Slashdot Mirror
An Open Letter to the Y2K Bug
Felis writes "Did you work on New Year's Eve? I did. So did the person that wrote this letter.
It's for those of us that worked while the rest of the world was celebrating something we'll never see again in our lifetimes. Unfortunately, there's no mention of police checkpoints or the plainclothes fuzz that harrassed my coworkers and me. Bitter? Me?"
Isn't it supposed to be y2k? just wondering =)
I DARE you to quit your little High Tech job to become a farmer. Sure would be nice to work all year to grow bushels of corn that sell at the market for 5 times less than it cost you to produce.
And boy is it gratifying to work EVERYDAY for 3-5 months during the growing season. But hey, I got New Years eve off. Whooooeeee! Break out the Everclear Wilma!!
Anyone pouting about working on New Years eve, could never have the gonads to farm.
And another thing, using your logic about having to tell your grand kids you worked on the biggest party night, etc. Just imagine those SORRY ASS NASA engineers who all had to work while Neil Baby Armstrong was was Boogie-ing on the Lunar surface. I bet their Grandkids think they're all kweer for not watching it on TV with the rest of cool people.
I suggest you retire, move to NYC, and get used to the mantra of the only career you ever deserved you whining pussy.
"Want frys with that?"
I can sympathize with Joe Computer. His biggest complaint was against the hype, and PHB's. I mean, really, there was no reason to have someone right there. They could of just put them on call, what problem could have possible happened that couldn't wait while someone commutes in?
I tried explaining that to our PHB's but they where worried we might lose power or "something major like that".
to which I said "How can we fix that? if we have no power, it's kind of out of our hands" they usually just schrugged then went to make Y2K party plans.
didn't we learn anything from chicken little?
I was lucky, I didn't have to work. I convinced them that I was to new to be of help. and my immediate boss backed me up because he new how pointless it was.even tho' he had to come in, he went out of his way to see to it that we didn't.now that I think of it, I'll buy him lunch for that.
That's about $380/hr.
You obviously didn't put the fear of the bug into them, and threaten to do bar work at £80/hr.
A friend of mine was moaning the fact that he had been told to be available on New Years, due to fears of the old Y2K bug.
This is for a very large, and very well-known financial institution. The kind with the clueless management who saw fit to change things so that almost all the good technical people have left (heh - that covers quite a few companies, doesn't it?).
So I asked him: considering that you're one of the very few people left who knows how to keep things running, what are they going to do if you tell them no? :)
Good, talented people are very hard to find. If you're one of them, you don't have to take any crap, especially for Management's screw-ups.
yes, but not everyday is the rollover of all four digits in the most commonly used calendar.
I read these notes and agree and not, but yours made me want to respond. I managed not to have me required to bo "on hand" but I still missed visiting my grandma (age 80) this season. The whole point was, FIX THINGS IF THEY BREAK! Even tho I wasn't in the building I left my number with the person who WOULD be in the building.
Thanks for being there "just in case".
just out of curiosity, why is this moderated "insighful" and not flambiat? if i posted a comment titled "jew bastards in ny close their shops on saturday and i hate them" (which i dont!!! and wouldn't!!!) would it be insightful? no. "gentile whine like little bitches" is pretty racist and insulting.
closed-minded "god-fearing Christians" are why i stay out of the bible belt- what was your freind thinking it would be like when he moved there?
and by the way our holidays don't last 10 days or a month, it's just one day for chrissakes.
does he celebrete ramadan too?
You need to find something else to worry about pal.
But not to short for you to reply?
My father works for the sewer department. Guess where he spent his new years....
I have only one thing to say:
I live in Iowa. No matter how bad you think your job is, raising corn is worse.
Don't be a fool! Everyone knows this isn't the first or the second or the third millenium. Anyone ever hear of B.C.? Hmm? If the general populace wants this to be the third millenium, 1 B.C. - 999 A.D. = 1st Millenium 1000 A.D. - 1999 A.D. = 2nd Millenium And get this. 2000 A.D. - 2999 A.D. = 3rd Millenium Wow, can anyone here do math? Or we all so religious we can't go with popular opinion. If you want to get technical, I've heard that between 3 and 7 years were lost in the dark ages, so the year is really somewhere between 2003 and 2007 right now, so if you really want to argue....
I was in the U.S. Army, and I got out after four years.
Why?
Much better opportunities. The army paid for my education that got me a job which pays more than then any General in the Army earns.
Do youself a favor Razvekchik and get out.
My boss was there, as was her boss, as was her boss. We did have a great buffet and watched movies all night. Some people brought thier family. I also got a $2,000 bonus. I just wanted to point out that not all companies treat thier employess like shit.
...it is about the true attitude of owners and top-level (CxO) managers toward their workers and their workers' families. When it comes down to it, as it did for "Joe Computer" on Y2K, you work and they play. Keep in mind that no workers anywhere have more leverage in industry than those of us Joe Computers.
Think about that the next time you see the janitor in your building at 11pm. Think she has a family? How much time off do you think she gets to spend with them? How many vacations has she had? I suppose she could get an e-trade or e-bay account and be a day trader or sell... what? her apartment floorboards? Happens all the time if you read WSJ or USA-Today.
Now I want M$ to go away as much as the next /. reader, but don't blow off VB as some language for stoopid people(misspelled on purpose).
I will admit though, there are many people who consider them self's VB programers because the can popup a msgbox and do a loop, but it can go very deep(p)please don't reply that it's not good for writing drivers in, I know that. But I would argue C++ shouldn't be used for that either(class overhaed).
Get over it dude, theres a NYE every year.
And it wasnt really the new millenium either, every one got ripped off. hahahahahahahah
If your important to the company I woudl have said, "fuck you, im not turning up"
If your fired, then its their loss. If your that good, they wont fire you.
Any way, you can party in 360 days.
Just lie out of your ass, notlike they can check up on you, and you can plea Alzthiemers
You chose to get shot at and treated much like I treat a naughty pet. Most tech jobs fall under the heading of a 'profession' though in practice you find all these over-worked, surly, and plainly annoying techies populating the industry.
I have a little sympathy for the college fresh wide-eye programmer but for the walking AK-47 fodder like yourself, well you knew what you were getting into when you signed that dotted line and shook Uncle Sam's blood-stained withered hand.
Quitting wasn't necessary. When I was hired into my position 5 years(!) ago, I told them right up front that I wasn't going to be there for Y2K. I've been off since christmas and won't return until the 10th. Not trying to rub it in or anything. Just stating the facts.
zeugma (tired of waiting for my password to be emailed...)
The belief that man is basically evil is a result of the protestant mis-translation of the Bible. The mis-translation has been intentional in many cases. Early protestant transcribers/translators were very liberal with their own editorial comments. One I can think of off-hand is Wycliffe. These comments later carried into the protestant philosophy.
This was, btw, the reason why the Catholic Church had to do Bible version control. Problems with text translation persist to this day. The New Testament of the Catholic Church, for example, was recently re-published because of translation problems - despite extensive 'regression testing' of the first edition.
"Sum ergo cogito" (me)
So you had to work on New Year's Eve.
Big smegging deal!
So what????
You KNEW that was comming for over a year, but didn't get off your arse to find a different job.
Hey, if you HADN'T been working, what woudl you have done?
Watched TV perhaps? Bet you didn't spare a thought for those people at the TV station working so you could watch TV.
Go to a pub/club et al? Bet you didn't spare a thought for the folks working THERE.
Suppose you had an accident. Woudl you call teh police / hospital etc? Bet you wouldn't give a second thought about those who are working THERE.
QUICK FUCKING WHINGING!!!!
It's only ONE single holiday you worked over - we do it all the time, dumbass.
If you really think that the change of four digits is exciting, then you're the one that needs a blow job every now and then. Gee, it was just a new year's day people... Nothing special happened; it was all in your head.
Why not do both? I was "drunk off my keester" at a party and had no trouble responding to the minor page I received. Nothing even Y2K related just stupid people. I feel sorry for you guys who actually had to be sober and AT work.
;)
couldn't resist. hehe
No one can force you to work for new year's. I promise. If that boss actually says "you're fired" if you don't work for new year's -- then is that a job you WANT TO HAVE? They obviously do not value you and you should quit right away!! Otherwise you are a big loser and nothing else.
Has there ever really been a bug in our code that management doesn't think we can kill? Isn't their confidence justified? No, their panic was a fear of lawsuits or PR backlash. A fear generated by irresponsible media and doomsday prophets. If ever there was a group who should be treated like lepers by our industry it is the authors of the Y2K crisis books. Don't buys their books, don't book them as speakers, don't hire them. Let's compile a list of them and post it across the web in huge letters as a warning to the next 10 generations. And when the web surplants the mainstream media that hyped Y2K for their own aggrandizement, let's dance on its grave.
Absolutely right! Jews are the *worst* thing which has ever happened to this world. If I had moderator points, I would give you all of them.
For more information, visit http://www.natvan.com
Listen to Dr. William Pierce' speeches.
God bless Aryans!
If it meant so much you should have quit your job. Don't people ever stop fucking complaining?
Hah! You weren't at the legendary Chicken John Sinking Ship party at the Cell in SF. Yee HA! -tim
I believe in God. He's the Systems Administrator of everything. He's the guy who wrote "those man pages" you're referring to!
"A fact of life is that sometimes you have to work on fun days."
That may be true for some but not all.
I and many others get holidays off.
...or wait for him to do something extremely illegal...
Rape? (Juanita Brodderick, Jane Does, etc.)
Murder? (Vince Foster, Iraqi civilians, etc.)
Treason? (Nuclear Secrets to the Chinks.)
Perjury? (Lying to a grand jury.)
All the good Christian, Jewish, etc., etc. people around here are so proud of what a nice multi-cultural, tolerant workplace they've created. I get coworkers who say that it isn't possible to not believe in God (tm), and that I'm just rejecting Him (tm). Give it a rest! There will always be people who need to feel that they are part of the in group to have any sense of worth. There will always be people who feel that they are mistreated and marginalized by the in group and for some that is an integral part of their identity. The bottom line is that there is absolutely no one else exactly like any one of us. If you can see that about yourself, you can then see the people around you, even the intolerant jerks, as individuals. I make a point of never hating anyone for his affiliation with some group I'm not part of. When I choose to hate someone, it's personal.
"If 50 million people believe a foolish thing...it is still a foolish thing."
Millennium = 1000 years
Millennium != 999 years
We only received a tiny shift bonus + 1.1/4!
or (c) use all 6 bytes to store the total number of seconds since Jan 1 0000 AD (Gregorian time)
Okay, the calculations not going to be that fast, but you only need to work out the date from it for display purposes.
I started asking a year in advance what the Y2K staffing plans were. I hinted broadly that I make my vacation plans many months in advance. I won't describe the exact plan they came up with because it would identify me, but it was sane enough. I do feel sorry for the people who stayed on site. They were some of our good managers mostly. They manned the phones in case they had to page us bit slingers. Those are the kind of people to still be working for when the system clock rolls smoothly over. To all the managers out there who treated their staff well on New Years' Eve, I say thanks. You know who you are and you deserve our gratitude.
The date system was invented in the 6th century. 1AD hadn't happened until 523 or thereabouts. Threfore the third millenium should start in 2523.
Or stick to the julian calender. We missed the new millenium there by about 40 years
Quit whining. You have a job, probably a better one than most other people in your neighborhood. It has a price. Deal with it.
Sorry jackass, but read it and weep. Can't have technical and ethical standards without some sort of organization that determines exactly what those are.
I didn't get laid on New Year's Eve either.
Early morning on New Year's Day, though, was another matter. :-)
yeah, this guy is definitely overboard and offensive (although I don't know that he's flamebating) but you gotta see where he's coming from: Everyone's tax dollars go to putting up a big, fat Christmas tree in Washington DC, we all pay into the local taxes that pay to set up Nativity Scenes in front of City Halls and Cop Shops. When folks grow up in the USA as "Other" (i.e the Muslimes, the jews, the Hindi, whatever) they grow up knowing that they're the Out-Group, the different, fequently "weird" Other:
*they have to miss school (yeah, kids love missing school, but they love being just like their peers more) and catch up on work latter in order to observe their faith
*they have to perpetualy explain shit like Ramadan and kosher law to well-meaning but (let's face it) frequently coarsly clueless Christians
*they get told that they're going to Hell (outrageous, but true: you'll be hard pressed to find an "Other" who grew up in a predominantly Xtian area and was never told they were hell-bound by some well meaning peer or adult.)
*as adults they are frequently asked to choose between religious observations and having to miss work (and thus make it up latter-- not a sitaution that most Xtians endure in order to celebrate Xmas)
This guy is pissed off, and I respect that. I'd be pissed, too, if I were in his shoes (or his friends shoes, or whatever)
Legal protections are abstract protections, at best.
Countries which spent much less than "billions upon billions of dollars" didn't get bit either. Therefore, perhaps, the U.S. squashed too hard. I guess this is why some people are upset.
Don't forget that there is a lot of support people who worked during that time including doctors, emergency workers, police, fire, and lawyers.
good for us.. able to celebrate new years eve and at the same time go to office for our foreign client. -asia dudes
Isn't it depressing how few people (even in the computer field) know how to count. 2000 is the last year of the 20'th century and the last year of the 2'nd millennium. Naturally this is based on the current calendar. It doesn't matter when we started using this calendar or that the calendar is not correct as to the birth of Christ.
Amen brother. Christmas is an excuse to break out the extra strength egg-nog, and new years... well now THAT's an excuse to mainline everclear if I ever heard one. Lets hear it for wild celebration! Like I really give a shit that 2000 years ago some dude got nailed to a cross.
Isn't it great that no Y2K bugs happened? Isn't it wonderful that all you super smart geeks got all your Y2K patches written and installed ahead of time?
Well, while all of you pat yourselves on the back and go back to your happy dreams of 1000 MHz Athlons and a Girl Who Knows UNIX, let me tell you
what I'm doing right now.
I'm patching a Y2K bug! Some machine wouldn't read its old data files. So I'm installing the new software. This is pretty hard, as the machine is a big flaky combination of a PC, screwy interface card, several extremely expensive mechanical devices each with its own CPU and flash ROM, and it never really worked quite right in the first place.
So stop being so goddam smug. Thank you.
Someday I will tell my grandchildren that my first computer had four thousand BYTES of memory, an 8-bit processor that worked at under 1MHz clock speed, used one of those old-fashioned analog 'TeeVee' things and one of those "analog audio tape" devices that you saw in the museum for display and storage. And they will say "Yeah, Right. And you walked 4 miles to school each way in three feet of snow in bare feet to get to school..."
Nice troll, flamebait. A little obvious, but I can't argue with the results.
Just being ultra pedantic.
while the rest of the world was having the biggest party in recorded history, i was working. well, no i wasn't actually doing work, because there was no problem. do my employers give a damn that i missed out on new years? course not. they were out partying, leaving me to keep their precious business intact. no compensation, no appreciation, not even a little bit of sympathy. and i know i'm not the only one. a lot of technical people got cheated out of new years because the all-knowing, all-seeing media (cut this sarcasm with a knife, won't you?) made certain paranoid people believe that their computers were going to explode or something. this sucks. i want a rewind! okay, i've bitched enough i guess :)
Well I think that the reall qustion is do you know what "goyim" means is translats to "nation" I love to see anty-semits who have never soken another languge in there life go around telling everone that thay have somehow become an expert in some other languge becaus there latest KKK weekly has an improper translation of a hebrew word. I hope that you never had a ploio vaxesean, uesed a microwave, uesed any soler powered device becaus then you would be be uesing somthing made by a parasit! P.S. Most orthodox jews do not hate the "goyim" yea some do, but the majorty do not. just like most aryins do not hate the rest of the rases out there but some like your self do.
It sure sound like somting you would say (jugeing from your other commants) you probly just AC that one to save your karma. Nazi scum!!!
"Incidentally, there is no basis for this post to be moderated down. I made a rational argument, which I have the right to do." OFFTOPIC moron, what dose this have to do with being at work over the christan new year.
i agree man...working at Del Taco sucks.
I thought it was more exciting many years ago during a family vacation the car's odometer rolled over from 99999 to 100000. I remember that more fondly than the switch from 1999 to 2000.
Do you konw how many of the orignal libertarians were jews. Sorry there pal but it looks like plotical ides were thought of by jews!
Well your parents might have been able to ignore utter stupidity but some of us can't! Go explain to your kids the math behind, how the first millennium had a thousand years and the second had 999!
Joe Computer has a point, though, about the the hype and bullshit which robbed many more IT people of a good time that night than really necessary. Watching the absurd level of preparations at our company (a shiny-new startup with all computers less than a year old) made me glad to be out of the fray and, instead, at the greatest fscking show on earth.
We have the hypothesis that all of the money spent was a big waste of time. We have the alternative hypothesis that the money and attention and all was well spent because we did not have any major problems.
One way to answer the question is to look at what happened in the world: was there any relationship between money and attention given to Y2K remediation and experienced problems?
That is: did the places that spent more money have fewer problems?
The question is complicated because there is an apparant correlation between money spent on Y2K and reliance upon computers and technology (sub-saharan africa reportedly spent almost no money on y2k, but they also don't rely on technology to the same degree is the 'western' world).
I believe that the information is available to make this determination. I further believe, but am willing to accept correction, that the remediation efforts were out of scale with the scope of the actual problem, and were mostly an excuse for a certain 'kind' of person to exercise their natural desire to run around like a decapitated chicken spurting the blood of immenient doom on the rest of us who just wanted to be left alone to do our work.
Well Jan 1, 2000 has come and gone, and we are all still alive. Mostly. Anyways, I think we should be thankful that nothing happened. I mean, what could have happened? Let me give you an example. Suppose I have a box, with 3 things in it: a cat (named Belfry), a molecule, and a door. Better make that two doors, so it has four things, but the doors really aren't in it, so I guess technically that makes 2 things in this box. Now suppose I give you some salt, and you put it in the box (with Belfry and the molecule), and you decide to heat the salt up to the point where it melts and you electrolyse it into its two base componenents, sodium and chlorine. Now the cat is dead, because damn, the melting point of NaCl is pretty hot. Now you have a generic poison, a highly corrosive and lethal gas, and a highly reactive solid. And a box with 2 doors. And a well done cat named Belfry. "What is your point?" you are saying. Well my point is merely this: what kind of person are you? Why did you kill the cat (named Belfry) so inhumanely and cruelly only to prove that Bohr is silly? Fool. I ain't gettin on no plane! Especially not on Y2K! I know my windshear alert system was working -- yours? Anyways, what a historic and important occassion. Not. New years comes once a year, remember.
Why are there so many idiots comment on articles without even reading them? Aren't geeks supposed to be intelligent? I hate you!
bcoz ure a whiny old geezer
if they do.. then go to work.
... still the best damn new years party for a long time to come ) just to sit in front of a computer cause your boss said so.
:-)
I understand the resentment that this person felt and I wasn't working that night. Its the same sort of resentment you get for going to work on a daily basis and being incredibly under appreciated.
Lets face it. No one cared that you were there or the many others who sacrificed there New Years ( millenium or not
Lets assume the lights did go out. What the hell could you have done. Nothing. Fuck all, zilch, zero, nada. In fact, were you out partying and the lights went out... well I guess its time to go to work, but being there at that exact second couldn't have made the sightest difference in the world ( unless maybe you worked at a nuclear power plant ). If you just worked for some regular company even a net company or Cisco or whoever, why did you need to be there. Lets assume everything screwed up. Couldn't the world wait till 8 am the next day to address it. Most people were gonna have hangovers anyways so its not like much serious would happen. Couldn't we have just put the world on hold ( save the obvious necessities, hospitals, nuclear power etc ). Had something immensly serious happened, would we really have been able to solve it in 8 hours, so that the markets could function normally and would we want the markets to even be open so that craziness could ensue. NO NO NO!!!!
Worldwide, unless it was life or death literally, everyone should have been celebrating. Hell, the west already had indications from Australia 14 hours ahead that things were ok so fuck it.. go home, party, see ya tomorrow or the next day, we'll bring the coffee. People are intelligent, they'd have known if there were problems that they'd need to get to work to address them instead of being threatened with dismisal.
What irritates me most about what was expressed in the letter is something many of us experience. Companies that think we OWE them our lives because of the paltry paychecks they give us, as if we dont have something better to be doing or something we'd rather be doing, either on DEc. 31, 1999 or just after 5 pm on a regular day or weekend. Since when did being the corporate slave become manifest destiny for so many. If I'm a doctor yes its different, I understand that, they're also more vital and hey they know what there signing up for when they enter med school... you get to work holiday's, espcially if your the newbie. But where the hell does it say that about engineers or programmers.
What a waste, even if all the worst fears about y2k occurred ( power went out, flight problems, communications problems etc ) so what. The world slows down for a few days ( weeks whatever ). Its not like the earth discontinues to produce oxygen, or our brains cease to function. We would have survived! REALLY!
Good thing, by DEC. 31 2037 I'll be retired, dont ask me to come in you cant afford me.
Maybe it's because the US had more stuff that could possibly fail than countries like Zambia,Nigeria and Tonga you sodding twit. "The stupidity of slashdotters never fail to amaze me" - General consensus
Ure farking stoopid.
Sure, but he missed all of the poor schleps who had to work at the 7-11 for $5.50/hr. He himself probably made some very good money, as did all of the doctors, civil servants and other 'professionals' who had to be there. There were alot of people in the same position however making ALOT less then what he was. While in school I had a job that required me to work just about every holiday there was, 4th of july, xmas (which is my bday on top of it), new years, easter, you name it. All for under $6/hr. Some people need to get a grip on reality, the reality being life sucks sometimes, so get used to it.
REAL MILLENIUM IS 2001. STUPID AMERICAN HEADLINE SCANNERS STILL BELIEVE THIS IS THE NEW MILLENIUM. THE END.
You're right about one thing, you need to leave. So you had to work *1* holiday. So what? I work in the auto industry, and *every* holiday is worked by us (Eng. & Maint.). That's when the plant's down and we can come in and work. And I don't have it bad, for many of our military and emergency personnel, this standard fare. I'm here at work simply because somebody *might* have a question at 2:00 am. No other reason. Usually I startup equipment, but it's not ready yet, so here I am. You need to go and find yourself a job where no one has any serious expectations of you. You obviously can't be counted on to help out not even once in a thousand years. What are you good for??? And somebody needs to explain to your children why their Dad is so worthless.
I have put in my share of late nights on the job, often a hell of a lot more stressful than just waiting for something to happen after months of software and hardware testing How is this any different than any other weekend rollout, system upgrade, office move, etc. that requires you to miss out on parties and time with your family and friends while your boss checked in with you by phone in the middle of his dinner party? Quit whining. You get paid a lot of money to do your job. If you don't, then quit and find another one, not like tech jobs are in a surplus right now. If you can't hack the responsibilities of what you do, then you might want to think about doing something else.
Maybe that's a little easier for me to say -- I don't have a family to support. But still, it's not as though you're an indentured servant. I get calls from people trying to hire me away from my company on a weekly basis. If you don't like your bosses, find somebody else to work for. Better yet, organize your department and demand *real* compensation for your sacrifice -- imagine how those suits would have felt if the whole department had threatened to quit on the brink of Y2K disaster.
The higher-ups here knew damned well that a plate of cold cuts and a couple of videos weren't enough to get people to spend the night here. So they offered us a bonus, in cash, so embarassingly huge I can't even mention it in AC mode -- for those who were missing the Big Party.
Personally, I think it was worth it. I still got to drink champagne with a bunch of friends (many of whom were in the same boat as I) and celebrate the big event in style -- maybe not at the same time as everybody else in my time zone, but heck, it was midnight *somewhere*, right? And now I've got money in the bank to spend Y2K+1 just about anywhere I want.
Hey where were you when Srebrenica needed help. You guys were just standing there. Now that they have peace everyone can be smart. Besides that..rakija rulz.
I don't waste moderator points on hateful spew (who'll only make more). I just set my comment threshold to 1 and get on with life.
You go to an elite private school! Mazel tov, I should commission a statue in your honor. For someone 40% of whose aquaintances are ostensibly Jewish, you appear astonishingly, shockingly ignorant about Jews. I guess that's proof that you can't learn by osmosis.
Please email me when you finish your essay. I wouldn't miss it for the world!
What a whiner!! It shows a lot about his maturity when he compares the assassination of a President, the first resignation in disgrace of one, and a group of bright, hardworking, dedicated individuals who gave up a significant piece of their lives confined in conditions of true terror to a party, and one that occurs every year. The numbers you write for the date on a check or letter are just that - numbers. They have no more significance than the number that were written the day previous. What's more, it was he and people like him who created the Y2K problem. The media never would have covered the story if people like him hadn't told them there was a problem. What self-centered drivel. Sitting at a desk for a few hours, isn't that terrible! What about the people in mass graves in Eastern Europe? People who endured such incomprehensible atrocities that they can't even be identified. All that some people think about is their own comfort and pleasure. There has to be more to a life than a party. We each have to face trials and rise above our animalistic grasping for pleasure. Sacrifice for the well-being of others is a laudable trait. The sacrifice of a party is laughable. This guy is a joke, and so is his life. I feel sorry for the wife and kids who couldn't understand why he wasn't partying. Instead of an example of good parenting and citizenship they have an example of being self-centered, weak, insipid and selfish. His shoes won't be hard to fill. Oh well, it takes all kinds to make a world. What's bad now is they have the Internet to make their whining heard all over the world. Imagine being in a country that is not affluent like this one. What would you think as you read that diatribe?
Well it would at least be different now, because the muslims now have weapons. At the time of crisis they didn't stand a chance. It is true, you can't do anything, but maybe you could catch that fellow Arkan for me. By the way, our country defeated jugoslav army in 10 days, aren't we cool?
Too bad Bellsouth isn't my ISP!
the most important and memorable moment in our lifetime? Come on, bring your feet to earth. Do Americans have a life of do they live through hype alone?
I missed out on a party with 40-80 of my friends because of a flu bug going around. I spent the whole weekend sitting on the couch watching TV. While that is enjoyable in its own right, I was still suffering. If there was any problems i was on call to go into the local fire dept, before being called out to a couple of fortune 500 clients from work. I would have had to go in sick, so i am glad that nothing did happen!!
...is not a company worth working for. For god sakes man, this is the computer industry, you can gbet a well paying job anywhere just for knowing visual basic!
I am so glad to hear someone else point this out. As a Buddhist, I am so sick of everything shutting down on Christian holidays. However, I realize that I don't live in my world, and just deal with it. It is nice though to see others acknowledge similar frustration.
>Shoot, where I was on NYE2000, the party was just gettin' started at 2:00 and wasn't over
>till the sun came up. How many of you saw the first (post) sunrise of the second millennium?
Ok, you want to call it the new millennium? fine, but please at least count the correct number of millenniums. If this were the new millennium, it would be the 3rd, and not a Turd like you.
More likely, it was idiots who for some reason stored numbers as strings. "Hm we have two bytes to store the year. We can (a) store it as string, which will last us until 2000; or (b) store it as a 2-byte unsigned integer, which will last us until 18284*. If we store it as a string, though, we get the added benefit of having to write conversion routines for every calculation we use it for!"
* assuming a byte is 7 bits long
What kind of week answer is that. What about situations where a person took a position before the media discovery of the Y2K bug? Huh? How can a person be expected to ask questions concerning a situation when knowledge of a situation hasn't even been dreamed up. More of the world, mainly here in U$A, needs to realize that a job doesn't not own you, you are not your job, and work doesn't define who you are.
good point. someone moderate this up.
Moderate this the hell up. This is the most intellegent thing posted on Slashdot today by a long shot.
Well, it doesn't matter if the OP was trying to be funny or not. Anyone who thinks the power would have gone out or airplanes would have fallen out of the sky is either funny or ignorant.
Isn't Y2K actually going to be in 2048? (to quote Stef - UF)
how is that a weak answer? when it comes down to it, if you're an employee you're going to do what your boss tells you to do. If you don't like it, get fired or quit and get another job. If you want complete freedom, become your own boss.
I just hate whiners.
I work for the state, and none of the IT people could get vacation from Dec 15 - Jan 15. No, I didn't have to work on New Years Eve, but I was on call (though I never got a page), but others did have to staff Y2K command centers and such. Why all the overkill? Because the state was afraid of lawsuits if even one little thing went wrong. Maybe if we weren't such crybabies and didn't sue over spilt milk, more of us could have taken vacation.
The excuse that storage was considered expensive still doesn't cover the fact that many companies were still producing non-y2k compliant products far after storage costs became a non-factor.
Face it, the computer industry dropped the ball in the first place. They recovered nicely, but they still screwed the pooch in the beginning.
the president for the hell of it. Impeaching the president because I didn't like him would be like me firing you because I thought you had bad breath. Either wait for his term to expire and *vote* next time, or wait for him to do something extremely illegal that hurts the country and *then* impeach him...
The world was not plundged into order forever I new reign of chaos has begun. The Illuminati Lost! Signed JAM
I spend my New Year's Eve in my county's Emergency Operations Center in Minnesota, relaying "All Green" over the two way radio, all fricken night to the state EOC. It wasn't glamorous work, but it needed to be done. Our biggest concern was the the Y2K human factor, when Joe Drunk runs his car into the utility pole, blacking out 1/2 the town. How would you deal with all the phone calls from all the stupid poeple (individuals are smart, poeple are stupid) that would blame that oun Y2K? (As part of our hazard mitigation planning, we would dispatch a cop to shoot them ;-) .)
I wasn't overly thrilled about being down there working, but wife was with me, plus several of our close friends who also volunteer time with our organization. The key word there is VOLUNTEER, meaning they did not have to be there, but they chose to out of their civic pride/duty. At least you family could be around, what about the poor cops, security gaurds, utility workers, etc, that had to drive/sit/monitor without their loved ones present? You make it sound like you were the only one that "had to work ok" on New Year's Eve.
Luckily, we had a food budget from the state, so we ate, drank (non-acoholic), laughed, and basically had a good old time. In other words, we mad the best of a "bad" situation. It all has to do with your perspective on life, and from what I can tell, yours is pretty bleek.
Face it, the roll over from 1999 to 2000 was alot more exciting that a 2000 to 2001 rollover. People who complain about 2001 being the real millenium really do need to get a blow job every now and then. "Flip", heres 20$ go downtown to 1st ave tell them i said it was an emergency. Evil Lister
is of course having a q3 lan party with your friends. I sure enjoyed fragging my pals :-)
But hey, at least you get a lot of money and a have nice family in a neat suburb. And you only had to sell your soul to corporate america. Deal is deal, so please stop whining.
since the REAL new millennium is 2001.
First Millennium: 1 AD to 1000 AD
Second Millennium: 1001 AD to 2000 AD
Third Millennium: 2001 AD to 3000 AD
etc
Should this article be moderated down as flamebait?
Your an idiot. If you bothered to do even the
shallowest research you would know you are
compleatly wrong. So let me clearify...
A) Early hardware dictated what could be coded.
B) Managment constrained system costs.
C) Corporate hierarchies refused to pay for
updating systems that "worked".
Yeah, it was *definitely* short-sightedness that made storage space so ungodly expensive all those years ago. How rude of them not to take up valuable space on zillions of iterations of the same two digits, especially since most of those po'boys didn't think we'd still be using these legacy systems decades hence. Cheeky monkeys.
(Moderators, could you please slap the rating / comment on either AC or me here? I'm still so brain-dead from 1 Jan it's hard to tell which of us is being obnoxious, but I'm pretty sure it's one or the other.)
jews control the media because a disproportionate number of mainstream media outlets are owned by jews. sumner redstone, etc, etc. I'll give you a list if you want.
Do you know how many jews are in Clinton's cabinet? The majority. Statistically, there shouldn't be any. My elite private school is 40 percent jewish. I wish those spots could be filled by Aryan boys and girls.
Jews have been punished, yes. They are intrinsically evil. I'm going to write an essay and post it here later, because I don't have the energy right now. OK?
P.S. JustShootMe, don't respond to this with one of your childish tactics.
No comment at this time
'nuff said. We don't need this kind of ignorance and intolerance.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
And the sad thing is they'll be forgotten in just a few week, months, or maybe even years, but they will be forgotten soon, much too soon. Just like all the people in any war.
Non certified engineers, programmers, and sys admins are not professionals.
I know I'll get flaimed for this but....
Perhaps the misery imposed on geekdom on New Year's Eve was some sort of cosmic poetic justice - after all it is the shortsightedness of nerds everywhere that caused the [potential] Y2K bug...
Well, I fought with my ex-gf and got drunk at a party... Happy Y2K! It was special only because it was that Y2K... You want special times with loved ones? Go out to a bar with your closest buds... Kiss your girlfriend... Celebrating with a couple million people? I've been there and done that. I was the king of parties in college! I would trade every huge party for a simple memory with those that really matter to me. So, who really cares what kinda dumb parties like this we miss out on? Memories of holding the one that really matters to me are better than the memories of the party I went to anyway.
Yeah but it *was* your choice to go into the army.. a lot of folk didn't get the choice about working Y2K night. Not many people when they joined their it admin job thought they'd be working on new years eve before a new millennium. As an aside, a lot of UK news reports (radio mainly) have been saying that one of the main guys who predicted all the computer problems has been receiving death threats etc. At least that's one good thing to come out of it then . The UK government meanwhile is busy saying "well all that money we spent was obviously worth it -- because we cured all the problems and nothing happened".. haha.. a win/win situation methinks. Best regards Anon.
when you agree to work someplace, as a professional in the computer industry, you basically agree to perform duties to perform your job. If working on the eve of Y2K is determined to be within the scope of your job, then you too made an implicit agreement to work. If you specifically didn't ask the question when you were interviewed, then you were fair game when it came time to determine who would work.
I'm in the computer industry also, and loved the time and 1/2 my company paid me for sitting there and doing nothing. It sounds like the company you work for sucks, and maybe you should have gone out partying and then looked for another job on Monday.
I'm sysadmin of an ISP, and I made perfectly clear
that I wouldn't be working on new years eve. I
_knew_ my Linux-systems would be working like a
charm, so why bother? I still don't understand my
boss, who actually was logged in remotely "just
if something goes wrong", while I was drinking
champagne, playing bombard and fire-eating (btw:
a good idea, draws more attention than rockets).
Kirth
--
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
I spent a quiet evening at home. I went to bed at 11:30pm, in fact.
_E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I concur. By claiming that this was the most important and memorable moment of a lifetime, the guy is buying into the same media hype he decries.
None of the other events listed fall into the same category. Things like that can occur any time: we may yet put a man on Mars, for example. Hostage crisis? Uh, see the news from Afghanistan last week? And anyone who seriously needs the thrill of a presidential assassination can always arrange it themselves (as for resignation, didn't Clinton come close enough for ya?).
Yes, it was hyped. Yes, I worked. WTF, there was nothing else worth doing and I wanted the cash. OK, it sucks if you're ordered to work when you'd rather be at a party, but it's not like there aren't other parties and other jobs.
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
Not only that, but people forget that most business programming is done to automate a paper form, all of which ALWAYS used 2 digits for the date. Also most of the library routines would return 2 digits also. Go ahead and try to give your boss a 4 digit year field in 1986, or tell him you need to spend an extra couple of hours making sure the app. was Y2K compliant in '82 and see what they say.
In a word: No.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Hear, hear! While everyone else was either flocking to mass media events or shutting themselves in for the evening, we were members of a select group of professionals who were entrusted with the job of making sure the world kept working smoothly after the clocks rolled over.
I'm rather proud of it, actually. Anybody can go get drunk off their keester while dancing to loud music, but it takes a certain level of skill to know how to make Y2K a non-issue.
I agree totally with this statement... this was my exact feeling as midnight went by... it sucked.. nothing amazing happened... it was like "that's it?"
Seattle was dead, they say, and here in the Bay Area it was wasn't much better. In the Silicon Valley, San Jose had nothing going on. Further up, in San Francisco, they had fireworks, but apparently only one tenth of the expected number of people showed up. Friends who went to the S.F. fireworks said it was "OK." So it sounds like the U.S. kind of didn't have much fun anyway. We should have all been in Rio de Janeiro, sounds like THAT was something.
I work for an international bank and we've had at least 6 incidents, at least four of which could be considered major. Fortunately, we've not actually sent customers anything screwy but we've had to do a lot of work to fix things. I can't believe we are the only company to have this problem so I believe few companies are willing to put there hands up and admit to being idiots.
Regards
Mark
At work - of course - until 3am, missing the biggest party the world has ever seen - bored out of my skull - , or will every see (unless aliens say hello).
Drove home, car broke down 5 miles from home - Recovery services? Hahaha Not likely. - Had to walk the rest of the way and of course I'm thinking well it can't really get any worse... Yup, you guessed, it started raining - pissing down -. Almost enough for me to believe in an almighty.
The *only* redeeming feature of the night for me was the fact that I'm getting a months pay for a single nights work, though it isn't like i'm desperately short of cash.
Deleted
To paraphrase the matrix: "Jews are a disease, and I am the cure."
Hey, man, where do you live? Are you giving any speeches about fascism any time soon? Because I know a couple thousand ARA members who would *love* to make your acquaintance.
Be young, have fun, smash fascism. Now that's something I can get into.
Michael Chisari
You seem to be under two false impressions: that I am a facist or other authoritarian, and that I am over 21. Both are false.
I concede the second point, but I stay adamant on the first. Anybody who proclaims "Jews are the disease and I am the cure" is a fascist.
I am a right-leaning libertarian.
Really, now? Okay, so let's see... Don't right-libertarians believe that heirarchy is natural? If Jews really do excel in the areas you've specified (I'd argue it has nothing to do with their heritage and religion), wouldn't you have to accept that as normal and natural?
And by the way, a *lot* of the founding fathers of modern day right-wing Libertarianism are Jewish.
Also - are you threatening me with physical violence?
No, I'm threatening you with opposition. How do you know I'm not Jewish, and that you're not threatening *me* with violence?
But regardless, you want a debate, I'll give you a debate. What you feel is a matter of race is not a matter of race at all.
Racists constantly try and convince people that race is a linking trait between people. That somehow, if I'm white and lower class, I have more in common with Bill Gates than with the hispanic person who lives down the street from me.
That is ridiculous. There may be cultural differences between "races" (which is another ridiculous concept), but the fact of the matter is that a poor white and a poor black person both have to worry about things that a rich person doesn't have to. Getting time off work to get an oil change, being laid off so their factory can move to a third world country (so the rich people who own it can become richer), having enough money to take out their girlfriend or boyfriend on a Friday night, paying for college for their kids so they can have a better life than they did, all these things are *real* concerns of people, and saying that poor Jews don't share these concerns is ridiculous. If you honestly think Jews run the media, I'll introduce you to the old Jewish man who runs a corner store and has barely scraped by for the last 30 years. I'm sure he can call up Ted Turner and have him run any story he'd like, right?
It's not about race, it's about class. The upper class tries to divide the lower class by convincing them that they're different from eachother, but that's BS. The lower class have a common thread, and that's the fact that they have to *work* for a living, not live off of old money or large stock values.
Do you honestly think that OJ Simpson got off because he was black? That the fact that he was rich and could hire that "dream team" of lawyers had nothing to do with it? Do you honestly think that if he was a poor bus driver, that he wouldn't have fried by now?
If, for some reason, you feel that you've been "wronged" by Jews or other minorities, look closer. You'll find that, for the most part, it's the greed of the ruling class that causes oppression and violence in this world, and they are truly color blind. Black, white, jewish, or asian, they don't care, as long as you're a billioniare with congress on your speed dial.
You have the choice to help build a society based on freedom, equality, peace, and solidarity (anarchism), or a society based on fear, heirarchy, war, and adversity (fascism). Take your pick.
Anarchism FAQ
Michael Chisari
it sucked. end of story
It's a number people! It just happens to end in a few zeros. It means nothing!
You are forgetting countries with mandatory military service. And some of those guys are always stuck at the barracks during holidays. Well, atleast they generally get a nice long vacation (week or so) afterwards.
:)
It's pretty easy to say mandatory military service isn't needed when you don't have > 1000km of land border with a previously hostile country with 30 times the people (Russia)
Ah well, I spent my y2k party drinking champagne and shooting fireworks. I did check (remotely) that the servers were ok a couple of times.
If anything critical had broken I probably would have gone to fix it. Luckily there wasn't.
"Thank you to my CTO who said 'Work New Year's Eve or don't bother coming in the next day.'
I would hope you wouldn't come in on New Year's Day, and a Saturday to boot!
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
I did fix it...turned out to just be a mis-interp of tm_year in struct tm.
nobody to submit to, so i've built a temp home
for it. look for xfinans on freshmeat.net.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
XFinans, who's latest version, 5.9, is included in RedHat's Powertools for 6.0, isn't complient at all. The fileformat looked complient, but internally in the code itself, the dates are being manipulated with 2 digit years. saving data results in the file saying 19000101.
Pretty ugly...now i need to decide to fix it or just find an alternative opensource checkbook balancer...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
If you're going to insult someone by calling him a geek, quoting "The X-Files" may not be the ideal way of proving your superiority.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Clinton did not avoid being impeached; he avoided being booted from office after said impeachment.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
I took my wife and children up to my parents' place north of Geraldton without telling any of my clients, and left my mobile off from Friday afternoon to Sunday (which I normally do anyway).
All of my Linux boxes (clients and mine, including the antique Linux Mobile) would be (were, in the event) perfectly happy, and the Windows boxes would get (did get, in a few cases) precisely what they deserve. (-:
It was very relaxing. I highly recommend a few days being pampered in the country during any potential crisis!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That's a hell of a lot of important historic events. As "historic events" go, I'd say the millenium is amongst the least important ones - so who cares?
My EUR0.02,
Thomas
I am reminded of the saying of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But people, especially the person who wrote the rant, don't see any benefits from prevention if they have never get sick.
Speaking of which, have you gotten your flu shot this year?
And don't tell me you weren't holding your breath before the first reports from New Zealand came in. I know I was.
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
Besides the constant nit that the millennium doesn't start until 2001, I simply MUST remind you that the millennium starting in almost 12 months will be the THIRD millennium.
Damn it must really bug people that the 20th century starts with the digits '19' and the 19th century starts with the digits '18' and so on.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Herd sheep if you don't want to be the sysadmin who controls the data lives of your coworkers.
I have a testbed of 12 computers here at work that did NOT pass y2k in Bios and OS / apps. I set one up as a server and ran the dang thing through the "event horizon" as it was called and not a damn thing happened... yeah, time/date stamps are wrong on files and some financial calculations were off so far they were obvious.
Y2K was a NON-bug, NON-event, and wasn't an issue for 98% of the world... it only affected banks and companies that were so stupid to still run the pdp-11's they bought in the 70'S!!!
I knew cince 1989... Y2K was a load of BS... but the media loves to harp on a horror story...
your toaster will eat you alive and the jails will suddenly release all the prisioners.. oh and the gas stations will explode...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Amen
Actually, some embedded systems (I won't speculate on how many) do care about the date and store the year/month/day/hr/min/sec as binary-coded decimal, with one or two digits per byte. Well-known systems from reputable companies like Texas Instruments.
My car is OK, but I'm still sick. I have the other Y2K bug, and so does most of the office. Flu and its actalike viruses are not fun.
If the person who said it is in the US. If they are in another country, their milage may vary. At any rate, it is certainly in bad taste, regardless of whether you like Clinton or not (I don't like his policies, but it isn't a personal thing). If you don't like the president (or if you don't like what he is doing), the proper way to get him out of office is to have him impeached (which Clinton fairly narrowly avoided). Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at things, that is not a very easy thing to do.
Thank you to my CTO who said "Work New Year's Eve or don't bother coming in the next day."
Wow. Look at that. The author was given a choice to not work. Sure the choice had some negative consequences, but it's not like a gun was held to his/her head. The reason people in this industry are overworked is because they allow themselves to be overworked. Personally, I'd have found an opportunity to publicly advise the CTO to suck me off. Sure you get fired when you do that, but unemployment is temporary - public humiliation of senior management is forever.
Acting like a loyal employee is the best way to get screwed over. Don't complain when it happens.
--Shoeboy
Instead of complaining about having to work on New Year's Eve and the Morning of the New Year, my friends just held a New Year's Day party instead and had a great time.
Besides, as many people have pointed out, the real millennium is in 2001, so we get another chance for a big party.
Ah, but the people who created the problem aren't the people who had to be on call over new year's weekend just in case, at least not for the most part.
I've been in the industry for 7 years. I haven't
written any code which was date-vulnerable. Yet I was asked (I refused) to work over new year's --- because i was there, and they needed someone. The responsible parties have long since moved on leaving the rest of us holding the bag.
No kidding!
"I wasn't here to see man land on the moon, or JFK's assassination. I don't really remember Nixon's resignation or the hostage crisis. This is undoubtedly the most important and memorable moment of our lifetime, and I'm trapped at my desk. It's just not worth it."If it's not worth it to you, then quit your damn job!
Idiot.
Don't go whining about it online.And certainly don't go taking advantage whatever alien body snatcher has taken over poor Hemos and forces him like a puppet on a string to submit articles of ever-increasing irrelevence in hopes of bringing down this mighty paragon of open-source intellectual pursuit.
What's up with this being moderated as funny?
It's not funny, it's true and very sad.
I had to work new year's eve too, and missed
celebrating my son's first new year (he's 5
months old). Sure, it may be just another new
year, and if i want to see a lot of numbers roll
over, well, my car should hit 150,000 miles soon,
so I can just watch the odometer.
But for some of us, there were more important
landmarks to this event.
Oh well, at least I was there for his first
Christmas.
Oh, and this poster is right...I can't take a lot
of comfort in people remembering the heroic deed
I did by sitting in my cubicle on new years eve,
because I know that it won't be remembered for
more than a few months.
Working big holidays is made all the worse for not being appreciated. As a musician at the first new year gig I ever played for we discoverd that despite working very hard preparing what the band would do over midnight the hotel had hired a bag piper and didn't tell us until 30 seconds before he started to play!
On a more serious note the Y2K problem was one which had a lot of effort put in to it and whilst it is a shame that any one had to work it was understandable.
My father does systems for air traffic control and stayed in this year in case of any emergencies. Of course there were none but today he received a note telling him that the millenium wasn't a success because of a minor error in the date in a log file - it was fixed with a reboot but at least they are not taking what seems to be becoming a popular attitude and claiming that it was over-hyped.
-- "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Watching the millenium roll by made me realise...
Did you suddenly learn how to travel forward in time and not share it with anyone? Take a look at this link.
I want a rock.
I know that in practice it's harder than that. However, I do believe that the situation in Canada is better, if for no other reason because a lot of people are immigrants too (frequently non-white, non-Christian). Plus, as I say, courts *do* follow the law on this (or Charter of Rights); well, unless media doesn't report on failed cases. There isn't much more government can do short of introducing laws that would establish statutory holidays according to one's faith; and that probably wouldn't work. Why? Well, what's to stop an atheist from choosing holidays of a faith that has most of them? And then, faiths that have less holidays would surely complain. Unless you introduce "padding" days off for those, of course.
From the understanding-of-cultures point of view it would be best to observe *ALL* holidays, let people know each other. You don't have to do their ceremonies of course, just understand and respect them. Fat chance, however, in a society obsessed with money that's trying really hard to stop you from enjoying days off even on those few holidays that exist now.
I personally think that making up for lost time (or having to take unpaid leave) is the reason most non-Christians complain; they don't get the option to work on Christmas instead. That, and the whole Christmas hype (sales).
Good point! Big expectations usually only leed to big disappointments...
Oh, **NOW** I'm bummed: The Renegade BBS software not only doesn't run under a PentiumII, Celeron, or AMD Athlon, it also is NOT Y2K Compliant.
I brought out my backup of the old Renegade BBS I used to run back two years ago "just to see" and sure enough, everything date related on my 05-11 Renegade version is kaput: User last-login & first login dates are wacked, all files appear as new uploads each time a user logs in, and more. GRRR. This sucks. I'm really dissapointed. To Cott Lang, Patrick Spence, and whomever "maintains" the code now:
OPEN SOURCE IT.
Please.
Me and my (soon to be) wife have a web site which includes a perl script-based counter and logging gizmo so we can figure out who's been to the site every day.
." ". $mon ."/". $mday ."/". $year;
It uses something similiar to:
($mday,$mon,$year,$wday,) = localtime(time()); print LOG $wday
so, the logs flipped from "12/31/99" to "01/01/100"
Der, my dumb.
$year = $year + 1900;
To the author: Congratulations on one of the finest essays I have ever read. I think that every one of us that knows how you feel owes you a debt of gratitude for putting it in such poinent(sp?) language. I am grateful nothing did happen, and I am grateful that hundreds of thousands of wives, girlfriends, and others understodd why we had to be there, even if they thought it was crazy. What I really want to know is, if something had gone wrong, what where we supposed to do??? Find the line of code we missed the first 300 times?? Pull out a rifle?? Storm the capital?? Who knows, and why do I even ask?
J
not to be picky or anything (about your .sig), but amendment actually has 2 m's. count 'em.
This space intentionally left blank.
cute analogy- though I think a fork would describe it better. The part of the bible that you are farmiliar with may have not changed since then, but Judiaism has changed a fair bit in the last 2000 years. The foundation may be the same, but tons of new features have been added, and different distributions empahsize differnet things. Orthodoxy keeps almost all of those laws, while Conservative and Reformed movements in the US have changed that empahsis, only incuding the basic install for those who find that suits their need. In addition, many people are merging code. (Note the Jewish Buddist movement, for example.)
Actually, you can: wait until 31 December 2000. As everyone knows (and is sick of hearing) the third millennium begins 1 January 2001.
Interesting side note: Denver's millennium monument is not only marked with the wrong date but also spells millennium incorrectly.
My father was in the Navy; your list is pretty funny. For those who are not familiar with it, a typical Navy cruise is 3-6 months. Sub cruises in my (very limited) experience can be as long as a year.
My father was off the coast of Bahrain IIRC when the first of my brothers was born. C'est la vie.
The sub captain who lived across the street was gone for a year. Any fellow in the Navy has missed these things. For that matter, just about anybody who has ever travelled for business has.
Well, my parents' wedding was early due to my father shipping out early; it was either February or October.
I do this anyway. Dashed embarassing, let me tell you. Especially 'cause I didn't remember until a week later. Man I was ashamed.
Gag me with ten types of spoon.
Oh, and money is a priority; it's just not the first priority. Even, I daresay, for you.
Of course everyone worth their salary in this industry knew for sure nothing would break. It's not rocket science to set the dates on computers to 1999-12-31. Any serious company had done this, tested every important system and seen that nothing at all would happen.
So, yes, it was impossible for the power to go out, everyone knew it, but due to some media jerks and fearmongers a lot of people were forced to work.
Newsgroups section" Posting of off-topic articles is prohibited. " Post your Off-topic Nazi BS and lets find out if Bellsouth considers /. a newsgroup. Loss of access is the penality. If you want to debate do it somewhere it will be ON TOPIC. Nobody here gives a damn about your paranoid bullshit.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Banks had to worry about it in 1996 when they started making bank cards with '00' expiration dates. Some with those new cards were unable to get their money.
Actually considerably before that, like about 1975...
My dad, a dentist.. has a small computer "network" in his office. Well, he doesn't work on fridays, so.. on Thursday, Dec. 30th (that is correct, right?) his secretaries closed out the books on their computer(s) for the day/year. So, where it was supposed to have read January 1, 2000 (signifying that they'll be starting work on a new year), it instead said January 1, 1900. I thought that was the funniest thing, but at the same time, it aggravates me, because that's not supposed to happen. Especially since the company he bought the systems from claimed they were Y2K compliant, da dee da...
geez!!
Insert mind here.
Or you can just celebrate the pagan holidays if you're pagan :) (which on a side note, no-longer coincide with xian holidays due to all the calendar changes ;)
---The proceeding comments were not paid for by the following advertisers.
I think something may have happened. I had to spend the whole of yesterday at a test centre waiting to do a NT Server 4 exam. They kept downloading it, and recreating different parts of my account, but it kept crashing. I was the first and so-far, only candidate to sit an exam this year (at least for this test centre). Has Sylvan Prometric been hit by the bug, and are trying to hide it? If anyone else had any problems, let's hear about them!
insignificant sig
Bah. I'll just celebrate Y2K next time it comes around...
Honestly, I would like to hear him explain that to his children:
"Yeah, I remember the day you were born, but that didn't hold a candle to what I missed on new year's eve."
Please.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
I don't want to debate you, I'm already too embarrassed at being the same species as you! (If you want to debate about us being the same species, I'd welcome you to prove me wrong.)
- "When I say dance, you'd best DANCE motherf*cker!" -Violent Femmes
Hmm.. Seems to me this poster is trying to show appreciation, not be funny. Eh, just my opinion..
Daniel
Right on man! I had just about given up on the "Slashdot Community" when I saw this message. So many people don't recognize the things that really make people happy. It's very sad to see people wasting their lives on relatively unimportant things, while missing some of the most important and joyful.
Dear Joe Computer,
While I cannot sympathise with you directly (I was one of the privileged at home), I, as do most slashdot readers, I'm sure, agree with you completely on the state of the mass media.
For instance, I work a a graphic design firm (and we're doing new media now). In addition to our regular backups last week, we were also informed that we were to make additional backups. Three sets on three different types of media. You see, the owner was paranoid because of what he read in his business magazines, or saw on NBC. Paranoid to the point that I had to go in last Friday to physically UNPLUG from our network pipe. He was afraid that, at midnight, virii would infest our system and eat all our data. I informed him that it was impossible for virii to 'eat' the data that we had on CDRom, but he insisted, and I humoured him.
We're a graphic design agency for heaven's sake. It's not like we had sensitive accounting information for Fortune 500 companies. I assured him that our vector art would survive.
Nevertheless, we currently have very good backups of our data from last year.
Thank you telescreens. Thank you Big Brother. And even though this is redundant, thank you mass media.
shouldn't that be, An Open Letter About The Y2K Bug?
</put on flame retarding clothes>
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Lucky you got cchristmas, I worked that weekend too.
No, SF, your ranting isn't a thought-crime. It would have to be thought to be a thought-crime, and I sure don't see any brain activity where you are. Crawl back under your stone and take your crayon-to-computer interface with you.
(Okay, moderators, I've got in my shots; moderate the thread down!)
No, it's even more pernicious than that -- we want to make sure that everyone who can count is geared up for the *real* millennium party. Oh, it'll be grand -- not only will we not be sitting on our asses in our various server rooms etc., it'll be *MUCH* easier and cheaper to get good hotel and restaurant reservations.
But again, that only goes for the folks who understand that there was no 0 CE. In light of which, congratualtions to all: we have just jointly observed / administered the world's largest simultaneous, albeit short, IQ test.
Champagne at home, baby! Wooo Hoo!
Aside from that, by the time el An~o Nuevo hit our area, The Zealanders and Strailians were still alive and kicking.
No Worries, mate.
I understand wholeheartedly what upset the author of this. It's not like you can wait until the next millenium celebration and party then. As Henry Rollins says "When you waste some of my time, you murder a little bit of me".
What surprises me most is that there wasn't a mass exodus from the tech companies who were forcing people to work NYE. Shows you how much the bosses still have us by the short and curlies.
I wish I wrote this.
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
Hey dumbass, those bloodstained hands are the
reason you can bitch about anything you want on
a giant public network (and I'm talking about
folks outside the States, as well).
I'd bet you'd hand over your mother to avoid being
'AK-47 fodder'.
Would you shut up already?
I can't complain about our own Y2K roll-over situation. Everything was cool and chilled out. We knew that all our systems were going to work. Our CIO was only present to keep the Lawyers happy in-case the s*** hit the fan.
At 12:01, we were all on the the 8th floor watching the Fireworks displays!
I'm not going to bitch about other departments behaviour during Y2K, since they p*** us off all year round anyway!!! It was nice to have them out of our hair for the night!
We've got a great team here,and we all work hard. And it is good to work at a company where the CIO and other managers appreciate the work that we plebs put in.
ys.
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
0) Hey, Spam doesn't taste that bad, after all. ;)
Hype is part of the world. People are irrationally excitable. It's just part of things. If you can't stand people getting all uptight with the 'sky is falling' syndrome leave the human race now. It is how people function.
I'm the main network admin where I work. I came in for 15 minutes Saturday (around 1pm in the afternoon after I rolled out of bed) to check my systems.
I had several talks before then with management and the y2k "team" (read people justifying their jobs solely though hype and fear) and it boiled down to the following:
1) I'd stay within 30 min drive.
2) I promised I'd stay semi sober until after midnight. If I didn't get a call by 12:30 I could go wild. Believe me I did.
3) I'd come in the next day to double check things.
Others came in that night (that y2k team being one. they reminded me of vultures hovering hopeing something would die). I sure didn't. My stuff worked. I told them it would work. Repeatedly for months. Management decided to place their bets on their 25 year old network admin. It paid off for them. One happy network admin and the bonus that nothing went wrong.
I've found that if I spend a little time explaining the situation and laying out the possibilities I don't have to do nasty things like come in and spend new years night working. I keep my act together ahead of time. I talk to the managers and explain it in their talk what the possibilities are and what has been done. That prevents these sort of problems.
I had a great time myself. Those who didn't, well tough. You picked your profession for good or bad. If it isn't worth it then change. Or maybe try talking with the people making the unpleasant decisions so that maybe, just maybe, they might understand what is going on and stop beliving the hype.
Okay...if everyone here chimes in about how they didn't get laid on NYE, it's going to overload these poor servers and crash Slashdot...I swear, it'll be ten times worse than when the Starr report was released on the Internet...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Personaly I am disgusted by this whole millenium thing. It's all we ever hear about in the media; "new millenium album", "millenium calender", "millenium candy", "millenium bug" and etc. etc. I am so sick and tired of the whole f**king millenium deal. That's what I think anyway.
Techies created the problem, techies should be responsible for fixing it. Spare us the pathos and admit responsibility. Its a lot like crashing into someone's car and eventually paying them back and expecting all sorts of thanks for doing the obvious thing.
Pat yourself on the back, cause I sure won't.
Lucky you. Around my place, they are saying: "All that money has been wasted for nothing. As you see there was no Y2K problem after all. It was surely those damn Y2K consultancies wanting to make a quick buck".
Strangely enough, nobody thought that maybe all this money was spent to fix the problem, and that that was why there was none...
Say no to software patents.
You seem to be under two false impressions: that I am a facist or other authoritarian, and that I am over 21. Both are false.
I am a right-leaning libertarian.
Also - are you threatening me with physical violence?
No comment at this time
I am willing to have a debate/discussion if there are any points which you disagree with. Whether or not I crawled out from under a rock is not germane to this issue. If childish insults and pleas to moderators are all you have to offer, you forfeit the debate to me.
No comment at this time
Two can play at your silly game. And remember, if my post is moderated down, I make it a page long and plaster it all over Slashdot. I will be heard. Why won't you debate me?
I am willing to have a debate/discussion if there are any points which you disagree with. Whether or not I crawled out from under a rock is not germane to this issue. If childish insults and pleas to moderators are all you have to offer, you forfeit the debate to me.
No comment at this time
I have plenty of brain activity. My IQ and test scores put me in the top 99.999 percent of the population, according to a standardized IQ test.
But, really, details about me are not germane to this discussion. I would be happy to debate, if you have any counter-arguements.
Or do you, deep down inside, know that what I'm saying is true, but you just don't want the foolish goyem to see it?
Incidentally, there is no basis for this post to be moderated down. I made a rational argument, which I have the right to do.
Oy, veh!
No comment at this time
Hate? Where's hate? I offered some facts. If you are not willing do debate me, you concede my points. Can you name a single thing which is untrue?
No comment at this time
Hateful people are scum? I'm glad I'm not one! I have a friend who is half jewish. He even wants to be a lawyer, like all good parasitic jews!
orthodox jews sure hate goyim, though. DO you know what goyim means?
No comment at this time
I concede that jews are members of the species Homo sapiens. Are you happy?
My original post has not yet been moderated down. How do you like that?
No comment at this time
Luser: Does tea have caffene?
Me: Yes, but moreso it's got some other chemicals that are similar to caffene.
Luser: No, it can't because it doesn't list it as one of the ingredients on the label. It just says "Tea brewed from tea leaves, etc."
Luser: Will there be chaos when the new year rolls around?
Me: No, there might be a few minor annoyances though.
Luser: You're wrong; you're just saying that 'cause you're part of some conspiracy. My cuzin's building a bunker and says all of Russia's missles will come and blow me up. My tee-vee says the power will go out and...
If you don't want the truth go bug somebody who will tell you the lies you want to hear. Don't bother me.
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
Exactly what Christian federal/state holidays are there besides Christmas? That most-holy of holy Labor Day? I hardly think Columbus Day or Veteran's Day is considered sacred.
Have you even attempted a compromise with your boss? You could very easily switch holidays. To avoid sitting in a near-empty office on Christmas, you could offer to pick up the on-call duty for Christmas Day (if your shop has that) in exchange for your having Hanukkah off (assuming you are Jewish). It gives the illusion you are offering any of your own time in exchange for them giving you time off for religious purposes which most companies push managers to support when possible.
As far as the other holidays, I think if you look around you will notice there are a lot of people working then. The world doesn't just stop for the day. Stop by any gas station/AM-PM/7-11 if you don't believe me.
As you get more seniority, you are able to get priority over others on the day's you choose to have off. Don't be supprised if other folks take time off as well or if the days they choose coincide with Christian holidays from time to time. hat's the way the world works.
Wow, that had to suck... Hope things are okay...
Someone give this person good karma, they need it!
-Steve
My intelligence insults itself.
even if in jest, what you just said IS a felony...
Short of being with friends from school, though, this is what I wanted to be doing. I'm at my computer every of the 364 other days of the year, so why not then? Computing, be it for work or play, is such a big part of my life that it's something I'm very comfortable doing.
No, I didn't prefer to be at home rather with some friends, but I didn't have that option. So I don't feel I missed out on anything.
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
The city in Michigan that installed the stop signs is called Troy, and it's my home town. Ironically, our city slogan is "The City of Tomorrow, Today." We seemed to take a wrong turn on that one with our Y2K readiness. In addition to 4 way stop signs at every big intersection, the city had prepared several of those large "Road Closed" barricades at each intersection.. and no one I know has any idea why. Considering that our power company guranteed Y2K readiness in 1998, it's no surprise that public paranoia got us spending extra money that could be used in the schools.
The higher, the fewer.
Icebalm has it slightly wrong. The cold rules of logic decree that:
Nothing happened, therefore WE DO NOT KNOW whether it was because of the preparations.
An awful lot of people are trying to justify the billions spent on them right now.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
or are we going to wait till 2037 to fix that too? :-p
The human race has always placed importance on time landmarks. The end of a decade, the end of a century. This one is just bigger than the rest (end of year/decade/century/millenium). Why is this important? Simply because society as a whole has decided it is, the same as society tells us it's important to get a nice job, nice house, go to the right school, etc. Going a level deeper it gets more complicated. Why is the marking of time so important to a society? The sense that we are moving forwards? Relief we haven't destroyed the planet yet? I don't know.
Hubec tells us that it's the personal events in your life that are more important, but even many of our personal events are based on the marking of time. Turning 18 and becoming an adult (allegedly). 21st. Many get depressed on their 40th birthday (why not 39th or 41st?). A big momement in many people's lives is retirement which happens on the 65th birthday.
Personally I think last New Years Eve was a great excuse for a massive party. I've no intention of probing for any meaning to y2k. I do know it pulled nations together momentarily, families made that extra effort to get together, friends looked up old friends for reunions. I'm now going to forget about it until my future kid asks me what I did on the eve of the millenium. Then I'm going to shamelessly exagerate.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
The one I work for was kind enough to have a few programmers availible by beeper on New Year's Eve. Surprise! They still got to enjoy whatever they were doing away from work. Paranoia fuels heirarchial orders it seems...
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
Y2K was not such a big event that your life will end because of it. I mean really, the Gregorian calendar is not the be-all end-all of life.
Put it this way: when they talk to elderly people about the passing of the year 1900, they don't ask: "What did you do that night?" No, they want to know what life was like back then. Hopefully you wouldn't really care too much about one night that really was a non-event.
I'm sure that the memories of the birth of your children, or your marriage night will far surpass anything you would get from a one-night drunken party.
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
That's the way it is. Live your live when you can.
To be honest, I was already unhappy with management long ago, but their rollover overtime policy wasy "no extra pay, but double comp time, oh BTW, there's a vacation freeze from December - March" didn't help.
I quit a job that would have required me to come in the morning of New Years Day, for a job that gave me Friday afternoon off and a nice increase in pay.
I wonder how many people gave notice on December 16th?
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I know that I'm calling on the wall of flame and vitriol by writing this, but please get some perpective: it was Christian New Years (before you ask, yes, the indistrialized world runs on a Christian calendar-- there are previous few truly non-denominational things in this world, friends)-- be thankful for what we do get; we're semi-disposable workers in America, the all-singing, all-dancing crap of history.
(Good Christ, I'm ranting. Please pardon.)
i am not a unique snowflake.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
that's classic, it's art-- swear to God, holmes: you're my hero...
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
No, because the letter was written TO the Y2K bug, not about it....\n Ya understand? His entire point was to write TO the bug, saying how much he hated it... It isn't written to someone else about the bug. --Tomaj
This is just sad. I hope there are more important and memorable moments in all of our lives than watching and celebrating the clock ticking over.
Was this open letter for real, or just an excessively whiney troll? Can you say, "wallowing in self-pity"?
Sorry! For most of the world did this thing just don't happen. The Y2Kbug was mostly a hystery but some "smart" people (I call them ruthless) made A LOT of money out of this. Guess who has to pay? Don't be sorry!
Let's not forget that one critical date has been passed (01/01/00) but there's still Feb 29th to worry about. IT workers in financial institutions and kin still have that one to worry about... :-) not me though, I got that day off... now where did I put my champagne glasses...
Thank you to my CTO who said "Work New Year's Eve or don't bother coming in the next day."
If my management took this attitude and said something akin to this to me I'd walk out and sue them for constructive dissmisal.
I had to post a comment somewhere in this thread, this seems an appropriate place. First off I wasn't working over midnight itself, but I did drag myself in for 5am to cover all day on the 1st. Why? Because the whole firm was working. The users were busy checking outputs, reading reports to look for errors etc., IT was providing support, testing infrastructure and so on. Catering was feeding us all. Security were keeping the drunks from trashing the building. For us it wasn't just IT who were affected, it was everyone. So what right would I have to say "actually no, I don't want to work, I'm different from all you guys". Sure I could have quit, but I quite like the job, so to me it was a sacrafice, but one I was willing to make.
And as for the paranoia argument....you must live in a small world. I firmly believe we were lucky, our dependency on external systems over which we have no control, the sheer complexity and size of our own systems, the huge potential damage which could be caused by just one little slip up....I'm glad we were covered 'cos I'd have been very upset if I took the weekend off and came in monday to find the firm had gone bust!
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
If you don't understand why being a direct participant in the information revolution during y2k is better than being a drunken public nuisance in the street, you should consider another career. I make the machines of the world run and I love doing it. Take your silly little sour grapes to the temp agency and hook up with someone who won't expect you to be anything more than another football junky.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Tell me if this logic works:
I feel that the majority of people who had to work new years eve faced one or both of the following problems:
1. Management was not convinced that their IT staff had successfully remediated the problem in their own systems.
2. Management was not convinced that if anything did happen, it would be outside of their systems and beyond their control.
I am the sole administrator for a division of a global manufacturing company. I am responsible for every system that moves electrons. These include servers, desktops, LANs, WANs, Internet, telephones, security systems, electrical power, CNC hosts etc. And to make matters worse, Corporate dictated long ago that we would be a Microsoft company. So I have to support a multitude of systems running a dizzying array of Microsoft products. Sound like fun?
But despite all this, I was fortunate enough to spend the entire NYE1999 weekend at home with all the friends that I and my wife invited over. How did I manage this?
I made certain that management was involved just enough in the Y2K remediation process that they could understand what our systems did and where they were vulnerable. I gave them detailed progress reports throughout the process. I invited management to take part in the live test where we rolled the clocks to 12.31.99 23:00. The system demonstated its ability to handle the rollover without an event.
I setup the ability to dial into the system from home and test all major aspects of the system from remote. In the end, I had sold management on the idea that everything that could be done had been done. They were adequately convinced that if anything did go wrong, it would be something outside our systems (ie power, dial tone, etc.) and that it would be a waste of time and money to have me onsite.
Management was confident that I could monitor the system from home and would be aware if anything did go wrong.
In the end, I was able to enjoy the holiday because management and I knew that we had taken care of the problem. My guess is that the majority of those that did have to work on NYE either had not adequately prepared their systems to handle Y2K or had not involved management enough in the process for them to understand that the systems were ready. The remainder simply have a paranoid management.
We often forget that working with the computers is only half the job. Computers are made by people to be used by people. Working with real live human beings is an aspect of our job that we easily forget or neglect. While we were all preparing our computer systems for Y2K, how many of us took the time to prepare our userbase and our management for Y2K. If we as IT staff forgot to address the people that use these systems, then the only information they got was from the press or their churches, both in which the majority was selling the notion that we were doomed.
Simply fact is that no matter how much we want to be geeks, techowizards, geniouses, etc. we must not for get that we must also play the roll of salesman. You have to sell your ideas and your beliefs to your management and users. Once I learned that lesson, my job became a lot more interesting, productive and exciting.
All that being said, please let me take my hat off to all those who serve in our armed forces defending this great nation. Thanks to you, I have the priveledge to work a facinating and challenging job, go home to my wonderful wife, invite my closest friends over and enjoy the holidays. Without you brave people, none of this would be possible.
"Inspire me! Tell me it cannot be done!"
Every day is the start of a new millenium.
-no broken link
You do realize that the desktop support people who make sure the computers are running right are NOT the same people who wrote the broken code, don't you?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
You say Jews are intrinsically evil? According to the Bible, ALL PEOPLE are intrinsically evil because Adam and Eve ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. A person can become GOOD only through the grace of God.
The Y2K bug started in the 50s, but it continued into the late 90s. Even Windows 98 was not Y2K compliant. Microsoft released a patch in the second half of 1999. You'd be surprised how much software created in the last couple years was not compliant.
That's what contract law is are for. Contracts can't possibly cover all possible contingencies, since predicting the future is impossible and the costs would outweigh the benefits of trying to cover all contingencies. What they can do is provide a way for resolution of disputes. A lot of contracts will specify duties, such as "maintaining the integrity of a computer network" which could EASILY be construed to refer to a y2k evening at work.
The question is, should we insist on different contracts when we sign up for a job? Probably, if we want to avoid this. It is necessary to realize, however, that insisting on different terms will inevitably impose costs on you as well as your employer.
So the incompleteness of contracts is a rational response to the impossibility of future knowledge.
jon
-- http://www.cerastes.org
I think you messed up the disposable worker line..
... I guess you can be thankfull you won't be killed for your Religion.. (I was in Saudi like 3 weeks ago, scary place I know..)
I definately agree there is some discriminations on days off when it comes to religion.
I thought it was funny how Saudi Arabia totally banned any form of celebration because it was considered to be "celebrating an infidels holiday"
I am Jacks despair...
-Dextius Alphaeus
-- Java is not a Jedi trait... "do, or do not, there is no try" --
Yes, but it was almost worth it to ask our pain the ass consultant if he had found a new scam yet.
Democracy is dead. All kneel to the Commander In Thief.
It's too bad though that there's no real way we can drill it to the media, letting them know how much they blew this one. It was a lot like War of the Worlds, except drawn out over a period of three-four years.
One thing, though, that I don't really believe in, is how "special" the year 2000 was. It's just a number driven by media hype and economic thrust! We've already proven that we started at 1AD, that Jesus Christ was actually born a few years before then, and that we're just not perfect when it comes to telling time (it took us how long before we finally established the Jullian Calendar?). I personally didn't see anything spectacular in this year, besides the fact that we rolled over from 1999 to 2000.
It's not like I threw a celebration when I rolled my car's spedometer over from 99999.9 to 00000.0!
If there were fewer lawyers working on the Y2K issue, we could have all benn a little happier out of this whole thing.
Carpe Deez
Funny: most kids growing up on the farm are getting CS and EE degrees and coming to work at my company. We were all on the clock Dec 31. No sanctuary here, Logan.
Information wants to be Free. Useful Information will cost you.
C'mon man where's the love?
Personally the new year meant about as much to me this year as much as every new year means. NOTHING. I Kept hearing reporters saying things like "this is the beginning of the next thousand years." So is every new year. Every day is the beginning of the next 365 250 (ish) days. Every day is the beginning of the rest of your life. All the events which you alluded to (landing on the moon etc.) were real historical events were one could really feel that they were part of history. Landing on the moon was a momentous event in the history of the human race. The earth spinning on it's axis one more time hardly seems to qualify. I'm sorry that you didn't have the choice to spend your new years how you would have liked, but it was no big deal. I was in bed by 10 pm.
Well there were certainly some bugs. Our installation found then and fixed them around about November '98.
There certainly was a lot of hype and several hundred pundits earning big bucks telling people the world was going to end.
So was it completely hype or did all those Y2K pundits save us from doom? Well think about this-
Italy had the lowest Y2K spend in Europe and probably the entire industrialised world. It got to the stage where the US state department, department of trade etc. were approaching italy at ambasador level to castigate them for there lack of preparedness. The Italians had wine to drink and motorcycles to make so they generally ignored all this hysterical pressure from the US and spent next to nothing fix thier "Y2K" bugs.
So come January first with all the media in the world desperate to report a Y2K bug, in all those pathetic reports of non bugs, did you here one report of anyone or thing in Italy suffer from a single Y2K bug?
No!
On balance I would say the Italians got it right. They saved themselves a pile of money and everybody got to party on new years eve.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
"Nobody likes a math geek"
It was unlikely after everything got fixed. But, the millions of lines of code in individual programs, multiplied by millions of programs, and millions of hardware issues... THere was certainly a chance that something serious was missed. The old boy scout motto, Be Prepared, applies here. It would be stupid to not have a few people on hand to deal with the results of the one line of code they missed out of 10 million.
And anyways, I was referring in general to all those who have worked overtime on the Y2K bug, on the rollover or the preperation.
So how do you know for sure power wouldn't have gone out? Unlikely perhaps, I can see an argument for that. But impossible, certainly not. Bad stuff could have happened. Most of the damage would have been in financial areas, but the potential existed for other disruptions. If a powerplant has automated routines for error checking or maintenance, and all of the sudden they are up for every single one again, or the computer crashes because of bad file dates, all hell could break loose. People like the writer of that letter were necesary to avoid any of these problems. Y2K if ignored would have been extremely bad. Thanks to the efforts of this letter writer and many others in the tech industry, computers managed to make it through all over the world. Without them, I'd be surprised if my comment could ever be seen, much less gotten such an empty response from you.
We had it easy in our dept at The Death Star(tm)
We were on call, sure.. but the rules were that you had to return the call within 30 minutes and be available to come in to the office within 8 hours. Our team is the programming team, I guess they had enough failth in us as programmers, in the function testers as testers, in the regression testers in their work and the second function test/regression test that all of the software went through before we were any where near y2k.
In otherwords... Perhaps the gripes should be about a lack of trust in your preparedness procedures.
I had a nice peaceful evening in the OpenVerse as I watched the time switch from everywhere in the world. We drank shots for NZ, OZ/China, All of europe, blah blah.. safely zoinked out of my mind with my parrot, the captain, and my OpenVerse friends.
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Fish! LipHo
ps. One more slightly paraphrased quote: "I'm sick of working here at The Computer Industry. I'm moving to Iowa to raise corn." If you need me, I'll be in Iowa.
Plenty of us Iowans were stuck on this useless detail too...
And we'd have probably killed for your cold ham and sweedish meatballs...
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
thanks joe computer for being a crybaby. thanks joe computer's parents for giving him everything he wanted when he was little and now he doesn't understand you don't always get what you want. i never understand people that complain about these things, if it means that much to you take a stand and take, even if that means losing your job if you value partying more.
Actually, I can understand how it was better to use two digits when disk space was expensive. But what about the decisions made year after year to NOT spend the money to rewrite code once the disk space became inexpensive. There were so many opportunities to fix software since the days of expensive storage, but it wasn't "important" enough. Maybe it didn't help the "bottom line"?
Anyone ever read Atlas Shrugged? There will always be a power struggle between politics and knowledge.
I suspected nothing major would go wrong but
there was so much hype, I even got bought into
it somewhat.
Here's my theory:
Dates are mostely used for accounting and
finantial programs and reporting/analysis
tools. The power grid doesn't much care
what the date is, nor does your car or
your shaver. When the nuclear power plant
decides what mixture of ions to put in the
core water it will look at all the operating
peramiters of the plant, not the date. And
even if it did, whoever programmed it
wouldn't have written non y2k complient
code, it's too important.
Y2K bugs caused very few problems because
that's the way they were designed. I don't
know about everybody else but if I was writing
missile launch code I wouldn't say, oh well,
this doesn't take leap year and Y2K into
account but that's ok. If it's important,
I write it right. If it's generating a
report that 3 people read occasionaly, I'm
not goig to care much about how it handles
Y2K. People made the code sloppy mostly when
it didn't matter that much.
The failures were minor by design.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
If it makes you feel any better Joe Computer, I didnt get laid on New Years Eve. Oh and a few years back I DID quit a job that required me to work on New Years, and it wasnt even special like YK2.
Lars -
I can't believe people like you still exist. Go crawl under the rock you came out of.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
Oh, I forgot... this is probably the better way to get the point across. Moderators, do your stuff :)
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
I'm glad I'm not the only one who found that offensive. And I'm not even a Jew!
Maybe it's partly cause I was raised similar to one, and maybe it's just because I think hateful people such as that are scum...
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
The funny thing about this whole thing is that I am a card-carrying libertarian myself.
Call me crazy (YOU'RE CRAZY, ala Win Ben Stein's Money), but I really don't see how nazism and libertarianism (and that guy WAS/IS a fascist, whether or not he admits it or not) can intermingle, considering all fascism manages to do is take freedoms away from people.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
No, I'm afraid you forfeited all rights to serious debate the minute you spouted such hate.
It's a shame, too. You seem to have so much to say. Too bad it isn't worth saying.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
My parents and some of their college friends used to have a celebration every year called Saint Zebra's Day. I have no idea what it was, when it was, or where the name came from, but I'm sure it was vastly more important to all of them than this new years was. I think special days are where you find them.
Granted, for many people this day could have been the most important of their life -- but not because Y2K has any intrinsic value.
--Jack
I spent New Years working for my client and all went okay, as it should. I didn't get as much as a thank you or job well done. I did get paid :) It is human nature to not be able to appreciate the absence of something, such as the absence of Y2K chaos, the absence of a hurricane, global disaster, etc. Yet that is the end result of a conservatively estimated $200+ billion dollars spent worldwide in the last few years. Is it possible we could apply this same level of commitment to other problems where the good is its absence, such as world hunger, global warming, etc? If that is the case I would gladly miss another holiday, and this time it will be more than just so my tcom client can complete their phone calls.
Could you now tell us how those jewish students compare academically with the other students? I had the experience of a "large" proportion of jewish (as well as other ethnic) students in my school (compared to general population), and I can say that of the "non-aryan" students there were a larger percentage of them who deserved to succeed based on academic merits. Do you truly believe that more of the jewish students in your school are there because of their parents as oppossed to the aryan kids?
I agree with the gripe about the mass media, but they're off the mark on many things, not just Y2K.
As for your CTO, tell him to screw off. In this industry (and for the foreseeable future) the MAN needs us far more than we need the MAN. I surprises me to no end how much crap workers will tolerate from management. Just call your favorite headhunter and walk - as someone else pointed out, even wannabe script kiddies who write VB can get good paying jobs.
As for me, I stayed home with the wife. Part of my job is sysadmin (small company, the greenest of developers - me - gets the admin stuff to do) and the subject of being around at midnight never even came up. It helps that the CTO is technically savvy - a key criteria for any place I'd ever work at.
Instead of writing whining letters, the author should be working on his resume. Life's too short.
on new years eve, but i also didn't go to any parties, i was invited to a few, but i've been to new years eve parties before, they were all boring, why was this one supposed to be different?? just because the year was going to 2000?! i didn't see it as a big deal, i knew my computer was gonna keep working, instead i sat around watching south park, playing on my computer, and drank wine with my brother, all in all was just a normal night for me, except the internet was rather nicely empty, got some nice high speeds and used that time to get around to d/l'ing stuff i'd been meaning to get, anyways, if i could have, i would've worked on new years eve, hell, i'd work xmas day if they gave me the choice, but i don't have a very important job, and the office i work in we only work m-f and we ALWAYS get holidays off, if i had a good computer related job, i wouldn't mind working on holidays, besides that i don't really celebrate much of anything anyways, i see it all as a waste of time.
If Y2K is one of the greatest moments of your life you should really re-evaluate what's important to you. Plus if it wasn't for the media you probably wouldn't think 01/01/2000 was that important in the first place. Time is just a measure of change, and not much changed besides a couple of numbers in some arbitrary measure of change. Yippity Shit, the year 2000, my life has changed so drastically...
I was at a great one; I personally didn't have the best time, but several of my friends went completely freaky -- I was happy for them. It was fun to watch.
People keep saying Y2K was a non-event, but there were several potentially serious issues that came up, and if not for the last few years of preparation I do think it could have been bad.
I personally did some Y2K work for a finncial institution, and their employees would have extra work to do, for sure, without the database and query mods I did. A lot of account forcasts would be accumulating bad mojo as of a little over a year ago.
One person I know (who was proclaiming Y2K a joke) has a two year old mail program that rolled the years in the email headers over to "00" and "100", depending on the field. I thought that was pretty funny.
I look forward to the millenium party next year. It really is the start of the new millenium, and nerds like me are gonna rage. All the non-beleivers can stay home -- More party for us.
I doubt your boss will care if you're hungover for a week, the rollover is gone, the start of the third millenium approaches!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I don't work (yet), but I can clearly see the stupidity of this matters. This should be enough to sue someone. How come one pays millions to keep their company's systems updated, every single device looking for a year date Y2K compliant, and then, at the last, "invites" a tech to stay at the company on 31-12 or get invited to be out of here. HOW do they do that? WHY do they do that? I think mostly because of the media hype. I don't know, it was just silly. Everybody knew nothing bad was going to happen really, because of all the measures everybody took (and all that obscure billion dollars, where are them now? on some smart guy's swiss bank account, probably...). You see, this is a complicated world. "Just in case" is just great. I wish I could have eg a guarantee of keeping the money from stuff I buy "just in case I don't like it, I promise I'll pay if I do".
I don't know. Given the recent advances in genetics & biotech, we might see techniques for significantly slowing aging within the next 50 years.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
At first I felt a great deal of pity for my fellow Computer Man, but then I realized, "Hey, he was working newyears just like me, and I'd bet dollars to yen that he made the same overtime that I did (2.5 times normal!!!). Heck, that's worth missing a few hours with my family and cold ham and nasty swedish meatballs!
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
whats the fuss? .. the air was no different .. we didn't wake up the next day to a shining sparkling new future .. what changed? .. nothing .. why get all uptight about it? every second that passes takes you closer and closer to the burning fiery frenzy of destruction that awaits our media driven joke-excuse of a culture .. view each moment with mounting dread, o people
To those people who think that it is so easy to find a job, if the guy has a family, it is quite possible that he was worried about dealing with any period of unemployment. And some people assumed that they were going to get NYE off until the last moment. Losing his job and spending a month unemployed while he searched for another job might not have been a workable scenario.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Cobol programmers. The default way of storing numbers in Cobol is effectively as a string. All the code to do conversion is done by the compiler and is transparent to the programmer.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
on a similar theme, an editorial in today's London Times also addresses this issue. It is less bitter, but also belittles the danger that did exist.
A valid point it brings up is whether the amount spent on Y2K was reasonable. Interesting quote from the editorial: "If British Telecom spent £400 million and Telecom Italia next to nothing, questions will have to be asked."
The author's ranting about techo-hucksters is quite off the mark, but he does propose an interesting riposte for managers to fend off upgrading to new microsoft products. :-) The sad thing is, though, that his enmity towards "techno-hucksters" stems from his understandably poor experiences with microsoft products and the relentless, enforced update cycle, and then projects it onto areas where these experiences do not necessarily apply.
---
Felix qui potest rerum cognoscere causas
Speaking of next year. I wonder if I can get some of those millineum countdown clocks and rewind them (digtally speaking) so they can be used for the REAL millineum. I asked a guy at a SAM's club if they were selling their leftover stock of such clocks really cheap and he said that my mind worked very strangely. I enjoyed the compliment and left happy. ;^)
Jumping to correct solutions slowly is better than jumping to incorrect solutions quickly.
Many People had bad new years eves and days, i was no exception. I am 16, i do not work. but my plans failed. It doesn't matter it was only another day. Its only the Year 2000 because we made it so. It was just another day, a day with a number. It is not any more special that any other day is. Why waste bandwidth, time, and energy over complaining that yours sucked.
After all the sensational coverage, all the wasted hours of dumbing down the public, all of the nonesense that lead up to what turned out to be the most anticipated nothingness of our time, I was at least hoping to see my refrigerator light blink out. But no, nothing happened. The power grid remained intact, as we knew it would. Computers didn't fry, as the precious few learned predicted. The hand of God didn't come down to smite the human race for 1999 years of failure. Nothing.
That's not entirely true, of course. I did notice a few changes that the new year brought:- The media now has plenty of time to fill, so we get to bare witness to such wonderful examples of reporting as 'Fluffy the cat rescued from tree' and 'The evils of Jerry Springer'
- The governments of the world, careful not to downplay the severity of the Y2K bug, may now reap the millions of tax dollars gained from sales of products and services to safeguard against the problem
- Macintosh can once again go into obscurity, since no one cares that it was Y2K compliant from the get-go.
Funny how if you yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater, that's a problem, but you can disrupt the lives of countless techies across the world all the while eating your cold ham and swedish meatballs without nary a care in the world.
exactly. y2k was a joke.
A decent Network is finally here.
In 50 years your grandkids won't even care about it. They will be dulled to sleep by your "exciting" stories of how you saved the world.
"The day they take Linux away from us is the day they pry it from our cold, dead fingers!"
Computer Joe Next year will be bigger and better. Y2K was a media farce! It was used to sell all sorts of products Magazines, Newspapers, and Airtime included. Get the message yet: If you need it, use the "Real Millenium" as an excuse to party. The weekend's enough for me. Joe
This sounds something a tired, computer lliterate IS Manager would say.
I disagree completely. I have seen many people in IS work in unbearable conditions. Why? Their managers knew that they could be manipuliated into doing so.
Joseph E. Bear (Pronounced JoeyBear)
Just as an aside, After Jonah died, God did infact destroy Ninivah (the city God promissed to destroy), because while they repented and lived okay for a while, but their children (grandchildren, or latter?) didn't worship God, and were eventially destroied.
Hmm, does this mean that because we repented of y2, and fix the problem that everyone will call y2036 (2038? I can't recall offhand when 32 bit unix runs out, or something else) just crying wolf.
It wasn't an arbitrary moment for me. It was a great excuse to shake free bottles of cheap champagne at eachother on a wet dancefloor. That and 13 kamikazes, 6 pack of Guinness Extra Stout, and one hell of a headache the next day.
For the people who had to work at the mercy of colossally stupid PHB's who never wrote a line of code and watched to many media shows about the Y2K disaster, I have deep respect. I was one of the lucky ones. I had to show up Monday morning, "just to make sure" everything started up ok.
"Most historic moment of our lifetime"... bah humbug. History is something that happened; a date is just a date.
It was just another day. There really wasn't anything special about that particular day. The only extra value it had was what we humans invested it with. It happens to be (roughly) the second millenium since the time when we believe a particular religious figure was born. It's not even especially accurate.
Tonight, when you go home and see your loved ones, it's just as important to love them and be with them as it was 4 days ago. Tonight is no less important than the Millenium was. The calendar is something we made up; it's a fantasy that most of us happen to agree about. The simple fact that everyone bought into it doesn't make it any less a fantasy. The media hype is just herdthink.
It's not worth that much heartache and pain for something that is so imaginary.
And I was refering to IT people not the Army people. And you reinforced my point - I was saying that IT people shouldn't complain that they have to work on New Year's Eve since they have so many more opportunities and are much better paid than most people (such as the military).
I probably didn't make my point very clearly the first time.
He didn't take advantage of the opportunity for fun spending the evening with your datacenter.
As the countdown rolled down, all the PCs were off, and accounting was closing out the "old-fashioned way", so I headed down to the second basement where all the circuit breakers are.
At the stroke of midnight I turned off power to the 3rd floor (accounting). You could hear em scream all the way down there. =) They won't me cooped up on a holiday with a buncha servers and leftover fruitcake anymore. Muwaa haa haa.
Not a single date-related problem either. Woohoo!
--
Most mission critical systems have their clocks set to GMT with local zone information at a higher level of abstraction; my computer stores GMT in the bios and I use locales to represent time the way I want it to.
;)
As a result I was looking for failures at 7PM on New Years Eve, well before the party
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
The other problem came Monday January 3rd - CADD techs plotting out of Microstation SE - things with automatic date strings in them. They read Jan 3 2000 on the newer builds, but Jan 3 100 on the older builds - not a hard fix but you would have thought Bentley would have notified one of their SELECT customers 'their service plan and stuff for high-volume customers' that there was this glitch. :-P --
--onyx--
Trust me, things like the Moon Landing and the fall of the Berlin Wall are infinitely more significant events (as would be any birth, death or marrage) - you missed nothing real.
I'll say. Sure as heck beats "I spent it getting shitfaced in the company of thousands of people I didn't know."
I'm not surprised that after all the money and effort went into 'saving' our computer systems from Y2K nothing happened. It's as it should be.
But what troubles me, ever so slightly, is that nothing happened anywhere. Not in Russia, not in China. Not in Pakistan. Not in East Bumfsck.
We sank a huge amount of effort and cash into side-stepping a problem. Other, less capable areas of the world, had fewer resources to throw at the problem - and it didn't materialize there either.
Now, I know. The level of computer dependence in less developed nations is less than here. Duh! But there are computers there too. They are airports, and power grids, and telephone systems and hospitals - and I'm sure that at this point, it's all computerized to a good extent.
Nothing happenned anywhere. No blackouts in rural India. No telephone faults in Albania. No stray nukes in Azerbaijan. No Saudi oil refineries ground to a halt. In fact, all I heard about was a U.S. spy satellite that went fruity for a few hours (y2k related) and a Polish gas turbine burned up (not y2k related) on Jan. 1st... Now the Scandinavian train wreck (unrelated) and a bug in HotMail (hmmm)....
$200 to $500 billion spent on remediation. Did we over-react? No doubt that we worked hard. I know I did. But was it needed? To this extent? Worth working the roll-over shift? Worth showing up at 6 or 7am on the Monday after?
In 20/20 hindsight, we could have partied like it WAS 1999, and slept in. Hell, taken the week off! Did we over-work the problem? Or did we just make it under the wire?
I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to hear of the glitches that we fended off.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I will be damned, bitter and resentful, if as a result of work...
...I miss the birth of my childern.
...I don't make my son's little league game.
...I am late for my wedding.
...I let down a loved one who depends on me.
...I put off a holiday with my parents.
...I forget my mother's birthday.
...I neglect a friend.
...I don't stop to smell the first flower of spring.
...I drive by a 'just happened' accident without stopping to help.
...I don't return the smile of a stranger's child.
...I trade my morals for stock options.
...I allow money to set my heart's priorities.
Work New Year's? If I've nothing better to do, sure.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
my GOD.. i just figured it out. i don't know why i didn't see it before.
.. it's just you all had to work late fixing the y2k bug at 12:00 1/1/00,and you're bitter!! you just want the big celebrations postponed a year to 2001 so you don't have to miss it!! You just want to place the meaningless label "millenium" on a date where you don't have to be in front of a computer when it happens!!
All these people.. sitting around, claiming that 2001 is the real millenium.. i couldn't figure out their motivation. i didn't know why it mattered. i mean, the entire date system is totally arbitrary. The only reason we say this is the year 2000 is because the vast majority of the people think it is the year 2000. there's no good reason to call it the year 2000; a lot of people in muslim countries think it's some totally different year, and their opinion is no less valid than those of us who think it's 2000. Therefore, since it's only 2000 because most people think it is, wouldn't it make sense to say 2000 is the millenium because the most people think it is? i mean, since this is all so arbitrary, can't we let the words "second millenium" be arbitrary as well? and it's not like it matters. i mean, second millenium of WHAT? 2000 years since WHAT? it's not like there's any kind of meaning to the date 1 AD; nothing special happened then. Even for you christians it has no meaning, Jesus was born in either 2 or 6 BC according to most historians. it makes about as much sense the new millenium starts 2000 years after 1 BC as 2000 years after 1 AD.
But now i've got it figured OUT!! see, you people who were claiming it mattered so much that the millenium starts in 2001.. you don't actually care about the fact there was no 0 AD!!
i'm on to your little scheme here..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
have a reasonable debate with me
how is this possible when:
Jews are like parasites. They enter a country, and they destroy it. They take over the media - they've done this in the US. They're trying to take over the internet, with their filtering software, and by passing "hate speech" laws.
They enact gun control, to make you powerless to stop them
Your own statements are simply blanket condemnations of a religion's followers without any real meaning beyond that you hate jews?
How do jews control the media? ted turner isn't jewish, and he owns about half the damn news companies on the planet, including CNN, which is where everyone on earth gets their news outside the BBC (which isn't owned by jews either). Your statements are illogical.
The truth of the matter is that when Christianity was gaining early popularity with the Romans, the blame for Jesus' death couldn't well be placed where it belonged (at the feet of the Romans themselves, who crucified and tortured him) so it was blamed primarily on the jews.
And since Christian beliefs prohibited usury (or what we might call a "loan" these days) and jews coincidentally were discriminated against for most other jobs, they wound up filling that professional void and getting the lovely reputation of greed (not that the christians weren't happy to borrow money from them when necessary).
The history of judaism is, as you describe it, one of persecution. not because of any evil intrinsic in them, but because those who are "different" make convenient places for the blame of our communal shortcomings. if the economy isn't working out, blame the jews and the gypsies and the queers. Why not? -- we've got them outnumbered!...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Correct. Burnt lasagna is not dinner. Neither are oddly-colored corn chips. (Christmas colors? Whose wacko idea was that?) The good thing is that my employer had drawings for prizes for the people who worked. I won some sort of radio, which I keep forgetting to pick up because I am too stressed out and sick.
Nothing happened. I left at 2:30 AM and nearly got my car crashed into by a Green & White cab traveling at exceedingly high speeds. I didn't see a single police car out at night, although I saw about 6 just on a two-mile trip to the grocery at 3 PM. I just don't get it.
Fifty years from now, my grandchildren are going to ask me what I was doing on the eve of 2000. With a tear in my eye, I'll truthfully tell them that I was working to make sure that nothing bad happened.
What, that's not something to be sad about! That's something you tell your grandkids with pride!
I was home drinking champagne! There is no way in hell I would have gone in to work over new years.
Back in the days when computers were expensive, your manager wouldn't buy you that extra hard disk for your database because it cost REAL MONEY(tm).
So you had to try to optimize your disk usage, just like you tried to optimize your code. Remember code optimization? Big O notation, finding the best algorithm?
Squeezing 2 bytes per date meant a lot of savings. I can't really fault them for it.
Now we know better. Your code will be around in 20 years, so code for it.
My Heart Is A Flower
..damn who wants to read this crap? If this guy was so pissed, he should have quit and gotten a better job. Instead we are supposed to read this drivel? What, am I supposed to feel sorry for him? Is it supposed to be funny? Am I missing something?
Ob Millennium: besides the next millennium doesn't start until Jan 1, 2001.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I don't know about US but in Canada there's law about freedom of religious expression. I'm quite sure you can get your day off if you need it for such purpose. True, some non-christian religions customs cannot be crammed in a "day off" framework, e.g. Ramadan lasts for a month I believe although you can work during it, just have to observe fasting and eat only selected food in the evening and involves prayers in the morning and evening (forgive if I'm wrong) but I am sure something can be worked out.
There are well known court cases where people used freedom of rel. expr. to defeat things like bicycle helmet bylaws (Sikhs want to wear turbans instead). Don't blame others for not getting a day off if you don't ask for one. If you need a lawyer, your community will usually stand behind you.
Now I'm NOT sure if that would come as paid day off or unpaid day off.
However, the tone of the post was definitely overboard and quite insulting to Christians, so I'm inclined to write it off as a flamebait.
Even though you didn't experience Y2K fully, you are one of those who made the Y2K bloat mean nothing. All those Y2K response teams were bored as hell around the world thanks to you.
If that's true, and I know it's true where I work, and Y2K were really as big a problem as everyone thought, then you'd expect to see some problems.. wouldn't you? I mean really, if we didn't manage to finish Y2K readiness, then shouldn't something have broken?
Just yesterday I was talking to someone who spent a full day repairing a non-Y2K compliant database that puked his dads stock/portfolio information all over everywhere. The majority of failures won't come immediately unless you look at it closely enough, however like a feedback loop it will be small errors and just keep building on that until its big enough that you do see it.
The stuff that was supposed to break at the stroke of midnight were power grids, the telephone network, sewage systems. Those things seem to have made it, but just like many, many websites were broken, so too are many databases and programs, and unlike websites where its in plain view constantly, you may not notice it until its quite a big problem.
-- iCEBaLM
Exactly! The moment of my marriage, graduation -- those were significant events (don't have kids yet, but I can see how that would qualify for the parents out there reading this). Right at 12:00:00 1/1/2000, I realized it was about like watching the odometer on my car roll over: Kinda cool, but not earthshaking.
Get a grip, dude.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
We had a great time in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, with Elvis landing, Salsa dancing, and full to the brim with people. Plus, I met someone and she's muy sexy.
That plus not having to drive home was a plus.
OK, the Space Needle was a downer. And our mayor is a major wuss - even the NYTimes said so, and some other countries commented on it. But that doesn't mean you can't have fun anyway!
Personally, fireworks wise, Paris was THE PLACE TO BE. I think I'll go there for Y2K+1 and party with the fun people. If I don't, I'm still planning a bike trip of the wine and champagne regions in May/June 2001.
Will in Seattle
It's not like there's a shortage of IT workers or anything
This is exactly why he couldn't just quit. If your job, and thus your ability to support your family was threatened, then there's no way he can simply quit. He wasn't guaranteed a job elsewhere, so the (possibly hollow) threat of termination was very real to him.
I for one am very grateful to all of the IT workers who did work long hours the past months making sure that Y2K did flop. I was fortunate enough to be able to party a little, but that doesn't mean I don't respect others' desires to be allowed to join in what was the biggest event in years.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
First of all, most Christian holidays were superimposed on either Jewish or Pagan holidays to begin with, back when Christianity was a small splinter sect of Judaism that was getting persecuted.
Secondly, Independence Day, Labor Day, even New Year's day are essentially secular holidays.
Most "bank holidays" present an excuse to run around the mall, rather than focusing on the original religious or cultural meaning of the holiday. Yep, even Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why the heck do you think Blockbuster is open on those days? (I know, my boyfriend works there and worked Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.) Because families would rather consume canned entertainment than TALK TO EACH OTHER. But I digress.
Then, of course, are the folks that really fry me: my fellow non-Christians who want BOTH sets of holidays off from work. They request their holidays off, and then complain because they have to work on Christmas Eve. Oh, the horror!
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I saw just enough in the way of "little things" get screwed up (like a friend's ISP giving him an error message to the effect of "Our records show your account will be created on June 26, 2097. Please try back after that date.") to be fully aware of just how much worse things could have been.
I work for a power company. A power company that owns a nuclear plant. And did I mention that it's really damn cold in upstate NY, and the heat going off would NOT have been good? Fortunately, they had the sense to start dealing with Y2K-related issues back in 1996 or so, and we had no problems on the big night.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
In general I agree with this. But I think that you can't ignore the fact that some of the Y2K hype just didn't pan out. Most of the reports about Y2K readiness seemed to suggest that the vast majority of businesses/goverments/whatever had not come anywhere near to completing their Y2K preparations.
If that's true, and I know it's true where I work, and Y2K were really as big a problem as everyone thought, then you'd expect to see some problems.. wouldn't you? I mean really, if we didn't manage to finish Y2K readiness, then shouldn't something have broken?
Practically nothing broke! We're talking about worldwide, here. I take this as evidence that Y2K was more hype than anything. I can't discount that the preparation probably fixed a great number of problems. But the fact that we didn't finish and that nothing broke suggests to me that, for the most part, nothing was broken in the first place.
$.02
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I didn't work new years. I'm lucky. What I did do was drive half-way across the country (Chicago to New Orleans) to stay down there for 5 days or so.
What makes this special?
I spent this all with 3 friends and my girlfriend. The days we spent there were interesting, learning and seeing new things, but what it comes down to is that the most important thing about any time that you have is that you spend it how you want, and if that's with people you love (as the author of the letter seems to imply), more power too you.
Every day is special, it's not every day that we (personal group) can get together and do what we did.
I didn't get drunk or high or anything like that. I was just with friends.
And I wouldn't want to work when I could do that.
At my work, we were told that there would be NO vacations (especially for IS personelle) for 30 days around New Years. But I told my boss at least a month beforehand that we had plans and reservations and all that.
I would have rather quit than to have missed out on what I had experienced.
Thanks for your time
Dan
I work for a hospital and I'd agree with the letter too. I had to be in work from 6pm, mostly because the roads through the city were being closed off for parties to occur.
The various bosses arrived about 11:30pm from thier parties, waited to 12:30, saw nothing much happened and went back to the parties again.
I had to stay in work until 8am. At least for the first time in my life I got paid well to hack Linux code for 12 hours.
I'd have much rather been watching the fireworks with my wife.
NOT FLAMEBAIT BUT OPINION
/. than any other forum on the net. This guy is an uber-geek. Lazy, whiny, immature, and egotistical.
/. identifies with his mentality.
Oh come on, there is more whining and bitching on
If I was wrong his article would have never been posted,
You guys should be mailing the head honchos here and tell them to pick some real news instead of this. Or at least have a vote for every article for approriateness.
Oh they were making 386 and 486 motherboards in the "50's and 60's." Its geek short sightedness mixed with typical lets move out our products and sell sell sell mentality.
/. hypocrites think.
After all even the smartest geek is a servant to industry and capitalism, regardless of what some
"I wasn't here to see man land on the moon, or JFK's assassination. I don't really remember Nixon's resignation or the hostage crisis. This is undoubtedly the most important and memorable moment of our lifetime, and I'm trapped at my desk. It's just not worth it."
What an important moment. Our arbitrarily-set year rolled over from 1999 to 2000. A bunch of computer-related disasters didn't happen. The world suffered the largest collective hangover in history. May I ask, what made this past New Year's Eve more important than the moon landing, or anything else for that matter? I just don't see it.
Maybe it's just because the party I was at sucked. Or maybe not.
:-P
If management won't give you adequate compensation for your time (whether that time is over 12/31 - 1/1 or any other time) it's time to give them the kiss-off. And you should make a point of informing the higher-ups about the abuse you were asked to take, so the managers responsible get their comeuppance.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I thought that my New Year's eve sucked. I stayed at home. I didn't go and party, or celebrate in any fancy way. However I appreciate my quiet evening a lot more after reading this. It did make me feel better about my NYE. However, this letter, or at least these sentiments, should be expressed in the "mainstream media". People should understand what media hype does.
Hahahah, and to think someone in the Army makes at best 20k a year? Last time I checked, we members of the US military have done nothing but work stupid hours in the worst places in the world for next to nothing. Did you know we have people in the military that are on welfare? The ones that can't swallow their pride take a second job at Dominos to help cover the bills...
Whatever, life be may what you make of it, but God bless the ones that make those sacrifices EVERY DAY, and not just some day when there is a damn party...
-Dextius Alphaeus
-- Java is not a Jedi trait... "do, or do not, there is no try" --
Y2K was totally misrepresented. There were REAL risks, but they were overshadowed by nonsense. There was talk of embedded chips failling because of the roll-over.
I'm sorry, but as a computer science student, we learn that computers work in binary... hell, I learned that "officially" in middle school. Well, 100 is not a "roll-over" in binary. 64 and 128 are, but 100 is insignificant in a binary system.
There were potential Y2K issues, but these were ALL dependent upon UI problems. In interfacing with humans, decimals are used and there was a potential for Y2K issues. For example, the credit cards with expirations of xx/00, the reader had to be told how to determine the year from two decimals.
However, internally, there is NO conceivable way that the year 2000 would cause roll-over problems in embedded systems. "We could only store 2 digits." You morons, you wouldn't use two bytes, and a single byte stores up to 255 with an unsigned value, and 128 with a signed value. Either way, there NEVER was a risk of real failures until 2028. Apparently the experts should have studied some middle school math.
While there was a risk of database records getting confused, there was NEVER the risk of the embedded systems that the media made them out to be. There is nothing more annoying than the media making stupidity out to be fact.
i.e. The millenium/century change is 2001. I'm sorry, you can cellebrate all you want, talk abnout pop culture all you want, you're WRONG.
Alex
I loved working new year's eve, to validate and re-validate my backups, "just in case", and then power off my RS6000 servers, again, just in case (though I'd already lived through the roll-over six months ago in validation testing).
working the 1200-2000 shift was a great way to spend a company holiday ; i mean, what the fuck, i just wanted to sit around with my wife and kids...
I loved coming in the next day at 0300 to restart my RS6000s, and then keep an eye on things "just in case". Once again, I'd already lived through this six months previously in validation.
Someone is convinced somewhere in the convoluted management chain way above my head that my machines know the difference between 01-01-2000 when it happens on june 24, 1999, and when it happens 'for real'...
i know we're all in a thankless industry, and i really feel bad for people who weren't offered some sort of compensation for having to work (though, truth to tell, does money really make up for anything?) - my company offered some compensation (though behind it were very thinly-veiled threats about what would happen if you chose not to come in).
between the commute, the moron non-technical people telling me what i can and cannot do to my servers ('scuse me, i thought >iadministrator), too many missed hours of homelife, and this past weekend, i've had enough.
time for a career change - maybe i'll go south and raise alpacas in south america...
Sure, how many Infantrymen right out of high-school know really what they are getting into when they join.
Your post is funny to me, I guess I have a warped sense of humor.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
but also Zvornik, Brcko(Brka), Vukovar, hell, even Sarajevo. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to play "Billie Bad-Ass", I had to wait for the politicians to do their bit.
As far as I'm concerned, though, we are bringing a temporary peace to the region, but most militaries in the area are just retraining, professionalizing, and getting ready to go at it again.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
I saw the Y2K Phun(tm) comming 6 months ago. I worked for a rather large company (largest privately held company in the work actually). I could see the writing on the wall. Being able to party like it was 1999 was not on the agenda. Besides wanting people around Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday they said no financial compensation. So, a month before Y2K I accepted a job, bumped my pay up 34% and had a very nice new years.
Anyone else escape Y2K by getting a new job?
I am not denying that there was a problem, and, that a lot of honest people did a lot of hard work to make sure that Y2K bug was nothing but a harmless tick, but for some unscrupulous people, it was a source of lot of easy money.
I am pretty sure those ones partied happily over NYE because they had there ill-gotten gains to spend.
I am sure this is just flame bait, but I will responded anyway.
If you would take a look at the history of the Y2K problem, you would understand much more. In the 50's and early 60's the cost of storage was very high compared to today's mulit-gigabyte drives. Companies made decision (as today) and went for the cheapest cost when building systems. This was often decided by groups of people including managers at the time, it has always been very expensive to build enterprise wide computing. After these systems were in place and creating large databases, they became difficult to update and change. The people makeing the decisions could not have forseen software and data layouts surviving for 30 or 40 years. I suspect you can point to nothing in your life that you have predicted 30 years in advance. Learn a little, before you open your mouth.
I don't care to speculate at how many tech people were stuck behind desks while possibly their PHBs were in different rooms getting drunk and dancing on tables when the ball dropped.
:)
I know that at my company, ALL of the UNIX admins and database people were required to be present from at least 11:00PM till whenever they thought it was OK for them to leave (which happened to be in the wee hours of the morning)
You can't really blame the guy for holding a grudge and of course everybody that knows something about the computer was right along with "Joe Computer" in despising the media sensationalism that brought the pseudo-terror to the masses and the very real profits to those of the media that were doing the fear-mongering.
I don't think that this "Open Letter" was the best worded or the best written thing that I've ever seen, but I think it does a decent job of summing up why the whole Y2K thing sucks from the administrator point of view. A decent read, anyway. I'm sure that some of the people at my job would get a chuckle out of it, so I'll pass it along.
With some of the acid in the letter though, I don't understand why the writer bothered to keep up the facade of sarcasm with all of the "Thank You"'s.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I may not like the amount of compensation that I received for working New Year and I have grumbled a bit, but overall, I won't complain too much.
Why?
Because there will always be a trade off of good things and bad things for a job. How often do you hear people in your workplace gloat at how good the job market is, how easy it is too change jobs, how much money they get paid etc etc? IT people are living in a golden era at the moment where we are in demand. Go out to the real world and see how the rest of the population lives!
In Australia (where I live), only 20% of the population earns above $50k - be thankful that you have a job (probably one that puts you in well into that top 20% group), and not only just a job, but one which has opportunity, most likely pays reasonably well and one which has a future.
Focus on that, and not on the small inconveniences like working one night a year which will be forgotten soon anyway.
Does this guy really think that 2000 new years is the most important moment in his life? What a looser! Watching the millenium roll by made me realise that it's really completely meaningless. The important moments are the ones you make, those personal events in your life that come together to build the person that you are.
It's 2am, January 1st, 2000. Most of the parties are over, all the large crowds have dispersed.
Shoot, where I was on NYE2000, the party was just gettin' started at 2:00 and wasn't over till the sun came up. How many of you saw the first (post) sunrise of the second millennium? (and I know you nit-pickers were working, so go ahead a tell me how many years it will be before the big number in our year system changes again)
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for whiners. If Y2K was that big a deal, you should have made sure you got it off, if you couldn't and it still irked you, quit. It's not like there's a shortage of IT workers or anything. I spend two months planning my trip(!) and it was all worth it. This article is like all the whining here about shitty posts, like bitchin' makes it better.
Happy Year 2000 to everyone, and if you didn't get to celebrate it (and are bitter), learn that a job is a job, but your life is your own.
+&x
... not to mention, it's nice to see the media focusing on something useful for a change, instead of Monica Lewinsky etc.
What was it an old medical text my friend was looking through said? "A wise physician always states the case is grave, that he may be praised for his good work if he brings his patient back to health, yet is known to have seen the truth of the illness should the patient die."
It was important to be prepared for problems. And this is one case in which information, and information overkill, was probably MUCH BETTER than lack of official information, and people left to fill in the gaps based on rumor.
I don't know if the rest of the country had it as together as Rochester seemed to, but there was always a remarkable lack of panic here (aside from a few bored paranoid suburbanite slackers who wanted the apocalypse to happen so they could lead an army into battle for real). My biggest fear was of the Y2K bug in people's brains, and given the way my neighborhood generally responds to things like snow emergencies, I realized that despite some Cassandra types saying "don't be in a big city!" I was safest right here, three miles from downtown Rochester.
And I was right. The worst thing that happened was that my friend Devon decided to be a smartass and trip the circuit breaker at midnight. We could see lights on from across the street, so nobody got worried, but he seems to be having trouble re-setting his VCR.
I made half-joking, half-serious "stockpiles" of various sorts, but now I have enough toiletries and pasta for several months. Nothing wrong with that; I bought on sale. Everything went well.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Yeah but it *was* your choice to go into the army.. a lot of folk didn't get the choice about working Y2K night. Not many people when they joined their it admin job thought they'd be working on new years eve before a new millennium.
Yes, but most everyone in this forum chose to be in the job that they are in now, just like razvedchik.
If Management wants you to work on NYE and this is unacceptable to you, quit. If you are too afraid to quit, organize with your coworkers and raise hell. If you are too afraid to organize, well... maybe that's why Management asked you to work on NYE in the first place.
In many regions the job market is at it's healthist point in decades, especially in the computer industry. Use this to your advantage.
You are your own boss.
-= Stefan
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I worked on the Y2K programmes (at corporate level) for a few large companies here in Australia over the past two years. I left all my contracts at the end of June 1999 because I saw the writing on the wall. Everything looked like it had been sorted and if there were problems, we'd probably be able to deal with them.
:) So, I left the lucrative contracts to do something else (my own pet project)
:)
:)
I didn't stockpile, I didn't run & hide. I sure as shit didn't want to work over NYE (irrespective of the year change, a party is a party
My friends who remained on the projects had the joy of working through NYE and being (mostly) bored shitless. I was with my wife & child and enjoyed myself with various mind altering substances (mostly booze - I'm getting old
Those who worked NYE and didn't get well compensated may well want to be reviewing their resumes
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
You may have missed the parties, been away from your families, etc... But I will always remember that there were some people who sacrificed their time, and alot of potential enjoyment, making sure that the rest of us got through the most critical hour of the millenium. Without all of you, Y2K very well could have had the effect of the movie. Without the huge amounts of overtime you put in and sacrifices you made none of the rest of us could have enjoyed the holiday. You may feel unappreciated, but your work on ensuring a smooth rollover was vital. Without you, I would have had no light, no heat, no water, etc... for several days. Thank you for your sacrifices.
They are intrinsically evil
I guess this is the part where I get lost. I find it hard to believe that any person is INHERENTLY evil (not hitler, or stalin, or even the guys who wake me up doing construction across the street at 7am). Especially a whole group of people with no real biological relationship. What is the cause of the evil? And how do they get through breakfast every day?
I mean, seriously -- how could an inherently evil human being survive? you'd kill your parents as soon as possible, never make any friends, and probably be strangled in your crib for being such a brat.
Certainly people do evil things (although they usually think they're doing good things -- they just turn out to be evil after the fact). The closest thing to an inherently evil person would probably be an amoral person -- one who literally doesn't understand or subscribe to morality, meaning that they just do whatever they want. But even that isn't EVIL, because some of the things they want to do will be good and some will be bad.
So these jewish kids who go to your school, do they kill people on a regular basis or eat babies or something? I would suspect that they probably get nervous giving presentations in front of the class. Probably some of them are popular, some of them aren't. One or two of the girls might even be cute, though the rest are nothing special. Some of them are smarter than the others, some of them are funnier.
I'd suspect they're not all that different from your regular group of white suburban kids, other than the occassional Jewish thing they do together (but Young Life doesn't exactly keep a low profile on most campuses either, so you can hardly single them out for showing religion on occassion).
I think everyone should live in New York City at least once in their life. Seeing so many people working so hard to get by in a city with a hundred languages is pretty interesting. Everyone gets the same embarassed look on their face when they trip on the sidewalk, regardless of where they come from.
It just strikes me as odd that we have to come up with such arbitrary distinctions in order to make an "us" and "them" -- Good lord, we're talking about people who essentially believe in Christianity 1.0. Just because they never upgraded doesn't make 'em evil, it makes them contented users (although God sure did get a lot friendlier in version 2.0, at least in the documentation). And then all the Christians sat around and missed the upgrade to 3.0 courtesy of Mohommad -- what's up with that? Granted, I don't see a lot of compelling new features in the upgrade. 30 days of not eating while the sun is up? We paid for this? give me a resurrection any day, but i can hardly work up the energy to hate a guy just because he refuses to eat pork!...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
People are quick to accuse the media of trumping this up more than needed because nothing happened.
This is false logic.
The reason nothing happened is a direct result of the media blasting this home, so that businesses and governments would start moving their asses to get this looked after. If the media DIDN'T cover it we'd all probably be without a lot of infrastructure right now.
People see nothing happening as a sign that Y2K was a waste of time, breath, and money. They think that because nothing happened that all the preparations were for nothing. They just don't seem to understand that the preparations worked, we survived. A threat to our civilization was brought to the forefront and we mobilized to stop it, we fought off the invisible invasion of time.
Yet people are angry, because nothing happened.
This is a testament to what the human race can do when motivated. You shouldn't be angry, you should be PROUD nothing happened.
All this while some other people are angry that they were stuck at work during the celebrations of the turn of the millennium.
To this I say "You're in luck, thats not until next year."
-- iCEBaLM
I am sure that most of you know - whether you believe it or not - the story of Jonah from the Hebrew bible.
... how to say, "man page" for human problems. Think about it.
In the story, god comes down and tells Jonah that humans have to fix their ways or they will be destroyed. When humans fixed their ways, nothing happened to them and Jonah was peeved at god for making him go to the trouble of fixing their ways if nothing was to happen.
The point I'm making is we spent billions upon billions of dollars fixing this bug. The bug is squashed. Y2k comes along, and the bug is already dead and as such doesn't bite. Everyone cries because they didn't get hit by the bug to know it was real.
Disclaimer: I don't "believe" in god or subscribe to organised religion other then culturally, but the religious texts are there for just this kind of occasion. The events that have been built around them are just to make people remember that there is this set of texts as a
OFTC: By the community, for the community
I've been in the US Army for 8 years.
I've missed anniversaries, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and anything in-between so that I could go stop two races of small, rakija-drinking people from killing each other.
Take the time when you can get it. When you have days off, have DAYS OFF. A fact of life is that sometimes you have to work on fun days. If that is below your station, quit, get a job shoveling trash.
At least your computer didn't blow up or try to shoot you. That's not more than I can say about some of my holidays.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
10) Embedded chips really don't care what year it is
9) There aren't 200,000 virus writers on the face of the earth.
8) Microsoft has code that reads: "99 + 1 = 2000 for purposes of getDate"
7) Some of my web pages are now Y2.1K noncompliant
6) Seattle is not a party town.
5) New Years is not an event.
4) Microsoft still has more bugs and viruses than all of y2k put together.
3) Pulling your server because the date changes makes you look like a fool.
2) 2600.com really does have a sense of humor.
1) Don't release the doves and launch the fireworks at the same time!
No Zen is good zen