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Ars Technica reports
A second-tier German professional basketball team has been relegated to an even lower tier as a result of being penalized for starting a recent game late—because the Windows laptop that powered the scoreboard required 17 minutes to perform system updates.
The March 13 match between the Chemnitz Niners and the Paderborn Baskets was set to begin normally, when Paderborn (the host) connected its laptop to the scoreboard in the 90 minutes leading up to the game.
In an interview with the German newspaper, Die Zeit (Google Translate), Patrick Seidel, the general manager of Paderborn Baskets said that at 6:00pm, an hour and a half before the scheduled start time, the laptop was connected "as usual."
"But as both teams warmed up, the computer crashed," he said. "When we booted it again at 7:20pm, it started automatically downloading updates. But we did not initiate anything."
After all the updates were installed, Paderborn was ready to start the game at 7:55pm.
By the end of the match, Paderborn won 69-62. But then Chemnitz formally protested, saying that because Paderborn had delayed the start time of the match by 25 minutes (instead of the 15-minute maximum as allowed under the German basketball rules), they should be penalized. As a result, Paderborn lost another point in the standings (Google Translate), according to a Basketball Budesliga press release, which meant that it would certainly be relegated to the "ProB" league of German pro basketball.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Wednesday April 08 2015, @07:28PM
It *was* scary during the Montreal area ice storm in the late 90's. Only locations with emergency generators were functioning. Our house became uninhabitable, because although the furnace burned oil, and there was lots of it in the tank, the burner was, for some reason, powered by electricity, and without electricity it was unable to burn the oil. We spent a week or more in emergency shelters and a relative's house in an area which got power connected before we did. The water purification plants were also affected, with only one functioning for the entire city. If that had failed too, clean water would have been unavailable, and, of course, boil-water advisories would be moot.
I heard that the emergency organisations briefly considered evacuating the city, but rejected it as utterly infeasible.
Surface travel off-island was prohibited because the bridges had so much ice encrusted that they were unsafe for normal traffic loads. I was told they finally got them operational by having helicopters swing weights at them to break the ice off the superstructures.
I do remember a moment when I looked out a window at the shelter to see trees and shrubs coated with huge encrustations if ice. A beautiful, deadly crystal landscape.
-- hendrik
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:02AM
Your experience is exactly what I am trying to avoid.
I am in Southern California. Earthquake territory.
I know we are going to pay our dues one day just as New Orleans paid the price to be in the middle of Hurricane Alley.
And I saw how much the government "helped" them. ( the "helped" is in quotes... I guess you know why I did that. ).
I lived in a poorer area for a while. My neighbor had a diesel-powered welder. It would put out 220V as well. We had already figured out and had made some cables so we could shinny up our power pole, open the pole-pig transformer with the switch Edison already had on it, and backfeed the neighborhood with his welder's output ( or at least four houses of it ). We figured we could at least keep minimal lighting and refrigeration running with it.
The more well-to-do area I am living in now is *totally* unprepared.
I am quite frustrated since losing employment that I cannot afford to put up solar panels and water wells. I wanted the well mostly for 60 degree fahrenheit water to use for geothermal heating/air conditioning use, but wanted to leave access to the water for emergency use in the event of earthquake. And solar panels to power the whole shebang. One of my intentions was to put lots of USB and 12 volt power access in the fence posts around my home so in the event of an earthquake, my neighbors would have a place to charge cellphones and car batteries. The power would come from the solar array. I would give water too, as the city water mains are likely to lose pressure due to rupture or power failure to the pumping stations. Of course, the water is just river water and would need treatment for drinking, but would work great for sanitary/bathing/firefighting purposes. However the main obstacle I would have, even if I had the finances to do it, would be getting permission to do it.
A friend of mine, a radio amateur, even had an impromptu TV station set up in his garage, and could transmit on the old style Analog TV bands. Best of my knowledge, he only did it once, just to make sure he could get out. He picked an unused TV channel, powered up for a few seconds, transmitted, and asked me if I got it on my TV. I did. It was then put back in mothballs, awaiting the day commercial TV got knocked out with the earthquake. He had plans of asking the city's police and fire to drop by to use his setup for communication with the city if all else was failing. It never got used.
There are a lot of very well intentioned people out there, who will give selflessly of themselves for the good of their neighbors, just as we see it all the time on the internet.
Unfortunately, though, our society places permission-givers above do-ers.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:13AM
Money enables you to buy your way out. Catastrophes disables you from anything unless it's at your disposal, right here, right now. Thus rich people may loose touch with the ground. Which is kind of interesting because in that situation it's so cheap to fix a backup for most things.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:10AM
I think this a good example of "oops" ..!
Of course you could splice some cable. But then you would need some materials which can't be had because there's no working or open shop. And a temporary solution might start a fire etc.
So one needs to think: If all utilities, even garbage collection.. is cut off without recourse. And nothing can be bought. Will you manage on your own? add to that some people might be tempted to grab something..