Mr. Clean Did It
The scale of local versus global importance is weighed
When I worked for TVA, (1990-1995) I had a wonderful assignment of handling the data collection from satellite. All the rain and stream flow gauges would report in their assignments. I replaced a 200 page FORTRAN program will a page of lex to turn the stream into database transactions. A handful of scripts and a well written crontab later, a SCO box and it was humming along wonderfully.
Except that time I found I had a daylight savings time error, and some of those readings were radiation being released from Oak Ridge into Melton Hill. So they were pulsing releases of radiation 15 minutes after the reading occurred, and now it was 45 minutes after and the readings all spiked into EPA violation territory. I of course fixed the error. I'd bet Oak Ridge still releases on the same schedule today.
The real learning experience occurred when the box started rebooting around 6:30 every evening. The recovery scripts were working like a charm, but why it was happening was a mystery. There was nothing unusual in the logs just before it happened. It was cause for concern, because this data was what TVA based it's operation of the entire reservoir system every day. So Bill said he'd stay late and watch the box.
The next morning her reported that at 6:30, the janitor walked into the cube where the box was. He unplugged it and plugged in a vacuum cleaner and began working. After that, it was decided that if the little box that could was so important, it should be in a server room with controlled access or something to that effect. It took over a year of paperwork to make that happen, but that's government.
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