Urban OS?

Somebody has delusions of grandeur. McLaren Electronic Systems is dreaming of automated cities, where an overarching OS handles I/O and cities can plan resource use and messaging to have warnings and activities coordinated.

What are the problems with this? First, the model of the city and its functions is necessarily schematic, and hasn't the details or the friction of real life. The sensors measuring traffic flow will read differently after a snowfall, the fire sensor in building X will be vandalized, the email server will be clogged with spam--you name it. Simple management programs will give results as blithely out of touch with reality as any Soviet 5-year plan.

So the beautiful monitoring program will have to include crosschecks and validations and authentications until it is bloated and untestable. The system will have a "HACK ME" sign pasted on it the size of the moon.

Need firemen? Think "Blue screen of death." Or that OS stands for "Oh &%$!"