Three guards suspended for nearly blowing up planet with PSP

by Griffin McElroy on Jul 17th 2009 12:15AM

There's an appropriate time and place for portable gaming. Stuck in a dentist's waiting room? Of course. In the back seat during a lengthy road trip? Go right ahead. Waiting for the movie to start? Acceptable! Working as a security guard stationed in the heart of one of the nation's oldest high-security nuclear weapons plants? No, sir. A thousand times no.

A report from a Knoxville news station turned our eyes to the plight of three security guards who were recently suspended without pay from the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, TN. Their misconduct? They brought gaming devices "with transmitting capability" (the original article specifically mentions the PSP) into the plant's "protected zone," where cell phones aren't even allowed, because THAT'S WHERE THEY MAKE NUCLEAR WEAPONS. We sure hope those brief rounds of Lumines were worth risking nuclear holocaust, you jerks.

Source

Tags: apocalypse, nuclear, portable, security-guards

Reader Comments (83)

I wish Sony would put a positive spin on this and then use it to advertise the PSP.

The PSP is so powerful it almost made a nuclear weapons factory explode! Go Buy one now!

hahaha, awesome

or see terrorist strap PSPs to their chest and run towards one

"The PS2 is so powerful, hackers could use it to launch nukes!"

"The Nintendo DS couldn't display half the quality of this nuclear holocaust"

And PSPgo offers 16gb of extra badda bing badda BOOM!!

Lol @ Zertoss.

I remember hearing on the news about shipments of PS2's that had to be gaurded because terrorists would want such awesome computing power. .

PSP? Nuclear Holocaust? .... how great would FO be on the PSP

Guess that explains why they wanted to release duke nukem on PSP still

lol

that is damn funny

They were really addicted to Monster Hunter, lol

In their defense, Lumines is pretty hard to put down.

well, if it was peggle id understand.

WTH is peggle. Never heard of it.

L O L

I didn't think it was that easy to set off nuclear weapons. I mean, don't you have to have something like 4 simultaneous detonators? Unless the PSP has wifi capabilities I wasn't aware of.

How well did you read the manual that came with your PSP?
Look under "Setting of Nuclear Devices" page 36.

Apparently the PSP manual came with some typos.

Having worked at a nuclear power plant before, I'd say that the no-transmitting devices rule doesn't really have anything to do with a risk of things blowing up, but more to do with the fact that anything that transmits can potentially interfere with sensitive radiological monitoring equipment, causing alarms to go off and failsafes to trip when there actually is no real problem.

We always had to turn off our cell-phones and radios when entering the control room at the plant for fear of inadvertantly tripping a safety system and causing the reactor to shut itself down (which would in turn lose the plant a lot of money; a powerplant not making electricity makes management grumpy).

I understand where you're coming from, but don't you agree there's a bit of a difference between a nuclear power plant and a NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANT? Like maybe a FEW HUNDRED WARHEADS?

I think they were more concerned with the possible (although highly unlikely) triggering of the devices.

Doubtful firstly because they most likely never assemble the device(s) in question to a point where they could detonate. Generally things like that happen until said device(s) are transported to their new "permanent" home and even then generally munitions nuclear or otherwise are stored as such the detonator is typically not installed until its ready to be used.

I could see random transmissions setting off safety systems that would potentially shut the whole place down and I would agree management would not be a happy camper. Not to mention possibly disrupting extremely sensitively calibrated sensors that are responsible for say making sure that the core material is being separated properly. That could result in a bad batch with less yield than it should have that probably won't make it past QA.

now you're playing with power

Sony does what Nintendon't!

See, if it was an Iphone you'd be in trouble. Someone would for sure make a detonator app you can download for a buck.

But you're not supposed to use iTunes to develop Nuclear, Chemical, or Biological weapons!

Well too bad, I've gone and made my own Killer App!!!

MWAAAHAAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

What does Itunes have to do with anything?

I don't know. We were on the topic of Apple products, and that is actually stated in the iTunes Terms of Use. I'm guessing it applies to iPods as well.

I didn't know I could use MP3's to develop weapons...?

Want nuke the world?

There's an app for that.

@MystileArmor -- MP3's used to develop nuclear devices are the sole reason Coldplay exists!

Couldn't they just tell their boss they turned the WLAN switch to 'off'?

This is the funniest shit ive read since the guy who broke out of jail in a box all solid snake like.

Ah I remember that. Good times, good times...

Huh? ... Just a box.

holy shit did someone really??? any chance you could link dat shit.

it was an old joystiq playstation article.

http://playstation.joystiq.com/2008/11/18/man-escapes-prison-in-a-cardboard-box-mgs-style/

wow, i thought the title was exaggerating. apparently it wasn't. these guys are either complete idiots, or hardcore monster hunters.

gotta catch 'em all.

I liked the Pussy Willows commercial better though the squirrel one is alright.

Here's the Pussy Willows one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p_PBCsyy74

They can replace the 3 guards with Natal and the PS Eyetoy.
Program some software to recognize the staff of the factory. Everyone else walks by, Natal doesn't recognize them and then a shitload of turrets come out of the sealing!!

Yes, yes.. I know, I got quite the imagination.

And the appetite too. ;)

I know this is completely offtopic, but you've got a great blog, dude.
Very impressive, enjoyable to read and informative.

Thanks, I kind of expected more of negative responses from people cause basically I'm spamming via my username and it usually....well you know what I mean....

I don't think most people have a problem with you sticking it in your username. It's those assholes that post "LOL" in their comment box with nothing else in it, and then sign it with their bullshit websites.

Your site is actually quite an interesting read.

That's why I never do any of that.

Lets face it, we all hate spammers, even I; I hate it more than Halo(jk). Last thing I want to do is put my blog in my post cause I really don't think people are here for that. Their here to see funny posts about funny articles on a gaming website not to see an ad for a dating site or someone's blog about nothing. If someone wants to visit my site, I want them to visit out of curiosity not because I put it at the end of a short post about nothing.

/rant

Anyway....back on topic, I just know that I could never work at a nuclear plant. I love my DS and PSP to ever let them down.

*ceiling*

sorry, that was bothering me

Is it really that big a deal? I wound think these rules are put in place out of paranoia rather than common sense. I would hope the computer systems that drive our nuclear arsenal aren't so sensitive that a stray phone call or 2.4GHz signal causes them to go haywire.

If you read Shariq Ansari's comment, you wouldn't have asked this question.

Oh and just to piss you off: NUTSHIT!!

Yeah, guess I missed that. His post makes sense though and is a good piece of trivia.

Also, surprised you remembered that. You were so mean in your reply :(

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Three guards suspended for nearly blowing up planet with PSP

Reader Comments (83)

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 12:20AM (Unverified) said

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