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posted by n1 on Sunday June 08 2014, @06:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the unique-series-of-mistakes dept.

James R. Healey reports that General Motors has fired 15 people who either were incompetent or irresponsible in their actions involving fatally flawed ignition switches that are linked to 13 deaths in crashes where airbags failed to inflate. "A disproportionate number of those were in senior roles or executives," said GM CEO Mary Barra. Two high-ranking engineers previously put on paid leave were among them, said Barra adding that five more employees "one level removed" were disciplined in unspecified ways because they "simply didn't take action."

A far back as 2002, General Motors engineers starting calling it the "switch from hell" but it would take a dozen years, more than 50 crashes and at least 13 deaths for the automaker to recall the ignition switch, used in millions of small cars. GM's own internal investigation never explains how a lone engineer in a global automaker could approve a less expensive part that failed to meet GM standards. Nor does it illuminate why the same engineer could substitute an improved design without changing the part number, a move critics cite as evidence of a cover-up. After the first cars with the switch went on sale, GM heard complaints from customers, employees and dealers. But "group after group and committee after committee within GM that reviewed the issue failed to take action or acted too slowly," the report said. A unique series of mistakes was made," said Barra. And the problem was misunderstood to be one of owner satisfaction and not safety. GM engineers didn't understand that when the switches failed, they cut power to the airbags.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Monday June 09 2014, @05:59AM

    by anubi (2828) on Monday June 09 2014, @05:59AM (#53144) Journal
    Kinda offtopic, but everyone has to learn. I'll spill the beans this time.

    From your post, "What >I(insert missing left arrow that slashcode is stripping out)" ... a little friendly hint from another who had the same problem and needed a little HTML advice.

    Techwolf, that left arrow you refer too is what slashcode thinks is the start of an HTML tag; it will eat it and start looking for the HTML code for something. If you want slashcode to not see it as a tag starter, try this character string ... ampersand lt semicolon and ampersand gt semicolon. I will ecode it below...

    < and >

    Try it out. Cut and paste what you see in the ecode text below and preview it in a post window. You should see your "less than" and "greater than" symbols appear as text instead of being snared by slashcode's HTML parser. It should display as

    < and >

    ( I put the code between the ecode tags so it would not be parsed, so you got to see the raw code ).

    HTML is a pretty powerful thing. Its really hard not to fall in love with it. Whoever dreamed it up sure had a lot of insight.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 2) by Techwolf on Monday June 09 2014, @05:59PM

    by Techwolf (87) on Monday June 09 2014, @05:59PM (#53335)

    Tried the & trick, didn't work for me. But then I probably didn't have the right format.

    "Whoever dreamed it up sure had a lot of insight." into how to exploit computers remotely. Even without all the plugins stuff, pure html can mess up the formatting of pages on public forums to hide opinions one does not like. Or just "griefting" the site.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday June 10 2014, @03:17AM

      by anubi (2828) on Tuesday June 10 2014, @03:17AM (#53554) Journal
      Strange... you cut this:

      &lt; and &gt;

      Then opened a reply window as if you were going to reply to me, then pasted your cut in the reply window, and your preview didn't show it as:

      < and >

      And yes, I love HTML, but unfortunately it does have a few holes which should have been patched by rev2. Instead, it got worse as special interests shangai'd the protocols and insisted that special drivers, plug-ins, etc. were required to see content, and us dumb sheeple complied instead of simply clicking away. Gotta see that nekkid girl!

      I was hoping to see HTML turn into something a bulletproof as a standard programmer's text editor. With all images, audio, and video complying to very tightly specified protocols - any deviants causing no more harm than what we used to see if we opened up a binary file or an executable in a text editor by mistake. Lots of unintelligible crap but no harm done.

      Much to my disappointment, this did not happen. Instead what I get is a myriad of special-interest crap with the authors of it having Congress pass law to protect their rights to code what they may while holding it illegal for others to dissamble the code to see if it is hostile. To me this is akin to special interests lobbying Congress to pass law holding 6 point type to be legally binding, but making it illegal to view the contract under a magnifying glass.

      Although this mess appears to be a computer problem, I feel the underlying cause is a Congressional problem, with Law-Makers and Special Interests taking precedence over the public interest. Congress has simply run amuck with the power given them by the people, and the people are not standing up to take it back. Actually, I think we have already passed the point of no return, where Government no longer represents the people, but instead is a puppet for their corporate masters.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]