The programmer who canceled his startup with a line of code was a hoax. But here are some really incredible successes software errors
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In short , we have fallen a bit ‘all: the story of Marco Marsala, the responsible Genoese entrepreneur had canceled more than 1,500 sites from its servers with a wrong command, was a foot put hoax to get publicity. And since, the media hype, he managed all right. So while the papers exchanged education Unix (rm-rf /), which is used to erase all files on a system, with one line of code, Marsala is keen to stress that his viral marketing was born, in fact, from a similar event, which he heard, dating back to 2006.
Today, including backup systems and protective technologies by human error, software are generally very reliable and for an accident of this type it is rather difficult . The fact remains, however, that the history of computing is full of events bordering on the absurd.
They know something the European Space Agency. Where, after spending 10 years at 7 billion dollars, 4 June 1996 saw explode, after just 37 seconds after launch, the rocket Ariane 5, shattering dreams and investments devoted to this vector the transport of satellites.
the cause? In software, written in the ADA programming language, there was a small instruction that tried to poke a 64-bit number into a 16-bit variable. A little ‘like groped to download the contents of a container 8 × 8 meters, well filled, in a room 4 × 4 .
(photo: NASA)
not that NASA is perfect, mind you: in 1998 launched the Mass Climate Orbiter, a probe by 327.6 million dollars destined to Mars. The means in fact reached the red planet, but at the time of entering into its atmosphere chose the wrong point. Disintegrating. The problem? Two of the board software systems, which were to talk to each other, so did the (very) wrong: one, programmed by Lockheed Martin, ran the measures with the units of the US measures, the other, developed by NASA, with those in the metric system .
Less clear the causes that led to the Denver airport disaster, in 1993, although probably it came to a deadly cocktail of software errors and physical design . But that was enough to bring down what, at the time, was to be the airport with the most advanced baggage handling system in the world. The project, by 193 million dollars, was to automate the loading and unloading of luggage, with around 30 kilometers of conveyors supported by a giant computer system. But something went wrong, and the opening most of the suitcases was mangled or, at best, lost. The event became the father losses of $ 1.1 million a day, up to restoration, which took place just seven months later.
in 1994, Intel had big reputational damage because of its Pentium processor. Touted as a revolution in the computing world, this historic class of processors, in its infancy, however, had a little problem: do not know precisely divisions with a rest to many figures . Reported the problem, the electronics giant downplayed it, saying that he would not hit anyone. Adverse opinion were thousands of scientists and data centers around the world, that the decimal aimed researches by millions, if not billions, of dollars. So much so that in a department of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory decided to suspend the proceedings until a replacement component.
It took a 30 minutes, Knight Capital Group, in 2012, for lost 440 million dollars in trades. the company was brought to its knees. In this case, the delicate banking management software gave freak out because of an error, buying stocks at high prices and selling at very low prices. The opposite, in fact, what had to be done. In addition insult to injury: the same actions of the group, in a day, fell by 62%.
it is hiding behind the usual strict confidence even Apple when speaking of his mythical maps. Those in iOS 6 (year of grace 2012) had to replace Google Maps were guided by software so full of errors and inaccuracies from being completely forgotten to entire cities. The anecdotes of people who wandered in deserts or who was invited to drive through rivers and seas, they are wasted. The good thing is that Apple did not persevere, soon returning to Google maps.
Because, after all, the beauty of programming errors is that they teach us to err less. Often, through exemplary punishments .
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