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Theryq - why would they go with this name when everyone in the field knows about the Therac-25 radiation overexposure incidents?
by Eduard 7mo ago
Theryq - why would they go with this name when everyone in the field knows about the Therac-25 radiation overexposure incidents?
- bilbo0s 7mo agoExactly what I thought as soon as I learned the name. It's like, man, how to kill a product? No pun intended. It could even work? But you put yourself behind such a poorly placed 8 ball when you do these things. Even among researchers, people are a little superstitious about stuff like this. It's always in the back of everyone's mind.
- leptons 7mo agoI doubt any of that is valid. Therac-25 happened 44 years ago, that's a very long time, and many people involved in cancer research today weren't even alive when it happened. "Theryq" and "Therac" are not quite the same either. The word "therapy" and derivatives of it using "thera" are still used widely across the medical industry. So I'm not really sure why anyone here is making a big deal about the name of the company being "Theryq".
- hinkley 7mo agoIt’s an s-tier case study for UX research though. Maybe the doctors don’t remember but we do.
- Aurornis 7mo ago> Even among researchers, people are a little superstitious about stuff like this. Being superstitious is not common in the medical treatment world, where weird product names are common. A doctor isn’t going to include the device’s brand name in their decision process for treating a cancer patient. The Therac-25 case study is noted in the medical world but not to the same extent as in engineering. The case was a tragedy of bad engineering, but the doctors involved in directing the treatments were not at fault for the radiation over exposures.
- like_any_other 7mo ago> It's like, man, how to kill a product? "This name makes me uncomfortable. I think I'd rather die of cancer."
- deadbabe 7mo agoRedemption arc.
- pfdietz 7mo agoLiterally an arc.
- accrual 7mo agoTherac-25 is a great case study for software engineers too, recommend reading the Wikipedia article for anyone who hasn't, it's not too long. > Previous models had hardware interlocks to prevent such faults, but the Therac-25 had removed them, depending instead on software checks for safety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 Another interesting part of the story is the user element. The issue was most often triggered by fast, experienced technicians who were able to key commands more quickly than Therac engineers anticipated: > After strenuous work, the physicist and operator were able to reproduce the error 54 message. They determined that speed in editing the data entry was a key factor in producing error 54.
- hinkley 7mo agoTherac is the first one I list and Knight Capital is the second. It is in fact possible to bankrupt your company by misusing feature toggles.
- throwyawayyyy 7mo agoI learned about Therac at college in the 90s. Some years later, I interviewed at Knight Capital, just a couple of weeks before their blowup. (Dreadful interview at which I did dreadfully, being asked to write C _over the phone_ by a supremely uninterested engineer. Quite a red flag in retrospect.)
- hinkley 7mo agoI feel like you should get yourself a merit badge printed for that, sewed onto your laptop bag.
- reitzensteinm 7mo ago> Quite a red flag in retrospect. No pun intended?
- bitwize 7mo agoSounds like my Amazon interview.
- elromulous 7mo agoThe audience of this website is disproportionately aware of the Therac-25 compared to the general public. For the obvious reason, engineering, but also geographically: The Therac-25 being a North American incident that affected Canada and the US. Whereas Theryc is a French company.
- tjoff 7mo agoWhile I do agree with your point, as a Swede not even born when the incidents happen I still knew about it, was brought up in a computer science class.
- torginus 7mo agoI feel like I have heard about this in a million different management anecdotes in my corporate trainings about management stuff/QA.
- ErroneousBosh 7mo ago> The Therac-25 being a North American incident that affected Canada and the US CGR who provided the accelerators and basic PDP11-based computing platform were a French company. > Whereas Theryc is a French company. I have been a Citroën enthusiast for about 30 years. I love French cars. I have repaired lots of Valeo electronics modules for vehicles. I'm not sticking my head in a French fucking particle accelerator.
- ErroneousBosh 7mo agoFirst thing that leapt out at me.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- bobmcnamara 7mo agoSaw at the podiatrist that someone named a shoe company Kuru, presumably not after the prison disease affecting gait.
- adrianN 7mo agoPerhaps after 来る.