Trump Orders Government To Stop Work On Y2K Bug, 17 Years Later (bloomberg.com)

The federal government will finally stop preparing for the Y2K bug, seventeen years after it came and went. Yes, you read that right. Bloomberg reports: The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paperwork requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their preparedness for a bug that afflicted some computers at the turn of the century. As another example, the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year. Seven of the more than 50 paperwork requirements the White House eliminated on Thursday dealt with the Y2K bug, according to a memo OMB released. Officials at the agency estimate the changes could save tens of thousands of man-hours across the federal government. The agency didn't provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn't a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice.

Comments

1200 man hours you say

[Anonymous Coward]

As another example, the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year.

So they layed off one guy...whoopdedoo! Looks at those savings! Who wants a paper-trail of who the pentagon pays money too anyway?? What a zany idea.

And the Presidential directive was

[Anonymous Coward]

Signed and dated: 6/15/17

Re:And the Presidential directive was

[leathered]

You've obviously not heard of the new months that have been recently added by executive order; Trumpember, Ivankuary and Covefebruary.

Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this

[beelsebob]

The issue isn't that this is bad per-se. It's that it's not very good. As the article points out, no one was really applying these regulations. Ultimately, this is grand standing more than anything else.

I'm always happy to see redundant legislation go away, but don't get grand delusions that this is Trump somehow removing burdens and making the government magically super efficient.

Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this

[Brett Buck]

By "gamed the system", you mean "followed the system in place for 200+ years", right? And, according to your losing candidate, questioning this system is âoehorrifyingâ and "talking down our democracy" as recently as 2 weeks before the election?

        Got any other deep thoughts to share?

Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this

[I75BJC]

It is evident that you don't understand how the Governments work. Unneeded/unenforced are traps for people/organizations that are targeted. An unused or little known regulation can wreck havoc with "out of favor" people and organizations. Laws that aren't enforced should be removed so that people/organizations can live and work in a functional manner.

Re:What about the Y2K38 bug?

[Cipheron]

Y2K38 bug already leaked over into politics:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...

“I asked CBO to run the model going out and they told me that their **computer simulation crashes** in 2037 because CBO can’t conceive of any way in which the economy can continue past the year 2037 because of debt burdens,” said Ryan."

So the CBO's forecase software could get *up* to 2037, but not past it, i.e. it couldn't compute figures for 2038. What's the more logical explanation, a "does not compute" error, or that they were using Unix 32 bit time?

Didn't even have to RTFA

[rsilvergun]

to get the main point:

" the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid"

I foresee a _lot_ of 'small business vendors" cropping up over the years now.

Preparing for a Napoleonic Invasion

[Roger W Moore]

Seriously? Is there anything else they are preparing for that has already come and gone?

Well reputedly in 1803 the British government prepared for the potential invasion of Napoleon by creating a civil service position for someone to stand on the white cliffs of Dover with a spyglass and ring a bell if they saw Napoleon coming. The position was finally cancelled in 1945, 124 years after Napoleon died.

Re:Preparing for a Napoleonic Invasion

[Areyoukiddingme]

Well reputedly in 1803 the British government prepared for the potential invasion of Napoleon by creating a civil service position for someone to stand on the white cliffs of Dover with a spyglass and ring a bell if they saw Napoleon coming. The position was finally cancelled in 1945, 124 years after Napoleon died.

Yes well, they're British. As Terry Pratchett said, if they can't remember why they're keeping the tradition, that only makes the tradition more sacred.

Re:Delay, not fix

[fahrbot-bot]

Simply switching to a 64 bit linux will be enough for linux users to avoid the bug

Technically that's not a fix, it just delays the problem. Admittedly it's a delay of about 292 billion years but still...

I hear that will also be the year of the Linux Desktop.

Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this

[TomGreenhaw]

>...but it is my understanding that the system was originally put into place to safeguard a takeover by a tyrant...

The electoral college is an attempt to balance political power between rural and urban voters. Its an adjustment to a pure democracy designed to weaken the "Tyranny of the majority".

The biggest challenge the founding fathers faced was balancing power between urban and rural constituents. This is arguably our greatest challenge today. This is why each state has 2 senators regardless of population and representatives based on population. The number of electors in the electoral college in each state is the sum of its U.S. senators and its U.S. representatives.

In our last election, rural voters preferred Trump and that is why the rural voter trumped the urban voter to override the popular vote.