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Y2K38 Watch Starts Saturday
Jon Masters writes "I just wanted to remind everyone that Saturday, January 19th 2008 will mark the beginning of the 30-year countdown to the Y2K38 bug, when Unix time will overflow 32 bits. Some 30-year loan calculation software might start having problems with this over the weekend."
And, wouldn't 50 years or longer loan terms have shown this before now?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Well, its kind of hard to compute payment dates if your date representation ends at 2038, and you have something longer than a 30 year mortgage.
Apocalyptic event? Last time I checked, the world was still here. Epochal, perhaps, as I suspect it will be the defining event for my generation, much like the moon landing or JFK forgetting to duck, but in the grand scheme of things it was no more apocalyptic than the 2005 tsunami.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
You can come up with any number of numerological associations for any event. Seriously. Try it some time. Pick any event, and you can come up with a dozen, if you try.
Who the hell stores years as 11-bit integers?
I think your scales are off. The 2004 tsunami was a massive loss of life (225,000 people in eleven countries) compared to the 2,999 people killed in the airplane attack of 9/11/01.
I was a little appalled at the lack of coverage and donations given to the victims of the tsunami compared to the massive outpouring given to the 9/11 victims. It must just be that fact that I am in America now, and the media / government is so stuck on only looking inside the country and not what happens in other countries (unless it involves oil).
I am also continually amazed at how the governments of the world (mainly US and UK, but others too) are using the two events (9/11 and 7/7) to push all of these "security" measures. As a child growing up during the IRA bombings, I find it easy to compare the IRA to al-Qaeda, but the reactions of the governments are way out of proportion. Never did anyone think that a national ID should be implemented, and the background checks now-a-days are beyond what is needed.
If 9/11 defines that generation, then I'm so happy to be an old fart. I never would let a terrorist act define me.
Don't know about others but me I just use a DateTime field and stick a date object in it, and let the drivers handle the conversation... Now -that- to be seems the obvious best way to do it... Why convert at all, unless someone's using an archaic and incomplete RDBMS.
Though I highly doubt much will be in operation in 30 years. ... said the COBOL developer in 1970...
Developers: We can use your help.
Given the housing market, that could be pretty accurate. :-/
We understand the causes of their frustration, and their targets were / are generally predictable.
The PIRA in particular rarely bombed without telephone warnings, usually accurate enough to allow an evacuation to take place.
Bin Laden, on the other hand, holds beliefs that are alien to our culture, and unbelievers sit next to dogs on his scale of values.
Islamic extremist bombers are unlikely ever to give adequate telephone warnings, since they value human life far less than the Catholics of the PIRA and ETA.
Having said that (and probably being of an age with you, having grown up in the late 60s and early 70s), the current rage for intrusive and unwarranted legislation is, I believe, more of a product of the CYA culture and the 'preventative approach' mentality than it is a reflection of any real threat.
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have empires to build and budgets to inflate, and politicians have no spine in the face of public (read Daily Mail) opinion, so I see little hope of this trend ending soon.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make