Comments on: Fourth of July reading: HistoryLessons.net http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/07/04/fourth-of-july-reading-historylessonsnet/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:45:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: David Rothman http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/07/04/fourth-of-july-reading-historylessonsnet/#comment-841650 David Rothman Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:19:50 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/07/04/fourth-of-july-reading-historylessonsnet/#comment-841650 Thanks for your thoughts, Nick, but perhaps Bruce Kauffmann was thinking of the human factors---the possibility that the number 13 might slightly unnerve people who were superstitious. I don't know the history or technology of Apollo 13. But could something like this have made a difference when people were inspecting the problematic oxygen tank or a related part? At any rate, might there be a reason, beyond marketing, why some builders skip the 13th floor? Meanwhile, for those curious, here's exactly what Bruce wrote: "Ignoring superstition is one thing. Mocking it is something else entirely. Developers of high-rise buildings refuse to designate a 13th floor for fear of accidents caused by bad luck, yet the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) gives the name Apollo 13 to one of its lunar missions--an undertaking with, oh, about five million more things that can go wrong than building a high-rise hotel. " As for the definition of <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disaster" rel="nofollow">disaster</a>, Apollo 13 would easily qualify. Just my hardly infallible opinions. Thanks, David Thanks for your thoughts, Nick, but perhaps Bruce Kauffmann was thinking of the human factors—the possibility that the number 13 might slightly unnerve people who were superstitious. I don’t know the history or technology of Apollo 13. But could something like this have made a difference when people were inspecting the problematic oxygen tank or a related part? At any rate, might there be a reason, beyond marketing, why some builders skip the 13th floor?

Meanwhile, for those curious, here’s exactly what Bruce wrote: “Ignoring superstition is one thing. Mocking it is something else entirely. Developers of high-rise buildings refuse to designate a 13th floor for fear of accidents caused by bad luck, yet the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) gives the name Apollo 13 to one of its lunar missions–an undertaking with, oh, about five million more things that can go wrong than building a high-rise hotel. ”

As for the definition of disaster, Apollo 13 would easily qualify.

Just my hardly infallible opinions.

Thanks,
David

]]> By: Nick http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/07/04/fourth-of-july-reading-historylessonsnet/#comment-841604 Nick Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:50:54 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/07/04/fourth-of-july-reading-historylessonsnet/#comment-841604 He immediately wins my informal "award for idiocy" by claiming that the Apollo 13 disaster (if one can call it that) was influenced in part by the fact that it involved the number 13, I'm afraid. He immediately wins my informal “award for idiocy” by claiming that the Apollo 13 disaster (if one can call it that) was influenced in part by the fact that it involved the number 13, I’m afraid.

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