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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: 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]