Slashdot Mirror
Software Error Causes Crisis in Mississippi
marklyon writes "Mississippi's Alcohol Beverage Control division shutdown its distribution center for an indefinite amount of time to fix computer problems today at noon. A software update applied to the inventory and ordering software last week is malfunctioning, causing orders and inventory to be lost or misrouted. 'It's a software problem, and it's an operational problem. We've gotten a lot of product in and we've got it going to the wrong location ... and the location numbers were wiped out,' said tax commissioner Ed Buelow. Buelow said the distribution center will fulfill all orders placed before noon today. He said he hopes the system will be fixed in a few days, but it's possible it could take weeks. Until that time, Mississippi bars, restaurants, and liquor stores will not be able to purchase additional stock. Many retailers are already complaining that they were unable to order sufficient quantities to supply them if the bug takes more than a few days to fix."
Mississippi finally got a computer?
TP!
What happens if all those rednecks sober up?!!!
This is the downside of Just In Time inventory -- the system has little resiliancy to burps in the supply chain. Every step should have enough buffer to handle problems (ie bad weather, computer problems, disasters, etc).
They were probably drunk.
Embargo On!
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
or should there be a Moonshine icon?
How could this happen in a liquor warehouse (hic!)
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Many retailers are already complaining that they were unable to order sufficient quantities to supply them if the bug takes more than a few days to fix."
I'll be complaining too when is wasn't fixed tomorrow too. *Hiccup!*
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
This is a national emergency!
people will not be able to wallow in thier woes!
That means the rich people better watch out!!
It's one thing when software crashes ruin your Word Document.
It's one thing when software crashes ruin your FPS gaming
It's one thing when software issues plague your job.
but please.... don't...take...away...my...beer!!
do() || do_not();
I call shotgun!
Wait, so every drop of alcohol in the entire state goes through one warehouse, and the state is in charge of running this warehouse?
And this seemed like a good idea?
--
Is a lack of liquor for a few days really a crisis? If so, maybe there is a bigger problem than the state's computer woes.
Um, if the computers won't work in the shipping dept. set them aside while the /.er's fix 'em and revert back to what you did BEFORE you had the things in the first place and just back-enter the data when they're working.
Withholding beer should be an act of terrorism! Especially in Mississippi!
*something funny about Mississippi residents and lack of alcohol*
=P
No lawmaker is going to be without booze. They'll (attempt) to fix it with some new law, or something.
A weekend without enough booze oughta help convince the populace that a single choke point on a large system is a bad idea, and the government being that choke point is a worse idea. There's absolutely no reason for alcohol not to be handled by the private sector. I live in a state that does this too, and it's just ridiculous on so many levels.
Sure this is somewhat off-topic, but screw it. The whole idea has always bugged me, and I don't even drink that often (maybe twice a month).
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
creative artwork, but I'd still give it a (-5, Retarded)
Big Fucking Deal.
The tone of the article makes it sound like this is a catastrophe. I'm sure it'll illicit all the of the holier-than-thou beardos tut-tutting and tsk-tsking about the stupidity of some developers.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
Don't they all just drink their own illicit home-distilled moonshine down there anyway? Will this really have any great affect?
Volkswagon Audi Group (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Rolls Royce) switched systems(to SAP, I think?) for parts inventory+distribution a few years ago.
It was so bad, for weeks European customers were getting parts with entirely hand-written paperwork(if any parts at all) because the system was so horribly broken.
Reportedly VAG had 24x7 shifts of teams working to get things fixed as absolutely fast as possible...
Please help metamoderate.
screw up the software, can't get drunk
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, but also there is high potential for good / lame Microsoft jokes here!
Windows crashed again, huh?
So, why the is this a government agency?
Is the USA not a capitalist state?
Finally, a topic where I'll agree 100% that the Europeans do this better than the Americans. I know there are all sorts of laws about alcohol in Europe, but they run a distributed system that would not be bothered by an isolated crash.
t
It's called software testing. I don't feel sorry for them.
sig
Not the computer problems...being without liquor. I would go crazy once the well ran dry at my favorite (and least favorite) watering holes.
Today Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) has done what the government failed to do - prohibit alcohol. In a move triggered by a flaw in their operating system, noone is able to purchase alcohol. Reports are coming in that alcoholics may have had the last straw and may do bad things to Microsoft. Fine restaurants around the country, who are running Windows on their cash registers, are worried for two reasons are smashing them in protest. Windows PC destruction throughout the country is running rampid. Apple is offering a 20% discount if you bring in or destroy your own Windows computer bought in the past 2 years. In addition, someone in Finland named "Linus Torvalds" has another solution - change the "Operating System" on your existing Windows computer. Some people have tried this with success, but us at the Corporate-Run Times donot recommend this, as using his "Linux" operating system is bad for the country.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
There are other counties were even beer isn't sold & others where beer isn't available but liquor is. My personal favorite is Oktibbeha County (home of Miss'ippi State University) where, for many years, beer could only be purchased by the case, hot.
And the state commission doesn't control the sale of 'shine, anyway, thank goodness.
Contrary to what all the damyankees on /. think, most of the deep rednecks switched over to crystal meth several years back...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
"Guess I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue"
when the really important crisis occur?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Backups backups backups backups
We love to back up and backup the backups
Back back back back UPS
(refrain)
Blaster, Welchia, whatever cause my computer to crash, yawn.
Software in nuclear power plants shutsdown, OK.
Software in electric grid gets flaky - I'm cool - eat the ice cream by candlelight.
Software in grandpa's life support system has to reboot - well, them's the breaks.
Commercial airliner avionice system goes down - so sorry.
But...
Software messin' with my beer? SHIT, WE GOT A CRISIS HERE!
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Mississippi's divorce rate jumped to a whopping 72% this weekend. But on a higher note, there were no DUI's...
causing orders and inventory to be lost or misrouted.
It's Friday. What do you want to bet the "misrouted inventory" found its way to the local college dorms/frat houses?
Rank Presidents by th
I think someone is out playing capture the b33r.
I just hope they don't get sniped.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
it is important for all Mississippians to leave behind their petty quarrels and band together, with neighbor supporting neighbor, to face the demands of the current troubles.
Meanwhile, we here at Acme Enterprise Software Solutions and Live Bait will be working around the clock to overcome this crisis.
Oh, and the CEO said to tell you there's going to be a huge keg party at his place tonight.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Although now that you raise the point, you-all have a fine tradition of moonshinin' up in them thar hills...
If it's a typical organization, the whole point of automating the system was to get rid of all of the people who staffed the operation when it used pen and paper. That means that the institutional knowledge of the old system is probably working at the local WalMart. The old forms and processes no longer exist.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Smokey and The Bandit to make another run to Texarcana.
... you were halfway through a Hank Williams Jr CD & ran out of Jack Daniels. It's a loooong way to the Lousiana line...
Haven't you ever read about the Whiskey Rebellion, you eurofag freak?!!
In some regions, the state wants to control liquour sales in order to ensure that they get their cut in taxes.
This is way worse than that pussy hurricane.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
It's back to moonshine !
Seriously! All that beer didn't get rerouted through an adress in the Netherlands, I have not aquired a large cooled warehouze recently nor did I mess up their patch by screwing the boss' secretary for her login details. That said, anyone want a free beer?
Hate me!
that all of the misrouted alcohol suddenly appeared at my house this morning. the party is ON! y'all are all invited.
*cheers*
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." - Napoleon Bonaparte
1) What the hell is the state doing in the business of alcohol sales? Isn't that a monopoly on distribution? Government intervention = Big Mess.
2) Do these guys not have backups of the database?
3) I can understand the plight of those who sell the alcohol, since their businesses rely on this, but why is this a major catastrophe for those on the receiving end? Does this state have the highest alcoholics rate or something? Get a f'ing hobby people.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
If they use Windows, the solution is to use Linux!
If they use Linux, the solution is clearly FreeBSD.
If they already use FreeBSD, then they might have better luck with Mac OS X.
If they've already switched to OS X, then obviously they need to use Extreme Programming and test-driven development.
If they are already XP'rs, they need to switch from whatever they are using, to Java.
If they are already using Java they obviously need to try Python.
If they are already using Python, then why not Ruby? It's really nice.
If Ruby isn't saving the day, then without a doubt they need to switch from regular Ruby to distributed Ruby, using a cluster of machines.
If they already have the cluster up, they need to put their source code on the internet under the GPL, to encourage lots of developers to look at while protecting taxpayer-funded code from getting into closed products.
If they've already gone this route, they need to try the BSD license instead, since the GPL scares off many talented developers and is bad for business.
If the BSD license doesn't cure their woes, I strongly suggest getting a fucking clue.
Hope this helps, that'll be $5000 plus travel expenses.
I wonder what their control software was, and if there was some problem/exploit at the OS level (latest patch gone bad) or something more like a hardware/software failure at the user level (RAID died, new control software). The linked articles seem to be very light on details.
Also, for the record, this probably doesn't count as a "crisis." For the love of $DEITY, it's only a little alcohol. If this is a crisis, you need to seek some help
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
The Whiskey Rebellion was an insurrection in 1794 by settlers in the Monongahela Valley in western Pennsylvania who fought against a federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks.
The ineffective government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a stronger federal government under the United States Constitution in 1788. This new government inherited a huge debt from the American Revolutionary War. One of the steps taken to pay down the debt was a tax imposed in 1791 on distilled spirits.
Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon. However, smaller producers, most of whom were farmers in the more remote western areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon. These Western settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable distilled spirits. From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. In the summer of 1794, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, remembering Shays' Rebellion from just eight years before, decided to make Pennsylvania a testing ground for federal authority. Washington ordered federal marshals to serve court orders requiring the tax protesters to appear in federal district court in Philadelphia.
By August of 1794, the protests became dangerously close to outright rebellion and on August 7 several thousand armed settlers gathered near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Washington then invoked the Militia Law of 1792 to summon the militias of several states. A force of 13,000 men was organized, roughly the size of the entire army in the Revolutionary War. Under the personal command of Washington, Hamilton, and Revolutionary War hero "Lighthorse" Harry Lee the army marched to Western Pennsylvania and quickly suppressed the revolt. Two leaders of the revolt were convicted of treason, but pardoned by Washington.
This response marked the first time under the new Constitution that the federal government had used strong military force to exert authority over the nation's citizens.
The whiskey tax was repealed in 1802, never having been collected with much success.
I've seen a lot of people commenting on how this is no big deal. It is.
It is a crisis when thousands of bars, clubs, and restaurants are without alcohol. Restaurants aren't high margin businesses, and many need the revenue from alcohol sales to make a profit. Obviously, the bars and clubs can't make any money without it - if they don't get it fixed soon many, many businesses will suffer greatly, and many bartenders, waitresses, etc will go without pay. Bars and clubs have already been devistated by Camel's dropping sponsorship (in case you didn't know, Camel has been giving millions of dollars to clubs and bars to sell their cigs, that ended recently.)
Even if you don't go to bars or clubs, many people work there, and their livelyhood depends on alcohol sales. How would you all react if you couldn't work (and get paid) until the government fixed some stupid problem they had created?
Many retailers are already complaining that they were unable to order sufficient quantities to supply them if the bug takes more than a few days to fix.
Nice choice of words...
But all joking aside, isn't there some sort of fallback system so that at least partial distribution comes to mind? Pen and paper is just the first one to come to mind, after all, there had to be some human element in the wharehouse (unless they had robots pulling all the liquor, which would just be cool).
Had this been something more important, say the postal service, a hospital, or even a fast food chain, what would the fallback have been?
Mississippi as in "Beer-Free."
... It does poorly.
Especially true about the executive branch. And the further away from the local, common sense level (town, county, state, federal) the worse it gets.
This monopoly on the alcohol distribution stems from prohibition -- can't we finally get rid of it? Usually, the states are not allowed to mess with the interstate commerce, but when it comes to alcohol, it is ok? Can't rely on the private sector's lobbying much either, because the established businesses enjoy the system as it provides additional barriers to entry for would be competition... Sort of a "potential hole".
And drop the ``A'' from the ATF while at it (as the first step in dismantling that agency)?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"No TV and no beer make billy-ray go... someting, something..."
Calling all homebrewers, moonshiners, and old men who sit out front of the drugstore. Damn the rev'nooers, it's time to come together for a good old fashioned bootleggin'!
By gar it's been awhile!
Man, this looks like an April Fool's post. I mean really, was anyone expecting any *serious* comment on this? (There were a few though).
:(
Anyway it's good to have something to laugh about... Sorry Mississippi!
I'd still give you a (+5, CockUpTheArse)
Seriously though, LA used to be a big source of booze for underage Mississippians. You could drive across the line and buy hooch at age 18. Lousiana eventually changed the law, something about federal highway funds.
So to make matters worse, Slashdot posts their plight and their webserver gets slashdotted, causing even more chaos as suppliers are unable to get information on the problem.
Is there a way I can invest in Louisiana alcohol stocks? I think there's going to be a whole lotta drinkin' after this crisis!
Ruby on Rails Screencast
the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!
..."swallowed the worm".
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
This is exactly why government should not be involved in the business of selling alcohol... It just doesn't make any sense. Send it to the free market and regulate! Then if supplier A has problems with their software, union, whatever then supplier B can step in and fill the gap, without lost sales or tax reveneue.
Some states get it, some just simply don't.
I think a better question, although perhaps off-topic for Slashdot, is why the hell a lot of states hold this much control over alcohol distribution and keep it centralized like this (using some Stalinist organizational theory that centralized government control is always the best way to handle any sector of the economy).
This sounds like a job for these guys
I brought up slashdot while waiting for a batch file to run to help me test the stock and distribution control system we're trying to release a patch for today.
Quickly checks client list.
Goes back to testing, unaffected but slightly rattled..
Is a lack of liquor for a few days really a crisis? If so, maybe there is a bigger problem than the state's computer woes.
This is hardly flamebait. Who is it going to tempt into flaming? All the alcoholics who don't care about computers yet still for some inexplicable reason read /.?
-- MaruksQ
Because the province buys all it's alcohol as a single buyer, it can demand, and gets, really awesome pricing deals; I believe about the lowest anywhere.
However, the consumer doesn't see much of this benefit directly, because the price is jacked up so that it isn't really cheaper than any other place. Of course, the difference goes to the tax coffers, paying for social programs like medicine and education. I think it's a good deal.
Also, I've never heard of any disaster like this one happening here. The cause isn't state control, it's having a single point of failure.
I hope most understand this is one great reason why not to be so damn quick to install patches before testing them. That's why every system isnt always patched 100% on security stuff... it needs to be tested..
That said, it's just plain slopply business...like what you get with a state-run scheme. No sane business would hold up shipments of product because the computers didn't work! You wouldn't be in business very long using MS products! This is typical state-agency lording it's power over "citizens" rather than doing what it takes to fix the problem...be cause they just don't care...
What an unfortunate fortunate occurrance for a state agency created to not promote drinking by taxing people for the hooch that they're so eager to sell.
We have one of the more annoying Liquor Control Boards in the country, liquor can only be purchased at State Stores, etc.
I sympathize with the people of Mississippi, but perhaps this will bring pressure against the state control of liquor distribution.
Peace and love, y'all
They just don't know they've been bought out by Microsoft. Their new net-perimeter scanning technology will sense which users have been infected, and booze will be shipped as part of the new "Painless Patching" program.
A ploy to make worms more popular than iTunes?
If you're extra lucky, your booze will have another worm in the bottle. Let's see Pepsi match that!
There are a ton of posts with uppity, sarcastic tones about how this can possibly be a crisis. I would like to point out that these posts are short-sighted and the posters are obviously not thinking before posting.
If you own a pub, club, restaurant or booze store in the state, you have the potential to suffer serious business losses. Imagine the pub that has no beer. The rent and administration costs for pubs and clubs are astronomical... without anything to sell they will have serious problems.
Imagine if you were in a retail business, and suddenly all of your suppliers stopped supplying. You are boned. If it's a large retail industry, a lot of people are boned. This is that exact situation. Hopefully it can be fixed in a short time before any serious losses are taken. If it stretches into weeks, then there are going to be lawsuits, I can almost guarantee it.
I moderate "-1, Fool"
This weekend is the Ole Miss-Alabama football game in Oxford. If we run out of beer, you are likely to read about riots on the front page of national newspapers. This might actually bring attention to our archaic, prohibition-era alcohol laws. Like, for example, only warm beer can be bought at stores and no alcohol sales on Sunday at all, unless you drive 15 miles across the county line, where you can buy all the cold beer you want on Sunday, but not wine or liquor.
I will keep you posted from the front lines.
I thought the admins were idiots if they didn't apply patches the instant they became available.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
would the word "crisis" be used to define a shortage of alcohol.
You're just mad because the voices in your head talk to me.
It's ok for the establishments and employees to lose money just so the state doesn't miss a drop of tax dollars.
BTW, I did not RTFA!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
"No beer and no tv make homer go crazy." -Homer
Here in Australia, there is a good song about "The Pub with No Beer" - and in XXXX-land that's a major disaster!
Of course the state controls the distribution of liquor. If they let it move in and out freely, how could they apply a sin tax to it? They'd have no way of knowing if the alcohol taxes being paid were correct.
(Same applies for almost all sin taxes, cigarettes--tax sticker, gasoline-pump monitors, luxury cars-car dealers, etc.)
What do you think this is a free country??
so what do you expect?
They fired me. I got drunk on the job and put one to many pointer dereferences in my code. I gotta start working in a safer environment away from the booze.
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
The Horror
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Is this a Microsoft bug?
OR an opensource bug?
Sorry... the real question is where do I buy my beers?
I don't want to be here.
Imagine if you were in a retail business, and suddenly all of your suppliers stopped supplying. You are boned. If it's a large retail industry, a lot of people are boned. This is that exact situation. Hopefully it can be fixed in a short time before any serious losses are taken. If it stretches into weeks, then there are going to be lawsuits, I can almost guarantee it.
This problem can be fixed tonight or tommorow, via a very nontechnological route.
The governor can call a special emergency session of the state legislature, who can repeal the idiotic law giving the state a monopoly control of a legal, commodity product and return the marketplace to where it belongs: the private sector.
Of course, this would require a governor with character and a backbone, and a legislature that would put its state's economic needs ahead of its own porkbarrel projects, neither of which is likely.
I say this as someone who is not a libertarian, and most definitely believes the government does have a responsibity to address those areas that capitalism is either incapable, or abysmally subpar, in addressing. Police services, military defense, public roads, public communications infrastructure, and healthcare come to mind immediately. Alcohol, on the other hand, clearly belongs in the private sector, along with legos, computers, automobiles, etc. Regulate it if you like (we do car safety, after all), but don't nationalize ("stateize"?) it for crying out loud.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Damn, looks like prohibition all over again...
:-P
This time due to software error rather than poor judgement by leaders trying to control a society that just wasn't enlightened enough...
$ man woman *
-bash:
This is a perfect example of why the state should not be involved in something like product distribution and why monopolies are bad. They have no incentive to do things right, do proper testing, etc. Instead its all the small business owners that get hurt.
Ike
They just installed a patch, and now a bunch of booze is getting "lost"?
How much of that is getting delivered to the programmer's garage, do you suppose?
Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
Damn! And I live in Mississippi. I'd better run down and stock up on all the Jack Daniel's I can get. Knowing how things run in this state, it could be years before they get the problem fixed. But then again, I smell a potential market here . . . ;)
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
The simple fact that Mississippi got a mention on SlashDot for something other than teenage pregnancy, poverty, or crooked politics. I also want to take this opportunity to promote the Nissan Titan, a wonderful addition to anyone's full-size pickup comparison list. It's being built in Canton, MS, so go out and buy two, y'hear?
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
The related links almost read like a complete story by itself.
Saves on having to read all the actual articles.
Mississippi's
Alcohol Beverage Control division
shutdown
indefinite
will fulfill
stock
unable to order
There. Any questions?
Get your own free personal location tracker
So, maybe we should throw some lame linux jokes in here? After all, if the software has problems you can bet this case will make it into the next round of windows propoganda.
Thank god I live in Texas ;)
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I agree with your post completely, except for the part about it being trivial to do. An emergency meeting of the state legislature would not be trivial, nor would the amount of effort needed to convince the legislature that this is the appropriate course of action. It would be difficult to make this come around, but maybe a situation like this will be a catalyst.
I moderate "-1, Fool"
All Damn Yankees!
Too. Much. Regulation.
Here is an article titled "Firm's attempt to down hyperlinks an attack on free speech, says EFF" which discusses how Diebold is using the DMCA to force ISP's to remove links to internal memos that were leaked regarding Diebold's crappy software and business practices. You can read the internal memos, for now, here.
LoRider
Oh, this cursed OGRABME!
What is a state doing selling it anyway? Sheesh. Stupid.
Always screwin things up. Good thin' me an my cousins gots da still in da barn.
See, this is what happens when you let bored, lonely coders work around a stash of hard liquor... Maybe Mississippi will learn a lesson?
Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will take a note from this before such a disaster happens over there... Wait, that already happened, and it was called Windows ME.
Err.... no.
The cause of the problem *can* be fixed, although it won't be. However, the symptoms cannot be. Sure, you could make it legal for alternative suppliers who are no longer under state control to supply the booze - but there aren't any. Not in Mississippi, that is. Not any with booze in stock.
So even if the state of Mississippi told me I could start supplying all the booze in the world to all the bars I care to, I don't have the booze to give 'em. Nor does anyone else... except the state beverage control board. And we're back to square one.
It's a great argument for decentralization of beverage sales, but this is Mississippi. Freedom of MS's citizens to drink what or when they want isn't high on the state govt's list of priorities, unfortunately. I was really annoyed, once, trying to find a drink after midnight in Meridien. Had to drive to Alabama.
Hey, dj'a hear the one about the Alabamian who moved to Mississippi? Raised the IQ of both states.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
...as people finally sober up and realize they live in a shithole of a state.
Yes, this is a Troll, but when it comes to the state of Mississippi, I just can't help myself! Jed, move away from there!
Note, of course, that I meant it can't be *quickly* fixed. Not overnight. Might take a few days or so.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Sounds like this system couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery...
Last year it generated $1.7 billion dollars towards government programs, and note that's after costs.
Oh no. Those poor people will have to go around sober for a few days.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
As a programmer, I'm shocked that any developers would allow such a bug to get into the alcohol distribution channels. I could understand errors in flight navigation or life support systems; but in alcohol distribution systems! Oh, the humanity...
Talk about not being able to organise a piss up in a brewery ...
their Disaster Recovery process?
:)
This is one of the most fundimental plans that must be tested every 12 months. Fitted with scenerios such as this one.
An organisation with so much clout as the Alcohol Beverage Control division, they should have enough money to keep at least *one* person looking at it. Shame on them!
Crashing systems by applying updates to software, where it be OS or App is nothing new and certainly can happen on any artitechture.
It also doesn't help that slashdot has created another problem, slashdotting their webserver!
Ahhh, thank goodness I keep a stock pile in my cellar, now, where was I......
Maybe Missippi will devolve into an antiquated culture where people make their own whisky by setting up stills in their backyards.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Always keep at least a 2 year supply of alcohol in case of emegencies! (This is easier for some people than others. For me, a two-year supply is about a six-pack.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
No wonder america is so screwed up, we got the govt controlling booze in 18 states. How bass-ackwards are you people to let the govt control something it has no business doing. Do all cigarrette packs go through govt warehouses to get taxed and resold? Do all cars? Why is alcohol so special?
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Don't cluefull people generally do a phased introduction of new software, i.e. run in the lab for a couple weeks, then install it on a few servers to see how it works before putting the entire state on the new system?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
At least we've established that the Mississippi ABC is "eating their own dog food"!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Mississippi is a nice state, only problem is too many niggers. They should buy them all one-way bus tickets to New York and San Francisco.
...Mississippians...Snowman and the Bandit will have a shipment of cold vertical refreshment heading your way...unless the infamous Buford T. Justice gets his way...
she grunts like an ape.
That's because that was a real ape, you dimwit!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Maybe the citizens should sue the government under the Sherman Anti Trust Act?
Oh well, what the hell...
Who needs a new law while the old still is working? Silly boy, where did you get name like the Above?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I might have the state wrong, this is a vague memory. I remember that many states have home brewing somewhat regulated and taxed, where if you bottle your own beer for example you must purchace offical state taxed caps for the beverage in question.
This is about as high tech as a piece of paper, but never the less doesn't require much in the way of software to maintain. In the event of major failure in the system, you can resort to lower tech means do to your accounting until such time you can get your accounting software back online and working.
While this would wouldn't nessicarly help those who import from other states, a simple tag across the cap that is broken upon opening it would do the trick as well. Can you bypass this, sure! But it's a hell of alot better then the "let's just not allow new booze to be sold till we get our software fixed".
Very low tech... requires only printing of specific ammounts, printers are more then happy to handle this aspect.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I thought I'd correct some facts about this topic. The majority of systems in Mississippi use MS office and server products, not Linux (unfortunately). In my opinion the MIS directors and Systems administors are not the best informed (or experienced for that matter), causing the problems we're seeing now. MS government is NOT migrating to open source, quite the contrary. Mississippi is a dry State. Only counties which have elected to be 'wet' sell liquor. It's a real pain if you live in a wet county and there are plenty of them here. Of course, beer isn't affected by this debacle as there are private distributors for anything with an alcohol content 6% or less. Alcohol purchase in Alabama is a hell of a lot more expensive than in Mississippi. That's why they come over here to get their bottles. It's not true that our liquor stores get great prices on liquor. Every liquor store in MS pays 7% State tax and an additional 7% excise tax on every case AND it's paid in advance. You also have to pay the city content tax to boot. And most of that tax money is spent by the MS Division of Medicaid. Certainly the most liberal and program rich of nearly every State in the US. It is true. The majority of liquor business are mom and pop operations. You don't like hearing from a State official that you 'need to purchase at least three weeks of liquor because we're going to be down for a MINIMUM of three weeks and maybe six.' If you've been to some of the liquor stores around here, you know they don't have that kind of cash to outlay. Just for a couple weeks worth of stock we're talking up to $10,000 or more for a small store. Yes folks, I'm one of those pissed off people.
HA HA!! Dude... you got OWNED!!!!!
Here's a fix:
# "67-1-41. (1) The State Tax Commission is hereby created a wholesale distributor and
# seller of alcoholic beverages, not including malt liquors, within the State of Mississippi.
# It is granted the sole right to import and sell such intoxicating liquors at wholesale within
# the state, and no person who is granted the right to sell, distribute or receive such
# liquors at retail shall purchase any such intoxicating liquors from any source other than
# the commission except as authorized in subsections (4) and (9), provided that retailers
# and consumers may purchase native wines directly from the producer."
Not bedding down my sister, now that's a crisis.
I was on the team that developed the website for online ordering. MS is running an AS400 backbone to the system, with a linux box as the web server. I am no longer involved with the company that supports them, and neither are the two other programers. If you want to complain to the company that supports them send an email to lim@sparco.com or sparco@sparco.com.
Sorry for being crude.
Seriously, I drink. I drink often. I drink responsibly. I don't drink and drive, etc. If I can't drink because my government screwed up, that pisses me off, just like when I can't do $foo when my government screws up.
But the real problem here is not the people who possibly can't drink for a couple days, not a big deal, and if it is maybe it's time for AA, the real problem here is the loss of business due to ridiculous government regulation and incompetence.
BTW, if you don't care, don't post... The fact that you did makes me think you have something against alcohol, and perhaps people who drink. Well, Bruce, I have always respected you, but I drink.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I'd hate to be there. Closet Luddites don't need anywhere near that degree of provocation. Really.
Yeah, it's a good thing that Jesus turned the water into iced tea.
But Canada does have a very healthy liquor industry.
A government-controlled pricing system that works because a larger, foreign, capitalist economy funds all the R&D for the products.
Many people try to take the capitalism vs. socialism as an all or nothing choice; they think that either capitalism makes sense in all cases, or socialism does. In reality, they both have there place.
Capitalism makes sense when an industry or product has not matured, and the competition to find the best product/business model results in important new developments which the consumers can then select for. However, once a product or service has been optimized, competition doesn't really bear any fruit, and it's just fighting for fighting's sake, which wastes alot of time, energy and money because no new developments are coming from it; in this case, it makes sense for all involved parties to get together and establish an orderly system which benefits the most people; basically, a social union.
While minor innovations continue to be made in liquor, just as in any other industry, I think that it's fair to say that the product has matured, and the new innovations are just window-dressing. Therefore, it makes sense to not get involved in the competition, and accept a system which let's the optimized product(s) do the most good.
If you disagree, you must explain why it makes sense for companies to compete, wasting a lot of time and resources, when the product is already optimized, and no new developments will be made.
Their web site is having trouble dealing with distraught thirsty /. geeks.
This is a software problem, not an alcohol problem! And some ignoramus has no idea what AA is! This could happen in any industry, and for those of you who have never worked with JIT, it means placing an order far enough ahead so that the product arrives just before you run out of inventory; sometimes weeks in advance.
The real question here is "How do you test software to simulate a real world system without putting it on the system and then finding problems?"
Ugly Mississippi women can't get laid. Early morning Trailer park auto accident rates down.
What the hell are you talking about? I've lived in various parts of New York for several years now, I've never seen a state-owned liquor store around these parts.
Oh -really-? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q =%22Volkswagen+Audi+Group%22&btnG=Google+Searc h
Sorry bud, I've been an Audi enthusiast for 10+ years and I've never heard anyone call the parent company anything but "Volkswagen Audi Group". I suppose it's possible after the recent buying spree they changed it, but most people still call it the 'old' name.
Please help metamoderate.
To crush your enemies...
This is why the government should be in control of the medical industry also.....
If this works out right, maybe we can all get
Free Beer!
I knew people act stupid when they drink, but acting stupid because you can't drink?
A friend of mine once had to reboot his hot tub. He noticed that the air jets in the tub were running constantly, then realized that the tub was way too hot beause the heater wasn't shutting off. Apparently its computer was smart enough to turn on the jets because that cools down the water, but it had gotten stuck in a state where it couldn't just turn off the heater. None of the controls worked. He had to pull the plug, let it rest for a while, and then plug it back in. Problem solved!
Can you imagine such a thing happening if alcoholic beverage distribution was not centrally controlled? How many times does the world have to re-learn the same lesson about the state and its inability to provide goods and services? I hope this incident spurns a call for market reforms.
Would be interesting to find if the lack of new alcohol sales over a period of days will affect the number of Drunk Driving and Spousal Abuse cases.
Maybe a few lives will be saved this weekend.
This piece of software seems to be the key to all the booze biz in town. This is a 24/7 operation on which the whole state depends. I do not know what these people were thinking.
I suggest they take these few days(or weeks?!) of sobriety to really think about how to make sure this never happens again and alcohol is distributed promptly to the good people who really need it.
doing running the alcohol industry ?!?! Too much inbreeding going on down there....
*listens for banjo music*
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Or maybe you're Bruce Perens?
..Haley Barbour or the other guy? I live in Memphis and we've been bombarded with the (rather dirty, I think) ad campaigns for the MS gubernatorial race. Happy to see MS get a mention on Slashdot, but sort of curious about the politics down there.
Y'all have one thing going for you, at least - the casinos! We've just finally gotten around to approving a state lottery, and it's supposed to be up and running in Q1 04. Maybe a bit more of TN money will stay in TN, but I hope not to the detriment of MS.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Note, of course, that I meant it can't be *quickly* fixed. Not overnight. Might take a few days or so.
No, overnight will do. The state warehouse apparently said they would supply extra product before shutting down. The end-user businesses say they can't afford to pay for the extra product to carry them for a couple of weeks; I say that any reasonably profitable small business (or even large business) should be able to arrange a short-term loan from their friendly neighbourhood bank to cover the cost of the extra product.
I don't know why no-one else has picked up on this.
Any reasonable business should be able to arrange a loan for a few thousand dollars for a few weeks. If your business isn't sufficiently credit-worthy for this, then you have greater problems than a shut-down of the state liquor warehouse.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
"The cause isn't state control, it's having a single point of failure."
:)
I think I can identify a single point of failure here
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
A software update applied to the inventory and ordering software last week is malfunctioning, causing orders and inventory to be lost or misrouted
Ok, so where is the party?
You can buy beer and wine anywhere else, but for the Haad Licka' (trans: Hard Liquor) You GOTTA buy from the DLC. And they are closed on Sundays. Given the way I currently live, I have a liquor cabinet. When I'm running low, I'll make a note to go out and buy. So this is a decent set up for how I live now.
But how I lived in college, that would have been COMPTELEY unacceptable! Thank god you could get haad licka up to 2 am on Greenmount in Bal'mer.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Have you ever heard of MIT?!?
Mississippi Institute of Technology!!!
This is somewhat of a California-centric perspective - we may have state-dominated incompetent quasi-monopolies for minor little things like electricity, but on important stuff like wine you've got a really wide choice. Now, that's also because we have the climate to do good winemaking, while most of Mississippi's is better for making liquor and various kinds of hooch (:-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Are you saying that in Mississippi there is only one organisation responsible for shipping alcohol. I know yanks have a backwards attitude to alcohol but that seems positively stupid.
-- Be careful what you say. Someone might remind you about it another day.
Guess its the only way to beat this crazy system.
Get brewing!
http://brewery.org
Cinnamon
you couldn't perhaps forward me that, could you? It sounds neat.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
"The final straw was a book by Greg Palast, "The best democracy money can buy", which in one chapter explained how the Republicans had stolen tens of thousands of votes in Florida. The details are arduous, but in essence a sub-contractor used to clean the electoral roll was the cover for the illegitimate removal of a large number of Democrat voters. This was shocking enough, but the fact the Palast had to come all the way to the UK to get the story published in the independently funded BBC and Guardian newspaper truly drove me crazy."
= 9J =