[DDub]

The point of a drill is to drill the procedure into people, so that when it is required the people are operating on autopilot without the need to actively think about the actions that they are performing. I would prefer to see the only two tapes next to the transmitter are the emergency tapes. If there is a drill then the drill setup will replace these tapes with the test tapes, and maybe place a corrupt tape there once in a while. With this fix, in an emergency situation it's suddenly someone has to remember to get the tape out of the cabinet (was it Alice's or Bob's cabinet that we put them in?) and use that rather than follow the process that has been rehearsed. This whole scenario whiffs of improper drill setup, not a failure of following the drill.

[stephengillie]

"Scolding the ape" is not a viable UI option. The time for "carrot and stick" has passed. Today's solutions need to leverage volition and obviation, to prevent the opportunity for human error to occur.

[DDub]

I'm not scolding the ape, I'm scolding the organ grinder. When a drill deviates from the actions taken in an emergency it becomes a pantomime of little value.

I totally agree that the solution should leverage obviation to prevent human error in an emergency, that's what a drill is all about.

[Chaebixi]

> When a drill deviates from the actions taken in an emergency it becomes a pantomime of little value.

Sending an emergency alert isn't an action that requires split-second muscle memory. I think slight deviations in the drill vs. the real thing are fine in this case, in order to prevent false alarms.

There's no one-size-fits-all solution here, you have to analyze the trade-offs around speed and the cost of a false alarm.

[DDub]

It hasn't prevented a false alarm, which is why it hit the news... it's interesting that there is a lot of hang up on false negative (false alarm) and very little discussion about a false positive (hitting the test button instead of the real alarm)

[Chaebixi]

> It hasn't prevented a false alarm, which is why it hit the news...

That's because they forgot the lesson decades ago. It seems like the 1971 event is a forgotten piece of cold war history. I haven't seen any mention of it in the couple of news articles I read.

> it's interesting that there is a lot of hang up on false negative (false alarm) and very little discussion about a false positive (hitting the test button instead of the real alarm)

We haven't ever had a nuclear missile attack, and even if we had one, there's very little anyone could actually do to protect themselves. The alert seems more of a courtesy than a real actionable warning. The fear and panic of a false alarm are real, though. Also, if there are too many false alarms, they turn into crying wolf and will be ignored.