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I spent a week sitting in a library, waiting for an intermittent fault to happen.
We'd delivered a new design of VDT (a terminal that talked to a mainframe) and this one site 300 miles away had a problem with it glitching out and restarting sometimes. The hardware had been replace with a brand new one, it only seemed to happen with my software. So a service engineer and I went up there are sat until it failed. Monday was dull. Tuesday more so. Friday was "climb the walls" time ... And then it happened.
Because they laminated a new library user's card for the first time that week.
And the laminator "spiked" the mains supply and the VDT PSU glitched out, crashing the software ...
One line conditioner later and we headed for home.
That was an expensive problem, not just in our time, but definitely in the bar bill which was "quite staggering" in the words of the Managing Director!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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While we are at crazy causes of problems: The case of the 500-mile email[^]
(This is a classic story, probably known to the oldtimers, but lots of younger people are not familiar with it.)
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Nothing amazes me anymore, even when I provide detailed step by step instructions how to install and use the software we write they somehow manage to do things wrong most of the time.
Guess it's too hard to read the instructions 
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RickZeeland wrote: Guess it's too hard to read the instructions
FTFY
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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A telephone switch was installed in Alaska to carry calls between Asia and North America. It connected to the North American network by satellite. It was so far north that it could barely see the satellite in its orbit, low over the horizon.
A satellite dish is usually mounted on a tower, but posts conduct heat into the ground, melting permafrost and creating a Leaning Tower of Pisa look. So the dish stayed on the ground.
After some uneventful months, the switch suddenly went insane. Thousands of links simultaneously failed and reconnected shortly afterwards, and the cycle would then repeat. Each failed link resulted in a message for the maintenance software, which began to diagnose the problem. This used up a lot of CPU time. And each link reestablishment resulted in a call origination message for the call handling software.
The switch couldn't handle the intense message flood. Call originations timed out and were retransmitted, exacerbating the problem. Then the links would crash again, causing another message flurry for the maintenance software. The switch got so far behind that it couldn't even handle calls on the links that had actually remained in service.
Eventually the links came up and stayed up, but it still took the switch quite a while to recover from the message flood.
The next day, the same thing. This continued until some field engineers took a snowmobile to go and inspect the satellite dish. It was in perfect working order. But one day while they were out there, they experienced what felt like a mild earthquake. A great herd of caribou (reindeer) were crossing the horizon on their yearly migration. The satellite dish was mounted so low that the dust cloud kicked up by the caribou broke the microwave beam between the satellite and dish, causing all the links to crash. The gaps between herds would then allow the links to reconnect before the next herd took them down again.
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A slightly related story:
In the early days of email, a colleague of mine reported that he had received a rush of emails from his wife, working with another company, some of the messages weeks and months old - messages that had "disappeared" for unknown reasons now reappearing.
They found the reason: At my employer, we still did offline backup, taking down the machines at midnight to make backup copies. At the company of my colleague's wife, their email system tried to send the mail when submitted, but if unsuccessful (which wasn't uncommon in those days), the mail was put into a backlog for a retry after midnight ... when our machines were offline for backup. So the midnight retransmission failed, night after night. Then our mailserver had a major crash at nighttime. It was restarted right before midnight, without being taken down for backup. Then the whole rush of backlogged emails where accepted.
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In the UK, a telephone subscriber is signalled by sending 90 volts across one side of the two-wire circuit and ground. When the phone is answered, it switches to the two-wire circuit for conversation. This method allows two parties on the same line to be signalled without disturbing each other.
An elderly man called British Telecom to say that his telephone nearly always failed to ring when his friends called. On the few occasions when it did ring, his dog always barked first. A technician dispatched to the premises climbed a nearby pole, connected his test set, and dialled the house. The phone didn't ring.
On investigation, it was found that the dog was tied to the telephone system's ground post via an iron chain and collar, and was receiving 90 volts of signalling current. After several jolts, the dog urinated on the ground and barked. The wet ground then conducted and the phone rang.
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IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED
A friend of mine has two tickets to the 2020 Super Bowl in Miami, box seats. He paid $11,500 each.
They come with limo service from and back to the airport, lunch, dinner, and up to a $400 bar tab.
Also an authorized pass to the winner's locker room.
He did not realize last year when he bought them, that the game was going to be on the same day as his wedding.
If you are interested, he is looking for someone to take his place.
It's at St. Paul's Church in Ocala at 3 PM. Her name is Ashley.
She's 5'4", about 125 lbs., and a good cook. She loves to fish and hunt.
She will be the one in a white dress.
Will Rogers never met me.
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$400 bar tab? So, like, 2 warm beers?
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This has been making its rounds. 
/ravi
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I think it does every year, actually, but this was very succinctly written. 
Will Rogers never met me.
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I have 30+ years of Windows and Web API development experience. Typical Client/Server stuff. I'm now getting into mobile development.
What I'd really like is to develop an app to market but I cant think of a real money maker. I have the time and experience but dont really know what to write.
Anyone have an idea they want to partner on? PM me, or if you want to drop an idea here, please do.
Let's make the next great app and retire
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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Most of the apps i can think of that would be useful require connection to some sort of DB or service. I'm assuming you're going to host something for that? Like a DB and a webserver, or a some sort of cloud deployment
If so, how about something that automatically shows your closest friends/family? and allows you to set up radiusus for what constitutes "closest"?
you could do group chats and/or organize meets using it.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I like that. Is there anything like that out there already that you know of?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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Not that I know of but then I'm not really the right person to ask as I hate phones and tend to avoid them.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Theres FriendFinder, buts it's a dating app.
A "which of the people in my circle of friends is near me" app would be the idea
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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I have no friends and my closest family is about two thousand miles away (more like three thousand today). And that's the way I like it.
An app which tells me they're getting too close may be useful.
But they're wilier than that.
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Well they would have to join your group.
Which translates into Come See Me
Not for you huh?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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honey the codewitch wrote: you could do group chats and/or organize meets using it.
Or spy on your employees/potential rape victims.
It's a horrible idea, which would be used more for evil than good -- so there are probably twenty apps like it available already.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Umm, I think you misunderstand.
Not that you mind.
This app could not do what you think it could.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I have thought up 3 different great apps. Each time I found something just like it already free on the App Store...
I, for one, like Roman Numerals.
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Ya, but can you do it better for cheaper?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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Write an app that solves a problem YOU have or makes YOUR life/work easier. If you like it and find it useful, others may as well. That's the place to start.
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