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On the morning of Saturday, February 20, 1971, Wayland S. Eberhardt, a civilian teletype operator, was going about his routine duties at the National Emergency Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, when he made a minor error in mounting a tape. What happened next became the Great EBS Scare of 1971.
posted by pjern on Feb 20, 2013 - 42 comments

2012's Best News Bloopers
posted by The Whelk on Dec 29, 2012 - 33 comments

An iOS application developer has come up with an extreme way of fighting software piracy—by auto-posting "confessions" to its users' Twitter accounts. "...Enfour, the maker of a variety of dictionary apps, is auto-posting tweets to users' accounts to shame them for being pirates. But the auto-tweeting seems to be affecting a huge portion of its paid user base, not just those who actually stole the apps." Follow-up. A personal account: Can’t spell “pirate” without “-irate”: on DRM and punishing the customer [more inside]
posted by flex on Nov 29, 2012 - 74 comments

If you follow the usual crop of technology news sites, you will have read yesterday morning that Google had apparently acquired a little-known WiFi hotspot company for $400 million. This story spread with the help of the most popular (and most reputable) sites, like TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, The Next Web, and others. Only one small detail: the story wasn't actually true. [more inside]
posted by nickheer on Nov 27, 2012 - 54 comments

Any shortlist of the top wrestling promo botches in history would include Lex Luger's t-shirt and the debut of the Shockmaster. But it is unlikely that anything will ever surpass Hulk Hogan setting up his Wrestlemania XIX feud with Vince McMahon.
posted by Trurl on Jan 29, 2012 - 20 comments

A Tragedy of Errors. On Feb. 21, 2010, a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians headed down a mountain in central Afghanistan and American eyes in the sky were watching. "The Americans were using some of the most sophisticated tools in the history of war, technological marvels of surveillance and intelligence gathering that allowed them to see into once-inaccessible corners of the battlefield. But the high-tech wizardry would fail in its most elemental purpose: to tell the difference between friend and foe." FOIA-obtained transcripts of US cockpit and radio conversations and an interactive feature provide a more in-depth understanding of what happened.
posted by zarq on Apr 10, 2011 - 59 comments

Want to share your credit card purchases with your friends on facebook? Blippy does that. Want to share your credit card numbers with everyone? Blippy also does that.
posted by Brent Parker on Apr 23, 2010 - 180 comments

[musicnewsfilter]: European copies of Dinosaur Jr.'s new album Farm have been recalled after duplication software "doubled the sound layers, resulting in a 3 dB increase in the overall sound volume." [more inside]
posted by auralcoral on Jul 12, 2009 - 61 comments

Hollywood Bloopers: 1936-1947 A couple of the years won't load for me, but the ones I can watch are fun.
posted by grumblebee on May 29, 2009 - 14 comments

Poor localization causes a simple, if slightly inflammatory, text message to go awry.
posted by adamdschneider on Apr 21, 2008 - 21 comments

"I... Forgot."

Upon the death of a possible BSE cow, "the unidentified doctor preserved the brain stem sample in formalin... but then 'simply forgot' about it until mid-July." That's the reason why we're only hearing about it now. Any questions?
posted by soyjoy on Jul 27, 2005 - 50 comments

Mistakes happen. And we regret the error.
posted by WolfDaddy on Feb 27, 2005 - 17 comments

Big organization carelessly ships dangerous free gifts to new customers. Those greedy, uncaring, heartless, soulless corporations, at it again. Oh wait... this time it was Consumer Reports that did it.
posted by pmurray63 on May 7, 2002 - 4 comments

This might be taking the war on terrorism a little to far. Royal Marines get lost or should I say vamos. (Parden my french).
posted by FidelDonson on Feb 19, 2002 - 8 comments

When headlines go bad part infinity. I know it's a crude crude joke to be making, but after all the election crap, I just can't help but laughing at the title "climax in court" coupled with the picture of that judge in his formal robe...
posted by almostcool on Dec 7, 2000 - 7 comments

When headlines go bad : Missiles Hit West Bank Towns (Reuters) - Israel launched overnight missile strikes on five West Bank towns, killing a German resident, and Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
posted by tiaka on Nov 16, 2000 - 2 comments

When captions go bad? It's the one below the first picture.
posted by solistrato on Sep 28, 2000 - 4 comments

"Chirac flatly denies posthumous graft charges" Yet another headline gone wrong. Before you read the article, see if you can figure out what they think they mean. I sure couldn't figure it out.

Chirac isn't dead, and what good is posthumous graft, anyway?
posted by Steven Den Beste on Sep 21, 2000 - 0 comments