RD201907-08

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Performing in a crisis is becoming
more important for all of us, for two
reasons. Back in the good old days, the
reliability of most anything we used
or did was far less than it is today. En-
gines conking out after takeoff? Pilots
used to call that Tuesday. Today, it’s a
rarity. Now think about what happens
to our preparedness as the likelihood
of something bad happening shrinks.
Unless we practice what hardly ever
happens, our ability to respond when
it does happen tends to slip away. Reli-
ability can kill you.
Also, the systems we use today are
more complex. There are seldom mov-
ing parts in plain view that allow us to
see when things are about to go wrong.
When complex systems lack transpar-
ency, dire situations can “come out
of nowhere.” Driver-assistance tech-
nologies that help us steer, maintain
our distance from the car in front of
us, and alert us to impending colli-
sions have started to become standard
equipment. Our cars might fail to rec-
ognize something in the road (such as
Canada geese) or steer us out of our
intended lane. Ironically, the systems
that were designed to lessen our work-
load might require us to remain in a
state of increased vigilance in order to
survive these increasingly infrequent
events when they do happen. The
Internet of Things promises to make
our homes, our workplaces, and entire
cities like this.
As technology becomes part of most
everything, and as once-large risks get
shattered into countless small ones,
having the living crap scared out of us
every once in a while may become a
standard affair. We should all learn to
breathe, recognize the situation, and
execute the plan that we were smart
enough to prepare well in advance.
from slate.com. © 2019 by the slate group. all
rights reserved. used under license.
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Forsooth, Bluetooth!
“Bluetooth” sounds high-tech today, but the word predates that technology—
and electricity—by 1,000 years. The engineers who developed the wireless
connection in the 1990s named it after King Harald Bluetooth, who united
and ruled Denmark and Norway in the tenth century.
Reader’s Digest The Genius Section
120 july/august 2019 | rd.com
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