[Kosh]

Found this "classic" online a while back, so on the 10th anneversary of the self pwnage that was the y2k hysteria, I thought it would be good to look back on such nonsense as this.

Writing this in April of � I believe that we are in for a serious event. Systems will fail, crash, seize up, cease to function. Not all systems, maybe only a fraction, but enough, and enough interdependent systems to affect many other systems. Y2K is real. Y2K is going to rock our world.

    People will consequently suffer. I don抔 know how much. Some people may lose their lives - but more likely at the hands of a disabled medical establishment than because of civil disorder, loss of power, starvation, bad water, or other projected horrors (though these, too, are possible). Some will suffer the loss of fortunes, some of any income whatsoever, and many of something in between. Quite a few will find themselves suddenly without an occupation, and few ideas about how to make themselves useful to other people (without occupations themselves). Many will suffer a loss of comfort and modern convenience, and if that goes on any longer than a week, it may escalate into serious problems of public sanitation and infectious disease.

[MR_T3D]

the closet thing we've had to y2k is the ps3's not working on march 1st this year, because they though it was feb.29th

[Rodo]

haha y2k... I remember being upset about that, what a waste of time since nothing really happened.

[Klaustrophobia]

i was 11 when all that crap started up.  i remember my dad (worked for IBM) being on "emergency call" and having to stay rediculously late/go back in to work at all hours of the night.  i asked what Y2K was, and he explained that to save space only the last 2 digits of the year were used for dates.  to which my child-perspective response was,  "So?"

[Bobboau]

well the reason why nothing happened is because the entire computer industry spent like three years grinding there collective asses off trying to fix it before it caused a real problem.

[karajorma]

Exactly. People come out with crap about how Y2K wasn't a problem, ignoring the fact that people spent years making sure it wouldn't be a problem.

the closet thing we've had to y2k is the ps3's not working on march 1st this year, because they though it was feb.29th

Which is a great example of what Y2K would have been like if people hadn't fixed the issues it caused.

[Mongoose]

I wonder if we still have that "Y2K Compliance" 3.5" floppy floating around here somewhere.  I should hold onto that.

[Bob-san]

Exactly. People come out with crap about how Y2K wasn't a problem, ignoring the fact that people spent years making sure it wouldn't be a problem.

the closet thing we've had to y2k is the ps3's not working on march 1st this year, because they though it was feb.29th

Which is a great example of what Y2K would have been like if people hadn't fixed the issues it caused.

And it was only a problem because people designed a lot of software without regards for the approach of the 21st century. It was patched over in almost every regard. The biggest problems with computers and time, recently, has been Microsoft screwing up the new DST updates, and having scheduled appointments bumped forwards/backwards an hour.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well there was that banking floating point problem this year due to 10 = 16.  Guess those programmers figured they wouldn't have to worry about it since the would would be dead by now.

[karajorma]

And it was only a problem because people designed a lot of software without regards for the approach of the 21st century.

To be fair, a lot of the time, the coders didn't think people would still be using their code in 20-30 years time so it's hardly surprising they didn't consider that.

[Bob-san]

And it was only a problem because people designed a lot of software without regards for the approach of the 21st century.

To be fair, a lot of the time, the coders didn't think people would still be using their code in 20-30 years time so it's hardly surprising they didn't consider that.

Agreed. They also didn't think they'd be using the same methods decades down the line.

[Klaustrophobia]

never underestimate cost-cutting cheap-outs 

our nuclear reactors still run on code from the 60s 

[Nuke]

that old code is probably much more efficient than the modern bloatware that todays industry puts out. i was trying to download the most recent windows sdk and was pretty concerned that it was one point four gigs. how can anyone hope to make semi-decent code with such megalithic sdks to work with?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Also just like NASA a  lot of that stuff has to be tested for years before being approved for use due to the conditions and reliability needed. 


BTW does anyone know when that next big clock issue is supposed to happen?  Something about unix time needing an extra digit?  Or did that happen already and it was just another panic for nothing?

[karajorma]

The big one is the Unix Epoch. But that's not for another 28 years or so.

[Bobboau]

yeah, that one is gonna be a *****.

[Nuke]

i bet it will happen exactly one day after linux pewns windows

[Kosh]

Exactly. People come out with crap about how Y2K wasn't a problem, ignoring the fact that people spent years making sure it wouldn't be a problem.

the closet thing we've had to y2k is the ps3's not working on march 1st this year, because they though it was feb.29th

Which is a great example of what Y2K would have been like if people hadn't fixed the issues it caused.

To be fair:

The lack of Y2K-related problems in countries such as Italy, which undertook a far more limited remediation effort than the United States. In an October 22, 1999, report, a US Senate Committee expressed concern about safe travel outside of the United States. The report stated that overseas public transit systems were considered vulnerable because many did not have an aggressive response plan in place for any problems. Internationally, the report singled out Italy, China and Russia as poorly prepared. The Australian government  evacuated all but three embassy staff from Russia.[35]  None of these countries experienced any Y2K problems regarded as worth reporting.[36]

# The lack of Y2K-related problems in schools, many of which undertook little or no remediation effort. By September 1, 1999 only 28 percent of US schools had achieved compliance for mission critical systems, and a government report predicted that "Y2K failures could very well plague the computers used by schools to manage payrolls, student records, online curricula, and building safety systems".[33]
# The lack of Y2K-related problems in an estimated 1.5 million small businesses that undertook no remediation effort. On 3 January 2000 (the first weekday of the year) the Small Business Administration received an estimated 40 calls from businesses with computer problems, similar to the average. None of the problems were critical.[34]

So there were countries that did almost nothing to prepare and very little happened. Would it have caused the electricity to go out, social collapse, the end of the world? I'm not so sure. The vast majority of predicts, hype, and hysteria was 100% bulloks.

[karajorma]

Most of those countries didn't have computer systems quite as old as America did though.

As I stated before the biggest problem was with code written decades before 2000.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

never underestimate cost-cutting cheap-outs 

our nuclear reactors still run on code from the 60s 

Say, doesn't our light bulb use "code" from the 1880s?