#358 – WHY DO MEMORIES FADE AS PEOPLE AGE? – ALLEN TAYLOR

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I am sure you have noticed, in others if not in yourself, that it gets harder to remember names, places, facts, and procedures as people get older.

Why is that? Clearly something changes, something physiological. Perhaps if we could identify what changes, we could slow or even reverse that change, enabling us to retain our mental powers far longer than is common today. Some groundbreaking research has been conducted recently at Stanford University in California. This work is described in a paper titled Exercise conditioned plasma dampens inflammation via clusterin and boosts memory. Continue reading

#357 – PRIORITIZING URGENT VS. IMPORTANT RELIABILITY TASKS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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As reliability professionals, we have a lot to do. Risks to identify, failures to analyze. Plans to draft, numbers to crunch. Meetings, writing, research, and leading fill the day.

The list of tasks that you have before you each day is impressive and daunting. So, how do you focus on what actually requires your attention and not just the tasks that get your attention? Continue reading

#357 – CUTTING CORNERS TRIGGER VAPOR EXPLOSION – BILL POMFRET PH.D.

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Environmental health and safety should never take a back seat to making a profit. The former president of an oil waste reclamation plant learned that lesson the hard way. Peter Margiotta, 64 years old, just started an 18-month sentence in a federal prison after being found guilty of multiple criminal violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

Rushing to get up and running before all the T’s were crossed and I’s dotted landed three of his former employees in the hospital and blew up a sizable chunk of his plant. Continue reading

#357 – ALL RISK IS PERSONAL – JIM TONEY

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Isn’t it about time you became your own risk manager?  Whether we are aware or not, all risk affects us personally.  We need to know both what tasks to perform, and then how to perform those tasks to control risk.

How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus(1)

We define risk as an uncertain future event that poses harm to individuals or business objectives.  A risk may be driven by a threat, e.g., danger or harm from malicious actors, events of nature, or technology deficiencies. Continue reading

#357 – EVERYTHING SUCKS AND WHY THAT’S PERFECT – DANIEL BURRUS

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You read that headline right: everything does suck! And in this article, I’m going to give you the solid reasons why this makes me both optimistic and excited about our future!

Think to yourself: On any given day, how many times do you hear someone grumbling about their phone not working well, traffic patterns on their way to work driving them insane, how a business of any kind inconvenienced them by having poor customer service, or a government institution – commonly one like the DMV – putting them in a sour mood? Continue reading