As someone who likes to test new applications, or try out overlooked old ones, I have had my shares of computer crashes and reboots. From Windows blue screen of death, to the frozen apple of the iPod, I have probably seen them all. Even Linux crashes (imagine that - the desktop is not as stable as the server...).
During several longs spans of time, my computers (running MS products, of course) would crash as soon as I entered the office, like the elevators of The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy.
But until today, I have not seen a bus being rebooted. To be honest, it was not that the whole bus froze - only the electronic payment system - but a commercial service without ticketing is as good as dead.
Here is how it happened. A pretty girl, playing a game on her iPhone while handing the driver a bill and the electronic charge card, confused the driver. He tried charging the card, and failed embarrassingly. Frantic, he started pressing repeatedly the buttons on his card crediting system, but to no avail (or even to the detriment of the software, who knows). Sweating (and swearing in a muted mumble), the driver turned off the engine, waited a few second and turned it on again.
The driver turned off the engine, sprinted to the battery compartment and pulled out the plugs. Minutes later, when he reconnected the battery, lights flickering, he powered the engine, at which point the ticketing system started functioning again.
Not an impressive life event by itself, but how often does one get to witness a bus needing a reboot? To me it is worthy of a blog entrance.
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