“Pressure’s what you make of it.” — Daniel Ricciardo Years ago, a colleague told me, “If the pressure is too high, it’s going to find a way to relieve. If you don’t plan for pressure relief, then you don’t get to pick how and where it relieves. And that can be disastrous.” For every piece [...]
“You know what’s the greatest part of anything ever in the history of everything? Exaggeration. No wait; it’s correcting yourself. No, better yet, it’s making lists.” — Demetri Martin When Google offers an AI response, it includes a statement: “AI responses may include mistakes.” That was never so obvious to me as when I posed [...]
“Before the first atomic bomb test, scientists took the time to calculate whether the blast would ignite the nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere and incinerate us all. The risk was low and the test went off, but Rees wonders what the odds would have had to be to discourage the bomb makers.” — Dennis Overbye [...]
“A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief—as well as injustice—to those who should gain exemptions from the rule’s functioning.” — Derrick Bell I don’t remember when I first realized that there is a difference between process safety management and Process Safety Management. Process safety—the aspect [...]
“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” — Carl Jung I’ve been taught, and have taught others, that you can’t take credit for a fire suppression system in a Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA). Why not? Because a fire suppression system doesn’t kick in until a fire [...]
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” — Calvin Coolidge I love a good play on words. “At once” can mean either “simultaneously” or it can mean “immediately”, and Calvin Coolidge managed to pack both meanings into a single sentence. “We cannot do everything simultaneously, but we can do [...]
“We must be part of the general staff at the inception, rather than the ambulance drivers at the bitter end.” — Lane Kirkland Despite being established under the authority of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which has not been repealed, the Trump administration intends to discontinue funding the Chemical Safety Board as of [...]
“A memorandum is not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.” — Dean Acheson A reader asked me “How long do I need to keep confined space entry permits for a covered process?” He knew my thoughts on retaining hot work permits and wondered if the same approach applied to other permits in [...]
“Complaints are prayers to the wrong god.” — Anne Lamott We live in a culture that actively discourages reporting problems. We’re told “Complain less, appreciate more,” “No one likes to listen to complaints,” and “Never complain and never explain.” And extreme cases, we’re reminded that “Snitches get stitches.” Yet there are dozens of requirements to [...]
“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” — Winston Churchill The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) describes its public safety mission as being to "drive chemical safety excellence through independent investigations to protect communities, workers, and the environment" with the vision of "a nation free from chemical disasters." The CSB’s [...]
