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Computer Glitch Halts Seattle New Year's Fireworks

supersat writes "At the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve, Seattle's fireworks show ground to a halt. The source of the problem is reported to be a corrupted file that wasn't checked until the last minute. After two reboots, the fireworks had to be detonated manually. And yes ... one blog commenter, claiming to have worked on prior shows, said that the shows run on Windows."

5 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Runs on Windows? by gregorio · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Windows is known to spontaneously corrupt its OS files
    No, it is not. Next question.
  2. Windows in control of fireworks???? by Doug52392 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Who in their ripe minds would put Windows in control of launching fireworks at a big event??? A Linux system would work much better :) Using a Windows machine was just asking for a "Hundreds hurt in fireworks accident, Windows to blame" headline in all major US newspapers.

  3. Re:relevant enough to plagurize by pottymouth · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Typical of a spoiled hypocritical neo-crat nut job. You hate the country that through the sacrifice of many young lives and the work of agency's you love to hate, provides you with the safety and comfort to smugly sit back and spew this idiocy. You undermine the very system that allows you to exist. The fun part will come if our way of life does fall to it's enemies people like you will be the first to bend over and take it up the ass because you're made of jelly.

    You should move to your favorite middle eastern country and try to do what you have the freedom to do here. In the words of one of my favorite celebs, "See you in Guantanamo...".

    Figures, anonymous coward!! Sort of says it all doesn't it!!

  4. Re:Runs on Windows? by mlwmohawk · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Well, unless it was an operating system problem and not bad data or bad programming, what's the point in mentioning that other than childish bashing?

    In an isolated discussion, your comment makes complete sense, but in reality Windows is really at fault here, and if it isn't, we are merely applying blame based on probability. You can say it is a problem with "this" or "that," but in the end, these sorts of things are very common on Windows and that leaves me frequently wondering why these sorts of things are always happening on Windows.

    Similarly, it is like MySQL. Sure, a *bad* programmer may do something wrong, and get a "cannot access database" message, but in my surfing experience, it is typically MySQL.

    So, be it programmer error, OS error, there MUST be something inherent in Windows that makes this stuff common. Its too easy to dismiss it as something else, sooner or later you have to look at the lowest common denominator, and that is the Windows platform.

  5. KING 5 News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Hey, Windows hating dumbasses, KING 5 News just interviewed the director of the show, guess what? It wasn't Windows. It was a custom OS, wonder what OS they were able to customize? HMmmmmm.

    On another front, most professional theater control systems for lighting and sound run on Apple systems.

    So, guess this was just another slanted, knee-jerk, anti-MS rant when it was probably the poster's fanboy favorite OS that was the culprit.