The Low-Tech Times

Happy Independence Day!

Independence Day the movie was enjoyable enough, but my favorite patriotic movie for the occasion is The Crossing starring Jeff Daniels as George Washington.  I have an old VHS tape of the The Crossing taped off A&E back when I was living in a condo with cable.

The Crossing is available from Netflix and is also available for purchase from Amazon.com:

My wife and I both like Guinness Drought so we were excited when we heard Guinness was releasing a special 250th Anniversary Beer.  Arthur Guinness founded Guinness Brewery in 1759.

The special 250th anniversary beer was a little hard to find in the U.S.; however, Wegman’s Grocery Stores and Total Wine both carry the product in my area.  The 250th Anniversary version does not contain a hi-tech widget, is less creamy, and perhaps tastes a bit sweeter than the regular product.  However, Guinness fans will certainly enjoy trying this special release even if, like us, they still prefer the regular product over the special release.

One of my wife’s coworkers owns two goats that she milks in the morning and evening.  She was nice enough to give my wife a big jar of goat’s milk to take home.  Good stuff.

The Washington Post reports:

A train control system that should have prevented Monday’s deadly Metro crash failed in a test conducted by federal investigators, officials said yesterday, suggesting that a crucial breakdown of technology sent one train slamming into another…

The findings suggest that the oncoming train in Monday’s crash might not have received information that a train was stopped ahead on the rails north of the Fort Totten Station.

1996

This is not the first time the system has failed.  This 1996 NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) report explains factors leading up to an earlier accident that killed a metrorail operator.  Here is an excerpt from page 67:

Metrorail management failed to fully understand the design features and limitations of the automatic train control system, which led to unjustified management confidence that the system could ensure safe train operation under all operating conditions.

1982

The first deadly metrorail accident on January 13, 1982 was not caused by the computer system, but rather is blamed on human error following a derailment.  The accident did not receive as much attention at the time due to the tragic Air Florida plane crash into the icy Potomac River after clipping the 14th Street Bridge.