Very public error messages

Filed under: Windows

Very public error messages

by Grant Robertson Feb 22nd 2007

There you are rushing your way through the airport to catch a flight. When you look up at the big board of departures to find your gate, what's staring back at you? The blue screen of death. We've all run across a very public system crash or two in our time, where an innocuous software crash has been broadcast by Jumbo-tron to the eyeballs of thousands of travellers, convention go-ers or passers by.

This Flickr pool is a collection of those little moments the sysadmins of very public machines wish you'd never seen. Fried payphones, non-functional gas pumps, and belly up ATMs. As the cameraman behind the photo above wrote, "

Something about seeing windows errors pop up at airport terminals doesn't give me a good feeling." I couldn't agree more.

Tags: airports, computer crashes, computer errors, ComputerCrashes, ComputerErrors, system crashes, SystemCrashes

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mysterius said 9:19AM on 2-22-2007

Popular Science Magazine features these sorts of error messages, taken from thisisbroken.com, in one of the back sections. They're quite amusing, as long as you're not the one being inconvenienced. :D

Nick said 9:31AM on 2-22-2007

I was one on a trans atlantic flight when the screen of death appeared on the LCD screen in front of mid movie.

I thought "This is a fly by wire 'plane and they use windows!!!"

Atanas Boev said 2:45PM on 2-22-2007

And another public error message in this post gives out the poster's username and that he is using windows:)

sathan777 said 7:40PM on 2-22-2007

My sister was under observation in hospital (the kind where they open your skull and place a monitoring grid directly on the brain)and I had to sit there for hours on end watching an EEG display waiting for her to have a seizure so they could inject her with isotopes and film the event.

If you knew how many error messages displayed and the times the system (WIN2K) had to be rebooted you'd really think twice before letting them slice an dice through your grey matter....

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