The Blue Screen of Death — for real

Every Windows user is familiar with the ‘blue screen of death’ — what you see when Windows crashes. For most of us (well, most of you, dear readers — I don’t use Windows) this is irritating or infuriating, but not life-threatening. But now a Channel Four News investigation has revealed that Britain’s Royal Navy has chosen the Windows operating system for the war-fighting computers of its latest destroyers. And the Ministry of Defence is considering using Windows for the submarines which fire the UK’s nuclear weapons. So what will we do when a nuclear exchange is inadvertently triggered by a buffer overflow? Press the Start button? It brings an entirely new meaning to the ‘Fatal Error’ dialog. Thanks to Roger Houghton for the link.