FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Iran's Most Famous Monument Briefly Became a Tribute to Windows 7

Video footage from Tehran shows a 150-foot projection of the Windows 7 desktop on Iran's Azadi Tower.
Image: Reza H. Akbari/Twitter

Here at Motherboard, we’re big fans of Windows’ infamous “blue screen of death” popping up in unexpected public places. Although it’s not technically a blue screen of death—the display on a Windows computer when it has experienced a fatal system error—a video cropped up on Twitter last night showing the Windows 7 desktop projected on to one of Iran’s most famous monuments.

Reza H. Akbari, a program manager with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, originally posted the video showing the Windows desktop projected on the Azadi Tower. The person filming the video cracks a joke about how the person running the projector could have “at least installed Windows 10.”

The Azadi Tower is a 150-foot tall marble monument, whose name translates to “Freedom Tower.” It was originally built in the early 1970s to commemorate the 2,500 anniversary of the foundation of the Persian Empire. It is uncertain why the massive projection was on the tower in the first place. As security researcher Nima Fatemi suggested on Twitter, it may very well have been that a visual artist forgot to turn off their screensaver.

Read More: Public Blue Screens of Death Remind Us That Life is a Farce

These blue screen gaffs remind us that technology isn’t the infallible monolith we often make it out to be, and that behind these seemingly impenetrable technologies is that all too human propensity for error. But for what it’s worth, whoever is behind the Azadi Tower projection should probably update their Windows computer before they get pwnd by a Meltdown exploit.