NavList:

>>Let's see, we've got an "I believe" and a "depending... could" and an "evidently" and an "I imagine".<<

Of course, you are absolutely right, Frank.  I was fully aware of using vague language as I wrote.  The reason is that I remembered reading "50 mile radius" from what I took at the time to be a reputable source.  But I was too lazy to trace down that source when I wrote for NavList.  Several of the things from the recesses of my memory I did document, but that was because I was able to find them easily.

I first learned of this incident with NATO and the Scottish fishermen from the BBC app on my phone back in 2011.  For all I know, the BBC could have been my source for the "50 mile radius" thing.  I did do a quick search for it...and am sure it was SOMEwhere in the 200 million hits that Google found...but it wasn't in the first 20 items.

In any case, I am fully aware that I am a bit of a doom-and-gloom kind of guy when it comes to things that relate to microprocessors...but that is in part because I work as a computer professional, and have had first hand experience, via my clients, with:

•User error.  "I deleted a file by mistake."

•Software error.  "Excel locked up, and now the file I have been working on for the last two weeks is scrambled."

•Hardware failure.  "The server just stopped...for no reason.  And now we can't access any of our files."

•Theft.  "We came in on Monday morning, and every computer in the office was gone."

•Lightning damage.  "It burned through the uninterruptable power supply and left scorch marks on the motherboard."

•Fire in the server room.  "Our servers and all of our data backups were destroyed.  What should we do?"
 

It is typically my job to try and rescue businesses who are confused because those things that should "just work" by themselves are not working at all.

But I must say, I am an optimist by nature. 

My pessimism is of a particular sort, concerned with microchip-related things, and came from, for instance, having one hospital phone and ask me if I knew how they could retrieve the last 8 months of patient data as pertained to mammography, biopsies, and breast cancer.  I was selling software rather than managing an IT department at the time, and could only say, "Talk to your IT people."  Their data proved to be gone, gone, gone for every last woman who had been a patient during that time.

I slowly learned that "these things that never happen" do actually happen, and more often than you would figure.  If I had a part in a Winnie-the-Pooh book, it would probably be that of Eeyor.

But all that said, I rejoice that the voice in my Kia tells me when to turn right, when to turn left, and tells me the name of streets that I didn't even know HAD names.  I *love* GPS.  I wouldn't have a car or boat without it.

Bob