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Xdaliclock Fails Y2k (But Everything Else Seems Fine)
Tracy R Reed writes "Like any real geek I was near my computer and used the xntpd-synchronized time to determine when midnight really struck. As soon as it happened, xdaliclock did something strange!" Besides the terrifying xdaliclock crisis, 2600 had a great page up that seemed to fool quite a number of Slashdot readers. Several other joke websites popped up, and several others had real (minor) glitches. So far I've heard rumors of an ATM system that went down for a few minutes, and some radiation monitors that messed up for a bit. But apparently that was about it. The most overhyped event in years. Enjoy the day off if you get one!
I was so sick of people saying the definitely nothing would go wrong and everything would be fine. Sure in the end that was the case - but that is with hindsight and after all the effort that was put in beforehand.
Looking at the posts about various systems still up and running, many of them seem to be of the sort: "Hey, Windows/Linux/whatever is still running on my desktop - bah, I knew that the Y2k bug was all hype."
Having worked in both the engineering and enterprise IT industries, I have worked with many many large systems, and you are right redtoade, many systems are old and archaic ... and also essential in the day to day operation of the business.
Collegues who have worked with me in the past year on the Y2k problem anticipated that the transition would be a fizzer (ie quiet) after all the work that they had done, but no-one would be so naive to claim that Y2k was all hype.
These comments come from guys on the front line. Most people don't have this experience and extrapolate their limited experience to the rest of the world - ie. it was easy to check my system, the rest of the world will be fine.
As redtoade pointed out, many systems failed during testing and it is only through all the preventative efforts that there were no problems on the night.
How anyone could certain that nothing would go wrong is beyond me. Sure, one could be quietly confident (especially after all the effort that was put in), but to be absolutely certain?!? I still shake my head at the number of people who think that the Y2k bug was all scam and groundless hype.
Well, it seems the worst that happened with me and Y2K (besides the 19100 bug on several sites--right now that seems to be the most common bug, which is probably a Good Thing) was a rather odd little hiccup that occured around midnight GMT (I'm in Eastern time, btw)...
I'm calling my folks to let them know I'm off and to wish them early Happy New Year's and all that so they don't get all worried about Y2K and all.
Upon which--mysteriously--the phone hangs up. I try redialing for a good five minutes. Phone line is busy (really damn weird...because my folks have call waiting, and the LAST time the phone line gave busies there was when the tornado hit in the Brooks/Mt. Washington area just south of Louisville in 1995).
I finally get through..."Dad, did you hang up?" "No...I thought YOU hung up..." Both of us are counting this down to a momentary fart on the part of Bellsouth Kentucky, aka the one phone company in English-speaking North America that makes US Worst actually look good. :)
"Bellsouth reporting no problems", my arse. :) At least in Kentucky, I'm fairly sure the phone lines did hiccup...then again, the phone lines are generally wonky here... :)
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
I bet this made a few people's hearts beat faster when it happened.
I'm with you ... I didn't have to do any ASM recoding this year, but I have to agree with your stance. Many people have asked me if Y2K was over hyped. I usually say 'yes and no' -- that is, it wasn't hyped enough to get businesses to react as quickly as they should have (upper management) but it was hyped too much as an end of the world scenario (bunkers and food stores and the like).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Did anyone else notice the copyright date? My only complaint about the rot13 is that there is no tool I know from automatically decrypting a comic strip. I had to type it into Emacs and M-x toggle-rot13-mode. Please, nobody make any nasty comments about the fact that I obviously have no aversion to typing.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Last login: Wed Dec 31 1969 19:00:00 -0500
Unfortunately, you can't fool uptime:
12:32pm up 46 days, 21:03, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
I was stuck at work during the rollover, and the only real problem we had was a fax server thinking that it was in the year 1899. And the countdown screensaver we've had for more than two years finally crashed.
Y2K World Dispatches
Y2K Security Tracker
One of my favorites from the World Dispatches was:
---------
Question: How do I leverage the power of the internet?
---------
There is no try at jedinite.com
For those of us that had to work Dec 31, y2k is real.
In the sense that:
All phones now forward to bosses office.
For somewierd reason random computers had thier bios changed to longer recognize the hard drive.
You now have the best chair in the office.
Various settings on computers are screwed up.
You have uninstalled solitare on bosses computer (going to enjoy him debating wether to ask tech to reinstall just so he play game and look like a fool or just sit there)
Quake III is now what loads if you click on any shortcut (in WinNT)
The clocks are all an hour slow.
People have random meetings scheduled in there planners that they left on the desks.
Backgrounds on monitors show the boss and his secretery... involved in a rare act that his wife would kill to find out.
So bosses out there... the lowly computer programmers you made work Dec 31 - New Years Day... Have gotten thier revenge... muahahhahahhaha
(currently figuring out to change building security code)
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
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Pretty odd, eh?
--Mike--
With false american pride I ask . .
Here we go:
From the Auckland International Airport Limited we have this little date jem:
Y2K Update
Dated 02:58 1 Jan 100
Auckland Airport Confirms Business as Usual
From the bury-your-head-in-the-sand-till-it-goes-away dept., we have this one from audiusa.com
Sorry, we have temporarily disabled this module. "While Audiusa.com is fully prepared for Y2K and beyond, we wanted to keep our databases clear of the millennium madness everyone seems to be talking about.
From www.tvtoday.de/tv we have this little assending date snafu jem:
Samstag, 01.01.100
Then from the people at pleaseread.com we have another assending date from hell: ;)
Saturday, January 01, 19100
Award-winning text-to-speech software applications utilizing
the best technologies in the world.
(Editors note: Best technology? they can't count to 99
And from the make-it-stop-make-it-stop dept.
we find AllAdvantage.com thinks the best way to comply is to not partisipate:
Happy Y2K from AllAdvantage.com!
As a precautionary measure, we've disconnected our servers from the Internet and are watching the millennial date change from the sidelines.
Most of these small errors (19100) are caused by one small piece (printf("19%d", tm->tm_year);) of sloppy code (as previously posted on /.). While these little didbits make for a good laugh, I'm happy to see that non of them add up to the 'show stopper' everyone has been hyping. Happy New Year!
_________________________
Anyone else notice the countdown error during the ball drop in times Square? As they started counting down minutes and seconds, it would display 15:01, 14:00, 14:59. It did this all the way to midnight. And Sam Donaldson said nothing was wrong.
I'm kind of offended at the tons of posts saying:
"NOTHING HAPPENED!!! See, I told you so."
I'm sure all the IT and CompSCI people out there weren't really worried about any Y2K stuff... but we control systems engineers (level 1 production types) were terrified of it.
Anxious as we were, we tried to get management to fund an inspection of all systems... and since management is usually made up of non-geek types, there was no way to squeeze a penny out of them for what they felt was unneeded computer work.
BUT, thank God for all of the Y2K hype!!! If management hadn't seen Dan Rather explaining (in small terms) what the possibilities for Y2K were, we wouldn't have received time and funding to inspect our systems.
So after 7 or 8 of my clients found 85% of their systems to NOT function after a clock change to Y2K, we spent MILLIONS of dollars this year to fix them PRIOR to the actual event. These weren't Intel based processors mind you... these were Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and older Distributed Control Systems (DCSs), some even based on Z80 and 8080 technology. The industrial/manufacturing world is still decades behind in it's control systems... so while you guys are lounging in your linux alphas... we're still doing machine code.
I guess what I'm saying is Y2K was VERY REAL for us... and you can thank the thousands of engineers, technicians and programmers who fixed the problems BEFORE THEY HAPPENED for a very quiet new year's eve.
Happy New Year everyone.