Just take a bunch of fools, and make a department out of 'em. Have them try out products that are in the works, but about ready for marketing. See what they break, and make it so they can't break it unless they really try. See what they bungle, and make it dumber.
As for making anything foolproof, my dad always says you can't, because fools are so ingenious.-- galukalock, May 17 2003 (?) sadly, already baked. http://www.navy.mil/ [ato_de, Oct 05 2004] I wonder if I could get a contract job working there... great title for a business card: 'Fool for Hire.'-- RayfordSteele, May 17 2003 Dads are good for sage quotes, aren't they?-- thumbwax, May 17 2003 George Carlin once claimed he wrote "fool" in the occupation line on his federal tax form. In fact one of his albums is titled "Occupation: Foole".-- krelnik, May 17 2003 At the risk of certifying my qualifications, [galukalock], are you quite sure your dad said "ingenious" rather than "ingenuous"? At times there is a small, but appreciable, difference.-- jurist, May 17 2003 Mattel actually already does a form of this. They allow "street people" to play with many of their toys before releasing them out into the world. The engineers video tape the process looking for anything that might prove dangerous to a youngster.-- urbanrobot, May 18 2003 sp: wild-- galukalock, May 18 2003 Have klutz, will travel, reads the card of a man...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 23 2003 I think I'd like to manage this department. Staff the whole place in one AOL chat session.
This could be a new off-shoot of Human Factors study: Fool-centric Design.-- latka, May 23 2003 Nothing is fool-proof.The well-seasoned fool can defeat ANY 'fool-proofing' effort you can muster, I've witnessed it many times.I recall a somewhat notable quote that pretty much sums this up. It goes something like: "In order to defeat one's adversary,(the fool, in this case) you must first learn to think as he does."If you think you can devise a fool-proof system, would that make you a genius? <G>-- X2Entendre, May 23 2003 That's exactly the way I see it. That's why I said 'to make things fool-resistant'.
The best you can do is to make it hard enough to mess something up that most fools won't bother.-- galukalock, May 24 2003 If you could engineer a fool-proof fool, the universe would collapse in on itself until it was the size and shape of a cup of McDonalds coffee, with a small notice reading 'warning: contents may be hot'. Then a fool outside of the universe would spill it on himself, and sue.
I'll get my coat.-- sambwiches, May 24 2003 I love the idea, but it seems like the company would almost be jinxing themselves. I guess as long as they never marketed anything as "fool proof" it would be ok. Kind of like the Titanic was marketed as the first unsinkable ship...-- scarecrow, Jan 13 2004 Make something fool proof and someone will build a better fool.-- venomx, Jan 13 2004 You wouldn't want fools working at this place. What you want is creative and ingenious people who have never read the instructions.-- hangingchad, Jan 13 2004 You invented hardware beta-testing. As with software beta-testing, the most dangerous fools cannot operate the feedback mechanism, thus being meta-fools to the machinery of your system-- loonquawl, May 20 2009 random, halfbakery