Royal Navy submarines now running on Windows; destroyers next
As someone who has opportunity to observe the hapless and Byzantine bureaucracy of the Royal Navy in action at fairly close range, I’m both unsurprised and vaguely terrified to find that their latest batch of nuclear submarines have been fully kitted out with a specially developed version of the Windows XP operating system, and that the RN is so pleased with the speedy installation that they’ll be using the same software in a forthcoming class of destroyers. [via SlashDot]
The potential punchlines to this news pretty much write themselves.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Oh my gosh…My fiance is from England and she’s visiting over Christmas and the second I saw this I just had to point and laugh. This has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard…
Thank you. I really needed a good laugh this morning!
December 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I question the wisdom of installing windows on submarines.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
“Pardon me, Commodore, but we need to reboot the fleet.”
December 18th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
At least they didn’t choose Vista.
December 19th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I suggest they use it to download MP3s of Phil Ochs’ “The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns,” Al Stewart’s “Life in Dark Water,” and of course Thomas Dolby’s “One of Our Submarines.”