A German pro basketball team faces relegation because of a Windows update

Webmoebel Baskets is a team from Paderborn, Germany, playing in the country's second-tier league, ProA. In mid-March, Paderborn was preparing to play a game against BV Chemnitz 99 when a disaster we all know and despise struck.

The laptop with which Paderborn runs the scoreboard crashed, then booted back up running a bunch of Windows updates. The updates took a while, as updates do, and before everyone decided to ditch the laptop and go to a manual backup, tipoff had been delayed 25 minutes. German basketball rules allow for a maximum of 15 minutes in delays. So while Paderborn went on to beat Chemnitz, 69-62, there was an objection by the losing squad that led to a penalty. Via arstechnica:

As a result, Paderborn lost another point in the standings, according to a Basketball Budesliga press release, which meant that it would certainly be relegated to the "ProB" league of German pro basketball.

If you read German, you can get an interview with Paderborn coach Patrick Siedel here, or the press release here.

Paderborn appealed the ruling and won an important game Saturday, so they might avoid demotion, but the moral of the story is something you already knew: Windows updates are the work of the devil sent to Earth to ruin our lives.

(via Alexander Chernykh)

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