Arthur Bloch Quotes

(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)

With both people and computers on the job, computer error can be more quickly tracked down and corrected by people and, conversely, human error can be more quickly corrected by computers. What it amounts to is that nothing serious can happen unless human error and computer error take place simultaneously. And that hardly ever happens.

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.

Mistakes, after all, are endemic to foreign and military policy given the unpredictability of events and the difficulty of securing reliable information in a place like Iraq.

The best surgeon, like best general, is he who makes the fewest mistakes.

I've said it for four decades - work 'on' your business, not just 'in' your business!

In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.

The major problems facing the development of products that are safer, less prone to error, and easier to use and understand are not technological: they are social and organizational.

Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach - see what happens, limit damages, and learn from experience - is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the costs (moral and economic) of such actions.

Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.

Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error

If you don't handle [exceptions], we shut your application down. That dramatically increases the reliability of the system.

Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.

Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains.

After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. should this certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single error, if we have made reasonable preparations.

Always consider your intellect to be lacking; otherwise too much faith in it surely leads to error.

Serious accidents are frequently blamed on "human error." Yet careful analysis of such situations shows that the design or installation of the equipment has contributed significantly to the problems. The design team or installers did not pay sufficient attention to the needs of those who would be using the equipment, so confusion or error was almost unavoidable.

Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All of its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.

Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.

Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.

If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?

You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right.

Every man got a right to his own mistakes. Ain't no man that ain't made any.

Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood.