Astral Codex Ten

Toledo

4 min read

Toledo

Article

Toledo is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between August 23, 2021 and August 25, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “TOLEDO, OH ( RSVP )”; “a second near-disaster at Toledo’s Davis-Besse plant in 2001”; “TOLEDO, OHIO, USA”. It most often appears alongside France, Japan, Paris.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: August 23, 2021
  • Last seen: August 25, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places
August 23, 2021 · Original source
TOLEDO, OH (RSVP) Contact: Luke Zhao, lukezhao9[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: 2:00 PM, Saturday, September 18 Location: Toledo Botanical Garden. We will meet at the cluster of picnic tables near the north parking lot, a bathroom, and a water fountain. We will likely have a sign or a red balloon. Coordinates: https://w3w.co/citizenship.walnuts.preserves
Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/citizenship.walnuts.preserves
Your Book Review: Safe Enough?
July 01, 2023 · Original source
The date is June 9, 1985. The place is the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo, Ohio. It is just after 1:35 am, and the plant has a small malfunction: "As the assistant supervisor entered the control room, he saw that one of the main feedwater pumps had tripped offline." But instead of stabilizing, one safety system after another failed to engage.
Yet "Safe Enough?" is less of a history of events than a biography of an idea, the birth of "Probabilistic Risk Assessment" as the guiding principle for understanding and mitigating risks in complex systems. The heroes of Wellock's book are not nuclear plant night shift assistant supervisors, or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission training and assessment specialists, though they each make important cameos. The city of Toledo, Ohio is not safeguarded by watchful superheroes. It is protected by a methodology.
Wellock is sympathetic to the notion that a full-throated embrace of Probabilistic Risk Assessment in Japan could have prevented Fukushima as well. The NRC had learned, from a second near-disaster at Toledo's Davis-Besse plant in 20013, that corrosion in the culture of an organization could be just as dangerous as corrosion in materials. This was certainly true of TEPCO - the utility had considered, but rejected, higher walls to keep out the ocean from even a tsunami this large. The plant managers at the time opted to avoid publicly visible upgrades, ironically because they feared that new safety measures would relay the unwanted message that nuclear power was untrustworthy.
Inline links: 3
Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places
August 25, 2023 · Original source
TOLEDO, OHIO, USA Contact: Norman Perlmutter Contact Info: NLPerlmutter+ACX[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 10th, 3:00 PM Location: Toledo Botanical Garden. If coming by car, park in the north parking lot (entrance off Elmer Road). We will be at one of the picnic tables near the parking lot. I'll be wearing an orange shirt and carrying or posting on the table a sign reading ACX MEETUP. In case of bad weather, alternate location will be posted on LessWrong and on the Meetup group. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/86HRM89H+43F Group Link: meetup.com/acx_toledo Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or on the Meetup group (but not on both, it would make it harder to count RSVPs.)
Inline links: https://plus.codes/86HRM89H+43F, meetup.com/acx_toledo