It's not exactly a video game story, but...
Multiple reports are coming in that every 30GB Zune (Microsoft's mp3 player) failed this morning at 2 a.m.
College OTR has this:
Microsoft is just squeezing in under the wire to claim the rights to “weirdest tech story of the year.”Last night at approximately 2 AM, every 30GB Zune model on the planet crashed... The Zunes reset, powered up, then froze on the loading bar screen, and no conventional method of resetting them appears to work.
This is brought to you courtesy of Microsoft, who has been selling a video game console with a nearly 100% fail rate for three years. The Zune situation is all the more disasterous however seeing as all of them failed at the exact same moment, which people have taken to calling 2K9.
From Gizmodo:
Right, so this is a weird one: we're getting tons of reports—tons—about failing Zune 30s. Apparently, the players began freezing at about midnight last night, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless.
The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users 'Y2K9', due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country... This report is consistently corroborated by literally hundreds of others across the various Zune support and fan forums.
GP: Zune users, jump to comments and tell us what is happening with your player...
Comments
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
Whomever said, class action lawsuit, I agree. It's like selling tires with holes in them. Once they are out the door what can we do? M$ is guilty, in such a big way, of release crappy hardware. It makes me sick. It happens over and over. Why? Because they can get away with it.
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Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
How the freak are they having problems with leap years? Leap year logic is a core part of Date data types in any API. Unless they are writing their own Date class, they shouldn't have any problems.
But knowing Microsoft and how many stupid programmers think they know better than the people who wrote the API, I could see that being the problem.
Here is the proper logic for figuring out a leap year:
if( year % 4 == 0 && year % 100 != 0 ){
leapyear = true;
}
elseif(year % 400 == 0){
leapyear = true;
}
else{
leapyear = false
}
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
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E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
you're missing a semi-colon, fix it quick before anyone notices!
Edit: on second though maybe they copy/pasted your code and thats the bug crashing zunes! O.o (kidding) :)
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Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
I wasn't going for syntax completion nor optimization, merely demonstrating how easy it is to check for leap year.
If Iwere really doing it, I would have put that semicolon and combined both if checks into a single if check with an or operator.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
I was just yanking your chain man, hell i remember learning VB in high school and taking C++ in college. The first thing through my mind was of course that the {} brackets were unnecessary considering you only had one statement and it coulda been cleaned up and i'm sure you knew that too but I just just wanted to have a lil laugh at the exclusion of the ; on that last statement considering you're talking smack about the MS programmers hehe. don't get so defensive, just laugh :D
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Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
I'm not upset or anything. I did laugh about it. I just don't like to leave loose ends.
Personally, it is a pet peeve of mine to not have the brackets even if there is only a single statement within an if. It is easier to read and harder to screw up if you put the brackets. I also hate those annoying short hand if else statements that use ? and :. Those drive me nuts because I can never remeber which side of the : is true and which is false.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
totally agreed!!
it takes what.. 2 key presses to type out the brackets... and it just makes things neat and consistent.
lol @ the shorthand too. i barely EVER use it. It isnt like its actually more efficient. And it saves barely ANY typing. Yet its far more confusing.
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
I don't do it to save keystrokes, i do it to save lines, i don't like having something so simple take up 3 lines or 4 lines (when i use brackets i put the open bracket on it's own line so 4 when i do it). Everyone has their preference though so its not really right or wrong. I only pointed it out for the laughs myself :) The whole "fix it quick!" was a joke too cause when I replied to it you could no longer edit it :P no offense intended
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Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
Imagine a C++ program where there's a mistake somewhere and after spending ten minutes with the student you FINALLY figure out it's caused because an if without brackets had a second line added... Or an else that was tied to the wrong if. The students I assist are directed towards always-use-the-damn-things by me, due to things like this.
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
This really sounds like some kind of software problem. They must have pushed a firmware upgrade or a software patch that was not fully tested.
Hope they fix everyone's Zune for free.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
Knowing microsoft, they won't fix them for free...what business would? If every zune failed, that's a crapload of money for them....
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
If Microsoft tried that I'd imagine a really large class action lawsuit.
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Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
And have a repeat of the RROD fiasco? Even Microsoft can't swollow ANOTHER billion dollar pill like that, especially not now when consumers are looking for reasons to distrust a Corp.
. Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
Re: Red Ring of Zune? 30GB Versions of Microsoft mp3 Player
Well, I don't think its a case of them pushing something out last night that caused the problem. I sync my Zune wirelessly and the only way to update the device's firmware is to connect it via the sync cable.
There was an update about a month or so ago, so it could be a bug from that one. I've seen a couple comments in the Zune forums from people with older firmware that were unaffected this morning.