When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
practical.engineering
When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
1–10 of 92 posts
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#2I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0].
This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#3I had my thesis experiment stranded at WAIS due to this incident. The good thing is I didn't have to go to WAIS ever again...
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#4Today I learned of the existence of "organic, wheat-based cat litter"
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#5I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0]. This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492161
I'm surprised they made critical material purchasing decisions based on what some guy thinks he heard in a meeting, rather than official written documents written by and cross-checked by multiple engineers.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#6Today I learned of the existence of "organic, wheat-based cat litter"
Sounds like grape nuts
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#7I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0]. This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492161
Not just when documents are written, but also when the practices they describe are implemented.
You don't need to know a lot of chemistry to realize that mixing organics with nitric acid is a bad idea. Why did none of the technicians doing the work say "hold on, this doesn't seem right"?
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#8I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0]. This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492161
Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#9"Wrong Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe"
As an owner of a particularly opinionated Orange Cat, I can relate.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#10It's not the litter, it's the typo.
It was not sufficient to just write "inorganic". Given the seriousness of possible consequences, some redundancy should have been added. E.g. "inorganic mineral-based kitty litter can be used; organic kitty litter is not acceptable". A few more words would have prevented an actual nuclear incident.