From Geek View, everything gets back to information system design, even historic events, like the June 6, 1944 jump over Normandy on D-Day by the brave men of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division. They had to deal with a last minute changes in procedures which were equivalent to unnecessarily modifying an application the night before launch.
One of the downsides of the lack of popular eBook titles is that its easier to find yourself reading books twice, as I am now re-reading Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers in Microsoft Reader on my PocketPC. The story of Easy Company follows their experience of war from basic training to Normandy, Holland, Bastogne, and Berchtesgaden and was the basis of the HBO Mini-series, but the book stands apart as an amazing read with rich detail of what these courageous men went through in World War II.
The men were preparing to jump over Normandy, getting onto the C-47 planes at Aldbourne, England at 10:30 PM. They jumped out of C-47s many, many times before that point and had an established routine. But for some reason, for this jump, the biggest in their career, the Army changed the process the soldiers were accustomed to. Or in geek speak, changed the system configuration just before a big demo.
For the first time, while awaiting take-off the paratroopers were given airsickness pills. It is not known who thought of the pills or even why they were passed around, since airsickness had seldom been a problem with the men of the 101st Airborne. What happened as a result of the pills is that the men had serious trouble staying awake. Not good.
The second configuration change was the addition of "leg bags." An idea of the British airborne, these bags contained extra ammunition, rations, explosives, and other equipment. They were to be attached to individual paratroopers by a quick release mechanism and fastened to his parachute harness by a coiled 20-foot rope. In theory the soldier would land on top of the bundle and not waste time looking for his equipment. It seemed sensible, but no one in the American airbone had ever jumped with a leg bag. Still the men of the 101st liked the idea and stuffed everything they could into those bags. The leg bags turned out to be a major mistake. As they left the planes, the leg bags tore loose and hurtled to the ground, in nearly every case never to be seen again. And due to enemy fire they ended up jumping from planes flying lower and faster than planned, so the additional weight caused them to hit the ground within seconds of the opening of the chute, hard.
So the moral is, the night before a demo--or a jump from an airplane--don't make any changes.