Bad news for MicroSoft fanboys
Oops, if this is true this may be a killing blow to all of you MicroSoft fanboys out there. According to Computer World a tech-worker on the oilrig crashing windows systems may be part of the problem that eventually let to the spilling of oil. And we’re not talking a little Dr.Watson, an occasional “general exception”… we’re talking about a full-blown BSOD (blue screen of death). Well maybe we learn a little lesson here. Never use a computer system for critical mission computing that can’t even keep itself alive for longer than half an hour… If this doesn’t teach us then maybe this will… one day…
July 27th, 2010 at 15:40
Using end-consumer focused OS’s for machine-only purposes is always a bad idea. We’ve had loads of examples: Windows PC’s in operating theaters that fell pray to infections, Windows boxen in cash dispensers, and so on. So far it’s always Windows that craps out (coincidence? hah…). But I wouldn’t even be comfortable with a Ubuntu user-desktop system running on it (and updating itself regularly, or trying to). What you really want, is one of those embedded OS’s – possibly based on Linux but not necessarily.
Motto: If you want a job done well, get dedicated tools. Not the next-best crap from BestBuy. And get someone who knows what they’re doing and who understands the tools. That’s also one of the problems with Windows in machine-only systems: You can make a Unix box bark or purr as you like, but with Windows there just is no getting around the GUI, you’re stuck with it. You don’t have scripting, you don’t have advanced OS features, but you do have to hit “are you sure [ok]” a gazillion times. How are you supposed to do unattended drag and drop during emergency situations?
“Warning! Your drill is overheating. Are you sure? Press OK to continue.”