Causality Blog
All of the blog entries for Causality.
Causality Episode 38 Correction
18 November, 2021In Episode 38 of Causality regarding Thunder River Rapids, first released on the 24th of January, 2021, originally stated that Ebony Goodchild did not survive, when it was Katie Goodchild whose life was lost. The show notes, episode audio and YouTube video have now all been corrected.
The error was traced to an incorrect source news article, though normally fact cross-checking against the official report would have found this, for reasons unclear it remained incorrect in the final episode script.
We pride ourselves in attention to detail in the production of Causality and would like to apologise for the error.
If there are any factual errors in any of our episodes please let us know via the contact form. We greatly appreciate true fans of the show that have a similar level of attention to detail that we aspire to achieve consistently, with every episode we produce.
Many thanks to listener “American M.H.” for bringing this to our attention.
Editor's Choice Summer 2021
12 June, 2021Tyler Dickey has kindly awarded Causality with his Editor’s Choice Award for Summer (Northern Hemisphere) 2021! The list of shows in Tyler’s podcast recommendations is very impressive including shows such as 99% Invisible, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and Judge John Hodgman, measuring Causality against some highly regarded competition. To quote from Tyler’s page:
As the podcast-sphere grows and grows, with the last two years seeing millions of dollars changing hands in a space that was once reserved for Apple-nerds downloading NPR shows, I think it’s important I dedicate a single page to collecting and curating podcast recommendations. —Tyler Dickey, February 2020
Tyler also joined Patreon and has also given a one-off donation as part of the award, for which I’m very grateful.
Thank you so much for the recognition, for your support and as always thank you so much for listening.
Causality Premium Giveaway
21 March, 2020UPDATE: The giveaway is now over. Thank you to all that participated!
For the next few weeks we’re running a giveaway for Causality fans. To be eligible all you need to do is share an episode of Causality you like on Twitter with a few words about why you liked that episode so much. In that tweet you’ll need to link to the URL of the episode, use the Hash-Tag #EngNet and @ Mention @Engineered_Net. You can enter as many times as you like.
There are 10 codes available and the code gives you full access to Causality Premium for free for one month, giving you access to all of the ad-free episodes, bonus episodes only available to Premium subscribers as well as Causality Explored and all the bonus content for Causality through the website. Note: This is NOT a Patreon giveaway as there is currently no way to do that
The best Tweet will be chosen from the previous 48 hours, so if you weren’t successful the first time, a re-tweet of your previous tweets is also acceptable. You might be retweeted by the @Engineered_Net account but this has no bearing on whether you’ve won or not.
We’re giving away one code every second day at Midnight GMT. If you win you’ll get a Direct Message on Twitter with your unique code that needs to be redeemed within one week. If your DMs aren’t open, we will @ Mention you to get in touch another way of your choice.
This is the first time we’ve done a giveaway like this so get in while you can!
Good luck :)
Causality Episode 33 Correction
20 February, 2020In Episode 33 of Causality regarding the 737 Max, first released on the 31st of January, 2020, originally contained an incorrect number of combined fatalities between the two 737 Max crashes, originally reporting 338 when the correct number is 346. The show notes and episode audio have now all been corrected.
The discrepancy was a result of the accidental exclusion of the flight crew from one of the two flights in the total value.
We pride ourselves in attention to detail in the production of Causality and would like to apologise for the error.
If there are any factual errors in any of our episodes please let us know via the contact form. We greatly appreciate true fans of the show that have a similar level of attention to detail that we aspire to achieve consistently, with every episode we produce.
Many thanks to listener Sierra Blazer for bringing this to our attention.
Causality Explored
7 December, 2019AUDIO VERSION:
VIDEO VERSION:
To celebrate the launch of Causality Premium I’m also launching a new Causality embedded Microcast as an exclusive bonus mini-show I’m calling “Causality Explored”. It will only be available to Premium Patrons (and above) and Causality Premium Subscribers.
One of the challenges in making Causality is getting the technical depth just right. Too high level and I feel like I haven’t done my job well enough. Too deep and I’m concerned that I’ll lose a lot of listeners as they zone-out and wonder: “What on Earth is John talking about?” and “What’s a synchronous motor anyway?” or something similar…
Causality Explored will be a brief (3-8min) ad-free exploration into a specific technical detail relevant to the episode just released. It’s intended for the hard-core fans of the show that are truly interested in the technical depth that I normally wouldn’t go into in the main episode releases. Causality Explored will be best listened to directly following the episode it’s in reference to, but will still stand alone if you’d like to listen independently.
Causality Explored will be released in step with new episodes as they are released starting today, as well as the most recently released three episodes. In time I’ll be adding Causality Explored for key episodes retrospectively with the long term goal of providing it for all past episodes. Causality Explored will not have its own show feed: If you’re already a Premium supporter or above on Patreon, then you’ll get Causality Explored as a bonus in your Premium Audio feed automatically and you don’t have to do a thing! If you’d like some more in-depth Causality then Causality Explored has been made just for you!
I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you for your continued support and as always, thanks for listening.
Causality Premium
7 December, 2019UPDATE: The App-Login via LibSyn is No Longer Available. The Apps are also no longer updated or maintained. Thanks to those that supported via this pathway.
AUDIO VERSION:
VIDEO VERSION:
As Causality has continued to grow in popularity and with a broader appeal to a very diverse range of listeners, the time felt right to try something new. Since its inception the show has been supported by Patrons and Sponsors, with Premium Patrons and above enjoying benefits such as access to Raw Show notes and Ad-Free, Higher Quality audio of each episode.
Today I’m launching a new way to listen to the show and a way to support just Causality independently of Patreon. I’ve teamed up with LibSyn who is a podcast hosting specialist that have hosted my shows audio since 2013. Through them I’m now able to offer a Causality App in the Apple App Store, the Amazon App Market and the Google Play Store. The subscription also ties into episodes on The Engineered Network website.
Why Do This?
In short, I’ve had many people feed back that they would be supporting me if there was an option other than Patreon. Truth is that Patreons “Private Audio RSS URL” isn’t exactly user friendly if you’re not technically inclined or even if you are so inclined an a Patron it can still be difficult to find. In addition many supporters only want me to make Causality and would like an option to support only Causality. Finally Patreon has an awesome tiered system which is great for a lot of people, however the tiers can seem confusing and there are limited ways to offer deals and there’s no mechanism to provide a discount for loyal, long-time supporters.
Causality Premium
Here’s how it works: the Apps are all free to download and they will show all of freely available episodes, however if you subscribe to support the show you’ll get the full catalogue of Ad-Free, high quality episodes, as well as the raw notes for each episode and bonus Causality episodes that are published from time to time. Essentially the content will mirror that provided for Premium and above Patrons via Patreon, but solely for Causality.
Subscriptions are available month to month at $3.99, 6-monthly at $9.99 and Annually for $15.99 USD. Annual subscribers will receive a named thank you at the end of the episode released the month they signed up, each year, as an extra perk.
When you’re subscribed and signed in you’ll be able to access that extra content via the Apps and the TEN website directly if you like: it’s up to you.
But wait there’s more…
To celebrate the launch of the Causality apps and Premium subscription service, I’m also launching a new Causality embedded Microcast called Causality Explored that deserves its own blog post.
More New Channels
Recently I’ve reopened the Facebook page by popular request, as well as syndicating to a list of new destinations all with the complete list of episodes including Blogger, YouTube, Deezer, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Causality is now listed in the Podcast Source app on the App Store as well.
Patreon RSS Feed Subscribing In Your Favourite App
If you’re a Patron then log in to Patreon (via the Website) and select “Posts from my creators” and select “The Engineered Network” and on the Overview tab you should see a section on the right hand side “Your Patronage” underneath which is “Audio RSS Link” as below:
In the Patreon mobile app it’s found under: John Chidgey, Overview, and you’ll see Audio Link after scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Copy the link and paste it into your podcatcher app of choice and you’re all set! For those most technically minded, that’s the best way to go as you can use your own podcatcher.
There’s also a how to from Patreon here.
Causality Premium Subscribing Via the Web
You can visit the Causality Premium subscription webpage and once subscribed you can login here and when visiting TEN you will go from seeing this:
…to seeing this…
…and you can play the episodes from the embedded webplayer if you wish.
Causality Apps
The apps are all self-contained podcatchers with embedded access to the bonus materials once subscribed via the website. You can find them here:
In Summary
If you’re already a Premium Patron you’ll continue to get all of the same content you always have for ALL of the shows on TEN as well as the new Causality Explored Microcast as bonus material so if you’re already happy with Patreon, then there’s no need to change anything: the App subscription probably isn’t for you. Just to be really clear: Patreon isn’t going anywhere! It’s still a great way to support the shows.
These additional options just mean that Causality will be available to a wider audience than ever before and should make it even easier for everyone to listen to the show just the way they like to.
Making Causality
21 December, 2016At 14 episodes over as many months and with 2016 drawing to a close I wanted to take a few moments to walk through why and what I do to make this podcast. Throughout my career I’ve come across so many things that went wrong on different scales, some with lethal consequences but most, thankfully not. For the greater world there is no shortage of mistakes and incidents that I’ve taken a personal interest in during my life. As an engineer when I read about a cruise ship sinking, bridges collapsing, and nuclear reactors surviving a Tsunami (or not) I can’t help but think - what could have been done differently?
I approach every episode of Causality wearing my professional hat as best I can. If there’s anything I’m not convinced by, I’ll dig further until I’m satisfied. I’ve read a lot of inquiry findings and investigation reports and am aware of the biases that often creep in and affect the words on the page, the over-dramatisation of documentaries and the twisting of the facts to get the desired finding. Facts don’t lie if you dig deep enough.
Unsatisfied with the English translated section of the Amagasaki “accident” report I spent hours digging through the Japanese version of the sections relating to mental state of the driver bouncing between different translation tools to try and understand whether the driver had been getting enough sleep. Unable to locate a single definition source of information about Flint Michigan I went over dozens of articles on what lead up to the incident and dug through some textbooks on corrosion control techniques to understand what actually happened to the water supply. Unhappy with the popular documentary on BP Texas, I went through the multi-hundred page report and the Chemical Safety Board depiction of the event and stripped out the details that made the most sense as the root causes. That’s just three examples that come to mind.
This level of research, comprehension and effort takes time and that’s why it can take up to 30 hours of preparation and 5 hours of recording, editing and post-production to create a single episode of Causality. This is why there is typically one a month.
Causality has been a chance for me to connect my online and offline worlds in a positive way. I like to think that engineers listen to the show and can learn something from the conclusions drawn in each one. Even if they don’t, I personally have learned a huge amount from researching and questioning the official stories and in trying to comprehend what went wrong, I’ve ended up picking up some things to be wary of myself in my own career. It’s my hope that this can be a different way for people to learn about fault finding, root cause analysis and understanding that incidents can be prevented and that nothing is truly an “accident”.
I will put whatever spare time I can into making every episode as good as I possibly can and whilst this is far from my full time job I try to treat it as if it were. I couldn’t make this show without the support of listeners and especially Patrons of the show via Patreon. Thank you all for your support, your encouragement and your feedback.
Welcome to Causality
10 October, 2015Causality is my (John Chidgey) solo podcast that dives into the details of the cause and effects of disasters, serious incidents and accidents that could have been prevented.
I’ve always been fascinated by cause and effect, fault tree analysis, failure prediction and learning from history, and inspired by the response to Episode 11 of Pragmatic I’m excited to tackle this show.
The show will air every fortnight starting next week and will be limited in length to 45 minutes. For longer topics I will be splitting that over two episodes, but I will try to avoid that when I can.
I hope you enjoy Causality.