“Space is something you have to define. Otherwise, it is like anxiety, which is too vague. A fear is something specific. I like claustrophobic spaces, because at least then you know your limits.” — Louise Bourgeois A group recently met to discuss locking out a process vessel for entry. They identified the agitator, all of [...]
“Earthquakes don’t kill people. Buildings kill people.” — Wendy Bohon, geologist How many times have you been in a hazard review discussing the potential for a particularly severe event when someone asserts, “Well, I’ve never seen anything like that happen.” As though their proclamation of “never” settles the question. I sometimes ask them how long [...]
“Ideas nearly always seem brilliant when they’re hatched, so we never act on a new idea for at least twenty-four hours.” — Steven D. Levitt Batch processes often rely on additions through open hatches for ingredients that don’t lend themselves to being pumped in through a pipe. These include liquid ingredients used in small quantities [...]
“Once you start something, finish it. Don’t accumulate a backlog of unfinished projects.” — Ed Bliss If you are on the Chemical Safety Board’s distribution list, you may have noticed a lot of trade releases from the CSB in your in-box during the last few weeks. They’ve been busy. A recent press release proudly announced [...]
“Sometimes using duct tape and baling wire is a terrible and/or dangerous choice.” — Kay Rhodes On Sunday, June 11, 2023, a burning truckload of gasoline under an I-95 overpass in Philadelphia caused the bridge to collapse. At the time, officials estimated that it would take months to repair the bridge. Twelve days later, on [...]
“Externalized costs are negative impacts associated with economic transactions which concern people outside of those transactions, meaning that neither the buyer nor the seller bears the brunt of the costs.” — Mary McMahon On December 29, 2008, a fire in a UCLA organic chemistry lab killed research assistant Sheharbano Sangji. In response, the University of [...]
“Fentanyl is everywhere. From large metropolitan areas to rural America, no community is safe from this poison.” — Anne Milgram I believe that we cannot reduce the number and rate of work-related fatalities if we do not understand what causes them. So, every December I study the annual statistics for work-related fatalities when the Bureau [...]
“Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.” —Ginni Rometty Artificial Intelligence is having a moment in the public sphere. OpenAI’s ChatGPT text predictor has led to many competitors and skews that other companies can use to [...]
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”- Bill Gates As technology advances and improves, new tools are developed that can be used to change procedures and [...]
“Time is the fire in which we burn.”- Delmore Schwartz A resin and rosin manufacturer in Brunswick, Georgia reignited in the afternoon on April 15th after catching fire that morning. Sources cite changing winds as a possible reason for reignition, a natural occurrence out of human control. Tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes are consistently on the [...]
