Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Computer Glitch Halts Seattle New Year's Fireworks

Posted by Zonk on from the probably-not-funny-for-seattle dept.

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."

10 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Runs on Windows? by Oligonicella · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Runs on Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You must be new here.

    2. Re:Runs on Windows? by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...because Seattle is the home of Microsoft. There's a certain irony in this story.

  2. It's obvious what happened by Sadsfae · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone wasn't there click "Allow" when the dialog popped up asking "Are you sure you want to proceed with the fireworks extravaganza?"

    --
    Have a squat over at the hobo house.
    1. Re:It's obvious what happened by ThePromenader · · Score: 5, Funny

      I bet it was that &%^$&%^ talking paper clip that screwed things up. Or perhaps the "search dog" chose an untimely moment to go for a piss...

      --

      No, no sig. Really.

      ThePromenader
    2. Re:It's obvious what happened by kie · · Score: 5, Funny

      it looks like you're trying to light a firework,
      do you want help with that?

      --
      living the dream
  3. Obviously... by WiglyWorm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those fireworks were not vista Certified.

  4. Re:Real Story by jacquesm · · Score: 5, Funny

    fuck those assholes.

    Dear Taco,

    I realize retirement is good but could you please come out of hiding, fix the code that shows the url a link points to in case it redirects...

    And if not then please release the IPS of these clowns, I promise I won't leave any traces.

    Happy new year

    --
    MP3 Search Engine
  5. You need more data before you jump to conclusions by director_mr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless you know what the file was stored on, what interactions with the computer caused the halting of the program and on what basis they decided to continue manually, you are jumping to conclusions. One guy even claimed there was BSOD mentioned in the article (nowhere was it mentioned I can see). After years of supporting computers and servers, I can confidently tell you there is no way of knowing what caused the glitches from the article. A corrupted file on which several pieces of hardware are going to coordinate something as complicated as a fireworks display is probably not caused by the operating system, as the operating system has no reason to modify the file at all, and will only be reading it. More likely is a malfunctioning hard drive, possibly bad media that was used to transfer the file from one location to another, Or possibly a bad connection between the file storing device and the computer running the program. If you look up corrupted file you will see that every operating system known to man has to deal with that. There is no operating system that can magically correct the corrupted file and cause a fireworks display to run correctly. That is just silly talk.

  6. At least they didn't use the Window's "time" stuff by Craptastic+Weasel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, it could have been worse, imagine if they used the algorithm from the program that determines how long a file will take to to transfer...

    10... 9... 80.. 6430... 6... -3..

    happy new years :)