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Why Japan’s Rail Workers Point at Things
- ethank 10y agoIn aviation there are similar methods of doing checklists: Say - Do: pilot not flying says the task, pilot flying verifies verbally after doing it. Challenge - Response: challenge the check list, verbally respond (do the action) Flow-Confirm: Do all required actions then verbally confirm. In any case, the verbal and physical confirmation is needed to move on in the checklist. When flying solo I do "Say-Do"
- a_bonobo 10y agoI've taken the bus often and the driver always announces when he breaks, accelerates, and takes curves, is this for the same reason? People have explained to me that the driver announces everything so that standing passengers don't fall over, but I'm skeptical.
- masklinn 10y ago> People have explained to me that the driver announces everything so that standing passengers don't fall over, but I'm skeptical. That makes sense actually, especially if many passengers are elderly. Around here the bus drivers don't announce what they do, but they take off and brake significantly less abruptly when they have unseated elderly passengers (either looking/reaching for a seat or standing to get out).
- hkmurakami 10y agoYeah that's for passenger safety.
- sidlls 10y agoEvery taken a Muni in SF? I sometimes suspect the operators are intentionally trying to get passengers to fall.
- iask 10y agoThis is similar to a yoga in the Hindu religion. I read about this a while back. When performing this yoga, you call out every action silently or quietly. So, for example, when picking up your cup of coffee..."I am going to pick up this coffee", then.."I picked up the coffee". I have to go look this up again.
- pmirji 10y agoYoga in itself is religion. Can be done irrespective of one being Hindu or not
- lovemenot 10y agoYoga is just a practice in itself. One need not subscribe to other practitioners' beliefs.
- praptak 10y agoIt's a form of meditation practice. Calling out events makes mind focused on the present.
- mavdi 10y agoWow this is fascinating. Clockwork, like everything else in Japan. I first noticed this when in Kyoto. The driver would point at the schedule, speedometer, sensors and all else. I found it slightly odd but made a mental note to google it later, which I eventually forgot.
- dom0 10y ago> I found it slightly odd but made a mental note to google it later, which I eventually forgot. See, that sort of thing doesn't happen with pointing-and-calling :)
- suls 10y agoI think the "clockwork" reference is somewhat overrated. Local trains are often late due to wind or snow ..
- lovemenot 10y agoDo you live in Hokkaido? Or maybe on a really local branch? I live in Tokyo, take around four trains a day on many different lines and that is just not the case here.
- kalleboo 10y agoMy experience with Tokyo (I only visit about once a year, live in Kyushu) is the trains there are always off-schedule due to "accidents" :/
- suls 10y agoSendai, Miyagi it is. Trains come in from a bit more country side. I'd like to think of Tokyo As the exception to Japan. Having said that, all the pointing and calling is happenening everywhere.
- spectistcles 10y agoIn Japan they might be a little delayed. In Boston the trains just don't come at all. One time I was stuck on a train for four hours because a switch was frozen (normally a 40 minute trip).
- ThePhysicist 10y agoMTA train conductors need to do something similar in the New York metro, as there is a striped black-white sign they need to point to at each stop (it gets recorded on camera): http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4178532 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4178532
- oconnor663 10y agoIt's in the article :)
- JohnJamesRambo 10y agoI think I'd go insane if that was my job. It seems so utterly dehumanizing to have a human do that job every day. I don't mean just the pointing but the standing and doing things that surely computers and cameras could easily do.
- Jill_the_Pill 10y agoWow, my reaction is exactly the opposite. Good on the Japanese railways for employing intelligent and responsible adults to care for everyone's safety instead of cheaping out with cameras and computers. These are solid, respectable jobs, and it means there will always be competent people around to help when things go awry.
- JohnJamesRambo 10y agoShould a human being have his life's work be forty years of checking if bags are caught in a door? Modern society is weird. Automation can free us from humans having to be automatons.
- CPLX 10y agoThat sounds crazy. Someone should help them transition to a more modern and healthy lifestyle of spending forty years improving the conversion rate of small digital advertisements.
- hkmurakami 10y agoWe had the same sort of routine as this as factory workers in Japan so that we wouldn't forget to check/do soemthing. These explicit motions help you hit all the necessary components each time when working with hundreds of repetitions a day.
- patio11 10y agoIt was also doctrine for emergency procedures and anything at a heightened level of care as an engineer at a company (in hkmurakami's neck of the woods, at a company in a region where a certain large automobile manufacturer sets a lot of the engineering culture).
- hkmurakami 10y ago"Xyz Yoshi!" Right? ;) (Yoshi = good/clear)
- patio11 10y agoI remember a lot more 作動開始/作動確認！ than よし but it has been a while.
- hkmurakami 10y agoOhh Kakunin! Brings me back!
- obstinate 10y agoGod that's cool. I have a habit that seems like a variant of this. Every change I write has a description of how it's tested. Sometimes that can be as brief as "unittests," but for riskier changes I sometimes write several paragraphs.
- marklyon 10y agoThere is a similar situation in NYC [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M
- itp 10y agoYes, the article we are discussing here spends two paragraphs discussing exactly this.
- spectistcles 10y agoI know this is just a bunch of kids taking the piss, but little things like this make a boring day working on the train a bit happier. Thank your local transit workers if you have them.
- jaxbot 10y agoIt's more than just paying attention: if the conductor can line their finger up with the zebra board for their train, they've guaranteed that the train is completely within the station. Opening the doors where there is no platform is one of the few fireable offenses (others include using a phone on the job). The zebra boards have the train model written on them -- in this case, R160 [1]. While it would be easier for the driver to just stop the train at the very end of the platform, this would be pretty inconvenient for passengers on the end of the platform when a shorter train rolls in. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_(New_York_City_Subway_car) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_(New_York_City_Subway_car...
- tutufan 10y agoHaving the driver stop at the end of the platform wouldn't really be a substitute. What counts is that the conductor in the middle of the train physically observes that the train's registration is correct before they open the doors. (Drivers never open the doors.)
- iand675 10y agoI actually just paid real attention to this pointing technique on my way home today for the first time. This isn't just a puff piece for a technique that only a few workers do.
- euske 10y agoI think that the root of this goes back all the way to Zen-type of thinking. In Zen, it's often taught that mind is elusive/delusive and action matters. "Mindlessness (mu-shin)" is often thought of the best way of carrying tasks, and I see a similar principle in many traditional martial arts/craftsmanship; a new learner should just do certain tasks without thinking/questioning, and eventually their muscle memory will learn it. It's conceivable that people applied the same principle for safety. I also think that this illustrates the difference between the Western religions and Japanese (or Asian) religions. Western religions are mostly declarative; you need to believe such and such statements. Whereas Japanese religions are procedural, i.e. doing rituals is more important than believing.
- cm2187 10y agoIt does sound very similar to plane checklists where the pilot has to call every item verbally.
- acjohnson55 10y agoI was going to say, it reminded me of those classic scenes from Dr. Strangelove of the bomber crew going through their procedures. Which I assumed to be pretty accurate for military environments. I think it's so exotic to my American eyes because there is something to the idea of putting the good of the collective ahead of your own ego that is so foreign to the American culture of fetishization of individual liberty, except maybe in our military.
- dpatriarche 10y agoYes, you're right! My father was an Air Force pilot and then flew a private plane into his 60's. for 40 years he religiously followed the checklists, calling out and pointing to the relevant part of the plane for each item on the list: "windows and doors, check; wing flaps set for takeoff; seats latched; seat belts locked; etc." http://www.mooneyland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Mooney_M20C_Checklist.pdf http://www.mooneyland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Mooney_... I work on medical software now. It's kind of a well known story now how doctors are resistant to using checklists, like pilots do, even though it has been proven in studies to reduce medical errors. It's an interesting idea that maybe we could employ a form of point-and-call checklist system in software development or operations.
- doktrin 10y agoI'm a little embarrassed to say that I lived in Japan for several years (in high school) and never really noticed this or thought of it as being out of the ordinary.
- cjrp 10y agoInteresting, you see a similar action (I believe for the same reason) in cockpits [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEX0ZYDziiU&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEX0ZYDziiU&t=13s].
- FabHK 10y agoI was also struck with the similarity to procedures in aviation. During the checklist you frequently call out the item (aloud), and then check it while either pointing at it or touching it. This also reduces the temptation to rush and just say "check" and assume it's ok - most of the time it is ok, of course, but the point is to actually look and check and make sure. If you do all the "work" of actually finding the control and touching it, you might as well look and check that it is set as expected. As a further side effect, this also re-inforces "muscle memory": you don't need the alternate air valve or the fuel shutoff valve very often - but if you actually touch it (and even open/close it) before every flight, then you will find it quickly and without much thinking in case you do need it.
- jakub_g 10y agoI noticed the problem on myself on several occasions and kind of invented the same solution. For example, sometimes I would take a medicament mechanically while doing something else and just a few minutes later, forget if I took it or not. Solution: say loud to myself "I'm taking a pill". Another: sometimes I'd lend some amount money to a colleague, and a few weeks later I'd have a hard time figuring whether they gave it back, and they too. Solution: I tell them to hit me (or do some other stupid thing) when they give the money back, so we both remember. Going even further, sometimes I have to set a reminder to myself like "take an umbrella when leaving tomorrow morning because it's gonna be raining". Putting umbrella close to the exit, or doing a phone reminder do not always work, particularly when I'm in a hurry. One thing that works is doing some notable physical disruption in the environment, like putting a can of tomato sauce, upside-down, close to the exit.
- pcurve 10y ago" I tell them to hit me (or do some other stupid thing) when they give the money back, so we both remember." That is great and clever. I can better understand why pointing system works.
- rgacote 10y agoI also ended up instituting a physical task to track my pill taking. Need to take two pills at breakfast and I was always forgetting if I'd already taken them or not. Now, when I sit down to eat I move the pill bottles to the middle of the table. End of the meal, after taking the pills, bottles go back on a shelf at the end of the table. Not only do I no longer forget, more importantly I no longer need to remember, which is one thing off my memory list for the day.
- allannienhuis 10y agoWe have a similar solution to the 'did you feed the dog (yet)?' question (twice a day). In the morning after feeding we put the scoop next to the food dish, in the evening after feeding we put it back in the bag. That way either of us can easily tell whether it was done yet, without needing to ask. Works like a charm - the dog used to be able to trick us into feeding him twice but we no longer fall for his puppy-eyed shenanigans. :P
- johansch 10y agoThe Swiss train system is similarly renowned. How do they do it?
- Darthy 10y agoWell, they definitely don't do any pointing-and-calling. This might be a good subject for a study - compare both rail systems, does this really lead to higher performance and lower accidents?
- metricodus 10y agoMaybe in the end it all just boils down to how much money is allocated to run the systems...
- coldcode 10y agoIt makes a lot of sense, you are performing a physical act, a visual act and a verbal act together, all reinforcing each other. Once it becomes an ingrained habit, anything that doesn't match the common result sticks out. I presume overcoming your fear of looking stupid is the hardest part.
- blauditore 10y agoReminds me of "talk to your rubber duck"...
- mintplant 10y agoSix Flags Magic Mountain does this before launching a roller coaster. An operator announces "Visual Scan", points their hand at one end of the cars, and sweeps it along to the other.
- ckirksey 10y agoYeah, theme parks are where I've seen this too
- mturmon 10y agoYou can see pool lifeguards do the same visual scan with pointing. Their gaze sweeps over the pool in a pattern, following their pointing finger. It seems effective in making them look at individual swimmers instead of just looking at an area of the pool in general.
- DonHopkins 10y agoI have a strict rule that I must touch my keys before closing the front door, because I discovered the keys in my memory don't open the door as well as the keys in my pocket.
- saulrh 10y agoSame. I have a "keys-wallet-phone-pad" routine in which I make sure my pockets contain all of: my keys, my wallet, my cell phone, and the 7-inch tablet that I carry everywhere. I've gotten into the habit of doing it every time I get up if I'm not at home or at my desk at work.
- spectistcles 10y agospectacles testicles wallet & watch (originally a joke about the sign of the cross, but it's how I remember everything when I leave and also some fun blasphemy for the whole family)
- roywiggins 10y agoIf anything a bit of blasphemy is going to make it even more memorable, so it is a good strategy!
- jnordwick 10y agoI do the almost the exact same thing, minus the pad. I repeat "keys, wallet, phone" (in that order) as I touch each one when I'm leaving. Bonus, when you get into a good enough habit of doing this, you even do it automatically when you're drunk.
- loco5niner 10y agoThat is exactly what I do, "keys, wallet, phone" in that order.
- kalleboo 10y agoI used to have a doormat that said "mobile phone, keys, wallet" (in Swedish) https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7f/58/df/7f58df33259cf51ca28c60e2b566e286.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7f/58/df/7f58... These days I just tap my pockets. I freak out if I do that check when I happen to be holding onto my phone or keys
- unityByFreedom 10y agoAttentiveness in self driving cars is/will be an issue. I wonder if there's anything like this that could be applied there. No ideas come to mind, though I often think about how trains on tracks have mechanisms for maintaining driver awareness.
- jaxbot 10y agoThis is why many are worried about Level 3 autonomy vehicles -- that is, driver assist where the car can drive ~95% of the time, but the driver may need to intervene at any moment. So far all the studies I've seen indicate that the driver loses attentiveness whether they mean to or not, and the disengagement times are in multiple seconds. Personally, I think a system needs to work well enough to drive itself the whole trip, or be dumb enough to act as cruise control with some crash prevention built in, but otherwise force the driver to be on task.
- d0mine 10y ago> pointing-and-calling is known to reduce workplace errors by up to 85 percent, according to one 1996 study. If it is supported only by one study; it seems like cargo-culting: performing a ritual without a solid proof that it actually works.
- Freak_NL 10y agoThe meaning of that sentence is not that there was only one study done on this topic though; just that the author is aware of that particular one, performed in 1996, that makes the 85 percent claim. The use of 'one' here may even imply that the author is aware of more studies that confirm the usefulness of this technique, but that referring to more than this particular relevant source would be superfluous for this article.
- FabHK 10y agoAnother quote from the article: > According to MTA spokeswoman Amanda Kwan, conductors were quick to adapt to the new system, and within two years of implementation, incidents of incorrectly berthed subways fell 57 percent.
- donatj 10y agoI was in Japan eight years ago and saw this but never understood what was going on. I have a video of a conductor pointing over and over and over again I made a gif out of. I am enthused to know what was going on.
- rco8786 10y agoNext time your on the NYC subway watch for the conductor as the train comes to a stop. They always point out the window at a marker that helps them know where to stop the train. Seems to be a very minimal version of what this article is taking about. But I always get a kick out of it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ggambetta 10y agoA notable exception is New York City’s MTA subway system, whose conductors have used a modified point-only system since 1996 after then Chief Transportation Officer Nathaniel Ford was fascinated by the point-and-call system during a business trip to Japan. In the MTA’s case, conductors point to a fixed black-and-white “zebra board” to confirm a stopped train is correctly located along the platform. According to MTA spokeswoman Amanda Kwan, conductors were quick to adapt to the new system, and within two years of implementation, incidents of incorrectly berthed subways fell 57 percent.
- artursapek 10y agoYeah, I never noticed it until I was made aware by this video. Now I always see them doing it :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M
- mrschwabe 10y agoIn Saitama I saw an old guy on a pedal bike (not a train) who did this the other day! In fact, I made a note specifically to ask a Nihon friend just what the hell he was doing (so I'll just ask HN instead)... I understand stopping at an intersection and looking both ways. But making a specific pointing gesture and verbally calling out while doing it I thought was just a bit odd. Particularly cause he was the only person at this quiet little 4 way (no lights) stop. Sounded like he said "hayougush... hayougush". Retired train conductor?
- inetknght 10y agoOn the other hand, if you're looking directly at a vehicle and _pointing_ at the vehicle, you're more likely to actually _interact_ with the driver of the vehicle if they're alert. If they point back, you know they see you. If they don't, did they truly see you or do you just assume they did? Now you're more alert than you were before.
- jaxbot 10y agoIf I'm entering an intersection and there's a driver that I suspect hasn't noticed me and may take a turn, I'll make eye contact and point, then signal a full hand for 'stop'. Seems to work.
- dingaling 10y agoIn Cycling Proficiency lessons in the UK in the 1980s we were taught to point and say our intentions at roundabouts and junctions. I still so and it often earns a wave of thanks from drivers. I assume that forcing the subconscious lip-reading onto the drivers is part of the 'connect as humans' psychology
- mikekchar 10y agoBus drivers and taxi drivers do it sometimes too (depending on the company), so probably he's a professional driver who just thought it was a good idea. I won't speculate on what he was saying, though.
- welanes 10y agoVery interesting! The word 'embarrassing' comes up a lot, but I wonder why this would be perceived as embarrassing compared to, say, the ritual bowing to empty carriages that takes place on Japanese trains. Or simply compared to the gesturing that takes place in other professions like the construction industry. Without knowing the psychology behind it, a good guess would be that it derives from the sense that observers may not understand one's intent in pointing, and could prob be alleviated by using some kind of beacon like those used by aircraft marshallers.
- FabHK 10y agoGood point. If it's seen as professionals doing their job, then it ceases to be embarrassing. In turn, you can then dismiss people that giggle about it as ignorant fools and, well, ignore them. When I watch a referee in a sport I don't know, the shouting/pointing/gesticulating seems funny, but nobody would consider the referee's job to be embarrassing.
- edsheeran 10y agoI consider the article's title to be clickbaity. The fact of the story is why the workers point at things and there's an interesting explanation behind it. Saying they can't stop, however, isn't a true statement and would have been much better if they stated the real affirmative.
- slapshot 10y agoThe US Navy uses much of this as well. For example, here's an aircraft carrier launch from inside the "bubble" (the control area that actually triggers the steam catapult). The officer repeats the mantra aloud for each aircraft and points at the people he's checking. If you watch a similar video taken above deck you can see each responsible person point at the system they are monitoring before giving the thumb's up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMwrMDd2gUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMwrMDd2gUE The comments have an explanation of each phrase in the mantra (e.g., "104 set match" refers to a steam power of 104 (units unclear) and that it matches the board for cross-checking).
- nowarninglabel 10y agoMore on the Navy usage can be found in David Marquet's book: "Turn the Ship Around" about his time improving training / operations on a submarine he commanded. Every one had to announce their intention to do an action before actually doing it, this gave others the chance to identify when someone was going to take an incorrect action before it happened. It's a really great, short read that I'd highly recommend.
- erpellan 10y agoI do this (subvocally) when hopping between dev and prod. "I'm looking at production. I'm checking this query is the one I think it is. I'm running it now. I'm closing production."
- sunwooz 10y agoI make the same mistakes when looking at code from two different but similar projects.
- edsheeran 10y agoIt's a form of reinforcement. We've all seen flight attendants going through pointing drills during a safety briefing before takeoff. Pilots do this too when walking the ground for preflight checks.
- Ericson2314 10y agoTheory: Any task benfitting from this can be fully automated without a very intelligent program. In the meantime, let's swallow our pride and do this, seems like a good idea.
- gbog 10y agoWhen looking for something I use my phone's torch and point on the floor. Last time I found back a little magnet lost by my kid in the 50 metres of alley to our place. So yes I guess it works to force the mental focus.
- orblivion 10y agoThis is the same as they do for climbing. "on belay" and so forth. I think it's also like trigger discipline for firearms, in the broader sense of developing habits that make accidents less likely.
- innocentoldguy 10y agoI've lived in Japan off and on for a number of years. "Pointing and shouting," and other similar gestures, are used all over the place. I typically heard it referred to as "yubisashi kakunin," which basically means "confirm by pointing with your finger." I've seen elevator attendants do it when operating the buttons, and cashiers will verbalize the counting of change, and hand it back in a very animated way, which I believe is the same sort of thing. Where I live, I think a company would have to really work to get their employees to do it, but in Japan, it seems to have become a part of the culture. My wife, who is from Japan, does it while she's cooking to make sure she hasn't left anything out.
- rustynails 10y agoBoth you and the author mentioned cultural barriers. However, throughout most of this thread, people have given quite a few of examples of where this is used in the west in a similar way (eg. Flight crew, climbers, theme park ride attendant, hockey coach, train driver). I worked in retail a long time ago. I was trained to vocalise receipt and calculating of change to minimise mistakes and to avoid customers disagreeing. I still see some people use this technique, especially in banks. On the topic of cultures, I noticed the author used spokeswoman and spokesperson. Is the word spokesman banned in the US or is this a gender culture behaviour? Ars Technica use this language frequently, which leads me to suspect it's cultural rather than this one author.
- cheez 10y agoI've been playing this "brain training" game called Peak and one of the tasks is to memorize the names of some places that I don't even think actually exist. I struggled to remember it until I started mentally writing out each name. My finger, even though it wasn't moving, felt each word as it was written. I went from recalling approximately 80% to almost 100% of (so far) 9 places to remember. It totally increases your consciousness and once you actually realize what's happening, you want to be that present everywhere. Unfortunately, I am a machine :(
- doglet 10y agoAs a hockey player, I never understood why referees would point to each goal, calling out each goalie's existence before the game. This helps explain it.
- known 10y agoAKA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_acting_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_acting_in_Japan
- PDoyle 10y agoThis is news? They do this on the subways in New York and Toronto too.
- Overtonwindow 10y agoDon't they do this pointing on the NYC subway system too?
- Overtonwindow 10y agoSeriously, they point when they get to the station. http://www.mta.info/news/2013/11/12/subway-conductors-point-way-safety http://www.mta.info/news/2013/11/12/subway-conductors-point-...
- prashnts 10y agoSlightly off topic but this practice of talking-out-loud to get yourself doing stuff is also beneficial to people with executive dysfunction. If your executive function is impaired you generally don't have the "internal monologue" or the voice in your head. This makes seemingly simpler things like taking a shower, driving, or eating, very difficult! I'd often "forget" to eat, simply because I could not get myself to start. I found that it helps to announce (not necessarily loud) what I am to do, and the steps to do so. ("Okay we're going to get up and walk to the kitchen.", "We're walking now") Though for some reason I use plural pronouns for myself -- we, us etc. Does somebody else do that too? :)
- nraynaud 10y agoon youtube a lot of single people operation use the "We" pronoun a lot. I guess it' a mix of wanting to look bigger, wanting to include the audience, but now it's become a trend.
- 2bitencryption 10y agothis isn't because of Youtube. this is because it helps to envision the "you" you as a different entity from the "you" you. I know that doesn't make sense :) It's like saying there's two of us: the one who forgets to do things like lock the door, and the one who really wants to lock the door. "We're going to lock the door right now," we say, because we know one of us will probably forget. I'm a serial talk-to-myselfer, and I've been saying things like "ok we're going to get gas for the car now" or "we're making french toast this morning" since I was twelve.
- kibwen 10y agoRegarding the plural first-person, that's perfectly natural: just think of it as a heads-up to the legion of symbiotic gut flora and face-dwelling mites that you're carrying along for the ride. :)
- t0mas88 10y agoAnd any scientific writer. Even with a single author you would still write "we" everywhere.
- emiliobumachar 10y agoI keep much better track of laps when jogging in the park after I started saying each lap number out loud when completing it.
- Osiris 10y agoI listened to a podcast about police doing something similar. When two officers we're approaching a situation way office would call or multiple times before taking an action. For example, "TASER! TASER! TASER!". this helps the other officer from mistaking the sound of the taser firing for a firearm.
- tzs 10y agoSuppose you've gotten used to doing this and have the pointing and speaking sequence and associated actions such as reading gauges thoroughly memorized. If at that point you replaced actually pointing and speaking with just visualizing and audiolizing [1] that you are pointing and speaking, respectively, would you retain the performance improvements? [1] There does not seem to be a widely accepted word for the audio equivalent of visualizing. Some discussion: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1635/visualized-equivalent-adjective-for-audio http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1635/visualized-e...
- wycx 10y agoVocalise?
- nommm-nommm 10y agoThis helps a lot when coding too! Specifically when debugging. I am lucky enough to have my own office so I can do it without disturbing others.
- retreatguru 10y agoWhen debugging in production environments (which is always a bad idea) I use a technique where I always work together with a coworker and before I'm about to do something destructive I say out loud what I'm going to do and ask for agreement that I should continue. I started this after reading what happened at Gitlab a month ago.
- ljosa 10y agoI do that on Slack—sometimes with a coworker keenly following along, and sometimes when I'm the only one awake.
- retreatguru 10y agoThat is a good idea: to do it in Slack even if no one is there. Forces you to slow down and be conscious of what you are doing.
- aoeuasdf1 10y agoThis is a great tip. I'm going to start using this.
- beager 10y agoYup, any destructive production change, I always bring in another engineer as a lifeguard. Call out the environment you're on, the machine you're shelled into, and the action you're performing. Can even be an engineering-adjacent role as well.
- t0mas88 10y agoThis also applies to aviation. While pilots execute the same checklist several times each day, year after year, it is still required to verbally call the items on the list. It feels a bit strange doing it when you're sitting in a cockpit alone, but it does really improve accuracy and ensures you're following the same procedure every time whether there is a co-pilot, instructor or nobody sitting in the other seat. I've never learned actually pointing at the instruments, but I can imagine it helps to focus for example very clearly on doing a check of a specific instrument instead of just saying "checked" out of habit. The problem of course is that you need your hands for other things at the same time, so pointing would be unsafe to do at the controls of a plane.
- WalterBright 10y agoIf you watch an old aviation movie, they have a verbale procedure to go through before starting the engine. "Switches off", "contact", "clear", etc.
- base698 10y agoMy wife got yelled at by an instructor today for verbalizing "airspeed alive". Something she does as she rotates to determine if she wants to abort before she's committed. After she relayed the story I mentioned this thread and we both decided the guy was nuts.
- civilian 10y agoMy dad's side of the family are a bunch of sailors, and there's a lot of verbal clues you give to other people on the boat when you're sailing. "Ready about" means we're about to tack. My uncle was sailing a multi-day solo race, and he felt like he was just getting scattered. He started saying everything he would have said outloud-- saying "ready about" to no one, ordering himself to raise the spinnaker. He said everything ran much more smoothly once he started doing that. :D
- geofffox 10y agoIt's a little late in the game to get this seen, but they do this in the NYC subways too. It made for a great video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M
- frik 10y agoThanks for the link. Btw. one of the subway drivers explains in the YT comments that NYC had this gesture first, Japan copied it in the mid 1990s. Conductors point at the board because it is required by TA rule. This idea was adapted by the Japanese subway in the mid 90's. We point because if the window of your cab is somewhere within limits of that board, it means the Train operator, the one who actually moves the train, has stopped at his/her mark for the correct number of cars the train has. We also have to point because supervision does move around in the field and yes they actually WATCH us to make sure we comply with this rule. If we don't, well then its not going to be a good day at work...
- URSpider94 10y agoI doubt that is true. Per the article, it goes back to the Meiji dynasty in Japan, which ended in 1912.
- braythwayt 10y agoIf you don’t point to the knot on your harness when calling out that you are tied in, and we don’t audibly call out “On belay... belay on” to each other, we aren’t climbing together. These exact same rituals have been developed for climbing because everyone, experienced, and inexperienced, can make mistakes. The greatest climber of her generation (of any gender!), Lynn Hill, opens her autobiography with the story of how she was distracted while tying in, and nobody thought to check her, because, well, she’s LYNN HILL. She climbed 75’ up an easy (for her) warmup climb, called for tension on the rope, sat back, and fell the entire distance to the ground. She was very lucky to survive.
- kirrent 10y agoOne of the most experienced climbers I know clipped into a gear loop instead of a belay loop without looking down at it and sat on it. He's only alive because he's got really fast reflexes. Checklists and rituals save lives.
- dongslol 10y agoDoes that say 75 feet? How on earth do you survive that?
- mjevans 10y agoBy landing correctly; mostly not on your head, and not at a bad angle for the spine. Soft ground beneath also helps.
- yorwba 10y agoWhat is a bad angle for the spine? I don't usually fall large distances, but something like this seems useful to know, just in case.
- wapz 10y agoI've done some bouldering and although I don't know what the actual best is, you don't want to land directly on your back or front (flat) and you never want to land on your head of course. I learned to try falling with legs slightly bent in a mostly upright position. Someone with more experience can give you better info though.
- princeb 10y agopeople talk to themselves all the time on the trading floor (the kanko part of the shinsakanko). rather look like a weirdo than lose a couple thousand bucks (or worse) on a 100% avoidable error.
- princeb 10y agoedit: to clarify, when submitting orders to an electronic exchange, traders will call out (to themselves) the price size direction and instrument before sending the ticket. I personally also mouseover all the important parts so i'm not just going through motions. this method seems particularly effective for work that is routine but never in the same scenario. Ever since I picked up this habit I have applied this to everything else I do - booking flight tickets, hotels, buying things on amazon, etc. avoiding errors is so much of a good thing - for those of you with really bad experiences firefighting at work will know the importance of not being in the position where you need to firefight at all.
- soneca 10y agoI do that sometimes when I'm coding. I want to debug something, or just check some particularly important or tricky part and I say the lines outloud while doing some hand movement pointing to the lines kind of rithmically.
- omegant 10y agoI realize that I've been doing it naturally (although not all the time) when reading check lists in the cockpit (I'm A-340-330 pilot). I'll do it more consciously from now on.
- m-j-fox 10y agoDo they still have smoking sections on Japanese trains? That's amazing.
- rootusrootus 10y agoThat's very interesting. I do it myself, but not because I had any idea it really worked, it's just habit. When I am hitching up our trailer and getting ready to set out on a road trip, I walk around it pointing at things and calling them out loud to myself -- hitch pins, safety pins, sway bars, various things that have to be stowed, etc. Now I can tell my wife it's not because I'm senile, but because it works :)
- solidsnack9000 10y agoThe United States nuclear navy follows a similar procedure called "point and shoot" according to Covey's Turn the Ship Around.
- WalterBright 10y agoIt's related to the checklist system used by pilots, which is incredibly effective at reducing mistakes. The Samurai sword making system is also very ritualized, which enables the complex procedure to be memorized and carried out without mistakes. Other systems of reducing mistakes are making things rhyme, which adds a bit of redundancy not unlike error-correcting digital codes. Double-entry bookkeeping is another scheme.
- ddingus 10y agoI do this sometimes when I'm really in the zone. Back in the 90s, I was in manufacturing, both making things and planning, programming. When I had not used a given machine or process for a while, point and step check just came as part of entering and maintaining flow. Exploiting this seems obvious in retrospect, like most good, basic helpers are. Nice. Love the ethic. Take care of the people, run it on time. It's good to know somewhere the little stuff does matter.
- renegadesensei 10y agoBeen living in Japan for a while now and I've noticed this too. I always admired it. It suggested a high level of conscientiousness. Made me feel safer on public transit. Interesting to learn of the real world benefit of these type of mnemonic tricks. I do some things like this when doing operational work as a devops engineer. Helps me avoid fat finger mistakes. I also do the classic, "wallet, phone, keys" check whenever I leave the house.
- amyjess 10y agoSo, in Japan there's a superhero franchise on television called Super Sentai (you might know it as where Power Rangers gets their source footage from). Each year, they do a different Super Sentai series with its own distinct theme. Well, in 2014, they did a train-themed series called ToQger (ToQ being a cutesy spelling of Tokkyū, meaning "express train"). The show is absolutely full of references to everything to do with trains; the theme is present everywhere. Pre-battle poses are tradition in Super Sentai, and ToQger was no exception. Specifically, the pose ends with the team's leader dramatically pointing while calling shuppatsu shinkō, which basically means "all aboard!". I always wondered what the pointing was for, and now I know. You can see the pose here: http://i.imgur.com/0DugYRe.png http://i.imgur.com/0DugYRe.png Edit: And when they combine their mecha together, they point and call as each of their vehicles link up: http://i.imgur.com/Lct4XQl.png http://i.imgur.com/Lct4XQl.png
- joshaidan 10y agoI wonder if there's some way to apply this to coding. Besides annoying my co-workers, would verbally talking about what I'm coding improve the quality of my code, or productivity? What about physical gestures?
- Evansbee 10y agoIt feels like our equivalent would be Rubber Duck Debugging.
- makeset 10y agoNot verbal, but I think of strict adherence to coding and commenting standards in this spirit. A single character out of place can distract the reader from a fatal bug. Also, acknowledging one's fallibility and handling cases that should never happen: else throw("BUG: ...")
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- vkatluri 10y agoIn Sanskrit, there's a poem about hand gestures: "Yato hasta stato drishti"..."Where the hand is, the eyes follow" "Yato drishti stato manaha"..."Where the eyes go, the mind follows" "Yato manaha stato bhava"..."Where the mind is, there is the feeling" "Yato bhava stato rasa"..."Where the feeling is, there is mood"
- locusm 10y agoWhen Im debugging and I turn nothing up the first look through I often speak out loud what Im thinking. I find it helps in most cases, it also helps Im at home while doing it.
- caf 10y agoI feel like adopting a version of this system could help avoid those occasional forgotten-child-in-car tragedies.
- FunnyLookinHat 10y agoAs an April Fools next year I'm going to experiment with writing code this way to see how my coworkers react. Pointing at screen and shouting: "It should throw an error if the input is NaN". types furiously
- koantify 10y agoThere are quite a few comments here on the use of checklists. Dr. Atul Gawande wrote at length about their usefulness in "The Checklist Manifesto". We've released an iPhone app, Koantify Checklists: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koantify-checklists/id1158001939?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koantify-checklists/id115800...). It's a voice responsive app (i.e., Siri-like) for creating, maintaining, using, and sharing checklists. (Based on the post we're commenting on, I guess our next step would be to recognize gestures like pointing...) The app steps you through tasks by voice or text, and responds to your voice commands (it tries to provide optional "hands-free" operation as much as possible). When you complete your checklist, the app optionally emails you (or a list of people) a detailed record of completion of the checklist, showing steps you completed, skipped, or possibly had to repeat. For organizations, it's easy to export/import checklists. You can distribute by email, via iCloud, or you can download checklists from web links. For training, use of a checklist provides important reminders of how things should be done. Feedback, comments, suggestions are most welcome.
- martytheartiste 10y agoIf your memory is going bye bye......and you want it to come back! 1st. Go on YouTube and watch these videos there about 30 or more. Each video covers a specific topic. In one episode the demonstrated how eating berries improves your short term memory. Look for.....BBC The Truth About Food.... 2nd. Eat healthy and exercise. 3. Step away from the TV/Computer/ Cell Phone about 2 - 3 hours before bed. The light from these electronic devices will keep you awake! 4. Try to get 7-8 hours sleep daily. 7-8 hours?.....Imagine your brain to be like your workshop. When you wake up in the morning(after a great nights sleep) its nice and clean. Everything is accessible and easy to find. By the end of the day the place is a mess. Now if you leave the place a mess....your brain stays cluttered up. Then when you go to sleep.....and wake up the next day.....you have a hard time getting right to work because you have to search for everything! When you get a great nights sleep.....7-8 hours.....your brain gets flushed by chemicals that clear out all the clutter. Think defragging a hard drive. When a hard drive is not defragged it slows the computer down. When you get poor sleep your brain starts getting overloaded with clutter...and in time that clutter compresses and starts affecting your memory. 5. There is a great book called The 150 Healthiest foods on earth. You should go look it up and see what it says about blueberries. Blueberries are the only food known (as far as I know-from this book) to grow new neurons in our brains. 6.I've worked crazy hours for almost 10 years traveling. Each day was different. I had no set hours and slept when I wasn't working. I put on quite a bit of weight and ate to sleep and ate to stay awake. I averaged 4-5 hours of inferior sleep that affected my memory. I also ate crappy food because I was traveling all of the time. Now that I am home and eat healthy I find that eating oatmeal and honey 2-3 hours before sleep helps me fall asleep easily and I average about 7 hours of quality sleep per night. I also eat a lot less, exercise and eat blackberries and blueberries every morning.
- martytheartiste 10y agoits so nice when you post to this website and half of your post disappears
- martytheartiste 10y agoIf you want to improve your memory. go to youtube and search for these videos. BBC the truth about food. In one of the episodes they point out how eating berries everyday improves your short term memory
- martytheartiste 10y agoFor the umbrella haters please tell me everything that you hate about them besides getting or possibly getting poked in the eye. Is that the only problem?
- martytheartiste 10y agoIve been working on a new design.....and would like to know if there is anything that I may have missed in my re design besides the chancing of poking someone or poking there eye out. And if you don't use an umbrella! Do you wear a raincoat? Or do you prefer getting soaked!
- yunesj 10y ago> Japan’s rail system has a well-deserved reputation for being among the very best in the world. While "pointing" might contribute to its reputation, they should give credit to being accountable to market forces! In addition to the extensive "private railway" network, JNR was privatized in 1987.