[Info-vax] Chiphead news: Intel announces "Optane"

[Paul Sture]

On 2016-08-29, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk <johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Unforeseen issues after an (apparently untested) upgrade?
>
> What plausible software vendor would ship updates that break
> important parts of the shell, breaks huge proportions of
> webcams, and such?
>
> And what kind of customer would stick with that vendor's
> stuff indefinitely? The answer to that, in part, seems
> to be 'the kind of customer who doesn't have to pay for
> the consequences of their design errors'.
>
> Well, it's only non-critical desktop stuff, isn't it? It isn't
> causing any real harm or disruption or similar costs, is
> it?

The "non-critical desktop stuff" attitude is certainly a problem.
There has been constant conditioning over the years to accept the
idea that applications falling over or the system demanding reboots
at inopportune moments is somehow "normal".

But hey, if you can blame problems on the computer rather than
yourself, it's not all that bad, is it?

> Or is it? Anybody out there know e.g. what closed the North Wales
> Expressway both ways for a couple of hours a week or two ago when
> a "systems failure" knocked out the tunnel control systems
> (lighting, signage, ventilation, cameras), causing massive 
> traffic chaos in the apparent absence of a working backup
> system?
>
> <http://highwaysmagazine.co.uk/costain-updating-tunnel-safety-systems-on-a55/>

    “There’s one that involves improving the power resilience where
    we’re putting additional generators into the tunnel service
    buildings to cope with any power outages and keep traffic moving.
    There is also a variable message signing (VMS) system that controls
    the approaches to the tunnels.

    “We’re talking about an awful lot of computer networks, deploying
    monitoring systems out in the field, with a lot of complex software
    in those systems.”

    For the software aspect of the work, Costain is using preferred
    supplier Core Control Solutions of Derby.

Core Control Solutions (video and music warning for the home page, the rest
are OK)

<http://corecontrols.co.uk/> 

No mention of which operating system(s) they may be using. Somewhere in
there I saw a "custom built 4 hour UPS". 

<http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/conwy-tunnel-closure-chaos-caused-11793225>

> That's just one I happened to spot as it's a route I'm familiar
> with. There will be many many more similar incidents elsewhere
> which get less publicity and/or cause more disruption.
>
> Who's paying for that disruption? And does it matter?

It's more far reaching than just BSODs.  Excel turns out to be a can of
worms with its automatic (and silent) conversion of what it thinks are
dates:

"Excel hell messes up ~20 per cent of genetic science papers"

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/25/excel_hell_messes_up_20_per_cent_of_genetic_science_papers/>

Which is a very similar problem to the one I was moaning about in this
newsgroup recently about OpenOffice and "auto-correct".

BSODs at scale
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/29/bsods_at_scale_we_laugh_at_your_puny_five_storeys_heres_our_six_storey_fail/>

Both those articles have some informative comments, for example the one
about VBA looking inside text fields and trying to interpret them as
dates.

-- 
It was untidy, so got unplugged.
It was unplugged, so got thrown away.