Trent Reznor, brainchild behind Nine Inch Nails, sure knows how to bring an audience down. In a recent concert Reznor, apparently trying to capture the pain of modern life, let the Blue Screen of Death flash across the screen:
Somehow, that image leaves me much more depressed than NIN's classic song, "Terrible Lie":
seems like salvation come only in our dreams.
i feel my hatred grow all the more extreme....
can this world really be as sad as it seems?
Apparently, the answer from Microsoft is "Yes." :-)
(Credit:
Rivercool)
You win some, you lose some. Microsoft is getting its brand on the Beijing Olympics in more ways than one, in one case to very poor effect.
Reports from China suggest that Microsoft's Silverlight is delivering exceptional streaming video for NBC's Olympic coverage.
Unfortunately, Microsoft also had the shame of the Blue Screen of Death afflict the opening ceremonies, with the BSoD up on the big screen for more than two hours during the ceremony. Li Ning, who lit the main Olympic torch, actually walked in front of the BSoD, immortalizing the image of Microsoft XP failing on the Beijing Olympics.
Yes, XP. The Olympics decided to use XP instead of Vista because it's more stable. Yes, really. :-)
The most ironic thing in this is that I'm sure Microsoft lobbied hard to give the Beijing Olympic Committee free use of Windows, just as it did with SharePoint for the World Economic Forum. (Bill Gates can be very persuasive.) Some "deals" really are too good to be true.
Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.
(Credit:
Matt Asay)
I had a great dinner tonight with the Openbravo management team in Barcelona. As we walked up La Rambla from a decadent pre-dinner "meal" of lava-like hot chocolate, we headed into the parking garage to get our car.
The door to the parking payment machine was open as we got into the garage. The computer had malfunctioned and the parking attendant was rebooting it. I got there just in time to notice the operating system (used city-wide) that was causing this parking attendant grief:
Windows.
One can't even park anymore without getting the Blue Screen of Death.
Incidentally, the parking attendant couldn't figure out why I wanted to take a picture of the payment machine. For my part, I couldn't figure out why he wasn't running a real operating system. :-)
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