One of the many perks of having outdated, clunky software with which to run your entire library is enduring the occasional techno temper tantrum. Just the other morning, I walked into work to find Horizon on the fritz, which wasn't entirely unusual. What did catch my eye was the particular error message generated when we foolishly attempted to scan a book:
Fatal Horizon (Internal) Error
LbSync.Destroy: invalid semaphore handle
After noting the oddity of the Horizon's wrathful message that it wanted to "destroy" something--not to mention wondering what on earth semaphore has to do with it all--we tried the usual method of rebooting our machine into submission. Of course, this didn't work (initially), and we were left to puzzle over what the little guys waving the flags in there were thinking. Whatever bad mood had originally possessed our check-in station seemed to dissipate by the afternoon. And they say machines will never be able to replicate the range of human emotion...
