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Stupid Engineering Mistakes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.

lee1 writes "Wired has bestowed on us a list of the ten worst engineering mistakes of all time. We have the St. Francis Dam designed by 'self-taught' engineer William Mulholland, which burst and wiped out several towns near LA; the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse; the DC-10, and more, but my favorite is the one I'd never heard of: a giant tank of molasses that ruptured in 1919 and sent 'waves of molasses up to 15 feet high' through Boston, killing 21."

5 of 592 comments (clear)

  1. Another one you might not have heard about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    my anus ruptured in 2006 and sent a wave of diarrhea up the walls 15' high. God, that was embarrassing.

  2. Digg Dupe by stygar · · Score: -1, Troll

    So is it standard policy now at Slashdot to only post the most popular entries off of yesterday's Digg frontpage?

  3. do7l by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    reve7 in our gay propaganda and

  4. Front-Load Washers by BigBlockMopar · · Score: -1, Troll

    No Asian disasters?

    All I see around here is dumbasses with too much money buying front-load LG and Samsung washing machines. There's your disaster.

    1. The dryer *has* to be horizontal, but the washer doesn't. I choose a washer with a horizontal drum because I like to stoop uncomfortably. It reminds me of the suffering of the Korean sweatshop slaves who built it.
    2. I don't understand freshman chemistry, where even the D- students can prove that it's the water, not the detergent or agitation, which dissolves the dirt. Hence, I'm stupid enough to believe that a "water efficient" washing machine will actually get my clothes cleaner than a real washing machine.
    3. Being a graduate of an arts program, I believe the engineers are lying when they tell me that reliability is inversely proportional to the complexity of a mechanism. After all, I skipped my degree-mandated Logical Reasoning 101 classes to go to "Save The Earwig" rallies. Of course, the greater water and energy efficiencies of a front-loader will be especially useful when the machine is in a landfill in six years - my neighbor will still be irresponsibly wasting water in his top-loader for over a decade!
    4. And finally, I believe that cute little rubber seals are more reliable than gravity. The toxins we're spewing into the environment have to be messing up Nature's gravity somehow.

    Oh yeah, but we have to remember to blame the Europeans for the original idiocy behind the concept.

    I believe in the genocide of front-load washing machine believers.

    --
    Fire and Meat. Yummy.
  5. Re:one comment, one addition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Let's not forget the biggest disastor of all, America.

    Oh wait, that wasn't engineered was it?