1. Nuclear Disaster With Little Bit Of Fault Cause Tesla Mac Os 10
  2. Nuclear Disaster With Little Bit Of Fault Cause Tesla Mac Os X

Nikola Tesla revealed that an earthquake which drew police and ambulances to the region of his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St., New York, in 1898, was the result of a little machine he was experimenting with at the time which “you could put in your overcoat pocket”: “I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the. 809 Likes, 3 Comments - UW-Milwaukee (@uwmilwaukee) on Instagram: “Happy #PantherPrideFriday 🐾💛 Tag us in your photos to be featured on our page or in our Photos of”.

No doubt Raygun is saving thousands of developers from embarrassing or even catastrophic software errors every day, but what was life like without such an awesome (and automatic) error monitoring solution? We’ve looked into some of the biggest disasters over the years to see what happens when software errors cause chaos!

Raygun lets you detect and diagnose errors and performance issues in your codebase with ease

NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter

On its mission to Mars in 1998 the Climate Orbiter spacecraft was ultimately lost in space. Although the failure bemused engineers for some time it was revealed that a sub contractor on the engineering team failed to make a simple conversion from English units to metric. An embarrassing lapse that sent the $125 million craft fatally close to Mars’ surface after attempting to stabilize its orbit too low. Flight controllers believe the spacecraft plowed into Mars’ atmosphere where the associated stresses crippled its communications, leaving it hurtling on through space in an orbit around the sun.

Ariane 5 Flight 501

Europe’s newest un-manned satellite-launching rocket reused working software from its predecessor, the Ariane 4. Unfortunately, the Ariane 5’s faster engines exploited a bug that was not found in previous models. Thirty-six seconds into its maiden launch the rocket’s engineers hit the self destruct button following multiple computer failures. In essence, the software had tried to cram a 64-bit number into a 16-bit space. The resulting overflow conditions crashed both the primary and backup computers (which were both running the exact same software).

The Ariane 5 had cost nearly $8 billion to develop, and was carrying a $500 million satellite payload when it exploded.

EDS Child Support System

In 2004, EDS introduced a highly complex IT system to the U.K.’s Child Support Agency (CSA). At the exact same time, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decided to restructure the entire agency. The two pieces of software were completely incompatible, and irreversible errors were introduced as a result. The system somehow managed to overpay 1.9 million people, underpay another 700,000, had US$7 billion in uncollected child support payments, a backlog of 239,000 cases, 36,000 new cases “stuck” in the system, and has cost the UK taxpayers over US$1 billion to date.

Soviet Gas Pipeline Explosion

The Soviet pipeline had a level of complexity that would require advanced automated control software. The CIA was tipped off to the Soviet intentions to steal the control system’s plans. Working with the Canadian firm that designed the pipeline control software, the CIA had the designers deliberately create flaws in the programming so that the Soviets would receive a compromised program. It is claimed that in June 1982, flaws in the stolen software led to a massive explosion along part of the pipeline, causing the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet’s history.

Bitcoin Hack, Mt. Gox

Launched in 2010, Japanese bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, was the largest in the world. After being hacked in June, 2011, Mt. Gox stated that they’d lost over 850,000 bitcoins (worth around half a billion US dollars at the time of writing).

Nuclear Disaster With Little Bit Of Fault Cause Tesla Mac OS

Although around 200,000 of the bitcoins were recovered, Mark Karpeles admits “We had weaknesses in our system, and our bitcoins vanished.”

Heathrow Terminal 5 Opening

Just before the opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in the UK, staff tested the brand new baggage handling system built to carry the vast amounts of luggage checked in each day. Engineers tested the system thoroughly before opening the Terminal to the public with over 12,000 test pieces of luggage. It worked flawlessly on all test runs only to find on the Terminal’s opening day the system simply could not cope. It is thought that “real life” scenarios such as removing a bag from the system manually when a passenger had left an important item in their luggage, had caused the entire system to become confused and shut down.

Over the following 10 days some 42,000 bags failed to travel with their owners, and over 500 flights were cancelled.

The Mariner 1 Spacecraft

On a mission to fly-by Venus in 1962, this spacecraft barely made it out of Cape Canaveral when a software-coding error caused the rocket to veer dangerously off-course, threatening to crash back to earth. Alarmed, NASA engineers on the ground issued a self-destruct command. A review board later determined that the omission of a hyphen in coded computer instructions allowed the transmission of incorrect guidance signals to the spacecraft. The cost for the rocket was reportedly more than $18 million at the time.

The Morris Worm

A program developed by a Cornell University student for what he said was supposed to be a harmless experiment wound up spreading wildly and crashing thousands of computers in 1988 because of a coding error. It was the first widespread worm attack on the fledgling Internet. The graduate student, Robert Tappan Morris, was convicted of a criminal hacking offense and fined $10,000. Morris’s lawyer claimed at the trial that his client’s program helped improve computer security.

Costs for cleaning up the mess may have gone as high as $100 Million. Morris, who interestingly co-founded the startup incubator Y Combinator, is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A disk with the worm’s source code is now housed at the University of Boston.

Patriot Missile Error

Sometimes, the cost of a software glitch can’t be measured in dollars. In February of 1991, a U.S. Patriot missile defence system in Saudi Arabia, failed to detect an attack on an Army barracks. A government report found that a software problem led to an inaccurate tracking calculation that became worse the longer the system operated. On the day of the incident, the system had been operating for more than 100 hours, and the inaccuracy was serious enough to cause the system to look in the wrong place for the incoming missile. The attack killed 28 American soldiers. Prior to the incident, Army officials had fixed the software to improve the Patriot systems accuracy. That modified software reached the base the day after the attack.

Pentium FDIV bug

When a math professor discovered and publicized a flaw in Intel’s popular Pentium processor in 1994, the company’s response was to replace chips upon request to users who could prove they were affected. Intel calculated that the error caused by the flaw would happen so rarely that the vast majority of users wouldn’t notice. Angry customers demanded a replacement for anyone who asked, and Intel agreed. The episode cost Intel $475 million.

Knight’s $440 Million Error

One of the biggest American market makers for stocks struggled to stay afloat after a software bug triggered a $440 million loss in just 30 minutes. The firm’s shares lost 75 percent in two days after the faulty software flooded the market with unintended trades. Knight’s trading algorithms reportedly started pushing erratic trades through on nearly 150 different stocks, sending them into spasms.

Honourable mention: NOAA-19 Satellite

Although not a software error, on September 6, 2003, this satellite was badly damaged while being worked on at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems factory. The satellite fell to the floor as a team was turning it to a horizontal position. An inquiry into the mishap determined that it was caused by a lack of procedural discipline throughout the facility. Turns out that while the turn-over cart used during the procedure was in storage, a technician removed twenty-four bolts securing an adapter plate to it without documenting the action. The team subsequently using the cart to turn the satellite failed to check the bolts, as specified in the procedure, before attempting to move the satellite.

Repairs to the satellite cost $135 million.

Solving your software errors

One way to avoid software errors is to use software intelligence tools. Software intelligence helps tools communicate with each other and build a more ‘intelligent’ view of your software. Read more about software intelligence here.

Don’t want to get caught out by your software bugs? Get automatically notified of your software errors with instant notifications. Book a demo with an experienced team member or sign up for a free trial.

The long term effects of Nuclear disasters can often spread over thousands of years. It is estimated that Chernobyl wont be inhabited for at least another 20,000 years.

Despite the threat of Nuclear disasters, believe it or not, Nuclear Power Plants are prominent and provide approximately 5.7% of the world’s energy and 13% of the world’s electricity.

With 437 Nuclear Power Plants worldwide, there are bound to be incidents every now and again. Small incidents occur and can be rectified, but when there are large incidents, the impact can often be catastrophic.

Each Nuclear disaster has been given a level on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

Click on the header of each nuclear disaster for a detailed look at each event.

Process Industry Forum have scrawled the web and created a Top 10 for the worst Nuclear disasters of all time:

10. Tokaimura, Japan 1999 - Level 4

When a group of unqualified workers decided to put more highly enriched uranium in a precipitation tank than was permitted, disaster struck. Two of the workers eventually died with another fifty six plant workers also being exposed to high levels of radiation. To make matters worse, 21 civilians were also exposed to high doses of radiation and residents within a thousand feet of the plant were evacuated.

9. Buenos Aires, Argentina 1983 – Level 4

An operator’s errors during a fuel plate reconfiguration lead to him dying two days later. There was an excursion of 3x10 fissions at the RA-2 facility with the operator absorbing 2000 rad of gamma and 1700 rad of neutron radiation. Another 17 people outside of the reactor room absorbed doses ranging from 35 rad to less than 1 rad.

8. Saint- Laurent, France 1969 – Level 4

On the 17th October, 1969 50 kg of uranium in one of the gas cooled reactors began to melt. This was classified as Level 4 on the INES and to this day remains the most serious civil Nuclear disaster in French history.

7. SL-1 Experimental Power Station, Idaho USA 1961 – Level 4

On 3rd January, 1961 a USA army experimental nuclear power reactor underwent a steam explosion and meltdown killing its three operators. The cause of this was because of improper removal of the control rod, responsible for absorbing neutrons in the reactor core. This event is the only known fatal reactor accident in the USA. The accident released about 80 curies of iodine -131.

6. Goiania Accident, Brazil 1987 – Level 5

On 13th September, 1987 a radioactive contamination accident occurred in the Brazilian state of Goais. An old radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. Subsequently it was handled by many people, killing four people. 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination's with 249 having significant levels of radioactive material in or on their body.

5. Three Mile Island Accident, Pennsylvania USA 1979 – Level 5

28th March saw two nuclear reactors meltdown. It was subsequently the worst disaster in commercial nuclear power plant history. Small amounts of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine were released into the environment. Luckily, epidemiology studies have not linked a single cancer with the accident.

Nuclear Disaster With Little Bit Of Fault Cause Tesla Mac Os 10

4. Windscale Fire (Sellafield), UK 1957 – Level 5

The worst nuclear disaster in Great Britain’s history occurred on the 10th October, 1957 and ranked at level 5 on the INES scale, The Windscale Fire. The two piles had been hurriedly built as part of the British atomic bomb project. The first pile was active from October 1950 with the second close behind in June 1951. The accident occurred when the core of Unit 1’s reactor caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. 240 cancer cases have since been linked to the fire. All of the milk from within about 500km of nearby countryside was diluted and destroyed for about a month.

3. Kyshtym, Russia 1957 – Level 6

The Kyshtym Nuclear disaster was a radiation contamination incident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Soviet Union. It measured as a Level 6 disaster on the INES, making it the third most serious Nuclear disaster ever recorded behind the Chernobyl Disaster and Fukushima Daiichi Disaster. The event occurred in the town of Ozyorsk, a closed city built around the Mayak plant. Since Ozyorsk/Mayak was not marked on maps, the disaster was named after Kyshtym, the nearest known town.

2. Fukushima, Japan 2011 - Level 7

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima, Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tohoku Tsunami on 11 March, 2011. It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 and only the second disaster (along with Chernobyl) to measure Level 7 on the INES.

1. Chernobyl, Ukraine 1986 - Level 7

The Chernobyl Nuclear disaster is widely considered to have been the worst power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima, Daiichi disaster in 2011). The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. The official Soviet casualty count of 31 deaths has been disputed and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for.

Get the latest process industry news

Interested in receiving even more industry-leading news from Process Industry Forum delivered directly to your inbox? Then sign up to our free newsletter. Bringing you the latest news, trends, innovations and opinion from across the process industry, our exclusive newsletter gives you all the industry insights of the moment in one, easy-to-digest bulletin. Stay ahead of the competition with regular process industry news instalments from PIF.

Nuclear Disaster With Little Bit Of Fault Cause Tesla Mac Os X

Trending