NEWSBYTES - Glitches of the Week...

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Glitches Of The Week Source: Newsbytes Publication date: 2000-05-05

This is a weekly column from Newsbytes featuring the latest in the weird, bizarre, and unfortunate when it comes to technology.

Emergency Sirens Sounded Accidentally

Thirty-four of the 97 warning sirens located throughout the five counties surrounding Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania accidentally sounded at 2:45 a.m. on Tuesday, May 2. "There was a glitch with the computer software that operates the sirens," said Michael Woods, manager of communications of PECO Energy Company, which owns Peach Bottom. "In clearing that glitch, the sirens were mistakenly activated." Woods likened the situation to rebooting a personal computer. When a software glitch concerning the sirens was found, workers at the plant tried to restart the system, and during that process the sirens were triggered. According to Woods, sirens went off in York, Lancaster and Chester counties. These counties are in the ten-mile radius of the nuclear plant and considered in the emergency action zone. Woods says that when residents hear the sirens, they are generally encouraged to tune into their local emergency broadcast station to await instructions. "It is a rarity that an incident like this happens," said Woods. "But during the occurrence there were no problems at Peach Bottom. Both units at the plant continued to operate normally." The sirens sound for three minutes when activated.

Computer Error Forwards Sausage Complaint

A consumer complaint regarding the edibility of a sausage purchased at a Safeway supermarket in northeast Scotland was inadvertently sent to doctors, nurses and police officers. According to The London Daily Telegraph, Alison McKenzie called in a complaint to a local environmental health and consumer protection answering service operated by the Aberdeenshire Council. The complaint concerned her purchase of a Spanish sausage that looked green. Due to a computer error, her call was accidentally duplicated and sent to various British Telecom pagers in the area and the British police force's primary voice mailbox. Later, McKenzie received returned phone calls from those to whom the call had been forwarded inquiring how they could help her situation. McKenzie told The Daily Telegraph that Safeway replaced the sausage promptly.

Incomplete Tax Documents Mailed Out

Some property owners of Lake County, Ill., received incorrect real estate tax assessments from the county when a computer error caused the documents to be mailed out without a pertinent piece of information. "The tax bills that were sent out were missing the additional adjustment from West Skokie Drainage District," said Robert Skidmore, Lake County Treasurer. The omitted information concerns funding for the maintenance, repair and drainage of a specific area surrounding the Chicago River. In response to the incorrect notices, the county has sent out another batch of the tax bills, these ones containing the districts assessment of the drainage costs. "The problem wasn't picked up until we balanced the books, which was on April 25," said Don Schneider, chief deputy treasurer of Lake County. "When the problem was discovered we created an additional set of bills for the affected 6,000 notices and stamped each one individually as the corrected bill. All the corrected bills went out on April 28." "We had a problem, needed to face up to it and get the correction out to people as soon as possible," said Skidmore. The exact nature of the computer glitch is unclear, but according to Schneider, it was most likely a residual Y2K error surfacing.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com http://realcities.yellowbrix.com/pages/realcities/Story.nsp?story_id=10349952&site=charlotte&ID=realcities&scategory=Computers

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), May 05, 2000


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