Remember the Largest Adobe Flash Crash of the World?
While not this huge, I had to recent experiences wit Windows crashes – one somewhat funny, the other scary.
I went to see Verdi’s Rigoletto yesterday. Not in the mega $$$ San Francisco Opera, but it’s little cousin, The SF Lyric Opera, for a fraction of the price. The Italian-language Opera had English-language subtitles projected onto a screen hanging from the ceiling. I kinda felt falling out of the flow when all of a sudden I saw a blank screen and an OK button… then saw someone click it, and the screen went dead for a while. This happened 2 more times – a little annoying but not enough to disrupt an otherwise excellent performance.
The other situation was more scary: last week I was watching an ER (Emergency Room) nurse admit a patient, record medical history and vitals while hooking up all sorts of sensors on the patient. Through her data entry she had to click away two Windows Update reboot prompts. Not a life-threatening situation, but definitely annoying. Later on when a physician came buy they had to clear up some more error prompts, which I did not see close enough.
Yes, I know, it’s not all Window’s fault. In fact Hospital IT should definitely NOT set these machines for auto-update. Still, I can ‘t help but wonder how many other computers in emergency or even operating rooms may have Windows-induced glitches. And I am certainly not looking forward to the day when cars start breaking down due to their operating systems.
Unlikely, you say? then read this story about the French Airforce grounding some of their planes due to Windows security problems.
