Roma, we've had un problema: When every flight's final destination is a date with Windows Boot Manager

On the second day of Christmas, the bork gods sent to me: flightless Windows signage, and a server they said had ceased to be. Welcome to the Twelve Borks of Christmas (12BoC): a collection of Register reader stories of amusing and frustrating tech sightings over the festive period. Today's entry comes from Register reader …

[Chris G]

"I started drinking"®

At least with a drink, eventually you can see light at the end of the bottle (depending on the choice of beverage of course).

[stiine]

Re: "I started drinking"®

If your eyes are so close together that you can peer up the neck of the bottle, you have a different problem (or chose a very large bottle which will bring a load of problems when its empty...

[Chris G]

Re: "I started drinking"®

I generally only use one eye to inspect the contents of a bottle should I wish to check before upending it.

However, I do keep both eyes open when using a rifle scope (only one looking through the scope though).

[seven of five]

Re: "I started drinking"®

Ha, rookie. My weapons only take coordinates from a keyboard. Makes me a keyboard warrior, doesn't it?

[StargateSg7]

Re: "I started drinking"®

"....However, I do keep both eyes open when using a rifle scope (only one looking through the scope though)...."

---

We finally put stereoscopic scopes on the BMG-50's and our .60 CAL AMX-60 anti-armour-jacketed personnel rifles so we can image our targets better in analog 3D. AND someone FINALLY took my suggestion to heart about putting full dual eye-width cotton-towel PADDED eye and cheek cups like we have on the big ENG cameras onto those scopes. Takes the sweat off our brows and keeps us comfortable even at full recoil! Now I can whack someone at 2500 metres a tad more comfortably!

V

[macjules]

Re: "I started drinking"®

Aka, “The Magic IT Support”, similar to “The Magic Taxi” where you get you home after 8 pints wearing a T-shirt in midwinter and none the worse for it. MITS makes every IT problem disappear after 2 pints and substitutes the assurance of a job well done.

Of course getting the call next morning of, “WTH was that message you left on my answering service about? Were you drunk?” is a penalty that has to be paid.

[Michael Hoffmann]

Re: "I started drinking"®

Indeed. And I can think of worse places to be stuck in than a place where I can work my way through the wine regions of Italy. The greatest hardship is deciding whether to start south and work your way north or the other way around.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: "I started drinking"®

North to South, always better to start with the lighter ones.

[beep54]

Re: "I started drinking"®

The problem with seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is that now you know that the tunnel is filthy dirty and probably smells bad.

[Blackjack]

Re: "I started drinking"®

And then you fall asleep, miss the flight and get your stuff stolen.

[David Roberts]

Staff hide

Memories of a {cough} few years ago coming back from a holiday in Italy.

Flights disrupted, Italian passengers mobbed information desks shouting and screaming and all the staff ran away and hid.

All very strange, but apparently traditional.

Very different from the "Sorry, old chap, hate to bother you but..." approach traditional in the UK at the time. (See icon.)

[Stoneshop]

Re: Staff hide

Very different from the "Sorry, old chap, hate to bother you but..." approach traditional in the UK at the time. (See icon.)

Not the RyanJet passengers, who appear to have been infected with that Mediterranean Air Passenger Behaviour while on holiday, while the 'staff' seem to have latched on to a rather effective method of redirecting the mob to a different counter.

[Tom 7]

You should try a proper airport

There's one on a little Caribbean island I like to frequent where the pilot comes to get you from the bar when its time to leave.

[macjules]

Re: You should try a proper airport

Presumably not Belize? Fond memories of Placencia where the pilot says, “Just coming after I have finished my morning drink”

[Hero Protagonist]

Re: You should try a proper airport

As long as it’s not you having to go to the bar to get the pilot when it’s time to leave...

[David 132]

Re: You should try a proper airport

Or worse, having to go find the pilot when it’s time to land...

[Jos V]

Re: You should try a proper airport

Or as a pilot friend of mine said one time (while we were having beers in a pub) to a guy nervous about having to fly the next day: Don't worry mate, we taking safety very seriously. We usually stop drinking about, oh, 24 or 48.... feet before we enter the cockpit.

[Anonymous Coward]

"To be fair to Windows, we can't imagine many operating systems behaving much better when critical components cannot be found."

The first honest assessment of 90% of the borks that we often see. My favourite from a while ago was a train stations announcement board, which appeared to be a PXE booted box with a broken storage device. Didn't stop the linux-brigade mocking a Windows failure.

[fobobob]

It would appear that the Windows registry has been unregistered.

[trist]

It's the antiboot manager....

With UEFI and even before, the boot manager has always prevented you from booting. How many times do I get an error that I cannot load a driver for the storage device that I have been booting off until just now? And seriously it cannot figure out that the current partition is the one that should be booted? The is someone in in hell, someone looking up and laughing and saying how did I ever get away with it.

[Danny 2]

1. The Neighbor Says Warner Worked in ‘Computers’

Anthony Quinn Warner Named as Nashville Bombing Person of Interest

[trist]

Re: 1. The Neighbor Says Warner Worked in ‘Computers’

Isn't that like saying Frosted Flakes are "part of a complete breakfast"? Yeah sure one flake of sugar coated corn goodness, and a complete breakfast would make "a complete breakfast".

[Danny 2]

Re: 1. The Neighbor Says Warner Worked in ‘Computers’

No offence Trist, I just don't get your point or your logic. I'll start with your logic. Add a glass of sewage to a glass of clean water and you have a glass of sewage. 1+0=0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AND_gate

Now I already said I don't get your point, and I guess I didn't make mine clear since it was simple reportage where the irony was implicit. The fact a website would report the first and most important fact about a suspect was they "worked in computers" should scare anyone who works 'in computers'. Our peers consider all of us dangerous freaks.

I also found it odd that the first FBI theory was the guy was a 5G nut. Not many IT folk are 5G nuts, quite the reverse. My first thought for motivation would be poor quality of service from AT&T.

Whatever, it was just the gentlest suicide bombing. He did it at the safest possible time, and blasted out a glorious British '60s pop song as he killed himself - in Nashville!

Personally when I turn up in a caravan full of explosives outside of Virgin Media then I'm tempted by Dusty Springfield, or Kris Kristofferson.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 1. The Neighbor Says Warner Worked in ‘Computers’

"Not many IT folk are 5G nuts, quite the reverse.

A programmer colleague periodically used to work long enough to build up some financial reserves - and then went off to live in a renowned New Age commune. I happened to visit it one day and he gave me a guided tour of the site. He explained that the large communal hall that was under construction would make them independent of the national electric grid. A special crystal would be suspended by gold wires in the apex of the building. When everyone was assembled in the hall then their thoughts would generate the site's electricity.

Part of the commune's dogma was that you made plants produce new productive strains just by the influence of your mind.

They had a lucrative sideline in organised visits by middle-calls Christian church groups. Birds of a feather when you looked at their ways of coping with existence by flights of fancy.

[Mike 16]

Not just airports

My most recent trip to Italy (OK, the second in my lifetime), we made sure to get to the railway station in plenty of time, only to find it snarled by some sort of "labor action". The bright side is that a station agent took pity and gave directions to a walkable nearby smaller station. Small enough that the organizers apparently decided it was not worth shutting down. Also some instructions on "will probably work" transfers to get to our destination.

I reassured the missus that it just wouldn't be an Italian experience without a transit strike. And to have the warm feeling that people do help other people. Those computers, though...

[Mark 124]

I WinCEd at that

I once flew from NZ to London while the in flight "entertainment" consisted of watching WinCE boot up and crash, over and over and over. They said they'd fix it during the refuelling stop in L.A., but no. I've spent better days in flying tin cans...

Even the reading light was controlled from the IFE so to read I had to move to a seat where the light was switched on during the brief period when it was working enough for the light button would do anything.