We learned this in ‘Computer Science 101’. It WAS tested before use, but the issue was missed because when the machine was initially tested, no one was particularly fast at using it.
An experienced operator could edit treatment parameters so fast that the software skipped a safety check due to a ‘race condition’ between the input handler and the radiation beam logic.
It’s a great example of the need for external hardware safeties as well, since there should have been no scenario where the machine was capable of outputting deadly doses regardless of what the software says.
That’s not necessarily true. You could imagine rest runs (without people in there, obviously) where you want the thing to quickly emit a lot of energy.
What would you be testing there, how effectively it could kill someone?
The machine itself?
If it’s outputting lethal doses in the test run surely it’s failed the test!?!
If you want to test the x-ray tube you might want to run it at levels not used during regular operations.
For what purpose? What are you testing about it?
You could imagine rest runs (without people in there, obviously) where you want the thing to quickly emit a lot of energy.
I find it concerning that the machine can only rest when it emits a lot of energy.
Test. Damn. Test runs.
They had machines that X-ray’d your foot to measure a foot size for shoes back in the 50’s. Luckily my mother was smart and would not let my brothers use it like all the other kids doing it every every five minutes.
Edit typo and found this
https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/shoe-fitting-fluoroscope/index.html
Ignoring the danger of radiation that just seems like such a gimmick
My (expensive) Frigidaire microwave has a feature where you can ‘add 5 seconds’ to the timer by pressing a button on the touch screen. However, if you press it when there’s less than 5 seconds left, the timer display freezes and it doesn’t add any extra time. This shit infuriates me like you wouldn’t believe. Either they’re so lazy/incompetent that they didn’t test this one edge case, or they did but didn’t care enough to fix it. If I wasn’t a programmer, I probably wouldn’t be bothered by it, but seeing such sloppy code seriously pisses me off. A fucking unpaid intern could fix that.
My head would probably explode if someone I loved was killed by a software bug. This is why I’m terrified of people trying to shove AI into every product. 99% of these people don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, and even the experts who created the model they’re licensing aren’t able to solve critical issues like hallucination.
