Am I Alone After the World Collapsed?!? 284
My trusty Linux box seems to be working. No nuclear-looking glow from Washington DC (20 miles South of me). Guess all that's left to do is drink up the the stock of bourbon whiskey I accumulated "just in case."
No word from Holland, Michigan yet, but I suppose if the Midwest had been nuked or otherwise returned to the stone age, somebody would have submitted it by now, so I guess CmdrTaco, Hemos, CowboyNeal and the other Geek Compound denizens are okay (aside from possible massive hangovers, but you didn't hear that from me, oh no no no...)
So here we are in Y2K, preparing to face a crisis The Mainstream Media hasn't hardly mentioned: The Wetware Rollover Bug!
Do you have any idea how many people are going to write the wrong date on checks and other documents for (at least) the next month or two?
A frightening thought!
But Happy New Year anyway. ;-)
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
(on behalf of sleeping friends and co-workers everywhere.)
meta first! (Score:3)
Heh (Score:1)
Looks like year 2000 is sunny (Score:1)
Amazing. Happy new year.
Joanna
Re:meta first! (Score:2)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
OPEN SOURCE COLLAPSE (Score:1)
thank you.
Nothing has changed (Score:3)
Now let's see what kind of loser would be on the computer right after midnight instead of at some party... whoops, that would be me.
[gildaradner] Nevermind. [/gildaradner]
--Tom
Vancouver checks out (Score:1)
kafer.
Re:meta first! (Score:2)
y2g, yo (Score:1)
It's the end of the world as we know it... (Score:3)
A much better song to usher in the 2000s than Prince's stupid "1999", in my opinion.
Now that the afterlife has started for pretty much the whole world, things don't feel much different, but there's something downright weird about saying farewell to the 19xxs. It's like a door has closed. Hopefully, another one has opened as well.
Best wishes you
Y2K fun... (Score:1)
I was at a new years party and one of the other geeks there needed to log into the systems at his work. So he fires up his laptop (provided by work). Jan 4th, 1980... It even had a Y2K ready sticker on it. We all had a bit of a laugh. As for the systems at work, all up and running fine. They were all UNIX boxes of one sort or another.
On the way home I went past one stoplight that was out. Don't know if it was Y2K related or not.
Apart from the small nuclear war (Score:2)
Only joking...
The best way to avoid hangover (Score:2)
Perl! (Score:3)
1-1-100
Sweden (Score:1)
Maybe it was the end of something... (Score:2)
Getting Worried There :-) (Score:2)
Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan? (Score:4)
And I still can't believe that my apartment managers decided do shut down the elevator before midnight "To show that management is prepared for Y2K".
Please! In this supposed time and age, why do people insist on believing outright fallacies...UFO's, alien abductions, the Aurora Project , Y2K bug, armageddon, demons, virgin Mary visions...the list goes on and on.
What will be the new demons of the next century? Solar flares wiping out life on Earth? The conjunction of the planets coming, I believe, in May, causing major natural catastrophies (like, all the volcanoes on Earth erupting at once...talk about extra fibre in your diet!). Or maybe there'll be a widespread and deadly flu epidemic...Or perhaps the world will be destroyed sometime in 2040 like some nostradamus enthusiasts believe.
Choose your poison...but hey, maybe it'll make you rich!
At any rate, hear's a toast to those of us who aren't hiding in makeshift bunkers!
May this year be the Year of the Space Moose!
Re:Nothing has changed (Score:1)
You legend (Score:1)
Maybe one bug... (Score:1)
Has anyone heard any reports from places like Iraq which had allegedly done no Y2K preparation at all?
damn it! (Score:3)
now i have to find some way to explain to my boss that i didn't really mean those things i said to him last year. Hmmm... I really wish i hadn't quit my job, and invested all my money in 2 ply toilet paper. Oh well, i will figure something out by monday...
Re:You're not alone (Score:4)
Not here in Europe we didn't. Millennium paranoia (stockpiling water, food, guns & ammo etc) seems to be almost uniquely an American phenomenon.
British concerns are really more or less limited to the effects upon business. Apart from that I guess we're only expecting some minor inconveniences over the next couple of months.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:meta first! (Score:1)
Re:Perl! (Score:1)
I think we will have a great time hacking all our perl scripts to handle these things right.
Seems I'm lucky. All my scripts seem to work right at the moment. (Also the shell scripts which use `date')
Re:y2g, yo (Score:1)
Been there, done that
Too bad it was kinda short (RHCP were performing only 1.5 hours), Metallica was on stage for 2.5-3 hours!!!
Well, anyway Happy New Year!!!
P.S.
Is it me, or Flea totally gone nuts?
Japan had some nuclear-problems! (Score:1)
Re:Perl! (Score:1)
Congratulations... (Score:5)
We knew all along there was nothing to worry about. Most programmers have thought they were working in 2001 for the past twenty years anyway.
We worried the banks, we scared Wall Street witless, we even joined forces with Micro$oft to spread the word of doom.
We told the suits-that-hold-the-purse-strings that all our computers needed replacing immediately, when we weren't due for a real upgrade for another 18 months.
We convinced everyone that IT staff would need to be paid extra for millenium cover, but knew all along we wouldn't get a single serious call.
We got all the braindead Windows@Home users to rush out to their nearest PC stores to replace perfectly good 166mmx's, and to stock up with a years supply of tinned beans on their way home - simultaneously bringing down the prices of PC's and geek-food ATST!
In short, we win!
Re:meta first! (Score:1)
But despite the fact that everyone seems to know and accept this, no one really seems to care. I cant help but wonder what next year will be like. "Lets bring in the new Millennium... again!". People are weird.
Windows98SE box slagged. Who'da thunk it? (Score:2)
So, either Win98SE *does* have a fatal Y2K bug and Microsoft just aren't talking...or else I've been hit by one of those Y2K viruses. I *did* have Norton Antivirus on my system a few months ago but was forced to remove it because of the stability problems it seemed to be causing
Catch 22 eh?
I'm running that old NAV from the rescue disks right now. It's been going for about 9 hours now and still hasn't found anything. But they are not exactly up-to-date anyway.
Has anyone experienced any similar problems? And does anyone just happen to have, handily downloadable from their home page, a set of NAV rescue floppy images with up-to-date virus defs? Pleeeeeease?
Happy new year everybody. Even Microsoft.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Dissent... (Score:1)
Big Y2K Problems in Australia!! (Score:4)
As you know we were one of the first countries to go through the rollover, and whilst your media was preparing to televise and stream your parties, they seemed to neglect the tremendous chaos that was going on down under.
As the clock approached midnight, i was at a friends apartment for an intimate gathering, and we had the tv on with a big display counting down.
00:05
00:04
00:03
00:02
00:01
00:00
Cheers everywhere from the drug induced gathering, except for one guy who had his watch upside-down and was convived we still had 6 hours to go.
Anyway, my point is that nothing went wrong during the actual rollover, but during the next few hours things started failing... the first thing i noticed was the some street lamps, and some shopfront lighting dimming. I was drunk, so i didnt take much notice of it, but in retrospect it was the beginning of the end.
As people crammed on the special 24 hour public transport, some trams started to fail. Most people figured the heavy load at 3am was stressing the system, and although mentioned briefly over the city-wide PA, the announcers were cautious to stress that this was not Y2K related.
I came home at around 4am, between 2 parties to have a quick shower, and check slashdot.. Just wanted to see how the world was faring up against this genormous evil that was facing the computers.
Slashdot didnt have much to say, nor did my computer.. I switched it on, heard the HDD start spinning, and jumped into the shower whilst my pc booted. I got out of the shower to find that my computer (which i was quite sure was Y2K compliant) was just booting, spinning the HDD, and rebooting.. I was a bit baffled and went to turn up my dim lights... Although when i got to the switch, they were already on full, but only shining half..
This scenario was not new to me, we have a power pole with a transformer on it just outside my window, and every now and then a possum manages to fry himself on the terminals and gives us a brown-out. So i popped outside, expecting to see a fried carcass.. But it was hard to see, all the street lights were out... Now that was fscked up, because the street lights run on a different grid in out street. Some serious shit was going down.
Anyway, i stayed at home for the next few hours, phones were dead, and lights were dead.
To cut a long story short, its 10:30PM here, and all the computers are still screwed, and we are without power.
I havent even been able to see
I think im gonna start suffering withdrawal symptoms soon
Um, doesn't the millennium start in 2001 ?
PS: my websites down, i forgot to pay the DNS fee.. Any windows geek wanna pay it for me ??
Hello Montana! (Score:2)
Hey guys, you can come out now. No, we are are not radioactive zombies who want to eat your brains.
Honest.
(heh heh)
Seattle (Score:1)
Even though they cancelled the Space Needle party, the crowd in Pioneer Square just outside Zazu was an acceptable substitute. (not to mention the 3 or 4 SPD officers stationed just outside each bar)
The funny thing was, since there wasnt a giant clock to watch, you had this huge mob of people standing around looking at the their watches/pagers/cell phones, waiting for the big moment.
As far as rioting goes -- there wasn't any at all where I was. The only injury I sustained was getting stuck in the leg by some guy's lit cigar.
Re:OPEN SOURCE COLLAPSE (Score:1)
Checks (Score:1)
Re:One cheque wrong already -- the wrong way! (Score:1)
Mainframes (Score:2)
Happy 19100 :-)
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:1)
I always did chuckle when their newsletters asked for renewal submissions for after the new year.
Keep bringing on the beer, I say!
We had two problems (Score:1)
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:2)
Well quite a few will be trying to figure out what to do with a two year supply of canned beans. Perhaps a few will kill themselves to escape the embaressment of being so paniced about the biggest non-event of the milennium. But I figure most will just find some excuse about how the NWO canceled their evil(tm) plans because the nutbars were too ready for them, or some such nonsense.
On the up side, we should see slashed prices on generators. Giving us all a great way to keep our machines up durring power outages.
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:1)
y2k is a real problem, turned into a surreal media frenzy.
the story resonated and gave justification to any loon's cockamamy (sp) reason for why the universe will implode on y2k.
The formula goes: Problem + Media = Random Number Generator
Wonder if there's a bit of chaos theory in there... try to predict how the media will *report* the problem to viewers... as compared to the actual nature of the problem.... can't be done
NT not OK? (Score:1)
Re:meta first! (Score:1)
While the rest of you feared falling back... (Score:1)
www.lsu.edu
Re:meta first! (Score:2)
A little history (Score:1)
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:1)
<useless comment>
I love that book! It reintroduced me to something that American society is slowly forgetting to teach its youth... SKEPTICISM!!
</useless comment>
Actually, you can teach a donkey how to sing, but he will still sound like an ass...
--
Kir
Everything's fine... (Score:1)
...except my little alarm clock: Casio Digital Light Clock TCL-100 stubbornly shows date as
12.31
Anybody else out there with the same model by chance? :)
The only trouble so far. Did not have to make a door stop out of my Palm IIIx, my Linux box is humming away peacefully... Weather is great: it is sunny and still...
What happenerd to User-Friendly? (Score:1)
Here's what i can figure out so far (pretty difficult since Pitr is known to have, well, "unaurthodoex" grammer: Encrypted=Decrypted
L=Y
X=K
(i assume he's saying Y2K...)
N=A,I
V=I,A
if G=S -> B=E
if G=T -> B=O
F=S (?)
QVQ is said twice...
Any thoughts?
Re:Big Y2K Problems in Australia!! (Score:1)
I commend you on your forethought and would pour you a drink, but my bouron was not y2k compliant... which meant.. of course... that I had to finish it before y2k!
Millenium starts whenever the crud we want it to (Score:1)
Instead of recording years when some Roman religious nuts decided to we should count the date as seconds from when Unix was created.
Also lets be good C programmers and say the new millienium starts on 2000 not 2001.
It's spelled: dead (Score:1)
rodent...
Re:meta first! (Score:1)
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:3)
"Oh, no! The world hasn't ended! Oh, wait...silly us...the new millennium isn't until next year. Keep preaching it, brothers!"
--
Shit, wrong word: Manufacturer (Score:1)
rodent...
not only perl... (Score:1)
Re:What happenerd to User-Friendly? (Score:2)
jryy vg ybbxf yvxr gur l2x oht qvqa'g erne vg'f htyl urnq.
well it looks like the y2k bug didn't rear it's unly head.
lrc. gur qbbzfnlref unir orra cebira jebat lrg ntnva.
yep. the doomsayers have been proven wrong yet again.
qvq lbh frr gung gbb?
did you see that too?
ubhfgba. jr unir n ceboyrz
houston. we have a problem.
Re:Nothing has changed (Score:1)
Re:A little history (Score:1)
a) 0 A.D.
b) 0 B.C.
c) 1 B.C.
d) 1 A.D.
:-)
Re:Netscape/Java Y2K bug? (Score:1)
Re:It's the end of the world as we know it... (Score:1)
Re:Congratulations... (Score:2)
Where did all the money supposedly spent on fixing this 'problem' really go?
Hmm...
More importantly, to what extent am I joking?
Happy New Year's! (Score:1)
--
BlackHat Linux 6.66 (Discordia)
Dan Kissam e-mail: teeheehee@yahoo.com
Re:What happenerd to User-Friendly? (Score:1)
Re:A little history (Score:1)
Re:Windows98SE box slagged. Who'da thunk it? (Score:1)
I am writing this on a Win98SE Box (Notebook) and it rebootet just fine...
So my guess is Virus.
Michael
Re:Windows98SE box slagged. Who'da thunk it? (Score:2)
All is well.
Welcome to oblivion (Score:2)
Re:A little history (Score:3)
Still, it's hard to believe that the Romans, who were very active bureaucrats, would leave no record at all of Jesus' crucifixion. There is no record of a Barabbas either. Therefore, scholars who have an objective viewpoint on this matter assume that Christ lived before that time. I think the most accepted date for his crucifixion is 88 B.C., there are historical records of a rabbi who was crucified in that year. If he was 33 at the time, he was born on 121 B.C.
Going to work soon (Score:2)
Management decided to take all computer systems down: the servers, the digital phone network, the elevators (even though the building was locked yesterday afternoon), and the electroninc locks on the doors.
Obviously nothing went wrong, I have dialed into the server that I didn't bring down and it is fine. So, I get a day of comp time for going in and playing Unreal Tournament.
Y2K: The biggest hoax ever.
Re:Congratulations... (Score:3)
OK, now we don't need the COBOL programmers for 8000 years, their glory days are over now.
and Happy Happy Joy Joy! in 2038 it's glory days for C programmers. C programs calculate time as seconds back from 1.1.1970 and the counter is a typedef long int __time_t; which should be fun. A few needed hints to make sure as many C programmers as possible get paid really well:
Make sure your fellow C programmers get well paid jobs for 2038.. heck it worked very well for the COBOL people :-)
It's should've been end of the world, and I feel fine.. :-)
Re:meta first! (Score:2)
The hospitals are eerily quiet in Edinburgh (Score:2)
The total absence of Y2K related badness is almost suspicious...
--
this just sucks... (Score:2)
As usual, the verdict is already in before the opening arguments are complete. I guess the press needed something to do, and since there was no crisis, they reported the party as if it were a crisis. "The Y2k preparedness center has just received word that the entire town of Elko is out of beer. FEMA is on hand to deliver 6-packs to those left beerless by the disaster."
The main impact, if any, will be on date calculations (duh? DUH!), like receivables, payables, debt collection and/or writeoff, bill creation, payroll, etc...It will take some weeks (or the whole year) to shake out the remaining bugs. All of this "No problems, told you so," is a bunch of self-congratulatory feelgood bs for a splashy headline.
We'll need to watch the message boards for inside info on who got bitten, because no organization I can think of is going to stand up and say "Hey, we lost $xxx,000 this week because __________ didn't calculate dates correctly...."
Re:What happenerd to User-Friendly? (Score:2)
Hapy 1900, everyone! (or 19100 if you'ew just cat'ing your dates still!
David
bash: ispell: command not found
Re:meta first! (Score:2)
The last millenium was celebrated by Western culture in 1033, which was regarded as the millenial anniversary of Christ's death.
I'm sure that scratched on the stone
Re:A little history (Score:2)
Re:You're not alone (Score:2)
I know one french guy who was fucking freaking out. He 's in an apocalyptic cult, so ... But I know of many more merkins who are freaking out. Oh yeah they'r christians, that's why. When the god you believe in is depicted as such a rude and demanding one ("don't do this! don't do that! do this or you will burn in hell! do NOT look at naked women EVEN if I made you fancy it!"), you can understand it.
Now, Monday, I will give them a ring, "Hey, whassup dude? How's your apocalypse going?"
My prediction for the 21st Century (Score:2)
Chris
Re:y2g, yo (Score:2)
If they hadn't gotten sick, I WOULD have had plans last night
The Register Y2K article not Y2K compliant? (Score:2)
BBC Radio One hit by
Y2K bug...
Updated Mother Shipton
fired by Register
Posted 01/01/0 9:08am
I think that it's particularly funny that it's an article making fun of other people's web pages. Maybe it's subtle humour?
Re:Windows98SE box slagged. Who'da thunk it? (Score:2)
VERY good thing, because I just can't squeeze the fps from Q3A Linux & UT Linux I can from their Windows counterparts -- plus, I'm too lazy to configure pppd, so until I get back to college, no net in Linux.
I had that kind of problem last year, last time my Windows system went kaput. Very likely you'll have to format c: --
You can check bootlog.txt & see just what it stops loading at -- for me, it was when it was trying to load the driver for the floppy drive -- I wouldn't have ever guessed
Re:It bit me! (Score:3)
But something happened which I did not forsee -- the drain at the bottom of the ride was about 1000 times his size, and there was no mesh for protection. It was a short celebration, but I'm sure he was happy, being the official bug & everything. But the way his legs were moving around, seemingly trying to scramble up the sides of the ride -- now in hindsight, I'm not sure.
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:2)
On the up side, we should see slashed prices on generators. Giving us all a great way to keep our machines up durring power outages.
Good answer! I NEED one for this winter since we get power failures all the time normally (except last night when all was well). Should be pretty cheap!
Re:Ever read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (Score:2)
You are not alone (Score:2)
"The lights are on. We still have power!"
"Let's call Gary and congratulate him on a job well done."
Half the people at the party were on call last night. Not a single pager or cell phone went off. And better still, mine didn't start going off at 6 am today. It was a quiet night.
I still want to find the most alarmist Y2K book for a review in a few weeks. I want one that made lots of specific predictions of disasters. I want power outages and plane crashes and nuclear melt downs. I want to give some hysterical author and publisher who spouted gloom and doom to increase sales exactly what they deserve
Re:meta first! (Score:2)
Notice how my manque first post has been moderated down twice as a troll, but the winner has been moderated up to +4 "funny".
Go figure.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Paperware Rollover Bug (Score:2)
I sat down to write checks for several bills this morning. The date field on my checks already has a "19" filled in for the first two digits of the year. I toyed briefly with the idea of just writing a "00" after this, so that the checks would all be dated a century ago.
Re:Windows98SE box slagged. Who'da thunk it? (Score:2)
Why me! WHY ME???? Boo hoo - now I'm facing the umpteenth reformat and reinstall along with twenty apps and all their patches
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:You're not alone (Score:2)
Are americans christians? Well much more than the french. French politicians don't bother showing at Church to get good press. When French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin says he's an atheist, nobody thrashes him, unlike Jesse Ventura.
BTW my girlfriend believed the american motto was 'in god we trust' (which was just added on the bills in the 30s I believe), whereas it's 'e pluribus unum' if I'm not mistaken. So
REAL Y2K PROBLEMS!!! (Score:2)
1) A First post message (done by someone other than the person who wrote the article) gets a score of 5!
2) When you're watching the Y2K countdouns all over the world and you KNOW they're NOT using XNTP to synchronize time, because the time on the countdown on the TV is DIFFERENT from the countdown in the actual party which is different from the clock on the same TV which is even different than your sattelite clock synched XNTP computer
3) When we suddenly discover the real power of theory of relativity because we are suddenly 17100 years in the future (19100) or 190000 years in the future (192000) and the technology hasn't changed.
4) When we realize we travelled back in time to the year 100.
5) When everyone get's paged just after midnight
Well.. Last night I turned on all my 4 computers @ home just to see if I can find anything in the logs over the midnight period.. It was nice to see no downtimes anywhere near the rollover.. my cable provider did go down for a few seconds this morning.. but nothing Y2K related.
For those of you interested.. the year 100 and 19100 are perl script errors due to concatenating the year 99, or 100 to the end of "19"
The year 192000 originated from problematic Java/Javascripts.. Java was written very stupidly.. If the year is = 2000 it would suddenly report a 4 digit year. this would make it slightly annoying to program something that is Y2K compliant and Pre-Y2K compliant.
it would have to look something like
if (now.getDate() 100) document.write(1900 + now.getDate());
else document.write(now.getDate());
Anyway.. Enjoy.. Happy Y2K.. l8z
Re:A little history (Score:3)
Re:Apropos of nothing (Score:2)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:Hello Montana! (Score:2)
I doubt you'll derive much nutritional value from their brains..
(and FYI, I did Y2k work for an investment bank for awhile, and we found some really interesting bugs, but most of the issues were cosmetic, and Y2k was not something to stick with: it tended to suck out all of your will to live...)
Your Working Boy,
So how many of Nostradamus' predictions.... (Score:2)
Inquiring minds want to know.. Any Nostradamus junkies out there looking to revalidate the master?
Happy new year!
Your Working Boy,
Re:You're not alone (Score:2)
What's your problem with Europeans? I think we should all be much more tolerant of other people attacking our beliefs.
So for example it's OK for Ventura to attack religious bigots if that's what he feels is right, and it's OK to attack homosexuals and other perverts too if you feel it's wrong.
People performing these attacks are just expressing themselves in a completely natural way. It's unhealthy (as well as unfair) to force people to repress their deepest feelings.
(I think...)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:You're not alone (Score:2)
Besides Americans being more Christian is better than the French being more adulterers.
Well, it's just a blowjob, so it's not adultere, right?
Re:You're not alone (Score:2)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction