Word: sanes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There are ways to make the technology more reliable. Fault-tolerant computers like those built by Stratus, Tandem and, for that matter, AT&T reduce runaway system errors by a kind of "paranoid democracy," where modules working in parallel constantly evaluate whether their electronic co- workers are "sane" or "crazy." Unfortunately, as last week's breakdown showed, it is possible for all the modules to go crazy at once. Software, always the skittish part of any system, can also be made more dependable by imposing the kind of discipline on programmers that engineering standards impose on, say, bridge designers...
...supposed to be suicidal. Deterrence presupposes not only the capacity to retaliate but also sanity and the imperative of self-preservation on both sides. A madman bent on self- destruction is, almost by definition, impossible to deter. It has always required a suspension of disbelief to imagine a sane Soviet leadership, no matter how cold-blooded, calculating that it could, in any meaningful sense, get away with an attack on the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Even if all American land-based missiles were destroyed, the men in the Kremlin would have to count on the distinct possibility that their country...