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 [ BACK]  [NEXT]                       Issue #256 - 07/08/2001

ERR POLLUTION

The Reign of Error Continues

Howdy again, Funnies fans...
     We usually look at mistakes as bad things, probably because
most of them are.  Things like airplane crashes, traffic
accidents and even slipping in the bathtub are usually the result
of some kind of mistake.  Mistakes come in all sizes, shapes and
degrees of seriousness.  There is even a class of mistakes that
we might term mistaken mistakes.  You can spot these when some
obvious flub turns out positively and the flubee says, "I meant
to do that."
     These are more common than you might think.  Take Charles
Goodyear, 1840's hard luck inventor, who after years of fooling
around with ways to use gooey, unstable natural rubber, had come
to a dead end.  His wife threatened to leave him if conducted any
further smelly experiments in the family kitchen.  Naturally,
being a good husband, he waited until she was out shopping before
cooking up his next experiment.  Happily involved with his
project, he didn't realize how much time had passed until he saw
his wife returning.  He quickly grabbed the mess off the stove
top and shoved it into the oven.  Either she was feeling
diplomatic or the February weather had affected her sense of
smell, because she didn't raise the expected hissy fit.  The
biggest surprise of all came when Goodyear recovered the pot of
rubbery glop after his wife had left the room.  The ingredients
he had accidentally combined made the gooey and unstable rubber
into a hard and useful product.  He had invented the first
commonly used plastic material, vulcanized rubber - the same form
of rubber we know today.
     Not that he made a ton of money out of it - Charles was
still just as mistake prone as before, and he lost several
fortunes in the rubber business, dying $200,000 in debt at a time
when a good working wage was $3 a week.
     Besides rubber, Teflon, White Zinfandel wine, tea bags,
glass, Popsicles, X-Rays, the Telephone and the Chrysler K-Car
were all invented by mistake.  OK, so technically the K-Car
wasn't invented.  I could argue, however, that the process that
caused the mid-80's Chrysler Krap-mobiles to start rusting even
before you drove them home from the dealers showroom HAD to be a
mistake.
     One mistake we won't make at SUNFUN is forgetting to say
Thanks to our many friends and contributors.  Greetings and
Gratitude go out this week to:  Nnamdi Elleh, Laura Hong Li,
Helen Yee, Rosana & Stanley Leung, Naomi Ogawa, Caterina Sukup,
Jerry Taff, Keiko Amakawa, Chuck Maray, Bruce Gonzo, Kiyomi
Kanazawa, Carol J. Becwar, Jan Michalski, Charles Beckman, R.J.
Tully, Yasmin Leischer, Major & Judy McCallum, Mary Crow and
Howard Lesniak.  Is that everybody?  Yes, I think it is.  Well,
that's a relief; I thought I'd made a mistake there.  But I was
wrong.
     Always On Sunday,

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OK, TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL...
-------------------------------
     "In the article 'Devote Every Effort to Running
     Successful Socialist Research Institutes' (Sci. Sin.
     Vol 19, no. 5), 'the arch unrepentant capitalist-roader
     in the Party Teng Hsiao-ping' should read 'Teng
     Tsiao-ping.'" 
                            - Correction without further comment
                              from the Journal of the Chinese
                              Academy of Sciences

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ACCIDENTAL TOURIST?
------------------
     Baggage handlers at the airport in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
got quite a shock recently when they opened the cargo compartment
on a flight just arrived from Dallas.  Besides the luggage for
the 54 ticketed passengers, there was a 55th, unscheduled person
aboard - one of the luggage loaders from Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport.
     Mistakenly locked inside the rear cargo hold of the Champion
Air Boeing 727 before departure, the man arrived in reasonably
good condition in the pressurized and air-conditioned
compartment.  Pilots reported hearing odd noises in the plane
while the bags were being loaded, but were assured by the ground
crew that it was just the normal noises of slinging suitcases
aboard.
     Officials said that the rear cargo door was slightly damaged
by the trapped man as he tried to pound his way out before the
flight.
     "He was obviously trying to get out," said Elizabeth
Costello, a spokeswoman for the airline.
     The airline is investigating.  (Reuters/AP)
          [ Considering the decrepit state of air
          travel these days, they are probably
          investigating if they can get away with
          selling discounted tickets for "baggage
          class." ]


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     "I don't want to make the wrong mistake." 
                            - baseball player and commentator
                              Yogi Berra

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MEDAL ROUND...
-----------
     He was the bravest of the brave, according to the Indian
army.  And, in the Summer of 1999, the presented a posthumous
medal for bravery to Grenadier Yogender Singh Yadav.  It was the 
Param Vir Chakra, India's highest medal for bravery.
     Now, no one is disputing Yadav's bravery in the skirmishes
on the border with Pakistan, but the brave man's wife pointed out
that the posthumous medal might be a little premature.  In fact,
he was very much alive and in the hospital recovering from his
injuries.
     An army spokesman told the media that there would be an
internal inquiry into the blunder.  (Reuters)


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          To err is human, but to really screw things
          up requires a computer.

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DOESN'T QUITE ADD UP...
--------------------
     It has become pretty common for high school students here in
the U.S. to take "school leaving" exams now.  These are designed
to test if the student has actually learned anything in high
school (I mean anything from the school books, wise guys!).  The
mostly private companies that provide the tests stress the
repeatability and accuracy of their scientifically designed
testing proceedures.
     Like many states, Minnesota requires its seniors to pass
exams in reading, writing and mathematics before they can
graduate.  And while a few kids will flunk any test, schools
there were astounded when nearly 8,000 who took the state's basic
math test failed the test.
     The tests are administered by National Computer Systems
(NCS), based in the Twin Cities suburb of Eden Prairie.  For
this, the State pays $2.9 million a year.  The company operates
tests in all 50 states and oversees testing programs in 18 
countries.
     Oops, the company said.  Investigation showed that NCS
improperly scored 45,739 mathematics tests taken in February and
1,358 tests taken in April.  As a result of the errors, 7,989
students were incorrectly told they failed the exams, including
336 seniors who may have been barred from graduating because of
their scores.  Maybe NCS is simply bad at math.
     "We messed up," Smith said at a news conference, assuring
tax payers that the mistake was an anomaly.  (Reuters)
          [ According to the companies computers,
          anyway... ]

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WHO SAYS TALK IS CHEAP?
----------------------
     Since its purchase by the Spanish phone giant Telefonica,
the formerly government-run phone company in Sao Paulo, Brazil
has been under increasing pressure to shape up.  Regulators have
charged the company with such practices as cutting lines and
randomly changing numbers without notice.  For their part,
Telefonica complains about their inability to make money.
     But don't feel too sorry for them.  They could make up all
their losses with the phone bill they sent local service customer 
Nelson Marotti Filho.  He was dismayed last March to find that
his monthly service bill had gone up dramatically.
     It now totalled $43 million.
     Nelson only found out about the big bill when his bank
called because there wasn't enough money in his account to cover
the monster payment.  A quick complaint to the company - and a
radio speech by Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso
threatening to give the phone giant the world's largest busy
signal - resulted in Filho receiving a new, corrected phone bill
for $31.  (Reuters)


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          "As long as the world is turning and
          spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're
          gonna make mistakes." 
                            - Filmmaker Mel Brooks

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OF FORD AND FOLLY
-----------------
     Once upon a time, there were two red Fords.
     That's the way this might start if it was a fairy tale.  But
it was reality enough for a small group of folks in Clearwater,
Florida, even though it seems like something invented for a
comedy movie.
     It started when Brian Matherly drove a red Ford Escort
belonging to his boss into a local fast food mart to pick up
cigarettes.  He was only going in for a few seconds so he left
the keys in the ignition while he ran inside.  The sale was
uneventful and he bought the butts, jumped back in the car and
left.
     At least, that's what he thought at the time.  Until he
handed the keys back to his boss, he had no idea that anything
was amiss.  The keys weren't hers.  Neither was the car, as it
turned out.  It was still a Ford, but it had magically turned
into a red Festiva, a similar but smaller model.
     Returning to the scene of the crime, Matherly found Bob
Salyer, owner of the foundling Festiva, and Clearwater police;
Salyer had been a little faster to realize that someone had
pulled a fast one.  He had already called police to report his
Festiva stolen.
     Fortunately, everyone involved was content to laugh it off,
though the coppers said that it was one of the dangers of leaving
the keys in the ignition lock.  (AP)


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     "The only thing I regret about my life is the length of
     it.  If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same
     mistakes - only sooner."
                            - Actress Tallulah Bankhead

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MICROSOFT - BY THE NUMBERS...
--------------------------
     No modern discussion of errors could ever be complete
without mentioning Microsoft.  Since it's inception, that one
companies efforts have generated more technological faults,
errors and hangups than have existed since humans began keeping
written records.  It isn't only that their products are
legendarily buggy; when computers do go wrong, they allow you to
make more errors faster than anything but drunkenness or
firearms.  I'll remind you of the U.S. Navy ship whose Windows NT
computer network shut down so completely they were dead in the
water for two whole days.
     Recently, we ran across another interesting error in the new
Windows 2000.  Like all later versions of Windows, you must log
on with a password when starting the machine.  And, as required
by good security practice, you may be required to change your
password occasionally.
     But, under certain conditions, Win 2K gives a truly
memorable message in the change password procedure:

          "Your password must be at least 18770
          characters and cannot repeat any of your
          previous 30689 passwords.
          Please type a different password.  Type a
          password that meets these requirements in
          both text boxes."

     Most people sometimes find it a little difficult to remember
what they had for breakfast, let alone having letter perfect
recall of a short novel.  Microsoft says on their website that
they will send you a patch to fix the problem for free - assuming
you still can log on to find that out, that is.

     Check it yourself at:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q276/3/04.ASP


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     One company was making so many errors, they were
     considering buying a computer to blame them on.

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TOY STORY
---------
     Way back in the innocent days of the 1960's, Walt Disney
made a film called "The Absent-Mined Professor" which was hugely
successful at the time.  (A modern remake starring Robin Williams
was released in 1997.)  In the movie, the title character invents
a gooey green substance he calls "Flubber" for "flying rubber."
     Then as now, toy companies were always looking for anything
with ties to a popular movie, and the movie glop sounded like the
next "Hula Hoop."  The Hassenfeld Brothers toy company (better
known today as Hasbro), quickly licensed the name from Disney,
and set about making a few tons of toy-like goo.  This particular
formulation of Flubber was a mixture of rubber and mineral oil
that had properties similar to that of Silly Putty.
     The product was introduced in September of 1962 and Hasbro
sold millions of packages.  They advertized their Flubber as a
new parent-approved material that was non-toxic and would not
stain.
     But then, reports started to come back that some kids
developing serious rashes and sore throats from the product.  The
Hasbro honchos were mystified, and more than a little alarmed. 
They knew everything the toy glop was made of, and claimed that
it was even edible.  It had passed every test they had tried.
     Finally, after a Kansas woman filed a $104,000 lawsuit
against Hasbro in March of 1963, the company conducted more
tests.  They found to their dismay that, in a very few people,
the mineral oil irritated the hair follicles.
     Swallowing hard, the Hasbro folks recalled every package of
the faulty Flubber.  Now all they had to do was figure out how to
get rid of a few thousand tons of rubbery glop.  This being the
1960's, they did what they had done with other defective
materials; they sent it off to be burned in the city incinerator. 
They were finally rid of it.
     For a little while, anyway.  Hasbro President Merrill
Hassenfeld received phone call from the mayor of their
Providence, Rhode Island hometown the very next day, saying that
there was a huge black cloud hovering over the city.  Apparently,
burning Flubber generated so much smoke that the city wouldn't
accept any more of it at the local incinerator.  The green stuff
was returned to Hasbro.
     Next, Hasbro got permission from the Coast Guard to weight
the stuff and dump it at sea.  Merrill Hassenfeld must have
dreaded coming to work for a while there, since he received a
phone call from the Coast Guard the day after dumping it.  The
Flubber was floating all around Narragansett Bay and Hasbro had
to pay the Coast Guard and fishermen to sweep the ocean clean. 
They recovered goop was returned to Hasbro.
     In desperation, Hassenfeld had the stuff trucked to the 
construction site where the company was building a new warehouse. 
They dug a huge hole and unceremoniously dumped the remaining
Flubber and covered it over with dirt, happy finally to be rid of
it.
     Did I say rid of it?  A parking lot was later built on that
site.  Hasbro employees report that, when the weather is warm,
the 40-year-old greenish goo still oozes up through cracks in the
pavement like the toxic toy that wouldn't die.
     It is worth noting the Hasbro didn't bid on making toy
Flubber in connection with the 1997 movie version.


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© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.