
The Bug in the Physical Building - kqr
http://two-wrongs.com/the-bug-in-the-physical-building
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brudgers
The 1995 story in the _New Yorker_ :
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-
nine-...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine-story-
crisis)

It is misleading to classify the original welded design as adequate for
quartering winds by virtue of the safety factor incorporated into the design.
The safety factor accounts for the gap between the design and its execution in
the physical world. It takes into account reasonably likely implementation
errors not possible design errors.

The safety factor is a try-catch for IO. It's not there for kernel panics.

