PC scuppers NYE fireworks in Seattle
Blue touchpaper screen of death?
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A computer cock-up prevented a New Year fireworks show at the Seattle Center Space Needle from firing off at the stroke of midnight, much to the chagrin of the gathered crowd.
SeattlePI.com reports that in the last minute of 2007 the team responsible for the event in Microsoft's home town, spotted that the computer file intended to automatically run the fireworks show was in fact corrupted. But a reboot didn’t remedy the problem.
Pyro Spectaculars' three-man crew was forced to ditch the computer and instead had to launch the fireworks manually leading to a delay in proceedings.
When the show finally got fully underway the fireworks were out of synch with the compilation of Oscar-winning music that had been lined up especially for the event.
The likes of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and the Star Wars theme tune warbled out of the speakers unaccompanied by the appropriate firework choreography.
A Space Needle spokeswoman told SeattlePI.com that the show had started as planned at 11:59 before the team realised that the file was corrupted. She said: "Usually, they would hit a button and the computer would run the whole program."
The spokeswoman didn't reveal what computer the automated program was running on.
But a comment from a reader, who claims to have once worked for ten years on the popular New Year's Space Needle show, on King5.com's blog, reckons the culprit would have been a Microsoft Windows machine.®
COMMENTS
@abigsmurf
Remind me never to get my machine fixed by you...
"Yeah, it looks like this is the work of a cheap memory stick- I also notice you're using a lot of free software- expensive software works best"
Now, since the program will have been tested and shown to have worked before being sent off, this reboot during saving was when exactly? Maybe they wrote it, got it working and then pasted it into this new machine, compiled it and turned it off part way through?
The fact of the matter is, if it happened on windows, its a windows problem. If it has worked before, and they've just tried it on, say, vista then its clearly a vista problem. Unless of course the code gremlins have been at the source again? You know, those ones you see when you drink lighter fluid
@Ian Ferguson
Re: Better than London
You might have been herded farther along the Embankment because "directly across from the Eye" is the Ministry of Defence HQ?
@Ron Eve
Much as Windows for Warships is a worry for you, it is even more of a worry for me that the US army is no longer fighting battles and has now resorted to drawing pictures of battles and doing swanky flash animations of battles.
Or playing Myst.
At least the US has the sort of defence budget that can justify the purchase of Macs instead of a far cheaper real computer.
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