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The BBC News reports that:
The agency that manages the dormant US military draft has apologised after sending conscription registration notices to men born in the late 1800s.
The Selective Service System (SSS) said the error occurred after a clerk neglected to select the century in a search for newly eligible young men.
It sent 14,250 notices to Pennsylvania men born 1893-97 in addition to 1993-97 before discovering the error.
Further:
Agency spokesman Pat Schuback said they did not catch the error because Pennsylvania used a two-digit code for the year of birth, meaning those born in 1893 and in 1993 had the same code.
"It's never happened before," Mr Schuback said.
Pennsylvania transport spokeswoman Jan McKnight said the error occurred when a clerk at the department, which manages driving licence information, transferred records to the SSS but forgot to select only the 20th Century.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:18PM
This would be a poor example of a failing state. I have seen far larger blunders in the "civilian" world. You also don't typically fire people for making mistakes like this.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Monday July 14 2014, @12:28AM
To the phrase:
"To err is human... to really foul things up requires a computer."
It was ONE error, replicated 14,250 times.
This is yet another demonstration why we computer folk have to be so concerned with even the slightest thing that's not understood, and our managers need to be tolerant of this kind of "perfectionism".
Its not the error itself that's so bad. One letter getting sent is not a big deal. Everyone makes mistakes now and then.
Its the replication of that error whose cost to fix makes a year's salary look like a dropped peanut.
Nothing on this planet can replicate an error faster than a computer.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Monday July 14 2014, @06:57AM
I think he means the fact that there are gods-only-know how many people drawing paychecks from tax coffers to continue managing a draft that we haven't had in decades.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday July 14 2014, @11:32AM
"managing a draft that we haven't had in decades."
And will probably never need. Needed one in Vietnam. In Vietnam 2.0, yet another empire tries to take over Afghanistan and fails again (lots more examples than just USA and USSR) we didn't need a draft. In Vietnam 3.0, "lets fight over a great pile of sand in Iraq", we again didn't need a draft.
So when we have a war, if we win, like the first Iraq/Kuwait adventure, we tend to win so quickly we have no use for a draft. And when we lose, we've lost the last two wars and even during the bloody occupations we didn't need a draft, even with two simultaneous drafts.
The purpose of SS in 1915 was we didn't have great records of every teenage boy to send off to war, so felt a "need" to create one. In 2015 you could simply rm -Rf the whole department saving millions and contract to facebook and/or about 50 bazillion other data warehouses for a simple one line SELECT statement of a report.
Finally big brother is watching, and data sources have been merged back and forth so many times there is no longer a point for this separate data silo. Locally, SS, drivers license/ID cards, anyone who gets financial aid while attending higher ed, any registered voters, lists of possible jury service members, and anyone who ever pays a bill from phone to tuition gets recorded by the credit score people. And the data flows approximate a mesh network, such that the silos with a financial interest in quality data are almost certain to contain better data.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday July 14 2014, @01:34PM
Ah, i see. Thanks : ) Do you think it's a good idea to remove the draft then? Or just the registration process for it?
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(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Monday July 14 2014, @08:35PM
Honestly, at this point, I'm too old to care for my own sake, and too jaded to care for anyone else's.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"