue attitude to problems. More generally it is very difficult to build highly reliable systems of any kind without having a very open culture where you focus on exposing problems and fixing them rather than blaming the message.
- tomelders 10y agoI'm reminded of the time Tony Blair visited Silicon Valley to figure out how to replicate it back home. He was at a round table with tech royalty (Gates, The Sun guy, Schmidt etc etc). Steve Jobs was there too. Everyone was chipping in with their theories about why the U.S and Silicon Valley were so good at what they do when Jobs lost his patience and butted in in true Jobsian fashion. "Listen! Take a look around this table. Everyone here has a massive failure in their past. Big, epic failures. In the US, we think thats a good thing. In the UK you think it's a bad thing. Thats it." Or soemthing like that, you get the idea. Anyway, i've always liked that outlook regardless of wether it's true or not.
- gd1 10y agoIt's not