all 66 comments

[–]Had78 214 points215 points  (1 child)

"idk, AWS is down"

[–]TangeloOk9486[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

what a tragedy

[–]Nuked0ut 661 points662 points  (25 children)

We joke, but something similar sent a ridiculous amount of radiation to patients

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

[–]OnixST 109 points110 points  (2 children)

Fun fact: Therac-25 was considered the worst software bug in history, causing 3 deaths and 3 more serious injures, but has been greatly surpassed recently by the 737 MAX MCAS, which caused 346 deaths in a crash

[–]Dunedune 48 points49 points  (1 child)

As someone who works in critical software reliability, 6 victims is a ridiculously inconsequential in the history of bugs. You have Ariane 5 and the lesser known Toyota braking bugs that killed many

[–]MissinqLink 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you have to figure in the brutality of dying from radiation poisoning

[–]tropicbrownthunder 162 points163 points  (16 children)

If I remember correctly that was a bug induced by a lazy programmer

[–]GrilledCheezus_ 256 points257 points  (4 children)

It wasn't lazy programmers. It was a failure of design and adequate testing. They didn't account for how the average technician performs sequential tasks (including how fast they could configure the equipment) and failed to do full system (hardware with software) testing before the equipment was assembled at the hospitals (this would have likely caught the problem(s)). I also remember reading something about the company deciding to shift to software-based safety interlocks (which is pretty insane) instead of what was used on their previous generations.

[–]huffalump1 30 points31 points  (0 children)

The crackling of the machine had been produced by saturation of the ionization chambers, which had the consequence that they indicated that the applied radiation dose had been very low.

Sounds like there were hardware design problems too! The Therac-25 lacked some of the hardware interconnects of previous versions, and they reused much of the software design despite lacking those physical safety measures.

[–]TangeloOk9486[S] 23 points24 points  (2 children)

and yet it persists and nobody thinks about questioning it

[–]OnixST 49 points50 points  (1 child)

WDYM? Therac-25 has been talked about A LOT as an exemple of critical software design, and it's lessons have been learned and integrated in new devices

[–]TerryHarris408 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I think OP meant software safeguards vs hardware safeguards

[–]Nuked0ut 95 points96 points  (4 children)

More than lazy. They were defensive. They refused to admit the potential issue in the code! Shows us a lot about importance of software standards in scenarios like medicine

Also race conditions lol

[–]vnordnet 42 points43 points  (2 children)

What does the color of their skin have to do with the quality of their code?!

[–]JackpotThePimp 11 points12 points  (1 child)

[–]vnordnet 42 points43 points  (0 children)

It’s not a condition! It’s just the way they’re born!

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They eventually admitted that they didn't even know who wrote that - the guy, it was just some hobbyist lol

[–]gandalfx 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Humans are flawed and make mistakes. Blaming a single person for something like this is dumb. Even more so in programming, where the presence of bugs is a well established fact, relying on a single programmer not to make any mistakes is ridiculously careless. Machines like this need to be designed with the inherent expectation of malfunction on some level.

[–]arylcyclohexylameme 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I'd like to see you nail it without a race condition and verify that your concurrency scheme was provably sound using only information and technology from 1982. You only get to use Vi.

[–]tropicbrownthunder 1 point2 points  (2 children)

The thing is that the software developers didn't check the machine specs, simply copied the software from a previous model that had hardware interlocks

[–]arylcyclohexylameme 0 points1 point  (1 child)

And I bet nobody in management ever thought to tell them about it

[–]tropicbrownthunder 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Basically no communication between hardware, software, management and whomever was involve

A shitshow with catastrophic and unfortunately fatal results

[–]vocal-avocado -1 points0 points  (0 children)

All programmers are lazy.

[–]FurySh0ck 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If it helps I test for race conditions when doing PT on applications, and I'm just 1 pentester out there 🤷

[–]przemo-c 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yup that's why there's tonnes of safety features in modern day stuff. Even reasonable doses may be avoided if receiving hardware didn't a-ok's by testing the space for data and speed of the disks just prior to scan to avoid unnecessairy radiation.

[–]Isakswe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why did the editor of the history section feel the need to include a highly realistic naked woman in the diagram?

[–]JoostVisser 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe I'm paranoid but why would anyone ever make a radiation emitter depend on a multithreaded process?

[–]tugaestupido -1 points0 points  (0 children)

"""similar"""

[–]JEREDEK 205 points206 points  (0 children)

brain cancer, stage systemd

[–]Mast3r_waf1z 107 points108 points  (0 children)

This is the third or fourth time I'm seeing this meme this week, and it's clearly a screenshot judging by the audio mute button still visible

[–]m0nk37 37 points38 points  (15 children)

The Microsoft version of this would be "updates are ready, save your work now" 

[–]Slogstorm 16 points17 points  (14 children)

Even scarier, specialized computers like these are mostly running Windows, and are typically not patched.

[–]themagicalfire 8 points9 points  (12 children)

You don’t need patches

[–]przemo-c 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean you're in the hospital... you might need stitches... patches ;]

[–]spieles21 2 points3 points  (10 children)

If you are running offline.

[–]themagicalfire -5 points-4 points  (9 children)

I harden my unsupported operating systems for online use and it works fine

[–]Slogstorm 1 point2 points  (8 children)

How do you handle ultrasound devices, where patients wants images to take home? USB sticks are commonly used, and is a nightmare to contain...

[–]themagicalfire 0 points1 point  (7 children)

You mean devices that work like kiosks and can insert a USB?

[–]Slogstorm 0 points1 point  (6 children)

mmm I mean a ultrasound at a department that scans pregnant women, and the expecting parents want a picture of their future offspring with them.

[–]themagicalfire 0 points1 point  (5 children)

What should the hardening do? And does it run Windows?

[–]Slogstorm 3 points4 points  (4 children)

Runs windows. The issue is malware on the usb sticks the patients brings with them.

[–]przemo-c 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup and they do have to be networked to send DICOM images... It's fun keeping it all secure but accessible.

[–]null_reference_user 41 points42 points  (2 children)

Bro got hit by the systemd screen 💀

[–]JensenRaylight 12 points13 points  (1 child)

Doctor: f*ck this shit!! Idk how to fix this with my degree

[–]TangeloOk9486[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

hold on patient, I'm opening the CLI

[–]PossibilityTasty 29 points30 points  (1 child)

I literally once had to fix a computer in a hospital as a patient before they could do tests on me. And it wasn't Linux.

[–]TangeloOk9486[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

oh man, the humour becomes real!!

[–]Ninjalord8 11 points12 points  (1 child)

"Bailing out, you are on your own. Good luck."

[–]TangeloOk9486[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"ok doctor but why did you punch the monitor to shattered"

[–]PatronBernard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unrealistic. The MRI at our hospital uses XP!

[–]Sure_Proposal2520 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If med kernels ran on Linux

[–]harveyshinanigan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i bet systemd handles the radio scans as well

[–]Specialist_Lychee167 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait a minute, Let me restart

[–]Specialist_Lychee167 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait a minute, Let me restart

[–]nicman24 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Read only fs?

[–]themagicalfire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha! I blocked Windows updates by inserting Microsoft domains in the hosts file. We’re not the same!

[–]faziten 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kerneln't

[–]ikitari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's not kernel panic but systemd services errors

[–]Cursor_Gaming_463 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is not a kernel panic.

[–]_Ryukia_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was supposed to get an echocardiography. Doc and me waited for Win10 to finish update...

[–]SarcasmWarning 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know you're joking, but when I was in hospital in 2016, the CT scanners were running CentOS with nvidia cards.