It's like guns. Guns don't kill - people kill.
Software doesn't kill - incompetent or imperfect people kill.
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It's like guns. Guns don't kill - people kill.
Software doesn't kill - incompetent or imperfect people kill.
they don't use Windows for air traffic control. It's also the reason it's not used on the space shuttle or the International Space Station.
In general though it is not the software itself that kills but the irresponsible, total reliance on software to perform flawlessly in life critical situations. In the case cited in the article you posted where panamanian patients were overdosed by the machine it was the policy governing the use of that machine that was flawed. That policy should have required the technicians using the machine to chack and verify the machine's accuracy where the potential existed for the patients to be killed. It was the writer of the policy that failed or the technicians failure to follow that policy that caused those deaths, not the fault of the software. Software should NEVER be expected to perform flawlessly.
Diana, I have my doubts about that full body scan story. I've been thru several of the proceedures explained in the below link, and they produce coin-like slices of the body, which are displayed one-by one on a monitor. The entire "stack of coin-images" are saved for study, but a technician is sitting in the control room watching them build. If the radiation level were to high, he'd see blank (overexposed) slices start to build and would stop and correct the level. Considering that I'm 6'1 and under 100 lbs when I was in the hospital, sometimes I gave them "fits" adjusting for me.
Note on the below information link: A full body scan uses CT technology,
Link: http://www.theuniversityhospital.com/healthlink/july2003/radio.html
I don't remember the details. I just remember it on TV. It came out after I had a full body scan and that's why I remember it. It wasn't a CT scan, it was one of those big machines that does your whole body at once - reminds me of the top of a coffin.
Diana, did they make a big deal of making sure that you had do metalic objects on you or in you (implants, pacemaker, etc.)?
If so, it could have been an MRI, which uses very, very strong magnetic fields to make images. (no radiation hazzard)
Wasn't the typical circular MRI. It was a long, flat thing (how's that for a technical word?) that covered my whole body and was lowered and turned on. This was in the early eighties and I didn't have a PC and definitely no internet so I couldn't look it up.
The magnetic fields used are extremely powerful, so it's very important that they know about any metal in your body.
magnetic resonance angiography