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Am I Alone After the World Collapsed?!?
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.)
First Post of First Article of the Millennium! or something.
God Fucking Damnit
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
Tom Geller
...and I feel fine.
/. folks. Hope all of your geekery is successful in the near and distant future.
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
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Actually I've seen a couple of badly programmed Perl scripts around the world (They at first displayed the year in a two digit format, '99' became -> '100'), looks kindof funny :)
1-1-100
I'm wondering how the wacko cults are handling this...the world hasn't ended. Armageddon hasn't happened.
:)
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!
This sucks! I thought the world was going to end.
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...
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
Funny thing is, everybody expected a worst-case-scenario.
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
to the rest of the IT industry - we pulled it off! The biggest scam of the last millenium!
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!
insignificant sig
Well.. Whilst you all may be rejoicing over the survival of your linux boxen etc.. Down here in australia things havent gone so well..
/. yet :(
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 ??
:wq ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Oh, no! The world hasn't ended! Oh, wait...silly us...the new millennium isn't until next year. Keep preaching it, brothers!"
--
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The right answer is 1 B.C., if we accept Dionysius Exiguus' count. So, Christ was born Before Christ, on 25/12/1 B.C. 1/1/1 A.D. was the day he was circumsized. But, from historic records, we know that king Herodes died on 4 B.C., so the real date must have been before that.
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.
I found a sitting spider on my computer sometime around 12:30AM EST, so I named him the official millenium bug & celebrated by taking him to the porcelin water slide screw ride. When I pressed the metal handle to start the ride, I could tell he was having a great deal of fun celebrating his millennial status, swirling all around on the ride and everything.
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.
well, there's some other evidence. Here's what I remember. On the shroud that Jesus was buried in for example, (yes we have it today, it's at the Vatican, and it's a long story how it got there and how we know it's authentic) there were 2 coins placed on Jesus' eyes (Jewish custom) which were minted by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in around 28 - 33 A.D. There was also the star - iirc, a supernova that there are records of. Herod the Great who was king of judea at the time Jesus was born was known for being a rather cruel king (executed 2 of his sons, that sort of thing) and probably wouldn't have had a problem killing all the baby boys under 2 years old if one of them was going to replace him. IIRC, there was also some stuff with Emporer Tiberius, I think when St. Paul went to Rome - I don't have my history book with me (trying to get *away* from school this vacation)