Daily Find #31

Background Image on Remote Desktop Connections

ShareThis - Willy is digging this, an all in one blog sharing tool, does look nice.  I’ll probably add when I redesign this blog.

FF 3.0 beta 3 released.  I might give this a shot, replacing the FF 2.0.11 I run now, which is a memory whale.

20 Famous Software Disasters - Gotta love this:

10.  Ariane Rocket Goes Boom (1996)

Cost:  $500 million

Disaster:  Ariane 5, Europe’s newest unmanned rocket, was intentionally destroyed seconds after launch on its maiden flight.  Also destroyed was its cargo of four scientific satellites to study how the Earth’s magnetic field interacts with solar winds. 

Cause:  Shutdown occurred when the guidance computer tried to convert the sideways rocket velocity from 64-bits to a 16-bit format.  The number was too big, and an overflow error resulted.  When the guidance system shut down, control passed to an identical redundant unit, which also failed because it was running the same algorithm.

Written by Tim on February 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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