When Computers Go Wrong

Barence writes "PC Pro's Stewart Mitchell has charted the world's ten most calamitous computer cock-ups. They include the Russians' stealing software that resulted in their gas pipeline exploding, the Mars Orbiter that went missing because the programmers got their imperial and metric measurements mixed up, the Soviet early-warning system that confused the sun for a missile and almost triggered World War III, plus the Windows anti-piracy measure that resulted in millions of legitimate customers being branded software thieves."

Comments

Re:Imperial - Metric

[DNS-and-BIND]

I'm an American who has been living abroad since 2002, and I've come to understand the metric system. Let me tell you my observations.

When is the last time anyone needed to know the mass of 329ml of water? Never. I'm sure it tickles some people pink that it works that way, but in the real world, it's utterly and completely useless. I have yet to use this "feature".

As for the vaunted "easy unit conversions", nobody ever uses that either. When I first started to surrender and actually USE the metric system, I made the mistake of actually USING the metric system. On one memorable occasion, some Europeans asked me where some restaurant was, and I said, "Oh, it's about a hectometer that way." They looked at me like I had just stepped off the Moon. When I explained that a hectometer was 100 meters, they laughed long and hard. They, despite never having used miles and feet in their lives, had never heard of a hectometer, nor did they ever use the "feature" of easily converting metric units. After asking around, none of my other Euro buddies did it either. Instead, they use utterly stupid phrases like "It's 1000 kilometers from here" or "I weigh 80 kilograms". Retarded, but that's reality for you. The fact is, nobody does unit conversions. You just use whatever measurement is convenient for the scale you're at. Long distance? Miles. Short distance? Inches. Fine measurements? Millimeters.

All the speedometers here have metric on the outside and mph on the inside. Strange, eh? When I ask a Canadian how tall he is, he responds in inches and feet. Even Brits and Kiwis will tell you how far something is in miles. When working on a project, the appropriate tools are used, and nobody seems to complain, much less wish wholeheartedly for an entire industry to go bankrupt. That's pretty fucked up, man. As for old machinery, the cost has been amortized long ago, the machines are producing pure profit. Why replace something that isn't broken, just so some vulnerable Windows piece of shit can take its place?

The more I read the parent comment, the more I think that the commenter is just an Ameriphobic idiot who grabs at any angle to support his preconceived notions. The truth is, converting to the metric system would be a nightmare of "Y2K problem" proportions, and when we finished, we would have gained no benefit. For that matter, why do we still use the ancient and unwieldy Gregorian calendar? Days are 24 hours? Who came up with that non-metric bullshit? 1 hour is 60 minutes, each of which divided into 60 seconds? Makes me want to barf. We can't even tell how many days are in a "month" without reciting a rhyme that goes back to medieval times, or using a comical knuckle-counting system. Measurements based on the human hand - what a stupid fucking idea! Leap days...are you kidding me? Talk about a hack! Scientists still use that antiquated idea of "360 degrees of a circle" instead of a sensible metric ten. I just don't see the anger about inches and feet when there are still so many fucking dumbshit ideas in the world...makes me want to slap the shit out of someone.