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Big Red Button Disasters?

Posted by Cliff on from the shiny-candy-like-button dept.

FredDC asks: "The Daily WTF has a story about a Big Red Button disaster. What Big Red Button disasters have you experienced? Which ones have you caused? Are there any that you've heard about, or do you know of any that can happen any day now?"

5 of 508 comments (clear)

  1. Re:got rid of it by The+Warlock · · Score: 3, Informative

    Usually those Emergency Power Off buttons are required by fire code. Youre boss's building probably won't pass inspection without it.

    --
    I've upped my standards, so up yours.
  2. Re:A QA Intern Story... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, the artists creating the new content were supposed to work on the test server first before exporting the content to the production server. This disaster would've been avoided had the artists crashed the test server instead. Since they were artists and not programmers, it wasn't their fault that the code crashed the production server. As a QA intern, this was my first introduction to the wonderful world of office politics.

  3. Re:First Job Ever by _Hellfire_ · · Score: 3, Informative

    UPDATE does the obvious, but what the OP neglected was the WHERE clause, which restricts the update to just the rows you want to modify.

    So,

    update customer_cc set card_number = '1234567890123456';

    Will set *every* customer's card_number to '1234567890123456'

    It should really be

    update customer_cc set card_number = '1234567890123456' where index = 1445;

    assuming the column named "index" is a unique identifier for the row (number 1445) you want to change.

    It's an easy mistake to make - but it can have devastating consequences.

    --
    "And then I visited Wikipedia ...and the next 8 hours are a blur..."
  4. Re:The different PDUs by Phroon · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not going to name names, but it's a Fortune 100 company based in Austin, TX.

    You just did. It's Dell.

    They are the only Fortune 100 company based anywhere near Austin, TX (they are actually based Round Rock, about 20 miles from Austin). Though, there are two other Fortune 500s in Austin; Whole Foods Market at #411 and Temple-Inland at #414.
  5. BRS protector = "Molly guard" by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's the Molly guard story - although the term is pretty much self explanatory.

    (And while we're at it, BRS.) "It is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM 360/91 actually fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power feed."

    --
    Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.