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Gangnam Style Surpasses YouTube's 32-bit View Counter

First time accepted submitter neoritter writes "The Korean pop star PSY's viral music video "Gangnam Style" has reached the limit of YouTube's view counter. According to YouTube's Google+ account, "We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY. 'Gangnam Style' has been viewed so many times we had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer (9,223,372,036,854,775,808)!"

164 comments

  1. Rick-Roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would have figured Rick Astley would have hit that count first!.

    1. Re:Rick-Roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe if you combine all of the various videos and Youtube tracked it. This is about a single video breaking the counter.

    2. Re:Rick-Roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Conspiracy theory: Gangnam Style is just the first to 2 billion views without adblock.

      I'm sure the true count for NGGYU *starts* is easily over 2 billion in the US alone, but most of those probably have adblock and/or closed the video in the first 2 seconds. I've personally been RR'd more than a dozen times, but I've never seen more than 2-3 seconds of the video since I last watched it on VH1 back when it was still a top40 hit. Also, I've never watched an ad on youtube, so I'm not counted in any of the view count the metrics.

    3. Re:Rick-Roll by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, if you combine all different versions it beats even the 64bit integer.
      Techsmartly made a fancy pivot chart of it a while back:
      http://techsmartly.net/freePS3...

    4. Re:Rick-Roll by Russ1642 · · Score: 4, Informative

      YouTube doesn't count a hit the instant a video starts playing. They have further criteria that depend on how much of the video was played, whether or not parts were skipped, etc. Well, at least I remember reading about it sometime. It had to do with their efforts to combat click fraud and only count legitimate views.

    5. Re:Rick-Roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I haven't been successfully Rick rolled in years. Until today. I hate you, yet I love you. *slow clap*

    6. Re:Rick-Roll by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What kind of sick person would see a link described as a "fancy pivot chat" and still click on it?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    7. Re:Rick-Roll by tobiasly · · Score: 2

      Bravo. I'll admit the "freePS3" URL gave me only slight pause.

    8. Re:Rick-Roll by dbreeze · · Score: 1

      I didn't even know what "Rick-Rolled" meant. I shall be eternally grateful Mr. Mopps.....

      --
      When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
    9. Re:Rick-Roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was awesome. I applaud to you.

    10. Re:Rick-Roll by Weirsbaski · · Score: 0

      Thanks for the techsmartly.net "joke", jerkwad. It's really funny having to kill Safari because all I can get it to do is rick-roll me with a stream of pop-up windows. I didn't want to keep the stuff in the other open windows anyway...

      --

      I am not a sig.
    11. Re: Rick-Roll by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Adblock has a pretty low percentage of internet statistics.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    12. Re:Rick-Roll by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

      Bravo. I'll admit the "freePS3" URL gave me only slight pause.

      Yea, sorry... I was in a hurry to find a "Not youtube or tinyurl" link so it wouldn't be obvious and get it out before the thread got too stale.

    13. Re:Rick-Roll by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      For Safari - Click To Plugin will save you. NoScript or a number of others for Firefox, and Chrome also has something similar, though if you use chrome, why do you care?

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    14. Re:Rick-Roll by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      This is the reason why you dont use Safari. On Pale Moon you can simply click prevent more dialogs.

    15. Re:Rick-Roll by antdude · · Score: 1

      Nice try. Thanks to the blocked Flash. :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    16. Re:Rick-Roll by Cederic · · Score: 1

      It could be worse. I got rickrolled via traceroute at the weekend.

      tracert -h 255 204.244.252.35

    17. Re:Rick-Roll by gigaherz · · Score: 1

      The link's path is /freePS3.php -- anyone clicking that DESERVES to be fancy pivot charted.

    18. Re:Rick-Roll by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      adblock doesn't affect viewcounts, as long as you viewed it.

      it will however affect ad views(money paid to youtube channels).

      the viewcount is all - all mobile clients, all other clients(tv's etc) - all. i don't recall seeing a video ad anytime when viewing on ios with only safari for example(the video plays out-browser). they're still "views" though. the views isn't just a start of the stream either. even with adblock if you view a video, it will count as a view and work as a view in their recommendation algorithms which are important for "professional" youtubers to get visibility.

      and what other video is even close?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    19. Re:Rick-Roll by 8086 · · Score: 1

      Actually, if you combine all different versions it beats even the 64bit integer. Techsmartly made a fancy pivot chart of it a while back: http://techsmartly.net/freePS3...

      Well played, sir. Well played

    20. Re:Rick-Roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "This plugin is disabled". Eh, just have to sing it myself then.

  2. Gangnam Style by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Truly the finest music video of all time.

  3. Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the hell was it signed?

    1. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why the hell was it signed?

      Probably because Java.

      http://stackoverflow.com/a/9854205/166949

    2. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't, this was a planned easter egg.

    3. Re:Signed by magarity · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's for the never implemented feature to allow extremely sucky videos to have a negative view count.

    4. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You do know Java and Javascript are two totally different beasts.

      Not that Javascript handles unsigned integers either

    5. Re:Signed by Snufu · · Score: 1

      Because some of us can only watch videos in reverse, you insensitive clod!

    6. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, but who said anything about Javascript?

    7. Re:Signed by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2

      That's for the never implemented feature to allow extremely sucky videos to have a negative view count.

      The explains Rebecca Black. Unfortunately, they *display* it as an unsigned int so it looks like she got huge views.....

    8. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possibly a limitation of their database. If so, there would have been ways around it, but if they assumed 2 billion was enough when they implemented it originally, they likely didn't see any reason to work around it.

    9. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From my experience as a web developer: Unsigned integers are not worth the interoperability problems they cause. When you have multiple systems, it takes extra effort to make sure all systems work with unsigned integers. If you really need to store numbers that are bigger than signed 32-bit integer, you might as well put that effort into making sure all systems work with 64-bit integers (or, as in this case, ignore it until it becomes a real problem).

    10. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know Java and Javascript are two totally different beasts.

      Yeah, I know that. I don't know why you even mentioned that... I highly doubt that the YouTube server infrastructure is built in Javascript.

      Google runs their business on Java. I've heard that YouTube also uses a lot of Python, but Python has never had overflowing 32-bit signed integers so I figured this was Java. (In Python 2.x, if you increment the max integer value it automatically promotes to type "long integer" and doesn't overflow; and in Python 3.x there is only one integer type, which is long integer and never overflows.)

      Another theory that makes sense is that the database schema used for storing information about videos had allocated a signed 32-bit value for views count. If the database is the source of the limitation, it doesn't matter what language was used to code up the YouTube site.

      Not that Javascript handles unsigned integers either

      Javascript has a single numeric type, and that type is floating point, so it's not going to overflow.

      http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_number.asp

      So there's no possible way the overflow issue had anything to do with Javascript and I don't know why you brought it up.

    11. Re:Signed by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Finally, horrible videos you can unsee?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re: Signed by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      So why did the Java machine not correctly optimize it?

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    13. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So that explains why Feminist Frequency videos are still being made

    14. Re:Signed by dbIII · · Score: 1

      My pet hate as well. Especially when lazy developers take a signed integer at face value and then use it for things like allocating memory - some noisy data and next thing you've got a crash due to the application attempting to allocate negative amounts of memory and users have to waste more time individually editing their input data than the developer saved by not checking bounds before allocating memory, changing to an absolute value, or using an unsigned integer in the first place in situations where the value has no legitimate reason to be negative.

    15. Re:Signed by PrimeWaveZ · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing that's for YouTube.ca showing Nickelback clips?

    16. Re:Signed by i.kazmi · · Score: 2

      I think more likely explanation is someone declared the data type in the DB as int(11) instead of int(11) unsigned.

    17. Re:Signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct, Java and Javascript are different. How that pertains to the parent's comment however, I don't know.

  4. numbering by gbjbaanb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    who cares really?

    The numbering should go 1.. 2.. 3.. etc.. thousands.. tens of thousands.. hundreds of thousands.. millions.. too many to give a fuck about.

    1. Re:numbering by istartedi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Billions and billions served. I remember when McDonald's changed that. It was sad. It was also like they were saying that they were too lazy to keep track of their hamburgers any more. It made me wonder what else they were too lazy to keep track of. Billions and billions of rodent hairs?

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    2. Re:numbering by bunratty · · Score: 2

      Uh, well how do you incrementally add 1 to "thousands" and wind up at "tens of thousands" at some point? Randomly?

      Or did you mean count up to 2 billion, at which point you report billions and billions served and stop incrementing?

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    3. Re:numbering by lexman098 · · Score: 2

      You don't. You just stop counting at 2 billion and say "over 2 billion". No one cares what the number is after that.

    4. Re: numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, rodents. That's what they're serving us. Billions and billions of them.

    5. Re:numbering by xaoslaad · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ya, I was fond of saying, "2 Billion served. Not one digested."

    6. Re:numbering by amicusNYCL · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Whoever has the second most viewed video on YouTube probably cares.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    7. Re:numbering by neoritter · · Score: 2

      To the leader boards!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

    8. Re:numbering by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 1

      who cares really?

      The numbering should go 1.. 2.. 3.. etc.. thousands.. tens of thousands.. hundreds of thousands.. millions.. too many to give a fuck about.

      OK, display it to the user like that--but they still need to keep track somehow of the actual number. How do you propose that they do that? We are left with the same problem.

      --
      R.Mo
    9. Re:numbering by lexman098 · · Score: 1

      Only for their own vanity. Over 2 billion is a great achievement on its own.

    10. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they still need to keep track somehow of the actual number. How do you propose that they do that? We are left with the same problem.

      Correction, they need to keep track of the actual number up to a point. Using OP's method, that point is reached before the limit of a 32-bit signed integer. Once you go from "millions" to "too many to give a fuck about", you would just stop incrementing the hidden actual number.

    11. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're fucking kidding me. Justin Beiber has the #2 most viewed video on youtube.

    12. Re:numbering by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      Anything over 2 billion is lost in the noise of automatic page refreshes and accidental clicks.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    13. Re:numbering by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Use a log scale?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    14. Re:numbering by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 5, Funny
      But it's only one song. Psy has three videos on the list, beating everybody except Katy Perry in the number of hit videos, but still beating her in the total number of views. Katy Perry also has a total view count that is higher than Justin Beiber's one video.

      From this I can assume that Beiber only has one good song, and his "beliebers" just sit in dark rooms kissing their pillows while this video plays on repeat, while other people actually like Psy, and seek out more of his music to watch and listen to. I would also assume that people are watching the Katy Perry videos on mute because she has boobs. Most youtube comments on the videos support this as well.

      --
      XDInd
    15. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Other than the possibly messy side effects (Alli++), I wouldn't mind eating a burger that skipped digestion but tasted good.

    16. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Automatic refresh of a video?

    17. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      possibly messy side effects

      Oh, so that's where Ass Burgers come from!

    18. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Alli++

      Ah, the beloved Alli, or Xenical in its prescription strength form. I've used it for a long time, and let me share with you the gory details of it's side effects that Sir AC is hinting at.

      First of all, it is important to remember that Orlistat (the active ingredient of Alli and Xenical) ensures that the body's fat-digesting enzymes are unable to bind to the ingested fat. This means that if one consumes large amounts of fat, this will have to leave the body one way or another.

      For example, after a nice meal at Panda Express with noodles and orange chicken, expect your anus to transform into an oil pipeline. Men: if you ever want to experience the horrors of starting your monthly period unexpected, try it. The oil will slowly leak and color your buttocks, underwear and, if you're not fast enough, pants. It has a weird orange-looking color, and a very distinctive smell.

      The same will happen after eating a couple of burgers. The oily substance will start to leak withing 24 hours, and there is no way to stop it. When you give in and run to the restroom, expect your ass to transform into a vulcano, erupting vast amounts of solid-like and oily substances with orange as its primary colors. Once you get some of the oil on your clothes you can throw them away, as no matter what you try, you will not be able to remove the stench or oil.

      Also, never ever, ever ever wear white clothes. You don't want to end up on the internet with orange skid marks on the back your pants.

      But even worse: it will be impossible to fart. Every time you fart, you'll have an 80% of farting oil rather than the odorous reminiscences of last nights meal. It will be impossible to fart. If you do, you'll run the risk of running to the toilet like a penguin: buttcheeks held together to avoid the oil from leaking in your pants.

      I once wanted to fart in my ex-girlfriend's face after she did the same to me. Unfortunately, I had a heavy meal the night before and ended up facepainting her lovely nose, lips and cheeks. After she cleaned herself up, I never saw her again.

    19. Re:numbering by dbreeze · · Score: 1

      yep, armageddon is coming and we deserve it....... we NEED it......

      --
      When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
    20. Re:numbering by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 2

      Billions served to 1 million lard asses. That has been my theory for a while.

    21. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, but they still need to be able to figure out when to go from billions to tens of billions. That internal counter would still have needed to have been upgraded to 64-bit and thus still generated this fluff piece.

    22. Re:numbering by jeffmeden · · Score: 1

      who cares really?

      The numbering should go 1.. 2.. 3.. etc.. thousands.. tens of thousands.. hundreds of thousands.. millions.. too many to give a fuck about.

      How would you know when to cross each threshold? Tallying views/day and then looking at a moving average along with the date of the last increment? That's dumb, and I should know, I thought of it. Besides, it's a reminder that every one of those views, Google *remembers* and in 15 years it will still be bugging you with ads for Tiger Beat because of that one time you binge-watched Justin Bieber music videos.

    23. Re:numbering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well that's showing your age. So many young people today have never seen a counter on the McDonalds sign. A quick Google search indicates that McDonalds stopped counting around early 1994 when the count passed 100 billion.

    24. Re:numbering by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      OK, probably not a perfect answer, but you could use probabilities to keep it largely accurate. When you're in the number range that represents 1,000s, for example, you could have an algorithm whereby each time someone views that video, there's a 1 on 1,000 chance the counter will be incremented.

      I'm overthinking this, aren't I? (Personally I hate the whole "Try to convert everything into ranges" thing that's been going on; view counters probably wouldn't bother me, but it's getting annoying with dates, why not just show the damned date and time instead of "4 hours ago", "Just now", "July 2011"? Why?! Why?!)

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    25. Re:numbering by dbIII · · Score: 2

      The net had already got a log scale for cat videos.
      The numbers watched increased so much we had to go from Cat5 cable to Cat5e.

    26. Re:numbering by justaguy516 · · Score: 1

      That list is pretty eye-opening. So Psy isn't a one hit wonder.....fancy that.

    27. Re:numbering by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      So after 2 billion views, 200 billion additional views would just be noise?
      Anything that happens after those first 2 billions views is just as much noise as any of those first 2 billion views.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    28. Re:numbering by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 1

      Wow... I just read this list and realized... MTV is back! Every video except "Charlie bit my finger" is by a professional artist.

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  5. First Unsigned Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Get it?

    1. Re:First Unsigned Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get it?

      Failed. Mod -1 please.

    2. Re:First Unsigned Post by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 2

      Can't... it's unsigned.

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  6. 2^32th post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Roll it, baby. Lameness filter? What's that? Really you still won't let me post hex? Come on.. let's try again.

    I give up. Lame.

  7. 32 bit signed integer, obviously by sideslash · · Score: 0

    If they'd used a 32 bit unsigned integer they might have bought another 6 months or something.

    1. Re: 32 bit signed integer, obviously by Threni · · Score: 2

      Months? Why, were views being added exponentially?

    2. Re: 32 bit signed integer, obviously by sideslash · · Score: 2

      Maybe Gangnam would be the one to exceed 2^32 in another 6 months, and maybe another video would. I assume YouTube's viewer base is being constantly increased, and that the "norm" for top viral video views is constantly rising.

    3. Re: 32 bit signed integer, obviously by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      Yes, in fact the view count will become self-aware on August 29, 2015. In a panic, they tried to pull the plug...

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    4. Re:32 bit signed integer, obviously by unrtst · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they'd used a 32 bit unsigned integer they might have bought another 6 months or something.

      You could say the same of the unix time_t problem, which is a signed 32bit int. If it were unsigned, it'd go to 2106 instead of 2038. Either way, that's not not really the solution. The solution, as youtube has done, is to move to 64bit int.

      Personally, I'm amazed at the hit count!
      There are 2^31 seconds between 1970-01-01 and 2038-01-19.
      If this video was watched once every second since 1970, it'd still have 24 years before it rolled over that counter.
      By comparison, it hasn't been available very long. How many views a second is that thing getting? On average, more than 28 hits a second!!!

      28 hits/sec may not seem outrageous for a very popular file on a very popular site, but that's averaged since July 2012 until today. That, IMO, is nuts.

    5. Re:32 bit signed integer, obviously by iluvcapra · · Score: 3, Informative

      Java doesn't have unsigned integers as a primitive type. (Speculative but I'd guess this is what's going on.)

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    6. Re:32 bit signed integer, obviously by danbob999 · · Score: 0

      time_t is signed so that dates before 1970 (down to 1901) are valid

    7. Re:32 bit signed integer, obviously by Shados · · Score: 1

      Storage vs rendering. JDBC drivers usually use a long for unsigned int, so it wouldn't have been an issue.

    8. Re:32 bit signed integer, obviously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      that's not correct. it's signed so that if you subtract two epoch values, the result is positive iff the first is later than the second.

    9. Re:32 bit signed integer, obviously by danbob999 · · Score: 1

      You are not supposed to subtract two epoch values directly. The difftime() function returns a double, and works just fine with unsigned time_t.

  8. unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sheesh, why did they use a signed value for the count?

    1. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 1

      Quite a lot of databases don't allow to specify a field as an unsigned integer. YouTube probably runs on one of them.

    2. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does one bit really matter so much? Also, unsigned introduced into code tends to make it easy to make mistakes that can be exploited.

    3. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because they were following the Google C++ Style Guide?

      "You should not use the unsigned integer types such as uint32_t, unless there is a valid reason such as representing a bit pattern rather than a number, or you need defined overflow modulo 2^N. In particular, do not use unsigned types to say a number will never be negative. Instead, use assertions for this."

    4. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More usefully, sever the 'views' number from the main videos table, make it a historical table of 'views on date' and fill the 'views' number from a sum call on that table. This will maintain information that will entertain statisticians for decades to come.

    5. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are more reasons to use unsigned ints in C and C++, Google, than are dreamt of in your style guide.

    6. Re:unsigned int anyone? by petermgreen · · Score: 4, Informative

      There can be good reasons to use it but there are also a couple of reasons to avoid it.

      1: overflows are "hidden", with a signed number overflow will usually* result in a nonsensical (very large negative) number, with an unsigned number overflows will usually bring you back to zero which is much less likely to be noticed
      2: the rules for operations (especially comparisions) involving a mixture of signed and unsigned types are seriously counter-intuitive.

      * Yes I know the C standard doesn't actually require this and modern versions of gcc are being retarded about it in some cases but for the most part it holds true

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    7. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would be mildly surprised if this design decision was not legacy that predated Google's involvement with Youtube. *highfive* for those of you who remember Youtube and Goog were separate entities, 8-10 years ago.

    8. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a view counter wraps around, it's not going to make planes fall out of the sky or shit like that. Chill.

    9. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Integer overflow is undefined behavior in C++

    10. Re:unsigned int anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2: the rules for operations (especially comparisions) involving a mixture of signed and unsigned types are seriously counter-intuitive.

      Sort of. Every signed becomes unsigned. It's somewhat counterintuitive but not complicated. Not that I think it's a good thing.

      It's why for(int i=0; i <= myVector.size() - 1; i++) will go on an infinite loop if myVector is empty but it'll work fine if you do i<myVector.size(). vector<>'s sizes are of type size_t which is unsigned, because why would you have a negative size? but 0-1 underflows and everything is <= than uint_max.

      It happened to a beginning student of mine, I just told him to use the standard idiom but figured it was too complex to explain. Just another tripwire in learning C++.

  9. Workout by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    I wonder how many people use it as their workout soundtrack. That could add up quite quickly.

  10. Lonely on top by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Still haven't seen it. Overheard some incidental bits of audio, but still haven't seen it. Work in an IT office.

  11. Just Erase Everyone's Memory by Pauldow · · Score: 1

    I would have thought that Google would have just used the device they have to selectively erase the memory of people who saw it. Then they could just let the counter roll over to 0.
    It was originally intended to erase people's memory so they would have to look up everything, but they eventually found out that every one is doing that on their own with what Google already provides.

  12. Marketing gimmick by iONiUM · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is just a marketing gimmick. I find it weird that they wouldn't have used an unsigned int to begin with (or at least, would have upgraded when it appeared a video was approaching the limit).

    Now they get a free news article all over the world about it! More ads for everyone!

    1. Re:Marketing gimmick by matfud · · Score: 1

      Who said they had not already noticed this coming up and already changed code to allow the counter to continue working.

      If they did it before or after the rollover does not really matter. The fact that 2^31 hits occurred is in its own right stunning.
      Another way of saying it that is not quite as impressive but still strange is that over 1/3 of the population of earth could have watched it (they didn't but 7billion/2billion)

    2. Re:Marketing gimmick by matfud · · Score: 1

      MrP-

      I did not read the actual article. When I clicked on the comment link I got dumped halfway into the comments (is that a new fun slashdot thing? That they don't want you to start reading at the top?

      Beside the point. I should have read the article even though my comment was more about hitting 2 billion rather then if it was a problem sorted before or after youtube hit it. I just watched it again to be sure I was not imagining it (and to crank up the numbers. my little contribution to getting to 2^63...it may take a while :P

       

    3. Re:Marketing gimmick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Signed 32-bit integers are pretty much standard for everything, everywhere, all the time, unless there is some specific reason to use something else. In this case, the idea of a single video getting millions of views per day for an extended period was probably far outside the designer's expectations, and so a larger data type for the view counter wasn't even considered.

      The last thing Youtube or Gangman Style needs is a marketing gimmick. They've already got popularity in spades.

  13. never underestimate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vint Cerf thought the same thing when deciding IPv4 addressing length.

  14. Pacman by NotInHere · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of good old pacman level counter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  15. wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that is amazing

    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      less than or equal, forgot the tag

  16. It's been all over the news, and it really bugs me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2^32-1=2,147,483,64 is NOT the largest 32-bit integer, but the largest 32-bit SIGNED integer.
    Why on earth have they used a signed integer to count views? (The answer is simple thoughtlessness. They did not think it would matter and probably didn't think even think twice about it, at least at the time.)

    I would've been more excited about the news if a video actually broke the 2^32-1 views barrier, as this is the one that would really require the move to 64 bits. (But it will probably take much more time to achieve this "feat".)

  17. I guess Einstein is wrong by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

    Stupidity, according to google, can now be measured as a 64-bit value.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    1. Re:I guess Einstein is wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /. demonstrated that more than 10 years ago when they had to go to a 64 bit counter on number of posts.

    2. Re:I guess Einstein is wrong by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I remember that[1]. Was it really that long ago?

      [1] vaguely, or I wouldn't be asking when it was.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  18. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the same programming team that brought us i=0; i++; i= 300

  19. Parody? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is that video a Korean parody of US pop crap? I hope so, but what I'm reading doesn't indicate that. Instead, others are making parodies of it.

    If not then I think we need to accelerate Global Warming. Our species needs a major setback.

    1. Re:Parody? by neoritter · · Score: 4, Informative

      The song and video are a parody of the lifestyle of Koreans in the Gangnam District of Seoul.

  20. How Much $$$$$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, how much per view did Psy get?
    1.27 X 10-34 cents ???

  21. Psy2K? by GrahamCox · · Score: 5, Funny

    I assume they're gonna be calling this the Psy2K bug.

    1. Re:Psy2K? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      More like the Psy2B bug. :P

    2. Re:Psy2K? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      El Psy Congroo

  22. What has been seen, cannot be unseen by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    I wish YouTube could implement negative view counts.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:What has been seen, cannot be unseen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would this help you unsee what you just saw?

  23. Vrumm vrum shnurbit turbit by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Funny

    There is no hope for humanity. Hey Vlad, you Easter-Island-statue-faced midget, hit the big red button. Let somebeing else have a go.

    I hope it's the meerkats.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  24. "Oughta be enough for everybody" 4.0 by Alien1024 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Signed 32-bit oughta be.

  25. Almost as many views as people with internet by tompaulco · · Score: 1, Interesting

    According to some estimates, about 3 billion people have access to the internet. The stats would indicate that about 2/3 of the people with internet access have viewed this video, or more disturbingly that some people have watched it more than once.
    As a man married to a Korean, I will admit to having started to watch it, but finishing it would have been a waste of valuable minutes of my life. Does that still count as a "hit"?

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    1. Re:Almost as many views as people with internet by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      Yeah it's not the greatest song in the world. But watching your 2&3 year old daughters trying to dance gangnam style really does push the cuteness factor into the "so fluffy I'm going to die" category. So I'm pretty sure I pushed the view count up.

    2. Re:Almost as many views as people with internet by NixieBunny · · Score: 1

      I may have spoiled your statistics by watching this video more than once.

      --
      The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
  26. *anybody by Alien1024 · · Score: 1

    Subject should have been "... for anybody" of course.

  27. It's this kind of shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...that takes away my hope that the human race will survive and flourish.

  28. Another sure sign that the end is near..... by dbreeze · · Score: 1

    Another reliably depressing indicator of the current state of humanity is Youtube's "Popular Right Now" category. Surely the Apocalypse is near....
    Repent while you can, and, I for one welcome our eminent Tribulation Overlord...yadayada....

    --
    When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
  29. Half of the credit... by Ecuador · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... for the successful rick-rolling goes to the "informative" mods...
    Even though "beats the 64bit integer" was very obvious BS, I still clicked...

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    1. Re:Half of the credit... by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... for the successful rick-rolling goes to the "informative" mods...

      Even though "beats the 64bit integer" was very obvious BS, I still clicked...

      That was part of my evil scheme.
      No Slashdotter can resist the sense of superiority that comes from correcting a trivial math error. ;-)

    2. Re:Half of the credit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No Slashdotter can resist the sense of superiority that comes from correcting a trivial math error. ;-)

      Let's put that to the test:

      1+1=3

    3. Re: Half of the credit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man you Americans are so dumb I can't believe your statement about the sum of 1 and 1. Don't you have schools over there?

    4. Re: Half of the credit... by neoritter · · Score: 1

      Well at least we're not lazy commies!

    5. Re:Half of the credit... by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      No Slashdotter can resist the sense of superiority that comes from correcting a trivial math error. ;-)

      The number of Slashdotters who resisted correcting your trivial maths error is not less than one. I didn't correct it, and nor, I note did you. (And you certainly knew about the latter, if not the former.)

      Q.E.not-D.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  30. What PSY is costing YouTube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just exactly how much extra storage space will YouTube need to store every videos view count as a 64-bit instead of 32-bit integer. PSY has single handedly cost them that storage space.

    1. Re:What PSY is costing YouTube by VanessaE · · Score: 2

      If the values are straight storage, well that's an extra 4 bytes per video for the count. Some quick googling turns up a couple of figures that aren't too terribly old, and which don't actually add up to much:

      As of 2008, there were around 83M videos on YouTube, so that's 332 MB for storage for the counters, assuming every video's record were updated and the count data is stored uncompressed. I'd guess double that amount for 2014, but I couldn't find a reliable figure.

      Currently, about 4 billion videos are watched per day (!), so allowing for four extra digits on the displayed "watched" count, that would add up to 16 GB of added bandwidth, were every one of those videos to significantly exceed the former 32-bit counter.

  31. wait what? by psy0rz · · Score: 1
    10 minutes later i'm asking myself: why the hell i'm listening to Pharrell Williams??

    Oh...right ...something with counters..it has 500 million. so yeah...2 billion isnt that far away.

    Imagine how much bandwidth we wasted with that annoying song. :)

    1. Re:wait what? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      10 minutes later i'm asking myself: why the hell i'm listening to Pharrell Williams??

      Because you're so happy?

      Personally, I think the Rickroll should be replaced with the Pharrellroll.

    2. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do a Pharrellroll!!!

  32. Why signed? by stazeii · · Score: 1

    Why did they use a signed int? Can I magically negative view something?

    1. Re:Why signed? by Shados · · Score: 1

      Because it just didn't matter. The default was fine for any reasonable purpose. You don't design several years ahead for a 1/ X BILLIONS event that doesn't cause any security issue and doesn't bring your site down. It probably made that particular page mess up for a little while and that was it.

      Heck, they honestly could have stopped counting views when it reached the max and just display "Over 9000!" or Psy's logo and saved themselves the trouble.

      Now, they fixed the design and it will never be a problem again. If they had used an unsigned int, when the next Psy comes in and bust THAT, people would have been asking "Why didn't they use 64 bit!!!".

      So that was it: use the default when it doesn't matter, fix it when it does (YEARS later)

    2. Re:Why signed? by devman · · Score: 1

      Though youtubes design decision probably predates this. Google's own style guide states that unsigned integers should not be used simply to indicate a number will never be negative and instead to use assertions for that. Basically it emphasizes not to use unsigned integers unless there is a really good reason to do so.

  33. That's not a solution... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's not a solution.
    Moving to 64 bit is just the same problem at a later time.

    1. Re:That's not a solution... by smaddox · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they should have just used 128 bit integers.

  34. 32-bits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ought to be enough for any k-pop star

  35. Before they were cool. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now where do we find the list of top viewed hipster songs?

    1. Re:Before they were cool. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He just posted it - or do you want to see another one?

  36. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  37. Sad by p51d007 · · Score: 0

    Humans have devolved to such a point.

  38. the real headline should be by loserhead · · Score: 2

    The Korean peninsula continues its campaign-of-inconvenience against American computer networks.

  39. Re:Signed Int? by inflamed · · Score: 1

    2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,296 2,147,483,647 = 2^31 -1 ...so either they were using a 31-bit integer or they were using signed ints.

    How exactly does one get a negative number of views?

    2^32 - 1 != 4,294,967,296

  40. Re:Signed Int? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They were using signed ints.

  41. Re:Signed Int? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2^32 - 1 != 4,294,967,296

    Yep, this is true. If the base is 2, every exponent of it, minus 1, should be an odd value.

  42. Error in 64bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why the 64-bit number in the text is even? should be odd (ends in 0xF in hex)

  43. It's a JOKE, people! by Theovon · · Score: 1

    Do you really think that the database that Youtube uses to store view counts is limiting that field to 32 bits? Ever? Or that it can't handle overflow in a graceful way that automatically upgrades the value? Or that Google didn't notice this YEARS ago and do a system-wide type change on that table column?

    This is FUNNY, but not a technical problem. Of course, many of you may be making jokes in response, pretending to believe it's limited to 32 bits, when you realize it's not. But for those of you whose realities are limited to 32-bit chunks, I just though I'd clarify at the risk of possibly just destroying all the humor value.

    As an aside, it amazes me when students first learning circuit design feel compelled to make registers and buses that are all in multiples of 8 bits. There's nothing preventing you from making a circuit component that is 47 bits wide.

  44. simple solution by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    Or they could just have interpreted the 32-bit integer as an unsigned 32-bit integer, and go on for a long long time.. As the # of views can never be negative..

  45. Re:do you know what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They like young girls, they're not that bad.

  46. Not big in Japan. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the issue here is not primarily about Youtube's puny 31-bit counter or the Gangnam meme. Rather, one must wonder what happened to the japanese? K-pop was a little mouse living in the shadow of the J-pop brontosaurus not too long ago.

    In the 1970-80s South Korea took over Japan's thriving shipbuilding business, by way of significantly cheaper labour at "almost" the same quality. In the 1990s they (Samsung and LG) stole the majority of electronics manufacturing, of which a lot went on to mainland China in the 2000s. Korea (Kia, Ssanyong) dented the JP car industry significantly in the 2000s.

    After all these defeats, Japan decided to turn herself into a post-industrial superpower of entertainment, building a formidable army of SEGA, Playstation, Hello Kitty, Godzilla, Sailor Moon and an immortal clone army of Vocaloids, armed with cuteness launchers. The world was supposed to surrender to the dictatorship of kawaii in no time.

    Somehow that did not happen. Very few outside the "otaku" scene still follow J-pop and it took the number one holographic princess Miku over 6 years to get any little US national TV screen time (twice as long as it took her to reach a comet in outer space). Her greatest hit SBZ has just a total of 25 million Youtube views, that, when counting in a live band re-make! In contrast, K-pop has become genuinely large or even huge, even if not counting in PSY's 2 billion Youtube views. In general, korean culture is on a global offensive and even the abominable antics of DRPK's Kim and his commie regime are PR boosters for the capitalist korean entertainers...

    In contrast, Japan just failed. They have like 5 years to get their act together, because the Tokyo 2020 games have the potential to be a resounding PR disaster and signal the fall of a great nation. They no longer have cool, cute, might or style, they are getting fewer in numbers and aging and remain ever more isolated, despite the net. Gangnam is as much a parody of Japan's failing as it is a parody of the south korean new elite.

  47. This is why we created the internet by dadorg · · Score: 0

    It is so rewarding to know that the billions of dollars spent to develop and build the internet have been well spent.

    --
    Morality is herd instinct in the individual. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 116
  48. Unsigned 32 Bit Int? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The numbers quoted in the summary indicate use of signed 32 bit ints which have a maximum value of 2,147,483,647. Since a negative view count has no meaning, why not use unsigned 32 bit ints which have a maximum value of 4,294,967,294?

    In fact, why did they use signed variables at all? YouTube must be plagued with PHP programmers or something.

  49. 64 bits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ought to be enough for everyone.